Exactly how would you discover an attack that was so successful as to not leave a trace? By definition such an attack cannot or has not yet been discovered or traced. Leaving them out is both inevitable and fair, because there are attacks against Linux that are similarly undiscovered.
As another poster pointed out, if your sysadmin is incompetent with logs it is pretty easy to miss an attack on a windows box. Also, what if the attacker didn't change anything, but just got read access to, for example, your user passwords on another system? Read-only attacks are easy to miss if you aren't looking for them. Completely untraced attacks are impossible as you can have an intermediary box logging all traffic invisibly, but that doesn't mean that attacks which fly below the radar of average MSCE technicians don't exist.
I understand that anytime somebody publishes a Top N List the urge to compete externally is great, but why not ignore the others and simply use this as a data point to improve oneself?
How would we use this data to improve ourselves? Knowing that there are attacks with exist against Linux? We know that already, and we should be working to secure boxes. All this data would theoretically be good for is deciding which OS to use on your servers, but for that purpose it is fundamentally flawed for reasons outlined above in this thread.
They needed a catchy result to sell an overpriced survey. But flawed methodology ensures their catchy result is meaningless, and should not be used for its intended purpose.
Don't forget, they're also only counting Overt attacks, I.E. Verified ones... ones that leave a trace. It could very well be that all of those windows or OSX boxes were at some point Owned, but that the attack was so successful as to not leave a trace. It also requires "modification to any of its publicly visible components whilst executing...data attacks... [or] command and control attacks."
They also don't list their methodology, which I find disturbing. Out of 17k successful, caught, non-automatic hacks, x were against these systems. However, they don't say where those 17k come from, and don't put it in the perspective of the percentage of those systems in use. If you go to their homepage, they list something called a SIPS (Security Intelligence Products and Systems) System. This data comes from "Personal Relationships at CEO, CFO, CIO, CISO level within the banking, insurance, and reinsurance industry... monitoring hacker bulletin boards... and anonymous communication channels." That's a pretty unscientific pool to be pulling data from. Essentially, you're talking about hacks that were either reported by friends in high places, friends in low places, or bragged about by hackers on publicly accessible bbses.
So if you want to take the survey methodology seriously, then the survey proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Linux has more non-automated attacks involving changing publicly accessible interfaces that were caught and reported by friends to mi2g.
Where exactly is he mentioned in that discussion?
on
Singularity Sky
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· Score: 1, Redundant
Before I mod you +1 insightful, where exactly is "Charlie Stross" mentioned in that discussion or article? A scan of the article and a search of the postings comes up with no mention of Stross...
I bet if you took a poll of the best movies of all time of the moviegoers in the United States today, you would find very few instances of films released before 1990. You would find very few art-house releases. You would find very few releases without a lot of blood and / or action. In fact, you would probably find that if you did that movie poll on GameSpy, The Matrix would come out #1.
Why? Because it was popular.
No gamer who has played the genius that was Gunstar Heroes walked away without being impressed, yet the game sold relatively poorly. Now look where it is... losing to duck tales. Castlevania IV was revolutionary for its time, yet it is losing badly to Opera of Tragedy, a clear Super Metroid clone. Dracula X hardly registers on the scale, despite being a truly superior game overall, yet never having had a proper US release.
Pitting Perfect Dark against River City Ransom is like putting Bettie Davis as she is today on a stage and having her mocked by the Star Search talent of the moment for her wrinkles and her frail old body. Clearly River City Ransom didn't hold up very well to the rigors of aging, but in its day it could walk off with any player it introduced itself to. And it deserved to, too.
Many great games aren't on this list at all, yet were truly worthy contenders for their time. Gargoyle's Quest? Strider? Smash TV? Sega's Heavyweight Boxing? Teleroboxer? Einhander? Herizogs Wei? Rocket Knight Adventures? EWJ? Lunar? 7th Guest? Out of this World? Little Nemo? Skate or Die? Puzzlefighter? Tetris MUST be on there somewhere, but I have yet to find it. Castlevania 2 is obviously only under consideration because of Nepotism, but where then is Castlevania 64?
Obviously this poll is an unofficial popularity contest, and an unfortunately limited one at that. Why not just take every game in their index that got higher than a 7.5, and weed them out over the weeks to a true victor using a random distribution system rather than fixed competitors, with players given the option of "never played that." Only the games with the highest percentage of choices would advance, and the cycle would repeat.
That would be fair. This? This is going to be a popularity contest, with the prom queen coming out on top.
