It's definitely a good thing to allow judicial access to anyone with a beef. And maybe the first time this happens, you listen to them intently, give them as much leeway as necessary to make their case, and finally rule against them when it's clear they don't have a clue.
The fifth time, they should get a curt hearing, a cursory glance, and a "stop wasting my time" look. The tenth time...
He has: Sued the State of Florida to get the Florida Bar ruled unconstitutional. Repeatedly filed baseless criminal harassment charges against radio stations, cartoonists, and other public figures. Ironically, is known for threatening and harassing behavior, and has been removed from trials for such. Charged Janet Reno with placing homosexual promotional material in public schools. Sued 2-Live-Crue over obsenity in their work, lost, then followed up suing over their victory song about the first amendment. Publically offered to make a 10,000 dollar donation to charity, then withdrew the offer as "satire." Repeatedly tries to get obsenity charges against music, losing pretty much every time. Has faced disbarrment charges. Was required by the Florida bar to prove self sane. Has had repeated high-profile civil cases on behalf of bereaved parents against the entertainment industry, and hasn't won a single one.
With a list like that, the time for maximum allowable leeway has passed. Real people have real problems for the courts to solve. Wasting 100 hours of the court's time to play this game isn't going to help anybody.
(Full disclosure, I make videogames. Oh the Evil!)
Sooo... Take 2 has deep into Thursday to file an appeal. Thompson will likely retort on Friday, and a ruling made on Monday. 24 hours after this Take 2 will deliver a copy... on the release day.
As the site is currently down, does anyone know what the legal grounds are for this ruling? How can there be "more copycat violence" if the game hasn't been released in the first place?
For that matter, I'd like to demand a pre-release copy of Halo 3 to ensure that there isn't graphic violence and amazing multiplayer action.
Notice that this is also the sort of thinking that has kept MS "late and last" to the web space for so long.
You have to waste some money up front if you want to be #1. And MS badly needs to become #1 somewhere in the online space to really deliver value to their advertisers. They may have "learned their lesson" from the Xbox, but they wouldn't have been competitive in the console space without it.
What is the primary goal of the project, and the secondary?
If your goal is to put computers in the hands of people because it empowers them to explore their world, then that is your goal. If your goal is the spread of open source software, then that is your goal.
Clearly the project is dealing with issues above and beyond "do we use Windows or Linux?" Rather, they're asking "Is there an open alternative to this chipset that doesn't use 5x the power?" And the answer is simply "no." by going with the alternative, you're not talking about reducing the number of laptops from 100% to 90%, you're talking about reducing the network from everyone who has a laptop to everyone who has a laptop and is actively using it at that second. And, for that matter, reducing internet access from everyone who is within a few miles of an active connection to just those few people who have an active connection directly.
And for what, device driver politics? Device drivers? When was the last time people felt locked-in by device drivers? Old dogs don't like to learn new interfaces, but device drivers are those transparent thingies in the background that only programmers have to deal with. And programmers have to learn new tricks every few days.
Let's not fall into the old trap of saying of "I'd rather have no solution than an imperfect solution." Let's do our geeky bit to help raise Africa out of the dredges of starvation first. Then we can talk about open source device drivers.
Despite all the Microsoft apologists who will wring their hands and point out that certain things were not done in order to safety the Microsoft honeypot, the genuine service this article demonstrated is that people who turn on their new computer with its Microsoft operating system connected to the Internet are vulnerable to exploits which are automated and exist in abundance, ready to pounce upon current Microsoft operating systems.
And how do you secure the Windows installation? Why, just go online, download updates, installers, etc. Then you'll be safe to go online.
It's a good thing that the management of ICANN was turned over to an international consortium to tend the domain name system in a broadly fair and equitable... wait, what? Crap. Nevermind.
