You'd (pardon the pun) think that when a system is into genocide the last thing they'd bother about is actually keeping records about the whole thing. Or did they love genocide that much that they got a kick out of actually measuring their success ?
To think I actually had moral qualms when I was writing a piece of code for a HR mgmt application. It was roughly a way of finding out if a company was over or under staffed, which meant that eventually they'd be sacking people on the evidence of the numbers produced by my s/w.
The dudes who wrote the code for the death camp HR system had to be some bad s.o.b.s
By forcing bcakdoors on systems, you're only affecting (persecuting, in fact) the law-abiding citizens who will use them
That's just "When guns will have been outlawed, only outlaws will own guns" paraphrased yet again.
The difference here is that when the govt wants to read an email and sees that the official backdoors aren't working this will be a reasonable indication that the contents of the email are illegal.
If you think this is an unacceptable assumption by any govt in the "western" world, rest assured that there are plenty of govts in the world which need less to persecute people. Consider this : one of the claimed reasons encryption was brought to the masses was that it would protect the freedom of opinion of people living under totalitarian regimes. Nice idea but an idea that would only make sense to a western scholar. Under a totalitarian regime, the mere fact that an intercepted email is encrypted is in itself a banner that says "I AM A DISSIDENT !!!". The govt's heavies then go and blow the guy's door in and drag him off for "interviewing" then "reeducation" if not worse.
So what exactly has encryption done for the repressed voice of liberty in the world ? I'm still waiting to see statistics on the amount of freedom gained by the use of encrypted communication.
I think the market didn't share their (our) enthusiasm for that level of service, perhaps unfortunately.
It's quite possible that for 99% of internet users privacy is really *not* a prime concern. Most people have mundane lives and therefore mundane communications, making privacy totally pointless.
Privacy is only a concern for those who are under the illusion that anyone else would care to know what they write in their emails.
A skill that is as vital to finding a job as being a good technician is the ability to talk the bullshit that the agency scum and HR pricks talk.
When a 24 y.o. agency bimbo asks you what version of MS-VC you have worked with, be sure to mention the *latest* version and to say that you've used it for 2 years even. Don't worry about the truth, just make sure they hear the numbers they want to hear. If you fail to do so : "4.5 ? Oh that's too bad, my customer wants someone with 4.6". Above all, don't even try to point out that 4.6 is 3 weeks old, just lie.
This is just one example among many, the list is too long.
I've sometimes asked an agency who at the employer's firm had written the job spec. It is often the employers' HR dept (who have about as much of a clue as the agency fools) who do that. Great.
Along with the dumb numbers games you also get despicable tactics to get some kind of psychological reading from you. Yeah, sorry, I'm not a fucking super-cool dude, when I go into an interview I'm very slightly on edge. If you deliberately put me in an interview that's rigged to put me at a disadvantage you'll just end up pissing me off.
Check this out : interviewer sits on a design office chair at the usual height off the floor. I'm told to sit on some design sofa with my ass 6 inches off the ground, your knees touch your chin, your smart pants ride up and your hairy shins are on display for all to see.
I hate those recruiter shits with a passion. The only difference now is that I've learned all their stupid tactics. It still doesn't calm my hate for those parasites.
Another IRA (Irish Republican Army) bomb blew up last week in the centre of London. Fortunately no one was killed.
This having happened on a main street, the incident was caught on tape. The man who stopped the car carrying the bomb was also caught on camera.
Another incident a few months ago was resolved with the help of CCTV. A man planted nail bombs in 3 locations in London. 2 people died. He was caught with the help of the video footage.
I, for one, am very happy that there are cameras all over the main streets in Britain.
From a sociological point of view, I see it like this : with the anonymity of big cities the social safety lock of peer scrutiny that occurs naturally in smaller towns disappears.
It is no surprise that technology is being used to try and replace it.
One of the motivations behind the idea of the uniform was that they were to act as a social equaliser.
When everyone wears the same uniform, you can't distinguish social backgrounds thus putting everyone on an equal footing.
If it was regarded as an evil thing, rest assured that the lefty-loonies who are already in control of education would have got it dropped ages ago.
If you're worried about kids being turned into drones, don't. The kids with an individualistic streak (most) find all sorts of creative ways to supplement their school uniform with various add-ons / hair styles etc.