"hmmm... We have this console, which has been running for two years, 25 million dollars in venture capital, offices on both coasts, 60 onboard developers, and boxes and boxes of beta units just ready to go, but people still think we're vaporware. How do we let gamers know that we have a real product ready to sell for the 2004 christmas season?"
"I know! Let's sue a journalist!"
"No, no. Too harsh. All people want is a solid, physical unit shipped to a news magazine like IGN for their inspection. Why don't we take one of those thousands of beta units we have in the warehouse, load it up with Metroid Prime like in the screenshots, and ship it to IGN with a mockup console hacked out over the weekend in Flash? We could easily hook it into our existing nationwide network of game servers we had to put up for our Beta."
"I really think you should consider the 'suing a journalist' option."
"Is that really the best way to leverage our company's assets? What if we just threatened to sue?"
"It is a proportionate response. No journalist worth their salt would imperil their career by standing up to a threat to sue. By being benevolent and just threatening to sue, people will know you have weight behind your claims."
Who do you think you are, to say that the suffering of another creature is to be made light of? All members of the kingdom of living creatures deserve our respect, including monkeys, mushrooms, and turtles. Turtles suffer when kicked out of their shells, and they suffer even more when those shells are thrown back at them. Is this the message we want to send to our children? That sending turtles careening off of destructible bricks is a viable form of entertainment?
I'll have to assume you aren't trolling, because the first half of your comment was exactly what I was thinking.
The second half, however... Integrated office suites existed before MS Office (ClarisWorks, Symantic Greatworks, etc), integrated media players existed before Media Center, networked mail management programs existed before Mono (see also, nearly all of UNIX), online gaming communities with matching and stats existed before XBox Live (Gamespy, et al).
Open Source developers aren't always the most creative group out there, with a lot of effort reproducing favorite tools that aren't available on their favorite platform, but claiming that they are always copying Microsoft is inaccurate. Why not say that Mozilla is a copy of I.E.? Because I.E. is a copy of Netscape Navigator. The Gimp is not a clone of MS Paint, but Photoshop. Jabber? An altogether superior beast inspired as much by ICQ and AIM as MSN. If Microsoft wasn't this behemoth company that tries to copy everyone else move for move, there wouldn't be this assumption that everyone is attempting to copy Microsoft. Note that you still can't get Clippy in OpenOffice.
For one, there is an external force artificially deflating the number of available sellers and buyers. Sellers further reduce their own availability through rather underhanded behaviors. Buyers rarely have more than one supplier, and actual price competition is equally rare. Product has frequent impurities / misrepresentations. Information is horded by those who have it, lest external forces come down upon them.
True free market economics, where every party knows all of the prices available to them and the actual quality level and statistics of the products offered, is impossible without regulating bodies ensuring that all parties adhere to such high standards of information accuracy.
Just because a market is flying under the radar of the "evil, oppressive, taxing government" doesn't mean it is a free market. Try getting 5 quotes for verifiably 90% pure cocane on a Friday night.
I'm personally waiting for BSDXP. You know, the intuitive interface of BSD mixed with the stability of Windows.
Heaven is where the interface is designed by Apple, the back end by Linus, and gaming API's by Microsoft. Hell is where the interface is designed by Linus, the back end by Microsoft, and gaming API's by Apple. I get the feeling any Darwin LinBSDXPwould be more like the latter.
5 reasons full text in case of slashdotting
on
SCOoby Snacks
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· Score: 2, Funny
Five Reasons to Choose UNIX(R) Instead of Linux(R)
1. SCO UNIX(R) is really, really old.
SCO UNIX(R) has been used in thousands of businesses and governments around the world for centuries. Its scalability, reliability and flexibility made it the number one choice of Alexander Gram Bell, Augustus Caesar, and the East India Spice Company. SCO UNIX(R) is the number one UNIX(R) on transistors, vacuum tubes, and parchment. It's so old even we don't have a copy of our source code anymore.
Case Study: the Russian Revolution
"We knew there was an integrated and reliable solution out there, but at first we were not quite sure who the right comrades were to make this a winning solution for the people," said Joseph Stalin, Director of Information Systems. "SCO provided the most flexible and manageable solution to handle our glorious revolution's requirements for counter-revolutionary espionage, tracking, and disposal, and the even dispersal of grain to the ruling class. Plus, they provide a positive model for our society."
Not only has the SCO solution reduced redundancy in Russia's information torture program, it has virtually eliminated errors in the country's nuclear launch program. "The SCO solution has allowed Russia to remain a glorious world power, with a brilliant, controlled future and no end in sight. Just like SCO."
