English is a living language; meanings evolve over time. Take the word "hacker," for instance. You can argue your own definition of it until you're blue in the face, providing ample proof that yours is the "proper" one. However, the moment you say "hacker" to refer to a cyber criminal, everyone knows exactly what you mean, even the ones that prefer the old definition.
I, for one, welcome our new modern language overlords.
The points forwarded in the article are mere childsplay. For the most part, game designers have been doing all of these things for years; we're talking standard fare. Individual games and genres tend to suffer differently in these cases, but I don't think the problem is as rampant as the author makets it out to be. Right not to be insulted? I've never played a commercial game worth a lick that was like that; the best example they could come up with was a cell phone clone of minesweeper? Apparently this is not such a big problem.
Instead of focusing on things that games ALREADY do, I'd rather like to see some rights that consumers need such as the right to fresh, creative content. It seems like the most popular games today are sequels and/or rehashes of old game engines and ideas. Where's the excitement?
Also, gamers should have the right to OWN their games. That's right folks; they should be able to pay once and get a full copy, preferrebly with source. Along with this goes the right to play your game; I own dozens of Windows and DOS games that are no longer playable on my current systems. More games should be liberated so that we can port our treasured games and continue playing them.
See, now we're talking about rights, not this "I can't figure out what the buttons for my game" nonsense.
As others have said, there is a lot of cultural and ideological crossover between buddhism and other traditions. I did a lot of reading on buddhism and hinduism a while back, and buddhism (in a fundamental sense) rather differs from hinduism in that it did not acknowledge or address the existence of a soul. In fact, many theorize that the original Buddha himself was an atheist. Hinduism differs drastically because it places a very high focus on divinity and the continuance of human spirituality (buddhism includes none of these things).
Therefore, I do agree that buddhists would treat robotic intelligence differently than christians, but I would argue that is because they would be more willing to accept conscious thought as a natural phenomenon arising from physical conditions rather than something spiritually or divinely imparted.
Many christians would probably just point to their divine origin and sacred texts in order to devalue robotic intelligence and justify inhumane treatment thereof. This thinking has historically played a part in racial prejudice, and I can imagine how easily it would be applied when faced with a gap so large as natural vs. artificial, since it had no trouble with the race vs. race divide, which was almost merely an imagined distinction.
Yeah, a lot of it is open to interpretation, and I've never written an MMORPG, but there are some ways to guess at what my happen.
But what if the character's bags are full? Send them to a special 'de-leveled' Vault account? Or trash them? And that's just one example.
If the game has some method of outside storage that is player-specific, then it would be feasable to store the items there. Another technique that would seem easy to implement would be to simply make an exception for the unquiped items; let them exceed the carry limit. The player can't pick up any new items until he's fallen below the maximum again.
A particularly dirty method would be to simply leave the items equiped. It would give them an edge that most players their level don't have, but, if you think about it, they've already done the work to get them, so it's not *that* unfair.
I'm a programmer. The kinds of modifications you are suggesting are actually quite trivial and could probably be stably implemented in minutes. Yes, it depends on how exactly they've written their code, but if they've done their jobs right it should accommodate such conditions very naturally and flawlessly. For example, items that require a certain level are merely unequipped, or skills could be unlearned. Simple, really.
Perhaps it would make more sense if they built up a large database of games and started doing Netflix-like cycling of game slots (free one up, download a new game). The key to making this work is having LOTS of titles to choose from, and I mean LOTS. If they don't have massive, gargantuan quantities of first rate games, it's just not going to work out.
Timely patching and bugfixes could be one exploitable bonus. I think perhaps another would be a greater ability to deploy a multi-platform game (simply download the game for your platform). Perhaps even older games could be ported to newer systems; that would help a) expand the library, and b) offer subscribers an opportunity to get at a lot of old games that have passed them by (or simply wanted to enjoy again).
The mathematical flaw that I see in DRM is that, in spite of all protection, you HAVE all the data RIGHT THERE. If only you can figure out how to decode it, you're home free.
That being said, it's only a matter of time before some clever programmer finds a way to break the encryption and extract that data. Yes, this is very illegal, and the games may need to be further tampered with to keep them from reporting you (I'm sure these "rental" versions will be partially rewritten to hook up to an online server for validation and perhaps other things), but they don't have to find out about it.
