So now, in addition to "industrial espionage" (which has somehow entered the common lexicon), we will have "industrial terrorism?" What's next? Industrial Treason? Industrial Murder? Disturbing the Industrial Peace?
Schwab
Re:Will the new Cube controller have...
on
New Cube controller
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· Score: 1, Funny
Will the new Cube controller have: CTRL - ALT - DELETE?
What you can't see in that photo is that the KeyStickBoardPad (or whatever they end up calling it) has an aerodynamic form similar to that of a boomerang. So when you chuck it at the TV, it'll circle right back around and konk you in the head.
Schwab
Be Very Careful What You're Downloading...
on
Winamp Alpha for Linux
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· Score: 5, Informative
At the risk of appearing like a paranoid Montana militiaman, I would point out that AOL announced over a year ago they were going to incorporate copy protection measures into WinAmp. I don't know if AOL (Nullsoft's parent company) intends to cripple the Linux version with the same garbage, but I would advise you be vigilant when downloading any version of WinAmp for any platform. You do not want to help proliferate such stuff, even unwittingly.
Naah, I really love to get bitch slapped by hardcore players.
Herein lies my greatest flaw. I don't enjoy getting bitch-slapped. Not at all. I get supremely frustrated and screaming angry, so much so that my neighbors wonder if I'm all right in the head. Still, I keep coming back for more. Whether this is due to unflagging dedication or just bull-headed stubbornness, I can't say yet.
Frags do tend to roll for a long time once the sweet spot is acquired, the key is getting real good at hogging it, and/or minimizing the amount of deaths it takes to reacquire.
So when does it stop being "level control" and become "camping"? Or is that entirely subjective?
Make sure you get FDE II.avi if you've got the bandwidth.
Got the bandwidth, but won't touch RealPlayer. The.AVI link in Germany doesn't seem to work at the moment.
[Are] tricks different between Quake and QuakeWorld
No real difference actually. The same holes in Q worked in QW as of 2.30, [... ]
Okay, that's good to know.
If I've managed to [pique] your interest in movement trickery I do have some utilities, demos and webpages to read which can actually help.
Wow! Excellent resources; thank you. I'll check them out next time I crash back into Windows.
The first one I got working was the hop across the sides of the RA room on DM3. I was pulling my hair out until I relaxed enough, did what the tutorial said and finally snagged it.
Ah, yes, that one. I know it well. I've successfully made that jump perhaps a handful of times. Strangely enough, I seem to have better luck making it in HalfLife DMC than QW.
Side note: Success at bunny hopping seems crucially linked to a good keyboard/mouse button layout. I'm still experimenting, but I still furtively stab at the spacebar to jump.
If you want to continue this in email, I'd be happy to hear from you; the address is on my Web page. And the QW server on which I most often appear (because it almost always has players and low latency) is MommySue's Happy Place.
A list of one-time and recurring LAN parties is available Blue's News. Notice something weird about it?
Yup. There's no regular LAN party in the San Francisco Bay Area. (BANGG (Bay Area Network Gaming Group) appears to have gone quiescent.) Anyone out there know of recurring LAN parties on or near the SF peninsula?
(Why'd you post anonymously? This is good info! Someone mod the parent up!)
I spend nearly all of my gaming hours (30+ / week) playing QuakeWorld and Q3 CPM [... ]
Wow. And I thought I played a lot.
In all actuality the best way to see the best of the best work the movement in Quake for all its worth is to look into speed running. [... ]
I'm very familiar with the Quake Done Quick series (I particularly like Scourge Done Slick; how about that rocket jump rebound off the floating exploding thing?). But watching the demos by themselves doesn't show you what the player is doing with their hands to make it happen; all you see are the results.
Check out a speed run demo, here [[e1m7_028.dem]]
That link doesn't work, but I looked at its predecessor e1m7_029, and it's damned impressive. (Hopping off Chthon's head. Brilliant.)
Everyone calls this "level lockdown", "level control, or "denial of items". This is definately not easy to maintain as multiple respawns (w/100 health) certainly can chistle you down to nothing.
I'll have to disagree here. On DM6 in Quake{World}, a guy can camp the red armor and hang out for days. There's a +25 health pack right there, and another +25 and two +15 packs within walking distance. In deathmatch mode 1, each time the rocket launcher respawns means another +5 rockets for him, and it only takes one solid hit to down a guy. Deathmatch mode 3 (weaponstay) mitigates this slightly, as it forces him to go hunting for more rockets when he runs out (and there's only one place to get them other than from your corpse).
Yes, you can pick up the +100 health pack and second rocket launcher, but your aim needs to be perfect or he'll still clobber you.
BTW, thanks for the pointer to the FDE (Frags Done Extreme) video. That was amazing.
Just how, in practical terms, do I [improve my skills] without some advice? Doing it on one's own tends not to yield helpful results: [... ]
Simple. Start watching some pro matches, speed running tutorials, join a clan, practice like a mofo alone on DM maps so that you do the moves you need to when the pressure is on. Learning trickery in the middle of a [live] deathmatch is just dumb.