2. SCO UNIX(R) is ours, everywhere
All ours. Yup. SCO's award winning team sells our SCO unix worldwide, in all 7 continents and several oceans. Based in a P.O. Box at a Mail Boxes Etc. in a mall in Florida, SCO's millions of technical staffers and billions of happy support personnel provides the infrastructure your business needs to avoid copyright tussles with companies like SCO, who, BTW, owns UNIX(R).
Case Study: AT&T
"And we thought we had a monopoly. It turns out not only does SCO own the operating system we created, they also own our infrastructure, parasitic business practices, and the customer service reputation we built up over many years."
"They own the software that runs my car, the printing press, catfish, and the insanity defence."
SCO's lawyer interjects. "Don't forget, We also own your children."
3. SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
Umm...
4. SCO UNIX(R) is Secure
SCO UNIX(R) combines the security of high-priced UNIX(R) solutions with the low cost of high-priced UNIX(R) solutions. We do, after all, own UNIX(R). These security features include Obscurity, and a free trial copy of Zone Lab's ZoneAlarm(R).
Case Study: the PHB
"What we really needed was a rock-solid, reliable operating system clueless people like me could buy without configuring anything," recalls the Pointy Haired Boss, technology manager at your company, between the 17th and 18th holes. "That's where SCO came in. Once I got past that whole 'double clicking' thing, SCO UNIX(R) was a breeze to install, with a little animated wizard and everything. And unlike other operating systems that issue security bulletins every few months, I've never heard of a problem with SCO UNIX(R)."
"SCO UNIX(R) has absolutely no security flaws," Said the PHB's caddy, wearing $200 Tiger Woods Nike shoes, a Rolex, and a smirk the size of his Hummer.
5. Buy SCO UNIX(R) or we shoot this dog
SCO is the sole owner of the UNIX(R) Operating System Intellectual Property Related Activities that dates back to the discovery of electricity and beyond. Through a hole in space and time, SCO has acquired ownership over UNIX (and its derivative QNX), BSD, Nils and Anna Torvalds, and mathematics. We're not going to let a good side business like selling UNIX(R) go to waste.
As early as May 2003, we warned Linux(R) users that enterprise use of the Linux(R) operating system was in violation of its intellectual property rights in SCO UNIX(R) technology, as will be determined in US courts. Linux(R) users were warned to either pay a reasonable 699$ per processor per user per ye
To make a good story, you have to usually cut into the time you're actually playing the game (cut scenes, etc). At its forefront, the game is still the most important part.
I think there is a key distinction that needs to be made... Character development does not necessarily equal cut scenes. Lunar had an awesome bit of character development at the end of the game where the player came across (the evil nemesis) Ghaleon's fairy garden. These fairies all thought their caretaker was the kindest man they had ever met, and was blissfully unaware of his dark ambition to rule the world. That didn't happen as a cut scene, that happened at a much needed heal-and-save rest stop. In the following game, Ghaleon joins your party for a short time, sacrificing his temporary reprieve from death to save the world he wanted to rule.
There are other examples, of course. When a key figure either defends / attacks a boss enemy, lurks in the trees following your character, etc. Hockey Mask guy (Rick) from Splatterhouse killed his own girlfriend, then went insane and jumped into the house's womb.
Most characters are tacked onto a game design... praying by ye-gods scroll boss then doing something original in the cut scenes. But they work much better when it is integrated into the gameplay. You could have Kain go into a lengthy diatribe against God and Able, and kill his brother in a cut scene, but you and your players would be better served if they were allowed to play a level as Kain fighting through an insane heaven / earth mishmash in his quixotic quest to dethrone an evil god. Perhaps the evil female love interest in the game takes good care of her mentally disabled brother (who helps her out in the fight), or the evil overlord's last words are to implore you to take care of his children (whom you kill in the next room). These things build original characters in a timely fashion that can be integrated into gameplay better than a 5 minute diatribe about their childhood. Want to show someone was abused? Give them a limp. Want to humanize the giant monster destroying Tokyo? Give them a Pukka charm bangle.
And if you want to flesh out a character's backstory in a cut scene... Don't. Think about your idea again and redo it in-game.
There are so many problems with episodic games... Where to begin?
First of all, there is linearity of design. Generally, your character will acquire experience, gold, weapons, abilities, etc throughout a game. If a person jumps into the fifth month of a game, he will be at a severe disadvantage to continue if it is even possible at all. So in any game that contains character development, like the Metroid series, you will need to keep customers buying the packs in a linear fashion.
