Usually I just disregard anything Slashdot posts on April the first. Over the years the April 1st jokes have been fairly subpar and kind-of obvious. I thought I'd drop over to check things out anyway, masochist that I am.
However, this year it's good. "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" is priceless. You owe me some wipes for my monitor. Well done guys, seriously.
The simple reason that I hate Gantt charts as the be-all and end-all of a project schedule is that even on the most carefully controlled project, there are always speed-ups and slow-downs that can throw the most enlightened of schedules into a cocked hat...and then sit on it. Not to say it shouldn't be attempted, but advertising release dates based on them should be a punishable offense (and in this case, it might well be).
A-frickin'-men.
Although I'd have to say I don't hate Gantt charts, they can be a useful tool when used properly. Which generally, they aren't. They let you see which bits of a project can harmlessly slip, and which bits will cause problems if they are delayed. In theory you need to make sure that you have resources on hand to back up those tasks that lie on the critical path or are close to it, so that when things go wrong- which they always do- you are prepared to lift the failing critical task out of the gutter in which it finds itself without major impact on the projected completion date.
Unfortunately, all too often an incompetent manager will put one together, see the end date on the critical path as being day X, and say "Woo-hoo! We're shipping on day X!".
Two years of jail for copyright infringement? That's pure overkill. I can't even begin to understand the valid reasons for this.
Even from the other side of the equation it makes no sense at all. I've spent the last couple of years or so working on some games. This is my baby, the result of me working my ass off. The thought of someone depriving me of potential income by downloading a cracked copy does make my blood boil. An appropriate consequence of them getting busted with it? Compensation for the loss, yes. Some sort of fine or community service, yes. But jail time? For duplication of an entertainment product!? You can't be freaking serious.
This is greed, pure and simple. Perhaps a demonstration of a massively overinflated sense of self importance (defy our will eh?.. off to jail with you, consumer!). It is also a demonstration of the very, very dangerous consequences of letting a powerful lobbying organisation get their way with the laws. I hope this doesn't remain on the books for long.
PS. Copyright infringement has never been, and will never be, theft. The former deprives someone of potential future income, and the latter deprives someone of something material immediately. Equating copyright infringement with the forced boarding, theft and murder of a ship at sea is an arrogant and flawed analogy.
btw, I should just point out that I wasn't disagreeing with your original post, just pointing out some downsides of a shared avatar/login/naming-type system.
On the subject of using feedback (such as number of games played, gold, or some other metric) from other games to influence aspects of your character in another game (as you say, the "respect"), but not a common identifying aspect, I think it's an interesting idea with fair merit. Doesn't help too much for completely new players though, and introduces the possibility of cheating in one game giving undeserved recognition in another. But it would probably be a good measure of a "trusted" character, especially since if you've spent such time building up this trusted reputation, you probably aren't going to throw it away by hurling unwanted abuse.
The focus on my post was on cross-game reputation, pretty much any non-automated status you may have, which is a social thing. If ordinary players can verify that player X is a good person who treats everyone well because of a common avatar/name/account, then sociopath Y can also use it to ruin X's reputation across multiple communities. Your second post at least seems to avoid this aspect, which makes my original point moot, but once you include the human factor in it, you get the good with the bad. Mind you, this is pretty much how it works in the real world, minus the ability to spawn multiple accounts and build a fictional support base.
I understand that Vista will have a very sophisticated virtual file system layer (talk about a kludge) that will virtualize some of these areas of the disk for these bad applications so that they can still function. The app will think it is writing to the windows system directory or the Program Files area when if fact it is not.
I hadn't heard of this, and I seriously hope you are right.
I was chatting to a friend recently about the issue of older applications (and newer, badly-written ones) needing this sort of access, effectively forcing users to run with admin privileges, causing more applications to be written that need this access. I suggested this very thing as a solution, but the last thing I expected was for it to turn out that not only was it thought of, but planned as well. Again, I hope you're right.
And when you run into the sociopath who has the time and inclination to follow you around and trash you to all your friends for a perceived transgression, they can now destroy your online reputation no matter where you go...
Just broken up with your girlfriend and she's busy spreading rumours about your supposed sexual inadequacy to anyone who will listen to preserve her pride? Guess what, you can't contain this to a single community now...
You and your countrymen allowed those dangerous fools into power, and you continue to allow them to stay in power.
This particular fool isn't that dangerous, look at the track record of his party the last few elections if you wish.