Anyone who cares to listen in onto my cell phone conversations is welcome to. If I have something sensitive to tell someone, I will meet in a McDonalds where my whisper will be drowned out by the kids yelling and/or the terrible canned music that they play there.
Cliff, stop kidding yourself, very few of us are important enough or have access to data that's important enough that someone would want to bother setting up a snooping station to intercept our userid/pwd.
For those of us who *do* have access to something that's sensitive, they *will* be sitting in that computer room that's disconnected from the net and they'll sure as hell not be using silly gizmos for geeks.
The whole idea of an April fool's prank is to hide it among other *true* news items and make it so *nearly* credible that people will get caught out.
The Slashdot "editors" couldn't have shown what a childish bunch of idiots they are any better if they'd *tried*.
So, to show how funny you guys are and what a wonderful sense of humour you have you decide that you're gonna give us a special gift : on April 1st *every* *single* article on/. for the last 48 hrs has been utter tripe.
And now here you are just rubbing it in : "Haha ! by playing on the time zones we can extend April 1st to a 48 hours day, haha ! We rule !"
Now you've got a year to go away and figure what makes an April fool's joke *good*. It's gonna be hard but 364 days may just be enough.
Get clue or grow up.
"In Britain they don't try to get law and order by scaring the shit out of the citizens"
Right, I'm not denying this. Unfortunately it's the other extreme that's the rule now. The people see the police as a complete joke.
What you saw in Sweden is what I see in the Netherlands and what everyone else in the world sees in their country : the cops are dressed to impress.
And then the Brits have the nerve to call their Police "the pigs". Ha ! What a laugh, they don't have a clue.
There's such a thing has a happy medium.
The last really great place (Brady's) closed some time back. The Junction opened along the road at Loughborough (sp?) Junction so a lot of people who used to go to the DogStar migrated over there. I haven't been back to the Junction since I left London.
The *BEST* place was summer of 96, the Duke of Edinburgh, on sundays. Beutiful weather all summer long and the day was called "Sundaze". Banging house inside the shuttered down pub and chilled out stuff in the huge beerg arden.
Bloody drug-fest, I couldn't quite understand how the cops never turned up to close the whole thing down. Had a great time !:)
Well, when society loses any semblance of structure, someone has to take up the slack from individuals who have given up the responsibility of self-regulation.
The British have nothing but contempt for their police force that is more and more pussy-whipped every day. Last week in London there was a drunk man shouting abuse at the cops. And the stupid sods were trying to calm the man down !
Anywhere else in the world, this man would have been picked up in 5 minutes flat and thrown in a cell to sober up. Not in Britain, those cops were probably worried the guy would sue them for mental anguish.
On a side note, there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing a drunken Brit in Amsterdam where I now live start getting cocky with a local cop. The Brit will get hauled away and locked up for the night. The cops here are quite professional but there's an understated and accepted understanding that if you screw with them, they'll screw with you. And you won't come out on top. They're dressed in no uncertain terms : leather jackets, peaked caps, flash badge and *gun*.
Back to the topic. When a castrated British police force can't do its job for fear of its members being sued left right and centre, they resort to distancing themselves from the population and trying to monitor everything from afar.
The population refuses to acknowledge the fact we *need* a police force ? Fine, let the muggings and robberies happen (preventive policing is regarded as fascist) and just sit back hoping the crimes can be caught on tape.
The British public has brought this on themselves.
Hey, cool spot ! 3 minutes from the Hobgoblin, 5 from the Fridge Bar, 10 from Coldharbour Lane and the Prince Albert.
Too bad Brixton has become a trendy place to go clubbing in. Shit, even the 414 has crowd barriers in front of the door and a big sign over the door now.:(
Now you have games like Baldur's Gate where you move your cursor over every square inch of the game screen hoping to find that elusive treasure hidden somewhere. Imagine a character in a book taking time from his quest to avenge his step-father's murder to comb every square inch of land for 40 miles looking for a magic ring that may or may not be there. Talk about tedium.
It's obvious you're bundling together all games which involve pointing on an element of the scene.
While I agree that games whose gameplay rely entirely on finding the right pixel to click are a major drag, Baldur is not one of them.
I think that Baldur *has* struck the right balance between the random (systematic ?) search for items and investigatiion.
If you decide you can't be bothered with scanning the view, you can very well progress in the game. Sometimes finding a sword in a barrel comes as a pleasant bonus, especially when you're starting out and you're weak and poor. Naturally, the battles you fight will also yield these objects. It's really up to you to do what you want.