What would make the system harder to break is if not all the data were there, but in fact mostly kept on the server. For example, you've downloaded the game engine, which then goes to request small packets of game data from the server on a case-by-case basis as the are needed, deleting them when they are no longer needed. Games will consume hardly any hard drive space, but at the cost of your ability to pirate them (and pirate them you must).
Thanks for the reply. I haven't used PC-BSD, but since you have, perhaps you could also tell me of whether or not the base (world + kernel) is 100% FreeBSD compatible?
Back when I used FreeBSD, I would routinely update my system via CVS. I do not know how one goes about upgrading PC-BSD to new versions, and as far as I am aware CVS was the only way to get the latest version of FreeBSD without reinstalling.
I used to take biology notes in high school using emacs on my old laptop. Don't go thinking I was one of those posh students who flaunted technology, but rather the laptop was old even at the time, which I bought used and refurbished at a discount from a computer repair facility. I used it because note-taking was a problem for me and, even at that age, I could type several times faster than I could write.
The machine was only barely powerful enough to run linux, but I practically lived in emacs (starting X was usually a flagrant waste of time and resources on that box). emacs served me well.:-)
Also, xemacs is not emacs for X; it's a fork of gnu emacs. gnu emacs is usually linked to X and will start graphically when loaded within an X session. I prefer gnu emacs.
And, in the back of the package, in small print: Social skills not included.
Explain how bookwork is different in that respect.
People with poor social skills have a greater tendency to do better in academics, and these games are designed for academics. Social skills aren't really much of a priority, but it did mention "collaboration."
This man is criminal because of the ability to exchange the items for real cash, which is based on the assumption that they have real value outside the game.
If you'll recall, selling in-game items for real money is a violation of game rules (on most MMORPGs, though I've heard some providers permit it, in which case I have no quarrel with those parties) and policy. This is not allowed.
What we are witnessing is a very clear side-affect of this policy abuse that all you money-grubbers seem to be okay with. Do you actually think this guy would be stealing so many items if he couldn't sell them? He's using a bot, so he doesn't really appear interested in playing the game or actually using the items, but is only doing this because there is a profit to be made. This type of game abuse is a direct cause of another type of game abuse; buying and selling items outside the game with real money.
While what he was doing is certainly rotten, I blame the buyers first and foremost. People who buy and sell game items with real money from other players in violation of their terms of service should all be banned.
I don't believe the kid should face criminal charges. I believe he should simply be banned from the game.
This sort of thing could have been very easy to prevent. First come, first serve didn't work because those people are insane, so the only viable option is to put everyone on equal footing; simply give everyone a number and randomly select numbers to sell to. There are actually many different ways to accomplish the same thing, so that is just one example. In this way, there will be no struggle to get ahead because such a struggle would be rendered pointless.
First, he showed me the game. Maybe I was 5 at the time (the games we had were simple and cutesy), and I was hooked. It all flowed naturally from there.
"If you give a mouse a cookie," for those of you who are familiar with the reference. Soon I was asking my dad how to run the games. Next I asked my dad how to install new games. One thing lead to another, and I started learning basic system administration. Later I started asking him how to program, and he sat down and taught me the fundamentals of BASIC. Later I took a class on C, and now I'm majoring in computer science, hoping to be a programmer or administrator.
Basically, it was something that I lead myself to, but my dad was there to support me the whole time. I probably would have gone nowhere without him, so I suggest you do the same; support your son or daughter when you can, or at least show them how they can further their knowledge and expand their interest. For me it was just about games, but then my interest was sparked other things like operating systems and programming languages.
As long as you keep things constructive and pay attention to your child's interests, they will basically develop on their own. Therefore, wait until you get questions, then answer them, but don't try to set your child up with some prepackaged dealie you're trying to cook up; just go with the flow, man.
Sorry about the jokes, though...it was hard to tell that you weren't serious.;)
I believe that X is a good piece of software, but the devil lies in the configuration. It's one of the hardest things to get a hold on, and even though many distros do a good job of sorting it out for you, sometimes they don't get it quite right (or not at all, in the case of when I used to use FreeBSD. Rather than use their tool, I told X to --configure and modified the file by hand).
Even with distros that get everything right, I must still specify the vsync and hsync for my moniter manually in order to get optimal refresh rates.:(
I've heard lots of people have problems with ATI cards, which might affect you. For this reason, I only use nvidia cards because the compatibility is so remarkable. If only ATI worked as well in linux/FreeBSD as nvidia did...are you listening, ATI?
