we just started with another game of Stars! by PBEM.
It's a game from 1997 (at least the copy i have is)
and still a lot of people are playing it. It has a
lot of strategic depth and requires a lot of planning. If you're interested, you may find the
Strategy Guide there. I think there must be a FAQ around and there is a freeware trial version out.
i live in a house where we had six cases of arson in two years. This stopped after i installed webcams in
the central lobby and at the backdoor.
I have a 50 line Perl-Script to archive those images
for 24 hours and delete them afterwards. In cases
something happened, i convert one hour of images
(~7.000) to a short movie using OpenSource-tools.
I informed and got an endorsement from every
appartment owner in the house and posted a note
to the doors.
Since then: nothing ever again happened.
Downside: Some neighbours asking me for images to
proof another neighbours did this or that (usually
putting a bike in front of a door).
The Globe and Mail is running an interesting story over who should carry the cost of wiretapping
In the end, the consumer will always pay for being tapped. Some way or another....
I would prefer to have the costs explicitly listed on the bill. In that case consumers would see what
enormous costs the tapping is causing and how little (compared to the costs) results we're getting.
Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals
Allow me to laugh. We're not talking about 25 cents. Perhaps this are the costs the police needs to do the actual tapping. Currently providing the
capability of tapping makes up 15% of your telco
bill. Perhaps it is less for large telcos but for
the averade city carrier (in germany) this figure is correct.
These costs will drive the concentration process
in the telco and ISP business. New regulation in germany require ISPs to have email tapping equipment ready for use which must comply certain
standards. Those costs 100.000+ $.
DPA: As professor Fallsonhisface of the chair for human mechanics anounced today, he delivered another breakthrough in robotics. By using a new technology dubbed "artifical clumsiness" he created a robot that appears more humanlike than every other machine today. He stated that "... Most people are scared to death by machines acting perfectly. They will only accept a robot in their daily life if those manage to make mistakes. People want to feel supperior."
He was confident that the first prototype would convince the public once it has been reassembled again.
Surely the simplest solution would be to ensure that the entrance 'gate' is simply obstructed from any distant line of fire?
Sounds simple, may be difficult. This may require a major reconstruction of the site. As the involved buildings are 130 years old and the area public (really public, not as "Times Square" but not far away either), this ain't easy and the costs would be even worse.
Security is never easy. And sometimes there isn't even one as high as you would like. In that cases you have to take the risk.
this will stop as soon as terrorist use RFID sensors to "trigger personalised" bombs.
A few months ago i was consultant for a goverment
agency. They were plannng to install RFID chips into
the cars of VIPs to save them from stopping at the parkhouse entrance of that agency. The goal was to avoid stops and deny snipers a shot. We were able to convince them that this was "not a good idea" ®SMALL>TM.
i'm always wondering when people complain about a free service shutting down. If i ain't paying, i
cannot expect anything in return: neither a
continuation nor a message on the impending shutdown.
I agree a short notice would've been nice, but there
is no obligation.
What do we get out of executing a murderer? Deterrence. A high-end estimate is that each execution deters about 10 murders. (The highest estimate I've ever seen is 24 murders deterred per execution, but the closest thing to a consensus estimate in the econometric literature is about eight.)
I hate to see such rubbish published, even if the article is half joking. You may get deterrence but you also get brutalization. Personally i doubt there will be a positive (lives saved) balance.
Crime figures of countries with and without
capital punishment leave some doubts concerning this. But the point is not about capital punishment.
Why do we have courts and just don't hang'em high?
Because "Deterrence" is only a secondary goal of serving justice. The primary goal ist restoration of judicial peace. If we forget this, we may also
toss the idea of the rule of law outside out of the window. Punishment may be one measure to achieve it. All those strange procedures during prosecution and at court are to
ensure that in the end, even if the ruling is faulty, we have a state of judical peace.
This notion may seem strange, but you always have to be aware, that there can never be a "perfect justice".
Innovation is more than adding chips to your ink cartridges to make them less prune to copying. If the innovation does not carry any benefit for the user, the copiers take the field. R&D has often degraded
much towards a buzz word generator for the marketing generator.
If you take a look at the car industry: Innovations
are nowadays the optimizations of the sound the doors and hood make. They recently started optimizing the sound of cookies (no joke). Well if
this is innovation, i take the copy.
Crunching more numbers, Castronova found that the average player was generating 319 platinum pieces each hour he or she was in the game -- the equivalent of $3.42 (U.S.) per hour. "That's higher than the minimum wage in most countries," he marvelled.
This marvel leads to a big problem:
People start living on virtual income.
