The problem with phone games is that almost all games are aimed at the casuals market. The "core gamers" have no way to find the good games, that are lost in a sea of generic crap for casuals. This also make so people that could have build a game with deep strategy/etc.. create a simpler game for casuals. Is more a information problem than anything else. IF a single website manage to focus on publiciting this type of game over others, then the information problem is solved. The reason no blog/website has focus on that, is that theres very few games on that type, and is very very hard to find, and the fact that even core games enjoy some casual games. A casual game will not fill with joy a core gamers (compare this to DungeonRaid, that can make you lose your job), but is enteirtan enough. So the whole thing is like a vicious cycle. The hardware is neutral to what you can built in it. But the humans expect some type of soulless simple casual game, and that is what is made.
"Spain has a tax on empty CDs/DVDs. Wasn't the justification for that to be that it would make non-profit piracy tolerated?"
No really. The tax is for backups. Yea, you have read right. The law supposedly exist since if you make a copy of a CD, to have a backup, since you are copying music, but not buying a new copy, the original author of the song lose anything. It may not make much sense, but thats is.
What is unrelated, is that you are free to download music from the internet, and you are not breaking any law. We even tried to lure our national MAFIAA to sue people, publically copying files, and nothing. The mass media are friends of the our MAFIAA, so the mass media tell people that is against the law, but is not actually true.
Another fun thing ("fun"), is that our MAFIAA has managed to put a "tax" on any public show of music. Even people having a party, marrying, a taxi, a bar,... everything!. And another tax on everything that has memory.. and that one is very pricey.
We are not happy at all.
Also, since (based on the laws) what most P2P networks do is OK, our govern has invented a system to close websites withouth a judge. This after a lot of judgements that favor P2P websites. That way the govern can close websites that help P2P, but don't break the law. I think our govern do this thing, because USA want us to do that, so we are friends of USA. But USA has a greedy history.. it only favour us wen seems theres a profit to be made. We are "customers" of USA, not friends. Sadly. We pay with (part of) our freedom to stay friend to USA. Hope it works:-P
I find humurous that a country has to "attack" other country to force this one country to change laws, and other similar stuff, to shutdown a website that seems to host TV from soccer games.. you know, what VHS was invented for. Oh, terrible!, some spanish people is saving a boring soccer game and sharing it on the internets!.. TERRIBLE!.
The weaken chain is IE. That is broken is always innovating in new ways a browser can be broken. So even if everyone else invent fast than light travel, you still have to code your webpages to support IE, so you have to write the page with elegant code, then convert your code in a braindead and demonic mix of patched to make it work for IE.
As a user of Reddit, this is not news to me. Reddit is down more than any other normal website, and seems something to do with some *magical words here* from Amazon.
I have read somewhere that the cloud is a good solution for scalability. Maybe the Amazon Cloud sould search for a Cloud hosting solution:D
It seems Amazon has the skill to cut wikileaks money, but lack the skill to create a proper cloud.
Seems nice. A very geeky interest in something... humm... I am going to say interesting, but probably I am a nerd, and I like these things for different reasons. I would love to have access to this data, once is collected:D
Hole/bugs lifetime is forever. If you find a bug or a hole, and you choose to ignore then, it will not go away. It will be there waiting for his moment to ruin your morning. Maybe bug/holes are not as important as people dedicated to the racketeer industry think. So if you can't fix then on the morning, you can fix then after the tea, if you fix then today.
Maybe that was the first program written in PHP for the people that created this. Literally, the first program (even before a hello world), created even before the programmer learned everything else. Is even possible that the original author/authors have now the experience to know that you don't have to do this, but have never be able to go back and fix things. The "if is not broken, don't fix" is broken.
This is sweet. The internet is going to break in tiny wallet gardens, evey part "protected" with firewalls. Corporations are going to get be able to use slave manwork in china, and sell expensive as hell in USA and Europe. While people outside the "right" zones are going to pay x10 more for a product.
Portal 2 in australia: 108$ USD. Portal 2 in USA: 10$ USD with 20$ gift bonus
Lets suppose you have a website that sell Second Life avatars. You want a avatar to cost 0.30 $, but the credit card 'tax' is 0.20 $. And people buy maybe 20 in a year. What you can do, is to make so the user buy 30 "points" paying 10 $. And make so every new avatar cost 1 point. You are still paying 0.20$ to the credit card company, but only once. With the other option you pay 0.20 * 20 = 4 $. So is paying 0.20 $ versus paying 4.00 $. Is really better to run with points.