It handles like crap. It's slow and unresponsive on a top notch box.
I don't believe this at all. I used to run XFree86 on my laptop, which sports a 120mhz pentium, 40mb of RAM, and an old neomagic display adapter. On top of X, I ran windowmaker. The interface was very fast and responsive, consumed little memory, and ran hardware-appropriate games at full speed (ie Doom).
Dragging windows around leaves tracers.
One can only guess what your problem there is. I do not think it's intrinsic to X, though. I've never had that problem with X. My laptop has an ancient LCD, and THAT causes "tracers", but nothing software-side.
There are eyes that watch me from the toolbar, and they NEVER BLINK.
X doesn't have a toolbar, let alone eyes. You bash X and then start talking about a different program entirely?
At least I no longer have to roll my own monitor profiles, but this might be because I finally got rid of the 20 year old Radiation King.
Are pleasure cycles and the human orgasm not the subject of serious scientific study? Is it offensive to you that we have collected good, solid data on the subject and discovered that it might be applied to another field?
My parents gave me a palm pilot for my birthday after I had graduated from high school. I had a month or two to get really familiar with it, and after that it was off to college with me.
That little thing was a HUGE help. My schedule was very fragmented, and I'm slow to memorize schedules, especially when they're layered and alternating. Needless to say, I used my palm every day. Most days it would be the first thing I looked at when I got up in the morning (usually just to judge how much time I needed to get ready). I also looked at it between classes; it helped me figure out where to go and when I needed to be there.
That was the most important function to me. I also ended up making extensive use of the phone book and memo functions. The task list helped remind me of important assignments, but I didn't catalog all due dates on the thing.
I know palms are not the hottest things anymore, but let's face it; you especially don't want an entertainment machine. As other posters have stressed, you don't want wi-fi, games, videos, or other really cool programs. You want something to help you work. In my opinion, the palm does this well with good, solid core applications. I also use a GPL program on the side to calculate my gas mileage on my car (sourceforge does wonders).
A good thing to do is find an older palm. The basic functionality of palmOS hasn't changed much at all, and you'll get a great price on a small handheld if you go used/discontinued/refurbished/whatever.
Also, other posters mention the effectiveness of paper and pencil. Beware. I'm the type that's rather loose with papers. Things in writing can be difficult to keep structured and organized if you're me, and papers get lost all the time, not to mention that they are a hassle to carry. A PDA like my palm makes all my data microscopic, automatically organized, and easily sortable and searchable. I find this more convenient and portable than a pencil and paper solution. That's just me.
Find a system that works best for you, but I do definitely recommend a cheap palm. If you do in fact prefer Windows pocket edition for whatever reason (can you say nethack?), an older generation pocketpc is also a handy thing.
Slashdot Mirror
English is a living language; meanings evolve over time. Take the word "hacker," for instance. You can argue your own definition of it until you're blue in the face, providing ample proof that yours is the "proper" one. However, the moment you say "hacker" to refer to a cyber criminal, everyone knows exactly what you mean, even the ones that prefer the old definition.
I, for one, welcome our new modern language overlords.
wtf.
The points forwarded in the article are mere childsplay. For the most part, game designers have been doing all of these things for years; we're talking standard fare. Individual games and genres tend to suffer differently in these cases, but I don't think the problem is as rampant as the author makets it out to be. Right not to be insulted? I've never played a commercial game worth a lick that was like that; the best example they could come up with was a cell phone clone of minesweeper? Apparently this is not such a big problem.
Instead of focusing on things that games ALREADY do, I'd rather like to see some rights that consumers need such as the right to fresh, creative content. It seems like the most popular games today are sequels and/or rehashes of old game engines and ideas. Where's the excitement?
Also, gamers should have the right to OWN their games. That's right folks; they should be able to pay once and get a full copy, preferrebly with source. Along with this goes the right to play your game; I own dozens of Windows and DOS games that are no longer playable on my current systems. More games should be liberated so that we can port our treasured games and continue playing them.
See, now we're talking about rights, not this "I can't figure out what the buttons for my game" nonsense.
