> Although they are technically complying with the the letter of the law, they're abusing the spirit by giving the libraries large piles of crud.
I think the problem is that the RIAA only has access to large piles of crud. Let's face it -- Britney, Justin, which other Mousekateers-turned-popstar are there? Chicken of the Sea Girl, Nick whatever-his-name-is, and the list goes on and on.
Indies are being given a huge door to stroll through and every time the RIAA screws up, it helps the indies get more market share. So I'm all for the RIAA being asshats, because they are on the road to Utopia.
> I can see how misled conceptions would lead to a scarcity of designers
And even after the New York Times interview with me, the art and models guys couldn't commit to Doom for Columbine. It was a horrible nightmare for me, after so many near misses with modding.
Thunderwalker 2, Allstar2 CTF, WireTap...etc. Just a shitload of coulda-beens/never-wuz vapourware... it's just annoying to have so many great ideas without the manpower to pull it off.
And I think Doom 3 will spell a whole new era for game design, because no more will novice designers cut their teeth doing mod work. It's not going to happen the same way anymore. It used to be with Quake, all you had to do was get an idea and you could quickly impliment it. The hardest part of Quake design was making levels that looked good, played good and sealed on compiles. Now with Doom 3, the hardest part is going to be models and art, IMHO, and novice mods are going to suck.
> (hell, even I considered applying, but second-thought myself out, because the description was too vague, and i didn't want to get 'known' for something that might bounce off bad)
Lots of people backed away from Doom for Columbine because of that exact reason. They weren't sure about it, or they hated the name. We had a few people try to take over our design using guerilla warfare tactics to try and railroad us, too.
I've learned my lesson, and now I'm not going to be relying on anyone anymore. We can do Doom 3 Bloopers without anyone's help. We aren't going to be waiting on art or models to get finished. It's going to be me with my text editor, Pusher with his guitar and soundforge or whatever the hell else he uses (big audio system that guy has!), and Skore with his levels and amazing entity work. You may have read Skore's mapping guides, which remain to be among the best ever created for Quake 3.
> but it would have been kick-ass if you guys would at least have attempted a build/testbuild as soon as D3 hits the street, so , if succeeding, you can hold your TC under the nose of all those nay-sayers, and 'proof them wrong'
Let me just say that for two years I was doing this. I went to the media to prove the nay-sayers wrong and to try and drum up support for Doom for Columbine, but it wasn't going to happen. People wouldn't have played it, we could have been sued, or maybe just maybe it could have been the best mod of all time. Without art or models people dedicated for about six or seven months, that could not happen. Since designs started two years ago, Doom for Columbine went through about sixty different artists and models people. That's just them... we had a few content designers and writers that wouldn't cooperate, and lots of conflicting ideas about how to tackle the delicate content of the mod. People fought about George Bush -- it was hell.
And now I get to make a fun mod that doesn't rely on anyone else as much as such a big production. It's going to be a riot!!! And we can still add some of our ideas into it to make it funny here and there.
> Taking Michael Moore for example : and the hassle he has to deal with ; only to tell (part of) the truth.
I said the same thing to my team on our private mailing list. We argued about it for a couple of months! What we came up with, or what I came up with was that the end result of Moore does not match our end result because of one major factor: Moore profits from his work and mods are not set up as a profit generators, so resources are limited.
Now if I ever joined a big studio and they asked me, I would tell them point blank that a game like Doom for Columbine could be very lucrative. I'm sure that someone like Rockstar could do it and sell ten million units in the first year. They could also get sued by twenty or so families and lose their shirts, but maybe not.
It's a gamble when there's money involved, and when there is no money involved it's hard to keep the team focused and on track. Fun mods, l
This story would be a whole lot better if it included a biorhythm readout of the steroid or drug content of each rider! I was listening to the CBC radio in the car again today and they had a very insightful discussion about the Belgian Christophe Brandt who withdrew after testing positive for the narcotic methadone. It seems that the Tour is being marred by this drug controversy.
A great example of what you're talking about is found in "Cradle to Cradle" by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. I heard a CBC radio broadcast last week in my car that had Michael Braungart on it and it was fascinating. He wants to see products go from being made to returning to raw components efficiently. I might add, this guy isn't a typical Enviro-nut TM. He's actually quite intelligent and pretty far from the fringe, from what I could tell when I heard him on the CBC. The book Cradle to Cradle was also reviewed on Slashdot, with a critical 10/10 rating.
> While I liked the goals you guys wanted to set forth in the Doom for Columbine mod, your guy's greatest mistake was the name : The name is unforgivable , imo : But then again, I was looking forward to what you guys we're able to pull off.
We were taking ourselves way too seriously with Doom for Columbine, and that was the biggest mistake. Games aren't meant to be taken seriously. They are supposed to be fun, and that's where we're going with Doom 3 Bloopers.
The name Doom for Columbine is just as unforgivable as Bowling for Columbine, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary. I think we were trying to make a statement, and it really failed. People got the wrong idea about what we were trying to do, and they only listened to their own misled conceptions about where we were going with the project. No matter how hard we tried to explain ourselves we were flamed everywhere for it. We got the hint and dropped the project.