They optimize their behaviour towards income, not fun.
They disrupt the experience of the "normal" user.
I started playing Lineage II lately. There are
complete areas inhabited only by Bots and Farmers.
Bots are Programs which gather gold (scripted characters with hacked clients). Farmers are users which make a living from the virtual income. Both sell their gold/items through auctions and other eCommerce
to (some) users. All three clases are not highly regarded by other players.
Regards, Martin
P.S. Please do not missunderstand me: If i had no income and could earn some living by playing a MMORPG, i would probably do it too. The
problem is a direct consequence of the social
gradient. I have no real solution for this...
Banning the sales in the real world is only a measure of
limited use.
Sun is also satisfied that the agreements announced today satisfy the objectives it was pursuing in the EU actions pending against Microsoft.
As Sun was the major complaining competitor in the EU case, this gives M$ a lot of fire support when
trying to challenge the record fine. Another indication is the timing: shortly after the EU announced the fine.
Regards, Martin
Re:Neither right nor wrong: just necessary
on
The Wrong Stuff
·
· Score: 1
Burning huge volumes of fossil fuel to hurl things into space hastens it's destruction
Correct, but you overlook that there are more challenges than the human impact on the ecology. If we would be safe from external influence, you would be 100% correct.
But a lot of issues are out of our control. If an asteroid threatens to drop on our heads, no "low energy paradigm" is gonna stop it.
No rock hurtling through space poses such a serious or certain danger to the human race than our current out-of-control capitalist economy.
I think some now-extinct races would doubt your judgement if they still could. In serious: an asteroid can do more damage than a nuclear war.
Even though i'm no fan of our capitalist economy,
i doubt it will go as far.
Regards, Martin
Neither right nor wrong: just necessary
on
The Wrong Stuff
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hi,
I think space exploration is a necessity and not a commodity. The complete ecological system is so
fragile and many parameters (asteroids, energy output of the sun) are out of human control that it would be negligent not to secure the prolonged human existence by going into space.
You may argue, that if the human race destroys their homeplanet, the fate would be deserved. But i believe, that you can only learn from a lesson you (as individual or race) survive.
i think a much overlooked fact is, that Spam is moving towards organised crime. Currently we have
several trends working that way:
People who are sending Spam are getting stigmatised. They become or already are people at the border of the civic community. Those people are feeling less bound by written or unwritten laws.
More and more countries are adopting legal measures against Spam. If it isn't illegal already, it will be soon.
Spam advertises less and less real products or services (excluding cybersex). If you should ever try to order the Viagra through one of those offers, you're in for a surprise (and a hefty credit card invoice).
The margins on Spam are high, if you have the nerves to do it. Compare this to drugs...
The criminal energy used to distribute Spam is increasing. Already several Viruses/Worms have been written and distributed (probably) by the Spam community.
A lot of Spam advertises comercial sex, an area where organised crime is strong already.
I think a lot of people look at Spam as a kind of nuisance. It is more. If the observed trends continue, we'll find Spam sent by those same friendly guys who offer the heroin to your kids. No joke or rethoric intended, i'm plain serious on that one. Take a look at Sobig, the backdoors it opened and what kind of Spam and how fast you got it.
i can still remember those days when you needed to
be at least 70 if not 80 to whine about those good
old days. Nowadays every kid in elementary school
does it. Tempora mutantur....
Seriously: What do you expect. Video games were cool and new by then. Now everyone has a PS2 at home and a gameboy in his bags.
Regards, Martin
P.S. I think it was a fortune cookie (back in those
good old golden days of limited bandwidth): Man invented speech to satisfy his deep need to complain.
What I'd really like to see is for the lightsabre fights to employ traditional swordsmanship techniques.
Good swordmanship usually doesn't make good movies. If two skilled swordsman meet, usually the first stroke ends the fight.
Unless you have a lot of supply concerning fighters, there won't be much of a scene. Perhaps you could use slow motion and spinning cameras to make it appear longer;-).
Of course i do. If there would have been no nethack
on our brand new SparcStation 1, i could have finished my diploma thesis months earlier. Unluckily
they refused to include "and retrieved the amulett of yendor" in my academic credentials. In 1991 the amulett was much easier (gameplay) to retrieve. On the other side we had no root access to the system and if you died, the game was really over. Nowadays everyone plays it on his PC and can make backups. Tempora mutantor....
Except for the part where they agree to replace the system.
I've informed the programmer and he's working hard to fix this horrendous bug. Thanks for spotting this one. Please do not hesitate to give us your feedback.
There is a new next generation all purpose call center (currently beta) working here.