Which brings us to a position where you don't have an episodic presentation at all, you have a pay-as-you-go model combined with a content-in-patches model. People will start 8 months after the game is released and it starts to get some buzz, will play though the first available 9 hours, and will wait every month for the next level. And that, my friends, is a crappy way to experience a game. Even if you can only spare an hour a week, you will be left with nothing to play for 1/5th of the time, and a tight story experience that is spread out over two years. It would be jilted and terrible. Whatever coherent emergent experience the game may be presenting would be lost amidst the sea of time. Could you imagine watching LotR one hour at a time, spread out over 9 months?
And let's be honest, no monthly episode would ship on time. It should be in QA for the a month before it is ready for prime time. You have to create textures, unique characters, a map, a new musical track, and fresh voice recordings. You have to balance the difficulty, ensure compatibility, and test. You would have to develop the entire game before hand, and simply release it monthly. It would simply be a matter of withholding from your potential audience.
After a year, what then? If it took you two or three years to develop the first game, and you've been futzing about during the intervening year listening to player criticisms, altering gameplay balance, and adding areas, you now will have had maybe a solid 6 months to design and develop the next game. That's really not enough time, even using an existing engine. The reviewer complains that Metroid Zero is too short, and would like to see more content released monthly, but the reviewer doesn't say where this development time would come from. It's nice to say that a game is too short, but Metroid Zero isn't too short because they were waiting for the expansion pack. Game designers not "worrying about having to pad these episodes out"? These episodes would be all padding.
As for the first hour free... Has Greg Kasavin even tried demos? I know he's the executive editor for GameSpot, so he probably knows to avoid the slimeware that GameSpot's demo area tries to install on your system, but there are other sources. If you want the first hour free, go to a real demo site, like 3DGamers, and enjoy yourself.
It is true that games need to become shorter, more intense experiences... More Metal Gear Solid than Xenogears. But chopping up an otherwise perfectly fine game and making it monthly is not the answer. It may be a reasonable-sounding solution, which is why it is repeated all too often, but in reality this no-brainer really is a no-brainer.
The successful US "cyber cafes" don't market themselves as "cyber cafes." There are no food served, no drinks, and the emphasis is squarely upon videogames. The Adrenaline Zone recently opened up here near Harvard, and it has been doing brisk business with LAN gaming and online gaming. You can surf the web if you want to, but unlike a traditional overseas cyber cafe, nobody does. You wouldn't even consider writing a paper at one.
The key to their success is probably that while everyone in the United States can find a hand-me-down computer that can run Windows 98 enough to surf and 9.95 per month for internet access, not everyone is willing to shell out the 100 dollars for a performance graphics card and another 50 dollars monthly for the DSL required for gaming (if it is even available in their area). You really do have to make a technology investment to play Unreal Tournament 2003, and so people turn to LAN gaming centers.
In other words, forget the food. Forget the printers. Forget selling 802.11g cards under the counter with crumpets. Buy a solid batch of Athlons with Radeon 9600 Pro cards, turn the lights down really low, and aim for the unwashed masses. You'll be glad you did.
Put your moniter on top of your tower, stuff you keyboard and mouse into your pocket, unplug the ethernet cable, unplug the power strip. Move everything to the common area in one brisk carry, using a slab of wood if necessary.
The effect is twofold. One, you are typing away in the common area where your roommate's sleep cycle is safe. Two, you get better about doing your papers in the daytime, so that you don't have to lug your machine about.
Slashdot Mirror
NES: 1983 - 1992... 9 years
2600: 1977 - 1989... 12 years
Game Boy: 1988 - either 1997 (pocket), 1998 (color), 2002 (Advance)... 13 years
Neo Geo: 1991 - 2004... 13 years
Arguably, the longest supported system in the industry. Indisputably the longest supported primary system.
I had hoped they would still be supporting it by the time I found a job which paid enough to get one. Sadly, this is not to be.
Darn right that's a troll.
Daryl would never mention the 'billing issues.'
After all, they did cast the guy from "Leprechaun in the hood."
Exactly how would you discover an attack that was so successful as to not leave a trace? By definition such an attack cannot or has not yet been discovered or traced. Leaving them out is both inevitable and fair, because there are attacks against Linux that are similarly undiscovered.
