I've already finished my CS degree and one thing I like is writing code on an exam makes me happy. I mean of all the other exams I have to write with various degrees of memorization, writing code is *thinking*. So it means for me, less memorization bullshit.
Also another thing I would like to say: many would like online exams almost exclusively. But they are missing one crucial point: TAs and Profs mark such tests in "black & white", meaning if it compiles and passes the test cases you get most of your marks.
But if your program doesn't even compile, your mark starts at 0. And depending on the mercy of the marker, they *may* go back and look at your code and give you a mark here and there.
In such tense situations, I've seen people literally cry 'cause a) the program was too hard and b) they can't get it to compile. Where you literally get in a hack-peck/compile frenzy to get your program to spit out some correct output before the test is over.
In such tests we usually have 9 questions and gotta do about 6 of them. And the worst thing: they issue such online tests during the first year, where many are having their first crack at programming. Thank god, I was able to do the questions, but alas some individuals who struggled couldn't.
At least if the test was written you could get the core logic of the program done and you'll get most of the marks anyway.
But, I did enjoy online tests they were fun. The positive of such tests: if it compiles and spits out the correct output you've got 90% of your mark if not 100%.
Nope, I hope they keep voice recognition OFF devices. If there will be voice stuff in devices, I'm pretty sure it'll be a gimmicky marketing feature implemented very poorly. You could say, I've already had bad experiences with certain "voice recognition cell-phones".
Why? Because you end up yelling,"WIFE!" or "HOME!", to get the damn thing to "match-voice-to-number". After repeating the same name five or six times, I realized its just easier to just dial the 7 damn numbers.
Plus, you make a complete idiot of yourself around other people when they see you screaming at your phone:)
Aim cheats have nothing to do with server stored data. It all has to do with the fact the classic protocols requires all players in the field to tell all other players in the field their positions in the field. If you can snoop the positions of people then you can calculate an accurate "from the hip" shot with merciless robotic accuracy. If an aim cheat isn't possible, then you can just snoop the data and realize where the other players are hiding and their positing.
The problem is, you always need to get data packets encoding the coordinates of visible enemies. How else is the Game's Rendering Engine going to draw players if it doesn't know where other players are located?
You can do what you want to make revealing the coords tricky within the packets, but when it gets down to it, those players need to be drawn on screen by the engine. Therefore if the engine can player coords from the packet, so can sniffers.
The way to beat cheaters is to apply tried and true security practices. Don't trust that the machine on the other end of the connection is really a client(so don't feed it any extra data beyond what it should need to know to function). Don't blindly accept any data coming back from supposed clients(does the client really have "permission" do what it is telling the server to do?).
How are you supposed to implement this? Clients issue events that effect the game world(i.e. I pressed my trigger and fired). The server determines if you actually hit someone or not. The events must be fired off from clients in some context though...ie you can't tell the server you fired a bullet from a BFG, when all you have is a pistol. And you can't tell the server, "I'm at pos A, and now I'm at posA+1000".
I think, there needs to be a global-wide policy to track actual-player habits. If you find a player within a match having 100% accuracy, you can flag the person as a "cheater warning". Also there should be a policy in place for Team Killers, flagging players to a central authority.
Not trying to be a troll, but I believe such DVD disks if proved to be popular, would lend themselves nicely to a black market of DVD movies in China.
DVD media companies would have to pay no royalties, which in turn increases their profits by selling these DVDs to the black market.
No offence, but this is China, it has a thriving black market. One of the reasons why you don't see Console manufacturers selling their consoles and games in this country.
will know that a cluster cannot simply make FPS games faster. The bandwidth between cluster nodes is far too low(aka loosely coupled) for the amount of graphic information a game needs to push per frame(many GB/s)
Game programmers have a hard enough time trying to move data over the slooowwww AGP bus, and now ppl wanna move data over a network? No wonder everyone is moving to programmable GPU+multimegabyte(64mb+) cards! All the 'majic' happens at the vid card...screw the CPU and the slow bus!