That said, there was no convincing anyone that Doom for Columbine was a worthy project, and that really hurt the team's morale.
> Now I read that the project has come to a halt, I think the second mistake (but i think that would be clear by now) is that you guys made a public statement about something you clearly did not put too much thought in (yet).
I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you. However, the problem with trying to put together a TC like Doom for Columbine, is that it would require a fairly large team of dedicated people. We had a pretty damn good team for DFC consisting of about 13 people, but we only lacked models people and animators; they kept flip-flopping and dragging their assses. We announced early in hopes of attracting models people and animators to our project, and artists as well. It backfired. The negative press Doom for Columbine received ensured that any models people who *were* interested, backed away.
Let's face it, if anyone is going to build new models for Doom 3, in a single player module, the models and animation people have to be as good as Paul Steed, or it's going to suck. That's a tall order, really.
Finally, I had enough of the negativity associated with Doom for Columbine, and the annoying models people who were flippant and uncommitted. I've decided to cut myself off from those people, or at least put them all at arm's length. Our new project will not rely on models or art in any way.
We'll have a submissions area on our website for people who want to get involved, and that will enable me to cut our team down to about three people; Skore, Pusher and myself.
> I'm in no way trying to flame you, and as I said, I appreciated people trying to take on another side of gamedesign : A shame you guys did not even get it off the ground though.
GL with your bloopers mod.
Thanks for wishing us luck. I think that video games are supposed to be fun, and after trying to make political statements with them, I've decided that it's not worth the effort to go there. That's what famous film-makers and news personalities are for... and video games aren't taken seriously enough to warrant critical acclaim for anything other than: great special effects, nice story, cool characters, amazing weapons, sprawling landscapes........etc.
But the bloopers mod is going to be fun as hell. We're going to put our frustration with Doom for Columbine into a mod that makes fun of Doom 3. So it's light, and funny and totally non-serious.
I think once we get our site up and start getting into the game when it's released, we will be able to put the first installment together in about two months. Depending on the scripting of the game, we might be able to start earlier. And we don't need any skilled people beyond what we can do ourselves. Skore is a mapping genius, Pusher is a very talented musicican and sounds guy, and I'm a programmer who has taught level design at a college level. We sho
Each state will maintain its own records . . . Software will search each state's records as necessary. The new setup is designed to get around obstacles in some states' data laws.
I am a programmer and let me just say that this is a really bad idea. Why? Because it's always a bad idea to design a large system that acts like a server but essentially is only a client.
Each state running their own version of the system, operating independently of the other states, will only ensure that the system could become easily corruptible (both criminally and data corrupted), without anyone higher examining the system for audits, outside of audits applied to the individual systems.
It's actually better to have one system and have multiple clients to the system with downgraded permissions, so that a team can go through and audit the whole system easier.
Now I'm not saying I'm all for Seisint holding the keys. Really the government should run this system themselves and hire the right people for the job, with the adequate level of security clearance to do the work. But diffracting a system into multiple independent systems operating on roughly the same premise, is not going to make it any better. It's going to cause lots of problems and I can foresee the following results without much effort, even:
1. Some states will apply problematic functions to the system. 2. Zero data cohesion for audits over the multiple systems. 3. Easier to corrupt state driven systems than federal ones. 4. Criminal activity changes jurisdiction (ie: no longer federal crime, perhaps?) 5. Bugs cropping up in one state won't be present in another. 6. Fifty times the cost of maintaining the systems; the guys doing this, just multiplied their haul by the number of states involved, instead of getting paid one lump sum to do the fsking job. 7. Social Engineers can break into state-run systems much easier, because they don't have to travel half way across the country to get in. 8. Criminals are now able to falsify criminal information like on that horrible movie The Net! 9. Awareness of a fragmented system is not enough to safeguard privacy.
While it may become increasingly difficult to forge digital images, and even forge hard currency, the result could be of two possibilities;
1. Forgers get smart and use older cameras to take a picture of a digital forgery to pass as an original, using blurring techniques offered by physical means and lens... etc (easy) 2. Forgers quit being forgers (unlikely) 3. Alteration technologists create armor against image forgery detection algorithms (possible)
For me, I think any time spent trying to beat the detection of forgeries would be a good thing in terms of art and creativity -- not to mention the possibility of better digital growth algorithms to join layers mathematically seamlessly (which could be used in games and simulation engines for better realism). However, law enforcement agencies might try to combat the circumvention of forgery detection by charging people with crimes for only trying to make their images more realistic and improve technology. It's a messy issue, that will sort itself out over time.
In Doom 3 Bloopers, a mod I've started on, I am looking at ways of integrating realworld imagery into the mod, and this detection stuff could actually help me to better integrate my own art and images if I can find a way around it. Let's face it, if the math says it's an original, the human eye will be fooled, which is the goal of most video game design. If anyone wants to help along those lines, they should contact me!