You give the example of driving the drunken friend home, here's my response: If you were truly responsible, you wouldn't let them drink themselves into a stupor in the first place.
A measure of the responsibility greater than mine belongs to the drunken friend, wouldn't you agree?
Perhaps it's time you stopped choosing the lesser of two evils, and elect some true leaders.
I couldn't agree more, but your comment is quite misdirected; I suggest you check my posting history.:P
What, vote for the Greens (the "let's screw the economy" party) or the Democrats (the "we're not dead yet" party) or Family First (the "fundies first" party) or some other bunch of crazy trotskyites or rednecks?
Well, look at each of them and decide for yourself if they would do a better job than the big two. Also check out any independents. If the answer is "no" for all, then vote for the larger parties. If you get even one "yes", vote for them above the ones you value less highly. For me, it's a mix of "yes" and "no" depending on the party and/or person. And I vote accordingly.
If a smaller party has never had more than a small percentage of the vote, how can they be taken seriously? They talk well, but who knows what they'll do if you put them in charge?
Who knows what the larger parties will do if you put them in charge? Vote for the people you think are most likely to do the best job, whether they are in an established (read: "entrenched!") large party or not.
This sounds much like how any country would judge another country: based on who that country allows to stay in power.
A tough but fair call. Though please bear in mind that he is in a party that hasn't been able to obtain power for many years, and has even lost significant ground. Also note that he was elected as a representative (and _not_ in my district) and then made these "promises" afterwards, similar to the drunken friend analogy I gave.
Regardless of whether or not you approve of your elected officials, they did get there with help from 'yer votes. If you don't like them or want them there, get someone competent to run and vote him/her in instead.
Oh, don't fear, I'll be doing my part on this issue in the next Federal election, assuming the Libs don't come up with something more idiotic. And thankfully our preference system does allow me to vote for someone more competent each election, even if my number one choices never win a majority.;)
With the compulsory voting and two party system we have in Australia, quite often we dont vote "yes" for a winner, but "no" for the bigger loser.
Whilst we do have two dominant parties in Australia, we are very, very far from a two-party system. Use your preferences; vote for the people you want to win first, then the next lot, and so forth down the line. Yes, the order of your preferences for the big two is important, but it doesn't have to be on top. I'm proud to say I've never once voted for either of the big two in first place ever, though I am always mindful of the order I put them in my later preferences. Be thankful we have this ability; the US does not.
Welcome to Australian politics, everyone. *rolls eyes*
For those not familiar with Australian politics, let me help out a little. In Australia, we have a healthy disrespect for our politicos. Your average Australian will happily diss both major parties, even if they actually voted them in. Occasionally, one of our politicos will say something that is so out there, so backwards, so poorly thought-out that it causes many of us to hang or heads in shame.
And when it comes to IT, our politicos are famous for coming up with poorly thought-out schemes that can make people from even the most backwater of country towns sadly shake their heads, thinking "luddites". So please, don't judge us based on our "representatives". Please look at us as the designated driver who is ashamed of their drunken friend who is making a fool out of himself but still needs someone to drive them home at the end of the evening. This is a shameless attempt at grabbing support from the "think of the children" voter demographic by a party that has been getting spanked in the federal elections for many years by a party that isn't that much better. Hopefully this attempt (not the first) will die the death it deserves and we won't have to hear about it again. Fear not, there isn't any significant grassroots desire for this sort of censorship. Not that I know about anyway! I'd say that the bulk of informed people find the whole proposal to be ridiculous.
Our computers are going to be filled with pictures of naked women and you could have stopped it
Stopped it? Wha... oh heck. Perhaps I should have RTFA. I saw the mention of recognising porn based on image contents and just assumed it was a time-saving tool.
*sigh* I love all these stories about money being thrown around to everyone who isn't me. Dammit.;)
Hey investor-type people with burning hot cash, I've got a few complete gamesright here that could use a nice cash injection to get me back on it fulltime, employ a 3D model and texture artist with talent (ie. not me) and drop a few crinkleys into advertising. Just waiting to make you some nice easy money...
But I suspect I may have to stick to the tried and true, just gradually build my baby up off of part-time work, hope it somehow catches on big-time one day, so forth...
I've developed a simple algorithm for checking web pages for pornographic content. It is roughly 98% accurate when fed a random page from the 'net. Here's the code so far:
Worrying about seeds is rather pointless really. We need to be worrying about souls. This world is temporal, but eternity awaits everyone, it's a matter of where you spend it.