Sound advice, thank you. But doesn't the precise timing of the tricks change based on network latency (in which case, skills learned on a LAN or localhost connection prove useless on public Internet servers)? Further, aren't the details of the tricks different between Quake and QuakeWorld (since QuakeWorld has slightly different physics)?
Finally, if you're still out there, do you have an opinion on Qizmo and/or MoreQuakeWorld? Some seem to regard them as indispensible tools, while others see them as cheat enablers.
The arm-twist you? They spend MILLIONS so they can server over 20TB in a week (yes, that's a big T) and you get it for FREE?
Yup.
You young whippersnappers who have been on the net for less than four years wouldn't know that cdrom.com did exactly that. For years.
Measured in constant dollars, bandwidth has gotten cheaper since then, so you can't claim it's more expensive to run such a thing. If cdrom.com could do it without demanding tribute, Fileplanet can bloody well live by the same, long-established rule: It's none of their damn business.
Your Half-Life numbers are a bit disingenuous, as the crushing majority of "Half-Life" servers are actually serving TeamFortress Classic and CounterStrike. There are comparatively few HL servers running straight HL deathmatch (not to be confused with DeathMatch Classic, which attempts to recreate original Quake deathmatch, but with brand new art).
As for the rest: Though the technique has been shown to me, I have yet to develop any bunny-hopping skill. Frankly, I have enough trouble shooting straight without having to worry about whether I'm turning the right amount in the middle of a jump. Don't get me wrong; I've spec'ed rather skilled bunny-hoppers, and it's very impressive when it's done well, but at my current skill level, it's a hopeless distraction.
You can't control a map with 5 second item respawns, [... ]
Whenever I can, I play deathmatch mode 3 (weaponstay). I detest deathmatch mode 1, since it basically turns the whole thing into a game of keep-away (which is about as fun for me as it originally was in the schoolyard). It's especially bad on DM3 (The Abandoned Base) in Quake{World}. "Kwitcher whinin'," I hear you say, "and go develop your 5k1llz." Well, thanks. Just how, in practical terms, do I go about doing that without some advice? Doing it on one's own tends not to yield helpful results: *blam* "Well, that didn't work." *blam* "That didn't work, either." *blam* "Fragged me again." *blam* "Nope, he's still not injured." *blam* "So he's got -- what? -- 90 rockets by now?" *ZOT!* "Oh, I guess he got bored with the rocket launcher." *blam* "Sigh..."
I agree that Q3 rockets are too slow, and that they impact and detonate in a manner most unfamiliar to longtime Quake{World} players.
Schwab
Re:What's up with fileplanet requiring a login?...
on
Quake3 v1.30 Final Is Out
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· Score: 5, Flamebait
Fileplanet has a rather goofy history. When they first started, they had what appeared to be a massive index of files (replete with banner ads). But when it came time to actually download the file, the download URL pointed at cdrom.com. So Fileplanet got the ad revenue, and cdrom.com got to eat the bandwidth. (Note: I have no idea if Fileplanet struck a deal with cdrom.com to defray their bandwidth costs.)
Now Fileplanet (appears to) have their own servers, but now they're trying to arm-twist you into registering for the service so they can track you. Moreover, the registration requirement seems to vary on a file-by-file basis (some you can snarf anonymously; others require registration).
There was a Serious Sam mod I wanted to download last week (Seriously Warped), and Fileplanet was the only operational server that had it. And they wanted me to register before they would cough it up. So I registered. Feel free to use this login at will until they wise up and cancel it:
I don't know where these so-and-sos got the idea that following people around and making notes on their every move, even electronically, was ethically defensible. I wish more people would take a stand on this.
Contrary to popular opinion, Linux and other GPL software is actually copyrighted. The GPL is essentially a EULA, [... ]
Actually, that's not precisely correct, either. The GPL is definitely not a EULA. Whereas most software "licenses" purport to place conditions on how you may use the software, the GPL places conditions on how you may copy and redistribute the software. This is a subtle but important difference.
I'm inclined to believe that the figure of $10 billion is little more than a wild guess. But since we're spending time trying to put a price on lost time and data, I have a different question along the same general lines:
Disregarding viral infections, how much money does American business lose annually to Windows crashing?
Two months ago, I got some junk postal mail that was an illegal Multi-Level Marketing scam. I was bored, so I drove to the return address listed on the envelope. It was an apartment complex. I went inside the lobby to look around, and it was clear there was a boiler room operation set up in a couple of the apartments, churning out these MLM scams.
It was clear the complex owner didn't know this was happening on their property. I thought of leaving a note on the manager's door, telling him/her of the problem.
Thank $(GOD) I wised up. S/he could have had me prosecuted for criminal trespassing!
No. Be asked for about $250 million. Apple chose instead to purchase NeXT for some $400 million. (And then made a snarky comment to the press along the lines of, "We went with Plan A instead of Plan Be.")
There's a group of Quake speed runners who created a set of recorded movies called Quake Done Quick. They blaze through the entire game at Nightmare difficulty in less than 17 minutes. They also produced Quake Done 100% Quick, where they kill every monster and find every secret.
This same group of people then did a speed run through Ritual's Quake add-on pack, Scourge of Armagon. But unlike its predecessor, they added actual production values, including fully scripted and vocalized sequences at the beginning and end. The player also makes wisecracks throughout the movie; the actor voicing him is especially good. The result is called Scourge Done Slick, and it's a very nice piece of work.