As another poster pointed out, if your sysadmin is incompetent with logs it is pretty easy to miss an attack on a windows box. Also, what if the attacker didn't change anything, but just got read access to, for example, your user passwords on another system? Read-only attacks are easy to miss if you aren't looking for them. Completely untraced attacks are impossible as you can have an intermediary box logging all traffic invisibly, but that doesn't mean that attacks which fly below the radar of average MSCE technicians don't exist.
I understand that anytime somebody publishes a Top N List the urge to compete externally is great, but why not ignore the others and simply use this as a data point to improve oneself?
How would we use this data to improve ourselves? Knowing that there are attacks with exist against Linux? We know that already, and we should be working to secure boxes. All this data would theoretically be good for is deciding which OS to use on your servers, but for that purpose it is fundamentally flawed for reasons outlined above in this thread.
They needed a catchy result to sell an overpriced survey. But flawed methodology ensures their catchy result is meaningless, and should not be used for its intended purpose.
Don't forget, they're also only counting Overt attacks, I.E. Verified ones... ones that leave a trace. It could very well be that all of those windows or OSX boxes were at some point Owned, but that the attack was so successful as to not leave a trace. It also requires "modification to any of its publicly visible components whilst executing...data attacks... [or] command and control attacks."
They also don't list their methodology, which I find disturbing. Out of 17k successful, caught, non-automatic hacks, x were against these systems. However, they don't say where those 17k come from, and don't put it in the perspective of the percentage of those systems in use. If you go to their homepage, they list something called a SIPS (Security Intelligence Products and Systems) System. This data comes from "Personal Relationships at CEO, CFO, CIO, CISO level within the banking, insurance, and reinsurance industry... monitoring hacker bulletin boards... and anonymous communication channels." That's a pretty unscientific pool to be pulling data from. Essentially, you're talking about hacks that were either reported by friends in high places, friends in low places, or bragged about by hackers on publicly accessible bbses.
So if you want to take the survey methodology seriously, then the survey proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Linux has more non-automated attacks involving changing publicly accessible interfaces that were caught and reported by friends to mi2g.
Before I mod you +1 insightful, where exactly is "Charlie Stross" mentioned in that discussion or article? A scan of the article and a search of the postings comes up with no mention of Stross...
I bet if you took a poll of the best movies of all time of the moviegoers in the United States today, you would find very few instances of films released before 1990. You would find very few art-house releases. You would find very few releases without a lot of blood and / or action. In fact, you would probably find that if you did that movie poll on GameSpy, The Matrix would come out #1.
Why? Because it was popular.
No gamer who has played the genius that was Gunstar Heroes walked away without being impressed, yet the game sold relatively poorly. Now look where it is... losing to duck tales. Castlevania IV was revolutionary for its time, yet it is losing badly to Opera of Tragedy, a clear Super Metroid clone. Dracula X hardly registers on the scale, despite being a truly superior game overall, yet never having had a proper US release.
Pitting Perfect Dark against River City Ransom is like putting Bettie Davis as she is today on a stage and having her mocked by the Star Search talent of the moment for her wrinkles and her frail old body. Clearly River City Ransom didn't hold up very well to the rigors of aging, but in its day it could walk off with any player it introduced itself to. And it deserved to, too.
Many great games aren't on this list at all, yet were truly worthy contenders for their time. Gargoyle's Quest? Strider? Smash TV? Sega's Heavyweight Boxing? Teleroboxer? Einhander? Herizogs Wei? Rocket Knight Adventures? EWJ? Lunar? 7th Guest? Out of this World? Little Nemo? Skate or Die? Puzzlefighter? Tetris MUST be on there somewhere, but I have yet to find it. Castlevania 2 is obviously only under consideration because of Nepotism, but where then is Castlevania 64?
Obviously this poll is an unofficial popularity contest, and an unfortunately limited one at that. Why not just take every game in their index that got higher than a 7.5, and weed them out over the weeks to a true victor using a random distribution system rather than fixed competitors, with players given the option of "never played that." Only the games with the highest percentage of choices would advance, and the cycle would repeat.
That would be fair. This? This is going to be a popularity contest, with the prom queen coming out on top.
"hmmm... We have this console, which has been running for two years, 25 million dollars in venture capital, offices on both coasts, 60 onboard developers, and boxes and boxes of beta units just ready to go, but people still think we're vaporware. How do we let gamers know that we have a real product ready to sell for the 2004 christmas season?"
"I know! Let's sue a journalist!"