If everyone blocked pop-ups, then advertisers would just use harder to get around schemes, such as putting the content of the page in the pop-up and the ad in the page your browser goes to, or larger ads in the page.
Not quite. There is a disturbing trend of Flash-based ads becoming popular on sites like IGN and Gamespy. These ads are even more annoying that the occasional pop-up, because a) they fly across your screen and b) are difficult to close down(very,very small 'x' close button).
This isn't really a 'security' issue, and the only way to solve this problem is a) sue/fine all companies that misuse computer resource and/or b) disable Flash.
Yeah that Voodoo2 with its extra TMU, extra memory, and the option to run a second card doubled the fillrate.
I've always admired 3dfx's scalable architecture...only if they had the right features at the right time. But even then, their scalable architecture only improved fillrate and not triangle throughput...
3Dfx lost the horse race to Nvidia for a number of reasons. For instance they never developed a card that had more features _and_ was faster. They stuck to their old tech like glue.
For instance, does anyone remember the Voodoo Rush? I had one of those...spent gobs of money on it only to find it slower. It had a 2D daughter card on it, where it could switch between 2D mode and 3D mode. The biggest problem with this card(aside from the fact it was about 25% slower) is that it needed special Glide support. Existing glide games did not work! These special patches took an eternity to arrive on some games.
After this horrible mistake, 3Dfx begins work on the Banshee. This was nothing new, except that it provided an integrated 2D/3D core + more mem(this higher rez. playin'). It still had all the same dismal features(256x256 textures, 16-bit color,etc.).
Finally 3Dfx releases the Voodoo Graphics 3000....it was the same old SHIT, just faster and more mem(it had motion blur + AA though). It didn't have any new features that nvidia had(32-bit color, good 2d-core, excellent drivers, fast cards released every 6 months, GPU).
This was the point where I felt that Voodoo Graphics was really dying, and that 3Dfx were just resting on their ass with old tech. Yes they had AA + motion blur + 22-bit-effective coloring crap, but they couldn't keep up with Nvidia in terms of features & speed.
Voodoo Graphics 3000 should have been the successor to the original Voodoo Graphics. The Rush and Banshee were very, very bad products. Then 3dfx could have released Rampage on-time that could challenge Nvidia offerings fairly.
Monopolies are not good for video games. I mean,all us consumers have a choice, and 2 out of 3(sometimes 4) systems always succeed.
I'm glad M$ is dying on the console front, I don't want M$ to own the video game market. I love video games(and won't drop them until I get married)...
Unlike other products, DirectX1 through 8, MS cannot afford to build an Xbox2. Just half-a-billion dollars spent on marketing, plus another hundred million spent on developing, plus they are losing ~$200 smackers on each system == ShareHolders_Not_Happy.
I'll pay for my own entertainment. Don't make me pay for your yours
You shouldn't pay taxes. In Canada, we pay 15% tax on goods(which is on top of the CDN$25K you HAVE to PAY the gov't in income taxes if you make above $50K and are not married).
Who the hell knows what dirty politicians do with our money. I can pretty much bet that our money is being spent on strippers, bachelor parties, and "escort services"...later written as "expenses";)
And every year they complain about lack of taxes...
k2
Please fuck off and come back with a police warrant or court order. I don't care you have "good faith" and also don't give a flying fuck if YOU "believe the information" you provide is accurate.
No one has the right to invade someone elses network(or home for that matter), without seeking permission.
Every post I've read here is missing a crucial point: Microsoft doesn't really care about the short term money/licensing violations: they are more intrested into "conditioning" children to have a Microsoft-centric computer "view".
From day one in K12 to grade 6 to grade 12: If they can get them "conditioned" to use M$ products all the time, then M$ will become ingrained in their little minds. And you know children--they absorb every little detail when they are young.
Yes, you could be saying that why would M$ want to do that, almost all 99.99999999999% computers at home have some form of Windows on it, so children are already conditioned. Well it turns out that not everyone can afford a computer. At school, everyone has some form of access to a computer.