Also, is also better for the user, so he do only one transaction, and from there, he don't have to enter his credit card details...that can be annoying.
Nmap scan report for account.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.177) Host is up (0.077s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 999 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for login.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.162) Host is up (0.085s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 999 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.
Nmap scan report for commerce.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.135) Host is up (0.071s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 998 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 80/tcp closed http 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for auth.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.136) Host is up (0.075s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 999 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for store.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.140) Host is up (0.070s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 999 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for rc.store.playstation.net (199.108.4.141) Host is up (0.080s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 998 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i) 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for native.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.144) Host is up (0.073s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 999 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 (mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
* login server 2.2.11 (version from 2008) * account server 2.2.11 (version from 2008) * commerce server 2.2.11 (version from 2008) * auth server 2.2.11 (version from 2008) * store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008) * rc store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008) * native server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
There are some talking about the server auth.np.ac.playstation.net. That one was updated.
Nmap scan report for auth.np.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.73) Host is up (0.070s latency). Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s Not shown: 999 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION 443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.17
TL:DR YES, Sony was using outdated servers. Unpatched? no idea.
Developers? no, that database was probably a backup somewhere inside some computer on the network, so the attacked managed to get shell inside PSN, and from there open other systems, included this database one.
I could imagine just now a lot of very nationalistic teenagers stuiding software technologies with fruction. To make any teenager into a hacker, you only need to put him a goal. A good goal create good hackers. Defending your country seems a rather awesome goal, so this will create better IT hackers in Iran. I don't know what is the short term goal, but the long term result will be making Iran much stronger in cyberwars thingies. On the other hand, hackers are a double edge sword...
I feel a enormeous curiosity about what the problem is. Is something mundane?, like a cascade error, or really a intrusion?. I feel I would love to read a novel or a article about the issue here:D
Sony has ben fighting the esence of hacking on latelly. The problem with GeoHot and the hackers is political. The hackers think that can open the hardware that own, and toy with it, and spread any information that learn from the machine. Sony want to use the system to stop these people from doing so, and seems very efficient in bending the rules of the system to do absolutelly evil things, like reveal the private information to everyone that has mantained relations with GeoHot accounts. Even if the current downtime has nothing to do with hacking, theres a lot of bad karma around. What goes around comes around.
I think that if you learn why the ENTER key of your keyboard is broken, you can tell others. Sony is just tryiing to fight common sense here. If where a car, no one would even take then seriusly, but computers are black box for a lot of people.
"raise the quality bar; on staying ahead of the innovation curve;"
Call of Duty is a movielike experience in singleplayer, followed by a few maps and a quake3 like FPS. Theres nothing innovative in that, is a "blockbuster" formula, just that, a formula. Theres almost zero innovation in the game, other than the basic mechanics that are already done. Really this talk has not much to do with CoD at all. Is bullshit. But a executive talking bullshit is not new. These people are leechers that get the benefict from the work from the people under him withouth adding nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
Some games:
- DungeonRaid
- Sentinel 3
- Tiny Tower
- geoDefense
The problem with phone games is that almost all games are aimed at the casuals market. The "core gamers" have no way to find the good games, that are lost in a sea of generic crap for casuals. This also make so people that could have build a game with deep strategy/etc.. create a simpler game for casuals. Is more a information problem than anything else. IF a single website manage to focus on publiciting this type of game over others, then the information problem is solved. The reason no blog/website has focus on that, is that theres very few games on that type, and is very very hard to find, and the fact that even core games enjoy some casual games. A casual game will not fill with joy a core gamers (compare this to DungeonRaid, that can make you lose your job), but is enteirtan enough.
So the whole thing is like a vicious cycle. The hardware is neutral to what you can built in it. But the humans expect some type of soulless simple casual game, and that is what is made.
"Spain has a tax on empty CDs/DVDs. Wasn't the justification for that to be that it would make non-profit piracy tolerated?"