"No, no. Too harsh. All people want is a solid, physical unit shipped to a news magazine like IGN for their inspection. Why don't we take one of those thousands of beta units we have in the warehouse, load it up with Metroid Prime like in the screenshots, and ship it to IGN with a mockup console hacked out over the weekend in Flash? We could easily hook it into our existing nationwide network of game servers we had to put up for our Beta."
"I really think you should consider the 'suing a journalist' option."
"Is that really the best way to leverage our company's assets? What if we just threatened to sue?"
"It is a proportionate response. No journalist worth their salt would imperil their career by standing up to a threat to sue. By being benevolent and just threatening to sue, people will know you have weight behind your claims."
"How's the mansion Bob?"
"Great. Yours Frank?"
"Peachy Keen."
What you missed...
o arding/painting sims, trucking sims, empire sims, isle sims, sports sims, photography sims, horse sims, music sims, dance sims (well, not so much a sim), dating sims, pizza sims, casino sims, a moon sim, trailer park sim, sim farm, sim safari, sim hospital, sim fish, sim pets...
God sims, tower sims, restaurant sims, mob sims, sim coaster, sim copter, ant sims, sim life, airline sims, golf sims, ski resort sims, newspaper sims, snowboarding/skiing/driving/surfing/flying/skateb
There was also a sim sim sim game, "the best simulator simulator you have ever played... simulated!" But that was only available in Space Quest IV.
...But those hamsters do have all of the harmony of the Backstreet Boys.
That's the problem. Raise that barrier of entry, and it's that much harder for a company like Nintendo to come along and crack the market share.
You do realize the irony of that statement, don't you?
Wow. Next thing you know you'll tell me Apple is making a version of iTunes for Windows.
Who do you think you are, to say that the suffering of another creature is to be made light of? All members of the kingdom of living creatures deserve our respect, including monkeys, mushrooms, and turtles. Turtles suffer when kicked out of their shells, and they suffer even more when those shells are thrown back at them. Is this the message we want to send to our children? That sending turtles careening off of destructible bricks is a viable form of entertainment?
I'll have to assume you aren't trolling, because the first half of your comment was exactly what I was thinking.
The second half, however... Integrated office suites existed before MS Office (ClarisWorks, Symantic Greatworks, etc), integrated media players existed before Media Center, networked mail management programs existed before Mono (see also, nearly all of UNIX), online gaming communities with matching and stats existed before XBox Live (Gamespy, et al).
Open Source developers aren't always the most creative group out there, with a lot of effort reproducing favorite tools that aren't available on their favorite platform, but claiming that they are always copying Microsoft is inaccurate. Why not say that Mozilla is a copy of I.E.? Because I.E. is a copy of Netscape Navigator. The Gimp is not a clone of MS Paint, but Photoshop. Jabber? An altogether superior beast inspired as much by ICQ and AIM as MSN. If Microsoft wasn't this behemoth company that tries to copy everyone else move for move, there wouldn't be this assumption that everyone is attempting to copy Microsoft. Note that you still can't get Clippy in OpenOffice.
For one, there is an external force artificially deflating the number of available sellers and buyers. Sellers further reduce their own availability through rather underhanded behaviors. Buyers rarely have more than one supplier, and actual price competition is equally rare. Product has frequent impurities / misrepresentations. Information is horded by those who have it, lest external forces come down upon them.
True free market economics, where every party knows all of the prices available to them and the actual quality level and statistics of the products offered, is impossible without regulating bodies ensuring that all parties adhere to such high standards of information accuracy.
Just because a market is flying under the radar of the "evil, oppressive, taxing government" doesn't mean it is a free market. Try getting 5 quotes for verifiably 90% pure cocane on a Friday night.
I'm personally waiting for BSDXP. You know, the intuitive interface of BSD mixed with the stability of Windows.
Heaven is where the interface is designed by Apple, the back end by Linus, and gaming API's by Microsoft. Hell is where the interface is designed by Linus, the back end by Microsoft, and gaming API's by Apple. I get the feeling any Darwin LinBSDXPwould be more like the latter.
Step one) Download from here.
Step two) Play Music.
Step three) There is no step three.
Five Reasons to Choose UNIX(R) Instead of Linux(R)
1. SCO UNIX(R) is really, really old.
SCO UNIX(R) has been used in thousands of businesses and governments around the world for centuries. Its scalability, reliability and flexibility made it the number one choice of Alexander Gram Bell, Augustus Caesar, and the East India Spice Company. SCO UNIX(R) is the number one UNIX(R) on transistors, vacuum tubes, and parchment. It's so old even we don't have a copy of our source code anymore.
