Some info direct from the spec that might alleviate some of the paranoia:
So, to use www.example.com as their Identifier, but have Consumers actually verify http://exampleuser.livejournal.com/ with the Identity Provider located at http://www.livejournal.com/openid/server.bml, they'd add the following tags to the HEAD section of the HTML document returned when fetching their Identifier URL.
Now, when a Consumer sees that, it'll talk to http://www.livejournal.com/openid/server.bml and ask if the End User is exampleuser.livejournal.com, never mentioning www.example.com anywhere on the wire.
It's therefore very easy to have different identifying servers, with different IDs, and they don't have to know about each other. All an OpenID authentication does is confirm you "own" the URL you provide - it can be any URL you own, and it can be any server that knows you own it.
Further:
How the End User authenticates to their Identity Provider is outside of the scope of OpenID Authenticaiton.
Certificates, a finger-print scanner hooked up to a web-accessible machine on your local network, whatever. Doesn't matter. This is a much wider scope, and much more flexible system than a centralised username/password system like passport.
The article seems to have very little to do with the title,
From the summary: "Don't let the title fool you; the essay is a good background on patents."
He also never mentioned what the actual patent was about did he?
Seeabove, and from TOA: "the clear intent of the press release...was really all about the patent attorney,"
But, for the sake of reference, one more click gives you: "Patent that covers the downloading of music and video with the ability to play music and video on a device."
Depends who initiates the revolution - given the increasing number of people joining the legal proffesion, and the consistent bad press they get, some might just sanp and go 'legal'...
I think this going to be key - how much do you truly "own" anything in a MMOG? If the parent is correct in saying these items remains at all times the property of the games companies then there is surely no issue - you have no assets in the game world.
If your neighbour lent you his lawmower, and you sold it, do you get taxed on the sale or prosecuted for theft? And while it isn't technically "theft" since the game company still has full access to said item, you're still recieving money for something you don't own, and isn't therefore an asset.
IANAL, but I really can't see how this could work, ever.
Aye - and again, the presumption of innocence is gone. We don't own a TV (I have 6 computers in one-bedroom flat, I don't have/room/ for a TV), and we've been getting the reminder letters (which are automated and/cannot/ be stopped, despite what they) for a while now.
They've recently stepped up in aggressiveness. Direct quote, for example: "After repeated reminders, you still have not purchased a TV License." Right at the top, on a big block of red: "This address has been passed to our enforcement officers." The whole letter is in this tone, and I can see a lot of people being actually quite afraid and buying a license even if they don't a TV.
I actually have no issues with having to own a license if you have TV - it's a large part of the funding for the BBC and having channels that doesn't interrupt the programme your watching every ten minutes with a five-minute ad-break is worth every penny. Not to mention the freedom from pandering to commercial companies means they can be a lot more experimental with their schedule. I/do/ have a big issue with the aggressive tactics with which they are pursuing non-payment.
To drag this already overlong post back to a semblance of on-topicness (yes, I know that's not a word), I see the same sentiments applying to the movie companies. I don't mind paying for a good quality, ad-free product. I/do/ take issue with the media overlords tactics in squeezing every last penny out anyone who as much as glances at the DVD on the shelf.
Indeed. I was quite happy to accept this as real until I read the comments.
Actually, I'm gonna go further. I would, if I were a gambling man, bet that there is at least one exec in the MPAA/right now/ shouting at the screen in his little office, "Damn it they stole my idea! They're hacking my computer!":P
A large proportion of games are also released on consoles - so many companies are creating their games to be ported between systems. If done well, adding another system is not that difficult - I've done it myself for small projects in a couple of days.
Also, as was stated above, middleware is becoming increasingly usable and widespread. A middleware developer has much better reason and better return on investment when providing a highly portable product. Because their work is not restricted to one or two games, that 2% of sales is multiplied several times over - still only 2% of the total, but it's a much bigger value in absolute terms. Secondaly, the more companies that can use their middleware, the more licenses they sell.
I'm a dedicated game player and coder and it really bugs me that my LAN box needs to stay on Windows while everything else in the house runs linux. I was very pleased to see big name games like NWN and UT2k4 support linux, and at least HL2 recognises linux dominates the server market. I can only hope as middleware becomes even more prevelant that this effect will spread.