> More details on those mods please! Especially Doom for Columbine and Doom 3 Bloopers. Just curious.
Doom for Columbine was in pre design for some time over at Sourceforge. We were going to try and do something to show that violent video games were not the cause of violent actions, but it was stupid to think that this would mean anything to anyone, and it was going to be far too difficult to do it in a tasteful way so that the victims families of the Columbine tragedy would not be hurt.
We tried several different designs out in concepts and none of them panned out. We looked at doing a mod where the main character was an undercover FBI agent trying to crack down on school gangs, and while it sounded good on paper, the display of extreme school violence still would have upset the families of the victims.
The other approach was to do a kind of nonviolent game where your goal was to obtain reputation by pranking different people in the school, but it seemed off-topic to do that, when the results of Columbine were so clear. Two students decided to wage war on their peers as a way of getting even for years of abuse. It was a tragedy that I think isn't too far in the history to warrant a mod using the game blamed for the violence in the first place.
Looking back, I would have liked to do a realistic Doom/Columbine mod that enabled people to go on shooting rampages in a school setting. This may sound outrageous, but we believed that the mod might enable students to get out some of their daily frustrations in a fairly realistic setting, before actually going as far as really killing students. The problem we faced was that of liability; if a student played our mod and decided they it was a good idea to start really killing students (you know, used free will) then there existed the possibility that we could be held responsible -- not that we should legally be held responsible for someone else's actions, but it would be a messy situation.
I guess our rights to do a mod using the Columbine theme exist, but we're not sure how to proceed with that. Suggestions are welcome if you want to see this mod made.
Meanwhile, because we're nerds, we've been looking at doing a bloopers mod for Doom 3, to make fun of the serious and scary theme Id Software spent millions putting together. Why? Because I think it will be easy enough to pull off without having any models people onboard. We can use existing models to create the mod, and as you may know it takes quite a bit of time to do even one Doom 3 model, let alone animate the damn thing. Plus, my experience tells me that models people are the least reliable type of team member because they generally get snapped up for big bucks when they are any good, thus leaving free projects desolate of talent above the age of 15.
The bloopers could be a total rewrite of the Doom 3 game, but by fouling up the script and making the levels dysfunctional. I think it would be funny as hell if chainsaw weilding enemies dropped their weapons during a crucial cutscene, or someone turned on the lights when a really scary part of the game came up. Or if the guys forgot or messed up their lines in the game...
The greatest need on that kind of project would be for voice talent. I could easily program all the events by simply changing and rearranging the scripted events. The dialog would be pretty damn funny and I could write most of it myself. Level alterations, I could do too.
Since I've been in the mod community, I've noticed that you just can't rely on people to work hard at something, unless they've got a good reason to.
The negative press we received for Doom for Columbine overshadowed what we were trying to do with it. It made it so it wasn't going to be fun to make that kind of mod. The negative press stole away any desire I might have had to do something with Columbine. But I really think a bloopers mod would be fun as hell to do, and it would be played by everyone if it was hilarious enough. Plus I wouldn't have to rel
- First played doom on a 486 at my buddy's place - His mother had to kick me out after playing on the family computer for 8 hours at a time - Could not afford a system that could run Doom - Finally got a p100 and bought Quake - Headfirst into the mod community - Made levels for Quake, Q2, Q3 - Mods include Thunderwalker 2, Allstar2 CTF, Painkeep Arena - Invented Doom for Columbine that will likely never see the light of day (for obvious reasons) - Decided to design Doom 3 mod tenatively called "Doom 3 Bloopers" where we have some fun modding the orginal game - Still can't afford a computer that can play latest Doom Game
SETI says 2020, so now we have a new Internet deadline to watch. I bet they strike gold next year sometime or the year after. And when they do, I bet the Aliens look like giant chickens and they kick our asses for KFC.
This spells a desolate future for AT&T residential subscribers. When a company isn't actively going after business, they aren't actively *keeping* business, and therefore the quality of service rapidly declines until that segment is folded. I give it two years of hell and then a skillful withdrawal from the residential market.
Pretty soon, it's going to be illegal to even look at or listen to something covered by copyright protection. If you think about it, our brains keep a copy of everything we come into contact with in our memories. With science ever progressing towards Utopia, it won't be long before we are able to access and re-experience memories as if we were right there in the moment we first experienced them. "Just look in this little pen right here and say cheese! *FLASH* You will not remember anything about seeing Men In Black 7. You will be happy and do something special for everyone in your life. Thank you from the MPAA!"
Hey, when's the oxygen tax coming out? Oh, and I think we should also create a tax for walking anywhere, by counting the steps each person takes and sending them a bill at the end of the month. Could be rolled into the breathing tax, by counting the number of breaths each person takes and adding them together for a Human Life Tax. Or we could just tax Wifi...