Also, it *is* a ADD (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) game after all ! It's always been about seeking for traps (and you'll have to do that a lot in BG) and picking locks on chests. If you don't like that, ADD is not for you !
Back to the Point 'n' Click aspect of things. Elements of strategic importance are properly put in evidence. I mean, an altar generally would tip one off as to its significance in the plot, right ? A random column is a random column, you'll never be expected to go looking for crucial items behind those.
Maybe it strikes you as dumb that the character in a book wouldn't muck about digging in rotten barrels looking for pennies, well, a book's a book and a game's a game. If you want a story told to you like in a book, read a book but then you get a totally linear storyline in the sense that you have to turn those pages one after the other.
The whole point of the article this/. story is about is that is that when you're playing you *specifically* don't want to follow a narrow path like a book imposes on the reader. The whole point of the/. story is that it's finding the most balanced mix between story and action that's hard to work out.
That blend has been fantastically balanced in BGII. There is a story (of magic, men, gods and monsters etc) and you progress in chapters. You know pretty much what the goal of each chapter is and a particular task is imposed for you to complete.
How, when and how directly you address the issue is up to you. Most often you just won't be experienced enough to go and take on the prime task, you'll have to divert through any number of sub-plots that are submitted to you by a ton of NPCs. Each of these subplots can either be well self-contained or can lead to other sub-plots. You can break away from either of these plots at any moment if you believe you can go and tackle the prime task.
Naturally, this prime task can also be the 1st step in a full process that will take you to the completion of the chapter in the story.
Phew, you can tell that I'm very fond of Baldur's Gate II ! This is the 1st RPG game I've ever owned, I'd tried a few before but had never persevered beyond the demos. This one grabbed me and drew me in.
Heh, just a guess, are you a Diablo fan ? Because if you are, there's just no converting you to Baldur's Gate. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Slashdot Mirror
You'd (pardon the pun) think that when a system is into genocide the last thing they'd bother about is actually keeping records about the whole thing. Or did they love genocide that much that they got a kick out of actually measuring their success ?
To think I actually had moral qualms when I was writing a piece of code for a HR mgmt application. It was roughly a way of finding out if a company was over or under staffed, which meant that eventually they'd be sacking people on the evidence of the numbers produced by my s/w.
The dudes who wrote the code for the death camp HR system had to be some bad s.o.b.s
Look, look, a guy who's actually informed !!!!
Pinch me, I must be dreaming !!!
Typical of this place, if it says anything less than "let's go and kick butt" it must be anti-American.
By forcing bcakdoors on systems, you're only affecting (persecuting, in fact) the law-abiding citizens who will use them
That's just "When guns will have been outlawed, only outlaws will own guns" paraphrased yet again.
The difference here is that when the govt wants to read an email and sees that the official backdoors aren't working this will be a reasonable indication that the contents of the email are illegal.
If you think this is an unacceptable assumption by any govt in the "western" world, rest assured that there are plenty of govts in the world which need less to persecute people. Consider this : one of the claimed reasons encryption was brought to the masses was that it would protect the freedom of opinion of people living under totalitarian regimes. Nice idea but an idea that would only make sense to a western scholar. Under a totalitarian regime, the mere fact that an intercepted email is encrypted is in itself a banner that says "I AM A DISSIDENT !!!". The govt's heavies then go and blow the guy's door in and drag him off for "interviewing" then "reeducation" if not worse.
So what exactly has encryption done for the repressed voice of liberty in the world ? I'm still waiting to see statistics on the amount of freedom gained by the use of encrypted communication.
I think the market didn't share their (our) enthusiasm for that level of service, perhaps unfortunately. It's quite possible that for 99% of internet users privacy is really *not* a prime concern. Most people have mundane lives and therefore mundane communications, making privacy totally pointless. Privacy is only a concern for those who are under the illusion that anyone else would care to know what they write in their emails.
When a 24 y.o. agency bimbo asks you what version of MS-VC you have worked with, be sure to mention the *latest* version and to say that you've used it for 2 years even. Don't worry about the truth, just make sure they hear the numbers they want to hear. If you fail to do so : "4.5 ? Oh that's too bad, my customer wants someone with 4.6". Above all, don't even try to point out that 4.6 is 3 weeks old, just lie.
This is just one example among many, the list is too long.