You need to own a copy of the Scourge of Armagon add-on pack to view the movie.
I was a Northpoint subscriber (through Best/Verio). When Northpoint cratered, I decided to go with Speakeasy, one of the highest-rated DSL providers around. I knew that their supplier, Covad, was having trouble, but hoped that enough Northpoint orphans would switch over to Covad to help keep them afloat.
Now it looks like Covad might crater, too. When that happens, what is my remaining choice? Pacific Bell.
I will not get Pacific Bell DSL. I do not want PPPoE (which is a lame attempt to pretend that an always-on connection can be billed like POTS). I do not want ADSL, I want SDSL (I want to run servers, dammit). I do not want metered bandwidth. I do want static IP. I do want competent, responsive service personnel. And I do not want up "upgrade" to T1 (because I don't want to get soaked to the tune of $300/month for a lousy 128Kbits).
*sigh* I guess I start exploring wireless options next...
I almost didn't go to this hearing. I thought to myself, "What's the point? The deck is stacked against me, the media will spin its own story regardless of the facts or what the EFF has to say, and we'll all be ignored, anyway." At the last minute, I decided that I had to go. I didn't want to, I had to. Though mine may be the proverbial voice in the wilderness, as an ethical software engineer of almost 25 years, I couldn't let this transgression against everything I hold dear go unanswered.
I dressed up in uncharacteristically formal attire, in the event I was asked for an on-camera interview, and drove to downtown San Jose, arriving at about 09:45, and walked to the "Snake" at the end of Caesar de Chavez Park. There were about two dozen people there, most of them carrying hand-made pickets, including a former colleague, who coincidentally also happens to be a Russian named Dmitriy. Also milling through the group were a few media representatives (I saw units from KGO, KPIX, and TechTV).
I didn't see any obvious representatives from the EFF there (though I was asked several times if I myself was a representative). Things seemed a shade disorganized to me. The march toward the Federal building one block away was supposed to start at 10:00. By 10:10, no one was moving, so I walked down myself to make sure I got a seat in the courtroom for the bail hearing which was to take place at 11:00.
I arrived at the Federal courthouse, and made my way through the security gauntlet. (You remember that scene in The Matrix where Keanu Reeves shows up in the lobby with all those neatly-dressed security guards? It was a lot like that. Seven Marshalls stood nearby as they X-rayed my mini-MagLite three times.) Finally convinced I was harmless, I went up to the fourth floor to Judge Infante's courtroom and waited to enter.
There, I met some more reporters from TechTV and the LA Times. Again, I was asked if I was from the EFF.
"No, I'm a software engineer," I said.
"Oh, an actual real person!", said one of the reporters. I got asked why I was there, and tried to explain my concerns. I don't know how well I succeeded.
While waiting, the rest of the protest group arrived at the front of the Federal building. We could see them from the windows of the waiting area. Not too long after, the corridor began to fill up with spectators awaiting admittance to the courtroom.
I managed to buttonhole the LA Times reporter, and tried again to explain the issues as I saw them. I related this case to the DVD CCA debacle, which the EFF is still fighting on both coasts. I felt I was actually beginning to help him understand, when our conversation was cut short when the courtroom doors opened and we were allowed in.
After inquiring with the Marshall what the rules were (laptops okay, cellphones bad), I pulled out my laptop and started making a few notes. While sitting there, I picked up a fragment of a conversation between the Marshall and a spectator who walked in.
"Hey, aren't you on the wrong floor?" asked the Marshall.
"Yeah, but this looked really interesting," said the gentleman.
I didn't get his name, but it turned out that he's a bankruptcy lawyer who was also a computer programmer back in 1963. He saw the hearing listed on the court calendar, and stopped by to watch. We chatted a bit about recording devices and court stenography methods.
At 10:55, Dmitry entered the courtroom with another man, Juan Valencia Rowa (sp?), who was under indictment for a drug and parole violation. Both were handcuffed, dressed in freeway-cone-orange scrubs. By the time court was in session at 11:00 sharp, the spectators' gallery was filled.
Judge Infante banged court into session. It was immediately apparent that this man worked strictly by the book. He was formal and precise, almost to the point of stuffiness. The first case called was Dmitry's. Counsels for the defense and prosecution introduced themselves, and Judge Infante read the summary of the government's criminal charges aloud to Dmitry. Standing next to Dmitry was a Russian translator (identity unknown).
Infante then asked for motions from counsels concerning bail. The government prosecutor stated that they considered Sklyarov a flight risk, since he is a Russian national and has nothing tying him to this area. Nevertheless, a deal had apparently been worked out whereby the government was willing to allow him go free, provided the following conditions were met:
That Dmitry sign a promise to appear,
That a bail be paid of $50,000,
That a custodian be assigned to him to vouch for his return,
That he report to a court-appointed clerk no less than once a week,
That his ability to travel be restricted to Northern California.
Defense counsel, in support of this, presented character references from Dmitry's professors in Russia, as well as a letter from the Russian Consul. The Judge accepted this arrangement on its face, and ordered exactly those conditions be imposed on Dmitry for his release.