Yup - several times in that articles in fact. The Mozilla license, the second BSD-license, the Apache license and the Eclipse license are all recommended or commended for various reasons.
It appears GPLv3 is trying to pull the best bits from other licenses into as generally applicable license as possible, rather than being specific to one software program. I doubt anyone will ever agree on how well it succeeds, but it's a good idea to try, I feel.
I took a quick look around the many bits of paper scattered about my desk, most of which I looked at once and then chucked aside, and thought how useful this would be - until I noticed how many had been stapled together. Sure, you/can/ use paper clips, but my boss doesn't, and I can see a lot of people forgetting.
It never ceases to amaze me when people are so incredibly short-sighted. Given that Peter Jackson created a trilogy that was/hugely/ successful, and that the vast majority of people associate his name with the films rather than New Line (I could not have told you the film company associated with LotR [or any film, for that matter] had you asked), what makes more sense:
1) "Let's try and screw him for his royalties, but in the process piss him off so he'll never work for us again."
or
2) "Let's be really nice to him so he'll keep making these financially successful films for us."
How far up your arse does head need to be for 1) to see like the best option?
If you RTA, you'll find that they know because the Trojan itself logs which machines it's infecting, presumably because the people behind it like to know what's working and what isn't. Therefore this data is coming straight from the (trojan) horse's mouth...*badum bish*
Create a piece of malware that installs a modified version of a free anti-malware program? Something runs invisibly in the background, auto updates (with out informing the user) etc etc etc.
If it's something trivial, it can be coded around.
If it's something fundamental to Linux, then it will have come from UNIX and older OS's, and any MS patent for it has a wealth of prior art to invalidate the patent.
Yeah, my bad - I didn't mean to imply it was an explosive, though looking back I can see why it would give that impression. I only meant, as the grandchild states, there was an amount of the chemical mixture known as thermite poised above said electronic storage device, and ready, should that dark day dawn, to devour data with its elemental fury. But "thermite charge" is quicker to type...:P
MSR actually references swords like this (though he places their origins much earlier - have others been found?), and briefly describes the debate over their origin in his appendix. Though the books are a decade or so old now, so I imagine his information is probably somewhat out of date.
Not as funny as you might think - I remember a very long discussion on the FreeNet mailing lists on the best of quickly erasing your hard drive if the secret (or not so secret) police come storming in the door.
The final answer was indeed a thermite charge, which was the best for both completeness and speed.
Note that you the charge should take the RAM with it - if whoever it is comes prepared, the chips will apparently keep their data quite well without power in liquid nitrogen...
"Microsoft was dealing here with a group of companies that simply don't trust the hardware [industry]," Rosoff said. "They wanted more control and more security than they had in the past" -- and if Microsoft failed to accommodate them, "they were prepared to walk away from Vista" by withholding support for next-generation DVD formats and other high-value content.
The companies were prepared to walk away from Vista? Really? All MS had to do was have a message box pop up saying:
"Vista is unable to play this disc because the company that made it was afraid you would illegally copy it."
A few of those messages to the millions that will form the userbase and even the proles would be storming the RIAA offices...
I'm not quite sure how I square the levels of geek present in most of my life (I/enjoy/ programming in Perl, and still play M:tG, for example), with the fact my own cinematic experiences of Star Wars were at the behest of my g/f of the time for EpII, and my wife (who is a SW fan) for EpIII.
I enjoyed IV-VI originals, but they never really appealed to any great degree.
Though of course I do have to admit that light sabers are an amazingly cool idea, and I want one:D
Whether piracy is wrong or not isn't the point
on
Piracy Stats Don't Add Up
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
At least, not in the limited context of this article. Sure, in the wider scope of the whole debate - whether the RIAA should be fighting this war on piracy or not - demands at least some consideration of where along the moral line downloading copyrighted materials lies.
In reference to this specific article, however, the salient points would appear to be:
1) The RIAA are using deceit and subterfuge as weapons. 2) A body that has influence on policy decisions noticed.
This naturally hurts the RIAA, but to what degree, and for how long, remains to be seen, and might be a more fruitful use of the/. hivemind.