I'm not sure if the PHP guys saw this coming or not, but gd_info() (PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5) will detect GIF support, so you can tell if you've got the thing set up correctly with a nice little one-liner:
var_dump(gd_info());
Some nice soul posted a comment on PHP.net that has what appears to be a great function that does the same thing, but could be used in install scripts and hacked to get it working the way you want:
/** * Get which version of GD is installed, if any. * * Returns the version (1 or 2) of the GD extension. */ function gdVersion() {
if (! extension_loaded('gd')) { return; }
ob_start();
phpinfo(8);
$info=ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
$info=stristr($info, 'gd version');
preg_match('/\d/', $info, $gd);
return $gd[0]; }// end function gdVersion()
// The function is easy to use.
if ($gdv = gdVersion()) {
if ($gdv >=2) {
echo 'imageCreateTruecolor() and imageCopyResampled() functions may be used.';
} else {
echo 'imageCreate() and imageCopyResized() functions must be used.';
} } else {
echo "The GD extension isn't loaded."; }
> They can charge a reasonable fee for the obtaining, making, and delivery of the disk and/or download service... you might be able to try to make a case that they're charging too much for such services
Here's my $1.50 plus $4 USD shipping. Now give me the source code dammit. $50... think of all the beer and ebay treats I could get with that.
The thread summary at DSLReports only makes it clear that this is all very complicated.
There's nothing complicated about this. It's all smoke.
Sveasoft can track the subscribers who redistribute their binaries by attaching some kind of tag to each firmware binary (as demonstrated by the different MD5 sums found so far). This makes sense, considering Sveasoft thought TheIndividual was someone else at first. Arno Nym has done some work to try to find what the unique identifier is. It is unknown wether this is allowed under the GPL.
This is not allowed under the GPL.
Neither subscribers nor non-subscribers have any right to future code Sveasoft has not yet released. It is "his" code, and he can choose not to distribute it. But once he does distribute it, wether publicly or privately to his subscribers, it is under the GPL and is free for *anyone* to redistribute.
Not true. If he made his code using a GPL base, it's not his property exclusively. Fruits of the tree become trees of the fruit.
Sveasoft has changed their minds about offering the source code as a free download, and now only offers it on a CD sent through the mail for a price of $50. This seems to be a violation of the GPL, but we need to hear back from the FSF about that.
Total violation. Off with their heads.
Sveasoft has accused several people of "pirating" the Sveasoft pre-release firmware and posting it online illegally, and has had websites shut down because of this. This is unbelievable considering Sveasoft says they allow this (see above). Sveasoft is also ending the subscriptions (but refunding their money) of people who have posted their MD5 sums of the binaries. It says nowhere in the subscriber contract that they can't do this. There have been a couple of nasty e-mail exchanges between forum members (TheIndividual, joakimsen) and Sveasoft. Sveasoft acts almost holier-than-thou (IQ 170) and seems to think the GPL doesn't apply to him [disclaimer: my personal opinion]. Sveasoft is now charging $50 for the source code, which is just rediculous considering it costs almost nothing to distribute it over the internet.
Now this reminds me of the SCO, but on a much smaller scale. Microcosm as Macrocosm, I guess.
There's an obscure reference to something like this in an old eighties movie called Crazy People, where the genius crazy people decide to thwart Sony executives by making an ad that simply says: Sony, Bony (while the guy shows this a sketch of a really skinny old guy). I'm sorry but when else am I going to get to reference this funny/stupid movie quote, but when a company starting with the letter B is going to join forces with Sony.
Indian outsourcing will never end. They'll just find cow replacements, and considering how much they hate Pakistan... well you can only imagine the horrible spell jamming technology that will ensue. [obscure reference #58830]
FTA: A House appropriations subcommittee voted to cut NASA's budget request by 7 percent on the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon.
I believe this happened for a few reasons:
1. War 2. Sympathy 3. Elections
War: The spending on the war has caused so many problems in the US that it's hard to fathom any budget increases for any program, other than a military one. Take into account the huge chunk of cash moved into Iraq and you have yourself some questions. Is it prudent to be offering extra money to spend on space when so much money is going to killing resistance fighters, terrorists and occasional Iraqi civilians? Not to mention the costs of rebuilding the country that was bombed into the stone age, for whatever reason.
Sympathy: Dogbert says that if you want to get more funding, you should have your funding publicly slashed and burned for about a year. The sympathy you get will cause your funding increases to double in the next year, and the year after that. Part of the problem with getting new funding is that the old funding can be perceived as too fat if it hasn't been cut recently. Having funding cut will help obfuscate your motives for even more padding in the years to come.
Elections: By cutting the funding to NASA, this will show people that it's an election year and it's important to vote. I'm not sure which party will benefit from these cuts more, yet it's important for everyone that more people go and vote. People everywhere love NASA for their space exploration because most human beings want to pretend they can be members of a space faring race, like on Star Trek. NASA's human rights injuries, be damned.
Not sure what SCO has to do with Elf. Wait, nevermind. They've got truth elves, working from dusk till dawn, griding down the logic and confusing the masses with their cute looking elf outfits and fairy dust. My guess is that Santa Claus himself is somehow behind this latest SCO claim. It just seems like the more they open their traps, the lower their stock gets, so I'm all for many more of these kinds of press releases.