The Judge expressed a concern that the US Department of Immigration might present complications. Dmitry is here on a travel visa. When that visa expires, Dmitry could theoretically be arrested again for violating immigration laws. Judge Infante inquired if Immigration was okay with Dmitry's extended stay. Defense counsel replied that arrangements were not yet finalized, but were underway.
Defense counsel then announced that a custodian for Dmitry was available immediately. Sergei Osokine of Cupertino then stepped forward and introduced himself to the court. Judge Infante informed Osokine that he was vouching for Sklyarov's promise to appear, that he was to inform the court immediately if he became aware of Sklyarov's flight or intent to fly, and could himself become liable for the bail sum should Sklyarov disappear. Osokine indicated he understood and agreed to all this.
Defense counsel then announced that the bail sum was also available immediately, in cash, paid by his employer. Dmitry was then uncuffed, and brought to the center of the courtroom to sign the papers indicating the conditions of his release. The date was also set for the preliminary hearing: 09:00, 23 August 2001. Having forgotten to do so earlier, the Judge then informed Dmitry of the maximum penalty for his alleged crime: $500,000.00 and five years in prison. Once everything was signed, Judge Infante ordered Dmitry's release upon payment of bail to the court clerk, and moved on to the next case. The spectators' gallery emptied almost immediately. The entire process took about twenty minutes.
Outside, an actual representative of the EFF:-) stood before a camera claiming victory in this round of the dispute. Defense counsel, in a different interview, also said he was pleased with Dmitry's release, but that there was still a long way to go before a final resolution.
I stood around with Dan Kaminsky and helped answer questions from a reporter from Reuters wire service. Dan and I can get a bit animated about these issues, and I fear we ranted a bit. Hopefully the reporter wasn't put off by it.
What I did find off-putting were the chants that suddenly broke out from the picketers (who had moved to the other side of the courthouse). "What do we want? Free Dmitry! When do we want it? Now! Hey-hey, ho-ho, DMCA's got to go," etc. I know I have absolutely no practical experience in social agitation for political change, so please accept it as my woefully uneducated personal opinion that I see this sort of thing as infantile. It is not effective or witty, it is lame. It makes you look like brainless, uncreative drones on television, and people will tune you right out. Please think of something different.
After the Reuters reporter left, we answered a few more questions from the reporter from WiReD News, then I left for an appointment at 13:00. On the way to my car, I bumped into Brad Templeton, president of the EFF, who hinted that you may expect to see some new fundraising events in the not-too-distant future.
Why do I give a damn about this? When I first touched a computer at age 12, I saw it as the ultimate tool of creative expression. Theoretically, there was nothing you couldn't do with these machines, no idea that could not be expressed in a myriad of ways. In that instant, I immediately knew that this was what I would be doing for the rest of my life. Not everyone gets the chance to spend their life doing what they love, and I value very highly my good fortune of my vocation also being my dearest hobby.
One of the reasons I've gotten nice jobs in the Valley is because I'm fairly good at what I do. Apart from my enthusiasm, one of the primary ways I got so good was by taking apart things other people did, seeing how they worked, and using those discoveries to build new ideas. I even described my discoveries to others, in the hopes they would get new ideas, too.
In other words, I built much of my professional career doing exactly what Dmitry Sklyarov did.
When the Judge read the charges to Dmitry -- "trafficking in a device to circumvent a technological measure that protects a copyright" -- I nearly became nauseous. There is not so much separating me from Dmitry. I have often thought about -- and perhas will one day -- writing a display hack that takes whatever DVD is in your drive, wraps the movie imagery on to an OpenGL sphere, and bounces it around the screen ("Boing 2001", if you will). To do that, I would have to use the DeCSS code fragment published by Jon Johansen. And doing so would make me a "criminal," a threat to the State and public safety, just like Dmitry.
In a brief flash, I saw myself up there, humiliated, in a hostile place where no one knows me, no one understands what I do -- nor do they care -- answering terrifyingly punitive criminal charges for doing nothing more than what I have loved doing all my life.
I am Dmitry Sklyarov. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
What's interesting about the video is that you could reprogram the character bitmaps so that you could get custom "graphics" on that screen, and a clever programmer could do FAST graphics by changing some critical character definitions at the right time.
You must be thinking of something else. The only way to reprogram the character set imagery on the Sol was to re-blow the PROM that was part of the VDM circuitry. Besides, the amount of RAM it would have taken to store the character imagery would have been ruinously expensive at the time.
Somewhere in my stack-o-$#!+, I have a pixel-perfect copy of the Sol-20 font bitmap I made for the Mac and the Amiga. If I could figure out how to port it to X and Windows, I would.
Don't forget the Northstar floppy disk system.
Thanks, but I'm still trying to forget their appalling BASIC.
I have two Sol-20s, a Helios drive, and (I think) a Shugart 5.25" floppy drive and controller board. The controller has some bad buffers, I think, as the board has to be just so or it won't read the disks.
Currently, all this hardware is sitting in my garage, rusting away from benign neglect. I haven't powered any of it up in over seven years.
