note: apologies in advance for all the quotes in this post
The "Beta" program was hillarious as a beta program, but genius as a marketing tool. Near the end, *EVERYONE* who had applied was "selected" as a Beta tester. (At my company of ~fifty people, five people applied for the beta, and five people were accepted, three about a month before it launched.) Of course, they had to pay $50 to become a beta tester. In short, it was a fantastic "soft rollout" that earned Microsoft a ton of goodwill among the hardcore community, engendered tons of envy and desire for the product among hardcore gamers (like me) who hadn't bothered to sign up for the "beta," helped ensure a nearly flaw-free product release, and created great word of mouth.
Supposedly the initial sign-up numbers (~150K) are like double what Microsoft was expecting. My experience with the system so far has been great, except for bugs in MechAssault that cause people to drop out on game launch if people are talking into the headset. Also, the whole front end for MechAssault online sucks my ass. But the mindless shooting is super fun, so that makes up for it somewhat...
Yeah, just like they did to Daniel Pearl! Oh, except at the end of that "deposition," they slit his throat. Hmm... Maybe your comparison is flawed...
The DMCA is totally evil, but so far this case has demonstrated that while Congress can pass fucked up laws, and stupid companies can prosecute under them, justice can prevail. I predict it will be a while before another criminal prosecution under DMCA.
Apple does not make it easy to forget. They are upfront, and in your face, constantly, about NDAs, and the consequences for breaking them. If Apple tells someone a secret, you can be damn sure that that someone KNOWS it's a trade secret.
As a contractor, you have to be an idiot to leak stuff: who'll hire you in the future, especially if you're a Macintosh specialist...
Commercially GPS receivers don't work indoors, or when hidden in boxes. And they cost a lot. Instead of a GPS receiver, you could try using an escrow service or PayPal to get the money upfront.
I've used United, and the service is good, but if you get a "small hole" 45, there is a noticable ridge when the "big hole" would be. It's an easy way to tell if the record is by United though...
I have the book; it's okay. It has a lot of BASIC listings in the back. I love the way older media on computers just assumed that you'd need to be able to program, and to know how a microprocessor works to get any value out of the machine: I only wish it was still like that today.
I'm not at all saying that the only point of modding an Xbox is to play pirated games. I'm only saying whay you were -- that the pirates wreck it for the legitimate hackers, and create the public impression that draconian countermeasures are all no big deal.
Anyway, in this case Microsoft isn't preventing you from using it as you see fit, they're just preventing you from using it on their service. Their service is apparently for unmodded Xboxes only, and as long as they refund the dough if you buy Live and can't use it, it's no bigger a deal than Worldwinner.com not working with MacOS. There's no fundemental right to use Xbox Live in the Constitution or anything...
If I bought a car intending to seal all its leaks and turn it into a submarine, but then I discovered I couldn't, or it didn't work, because the engine needed oxygen, I don't think you could say I bought the car under false pretenses. Not 100% analagous, but you see the point. Microsoft doesn't sell the Xbox in the US for any purpose other than playing North American region games. If you wanted to do something else with it, that's your problem.
Also, it's not as if the modder is banned forever, only the modded Xbox. I think it's a lame policy, but regardless of its lameness, it does seem well within Microsoft's rights to do it. (Although they better be offering refunds if people can't use the service.)
The frustrating thing, to me, is that most mod chippers talk up a "run Linux, do hobbiest development, play other region DVDs" game, and then simply play lots of pirated games. To many people that gives Microsoft the moral high ground in its battle against harwdare hackers. If less people used mod chips for piracy, Microsoft (and others) might be less inclined to go after them.
A good example is Nintendo, which has traditionally turned a totally blind eye to region-defeating measures, while rigorously enforcing anti-piracy policies.
Democracy and capitalism have nothing to do with each other. We have a (theoretically) democratic, capitalistic system in the United States (and the West in general), but you can't substitute one for the other. For instance, Afghanistan under the Taliban was a capitalist society, but certainly not a democratic one.
The cool thing about our society is that, at least in theory, we can exercise our democratic rights to reign in the excesses of free-form capitalism.
Before you start capping on me about how unfree our society is, how unregulated capitalism is in the US, blah blah Chomsky blah blah blah. I would like to offer the following point. A good system doesn't mean that bad things will never happen; it frequently will allow bad things to happen, but with some error correction. After years of fraud, etc. our system is now catching up with the latest problem, and will be (probably) regulated out of existence. Doesn't mean our system is perfect, or there aren't better ones, but the fact that flaws are caught and at least sometimes fixed is much more hopeful to me than if that didn't happen.