Support: Hello. I am XXXXX. How can I help you? Customer: I have a problem with my notebook. Support: Why do you say your notebook? Customer: Because i bought it from you. Support: Do any other reasons not come to mind? Customer: No Support: You are being a bit negative. Customer: The notebook isn't working. Support: Please go on. Customer: Suddenly yesterday it stopped working. Support: Please go on. Customer: What shell i do now? Support: Does that question interest you? Customer: Yes! Support: You are sure? Customer: Very sure Support: Please go on. Customer: Will you replace the system? Support: Oh, i replace the system.
Slashdot Mirror
we just started with another game of Stars! by PBEM. It's a game from 1997 (at least the copy i have is) and still a lot of people are playing it. It has a lot of strategic depth and requires a lot of planning. If you're interested, you may find the Strategy Guide there. I think there must be a FAQ around and there is a freeware trial version out.
Regards, Martin
i live in a house where we had six cases of arson in two years. This stopped after i installed webcams in the central lobby and at the backdoor.
I have a 50 line Perl-Script to archive those images for 24 hours and delete them afterwards. In cases something happened, i convert one hour of images (~7.000) to a short movie using OpenSource-tools.
I informed and got an endorsement from every appartment owner in the house and posted a note to the doors.
Since then: nothing ever again happened.
Downside: Some neighbours asking me for images to proof another neighbours did this or that (usually putting a bike in front of a door).
Regards, Martin
In the end, the consumer will always pay for being tapped. Some way or another....
I would prefer to have the costs explicitly listed on the bill. In that case consumers would see what enormous costs the tapping is causing and how little (compared to the costs) results we're getting.
Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals
Allow me to laugh. We're not talking about 25 cents. Perhaps this are the costs the police needs to do the actual tapping. Currently providing the capability of tapping makes up 15% of your telco bill. Perhaps it is less for large telcos but for the averade city carrier (in germany) this figure is correct.
These costs will drive the concentration process in the telco and ISP business. New regulation in germany require ISPs to have email tapping equipment ready for use which must comply certain standards. Those costs 100.000+ $.
Regards, Martin
Not again, thanks! I already found it here.
Regards, Martin
Can't tell where it was, but the speed was 150 mph ;-).
Regards, Martin
He was confident that the first prototype would convince the public once it has been reassembled again.
Regards, Martin
Sounds simple, may be difficult. This may require a major reconstruction of the site. As the involved buildings are 130 years old and the area public (really public, not as "Times Square" but not far away either), this ain't easy and the costs would be even worse.
Security is never easy. And sometimes there isn't even one as high as you would like. In that cases you have to take the risk.
Regards, Martin
this will stop as soon as terrorist use RFID sensors to "trigger personalised" bombs.
A few months ago i was consultant for a goverment agency. They were plannng to install RFID chips into the cars of VIPs to save them from stopping at the parkhouse entrance of that agency. The goal was to avoid stops and deny snipers a shot. We were able to convince them that this was "not a good idea" ®SMALL>TM.
Regards, Martin
i'm always wondering when people complain about a free service shutting down. If i ain't paying, i cannot expect anything in return: neither a continuation nor a message on the impending shutdown. I agree a short notice would've been nice, but there is no obligation.
Regards, Martin
I hate to see such rubbish published, even if the article is half joking. You may get deterrence but you also get brutalization. Personally i doubt there will be a positive (lives saved) balance. Crime figures of countries with and without capital punishment leave some doubts concerning this. But the point is not about capital punishment.
Why do we have courts and just don't hang'em high? Because "Deterrence" is only a secondary goal of serving justice. The primary goal ist restoration of judicial peace. If we forget this, we may also toss the idea of the rule of law outside out of the window. Punishment may be one measure to achieve it. All those strange procedures during prosecution and at court are to ensure that in the end, even if the ruling is faulty, we have a state of judical peace.
This notion may seem strange, but you always have to be aware, that there can never be a "perfect justice".
Regards, Martin
Innovation is more than adding chips to your ink cartridges to make them less prune to copying. If the innovation does not carry any benefit for the user, the copiers take the field. R&D has often degraded much towards a buzz word generator for the marketing generator.
If you take a look at the car industry: Innovations are nowadays the optimizations of the sound the doors and hood make. They recently started optimizing the sound of cookies (no joke). Well if this is innovation, i take the copy.
Regards, Martin
This marvel leads to a big problem:
I started playing Lineage II lately. There are complete areas inhabited only by Bots and Farmers. Bots are Programs which gather gold (scripted characters with hacked clients). Farmers are users which make a living from the virtual income. Both sell their gold/items through auctions and other eCommerce to (some) users. All three clases are not highly regarded by other players.