Slashdot Mirror
> Although they are technically complying with the the letter of the law, they're abusing the spirit by giving the libraries large piles of crud.
I think the problem is that the RIAA only has access to large piles of crud. Let's face it -- Britney, Justin, which other Mousekateers-turned-popstar are there? Chicken of the Sea Girl, Nick whatever-his-name-is, and the list goes on and on.
Indies are being given a huge door to stroll through and every time the RIAA screws up, it helps the indies get more market share. So I'm all for the RIAA being asshats, because they are on the road to Utopia.
> I can see how misled conceptions would lead to a scarcity of designers
And even after the New York Times interview with me, the art and models guys couldn't commit to Doom for Columbine. It was a horrible nightmare for me, after so many near misses with modding.
Thunderwalker 2, Allstar2 CTF, WireTap...etc. Just a shitload of coulda-beens/never-wuz vapourware... it's just annoying to have so many great ideas without the manpower to pull it off.
And I think Doom 3 will spell a whole new era for game design, because no more will novice designers cut their teeth doing mod work. It's not going to happen the same way anymore. It used to be with Quake, all you had to do was get an idea and you could quickly impliment it. The hardest part of Quake design was making levels that looked good, played good and sealed on compiles. Now with Doom 3, the hardest part is going to be models and art, IMHO, and novice mods are going to suck.
> (hell, even I considered applying, but second-thought myself out, because the description was too vague, and i didn't want to get 'known' for something that might bounce off bad)
Lots of people backed away from Doom for Columbine because of that exact reason. They weren't sure about it, or they hated the name. We had a few people try to take over our design using guerilla warfare tactics to try and railroad us, too.
I've learned my lesson, and now I'm not going to be relying on anyone anymore. We can do Doom 3 Bloopers without anyone's help. We aren't going to be waiting on art or models to get finished. It's going to be me with my text editor, Pusher with his guitar and soundforge or whatever the hell else he uses (big audio system that guy has!), and Skore with his levels and amazing entity work. You may have read Skore's mapping guides, which remain to be among the best ever created for Quake 3.
> but it would have been kick-ass if you guys would at least have attempted a build/testbuild as soon as D3 hits the street, so , if succeeding, you can hold your TC under the nose of all those nay-sayers, and 'proof them wrong'
Let me just say that for two years I was doing this. I went to the media to prove the nay-sayers wrong and to try and drum up support for Doom for Columbine, but it wasn't going to happen. People wouldn't have played it, we could have been sued, or maybe just maybe it could have been the best mod of all time. Without art or models people dedicated for about six or seven months, that could not happen. Since designs started two years ago, Doom for Columbine went through about sixty different artists and models people. That's just them... we had a few content designers and writers that wouldn't cooperate, and lots of conflicting ideas about how to tackle the delicate content of the mod. People fought about George Bush -- it was hell.
And now I get to make a fun mod that doesn't rely on anyone else as much as such a big production. It's going to be a riot!!! And we can still add some of our ideas into it to make it funny here and there.
> Taking Michael Moore for example : and the hassle he has to deal with ; only to tell (part of) the truth.
I said the same thing to my team on our private mailing list. We argued about it for a couple of months! What we came up with, or what I came up with was that the end result of Moore does not match our end result because of one major factor: Moore profits from his work and mods are not set up as a profit generators, so resources are limited.
Now if I ever joined a big studio and they asked me, I would tell them point blank that a game like Doom for Columbine could be very lucrative. I'm sure that someone like Rockstar could do it and sell ten million units in the first year. They could also get sued by twenty or so families and lose their shirts, but maybe not.
It's a gamble when there's money involved, and when there is no money involved it's hard to keep the team focused and on track. Fun mods, l
This story would be a whole lot better if it included a biorhythm readout of the steroid or drug content of each rider! I was listening to the CBC radio in the car again today and they had a very insightful discussion about the Belgian Christophe Brandt who withdrew after testing positive for the narcotic methadone. It seems that the Tour is being marred by this drug controversy.
However the tracking system they are planning for next year seems quite a bit better than what is currently available, like this fairly unintuitive flash gizmo on CBC.
A great example of what you're talking about is found in "Cradle to Cradle" by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. I heard a CBC radio broadcast last week in my car that had Michael Braungart on it and it was fascinating. He wants to see products go from being made to returning to raw components efficiently. I might add, this guy isn't a typical Enviro-nut TM. He's actually quite intelligent and pretty far from the fringe, from what I could tell when I heard him on the CBC. The book Cradle to Cradle was also reviewed on Slashdot, with a critical 10/10 rating.
> While I liked the goals you guys wanted to set forth in the Doom for Columbine mod, your guy's greatest mistake was the name : The name is unforgivable , imo : But then again, I was looking forward to what you guys we're able to pull off.
We were taking ourselves way too seriously with Doom for Columbine, and that was the biggest mistake. Games aren't meant to be taken seriously. They are supposed to be fun, and that's where we're going with Doom 3 Bloopers.