Put another way: if Bush and Cheney were really pulling the strings as much as liberal conspiracy theorits argue, we'd already be drilling in ANWR. The fact that we're not is to me evidence that our system works to some extent.
Don't worry -- I just bought an SX-64 at the Vintage Computer Festival (www.vintage.org), and I plan to keep it stock. Although, as an Apple II fan, the thought of turning it into a portable Apple//c was pretty tempting.
-Chris
The Apple II did 280 x 192. However, if you wanted color, and wanted to be able to address all 6 colors (in high-res) in any "pixel," you were limited to a virtual 140 x 192. But if you're working on a green screen or amber monitor (for less eyestrain), you could easily address 280 pixels across horizontally. You were basically address color sub-pixels. Sub pixel rendering, of course, is a technology Microsoft used on the Apple II, but then "rediscovered" and patented on LCD screens. A good discussion of the subject can be found here.
Re:All Saddam's email are belong to us!
on
Saddam's Inbox Hacked
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· Score: 5, Insightful
It's offtopic, but I had to respond:
An objective analysis of both W's record and Saddam's record reaveals that Saddam has a much worse record on human rights. It's funny and popular to say otherwise on Campus, maybe, but last time I checked, the US government doesn't maintain a specially horrific prision for the children of dissidents, doesn't gas its own citizens, doesn't execute military officers by the hundreds, doesn't explicitly repress free speech, etc. Which the Iraqi government, controlled by Hussein, does.
Regardless of whether or not attacking Iraq is a good idea, saying what you said kind of makes you seem like a moron, because it's absolutely factually incorrect, and it lessens the impact of any argument you try to make.
The worst Republican, on his worst, conspiracy-laden, evil, money-grubbing day is better than Saddam Hussein on his best, most charitable, not-killing-people day.
People in Japan type really, really, slow, especially when they're doing key-combos to form kanji characters, so the small keyboard is probably something less of a big deal there.
-Chris
The point isn't to forever prevent hackers from cracking the protection, the point is to *delay* ISOs going out on the net long enough (30 to 60 days is fine) so that you maximize sales, especially among consumers "on the bubble" between piracy and purchasing. While there are many people who will pirate the game but wouldn't ever but it, if something's too easy to pirate, you will lose sales.
Anytime I see shit like this, I have to laugh. I was born right in the middle (1971), and me -- and most of my same-age friends -- are all doing fine. Houses, cars, kids, *jobs* (usually interesting, tech related ones), upward salary progressions, etc. I don't know any Gordon Gekkos, but I don't have any friends who are homeless either.
And if you think you are doomed by your age to a lifetime of finanical failure, just look at Colonel Sanders: he was basically broke until he started KFC when he was 65 years old!
I don't want to be a polyanna or say I've never had or seen setbacks -- my gf was un/under-employed for a year -- but to just write off a whole generation in Fortune just seems like a sack of Baby Boomer sour grapes bullshit.
One neat thing about this book is its focus on PC game companies like Infocom or Sirrius, which are mostly neglected in other game histories.
If you're interested in this subject, you also really need to check out Steven Kent's First Quarter, which has great interviews with Japanese sources, Van Burnhams coffee-table book Supercade, and John Seller's well written and funny Arcade Fever. Hardcore game fans also *must* own Leonard Herman's Pheonix, a detailed, year by year account of the US console business.
There may be hella TVs that support HDTV resolutions, but the PS2 isn't nearly powerful enough to drive a high resolution display at a fast frame rate.
It has the most games, and maybe the best games, but the PS2 is absolutely the most inferior console -- from a strictly hardware perspective -- of the current crop of consoles (PS2, Xbox, and GameCube).
Two part question: 1) What was your future plan if you didn't get caught? Keep warezing forever? 2) Now that you have been busted, what are your future plans? Doing something in computers? Are you worried that there will be some Mitnik-clause to your eventual parole that will keep you from computers?
One of the coolest things about connectors is that the Atari 2600, C64 and Sega Genesis all had the same 9-pin connector. You can hook a Genesis pad up to your 2600 and it works well (B is the only button that works, along with the D-pad). There's even a hack for making the Genesis pad work with the two-button 7800 -- sadly I can't find the link atm. Coolest thing I've seen recently is a converter that lets you use PlayStation dual-analog controllers on the Atari 5200. I believe I saw something about it here.
And, of course, from Independence Day, we know that Aliens use AppleTalk.