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
Strider - Game that looks hard but is actually quite easy and fun to play. You always feel like you're doing amazing things. Puzzle Pirates - Time to bilge your life. Yarr. Ikaruga - My nethack. Just play. You're dead. Ouch. Sim Golf - I don't actually like playing golf, but for some reason running a golf course is really relaxing. Ore No Ryouri - No matter how panicked things might get in real life, nothing can compare to running a japanese ramen house in a video game.
As a game developer, there is actually a staggering amount of stuff which is unreleased. It's estimated that 3 out of 4 games that are seriously developed never get released. Most of these at least make it to the demo stage, while others get canceled very, very late in the project.
A lot of this stuff simply is so rare that it's undiscovered. Or the game isn't a big name, so nobody cares. For an example of rare stuff on a shipping game, the E3 version of Eyetoy: Antigrav used colored gloves to track hand motions. By the time the game shipped, we had switched over to gloveless hand tracking. So we gave the stock of E3 gloves away as keepsakes to testers, making them ultra-rare. But while the game was well recieved, it didn't exactly set the world on fire. Thus it doesn't have that many hardcore fans, and the value of those gloves must be whatever some raver would pay to have a nifty glowing spandex accessory.
There was this little unreleased Guitar Hero gem. When we get liquidated in 20 years, someone might just find those disks for the rarest version of Guitar Hero ever. Of course, it would come on a burnt DVD, which seems to have zero collectible value to most people.
There are a lot of super rare, secret games people worked on which didn't ship. Unfortunately I can't divulge any titles, but I can say that the estimation of 3/4ths projects getting canned sounds about right. Some I've heard of include esoteric banana-bouncing simulations to unreleased kart games with major licensed characters to full on RPG set in modern times, etc. Some of these have real properties behind them that people would kill for, if they knew that a 1-level demo for the unfinished game actually existed somewhere. Capcom-developed Street Fighter 2 Hurricane, anyone?
I'm glad people collect this stuff. There is a lot more out there than you can imagine.
After the awards he was giving away kits with rubber gloves, lube, and directions. Does anyone have a scan of the directions? They went quickly, and I've had these hiccups for days...
Why is it the winners always seem to be those who control the wealth?
A global marketplace is not a true free market unless those taking place within it are free to move from one location to another as befits their part of the economy. Otherwise companies which transcend those boundaries and by extension those individuals who own and control those companies can take advantage of regional anomalies in the labor market to their advantage. For example, as has been pointed out, labor costs in China are artificially low due to the years of state-run economy and high birth rates. If those people were free to enter and compete in another economic zone, labor prices would return to equitable levels. As is, the specific economic conditions in that region of the world help depress labor prices everywhere.
If skilled Indian IT laborers were free to move to the US, rates would not be plunging nearly as quickly as they are.
My bank recently started installing Diebold ATM's.
Not only are they clearly just running Windows all the sound effects are default Windows NT 4 sound effects. Not only that, but the sound they chose for clicking a button successfully is the error prompt.
Anyone know of a good bank that doesn't have its head up its ass buying diebold equipment?
Specifications and reviews that really get into the nitty-gritty are great - that is, if you have the time to digest everything. At the end of the day, all a gamer really needs to know is what is the best video card for the money.
No time but looking for the best video card for the money? Here, let me shortcut you to 7 pages of options.
On the other hand, while things don't get adopted quickly, in computers they always get adopted eventually. Mice went from a serial port to a PS/2 port to a USB port. We had ATI then PCI then AGP and now PCI-E. Motherboard designs change with every new chip generation, as does the power supply plug that supports it.
Changing the standards on all of the installed computer userbase computers would be difficult. But if Intel decreed that the reference motherboard for the Pentium 6 took only a 12v rail, the change would be guaranteed.
I've paid for a lot of games that were "first hit free." Puzzle Pirates and Geometry Wars spring to mind, but there are many others. There is no reason why this couldn't both work out and be a really good model going forward.
If you've only got no cars and no tracks, why would you even need a disk? Just download the shell to the HDD for free, and add content as the player purchases it. I'd start them out with a bad ass (looking) lowered civic on the most killer track they've ever experienced. Take the risk out of trying a game, hook them quickly, and make them want more. Sounds like a good model to me.