Did you get the music interface board? This consisted of a small card that plugged into the S-100 bus, which tapped out exactly two lines: INTE and ground. Thus, by setting and clearing the interrupt disable bit in tight loops in the 8080, you generated a pulse-width modulated wave which was fed to an amp and resulted in music. For a 1MHz machine, it was damned impressive. I still have that program laying around somewhere.
What I'd really like to have is a copy of Steve Dompier's aside in the GamePak manual, concerning the "violent" nature of Target.
No, UCITA has provisions against unconscionability. If a term in the "contract" is unconscionable, then it's struck. Unless they were peculiar, no one would knowingly agree to have their computer ransacked by untrustworthy code.
Trouble is, unconscionability is usually determined by a court (read: arduous and expensive).
Anyone who enables javascript is asking for trouble.
That's a bit disingenuous. JavasCrypt is enabled by default in all graphical browsers. 90% of people out there don't even know what it is, much less how to turn it off (turning it off in Netscape is fairly easy, but turning it off in IE is extremely non-obvious, even if you know you're looking to kill JavaScript).
Slashdot Mirror
So now, in addition to "industrial espionage" (which has somehow entered the common lexicon), we will have "industrial terrorism?" What's next? Industrial Treason? Industrial Murder? Disturbing the Industrial Peace?
Schwab
No, that's only for the X-Box version.
Schwab
What you can't see in that photo is that the KeyStickBoardPad (or whatever they end up calling it) has an aerodynamic form similar to that of a boomerang. So when you chuck it at the TV, it'll circle right back around and konk you in the head.
Schwab
At the risk of appearing like a paranoid Montana militiaman, I would point out that AOL announced over a year ago they were going to incorporate copy protection measures into WinAmp. I don't know if AOL (Nullsoft's parent company) intends to cripple the Linux version with the same garbage, but I would advise you be vigilant when downloading any version of WinAmp for any platform. You do not want to help proliferate such stuff, even unwittingly.
Schwab
...And spamming is the worst type of pollution; they make you pay for the sludge with your connectivity, time, and frustration.
It would be interesting to know why MAPS decided to cave in. Perhaps a Slashdot interview is in order?
I'd like to see MAPS publish a list of IPs it's forbidden to add to its main blocklist, so that we could manually add them to our MAPS config.
Schwab
Ah, but isn't that the essence of the net? :-)
Herein lies my greatest flaw. I don't enjoy getting bitch-slapped. Not at all. I get supremely frustrated and screaming angry, so much so that my neighbors wonder if I'm all right in the head. Still, I keep coming back for more. Whether this is due to unflagging dedication or just bull-headed stubbornness, I can't say yet.
So when does it stop being "level control" and become "camping"? Or is that entirely subjective?
Got the bandwidth, but won't touch RealPlayer. The .AVI link in Germany doesn't seem to work at the moment.
Okay, that's good to know.
Wow! Excellent resources; thank you. I'll check them out next time I crash back into Windows.
Ah, yes, that one. I know it well. I've successfully made that jump perhaps a handful of times. Strangely enough, I seem to have better luck making it in HalfLife DMC than QW.
Side note: Success at bunny hopping seems crucially linked to a good keyboard/mouse button layout. I'm still experimenting, but I still furtively stab at the spacebar to jump.
If you want to continue this in email, I'd be happy to hear from you; the address is on my Web page. And the QW server on which I most often appear (because it almost always has players and low latency) is MommySue's Happy Place.
Thanks again!
Schwab
A list of one-time and recurring LAN parties is available Blue's News. Notice something weird about it?
Yup. There's no regular LAN party in the San Francisco Bay Area. (BANGG (Bay Area Network Gaming Group) appears to have gone quiescent.) Anyone out there know of recurring LAN parties on or near the SF peninsula?
Schwab
(Why'd you post anonymously? This is good info! Someone mod the parent up!)
Wow. And I thought I played a lot.
I'm very familiar with the Quake Done Quick series (I particularly like Scourge Done Slick; how about that rocket jump rebound off the floating exploding thing?). But watching the demos by themselves doesn't show you what the player is doing with their hands to make it happen; all you see are the results.
That link doesn't work, but I looked at its predecessor e1m7_029, and it's damned impressive. (Hopping off Chthon's head. Brilliant.)
I'll have to disagree here. On DM6 in Quake{World}, a guy can camp the red armor and hang out for days. There's a +25 health pack right there, and another +25 and two +15 packs within walking distance. In deathmatch mode 1, each time the rocket launcher respawns means another +5 rockets for him, and it only takes one solid hit to down a guy. Deathmatch mode 3 (weaponstay) mitigates this slightly, as it forces him to go hunting for more rockets when he runs out (and there's only one place to get them other than from your corpse).
Yes, you can pick up the +100 health pack and second rocket launcher, but your aim needs to be perfect or he'll still clobber you.
BTW, thanks for the pointer to the FDE (Frags Done Extreme) video. That was amazing.
Sound advice, thank you. But doesn't the precise timing of the tricks change based on network latency (in which case, skills learned on a LAN or localhost connection prove useless on public Internet servers)? Further, aren't the details of the tricks different between Quake and QuakeWorld (since QuakeWorld has slightly different physics)?