Best implementation of pie menus
on
Pie-Menus in Mozilla
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I've seen was in Return to Zork back in 1994. Super cool. Anyone else have any good examples of pie menus? We're considering using them in a game and seeing more would be neat.
The Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org) has a hard drive platter that has a diameter of ~3 feet. I believe it held 10MB, way back in the day. I also think that ProFile system that came with the Apple/// had a 12-inch platter.
I say this with such confidence because of my experience building robot brains over the past seven years. Almost everything people ever say to our robot falls into one of about 45,000 categories. Considering the astronomical number of things people could say, if every sentence was an original line of poetry, 45,000 is a very, very small number.
I say:
The fact that people only say 45,000 different things to a robot shouldn't indicate to you that people only have about 45,000 things to say, just that they only have 45,000 things to say to a robot in what is essentially a lab setting!
That said, I think this is a pretty fascinating interview.
Slashdot Mirror
The "Beta" program was hillarious as a beta program, but genius as a marketing tool. Near the end, *EVERYONE* who had applied was "selected" as a Beta tester. (At my company of ~fifty people, five people applied for the beta, and five people were accepted, three about a month before it launched.) Of course, they had to pay $50 to become a beta tester. In short, it was a fantastic "soft rollout" that earned Microsoft a ton of goodwill among the hardcore community, engendered tons of envy and desire for the product among hardcore gamers (like me) who hadn't bothered to sign up for the "beta," helped ensure a nearly flaw-free product release, and created great word of mouth.
Supposedly the initial sign-up numbers (~150K) are like double what Microsoft was expecting. My experience with the system so far has been great, except for bugs in MechAssault that cause people to drop out on game launch if people are talking into the headset. Also, the whole front end for MechAssault online sucks my ass. But the mindless shooting is super fun, so that makes up for it somewhat...
The DMCA is totally evil, but so far this case has demonstrated that while Congress can pass fucked up laws, and stupid companies can prosecute under them, justice can prevail. I predict it will be a while before another criminal prosecution under DMCA.
As a comb, I'll take the heat sink over the actual processor any day.
As a contractor, you have to be an idiot to leak stuff: who'll hire you in the future, especially if you're a Macintosh specialist...
Commercially GPS receivers don't work indoors, or when hidden in boxes. And they cost a lot. Instead of a GPS receiver, you could try using an escrow service or PayPal to get the money upfront.
I've used United, and the service is good, but if you get a "small hole" 45, there is a noticable ridge when the "big hole" would be. It's an easy way to tell if the record is by United though...
I have the book; it's okay. It has a lot of BASIC listings in the back. I love the way older media on computers just assumed that you'd need to be able to program, and to know how a microprocessor works to get any value out of the machine: I only wish it was still like that today.
Anyway, in this case Microsoft isn't preventing you from using it as you see fit, they're just preventing you from using it on their service. Their service is apparently for unmodded Xboxes only, and as long as they refund the dough if you buy Live and can't use it, it's no bigger a deal than Worldwinner.com not working with MacOS. There's no fundemental right to use Xbox Live in the Constitution or anything...
Also, it's not as if the modder is banned forever, only the modded Xbox. I think it's a lame policy, but regardless of its lameness, it does seem well within Microsoft's rights to do it. (Although they better be offering refunds if people can't use the service.)
The frustrating thing, to me, is that most mod chippers talk up a "run Linux, do hobbiest development, play other region DVDs" game, and then simply play lots of pirated games. To many people that gives Microsoft the moral high ground in its battle against harwdare hackers. If less people used mod chips for piracy, Microsoft (and others) might be less inclined to go after them.
A good example is Nintendo, which has traditionally turned a totally blind eye to region-defeating measures, while rigorously enforcing anti-piracy policies.
The cool thing about our society is that, at least in theory, we can exercise our democratic rights to reign in the excesses of free-form capitalism.
Before you start capping on me about how unfree our society is, how unregulated capitalism is in the US, blah blah Chomsky blah blah blah. I would like to offer the following point. A good system doesn't mean that bad things will never happen; it frequently will allow bad things to happen, but with some error correction. After years of fraud, etc. our system is now catching up with the latest problem, and will be (probably) regulated out of existence. Doesn't mean our system is perfect, or there aren't better ones, but the fact that flaws are caught and at least sometimes fixed is much more hopeful to me than if that didn't happen.
Put another way: if Bush and Cheney were really pulling the strings as much as liberal conspiracy theorits argue, we'd already be drilling in ANWR. The fact that we're not is to me evidence that our system works to some extent.