Everybody seems very accepting of this situation...two questions spring to my mind:
1) How should a consumer obtain a worthwhile review with no prior knowledge of a site's quality?
2) Is there any way of organising the review system to not enourgage this behaviour? Consumer Review's policy sounds great, but expensive - how would you fund that sort of publication outside of advertising or selling real-world copies of the mag?
Navigation in 3D isn't necessarily awkward - skilled and acrobatic use, ala many FPS's does take a lot of time, but basic moving and turning can be picked up very quickly.
In many ways, a 3D interface is/more/ intuitive - if browsing the web was like walking through a room with objects to pick up, anyone over about a year old would be comfortable with the procedure. It is, however, amazingly/slow/ compared to what we have now.
With good knowledge of a command line, I can do a lot of file manipulation much, much faster than a gui representation. With a couple of hours practice, people can browse the net a lot faster than they can walk around a room.
Greater simplicity must require a loss of control and speed, in the same way something heavier requires more energy or time to lift. It's a fundamental rule (Yes, there are better and worse interfaces, like there are better and worse techniques to lifting - there is still a minimum point at which something else must give). I have no issues with a 3D representation of our computer use, and in some places it would be easier (because of the better interface principle). As long as I can still use 2D or command-line (1D kinda) interfaces when I choose.
As a general rule, I see the 3D view as a learning-aid, rather than an actual efficiency aid.
"Interactive Fiction" implies that you become, to some degree, the author of the fiction.
Chris Crawford on his site defines interaction as a conversation - each party in the conversation rotates through three stages: listening to another, processing the information and formulating a reply, and then conveying that reply back.
Currently, computer games are appalling at listening to the player, and pretty mediocre at forumlating a reply. "Facade" (http://www.interactivestory.net/) is an excellent example of how that is improving, and it's also a subject I'm reasearching and investigating myself.
The goal of interactive fiction is effectively turn story-writing into a conversation, with the tools providing some of the information (world, background, etc.) and the "player" providing events and emotions. At the end you have a static piece of fiction, a story. It is the process of generating the fiction that becomes interactive. Naturally, however, the "player" experiences the story as it is constructed, so the reading and creating happen similtaneously, which makes it less obvious the end result is still a "static" piece of fiction.
Our brains do it naturally in many ways. I designed a simple combat system suitable for MUDs and their ilk, using text-based descriptions entirely, rather than numbers, and strategic mechanic that rewarded careful choice. My beta-testers regularly sent me messages with stories of battles they'd had:
"The beserker lunged at me, and I parried, but the blow left me greatly unbalanced. He attacked again but I rolled out of the way. I risked pausing to catch my breath, and luckily he expected an attack and wasted the chance blocking. I feinted, but he knocked my sword aside so powerfully I staggered back. He took the chance to slash at me but I managed to dodge out of the way. I attacked, and he was so tired by this point he fumbled his parry, and I managed to run him through."
From a simple web-page based combat game their brains constructed this whole battle. My software provided the setting and antagonist, they provided the character and emotions.
It's just a case of making sure your game encourages that part of the brain, rather than insisting on talking to the rational, logical, numerical sections.
Just looking at the total percentages across all the sites makes interesting reading - it suggests the the 35-45 crowd are actually the biggest users of social sites - the percentage is highest for them on all sites apart from facebook, and that's only half a percent behind.
Why have these sites acquired such a reputation then as teen-havens? Is it simply they're the most vocal or aggressive socialites? Or the numbers "Just Plain Wrong"(tm)?
To prevent certain inferences being drawn about the Netflix customer base, some of the rating data for some customers in the training and qualifying sets have been deliberately perturbed in one or more of the following ways: deleting ratings; inserting alternative ratings and dates; and modifying rating dates.
Plus all the usual replacing of IDs and such you'd expect. Looks like they're trying to avoid a repeat of the AOL debacle at least.
This is a bit like "this only affects criminals/terrorists/paedophiles."
The usual rejoinder for which is, who defines criminality or terrorist behaviour? What stops that from becoming broader? Considering some of the behaviour currently being flagged as suspicious by over-enthusiastic law-enforcement, not much, apparently.