No really. The tax is for backups. Yea, you have read right. The law supposedly exist since if you make a copy of a CD, to have a backup, since you are copying music, but not buying a new copy, the original author of the song lose anything. It may not make much sense, but thats is.
What is unrelated, is that you are free to download music from the internet, and you are not breaking any law. We even tried to lure our national MAFIAA to sue people, publically copying files, and nothing.
The mass media are friends of the our MAFIAA, so the mass media tell people that is against the law, but is not actually true.
Another fun thing ("fun"), is that our MAFIAA has managed to put a "tax" on any public show of music. Even people having a party, marrying, a taxi, a bar, ... everything!. And another tax on everything that has memory.. and that one is very pricey.
We are not happy at all.
Also, since (based on the laws) what most P2P networks do is OK, our govern has invented a system to close websites withouth a judge. This after a lot of judgements that favor P2P websites. That way the govern can close websites that help P2P, but don't break the law. :-P
I think our govern do this thing, because USA want us to do that, so we are friends of USA. But USA has a greedy history.. it only favour us wen seems theres a profit to be made. We are "customers" of USA, not friends. Sadly.
We pay with (part of) our freedom to stay friend to USA. Hope it works
People shotting to police with videocameras is a growing problem.
See this video:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201164124745790709.html
Or better, ask your country to create a "firewall" to protect you from seeing videos like this.
I find humurous that a country has to "attack" other country to force this one country to change laws, and other similar stuff, to shutdown a website that seems to host TV from soccer games.. you know, what VHS was invented for. Oh, terrible!, some spanish people is saving a boring soccer game and sharing it on the internets!.. TERRIBLE!.
The weaken chain is IE. That is broken is always innovating in new ways a browser can be broken. So even if everyone else invent fast than light travel, you still have to code your webpages to support IE, so you have to write the page with elegant code, then convert your code in a braindead and demonic mix of patched to make it work for IE.
IE, all versions, is a piece of shit.
I say, follow the money. Whos the buyer? Is he building a laboratory in a salt mine?
Show us the photos. If you are shy, you could photoshop your face with a Ghost In the Shell logo, or a V for Vendetta logo.
As a user of Reddit, this is not news to me. Reddit is down more than any other normal website, and seems something to do with some *magical words here* from Amazon.
I have read somewhere that the cloud is a good solution for scalability. Maybe the Amazon Cloud sould search for a Cloud hosting solution :D
It seems Amazon has the skill to cut wikileaks money, but lack the skill to create a proper cloud.
Seems nice. A very geeky interest in something ... humm... I am going to say interesting, but probably I am a nerd, and I like these things for different reasons. :D
I would love to have access to this data, once is collected
Hole/bugs lifetime is forever. If you find a bug or a hole, and you choose to ignore then, it will not go away. It will be there waiting for his moment to ruin your morning. Maybe bug/holes are not as important as people dedicated to the racketeer industry think. So if you can't fix then on the morning, you can fix then after the tea, if you fix then today.
Maybe that was the first program written in PHP for the people that created this. Literally, the first program (even before a hello world), created even before the programmer learned everything else. Is even possible that the original author/authors have now the experience to know that you don't have to do this, but have never be able to go back and fix things. The "if is not broken, don't fix" is broken.
we already live in a world where a dude from San Francisco can pay $10 for Portal 2 in Amazon, and another dude in Sidney will pay $108.
Probably something to do with being able to predict how much horsepower is needed.
So if california get up, and theres not enough horses, buy more horses for the server farm.
If everything goes online at the same time, the horses dies.
New patent.
"detecting position of hands" with "hands"
I propose something.
If a patent can be described in a single phrase, It is automatically canceled.
If a patent can be described in a single phrase, It is automatically canceled with the form X with Y. And CEO of the company is jailed 30 days.
This is sweet. The internet is going to break in tiny wallet gardens, evey part "protected" with firewalls.
Corporations are going to get be able to use slave manwork in china, and sell expensive as hell in USA and Europe.
While people outside the "right" zones are going to pay x10 more for a product.
Portal 2 in australia: 108$ USD.
Portal 2 in USA: 10$ USD with 20$ gift bonus
If you allow people to buy 1 point, it don't work.
Anyway allow people to buy 5, 10, 20 and 100 points still work. But not as good as only allowing people to buy 50 points.