Don't worry -- I just bought an SX-64 at the Vintage Computer Festival (www.vintage.org), and I plan to keep it stock. Although, as an Apple II fan, the thought of turning it into a portable Apple //c was pretty tempting.
-Chris
The Apple II did 280 x 192. However, if you wanted color, and wanted to be able to address all 6 colors (in high-res) in any "pixel," you were limited to a virtual 140 x 192. But if you're working on a green screen or amber monitor (for less eyestrain), you could easily address 280 pixels across horizontally. You were basically address color sub-pixels. Sub pixel rendering, of course, is a technology Microsoft used on the Apple II, but then "rediscovered" and patented on LCD screens. A good discussion of the subject can be found here .
An objective analysis of both W's record and Saddam's record reaveals that Saddam has a much worse record on human rights. It's funny and popular to say otherwise on Campus, maybe, but last time I checked, the US government doesn't maintain a specially horrific prision for the children of dissidents, doesn't gas its own citizens, doesn't execute military officers by the hundreds, doesn't explicitly repress free speech, etc. Which the Iraqi government, controlled by Hussein, does.
Regardless of whether or not attacking Iraq is a good idea, saying what you said kind of makes you seem like a moron, because it's absolutely factually incorrect, and it lessens the impact of any argument you try to make.
The worst Republican, on his worst, conspiracy-laden, evil, money-grubbing day is better than Saddam Hussein on his best, most charitable, not-killing-people day.
People in Japan type really, really, slow, especially when they're doing key-combos to form kanji characters, so the small keyboard is probably something less of a big deal there. -Chris
The point isn't to forever prevent hackers from cracking the protection, the point is to *delay* ISOs going out on the net long enough (30 to 60 days is fine) so that you maximize sales, especially among consumers "on the bubble" between piracy and purchasing. While there are many people who will pirate the game but wouldn't ever but it, if something's too easy to pirate, you will lose sales.
And if you think you are doomed by your age to a lifetime of finanical failure, just look at Colonel Sanders: he was basically broke until he started KFC when he was 65 years old!
I don't want to be a polyanna or say I've never had or seen setbacks -- my gf was un/under-employed for a year -- but to just write off a whole generation in Fortune just seems like a sack of Baby Boomer sour grapes bullshit.
One neat thing about this book is its focus on PC game companies like Infocom or Sirrius, which are mostly neglected in other game histories. If you're interested in this subject, you also really need to check out Steven Kent's First Quarter, which has great interviews with Japanese sources, Van Burnhams coffee-table book Supercade, and John Seller's well written and funny Arcade Fever. Hardcore game fans also *must* own Leonard Herman's Pheonix, a detailed, year by year account of the US console business.
It sounds like a puzzle from Escape from Rungistan, but I can't be 100% sure.
It has the most games, and maybe the best games, but the PS2 is absolutely the most inferior console -- from a strictly hardware perspective -- of the current crop of consoles (PS2, Xbox, and GameCube).
-Chris
Two part question: 1) What was your future plan if you didn't get caught? Keep warezing forever? 2) Now that you have been busted, what are your future plans? Doing something in computers? Are you worried that there will be some Mitnik-clause to your eventual parole that will keep you from computers?
One of the coolest things about connectors is that the Atari 2600, C64 and Sega Genesis all had the same 9-pin connector. You can hook a Genesis pad up to your 2600 and it works well (B is the only button that works, along with the D-pad). There's even a hack for making the Genesis pad work with the two-button 7800 -- sadly I can't find the link atm. Coolest thing I've seen recently is a converter that lets you use PlayStation dual-analog controllers on the Atari 5200. I believe I saw something about it here.
And, of course, from Independence Day, we know that Aliens use AppleTalk.
I've seen was in Return to Zork back in 1994. Super cool. Anyone else have any good examples of pie menus? We're considering using them in a game and seeing more would be neat.
The Computer History Museum (www.computerhistory.org) has a hard drive platter that has a diameter of ~3 feet. I believe it held 10MB, way back in the day. I also think that ProFile system that came with the Apple /// had a 12-inch platter.
I say this with such confidence because of my experience building robot brains over the past seven years. Almost everything people ever say to our robot falls into one of about 45,000 categories. Considering the astronomical number of things people could say, if every sentence was an original line of poetry, 45,000 is a very, very small number.
I say:
The fact that people only say 45,000 different things to a robot shouldn't indicate to you that people only have about 45,000 things to say, just that they only have 45,000 things to say to a robot in what is essentially a lab setting!
That said, I think this is a pretty fascinating interview.