Finally, if you're still out there, do you have an opinion on Qizmo and/or MoreQuakeWorld? Some seem to regard them as indispensible tools, while others see them as cheat enablers.
Schwab
Yup.
You young whippersnappers who have been on the net for less than four years wouldn't know that cdrom.com did exactly that. For years.
Measured in constant dollars, bandwidth has gotten cheaper since then, so you can't claim it's more expensive to run such a thing. If cdrom.com could do it without demanding tribute, Fileplanet can bloody well live by the same, long-established rule: It's none of their damn business.
Schwab
Your Half-Life numbers are a bit disingenuous, as the crushing majority of "Half-Life" servers are actually serving TeamFortress Classic and CounterStrike. There are comparatively few HL servers running straight HL deathmatch (not to be confused with DeathMatch Classic, which attempts to recreate original Quake deathmatch, but with brand new art).
As for the rest: Though the technique has been shown to me, I have yet to develop any bunny-hopping skill. Frankly, I have enough trouble shooting straight without having to worry about whether I'm turning the right amount in the middle of a jump. Don't get me wrong; I've spec'ed rather skilled bunny-hoppers, and it's very impressive when it's done well, but at my current skill level, it's a hopeless distraction.
Whenever I can, I play deathmatch mode 3 (weaponstay). I detest deathmatch mode 1, since it basically turns the whole thing into a game of keep-away (which is about as fun for me as it originally was in the schoolyard). It's especially bad on DM3 (The Abandoned Base) in Quake{World}. "Kwitcher whinin'," I hear you say, "and go develop your 5k1llz." Well, thanks. Just how, in practical terms, do I go about doing that without some advice? Doing it on one's own tends not to yield helpful results: *blam* "Well, that didn't work." *blam* "That didn't work, either." *blam* "Fragged me again." *blam* "Nope, he's still not injured." *blam* "So he's got -- what? -- 90 rockets by now?" *ZOT!* "Oh, I guess he got bored with the rocket launcher." *blam* "Sigh..."
I agree that Q3 rockets are too slow, and that they impact and detonate in a manner most unfamiliar to longtime Quake{World} players.
Schwab
Fileplanet has a rather goofy history. When they first started, they had what appeared to be a massive index of files (replete with banner ads). But when it came time to actually download the file, the download URL pointed at cdrom.com. So Fileplanet got the ad revenue, and cdrom.com got to eat the bandwidth. (Note: I have no idea if Fileplanet struck a deal with cdrom.com to defray their bandwidth costs.)
Now Fileplanet (appears to) have their own servers, but now they're trying to arm-twist you into registering for the service so they can track you. Moreover, the registration requirement seems to vary on a file-by-file basis (some you can snarf anonymously; others require registration).
There was a Serious Sam mod I wanted to download last week (Seriously Warped), and Fileplanet was the only operational server that had it. And they wanted me to register before they would cough it up. So I registered. Feel free to use this login at will until they wise up and cancel it:
I don't know where these so-and-sos got the idea that following people around and making notes on their every move, even electronically, was ethically defensible. I wish more people would take a stand on this.
Schwab
I don't allow proprietary codecs on my machine. Is there a version of this audio clip in a standard format, like AIFF or MP3?
Schwab
Actually, that's not precisely correct, either. The GPL is definitely not a EULA. Whereas most software "licenses" purport to place conditions on how you may use the software, the GPL places conditions on how you may copy and redistribute the software. This is a subtle but important difference.
Schwab
I'm inclined to believe that the figure of $10 billion is little more than a wild guess. But since we're spending time trying to put a price on lost time and data, I have a different question along the same general lines:
Disregarding viral infections, how much money does American business lose annually to Windows crashing?
Schwab
...Where do you get 5-1/4" blank floppies these days?
Schwab
Nice try, but bad analogy. This is more accurate:
Schwab
No. Be asked for about $250 million. Apple chose instead to purchase NeXT for some $400 million. (And then made a snarky comment to the press along the lines of, "We went with Plan A instead of Plan Be.")
Schwab
There's a group of Quake speed runners who created a set of recorded movies called Quake Done Quick. They blaze through the entire game at Nightmare difficulty in less than 17 minutes. They also produced Quake Done 100% Quick, where they kill every monster and find every secret.
This same group of people then did a speed run through Ritual's Quake add-on pack, Scourge of Armagon. But unlike its predecessor, they added actual production values, including fully scripted and vocalized sequences at the beginning and end. The player also makes wisecracks throughout the movie; the actor voicing him is especially good. The result is called Scourge Done Slick, and it's a very nice piece of work.
You need to own a copy of the Scourge of Armagon add-on pack to view the movie.
Schwab
I haven't read the spec: Are there any provisions for hardware copy protection systems in this thing?
Intel's been working on hardware copy protection for IEEE 1394, so it wouldn't surprise me if they managed to sneak that garbage into PCI 3.0.
Schwab
I was a Northpoint subscriber (through Best/Verio). When Northpoint cratered, I decided to go with Speakeasy, one of the highest-rated DSL providers around. I knew that their supplier, Covad, was having trouble, but hoped that enough Northpoint orphans would switch over to Covad to help keep them afloat.
Now it looks like Covad might crater, too. When that happens, what is my remaining choice? Pacific Bell.