Now I could be all wrong about this, but really am I? Microsoft wants to create an army of "little Bill's"...(/me shudders)
You are missing the point. Voice is powerful communication device when both ends can understand at a higher level. Unfortunately, computers usually need more explicit commands.
Yes, when programmers develop programs with self-learning-genetic-neuron-artificial-intelligen ce-with-ability-to-organize-massive-amount-of-info rmation-or-simplify-it, THEN we can really talk to our computers! But until then...use something else...or resort to if then else if then else if then else if then else if then else...
Speech is not good for commanding intricate details. Its better for describing a complex set of commands the both parties(you and the computer/another person) can understand.
For example, if I say to you: "Get in the car in front of you and drive", you know exactly what I mean. But to a computer this is what you _have_ to say(imagine you are trying to say something to a computer-controlled robot):
You: Computer, select car in front of you.
Computer: Cannot select a car in front of me. Multiple cars are in front of me.
You: Ok then, Computer, select the car directly ahead 3ft, off to your left by 1.5ft.
Computer: Ok.
You: Computer please enter car.
Computer: I don't know how to enter car.
You: Open driver-side door and enter the car.
Computer: Can't do that. Car door too far away.
You: Computer! You piece of shit! Move 3ft forward, and then move 1.5ft left.
Computer: I don't understand what is a piece of shit. Moved successfully.
You: Open door.
Computer: Lifting door handle failed, door must be locked.
You: Take your fucking keys, and insert the damn keys into the keyhole, twist clockwise 90 degrees, and then remove key!!
Computer: Which key? I have 3 keys.
You: For crying out load, use the car key you asshole!
Computer: Ok.
You: Open door.
Computer: Cannot open door. I can open door: none, half-way, or full.
You: Open the fucking door all the way! And get in!!!
Computer: Door is open. And I am inside car.
You: Drive the car.
Computer: Cannot drive car while door is open, dangerous hazard.
One thing I don't like about Windows, that doesn't even make any sense, is that "Shut Down" is under "Start".
Since when on earth do you have to "start" something to shut it off?? Very intuitive. Of course now it is so common, that people don't bother about this matter. Microsoft has "conditioned" UI behavior of their users, great!
Madnick said the diagram showed how Windows was like a "house of cards" that could collapse if any of the pieces were removed
I'm going to have to agree with this, as we have all seen windows collapsing into the "blue screen of death". However I don't agree that you need to remove anything, it kinda happens automagically.
Sixty percent of those surveyed believe in ESP, psychic power, and alien abduction
But when you ask them concerning God, they say "pfft. The world was created by billions of particles interacting randomly". Umm, yeah, whatever.
Funny how people would believe all these stories about alien abductions and believe what their Grade 10 Science teacher told them about evolution.
Yet when you ask them to look at our world and how on earth do billions of random particles over billions of years == one human race out of a billion species capable of very high level understanding(i.e. we can build skyscrapers but dogs can't even build a dog house).
Or if we follow their logic, why create new technology, when all you need to do is throw some random elements in a jar and shake it for a million years. Out will come a missile, a jet, skyscraper, and probably even a brand new Pentium 5. Sound crazy? I thought so.
Slashdot Mirror
I've already finished my CS degree and one thing I like is writing code on an exam makes me happy. I mean of all the other exams I have to write with various degrees of memorization, writing code is *thinking*. So it means for me, less memorization bullshit.
Also another thing I would like to say: many would like online exams almost exclusively. But they are missing one crucial point: TAs and Profs mark such tests in "black & white", meaning if it compiles and passes the test cases you get most of your marks.
But if your program doesn't even compile, your mark starts at 0. And depending on the mercy of the marker, they *may* go back and look at your code and give you a mark here and there.
In such tense situations, I've seen people literally cry 'cause a) the program was too hard and b) they can't get it to compile. Where you literally get in a hack-peck/compile frenzy to get your program to spit out some correct output before the test is over.
