I know that the thing is currently a big ass laser - but eventually we will be able to get something like this down to a reasonable size - where it can hopefully be built into the hilt of sword...
I really hope developers take what he has to say to heart. As an EQ player and a moderator of a fairly large Everquest and MMoRPG board, I understand many of these issues. Many game companies look at Everquest, see enormious revenue and think it'd be a great idea.
In truth, sony pours TONS of money into Everquest. Their bandwidth alone is huge. Add onto that that they have a full development team for dealing with the implimented game, (the live team: fixes bugs, etc), and then another whole development team that builds expansions and such to add content. They are contuiously changing the core code of the game, (such to add features not implimented in the original game such as 2 new user interfaces since the game was released).
They have 50ish servers compromising, (from what I understand), of roughly 30 computers per server, which means for every patch they are possibly updating around 1500. (Though it should be noted that I doubt they patch every computer every patch.) Also, these servers are located in both the United States and in Europe. And they are expected to have minor patches done in 2 hours, major patches, (for things such as expansions), done in 8. And no loss of any amount of data, (such as what character has which items), is tollerated in any way. Because of this their network administration must be near flawless.
Now lets look at what we have down the pipe. We have games that are being thrown together by people who come from single player games instead of MUDs and D&D. We have people who design games with out the backing of the enormious companies it takes to supply the capital required for a 4 to 5 year development cycle, implimentation of the enormious amount of hardware, the marketting, and the payroll for the support staff. We have people who don't realize that they must either be perfect at what they do, (see blizzard), or tap a previously untapped nitch, (Star Wars Galaxies) of MMoG potential. It would be wise that they make sure that the nitch exists and that the model for advancement in the game actually holds water first though (The Sims: Online).
In the end, we will have many companies that put 2/3rds of the work and money into making the games all competing with each other for a very small populace of people who are not already commited to as many games as they can afford time wise and monitarily. Most of them will die out, just like the dot-com bust.
But many games will pervail. Star Wars Galaxies will likely be as big, if not bigger than Everquest. Worlds of Warcraft shows amazing promise. Horizons seems to be a crowd favorite. And whatever product is being build by Sigil will be one of the leading contenders. (For those who don't know, the company is run by the people who made the decisions about Everquests form and is funded by microsoft. They also have recruited alot of the senior staff that had previously worked for the Everquest team.)
But with the majority of the market for Online RPGs and D&D type worlds already accounted for through Everquest, (or soon to be picked up by the above mentioned games), Developers better have a spot for their game to fit and they better do a DAMN good job of designing it, populating it, and supporting it if they plan on recouping their losses.
The idea that there will be more errors because the wavelength is smaller is somewhat silly. It's kind of like saying we should stop patterning smaller processes on microchips because as the wavelength gets smaller the errors get greater.
Obviously as the storage area required per bit of data decreases, the signifigance of small errors, (which may not have effected larger storage areas), become more important. But that is no reason to stop inovation. Part of bringing the technology to market is minimizing those errors.
What they need to do is model the LotR trilogy in Morrowind. Now THAT would be some fun to play through. NWN would be good too if it's world builder were more versatile.
Except that mandrake tends to survive while still providing software in a way no-one but Redhat does, (so much fun trying to get suse iso's...). And now that they have decared bankruptcy, maybe they can get out of their e-learning or whatever deals that seemed to be the bane of their bottom line. Mandrake is more like Apple.
I agree that it sounds implausible. I'd think first, as the register states, that getting the hardware generated key would not be possible by the means outlined and second, that AOL would have a firewall on their internal network capable of blocking most trojan's. Also, you'd think that AOl would monitor port use by programs so as to know if someone was having a little too much fun online.
I'm looking forward to Mandrake 9.1. I had alot of gripes about Mandrake 9.0, not least of which is the separated package management, but I've gotten acustom to using kpackage so that doesn't bother me any more. Hopefully 9.1 will include many of the bug fixes for the other problems I had.
Now all the new stuff I"m looking forward to, zeroconf network, kde 3.1, gnome 2.2, XFree86 4.3, 4.21 kernel and a cornacopia of other programs, are in mandrake 9.1. While in the end I intend to move over to debian completely, IMO mandrake is the best of the others for me. I can't wait for 9.1 to become available.
Oh, and practice more soccer during the summer and go to Neosho County Community College to play, your not goin to miss anything important in those 2 years.
I started out with KDE when I started using linux. I found a set of options that really worked great for me. I didn't change everything, but I made enough changes that a smaller choice of changes would have hampered me. And it worked great. I loved it.
Right now I am, (temporarily), on Gnome. (KDE3.1 really didn't like Mandrake 8.2 so I'm waiting for 9.1 to go back to KDE.) I feel like I'm working inside a box w/ no holes. I go to change something and I can't. I try to customize the way things work, I can't. I try to configure it so it feels like I have no resistance between me and my desktop, and, honestly, using gnome feels like I have to work against the desktop.