Hair is actually really hard to do. Clothing too. They take a lot of processing power. Bodies have a very small number of joints. Fabric and hair are flexible anywhere, making it a lot harder to model. They're also the kind of thing you're not going to notice 99% of the time while you're playing.
I mentioned this because soft body deformations are one of the hardest things to do right in games. They also feel like they're a huge step behind the kind of leaps we've made in the visual realm. The girls in Fight Night are a perfect example. They have very realistic skinning and great visual effects thoughout the game. But the ring girls hair is floating disturbingly high off their shoulders. It's clear that in one area huge advances have been made, yet in another we're still using technology and techniques that haven't made similar progress.
Your point about the degree of physics one would want in games is quite valid. I was oversimplifying a series of thorny design issues. But the fact is that things you may want to do in games as developers you simply can't from a practical processing standpoint. Things like having liquid dynamics play a role in the game... Say you've got a gun that can absorb any kind of liquid in a game and spray it back out. And say that when Water and Plastic combine, they form a series of hard surfaces. And maybe molten lava digs straight through plastic. You could make an entire game out of the liquid dynamics of the situation. Add in maybe one or two other forms of liquid, and you'd have tons of interesting interactions. But you can't do that because realistic water with volume is too expensive to model.
Slashdot Mirror
It's definitely a good thing to allow judicial access to anyone with a beef. And maybe the first time this happens, you listen to them intently, give them as much leeway as necessary to make their case, and finally rule against them when it's clear they don't have a clue.
The fifth time, they should get a curt hearing, a cursory glance, and a "stop wasting my time" look. The tenth time...
Let's see what Thompson has had beefs with, shall we?
He has:
Sued the State of Florida to get the Florida Bar ruled unconstitutional.
Repeatedly filed baseless criminal harassment charges against radio stations, cartoonists, and other public figures.
Ironically, is known for threatening and harassing behavior, and has been removed from trials for such.
Charged Janet Reno with placing homosexual promotional material in public schools.
Sued 2-Live-Crue over obsenity in their work, lost, then followed up suing over their victory song about the first amendment.
Publically offered to make a 10,000 dollar donation to charity, then withdrew the offer as "satire."
Repeatedly tries to get obsenity charges against music, losing pretty much every time.
Has faced disbarrment charges. Was required by the Florida bar to prove self sane.
Has had repeated high-profile civil cases on behalf of bereaved parents against the entertainment industry, and hasn't won a single one.
With a list like that, the time for maximum allowable leeway has passed. Real people have real problems for the courts to solve. Wasting 100 hours of the court's time to play this game isn't going to help anybody.
(Full disclosure, I make videogames. Oh the Evil!)
Some Background
Thompson's rambling initial letter.
The Suit, from Jack's Perspective.
Ars Technica's take on what happened today.
A little bit about Jack (including favorite classics like "claims Janet Reno is a homosexual. Repeatedly." and "tries to get Florida bar ruled unconstitutional.")
Sooo... Take 2 has deep into Thursday to file an appeal. Thompson will likely retort on Friday, and a ruling made on Monday. 24 hours after this Take 2 will deliver a copy... on the release day.
As the site is currently down, does anyone know what the legal grounds are for this ruling? How can there be "more copycat violence" if the game hasn't been released in the first place?
For that matter, I'd like to demand a pre-release copy of Halo 3 to ensure that there isn't graphic violence and amazing multiplayer action.
Notice that this is also the sort of thinking that has kept MS "late and last" to the web space for so long.
You have to waste some money up front if you want to be #1. And MS badly needs to become #1 somewhere in the online space to really deliver value to their advertisers. They may have "learned their lesson" from the Xbox, but they wouldn't have been competitive in the console space without it.
It's too popular.
What is the primary goal of the project, and the secondary?
If your goal is to put computers in the hands of people because it empowers them to explore their world, then that is your goal. If your goal is the spread of open source software, then that is your goal.