Lets suppose you have a website that sell Second Life avatars. You want a avatar to cost 0.30 $, but the credit card 'tax' is 0.20 $. And people buy maybe 20 in a year.
What you can do, is to make so the user buy 30 "points" paying 10 $. And make so every new avatar cost 1 point. You are still paying 0.20$ to the credit card company, but only once. With the other option you pay 0.20 * 20 = 4 $. So is paying 0.20 $ versus paying 4.00 $. Is really better to run with points.
Also, is also better for the user, so he do only one transaction, and from there, he don't have to enter his credit card details. ..that can be annoying.
There has ben some rumours, back and for, discussing about what versions where installed in Sony servers.
Based on this nmap of the network:
http://pastebin.com/bAUHxtNr
Nmap scan report for account.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.177)
Host is up (0.077s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for login.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.162)
Host is up (0.085s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.
Nmap scan report for commerce.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.135)
Host is up (0.071s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp closed http
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for auth.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.136)
Host is up (0.075s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for store.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.140)
Host is up (0.070s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for rc.store.playstation.net (199.108.4.141)
Host is up (0.080s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 ((Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
Nmap scan report for native.rc.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.144)
Host is up (0.073s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.11 (mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i)
* login server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* account server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* commerce server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* auth server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* rc store server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
* native server 2.2.11 (version from 2008)
There are some talking about the server auth.np.ac.playstation.net. That one was updated.
Nmap scan report for auth.np.ac.playstation.net (199.108.4.73)
Host is up (0.070s latency).
Scanned at 2011-04-05 22:53:40 MDT for 428s
Not shown: 999 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
443/tcp open ssl/http Apache httpd 2.2.17
TL:DR
YES, Sony was using outdated servers. Unpatched? no idea.
Developers? no, that database was probably a backup somewhere inside some computer on the network, so the attacked managed to get shell inside PSN, and from there open other systems, included this database one.
Diablo, Torchlight are Hack and Slash action RPG games.
-Are not turn based.
-Theres not permadead.
-You "unlock" all the skills of your class... on a roguelike you grown in power, until you die.
So, no, are very fart apart from roguelikes.
Games for mature people. Most people is ignorant, and don't know there are games for mature people. Not all videogames are for childrens.
The problem is... ..some people is ignorant.
Heres the problem that need fixing.
I could imagine just now a lot of very nationalistic teenagers stuiding software technologies with fruction. To make any teenager into a hacker, you only need to put him a goal. A good goal create good hackers. Defending your country seems a rather awesome goal, so this will create better IT hackers in Iran. I don't know what is the short term goal, but the long term result will be making Iran much stronger in cyberwars thingies.
On the other hand, hackers are a double edge sword...
I feel a enormeous curiosity about what the problem is. Is something mundane?, like a cascade error, or really a intrusion?. I feel I would love to read a novel or a article about the issue here :D
Sony has ben fighting the esence of hacking on latelly. The problem with GeoHot and the hackers is political. The hackers think that can open the hardware that own, and toy with it, and spread any information that learn from the machine. Sony want to use the system to stop these people from doing so, and seems very efficient in bending the rules of the system to do absolutelly evil things, like reveal the private information to everyone that has mantained relations with GeoHot accounts. Even if the current downtime has nothing to do with hacking, theres a lot of bad karma around. What goes around comes around.
I think that if you learn why the ENTER key of your keyboard is broken, you can tell others. Sony is just tryiing to fight common sense here. If where a car, no one would even take then seriusly, but computers are black box for a lot of people.
"raise the quality bar; on staying ahead of the innovation curve;"
Call of Duty is a movielike experience in singleplayer, followed by a few maps and a quake3 like FPS. Theres nothing innovative in that, is a "blockbuster" formula, just that, a formula. Theres almost zero innovation in the game, other than the basic mechanics that are already done. Really this talk has not much to do with CoD at all. Is bullshit. But a executive talking bullshit is not new. These people are leechers that get the benefict from the work from the people under him withouth adding nothing.
Homefront - Thrilling Gameplay Experience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFVz6-A75Fc
Homefront tells the tale of one nation's struggle against the tyranny of locked doors.
----------------
I don't think Slashdot sould dignify some things with a article. This game, probably don't deserve one, has is just another COD clone.