In such tests we usually have 9 questions and gotta do about 6 of them. And the worst thing: they issue such online tests during the first year, where many are having their first crack at programming. Thank god, I was able to do the questions, but alas some individuals who struggled couldn't.
At least if the test was written you could get the core logic of the program done and you'll get most of the marks anyway.
But, I did enjoy online tests they were fun. The positive of such tests: if it compiles and spits out the correct output you've got 90% of your mark if not 100%.
Oh boy....talked too much...
Learn to break-up and write paragraphs. Relax, Slashdot isn't a sweatshop where you have to write so intense like at work:)
as I've seen wives make sure you never forget a single thing. Only one thing: wives don't "beep" they like screaming instead;)
And an "added bonus", you don't have to "input reminders" either, as wives just seem to "let you know" what you are to be reminded of...
Nope, I hope they keep voice recognition OFF devices. If there will be voice stuff in devices, I'm pretty sure it'll be a gimmicky marketing feature implemented very poorly. You could say, I've already had bad experiences with certain "voice recognition cell-phones".
Why? Because you end up yelling,"WIFE!" or "HOME!", to get the damn thing to "match-voice-to-number". After repeating the same name five or six times, I realized its just easier to just dial the 7 damn numbers.
Plus, you make a complete idiot of yourself around other people when they see you screaming at your phone:)
Aim cheats have nothing to do with server stored data. It all has to do with the fact the classic protocols requires all players in the field to tell all other players in the field their positions in the field. If you can snoop the positions of people then you can calculate an accurate "from the hip" shot with merciless robotic accuracy. If an aim cheat isn't possible, then you can just snoop the data and realize where the other players are hiding and their positing.
The problem is, you always need to get data packets encoding the coordinates of visible enemies. How else is the Game's Rendering Engine going to draw players if it doesn't know where other players are located?
You can do what you want to make revealing the coords tricky within the packets, but when it gets down to it, those players need to be drawn on screen by the engine. Therefore if the engine can player coords from the packet, so can sniffers.
The way to beat cheaters is to apply tried and true security practices. Don't trust that the machine on the other end of the connection is really a client(so don't feed it any extra data beyond what it should need to know to function). Don't blindly accept any data coming back from supposed clients(does the client really have "permission" do what it is telling the server to do?).
How are you supposed to implement this? Clients issue events that effect the game world(i.e. I pressed my trigger and fired). The server determines if you actually hit someone or not. The events must be fired off from clients in some context though...ie you can't tell the server you fired a bullet from a BFG, when all you have is a pistol. And you can't tell the server, "I'm at pos A, and now I'm at posA+1000".
I think, there needs to be a global-wide policy to track actual-player habits. If you find a player within a match having 100% accuracy, you can flag the person as a "cheater warning". Also there should be a policy in place for Team Killers, flagging players to a central authority.
Not trying to be a troll, but I believe such DVD disks if proved to be popular, would lend themselves nicely to a black market of DVD movies in China.
DVD media companies would have to pay no royalties, which in turn increases their profits by selling these DVDs to the black market.
No offence, but this is China, it has a thriving black market. One of the reasons why you don't see Console manufacturers selling their consoles and games in this country.
will know that a cluster cannot simply make FPS games faster. The bandwidth between cluster nodes is far too low(aka loosely coupled) for the amount of graphic information a game needs to push per frame(many GB/s) Game programmers have a hard enough time trying to move data over the slooowwww AGP bus, and now ppl wanna move data over a network? No wonder everyone is moving to programmable GPU+multimegabyte(64mb+) cards! All the 'majic' happens at the vid card...screw the CPU and the slow bus!
If everyone blocked pop-ups, then advertisers would just use harder to get around schemes, such as putting the content of the page in the pop-up and the ad in the page your browser goes to, or larger ads in the page.
Not quite. There is a disturbing trend of Flash-based ads becoming popular on sites like IGN and Gamespy. These ads are even more annoying that the occasional pop-up, because a) they fly across your screen and b) are difficult to close down(very,very small 'x' close button).