The name Doom for Columbine is just as unforgivable as Bowling for Columbine, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary. I think we were trying to make a statement, and it really failed. People got the wrong idea about what we were trying to do, and they only listened to their own misled conceptions about where we were going with the project. No matter how hard we tried to explain ourselves we were flamed everywhere for it. We got the hint and dropped the project.
That said, there was no convincing anyone that Doom for Columbine was a worthy project, and that really hurt the team's morale.
> Now I read that the project has come to a halt, I think the second mistake (but i think that would be clear by now) is that you guys made a public statement about something you clearly did not put too much thought in (yet).
I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you. However, the problem with trying to put together a TC like Doom for Columbine, is that it would require a fairly large team of dedicated people. We had a pretty damn good team for DFC consisting of about 13 people, but we only lacked models people and animators; they kept flip-flopping and dragging their assses. We announced early in hopes of attracting models people and animators to our project, and artists as well. It backfired. The negative press Doom for Columbine received ensured that any models people who *were* interested, backed away.
Let's face it, if anyone is going to build new models for Doom 3, in a single player module, the models and animation people have to be as good as Paul Steed, or it's going to suck. That's a tall order, really.
Finally, I had enough of the negativity associated with Doom for Columbine, and the annoying models people who were flippant and uncommitted. I've decided to cut myself off from those people, or at least put them all at arm's length. Our new project will not rely on models or art in any way.
We'll have a submissions area on our website for people who want to get involved, and that will enable me to cut our team down to about three people; Skore, Pusher and myself.
> I'm in no way trying to flame you, and as I said, I appreciated people trying to take on another side of gamedesign : A shame you guys did not even get it off the ground though.
GL with your bloopers mod.
Thanks for wishing us luck. I think that video games are supposed to be fun, and after trying to make political statements with them, I've decided that it's not worth the effort to go there. That's what famous film-makers and news personalities are for... and video games aren't taken seriously enough to warrant critical acclaim for anything other than: great special effects, nice story, cool characters, amazing weapons, sprawling landscapes........etc.
But the bloopers mod is going to be fun as hell. We're going to put our frustration with Doom for Columbine into a mod that makes fun of Doom 3. So it's light, and funny and totally non-serious.
I think once we get our site up and start getting into the game when it's released, we will be able to put the first installment together in about two months. Depending on the scripting of the game, we might be able to start earlier. And we don't need any skilled people beyond what we can do ourselves. Skore is a mapping genius, Pusher is a very talented musicican and sounds guy, and I'm a programmer who has taught level design at a college level. We sho
If you remember, the lead nerd of RotN was wearing a Vader mask when he screwed the jock's gf. HAHAHA
How appropriate is that connection?
Each state will maintain its own records . . . Software will search each state's records as necessary. The new setup is designed to get around obstacles in some states' data laws.
I am a programmer and let me just say that this is a really bad idea. Why? Because it's always a bad idea to design a large system that acts like a server but essentially is only a client.
Each state running their own version of the system, operating independently of the other states, will only ensure that the system could become easily corruptible (both criminally and data corrupted), without anyone higher examining the system for audits, outside of audits applied to the individual systems.
It's actually better to have one system and have multiple clients to the system with downgraded permissions, so that a team can go through and audit the whole system easier.
Now I'm not saying I'm all for Seisint holding the keys. Really the government should run this system themselves and hire the right people for the job, with the adequate level of security clearance to do the work. But diffracting a system into multiple independent systems operating on roughly the same premise, is not going to make it any better. It's going to cause lots of problems and I can foresee the following results without much effort, even:
1. Some states will apply problematic functions to the system.
2. Zero data cohesion for audits over the multiple systems.
3. Easier to corrupt state driven systems than federal ones.
4. Criminal activity changes jurisdiction (ie: no longer federal crime, perhaps?)
5. Bugs cropping up in one state won't be present in another.
6. Fifty times the cost of maintaining the systems; the guys doing this, just multiplied their haul by the number of states involved, instead of getting paid one lump sum to do the fsking job.
7. Social Engineers can break into state-run systems much easier, because they don't have to travel half way across the country to get in.
8. Criminals are now able to falsify criminal information like on that horrible movie The Net!
9. Awareness of a fragmented system is not enough to safeguard privacy.
While it may become increasingly difficult to forge digital images, and even forge hard currency, the result could be of two possibilities;
1. Forgers get smart and use older cameras to take a picture of a digital forgery to pass as an original, using blurring techniques offered by physical means and lens... etc (easy)
2. Forgers quit being forgers (unlikely)
3. Alteration technologists create armor against image forgery detection algorithms (possible)
For me, I think any time spent trying to beat the detection of forgeries would be a good thing in terms of art and creativity -- not to mention the possibility of better digital growth algorithms to join layers mathematically seamlessly (which could be used in games and simulation engines for better realism). However, law enforcement agencies might try to combat the circumvention of forgery detection by charging people with crimes for only trying to make their images more realistic and improve technology. It's a messy issue, that will sort itself out over time.