Better yet, write some software that DESTROYS ALL OPEN FIRMWARE MACHINES AND THEIR CREATORS!!3208502835103!#@%!#~#%~@!!!!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAH
Therefore, I do agree that buddhists would treat robotic intelligence differently than christians, but I would argue that is because they would be more willing to accept conscious thought as a natural phenomenon arising from physical conditions rather than something spiritually or divinely imparted.
Many christians would probably just point to their divine origin and sacred texts in order to devalue robotic intelligence and justify inhumane treatment thereof. This thinking has historically played a part in racial prejudice, and I can imagine how easily it would be applied when faced with a gap so large as natural vs. artificial, since it had no trouble with the race vs. race divide, which was almost merely an imagined distinction.
If the game has some method of outside storage that is player-specific, then it would be feasable to store the items there. Another technique that would seem easy to implement would be to simply make an exception for the unquiped items; let them exceed the carry limit. The player can't pick up any new items until he's fallen below the maximum again.
A particularly dirty method would be to simply leave the items equiped. It would give them an edge that most players their level don't have, but, if you think about it, they've already done the work to get them, so it's not *that* unfair.
Those are just ideas! What do you think?
Is your real concern the game, or is it politics?
If it's exploitation, how exactly does the state benefit from such measures?
Be afraid.
Timely patching and bugfixes could be one exploitable bonus. I think perhaps another would be a greater ability to deploy a multi-platform game (simply download the game for your platform). Perhaps even older games could be ported to newer systems; that would help a) expand the library, and b) offer subscribers an opportunity to get at a lot of old games that have passed them by (or simply wanted to enjoy again).
Ha, sometimes there's a difference between being a troll and standing up for what you believe in (or maybe there isn't).
That being said, it's only a matter of time before some clever programmer finds a way to break the encryption and extract that data. Yes, this is very illegal, and the games may need to be further tampered with to keep them from reporting you (I'm sure these "rental" versions will be partially rewritten to hook up to an online server for validation and perhaps other things), but they don't have to find out about it.
What would make the system harder to break is if not all the data were there, but in fact mostly kept on the server. For example, you've downloaded the game engine, which then goes to request small packets of game data from the server on a case-by-case basis as the are needed, deleting them when they are no longer needed. Games will consume hardly any hard drive space, but at the cost of your ability to pirate them (and pirate them you must).
Fuck you.
Back when I used FreeBSD, I would routinely update my system via CVS. I do not know how one goes about upgrading PC-BSD to new versions, and as far as I am aware CVS was the only way to get the latest version of FreeBSD without reinstalling.
I used to take biology notes in high school using emacs on my old laptop. Don't go thinking I was one of those posh students who flaunted technology, but rather the laptop was old even at the time, which I bought used and refurbished at a discount from a computer repair facility. I used it because note-taking was a problem for me and, even at that age, I could type several times faster than I could write.
The machine was only barely powerful enough to run linux, but I practically lived in emacs (starting X was usually a flagrant waste of time and resources on that box). emacs served me well. :-)
Also, xemacs is not emacs for X; it's a fork of gnu emacs. gnu emacs is usually linked to X and will start graphically when loaded within an X session. I prefer gnu emacs.
Explain how bookwork is different in that respect.
People with poor social skills have a greater tendency to do better in academics, and these games are designed for academics. Social skills aren't really much of a priority, but it did mention "collaboration."
Money. The root of all evil, of course!
This man is criminal because of the ability to exchange the items for real cash, which is based on the assumption that they have real value outside the game.
If you'll recall, selling in-game items for real money is a violation of game rules (on most MMORPGs, though I've heard some providers permit it, in which case I have no quarrel with those parties) and policy. This is not allowed.
What we are witnessing is a very clear side-affect of this policy abuse that all you money-grubbers seem to be okay with. Do you actually think this guy would be stealing so many items if he couldn't sell them? He's using a bot, so he doesn't really appear interested in playing the game or actually using the items, but is only doing this because there is a profit to be made. This type of game abuse is a direct cause of another type of game abuse; buying and selling items outside the game with real money.
While what he was doing is certainly rotten, I blame the buyers first and foremost. People who buy and sell game items with real money from other players in violation of their terms of service should all be banned.
I don't believe the kid should face criminal charges. I believe he should simply be banned from the game.
This sort of thing could have been very easy to prevent. First come, first serve didn't work because those people are insane, so the only viable option is to put everyone on equal footing; simply give everyone a number and randomly select numbers to sell to. There are actually many different ways to accomplish the same thing, so that is just one example. In this way, there will be no struggle to get ahead because such a struggle would be rendered pointless.