Oh, absolutely! But despite the definite appeal in trapping a collection of souls in a concrete bunker instead of seeds, I somehow doubt its legality.;)
But God created US in His image, not Dolphins.
And you know this... how? I look at the fact that the sea covers 70% of the Earth's surface, where Dolphins reside, yet we are stuck with only 30% of the Earth being landbound. I'd certainly say that the Dolphin's have a greater change of being the "chosen" or "enlightened" species, wouldn't you?
I prefer to think of it as security of the species. Come on, hear me out...
Picture this.... several hundred thousand years from now...
A series of archaeologists from the now dominant evolved-from-Dolphins species that runs the planet finds a mysterious encased tomb. Cracking their way through the concrete covering, they find a collection of primitive seeds. Despite the training provided by their utopian society, enroute to the museum a couple of seeds manage to blow away and germinate in the soil nearby. Slowly but surely, plants from a long-forgotten era slowly grow and displace the native flora. Despite their best efforts, the native flora is rapidly killed off, being entirely unsuited to compete against these primitive plants. The rapid change in the flora leads to a collapse of the entire food chain, and subsequent extinction of the dolphin race.
And then us monkeys get another crack at it! Take that Dolphin overlords!
I guess I keep looking at the nice house I have and the BMW in my driveway that was only possible because of the computing industry Gates helped make possible.
Made possible? Only possible? I beg to differ. More like despite his best efforts.:P
It is truly a good thing that Gates is generous with the money that he has made.
Having said that, don't ever forget where this money came from. Don't forget the lives and companies ruined and countless people extorted by the truly disgusting illegal antics of his company. The IT world would be a much better place if not for his contributions in retarding its growth.
Whilst he is truly a better man than someone who stole and gave back nothing, he is not a better man than someone who never stole at all. He deserves reluctant thanks, not applause.
Slashdot Mirror
Usually I just disregard anything Slashdot posts on April the first. Over the years the April 1st jokes have been fairly subpar and kind-of obvious. I thought I'd drop over to check things out anyway, masochist that I am.
However, this year it's good. "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" is priceless. You owe me some wipes for my monitor. Well done guys, seriously.
The simple reason that I hate Gantt charts as the be-all and end-all of a project schedule is that even on the most carefully controlled project, there are always speed-ups and slow-downs that can throw the most enlightened of schedules into a cocked hat ...and then sit on it. Not to say it shouldn't be attempted, but advertising release dates based on them should be a punishable offense (and in this case, it might well be).
A-frickin'-men.
Although I'd have to say I don't hate Gantt charts, they can be a useful tool when used properly. Which generally, they aren't. They let you see which bits of a project can harmlessly slip, and which bits will cause problems if they are delayed. In theory you need to make sure that you have resources on hand to back up those tasks that lie on the critical path or are close to it, so that when things go wrong- which they always do- you are prepared to lift the failing critical task out of the gutter in which it finds itself without major impact on the projected completion date.
Unfortunately, all too often an incompetent manager will put one together, see the end date on the critical path as being day X, and say "Woo-hoo! We're shipping on day X!".
Two years of jail for copyright infringement? That's pure overkill. I can't even begin to understand the valid reasons for this.
Even from the other side of the equation it makes no sense at all. I've spent the last couple of years or so working on some games. This is my baby, the result of me working my ass off. The thought of someone depriving me of potential income by downloading a cracked copy does make my blood boil. An appropriate consequence of them getting busted with it? Compensation for the loss, yes. Some sort of fine or community service, yes. But jail time? For duplication of an entertainment product!? You can't be freaking serious.
This is greed, pure and simple. Perhaps a demonstration of a massively overinflated sense of self importance (defy our will eh?.. off to jail with you, consumer!). It is also a demonstration of the very, very dangerous consequences of letting a powerful lobbying organisation get their way with the laws. I hope this doesn't remain on the books for long.
PS. Copyright infringement has never been, and will never be, theft. The former deprives someone of potential future income, and the latter deprives someone of something material immediately. Equating copyright infringement with the forced boarding, theft and murder of a ship at sea is an arrogant and flawed analogy.
Rant off.
Heh. :)
btw, I should just point out that I wasn't disagreeing with your original post, just pointing out some downsides of a shared avatar/login/naming-type system.