I've sometimes asked an agency who at the employer's firm had written the job spec. It is often the employers' HR dept (who have about as much of a clue as the agency fools) who do that. Great.
Along with the dumb numbers games you also get despicable tactics to get some kind of psychological reading from you. Yeah, sorry, I'm not a fucking super-cool dude, when I go into an interview I'm very slightly on edge. If you deliberately put me in an interview that's rigged to put me at a disadvantage you'll just end up pissing me off.
Check this out : interviewer sits on a design office chair at the usual height off the floor. I'm told to sit on some design sofa with my ass 6 inches off the ground, your knees touch your chin, your smart pants ride up and your hairy shins are on display for all to see.
I hate those recruiter shits with a passion. The only difference now is that I've learned all their stupid tactics. It still doesn't calm my hate for those parasites.
Phew, that was a good rant.
Another IRA (Irish Republican Army) bomb blew up last week in the centre of London. Fortunately no one was killed. This having happened on a main street, the incident was caught on tape. The man who stopped the car carrying the bomb was also caught on camera. Another incident a few months ago was resolved with the help of CCTV. A man planted nail bombs in 3 locations in London. 2 people died. He was caught with the help of the video footage. I, for one, am very happy that there are cameras all over the main streets in Britain. From a sociological point of view, I see it like this : with the anonymity of big cities the social safety lock of peer scrutiny that occurs naturally in smaller towns disappears. It is no surprise that technology is being used to try and replace it.
One of the motivations behind the idea of the uniform was that they were to act as a social equaliser.
When everyone wears the same uniform, you can't distinguish social backgrounds thus putting everyone on an equal footing.
If it was regarded as an evil thing, rest assured that the lefty-loonies who are already in control of education would have got it dropped ages ago.
If you're worried about kids being turned into drones, don't. The kids with an individualistic streak (most) find all sorts of creative ways to supplement their school uniform with various add-ons / hair styles etc.
HTH.
... but have never had the recognition they deserve.
Right now they're desperate, all their efforts have collapsed so all that there is left for them is to generate concept art.
It's sad to say but they have no money left and they're laying off staff like mad.
It's sad to see them fail because they had the best h/w, the best OS and the best s/w.
I'd love to write more than a me-too comment but you've pretty much nailed the issue down in 2 posts.
Excellent.
Anyone who cares to listen in onto my cell phone conversations is welcome to. If I have something sensitive to tell someone, I will meet in a McDonalds where my whisper will be drowned out by the kids yelling and/or the terrible canned music that they play there.
No really, that's so pretentious it's not funny.
Cliff, stop kidding yourself, very few of us are important enough or have access to data that's important enough that someone would want to bother setting up a snooping station to intercept our userid/pwd.
For those of us who *do* have access to something that's sensitive, they *will* be sitting in that computer room that's disconnected from the net and they'll sure as hell not be using silly gizmos for geeks.
The whole idea of an April fool's prank is to hide it among other *true* news items and make it so *nearly* credible that people will get caught out. The Slashdot "editors" couldn't have shown what a childish bunch of idiots they are any better if they'd *tried*. So, to show how funny you guys are and what a wonderful sense of humour you have you decide that you're gonna give us a special gift : on April 1st *every* *single* article on /. for the last 48 hrs has been utter tripe.
And now here you are just rubbing it in : "Haha ! by playing on the time zones we can extend April 1st to a 48 hours day, haha ! We rule !"
Now you've got a year to go away and figure what makes an April fool's joke *good*. It's gonna be hard but 364 days may just be enough.
Get clue or grow up.
Hey will you tell Omar to stop pouting ?
Since we had that blowout over Cubase vs Logic he's blocking my mail.
Not very consistent (you reminded me) of a guy who writes 'peace' at the end of his emails.
BTW, in case he doesn't know who's saying this, I'm the guy on the Reaktor list.
"In Britain they don't try to get law and order by scaring the shit out of the citizens" Right, I'm not denying this. Unfortunately it's the other extreme that's the rule now. The people see the police as a complete joke. What you saw in Sweden is what I see in the Netherlands and what everyone else in the world sees in their country : the cops are dressed to impress. And then the Brits have the nerve to call their Police "the pigs". Ha ! What a laugh, they don't have a clue. There's such a thing has a happy medium.
That's when I was there.