Clearly the project is dealing with issues above and beyond "do we use Windows or Linux?" Rather, they're asking "Is there an open alternative to this chipset that doesn't use 5x the power?" And the answer is simply "no." by going with the alternative, you're not talking about reducing the number of laptops from 100% to 90%, you're talking about reducing the network from everyone who has a laptop to everyone who has a laptop and is actively using it at that second. And, for that matter, reducing internet access from everyone who is within a few miles of an active connection to just those few people who have an active connection directly.
And for what, device driver politics? Device drivers? When was the last time people felt locked-in by device drivers? Old dogs don't like to learn new interfaces, but device drivers are those transparent thingies in the background that only programmers have to deal with. And programmers have to learn new tricks every few days.
Let's not fall into the old trap of saying of "I'd rather have no solution than an imperfect solution." Let's do our geeky bit to help raise Africa out of the dredges of starvation first. Then we can talk about open source device drivers.
Despite all the Microsoft apologists who will wring their hands and point out that certain things were not done in order to safety the Microsoft honeypot, the genuine service this article demonstrated is that people who turn on their new computer with its Microsoft operating system connected to the Internet are vulnerable to exploits which are automated and exist in abundance, ready to pounce upon current Microsoft operating systems.
And how do you secure the Windows installation? Why, just go online, download updates, installers, etc. Then you'll be safe to go online.
The Phantom Game Service is anticipated to be the first end-to-end, on-demand game service delivering online games...
It's a bad sign when the lies start in the first sentence.
It's a good thing that the management of ICANN was turned over to an international consortium to tend the domain name system in a broadly fair and equitable... wait, what? Crap. Nevermind.
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
Strider - Game that looks hard but is actually quite easy and fun to play. You always feel like you're doing amazing things.
Puzzle Pirates - Time to bilge your life. Yarr.
Ikaruga - My nethack. Just play. You're dead. Ouch.
Sim Golf - I don't actually like playing golf, but for some reason running a golf course is really relaxing.
Ore No Ryouri - No matter how panicked things might get in real life, nothing can compare to running a japanese ramen house in a video game.
As a game developer, there is actually a staggering amount of stuff which is unreleased. It's estimated that 3 out of 4 games that are seriously developed never get released. Most of these at least make it to the demo stage, while others get canceled very, very late in the project.
A lot of this stuff simply is so rare that it's undiscovered. Or the game isn't a big name, so nobody cares. For an example of rare stuff on a shipping game, the E3 version of Eyetoy: Antigrav used colored gloves to track hand motions. By the time the game shipped, we had switched over to gloveless hand tracking. So we gave the stock of E3 gloves away as keepsakes to testers, making them ultra-rare. But while the game was well recieved, it didn't exactly set the world on fire. Thus it doesn't have that many hardcore fans, and the value of those gloves must be whatever some raver would pay to have a nifty glowing spandex accessory.
There was this little unreleased Guitar Hero gem. When we get liquidated in 20 years, someone might just find those disks for the rarest version of Guitar Hero ever. Of course, it would come on a burnt DVD, which seems to have zero collectible value to most people.
There are a lot of super rare, secret games people worked on which didn't ship. Unfortunately I can't divulge any titles, but I can say that the estimation of 3/4ths projects getting canned sounds about right. Some I've heard of include esoteric banana-bouncing simulations to unreleased kart games with major licensed characters to full on RPG set in modern times, etc. Some of these have real properties behind them that people would kill for, if they knew that a 1-level demo for the unfinished game actually existed somewhere. Capcom-developed Street Fighter 2 Hurricane, anyone?
I'm glad people collect this stuff. There is a lot more out there than you can imagine.
IGN was bought for 3.99 per monthly page impression? 3.99?
That, to me, sounds like the scam. MySpace worth 20 Billion dollars? MyAss.
After the awards he was giving away kits with rubber gloves, lube, and directions. Does anyone have a scan of the directions? They went quickly, and I've had these hiccups for days...