I will not get Pacific Bell DSL. I do not want PPPoE (which is a lame attempt to pretend that an always-on connection can be billed like POTS). I do not want ADSL, I want SDSL (I want to run servers, dammit). I do not want metered bandwidth. I do want static IP. I do want competent, responsive service personnel. And I do not want up "upgrade" to T1 (because I don't want to get soaked to the tune of $300/month for a lousy 128Kbits).
*sigh* I guess I start exploring wireless options next...
Schwab
I almost didn't go to this hearing. I thought to myself, "What's the point? The deck is stacked against me, the media will spin its own story regardless of the facts or what the EFF has to say, and we'll all be ignored, anyway." At the last minute, I decided that I had to go. I didn't want to, I had to. Though mine may be the proverbial voice in the wilderness, as an ethical software engineer of almost 25 years, I couldn't let this transgression against everything I hold dear go unanswered.
I dressed up in uncharacteristically formal attire, in the event I was asked for an on-camera interview, and drove to downtown San Jose, arriving at about 09:45, and walked to the "Snake" at the end of Caesar de Chavez Park. There were about two dozen people there, most of them carrying hand-made pickets, including a former colleague, who coincidentally also happens to be a Russian named Dmitriy. Also milling through the group were a few media representatives (I saw units from KGO, KPIX, and TechTV).
I didn't see any obvious representatives from the EFF there (though I was asked several times if I myself was a representative). Things seemed a shade disorganized to me. The march toward the Federal building one block away was supposed to start at 10:00. By 10:10, no one was moving, so I walked down myself to make sure I got a seat in the courtroom for the bail hearing which was to take place at 11:00.
I arrived at the Federal courthouse, and made my way through the security gauntlet. (You remember that scene in The Matrix where Keanu Reeves shows up in the lobby with all those neatly-dressed security guards? It was a lot like that. Seven Marshalls stood nearby as they X-rayed my mini-MagLite three times.) Finally convinced I was harmless, I went up to the fourth floor to Judge Infante's courtroom and waited to enter.
There, I met some more reporters from TechTV and the LA Times. Again, I was asked if I was from the EFF.
"No, I'm a software engineer," I said.
"Oh, an actual real person!", said one of the reporters. I got asked why I was there, and tried to explain my concerns. I don't know how well I succeeded.
While waiting, the rest of the protest group arrived at the front of the Federal building. We could see them from the windows of the waiting area. Not too long after, the corridor began to fill up with spectators awaiting admittance to the courtroom.
I managed to buttonhole the LA Times reporter, and tried again to explain the issues as I saw them. I related this case to the DVD CCA debacle, which the EFF is still fighting on both coasts. I felt I was actually beginning to help him understand, when our conversation was cut short when the courtroom doors opened and we were allowed in.
After inquiring with the Marshall what the rules were (laptops okay, cellphones bad), I pulled out my laptop and started making a few notes. While sitting there, I picked up a fragment of a conversation between the Marshall and a spectator who walked in.
"Hey, aren't you on the wrong floor?" asked the Marshall.
"Yeah, but this looked really interesting," said the gentleman.
I didn't get his name, but it turned out that he's a bankruptcy lawyer who was also a computer programmer back in 1963. He saw the hearing listed on the court calendar, and stopped by to watch. We chatted a bit about recording devices and court stenography methods.
At 10:55, Dmitry entered the courtroom with another man, Juan Valencia Rowa (sp?), who was under indictment for a drug and parole violation. Both were handcuffed, dressed in freeway-cone-orange scrubs. By the time court was in session at 11:00 sharp, the spectators' gallery was filled.
Judge Infante banged court into session. It was immediately apparent that this man worked strictly by the book. He was formal and precise, almost to the point of stuffiness. The first case called was Dmitry's. Counsels for the defense and prosecution introduced themselves, and Judge Infante read the summary of the government's criminal charges aloud to Dmitry. Standing next to Dmitry was a Russian translator (identity unknown).
Infante then asked for motions from counsels concerning bail. The government prosecutor stated that they considered Sklyarov a flight risk, since he is a Russian national and has nothing tying him to this area. Nevertheless, a deal had apparently been worked out whereby the government was willing to allow him go free, provided the following conditions were met:
Defense counsel, in support of this, presented character references from Dmitry's professors in Russia, as well as a letter from the Russian Consul. The Judge accepted this arrangement on its face, and ordered exactly those conditions be imposed on Dmitry for his release.
The Judge expressed a concern that the US Department of Immigration might present complications. Dmitry is here on a travel visa. When that visa expires, Dmitry could theoretically be arrested again for violating immigration laws. Judge Infante inquired if Immigration was okay with Dmitry's extended stay. Defense counsel replied that arrangements were not yet finalized, but were underway.
Defense counsel then announced that a custodian for Dmitry was available immediately. Sergei Osokine of Cupertino then stepped forward and introduced himself to the court. Judge Infante informed Osokine that he was vouching for Sklyarov's promise to appear, that he was to inform the court immediately if he became aware of Sklyarov's flight or intent to fly, and could himself become liable for the bail sum should Sklyarov disappear. Osokine indicated he understood and agreed to all this.