This isn't really a 'security' issue, and the only way to solve this problem is a) sue/fine all companies that misuse computer resource and/or b) disable Flash.
If Montgomery-Smith marries Johnson-Laird, then things go down hill pretty fast if they want to hyphenate.
Well, X windows fonts solved the hyphenation problem already!! Montgomery-Smith married to Johnson-Laird will become:
-*-Smith-*-Laird- or
-Montgomery-*-Laird- or
-Montgomery-*-Johnson- or
-*-Smith-Johnson-*-
Who would have thought the ingenuity of that ugly font naming in X could apply to real life!
This is how capitalism should work!
.net effect of making the Gamecube and PS2 cheaper! *kiss* *kiss*
i ll-i-pick-ps2?
Thank you Microsoft for the first time in 15 years! Though I hate you, I love the
Now...which system to buy...eenee-meenee-miney-mo...will-i-pick-gc-or-w
Yeah that Voodoo2 with its extra TMU, extra memory, and the option to run a second card doubled the fillrate.
I've always admired 3dfx's scalable architecture...only if they had the right features at the right time. But even then, their scalable architecture only improved fillrate and not triangle throughput...
Ouch thanks for reminding me...memory is gettin' rusty...shows how many voodoo cards and lack of differentiation....
3Dfx lost the horse race to Nvidia for a number of reasons. For instance they never developed a card that had more features _and_ was faster. They stuck to their old tech like glue.
For instance, does anyone remember the Voodoo Rush? I had one of those...spent gobs of money on it only to find it slower. It had a 2D daughter card on it, where it could switch between 2D mode and 3D mode. The biggest problem with this card(aside from the fact it was about 25% slower) is that it needed special Glide support. Existing glide games did not work! These special patches took an eternity to arrive on some games.
After this horrible mistake, 3Dfx begins work on the Banshee. This was nothing new, except that it provided an integrated 2D/3D core + more mem(this higher rez. playin'). It still had all the same dismal features(256x256 textures, 16-bit color,etc.).
Finally 3Dfx releases the Voodoo Graphics 3000....it was the same old SHIT, just faster and more mem(it had motion blur + AA though). It didn't have any new features that nvidia had(32-bit color, good 2d-core, excellent drivers, fast cards released every 6 months, GPU).
This was the point where I felt that Voodoo Graphics was really dying, and that 3Dfx were just resting on their ass with old tech. Yes they had AA + motion blur + 22-bit-effective coloring crap, but they couldn't keep up with Nvidia in terms of features & speed.
Voodoo Graphics 3000 should have been the successor to the original Voodoo Graphics. The Rush and Banshee were very, very bad products. Then 3dfx could have released Rampage on-time that could challenge Nvidia offerings fairly.
k2
Monopolies are not good for video games. I mean,all us consumers have a choice, and 2 out of 3(sometimes 4) systems always succeed.
I'm glad M$ is dying on the console front, I don't want M$ to own the video game market. I love video games(and won't drop them until I get married)...
Unlike other products, DirectX1 through 8, MS cannot afford to build an Xbox2. Just half-a-billion dollars spent on marketing, plus another hundred million spent on developing, plus they are losing ~$200 smackers on each system == ShareHolders_Not_Happy.
You shouldn't pay taxes. In Canada, we pay 15% tax on goods(which is on top of the CDN$25K you HAVE to PAY the gov't in income taxes if you make above $50K and are not married).
Who the hell knows what dirty politicians do with our money. I can pretty much bet that our money is being spent on strippers, bachelor parties, and "escort services"...later written as "expenses";)
And every year they complain about lack of taxes... k2
I admire your advice, but why are you giving those shitheads ideas?
Please fuck off and come back with a police warrant or court order. I don't care you
have "good faith" and also don't give a flying fuck if YOU "believe the information" you
provide is accurate.
No one has the right to invade someone elses network(or home for that matter), without
seeking permission.
Respectfully,
X University
MW3 - Mommy, Why Won't it Work?