I agree, that people should have the option to configure everything configurable, that the options should not be out front and cluttering, but that they should be reachable and usable. The beauty of linux is that it's very easy to include other desktops. For me, I like using the gnome2 desktop manager launcher, KDE3 for my normal use, and Blackbox when I just want a small, simple desktop.
A little insite into credit card monitoring: As a college student, at the beginning of every semester, roughly 1,000 at least in transationcs moves across my card in the span of 1, maybe 2 days. I can consistently rely on my credit card company to send me a letter asking them to call and verify the charges about 4 days later. The hundred/thousand dollar transactions probably represent a huge rate in spending increase outside of the normal distribution of my spending fluctuations which is probably what triggers the warning in my case.
I think that gestures with a single input are somewhat clumsy. Things like mouse gestures are the first step of a baby walking. We need input devices that track multiple inputs and hopefully, in the future, devices that track multiple inputs in 3 dimensions to really bring gesture control to maturity.
New input technology is going to be gesture based, probably on gesture technology so that rather than push 2 buttons to cut and paste, you move your hand in a specific gesture to cut and paste, (think Minority Report).
There are attempts at this right now, but the best solution so far is probably the 2 dimensional equivelant from www.fingerworks.com. They have keyboards, mouse pads, and number pads all that combine both traditional input buttons and gestures to do things like cut and paste. Of course, like all new technologies, it's on the expensive side, but hopefully in the next 10-20 years we're controlling a 3 dimensional display by waving our hands. (Will make playing spell casting games a lot funner.)
Seriously, if I ever start a hacker group, I'm calling it "Me and a few buddies". The lewtspeak hacker names went out with the 80's. Now it just makes it sound like a group of 16 year old HS students.
Why it doesn't work.
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I've talked to some people and hopefully have some insite into why it flopped. The main reason seams to be that there is zero driving force. With Everquest, even though the work to advance groes exponentially with the amount already advanced, By the time it starts to be prohibative, you have bonds to the game, (bonds to guilds, your character, and other friends).
It seems that the Sims online missed out on the advancement to create those bonds. Many of the things I heard from players were along the lines of, "well, when you play the sims you have to keep all your sims happy, alive, etc. When you play the sims online you can just live in other people's houses, you don't really have to work to keep your sim alive and happy, and there's really no reward for keeping them alive and happy." I think the sims needs a much more interesting beginning and a much more challenging middle so that, by the end, players who may have become uninterested and less challenged have formed bonds that cause them to stay in the game.
One thing that strikes me is that the usb decription key reader is mounted in the BACK of the unit. It would make more sense to mount the key reader on the front of the unit where the key could be plugged in while attached to a teather clipped to the person using the computer.
Placing the key reader in the back only encourages people to leave the key in the unit which provides even less security, (read none), than the DES encryption provides.
Slashdot Mirror
While you obviously have an opinion, do you have an implimentable solution?
It requires spendable fuel making it unsuitable for a satellite.
I know that the thing is currently a big ass laser - but eventually we will be able to get something like this down to a reasonable size - where it can hopefully be built into the hilt of sword...
I wonder if they hire entry-level electrical engineers.
...
.....
I can dream can't I!!
In truth, sony pours TONS of money into Everquest. Their bandwidth alone is huge. Add onto that that they have a full development team for dealing with the implimented game, (the live team: fixes bugs, etc), and then another whole development team that builds expansions and such to add content. They are contuiously changing the core code of the game, (such to add features not implimented in the original game such as 2 new user interfaces since the game was released).
They have 50ish servers compromising, (from what I understand), of roughly 30 computers per server, which means for every patch they are possibly updating around 1500. (Though it should be noted that I doubt they patch every computer every patch.) Also, these servers are located in both the United States and in Europe. And they are expected to have minor patches done in 2 hours, major patches, (for things such as expansions), done in 8. And no loss of any amount of data, (such as what character has which items), is tollerated in any way. Because of this their network administration must be near flawless.
Now lets look at what we have down the pipe. We have games that are being thrown together by people who come from single player games instead of MUDs and D&D. We have people who design games with out the backing of the enormious companies it takes to supply the capital required for a 4 to 5 year development cycle, implimentation of the enormious amount of hardware, the marketting, and the payroll for the support staff. We have people who don't realize that they must either be perfect at what they do, (see blizzard), or tap a previously untapped nitch, (Star Wars Galaxies) of MMoG potential. It would be wise that they make sure that the nitch exists and that the model for advancement in the game actually holds water first though (The Sims: Online).
In the end, we will have many companies that put 2/3rds of the work and money into making the games all competing with each other for a very small populace of people who are not already commited to as many games as they can afford time wise and monitarily. Most of them will die out, just like the dot-com bust.