Ditto copyright. DRM has already given much greater control over "copyrighted" material than copyright ever did, and the lobbying doesn't appear to be slowing down. How long before it becomes illegal to read anything without paying per word? It's nice to know there will be some countries where it won't be illegal to use your computer, or acquire information for yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
It's therefore very easy to have different identifying servers, with different IDs, and they don't have to know about each other. All an OpenID authentication does is confirm you "own" the URL you provide - it can be any URL you own, and it can be any server that knows you own it.
Further:
Certificates, a finger-print scanner hooked up to a web-accessible machine on your local network, whatever. Doesn't matter. This is a much wider scope, and much more flexible system than a centralised username/password system like passport.
From the summary: "Don't let the title fool you; the essay is a good background on patents."
Seeabove, and from TOA: "the clear intent of the press release...was really all about the patent attorney,"
But, for the sake of reference, one more click gives you:
"Patent that covers the downloading of music and video with the ability to play music and video on a device."
Depends who initiates the revolution - given the increasing number of people joining the legal proffesion, and the consistent bad press they get, some might just sanp and go 'legal'...
I think this going to be key - how much do you truly "own" anything in a MMOG? If the parent is correct in saying these items remains at all times the property of the games companies then there is surely no issue - you have no assets in the game world.
If your neighbour lent you his lawmower, and you sold it, do you get taxed on the sale or prosecuted for theft? And while it isn't technically "theft" since the game company still has full access to said item, you're still recieving money for something you don't own, and isn't therefore an asset.
IANAL, but I really can't see how this could work, ever.
Aye - and again, the presumption of innocence is gone. We don't own a TV (I have 6 computers in one-bedroom flat, I don't have /room/ for a TV), and we've been getting the reminder letters (which are automated and /cannot/ be stopped, despite what they) for a while now.
/do/ have a big issue with the aggressive tactics with which they are pursuing non-payment.
/do/ take issue with the media overlords tactics in squeezing every last penny out anyone who as much as glances at the DVD on the shelf.
They've recently stepped up in aggressiveness. Direct quote, for example: "After repeated reminders, you still have not purchased a TV License." Right at the top, on a big block of red: "This address has been passed to our enforcement officers." The whole letter is in this tone, and I can see a lot of people being actually quite afraid and buying a license even if they don't a TV.
I actually have no issues with having to own a license if you have TV - it's a large part of the funding for the BBC and having channels that doesn't interrupt the programme your watching every ten minutes with a five-minute ad-break is worth every penny. Not to mention the freedom from pandering to commercial companies means they can be a lot more experimental with their schedule. I
To drag this already overlong post back to a semblance of on-topicness (yes, I know that's not a word), I see the same sentiments applying to the movie companies. I don't mind paying for a good quality, ad-free product. I
Damn, I just gave them another idea, didn't I?
Indeed. I was quite happy to accept this as real until I read the comments.
/right now/ shouting at the screen in his little office, "Damn it they stole my idea! They're hacking my computer!" :P
Actually, I'm gonna go further. I would, if I were a gambling man, bet that there is at least one exec in the MPAA
A large proportion of games are also released on consoles - so many companies are creating their games to be ported between systems. If done well, adding another system is not that difficult - I've done it myself for small projects in a couple of days.
Also, as was stated above, middleware is becoming increasingly usable and widespread. A middleware developer has much better reason and better return on investment when providing a highly portable product. Because their work is not restricted to one or two games, that 2% of sales is multiplied several times over - still only 2% of the total, but it's a much bigger value in absolute terms. Secondaly, the more companies that can use their middleware, the more licenses they sell.
I'm a dedicated game player and coder and it really bugs me that my LAN box needs to stay on Windows while everything else in the house runs linux. I was very pleased to see big name games like NWN and UT2k4 support linux, and at least HL2 recognises linux dominates the server market. I can only hope as middleware becomes even more prevelant that this effect will spread.
Yup - several times in that articles in fact. The Mozilla license, the second BSD-license, the Apache license and the Eclipse license are all recommended or commended for various reasons.