In Doom 3 Bloopers, a mod I've started on, I am looking at ways of integrating realworld imagery into the mod, and this detection stuff could actually help me to better integrate my own art and images if I can find a way around it. Let's face it, if the math says it's an original, the human eye will be fooled, which is the goal of most video game design. If anyone wants to help along those lines, they should contact me!
I think this is the only article in the history of Slashdot that could make GNAA comments, trolling and general bad behaviour -- ON TOPIC!
Annoying people exist everywhere. The trick is to direct their annoying behaviour at your foes.
> More details on those mods please! Especially Doom for Columbine and Doom 3 Bloopers. Just curious.
Doom for Columbine was in pre design for some time over at Sourceforge. We were going to try and do something to show that violent video games were not the cause of violent actions, but it was stupid to think that this would mean anything to anyone, and it was going to be far too difficult to do it in a tasteful way so that the victims families of the Columbine tragedy would not be hurt.
We tried several different designs out in concepts and none of them panned out. We looked at doing a mod where the main character was an undercover FBI agent trying to crack down on school gangs, and while it sounded good on paper, the display of extreme school violence still would have upset the families of the victims.
The other approach was to do a kind of nonviolent game where your goal was to obtain reputation by pranking different people in the school, but it seemed off-topic to do that, when the results of Columbine were so clear. Two students decided to wage war on their peers as a way of getting even for years of abuse. It was a tragedy that I think isn't too far in the history to warrant a mod using the game blamed for the violence in the first place.
Looking back, I would have liked to do a realistic Doom/Columbine mod that enabled people to go on shooting rampages in a school setting. This may sound outrageous, but we believed that the mod might enable students to get out some of their daily frustrations in a fairly realistic setting, before actually going as far as really killing students. The problem we faced was that of liability; if a student played our mod and decided they it was a good idea to start really killing students (you know, used free will) then there existed the possibility that we could be held responsible -- not that we should legally be held responsible for someone else's actions, but it would be a messy situation.
I guess our rights to do a mod using the Columbine theme exist, but we're not sure how to proceed with that. Suggestions are welcome if you want to see this mod made.
Meanwhile, because we're nerds, we've been looking at doing a bloopers mod for Doom 3, to make fun of the serious and scary theme Id Software spent millions putting together. Why? Because I think it will be easy enough to pull off without having any models people onboard. We can use existing models to create the mod, and as you may know it takes quite a bit of time to do even one Doom 3 model, let alone animate the damn thing. Plus, my experience tells me that models people are the least reliable type of team member because they generally get snapped up for big bucks when they are any good, thus leaving free projects desolate of talent above the age of 15.
The bloopers could be a total rewrite of the Doom 3 game, but by fouling up the script and making the levels dysfunctional. I think it would be funny as hell if chainsaw weilding enemies dropped their weapons during a crucial cutscene, or someone turned on the lights when a really scary part of the game came up. Or if the guys forgot or messed up their lines in the game...
The greatest need on that kind of project would be for voice talent. I could easily program all the events by simply changing and rearranging the scripted events. The dialog would be pretty damn funny and I could write most of it myself. Level alterations, I could do too.
Since I've been in the mod community, I've noticed that you just can't rely on people to work hard at something, unless they've got a good reason to.
The negative press we received for Doom for Columbine overshadowed what we were trying to do with it. It made it so it wasn't going to be fun to make that kind of mod. The negative press stole away any desire I might have had to do something with Columbine. But I really think a bloopers mod would be fun as hell to do, and it would be played by everyone if it was hilarious enough. Plus I wouldn't have to rel
- First played doom on a 486 at my buddy's place
- His mother had to kick me out after playing on the family computer for 8 hours at a time
- Could not afford a system that could run Doom
- Finally got a p100 and bought Quake
- Headfirst into the mod community
- Made levels for Quake, Q2, Q3
- Mods include Thunderwalker 2, Allstar2 CTF, Painkeep Arena
- Invented Doom for Columbine that will likely never see the light of day (for obvious reasons)
- Decided to design Doom 3 mod tenatively called "Doom 3 Bloopers" where we have some fun modding the orginal game
- Still can't afford a computer that can play latest Doom Game
SETI says 2020, so now we have a new Internet deadline to watch. I bet they strike gold next year sometime or the year after. And when they do, I bet the Aliens look like giant chickens and they kick our asses for KFC.
3....2....1.... BANKRUPT!
This spells a desolate future for AT&T residential subscribers. When a company isn't actively going after business, they aren't actively *keeping* business, and therefore the quality of service rapidly declines until that segment is folded. I give it two years of hell and then a skillful withdrawal from the residential market.
Pretty soon, it's going to be illegal to even look at or listen to something covered by copyright protection. If you think about it, our brains keep a copy of everything we come into contact with in our memories. With science ever progressing towards Utopia, it won't be long before we are able to access and re-experience memories as if we were right there in the moment we first experienced them. "Just look in this little pen right here and say cheese! *FLASH* You will not remember anything about seeing Men In Black 7. You will be happy and do something special for everyone in your life. Thank you from the MPAA!"