But many games will pervail. Star Wars Galaxies will likely be as big, if not bigger than Everquest. Worlds of Warcraft shows amazing promise. Horizons seems to be a crowd favorite. And whatever product is being build by Sigil will be one of the leading contenders. (For those who don't know, the company is run by the people who made the decisions about Everquests form and is funded by microsoft. They also have recruited alot of the senior staff that had previously worked for the Everquest team.)
But with the majority of the market for Online RPGs and D&D type worlds already accounted for through Everquest, (or soon to be picked up by the above mentioned games), Developers better have a spot for their game to fit and they better do a DAMN good job of designing it, populating it, and supporting it if they plan on recouping their losses.
Obviously as the storage area required per bit of data decreases, the signifigance of small errors, (which may not have effected larger storage areas), become more important. But that is no reason to stop inovation. Part of bringing the technology to market is minimizing those errors.
Ever seen Forest Gump?
Does anyone have a PDF white paper by the researchers on the subject? I'd like to read alot more.
What they need to do is model the LotR trilogy in Morrowind. Now THAT would be some fun to play through. NWN would be good too if it's world builder were more versatile.
It seems to me that wireless is still in the "can we do it" phase and has not progressed to "can we do it RIGHT".
Except that mandrake tends to survive while still providing software in a way no-one but Redhat does, (so much fun trying to get suse iso's...). And now that they have decared bankruptcy, maybe they can get out of their e-learning or whatever deals that seemed to be the bane of their bottom line. Mandrake is more like Apple.
I agree that it sounds implausible. I'd think first, as the register states, that getting the hardware generated key would not be possible by the means outlined and second, that AOL would have a firewall on their internal network capable of blocking most trojan's. Also, you'd think that AOl would monitor port use by programs so as to know if someone was having a little too much fun online.
Now all the new stuff I"m looking forward to, zeroconf network, kde 3.1, gnome 2.2, XFree86 4.3, 4.21 kernel and a cornacopia of other programs, are in mandrake 9.1. While in the end I intend to move over to debian completely, IMO mandrake is the best of the others for me. I can't wait for 9.1 to become available.
Oh, and practice more soccer during the summer and go to Neosho County Community College to play, your not goin to miss anything important in those 2 years.
Right now I am, (temporarily), on Gnome. (KDE3.1 really didn't like Mandrake 8.2 so I'm waiting for 9.1 to go back to KDE.) I feel like I'm working inside a box w/ no holes. I go to change something and I can't. I try to customize the way things work, I can't. I try to configure it so it feels like I have no resistance between me and my desktop, and, honestly, using gnome feels like I have to work against the desktop.
I agree, that people should have the option to configure everything configurable, that the options should not be out front and cluttering, but that they should be reachable and usable. The beauty of linux is that it's very easy to include other desktops. For me, I like using the gnome2 desktop manager launcher, KDE3 for my normal use, and Blackbox when I just want a small, simple desktop.
A little insite into credit card monitoring: As a college student, at the beginning of every semester, roughly 1,000 at least in transationcs moves across my card in the span of 1, maybe 2 days. I can consistently rely on my credit card company to send me a letter asking them to call and verify the charges about 4 days later. The hundred/thousand dollar transactions probably represent a huge rate in spending increase outside of the normal distribution of my spending fluctuations which is probably what triggers the warning in my case.
I think that gestures with a single input are somewhat clumsy. Things like mouse gestures are the first step of a baby walking. We need input devices that track multiple inputs and hopefully, in the future, devices that track multiple inputs in 3 dimensions to really bring gesture control to maturity.
There are attempts at this right now, but the best solution so far is probably the 2 dimensional equivelant from www.fingerworks.com. They have keyboards, mouse pads, and number pads all that combine both traditional input buttons and gestures to do things like cut and paste. Of course, like all new technologies, it's on the expensive side, but hopefully in the next 10-20 years we're controlling a 3 dimensional display by waving our hands. (Will make playing spell casting games a lot funner.)
Formatting is your friend.
How are they going to prosecute it. It's a big dog, w/ mean teeth, chained to a post by a chain 3 feet too short to touch the spammers.
If my hacker group has critics, I've got greater issues than my grammar. =)
Gyorg Lavode is a character in the Dragaera series by Steven Brust.
Seriously, if I ever start a hacker group, I'm calling it "Me and a few buddies". The lewtspeak hacker names went out with the 80's. Now it just makes it sound like a group of 16 year old HS students.
It seems that the Sims online missed out on the advancement to create those bonds. Many of the things I heard from players were along the lines of, "well, when you play the sims you have to keep all your sims happy, alive, etc. When you play the sims online you can just live in other people's houses, you don't really have to work to keep your sim alive and happy, and there's really no reward for keeping them alive and happy." I think the sims needs a much more interesting beginning and a much more challenging middle so that, by the end, players who may have become uninterested and less challenged have formed bonds that cause them to stay in the game.
Placing the key reader in the back only encourages people to leave the key in the unit which provides even less security, (read none), than the DES encryption provides.