:)
The last really great place (Brady's) closed some time back. The Junction opened along the road at Loughborough (sp?) Junction so a lot of people who used to go to the DogStar migrated over there. I haven't been back to the Junction since I left London.
The *BEST* place was summer of 96, the Duke of Edinburgh, on sundays. Beutiful weather all summer long and the day was called "Sundaze". Banging house inside the shuttered down pub and chilled out stuff in the huge beerg arden.
Bloody drug-fest, I couldn't quite understand how the cops never turned up to close the whole thing down. Had a great time !
Aaaahhh memories !
Well, when society loses any semblance of structure, someone has to take up the slack from individuals who have given up the responsibility of self-regulation.
The British have nothing but contempt for their police force that is more and more pussy-whipped every day. Last week in London there was a drunk man shouting abuse at the cops. And the stupid sods were trying to calm the man down !
Anywhere else in the world, this man would have been picked up in 5 minutes flat and thrown in a cell to sober up. Not in Britain, those cops were probably worried the guy would sue them for mental anguish.
On a side note, there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing a drunken Brit in Amsterdam where I now live start getting cocky with a local cop. The Brit will get hauled away and locked up for the night. The cops here are quite professional but there's an understated and accepted understanding that if you screw with them, they'll screw with you. And you won't come out on top. They're dressed in no uncertain terms : leather jackets, peaked caps, flash badge and *gun*.
Back to the topic. When a castrated British police force can't do its job for fear of its members being sued left right and centre, they resort to distancing themselves from the population and trying to monitor everything from afar.
The population refuses to acknowledge the fact we *need* a police force ? Fine, let the muggings and robberies happen (preventive policing is regarded as fascist) and just sit back hoping the crimes can be caught on tape.
The British public has brought this on themselves.
Hey, cool spot ! 3 minutes from the Hobgoblin, 5 from the Fridge Bar, 10 from Coldharbour Lane and the Prince Albert.
:(
Too bad Brixton has become a trendy place to go clubbing in. Shit, even the 414 has crowd barriers in front of the door and a big sign over the door now.
Oh well, it was still good while I was there.
While I agree that games whose gameplay rely entirely on finding the right pixel to click are a major drag, Baldur is not one of them.
I think that Baldur *has* struck the right balance between the random (systematic ?) search for items and investigatiion.
If you decide you can't be bothered with scanning the view, you can very well progress in the game. Sometimes finding a sword in a barrel comes as a pleasant bonus, especially when you're starting out and you're weak and poor. Naturally, the battles you fight will also yield these objects. It's really up to you to do what you want.
Also, it *is* a ADD (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) game after all ! It's always been about seeking for traps (and you'll have to do that a lot in BG) and picking locks on chests. If you don't like that, ADD is not for you !
Back to the Point 'n' Click aspect of things. Elements of strategic importance are properly put in evidence. I mean, an altar generally would tip one off as to its significance in the plot, right ? A random column is a random column, you'll never be expected to go looking for crucial items behind those.
Maybe it strikes you as dumb that the character in a book wouldn't muck about digging in rotten barrels looking for pennies, well, a book's a book and a game's a game. If you want a story told to you like in a book, read a book but then you get a totally linear storyline in the sense that you have to turn those pages one after the other.
The whole point of the article this /. story is about is that is that when you're playing you *specifically* don't want to follow a narrow path like a book imposes on the reader. The whole point of the /. story is that it's finding the most balanced mix between story and action that's hard to work out.
That blend has been fantastically balanced in BGII. There is a story (of magic, men, gods and monsters etc) and you progress in chapters. You know pretty much what the goal of each chapter is and a particular task is imposed for you to complete.
How, when and how directly you address the issue is up to you. Most often you just won't be experienced enough to go and take on the prime task, you'll have to divert through any number of sub-plots that are submitted to you by a ton of NPCs. Each of these subplots can either be well self-contained or can lead to other sub-plots. You can break away from either of these plots at any moment if you believe you can go and tackle the prime task.
Naturally, this prime task can also be the 1st step in a full process that will take you to the completion of the chapter in the story.
Phew, you can tell that I'm very fond of Baldur's Gate II ! This is the 1st RPG game I've ever owned, I'd tried a few before but had never persevered beyond the demos. This one grabbed me and drew me in.
Heh, just a guess, are you a Diablo fan ? Because if you are, there's just no converting you to Baldur's Gate. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Happy Gaming !