Hey, when's the oxygen tax coming out? Oh, and I think we should also create a tax for walking anywhere, by counting the steps each person takes and sending them a bill at the end of the month. Could be rolled into the breathing tax, by counting the number of breaths each person takes and adding them together for a Human Life Tax. Or we could just tax Wifi...
It would be nice to have this story filed under PHP as a subtopic, authors!
var_dump(gd_info());
Some nice soul posted a comment on PHP.net that has what appears to be a great function that does the same thing, but could be used in install scripts and hacked to get it working the way you want:
> They can charge a reasonable fee for the obtaining, making, and delivery of the disk and/or download service... you might be able to try to make a case that they're charging too much for such services
Here's my $1.50 plus $4 USD shipping. Now give me the source code dammit. $50... think of all the beer and ebay treats I could get with that.
Say it isn't so!
The thread summary at DSLReports only makes it clear that this is all very complicated.
There's nothing complicated about this. It's all smoke.
Sveasoft can track the subscribers who redistribute their binaries by attaching some kind of tag to each firmware binary (as demonstrated by the different MD5 sums found so far). This makes sense, considering Sveasoft thought TheIndividual was someone else at first. Arno Nym has done some work to try to find what the unique identifier is. It is unknown wether this is allowed under the GPL.
This is not allowed under the GPL.
Neither subscribers nor non-subscribers have any right to future code Sveasoft has not yet released. It is "his" code, and he can choose not to distribute it. But once he does distribute it, wether publicly or privately to his subscribers, it is under the GPL and is free for *anyone* to redistribute.
Not true. If he made his code using a GPL base, it's not his property exclusively. Fruits of the tree become trees of the fruit.
Sveasoft has changed their minds about offering the source code as a free download, and now only offers it on a CD sent through the mail for a price of $50. This seems to be a violation of the GPL, but we need to hear back from the FSF about that.
Total violation. Off with their heads.
Sveasoft has accused several people of "pirating" the Sveasoft pre-release firmware and posting it online illegally, and has had websites shut down because of this. This is unbelievable considering Sveasoft says they allow this (see above).
Sveasoft is also ending the subscriptions (but refunding their money) of people who have posted their MD5 sums of the binaries. It says nowhere in the subscriber contract that they can't do this.
There have been a couple of nasty e-mail exchanges between forum members (TheIndividual, joakimsen) and Sveasoft. Sveasoft acts almost holier-than-thou (IQ 170) and seems to think the GPL doesn't apply to him [disclaimer: my personal opinion].
Sveasoft is now charging $50 for the source code, which is just rediculous considering it costs almost nothing to distribute it over the internet.
Now this reminds me of the SCO, but on a much smaller scale. Microcosm as Macrocosm, I guess.
People: don't use GPL code if you can't RTFM.
There's an obscure reference to something like this in an old eighties movie called Crazy People, where the genius crazy people decide to thwart Sony executives by making an ad that simply says: Sony, Bony (while the guy shows this a sketch of a really skinny old guy). I'm sorry but when else am I going to get to reference this funny/stupid movie quote, but when a company starting with the letter B is going to join forces with Sony.
So say it with me;
BMG + Sony...
Sony, Bony
Indian outsourcing will never end. They'll just find cow replacements, and considering how much they hate Pakistan... well you can only imagine the horrible spell jamming technology that will ensue. [obscure reference #58830]
FTA: A House appropriations subcommittee voted to cut NASA's budget request by 7 percent on the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon.
I believe this happened for a few reasons:
1. War
2. Sympathy
3. Elections
War: The spending on the war has caused so many problems in the US that it's hard to fathom any budget increases for any program, other than a military one. Take into account the huge chunk of cash moved into Iraq and you have yourself some questions. Is it prudent to be offering extra money to spend on space when so much money is going to killing resistance fighters, terrorists and occasional Iraqi civilians? Not to mention the costs of rebuilding the country that was bombed into the stone age, for whatever reason.
Sympathy: Dogbert says that if you want to get more funding, you should have your funding publicly slashed and burned for about a year. The sympathy you get will cause your funding increases to double in the next year, and the year after that. Part of the problem with getting new funding is that the old funding can be perceived as too fat if it hasn't been cut recently. Having funding cut will help obfuscate your motives for even more padding in the years to come.
Elections: By cutting the funding to NASA, this will show people that it's an election year and it's important to vote. I'm not sure which party will benefit from these cuts more, yet it's important for everyone that more people go and vote. People everywhere love NASA for their space exploration because most human beings want to pretend they can be members of a space faring race, like on Star Trek. NASA's human rights injuries, be damned.
What about those huge Cannabis plants, carefully concealed and yet still lining the back wall of your yard? They might like Floyd, I'm thinking.
Not sure what SCO has to do with Elf. Wait, nevermind. They've got truth elves, working from dusk till dawn, griding down the logic and confusing the masses with their cute looking elf outfits and fairy dust. My guess is that Santa Claus himself is somehow behind this latest SCO claim. It just seems like the more they open their traps, the lower their stock gets, so I'm all for many more of these kinds of press releases.