It appears GPLv3 is trying to pull the best bits from other licenses into as generally applicable license as possible, rather than being specific to one software program. I doubt anyone will ever agree on how well it succeeds, but it's a good idea to try, I feel.
Staples
/can/ use paper clips, but my boss doesn't, and I can see a lot of people forgetting.
I took a quick look around the many bits of paper scattered about my desk, most of which I looked at once and then chucked aside, and thought how useful this would be - until I noticed how many had been stapled together. Sure, you
It never ceases to amaze me when people are so incredibly short-sighted. Given that Peter Jackson created a trilogy that was /hugely/ successful, and that the vast majority of people associate his name with the films rather than New Line (I could not have told you the film company associated with LotR [or any film, for that matter] had you asked), what makes more sense:
1) "Let's try and screw him for his royalties, but in the process piss him off so he'll never work for us again."
or
2) "Let's be really nice to him so he'll keep making these financially successful films for us."
How far up your arse does head need to be for 1) to see like the best option?
If you RTA, you'll find that they know because the Trojan itself logs which machines it's infecting, presumably because the people behind it like to know what's working and what isn't. Therefore this data is coming straight from the (trojan) horse's mouth...*badum bish*
Dude, it's been tried. It's called Windows...
If it's something trivial, it can be coded around.
If it's something fundamental to Linux, then it will have come from UNIX and older OS's, and any MS patent for it has a wealth of prior art to invalidate the patent.
Either way, I can't this as in issue.
Yeah, my bad - I didn't mean to imply it was an explosive, though looking back I can see why it would give that impression. :P
I only meant, as the grandchild states, there was an amount of the chemical mixture known as thermite poised above said electronic storage device, and ready, should that dark day dawn, to devour data with its elemental fury. But "thermite charge" is quicker to type...
Of course, if you've read the superb http://www.amazon.com/Anvil-Ice-Winter-World-Vol/d p/0380705478/sr=8-1/qid=1163761416/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1 /102-3141794-1726542?ie=UTF8&s=booksWinter of the World series by Michael Scott Rohan, then you'll know techniques like these were lost as the magesmiths' power faded :P
MSR actually references swords like this (though he places their origins much earlier - have others been found?), and briefly describes the debate over their origin in his appendix. Though the books are a decade or so old now, so I imagine his information is probably somewhat out of date.
Not as funny as you might think - I remember a very long discussion on the FreeNet mailing lists on the best of quickly erasing your hard drive if the secret (or not so secret) police come storming in the door.
The final answer was indeed a thermite charge, which was the best for both completeness and speed.
Note that you the charge should take the RAM with it - if whoever it is comes prepared, the chips will apparently keep their data quite well without power in liquid nitrogen...
The companies were prepared to walk away from Vista? Really? All MS had to do was have a message box pop up saying:
"Vista is unable to play this disc because the company that made it was afraid you would illegally copy it."
A few of those messages to the millions that will form the userbase and even the proles would be storming the RIAA offices...
I'm not quite sure how I square the levels of geek present in most of my life (I /enjoy/ programming in Perl, and still play M:tG, for example), with the fact my own cinematic experiences of Star Wars were at the behest of my g/f of the time for EpII, and my wife (who is a SW fan) for EpIII.
:D
I enjoyed IV-VI originals, but they never really appealed to any great degree.
Though of course I do have to admit that light sabers are an amazingly cool idea, and I want one
At least, not in the limited context of this article. Sure, in the wider scope of the whole debate - whether the RIAA should be fighting this war on piracy or not - demands at least some consideration of where along the moral line downloading copyrighted materials lies.
/. hivemind.
In reference to this specific article, however, the salient points would appear to be:
1) The RIAA are using deceit and subterfuge as weapons.
2) A body that has influence on policy decisions noticed.
This naturally hurts the RIAA, but to what degree, and for how long, remains to be seen, and might be a more fruitful use of the
Everybody seems very accepting of this situation...two questions spring to my mind:
1) How should a consumer obtain a worthwhile review with no prior knowledge of a site's quality?
2) Is there any way of organising the review system to not enourgage this behaviour?
Consumer Review's policy sounds great, but expensive - how would you fund that sort of publication outside of advertising or selling real-world copies of the mag?