Regards, Martin
P.S. Please do not missunderstand me: If i had no income and could earn some living by playing a MMORPG, i would probably do it too. The problem is a direct consequence of the social gradient. I have no real solution for this... Banning the sales in the real world is only a measure of limited use.
i guess it must be difficult read a blog which starts word to read any entry.
Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)
Martin
i believe the most interesting line is:
Sun is also satisfied that the agreements announced today satisfy the objectives it was pursuing in the EU actions pending against Microsoft.
As Sun was the major complaining competitor in the EU case, this gives M$ a lot of fire support when trying to challenge the record fine. Another indication is the timing: shortly after the EU announced the fine.
Regards, Martin
Correct, but you overlook that there are more challenges than the human impact on the ecology. If we would be safe from external influence, you would be 100% correct.
But a lot of issues are out of our control. If an asteroid threatens to drop on our heads, no "low energy paradigm" is gonna stop it.
No rock hurtling through space poses such a serious or certain danger to the human race than our current out-of-control capitalist economy.
I think some now-extinct races would doubt your judgement if they still could. In serious: an asteroid can do more damage than a nuclear war. Even though i'm no fan of our capitalist economy, i doubt it will go as far.
Regards, Martin
I think space exploration is a necessity and not a commodity. The complete ecological system is so fragile and many parameters (asteroids, energy output of the sun) are out of human control that it would be negligent not to secure the prolonged human existence by going into space.
You may argue, that if the human race destroys their homeplanet, the fate would be deserved. But i believe, that you can only learn from a lesson you (as individual or race) survive.
Regards, Martin
Regards, Martin
i think a much overlooked fact is, that Spam is moving towards organised crime. Currently we have several trends working that way:
I think a lot of people look at Spam as a kind of nuisance. It is more. If the observed trends continue, we'll find Spam sent by those same friendly guys who offer the heroin to your kids. No joke or rethoric intended, i'm plain serious on that one. Take a look at Sobig, the backdoors it opened and what kind of Spam and how fast you got it.
Regards, Martin
i can still remember those days when you needed to be at least 70 if not 80 to whine about those good old days. Nowadays every kid in elementary school does it. Tempora mutantur....
Seriously: What do you expect. Video games were cool and new by then. Now everyone has a PS2 at home and a gameboy in his bags.
Regards, Martin
P.S. I think it was a fortune cookie (back in those good old golden days of limited bandwidth): Man invented speech to satisfy his deep need to complain.
Following that link makes my IDS nervous:
Time, Event, Intruder, Count, Destination Port, Intruder IP
04.02.2004 09:04:32, HTTP_Favorites_Icon_Overflow, ip-66-235-245-150.sterlingnetwork.net, 1, 1160, 66.235.245.150
Looks like slashdotting them may backfire ;-).
Regards, Martin
Good swordmanship usually doesn't make good movies. If two skilled swordsman meet, usually the first stroke ends the fight.
Unless you have a lot of supply concerning fighters, there won't be much of a scene. Perhaps you could use slow motion and spinning cameras to make it appear longer ;-).
Regards, Martin
We all remember our first time...
Of course i do. If there would have been no nethack on our brand new SparcStation 1, i could have finished my diploma thesis months earlier. Unluckily they refused to include "and retrieved the amulett of yendor" in my academic credentials. In 1991 the amulett was much easier (gameplay) to retrieve. On the other side we had no root access to the system and if you died, the game was really over. Nowadays everyone plays it on his PC and can make backups. Tempora mutantor....
Regards, Martin
How do they say?
Difficult things become impossible if we don't try them.
So they tried ;-).
Regards, Martin
Except for the part where they agree to replace the system.
I've informed the programmer and he's working hard to fix this horrendous bug. Thanks for spotting this one. Please do not hesitate to give us your feedback.
Regards, Martin
There is a new next generation all purpose call center (currently beta) working here.
Support: Hello. I am XXXXX. How can I help you?
Customer: I have a problem with my notebook.
Support: Why do you say your notebook?
Customer: Because i bought it from you.
Support: Do any other reasons not come to mind?
Customer: No
Support: You are being a bit negative.
Customer: The notebook isn't working.
Support: Please go on.
Customer: Suddenly yesterday it stopped working.
Support: Please go on.
Customer: What shell i do now?
Support: Does that question interest you?
Customer: Yes!
Support: You are sure?
Customer: Very sure
Support: Please go on.
Customer: Will you replace the system?
Support: Oh, i replace the system.
Sounds like a typical hotline to me....
Regards, Martin