Defense counsel then announced that the bail sum was also available immediately, in cash, paid by his employer. Dmitry was then uncuffed, and brought to the center of the courtroom to sign the papers indicating the conditions of his release. The date was also set for the preliminary hearing: 09:00, 23 August 2001. Having forgotten to do so earlier, the Judge then informed Dmitry of the maximum penalty for his alleged crime: $500,000.00 and five years in prison. Once everything was signed, Judge Infante ordered Dmitry's release upon payment of bail to the court clerk, and moved on to the next case. The spectators' gallery emptied almost immediately. The entire process took about twenty minutes.
Outside, an actual representative of the EFF :-) stood before a camera claiming victory in this round of the dispute. Defense counsel, in a different interview, also said he was pleased with Dmitry's release, but that there was still a long way to go before a final resolution.
I stood around with Dan Kaminsky and helped answer questions from a reporter from Reuters wire service. Dan and I can get a bit animated about these issues, and I fear we ranted a bit. Hopefully the reporter wasn't put off by it.
What I did find off-putting were the chants that suddenly broke out from the picketers (who had moved to the other side of the courthouse). "What do we want? Free Dmitry! When do we want it? Now! Hey-hey, ho-ho, DMCA's got to go," etc. I know I have absolutely no practical experience in social agitation for political change, so please accept it as my woefully uneducated personal opinion that I see this sort of thing as infantile. It is not effective or witty, it is lame. It makes you look like brainless, uncreative drones on television, and people will tune you right out. Please think of something different.
After the Reuters reporter left, we answered a few more questions from the reporter from WiReD News, then I left for an appointment at 13:00. On the way to my car, I bumped into Brad Templeton, president of the EFF, who hinted that you may expect to see some new fundraising events in the not-too-distant future.
Why do I give a damn about this? When I first touched a computer at age 12, I saw it as the ultimate tool of creative expression. Theoretically, there was nothing you couldn't do with these machines, no idea that could not be expressed in a myriad of ways. In that instant, I immediately knew that this was what I would be doing for the rest of my life. Not everyone gets the chance to spend their life doing what they love, and I value very highly my good fortune of my vocation also being my dearest hobby.
One of the reasons I've gotten nice jobs in the Valley is because I'm fairly good at what I do. Apart from my enthusiasm, one of the primary ways I got so good was by taking apart things other people did, seeing how they worked, and using those discoveries to build new ideas. I even described my discoveries to others, in the hopes they would get new ideas, too.
In other words, I built much of my professional career doing exactly what Dmitry Sklyarov did.
When the Judge read the charges to Dmitry -- "trafficking in a device to circumvent a technological measure that protects a copyright" -- I nearly became nauseous. There is not so much separating me from Dmitry. I have often thought about -- and perhas will one day -- writing a display hack that takes whatever DVD is in your drive, wraps the movie imagery on to an OpenGL sphere, and bounces it around the screen ("Boing 2001", if you will). To do that, I would have to use the DeCSS code fragment published by Jon Johansen. And doing so would make me a "criminal," a threat to the State and public safety, just like Dmitry.
In a brief flash, I saw myself up there, humiliated, in a hostile place where no one knows me, no one understands what I do -- nor do they care -- answering terrifyingly punitive criminal charges for doing nothing more than what I have loved doing all my life.
I am Dmitry Sklyarov. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
Schwab
You must be thinking of something else. The only way to reprogram the character set imagery on the Sol was to re-blow the PROM that was part of the VDM circuitry. Besides, the amount of RAM it would have taken to store the character imagery would have been ruinously expensive at the time.
Somewhere in my stack-o-$#!+, I have a pixel-perfect copy of the Sol-20 font bitmap I made for the Mac and the Amiga. If I could figure out how to port it to X and Windows, I would.
Thanks, but I'm still trying to forget their appalling BASIC.
Schwab
Oh, wow, that takes me back.
I have two Sol-20s, a Helios drive, and (I think) a Shugart 5.25" floppy drive and controller board. The controller has some bad buffers, I think, as the board has to be just so or it won't read the disks.
Currently, all this hardware is sitting in my garage, rusting away from benign neglect. I haven't powered any of it up in over seven years.
Did you get the music interface board? This consisted of a small card that plugged into the S-100 bus, which tapped out exactly two lines: INTE and ground. Thus, by setting and clearing the interrupt disable bit in tight loops in the 8080, you generated a pulse-width modulated wave which was fed to an amp and resulted in music. For a 1MHz machine, it was damned impressive. I still have that program laying around somewhere.
What I'd really like to have is a copy of Steve Dompier's aside in the GamePak manual, concerning the "violent" nature of Target.
Schwab
No, UCITA has provisions against unconscionability. If a term in the "contract" is unconscionable, then it's struck. Unless they were peculiar, no one would knowingly agree to have their computer ransacked by untrustworthy code.
Trouble is, unconscionability is usually determined by a court (read: arduous and expensive).
Schwab
That's a bit disingenuous. JavasCrypt is enabled by default in all graphical browsers. 90% of people out there don't even know what it is, much less how to turn it off (turning it off in Netscape is fairly easy, but turning it off in IE is extremely non-obvious, even if you know you're looking to kill JavaScript).
Schwab