"If you give a mouse a cookie," for those of you who are familiar with the reference. Soon I was asking my dad how to run the games. Next I asked my dad how to install new games. One thing lead to another, and I started learning basic system administration. Later I started asking him how to program, and he sat down and taught me the fundamentals of BASIC. Later I took a class on C, and now I'm majoring in computer science, hoping to be a programmer or administrator.
Basically, it was something that I lead myself to, but my dad was there to support me the whole time. I probably would have gone nowhere without him, so I suggest you do the same; support your son or daughter when you can, or at least show them how they can further their knowledge and expand their interest. For me it was just about games, but then my interest was sparked other things like operating systems and programming languages.
As long as you keep things constructive and pay attention to your child's interests, they will basically develop on their own. Therefore, wait until you get questions, then answer them, but don't try to set your child up with some prepackaged dealie you're trying to cook up; just go with the flow, man.
r0x0rz j00r b0x0rz, d00d
Sorry about the jokes, though...it was hard to tell that you weren't serious. ;)
I believe that X is a good piece of software, but the devil lies in the configuration. It's one of the hardest things to get a hold on, and even though many distros do a good job of sorting it out for you, sometimes they don't get it quite right (or not at all, in the case of when I used to use FreeBSD. Rather than use their tool, I told X to --configure and modified the file by hand).
Even with distros that get everything right, I must still specify the vsync and hsync for my moniter manually in order to get optimal refresh rates. :(
I've heard lots of people have problems with ATI cards, which might affect you. For this reason, I only use nvidia cards because the compatibility is so remarkable. If only ATI worked as well in linux/FreeBSD as nvidia did...are you listening, ATI?
I don't believe this at all. I used to run XFree86 on my laptop, which sports a 120mhz pentium, 40mb of RAM, and an old neomagic display adapter. On top of X, I ran windowmaker. The interface was very fast and responsive, consumed little memory, and ran hardware-appropriate games at full speed (ie Doom).
Dragging windows around leaves tracers.
One can only guess what your problem there is. I do not think it's intrinsic to X, though. I've never had that problem with X. My laptop has an ancient LCD, and THAT causes "tracers", but nothing software-side.
There are eyes that watch me from the toolbar, and they NEVER BLINK.
X doesn't have a toolbar, let alone eyes. You bash X and then start talking about a different program entirely?
At least I no longer have to roll my own monitor profiles, but this might be because I finally got rid of the 20 year old Radiation King.
What is a "Radiation King"? :-/
Explain.
Are pleasure cycles and the human orgasm not the subject of serious scientific study? Is it offensive to you that we have collected good, solid data on the subject and discovered that it might be applied to another field?
That little thing was a HUGE help. My schedule was very fragmented, and I'm slow to memorize schedules, especially when they're layered and alternating. Needless to say, I used my palm every day. Most days it would be the first thing I looked at when I got up in the morning (usually just to judge how much time I needed to get ready). I also looked at it between classes; it helped me figure out where to go and when I needed to be there.
That was the most important function to me. I also ended up making extensive use of the phone book and memo functions. The task list helped remind me of important assignments, but I didn't catalog all due dates on the thing.
I know palms are not the hottest things anymore, but let's face it; you especially don't want an entertainment machine. As other posters have stressed, you don't want wi-fi, games, videos, or other really cool programs. You want something to help you work. In my opinion, the palm does this well with good, solid core applications. I also use a GPL program on the side to calculate my gas mileage on my car (sourceforge does wonders).
A good thing to do is find an older palm. The basic functionality of palmOS hasn't changed much at all, and you'll get a great price on a small handheld if you go used/discontinued/refurbished/whatever.
Also, other posters mention the effectiveness of paper and pencil. Beware. I'm the type that's rather loose with papers. Things in writing can be difficult to keep structured and organized if you're me, and papers get lost all the time, not to mention that they are a hassle to carry. A PDA like my palm makes all my data microscopic, automatically organized, and easily sortable and searchable. I find this more convenient and portable than a pencil and paper solution. That's just me.
Find a system that works best for you, but I do definitely recommend a cheap palm. If you do in fact prefer Windows pocket edition for whatever reason (can you say nethack?), an older generation pocketpc is also a handy thing.