On the subject of using feedback (such as number of games played, gold, or some other metric) from other games to influence aspects of your character in another game (as you say, the "respect"), but not a common identifying aspect, I think it's an interesting idea with fair merit. Doesn't help too much for completely new players though, and introduces the possibility of cheating in one game giving undeserved recognition in another. But it would probably be a good measure of a "trusted" character, especially since if you've spent such time building up this trusted reputation, you probably aren't going to throw it away by hurling unwanted abuse.
The focus on my post was on cross-game reputation, pretty much any non-automated status you may have, which is a social thing. If ordinary players can verify that player X is a good person who treats everyone well because of a common avatar/name/account, then sociopath Y can also use it to ruin X's reputation across multiple communities. Your second post at least seems to avoid this aspect, which makes my original point moot, but once you include the human factor in it, you get the good with the bad. Mind you, this is pretty much how it works in the real world, minus the ability to spawn multiple accounts and build a fictional support base.
I understand that Vista will have a very sophisticated virtual file system layer (talk about a kludge) that will virtualize some of these areas of the disk for these bad applications so that they can still function. The app will think it is writing to the windows system directory or the Program Files area when if fact it is not.
I hadn't heard of this, and I seriously hope you are right.
I was chatting to a friend recently about the issue of older applications (and newer, badly-written ones) needing this sort of access, effectively forcing users to run with admin privileges, causing more applications to be written that need this access. I suggested this very thing as a solution, but the last thing I expected was for it to turn out that not only was it thought of, but planned as well. Again, I hope you're right.
And when you run into the sociopath who has the time and inclination to follow you around and trash you to all your friends for a perceived transgression, they can now destroy your online reputation no matter where you go...
Just broken up with your girlfriend and she's busy spreading rumours about your supposed sexual inadequacy to anyone who will listen to preserve her pride? Guess what, you can't contain this to a single community now...
There are definite downsides!
You and your countrymen allowed those dangerous fools into power, and you continue to allow them to stay in power.
:P
This particular fool isn't that dangerous, look at the track record of his party the last few elections if you wish.
You give the example of driving the drunken friend home, here's my response: If you were truly responsible, you wouldn't let them drink themselves into a stupor in the first place.
A measure of the responsibility greater than mine belongs to the drunken friend, wouldn't you agree?
Perhaps it's time you stopped choosing the lesser of two evils, and elect some true leaders.
I couldn't agree more, but your comment is quite misdirected; I suggest you check my posting history.
What, vote for the Greens (the "let's screw the economy" party) or the Democrats (the "we're not dead yet" party) or Family First (the "fundies first" party) or some other bunch of crazy trotskyites or rednecks?
Well, look at each of them and decide for yourself if they would do a better job than the big two. Also check out any independents. If the answer is "no" for all, then vote for the larger parties. If you get even one "yes", vote for them above the ones you value less highly. For me, it's a mix of "yes" and "no" depending on the party and/or person. And I vote accordingly.
If a smaller party has never had more than a small percentage of the vote, how can they be taken seriously? They talk well, but who knows what they'll do if you put them in charge?
Who knows what the larger parties will do if you put them in charge? Vote for the people you think are most likely to do the best job, whether they are in an established (read: "entrenched!") large party or not.
This sounds much like how any country would judge another country: based on who that country allows to stay in power.
;)
A tough but fair call. Though please bear in mind that he is in a party that hasn't been able to obtain power for many years, and has even lost significant ground. Also note that he was elected as a representative (and _not_ in my district) and then made these "promises" afterwards, similar to the drunken friend analogy I gave.
Regardless of whether or not you approve of your elected officials, they did get there with help from 'yer votes. If you don't like them or want them there, get someone competent to run and vote him/her in instead.
Oh, don't fear, I'll be doing my part on this issue in the next Federal election, assuming the Libs don't come up with something more idiotic. And thankfully our preference system does allow me to vote for someone more competent each election, even if my number one choices never win a majority.
With the compulsory voting and two party system we have in Australia, quite often we dont vote "yes" for a winner, but "no" for the bigger loser.
Whilst we do have two dominant parties in Australia, we are very, very far from a two-party system. Use your preferences; vote for the people you want to win first, then the next lot, and so forth down the line. Yes, the order of your preferences for the big two is important, but it doesn't have to be on top. I'm proud to say I've never once voted for either of the big two in first place ever, though I am always mindful of the order I put them in my later preferences. Be thankful we have this ability; the US does not.