Case Study: the Russian Revolution
"We knew there was an integrated and reliable solution out there, but at first we were not quite sure who the right comrades were to make this a winning solution for the people," said Joseph Stalin, Director of Information Systems. "SCO provided the most flexible and manageable solution to handle our glorious revolution's requirements for counter-revolutionary espionage, tracking, and disposal, and the even dispersal of grain to the ruling class. Plus, they provide a positive model for our society."
Not only has the SCO solution reduced redundancy in Russia's information torture program, it has virtually eliminated errors in the country's nuclear launch program. "The SCO solution has allowed Russia to remain a glorious world power, with a brilliant, controlled future and no end in sight. Just like SCO."
2. SCO UNIX(R) is ours, everywhere
All ours. Yup. SCO's award winning team sells our SCO unix worldwide, in all 7 continents and several oceans. Based in a P.O. Box at a Mail Boxes Etc. in a mall in Florida, SCO's millions of technical staffers and billions of happy support personnel provides the infrastructure your business needs to avoid copyright tussles with companies like SCO, who, BTW, owns UNIX(R).
Case Study: AT&T
"And we thought we had a monopoly. It turns out not only does SCO own the operating system we created, they also own our infrastructure, parasitic business practices, and the customer service reputation we built up over many years."
"They own the software that runs my car, the printing press, catfish, and the insanity defence."
SCO's lawyer interjects. "Don't forget, We also own your children."
3. SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
Umm...
4. SCO UNIX(R) is Secure
SCO UNIX(R) combines the security of high-priced UNIX(R) solutions with the low cost of high-priced UNIX(R) solutions. We do, after all, own UNIX(R). These security features include Obscurity, and a free trial copy of Zone Lab's ZoneAlarm(R).
Case Study: the PHB
"What we really needed was a rock-solid, reliable operating system clueless people like me could buy without configuring anything," recalls the Pointy Haired Boss, technology manager at your company, between the 17th and 18th holes. "That's where SCO came in. Once I got past that whole 'double clicking' thing, SCO UNIX(R) was a breeze to install, with a little animated wizard and everything. And unlike other operating systems that issue security bulletins every few months, I've never heard of a problem with SCO UNIX(R)."
"SCO UNIX(R) has absolutely no security flaws," Said the PHB's caddy, wearing $200 Tiger Woods Nike shoes, a Rolex, and a smirk the size of his Hummer.
5. Buy SCO UNIX(R) or we shoot this dog
SCO is the sole owner of the UNIX(R) Operating System Intellectual Property Related Activities that dates back to the discovery of electricity and beyond. Through a hole in space and time, SCO has acquired ownership over UNIX (and its derivative QNX), BSD, Nils and Anna Torvalds, and mathematics. We're not going to let a good side business like selling UNIX(R) go to waste.
As early as May 2003, we warned Linux(R) users that enterprise use of the Linux(R) operating system was in violation of its intellectual property rights in SCO UNIX(R) technology, as will be determined in US courts. Linux(R) users were warned to either pay a reasonable 699$ per processor per user per ye
To make a good story, you have to usually cut into the time you're actually playing the game (cut scenes, etc). At its forefront, the game is still the most important part.
I think there is a key distinction that needs to be made... Character development does not necessarily equal cut scenes. Lunar had an awesome bit of character development at the end of the game where the player came across (the evil nemesis) Ghaleon's fairy garden. These fairies all thought their caretaker was the kindest man they had ever met, and was blissfully unaware of his dark ambition to rule the world. That didn't happen as a cut scene, that happened at a much needed heal-and-save rest stop. In the following game, Ghaleon joins your party for a short time, sacrificing his temporary reprieve from death to save the world he wanted to rule.
There are other examples, of course. When a key figure either defends / attacks a boss enemy, lurks in the trees following your character, etc. Hockey Mask guy (Rick) from Splatterhouse killed his own girlfriend, then went insane and jumped into the house's womb.
Most characters are tacked onto a game design... praying by ye-gods scroll boss then doing something original in the cut scenes. But they work much better when it is integrated into the gameplay. You could have Kain go into a lengthy diatribe against God and Able, and kill his brother in a cut scene, but you and your players would be better served if they were allowed to play a level as Kain fighting through an insane heaven / earth mishmash in his quixotic quest to dethrone an evil god. Perhaps the evil female love interest in the game takes good care of her mentally disabled brother (who helps her out in the fight), or the evil overlord's last words are to implore you to take care of his children (whom you kill in the next room). These things build original characters in a timely fashion that can be integrated into gameplay better than a 5 minute diatribe about their childhood. Want to show someone was abused? Give them a limp. Want to humanize the giant monster destroying Tokyo? Give them a Pukka charm bangle.