TruthOrLie( Statement )
Return "All Lies!"
If the pols stop talking to the media, they won't get their face in the public. If they don't get that exposure, who will vote for them?
The politicians need the media a lot more than the media needs the politicians.
Why is it the winners always seem to be those who control the wealth?
A global marketplace is not a true free market unless those taking place within it are free to move from one location to another as befits their part of the economy. Otherwise companies which transcend those boundaries and by extension those individuals who own and control those companies can take advantage of regional anomalies in the labor market to their advantage. For example, as has been pointed out, labor costs in China are artificially low due to the years of state-run economy and high birth rates. If those people were free to enter and compete in another economic zone, labor prices would return to equitable levels. As is, the specific economic conditions in that region of the world help depress labor prices everywhere.
If skilled Indian IT laborers were free to move to the US, rates would not be plunging nearly as quickly as they are.
My bank recently started installing Diebold ATM's.
Not only are they clearly just running Windows all the sound effects are default Windows NT 4 sound effects. Not only that, but the sound they chose for clicking a button successfully is the error prompt.
Anyone know of a good bank that doesn't have its head up its ass buying diebold equipment?
1. Cheaper to construct
2. Much higher in the air for better coverage
Photos? Just open emacs, and write it down. Boom, bit for bit copy of the decoded message.
Somehow I don't think this a form of DRMIM.
Specifications and reviews that really get into the nitty-gritty are great - that is, if you have the time to digest everything. At the end of the day, all a gamer really needs to know is what is the best video card for the money.
No time but looking for the best video card for the money? Here, let me shortcut you to 7 pages of options.
On the other hand, while things don't get adopted quickly, in computers they always get adopted eventually. Mice went from a serial port to a PS/2 port to a USB port. We had ATI then PCI then AGP and now PCI-E. Motherboard designs change with every new chip generation, as does the power supply plug that supports it.
Changing the standards on all of the installed computer userbase computers would be difficult. But if Intel decreed that the reference motherboard for the Pentium 6 took only a 12v rail, the change would be guaranteed.
I've paid for a lot of games that were "first hit free." Puzzle Pirates and Geometry Wars spring to mind, but there are many others. There is no reason why this couldn't both work out and be a really good model going forward.
If you've only got no cars and no tracks, why would you even need a disk? Just download the shell to the HDD for free, and add content as the player purchases it. I'd start them out with a bad ass (looking) lowered civic on the most killer track they've ever experienced. Take the risk out of trying a game, hook them quickly, and make them want more. Sounds like a good model to me.
Hair is actually really hard to do. Clothing too. They take a lot of processing power. Bodies have a very small number of joints. Fabric and hair are flexible anywhere, making it a lot harder to model. They're also the kind of thing you're not going to notice 99% of the time while you're playing.
I mentioned this because soft body deformations are one of the hardest things to do right in games. They also feel like they're a huge step behind the kind of leaps we've made in the visual realm. The girls in Fight Night are a perfect example. They have very realistic skinning and great visual effects thoughout the game. But the ring girls hair is floating disturbingly high off their shoulders. It's clear that in one area huge advances have been made, yet in another we're still using technology and techniques that haven't made similar progress.
Your point about the degree of physics one would want in games is quite valid. I was oversimplifying a series of thorny design issues. But the fact is that things you may want to do in games as developers you simply can't from a practical processing standpoint. Things like having liquid dynamics play a role in the game... Say you've got a gun that can absorb any kind of liquid in a game and spray it back out. And say that when Water and Plastic combine, they form a series of hard surfaces. And maybe molten lava digs straight through plastic. You could make an entire game out of the liquid dynamics of the situation. Add in maybe one or two other forms of liquid, and you'd have tons of interesting interactions. But you can't do that because realistic water with volume is too expensive to model.
A poorly informed opinion based on a soundbite is worse than no opinion at all.
That's my opinion.
. . . and a wonderful sound bite.
"Seriously the house of representatives is full of insane jackasses"
And this is why we trust John Stewart.