Welcome to Australian politics, everyone. *rolls eyes*
For those not familiar with Australian politics, let me help out a little. In Australia, we have a healthy disrespect for our politicos. Your average Australian will happily diss both major parties, even if they actually voted them in. Occasionally, one of our politicos will say something that is so out there, so backwards, so poorly thought-out that it causes many of us to hang or heads in shame.
And when it comes to IT, our politicos are famous for coming up with poorly thought-out schemes that can make people from even the most backwater of country towns sadly shake their heads, thinking "luddites". So please, don't judge us based on our "representatives". Please look at us as the designated driver who is ashamed of their drunken friend who is making a fool out of himself but still needs someone to drive them home at the end of the evening. This is a shameless attempt at grabbing support from the "think of the children" voter demographic by a party that has been getting spanked in the federal elections for many years by a party that isn't that much better. Hopefully this attempt (not the first) will die the death it deserves and we won't have to hear about it again. Fear not, there isn't any significant grassroots desire for this sort of censorship. Not that I know about anyway! I'd say that the bulk of informed people find the whole proposal to be ridiculous.
Say...you don't have the name of the IE ad-blocking tool handy, do you?
Um.... let me think... I think it's called Firefox, or Mozilla, or something like that.
Our computers are going to be filled with pictures of naked women and you could have stopped it
Stopped it? Wha... oh heck. Perhaps I should have RTFA. I saw the mention of recognising porn based on image contents and just assumed it was a time-saving tool.
Bad troll. *smack*
No way! I'm not rewriting it from scratch. ;)
*sigh* I love all these stories about money being thrown around to everyone who isn't me. Dammit. ;)
Hey investor-type people with burning hot cash, I've got a few complete games right here that could use a nice cash injection to get me back on it fulltime, employ a 3D model and texture artist with talent (ie. not me) and drop a few crinkleys into advertising. Just waiting to make you some nice easy money...
But I suspect I may have to stick to the tried and true, just gradually build my baby up off of part-time work, hope it somehow catches on big-time one day, so forth...
I've developed a simple algorithm for checking web pages for pornographic content. It is roughly 98% accurate when fed a random page from the 'net. Here's the code so far:
bool check_porn_content(const char *url)
{
(void)url;
return true;
}
Any suggestions for further development, or licensing queries, please let me know.
'Over my dead body,' he wrote
"Your terms are acceptable" reply the NSA.
Worrying about seeds is rather pointless really. We need to be worrying about souls. This world is temporal, but eternity awaits everyone, it's a matter of where you spend it.
;)
;)
Oh, absolutely! But despite the definite appeal in trapping a collection of souls in a concrete bunker instead of seeds, I somehow doubt its legality.
But God created US in His image, not Dolphins.
And you know this... how? I look at the fact that the sea covers 70% of the Earth's surface, where Dolphins reside, yet we are stuck with only 30% of the Earth being landbound. I'd certainly say that the Dolphin's have a greater change of being the "chosen" or "enlightened" species, wouldn't you?
Just my input, is it worth anything?
This is a trick question, right?
Douglas Adams, is that you?
Sadly not. But I do have to say my choice of dominant species and the resultant utopia in my post was inspired by his books.
I prefer to think of it as security of the species. Come on, hear me out...
Picture this.... several hundred thousand years from now...
A series of archaeologists from the now dominant evolved-from-Dolphins species that runs the planet finds a mysterious encased tomb. Cracking their way through the concrete covering, they find a collection of primitive seeds. Despite the training provided by their utopian society, enroute to the museum a couple of seeds manage to blow away and germinate in the soil nearby. Slowly but surely, plants from a long-forgotten era slowly grow and displace the native flora. Despite their best efforts, the native flora is rapidly killed off, being entirely unsuited to compete against these primitive plants. The rapid change in the flora leads to a collapse of the entire food chain, and subsequent extinction of the dolphin race.
And then us monkeys get another crack at it! Take that Dolphin overlords!
I guess I keep looking at the nice house I have and the BMW in my driveway that was only possible because of the computing industry Gates helped make possible.
:P
Made possible? Only possible? I beg to differ. More like despite his best efforts.
It is truly a good thing that Gates is generous with the money that he has made.
Having said that, don't ever forget where this money came from. Don't forget the lives and companies ruined and countless people extorted by the truly disgusting illegal antics of his company. The IT world would be a much better place if not for his contributions in retarding its growth.
Whilst he is truly a better man than someone who stole and gave back nothing, he is not a better man than someone who never stole at all. He deserves reluctant thanks, not applause.