Navigation in 3D isn't necessarily awkward - skilled and acrobatic use, ala many FPS's does take a lot of time, but basic moving and turning can be picked up very quickly.
/more/ intuitive - if browsing the web was like walking through a room with objects to pick up, anyone over about a year old would be comfortable with the procedure. It is, however, amazingly /slow/ compared to what we have now.
In many ways, a 3D interface is
With good knowledge of a command line, I can do a lot of file manipulation much, much faster than a gui representation. With a couple of hours practice, people can browse the net a lot faster than they can walk around a room.
Greater simplicity must require a loss of control and speed, in the same way something heavier requires more energy or time to lift. It's a fundamental rule (Yes, there are better and worse interfaces, like there are better and worse techniques to lifting - there is still a minimum point at which something else must give). I have no issues with a 3D representation of our computer use, and in some places it would be easier (because of the better interface principle). As long as I can still use 2D or command-line (1D kinda) interfaces when I choose.
As a general rule, I see the 3D view as a learning-aid, rather than an actual efficiency aid.
"Interactive Fiction" implies that you become, to some degree, the author of the fiction.
Chris Crawford on his site defines interaction as a conversation - each party in the conversation rotates through three stages: listening to another, processing the information and formulating a reply, and then conveying that reply back.
Currently, computer games are appalling at listening to the player, and pretty mediocre at forumlating a reply. "Facade" (http://www.interactivestory.net/) is an excellent example of how that is improving, and it's also a subject I'm reasearching and investigating myself.
The goal of interactive fiction is effectively turn story-writing into a conversation, with the tools providing some of the information (world, background, etc.) and the "player" providing events and emotions. At the end you have a static piece of fiction, a story. It is the process of generating the fiction that becomes interactive. Naturally, however, the "player" experiences the story as it is constructed, so the reading and creating happen similtaneously, which makes it less obvious the end result is still a "static" piece of fiction.
Our brains do it naturally in many ways. I designed a simple combat system suitable for MUDs and their ilk, using text-based descriptions entirely, rather than numbers, and strategic mechanic that rewarded careful choice. My beta-testers regularly sent me messages with stories of battles they'd had:
"The beserker lunged at me, and I parried, but the blow left me greatly unbalanced. He attacked again but I rolled out of the way. I risked pausing to catch my breath, and luckily he expected an attack and wasted the chance blocking. I feinted, but he knocked my sword aside so powerfully I staggered back. He took the chance to slash at me but I managed to dodge out of the way. I attacked, and he was so tired by this point he fumbled his parry, and I managed to run him through."
From a simple web-page based combat game their brains constructed this whole battle. My software provided the setting and antagonist, they provided the character and emotions.
It's just a case of making sure your game encourages that part of the brain, rather than insisting on talking to the rational, logical, numerical sections.
Thanks for that link - interesting stats indeed.
Just looking at the total percentages across all the sites makes interesting reading - it suggests the the 35-45 crowd are actually the biggest users of social sites - the percentage is highest for them on all sites apart from facebook, and that's only half a percent behind.
Why have these sites acquired such a reputation then as teen-havens? Is it simply they're the most vocal or aggressive socialites? Or the numbers "Just Plain Wrong"(tm)?
From http://www.netflixprize.com/ :
To prevent certain inferences being drawn about the Netflix customer base, some of the rating data for some customers in the training and qualifying sets have been deliberately perturbed in one or more of the following ways: deleting ratings; inserting alternative ratings and dates; and modifying rating dates.
Plus all the usual replacing of IDs and such you'd expect. Looks like they're trying to avoid a repeat of the AOL debacle at least.
This is a bit like "this only affects criminals/terrorists/paedophiles."
The usual rejoinder for which is, who defines criminality or terrorist behaviour? What stops that from becoming broader?
Considering some of the behaviour currently being flagged as suspicious by over-enthusiastic law-enforcement, not much, apparently.
Ditto copyright. DRM has already given much greater control over "copyrighted" material than copyright ever did, and the lobbying doesn't appear to be slowing down. How long before it becomes illegal to read anything without paying per word? It's nice to know there will be some countries where it won't be illegal to use your computer, or acquire information for yourself.