And if you want to flesh out a character's backstory in a cut scene... Don't. Think about your idea again and redo it in-game.
There are so many problems with episodic games... Where to begin?
First of all, there is linearity of design. Generally, your character will acquire experience, gold, weapons, abilities, etc throughout a game. If a person jumps into the fifth month of a game, he will be at a severe disadvantage to continue if it is even possible at all. So in any game that contains character development, like the Metroid series, you will need to keep customers buying the packs in a linear fashion.
Which brings us to a position where you don't have an episodic presentation at all, you have a pay-as-you-go model combined with a content-in-patches model. People will start 8 months after the game is released and it starts to get some buzz, will play though the first available 9 hours, and will wait every month for the next level. And that, my friends, is a crappy way to experience a game. Even if you can only spare an hour a week, you will be left with nothing to play for 1/5th of the time, and a tight story experience that is spread out over two years. It would be jilted and terrible. Whatever coherent emergent experience the game may be presenting would be lost amidst the sea of time. Could you imagine watching LotR one hour at a time, spread out over 9 months?
And let's be honest, no monthly episode would ship on time. It should be in QA for the a month before it is ready for prime time. You have to create textures, unique characters, a map, a new musical track, and fresh voice recordings. You have to balance the difficulty, ensure compatibility, and test. You would have to develop the entire game before hand, and simply release it monthly. It would simply be a matter of withholding from your potential audience.
After a year, what then? If it took you two or three years to develop the first game, and you've been futzing about during the intervening year listening to player criticisms, altering gameplay balance, and adding areas, you now will have had maybe a solid 6 months to design and develop the next game. That's really not enough time, even using an existing engine. The reviewer complains that Metroid Zero is too short, and would like to see more content released monthly, but the reviewer doesn't say where this development time would come from. It's nice to say that a game is too short, but Metroid Zero isn't too short because they were waiting for the expansion pack. Game designers not "worrying about having to pad these episodes out"? These episodes would be all padding.
As for the first hour free... Has Greg Kasavin even tried demos? I know he's the executive editor for GameSpot, so he probably knows to avoid the slimeware that GameSpot's demo area tries to install on your system, but there are other sources. If you want the first hour free, go to a real demo site, like 3DGamers, and enjoy yourself.
It is true that games need to become shorter, more intense experiences... More Metal Gear Solid than Xenogears. But chopping up an otherwise perfectly fine game and making it monthly is not the answer. It may be a reasonable-sounding solution, which is why it is repeated all too often, but in reality this no-brainer really is a no-brainer.
I remember the cyber cafe half wasn't very busy. Well, the cafe did good business, but the computers seemed to sit unused. Still, YMMV.
Hey, what are you insinuating? Apple is the true innovator in this industry!
The successful US "cyber cafes" don't market themselves as "cyber cafes." There are no food served, no drinks, and the emphasis is squarely upon videogames. The Adrenaline Zone recently opened up here near Harvard, and it has been doing brisk business with LAN gaming and online gaming. You can surf the web if you want to, but unlike a traditional overseas cyber cafe, nobody does. You wouldn't even consider writing a paper at one.
The key to their success is probably that while everyone in the United States can find a hand-me-down computer that can run Windows 98 enough to surf and 9.95 per month for internet access, not everyone is willing to shell out the 100 dollars for a performance graphics card and another 50 dollars monthly for the DSL required for gaming (if it is even available in their area). You really do have to make a technology investment to play Unreal Tournament 2003, and so people turn to LAN gaming centers.
In other words, forget the food. Forget the printers. Forget selling 802.11g cards under the counter with crumpets. Buy a solid batch of Athlons with Radeon 9600 Pro cards, turn the lights down really low, and aim for the unwashed masses. You'll be glad you did.
Put your moniter on top of your tower, stuff you keyboard and mouse into your pocket, unplug the ethernet cable, unplug the power strip. Move everything to the common area in one brisk carry, using a slab of wood if necessary.
The effect is twofold. One, you are typing away in the common area where your roommate's sleep cycle is safe. Two, you get better about doing your papers in the daytime, so that you don't have to lug your machine about.
Oh, you mean the powerbook.
Once again, Apple is ahead of the curve.