RCD - Record Companies Downfall
18POS - $18 Piece Of Sh*t
SLS - Sony's Last Stand
These would be potential track songs...heck it could be part of Slashdot's All Time Greatest Hits Volume1.
Anyone want to add more tracks before its finalized?
Every post I've read here is missing a crucial point: Microsoft doesn't really care about the short term money/licensing violations: they are more intrested into "conditioning" children to have a Microsoft-centric computer "view".
From day one in K12 to grade 6 to grade 12: If they can get them "conditioned" to use M$ products all the time, then M$ will become ingrained in their little minds. And you know children--they absorb every little detail when they are young.
Yes, you could be saying that why would M$ want to do that, almost all 99.99999999999% computers at home have some form of Windows on it, so children are already conditioned. Well it turns out that not everyone can afford a computer. At school, everyone has some form of access to a computer.
Now I could be all wrong about this, but really am I? Microsoft wants to create an army of "little Bill's"...(/me shudders)
You are missing the point. Voice is powerful communication device when both ends can understand at a higher level. Unfortunately, computers usually need more explicit commands.
n ce-with-ability-to-organize-massive-amount-of-info rmation-or-simplify-it, THEN we can really talk to our computers! But until then...use something else...or resort to if then else if then else if then else if then else if then else...
Yes, when programmers develop programs with self-learning-genetic-neuron-artificial-intellige
Speech is not good for commanding intricate details. Its better for describing a complex set of commands the both parties(you and the computer/another person) can understand.
For example, if I say to you: "Get in the car in front of you and drive", you know exactly what I mean. But to a computer this is what you _have_ to say(imagine you are trying to say something to a computer-controlled robot):
You: Computer, select car in front of you.
Computer: Cannot select a car in front of me. Multiple cars are in front of me.
You: Ok then, Computer, select the car directly ahead 3ft, off to your left by 1.5ft.
Computer: Ok.
You: Computer please enter car.
Computer: I don't know how to enter car.
You: Open driver-side door and enter the car.
Computer: Can't do that. Car door too far away.
You: Computer! You piece of shit! Move 3ft forward, and then move 1.5ft left.
Computer: I don't understand what is a piece of shit. Moved successfully.
You: Open door.
Computer: Lifting door handle failed, door must be locked.
You: Take your fucking keys, and insert the damn keys into the keyhole, twist clockwise 90 degrees, and then remove key!!
Computer: Which key? I have 3 keys.
You: For crying out load, use the car key you asshole!
Computer: Ok.
You: Open door.
Computer: Cannot open door. I can open door: none, half-way, or full.
You: Open the fucking door all the way! And get in!!!
Computer: Door is open. And I am inside car.
You: Drive the car.
Computer: Cannot drive car while door is open, dangerous hazard.
You: Close the door and drive.
Computer: Door is closed. How do I drive?
You: Go fuck yourself. I'll just drive.
Since when on earth do you have to "start" something to shut it off?? Very intuitive. Of course now it is so common, that people don't bother about this matter. Microsoft has "conditioned" UI behavior of their users, great!
-- kashif
Madnick said the diagram showed how Windows was like a "house of cards" that could collapse if any of the pieces were removed
I'm going to have to agree with this, as we have all seen windows collapsing into the "blue screen of death". However I don't agree that you need to remove anything, it kinda happens automagically.
:)
But when you ask them concerning God, they say "pfft. The world was created by billions of particles interacting randomly". Umm, yeah, whatever.
Funny how people would believe all these stories about alien abductions and believe what their Grade 10 Science teacher told them about evolution. Yet when you ask them to look at our world and how on earth do billions of random particles over billions of years == one human race out of a billion species capable of very high level understanding(i.e. we can build skyscrapers but dogs can't even build a dog house). Or if we follow their logic, why create new technology, when all you need to do is throw some random elements in a jar and shake it for a million years. Out will come a missile, a jet, skyscraper, and probably even a brand new Pentium 5. Sound crazy? I thought so.
For a person who plays Unreal, I've seen such statements now and then:) Only now, you've taught me thats its a STL template error. ooooo aaaahhh!