Hey, don't get me wrong... I don't expect to go to work in a T-shirt from Thinkgeek (As I would with friends), but ties just need to go.
I work for the NYC financial industry, right smack in the middle of Manhattan, so it's all formal here. I can see how everyone wants to look professional when interacting with clients, but I still think that those of us who are just sitting in the office all day, not seeing any outsiders, should be able to at least get away with "business casual."
Of course, if I could actually go to the office in a T-shirt (Without writing, of course) and jeans... Ahh... That'd be nice. One can dream.
In a big firm with a lot of red tape, a good secretary can be the difference between something getting done today, and it taking three to six months. A good one will know who to call and what to do to Get. Things. Done.
If we had a secretary in this department, I would be writing code, instead of trying to coordinate with support people and filling out forms just to get a few computers moved around...
A: It's against the terms of service for the game. You agree to these by becoming a paying subscriber. Hence, unless those rules change, it is wrong, and can get you banned from the game. Is it wrong, in the moral sense, regardless of terms? Well, if there was an infinite money/resources cheat in Counterstrike or Starcraft, would it be right or wrong to use it (Not counting single-player mode)?
Q: There are plenty of consumers who want that action.
A: You can say that about nearly anything, including assault weapons, drugs, and nuclear weapons. An entirely different scale, of course, but the point is that just because people want something doesn't mean it has to be available.
Q: Furthermore, nobody is getting "hurt" in any traditional sense.
A: I join a group with someone who just bought their level 70 warrior on E-Bay, or whatever service. The group spends the next half hour or so in a frustrating attempt to clear a dungeon, trying to teach him the most basic concepts of the game so he can actually contribute to the team, before finally giving up. Have I been physically hurt? No. Has it damaged my play experience? Yes. (Note: This is based on actual first-hand experience, except the warrior was only a level 64)
Q: This seems to me a case of a societal split in attitude, not a deep philosophical problem. Should the man walk into the room first or second when escorting a lady? That's the kind of argument we are seeing here.
A: What does this have to do with anything?
Advancing in a game in any way other than playing within the rules of the game is cheating. If you enter IDDQD (god mode) in Doom, you're cheating. If you edit your save-game file in Civilization to give you ten billion dollars, you're cheating. If your friend is a programmer, and you give him $5 to edit your save game file, you're still cheating. The difference is that in a single-player game, it only affects you, so nobody cares.
These Sparter guys are trying to convince us that cheating in a multiplayer game is just fine. Honestly, I don't see why this is even a question.
Disclaimer: I'm an avid WoW player, with 3 level 70 characters and 4 others above 60. I've never used any "RMT" services, nor have I "powerleveled," as I personally consider the latter to be contrary to my self-imposed moral code. Yes, I have a full-time job. I've just been playing a long time.
Second disclaimer: Yeah, it's a quiet day at work...
Prove that I'm not a god. You can't do it, can you? Sure, it's completely obvious, but you can't prove it. You can't base your proof on old stories (i.e. holy books), because those themselves aren't proven to be genuine. If I'm omnipotent, I could have just messed with them anyway. You can't prove it based on any physical characteristics, because everything you know about your chosen "god" is based on said stories.
That's how I think of it. No, I can't prove that a god (or gods) doesn't exist, but why should I have to? If I have to prove that, then I'd like to see your proof of the non-existence of the flying spaghetti monster, to use a well-known example. The burden of proof, as I see it, is on the preachers of the religion or of faith in general, to prove that "god" exists.
Now, if by some unlikely event, someone -does- present proof, then my stance will change. I'd be utterly shocked if that ever happened, but I'm interested in facts, not beliefs.
Honestly, though, I can't really fault the Theists, of any type. I look around at this meaningless existence, and I see how it would be nice to have some way to justify it. Give it some actual purpose beyond mere survival and reproduction. That would be easier, and maybe I'd sleep better if I could actually convince myself of it... Oh well. Back to work...
Excel 97... But it's not really a game... Just a simple 3D engine with some terrain mapping and the application credits "rolling" on the face of a "hill".
I hate to admit it, myself being a hypocritical, Micro$oft-hating,.NET programmer, but I actually have to agree with you and side with the gorilla on this one.
Yes, the APIs are available, but assuming your information is correct, his software obviously bypasses a "technical limitation," as the license states. I mean, that looks like a pretty obvious example of a backdoor to me.
Now I'm no lawyer, but it looks like in the most literal possible sense, he MAY not be in violation (That'd for the lawyers to decide), but ethically he's way in the red zone. If his product had just worked in the Express version without any modifications, it would be MSFT's fault. As he pretty much hacked his way into it, well, if he's smart, he'll just remove the hack and publicly apologize.
Hey, I love to see the big corporations get their teeth kicked in, but not this time.
My thoughts exactly... I never thought being a warcrack addict would help me write financial software for a securities firm, but it really is helping me think along different lines when I set up the UI.
I mean, sure, I could bombard the user with a screen full of numbers, and cram as much data onto the screen at once. I could, but would that be the best way to do it?
No. Game designers realized this a long time ago, because the person viewing the data doesn't NEED to see ALL of that data ALL of the time.
If I'm attacking some ogre up in the mountains, do I really care how many doodads I collected for that quest down in the marsh lands? Do I care how many other players I've killed lately? No, I only care about which abilities I can use, how much health/mana I have, and so on.
Give them the information that's most relevant, and give them the OPTION to view the rest.
Now if I could just figure out some way to get rid of all these grids...
Haha, brilliant. I was walking by those stupid tables in Grand Central and Times Square for months, but I was always too much in a hurry, or just too lazy to confront them.
I was going to paraphrase Maria Bamford...
"You know what really stresses me out? The chance that I might get sucked into some creepy religious cult!"
Hey, I wrote a text adventure loosely-based on my college, in which the astronomy building basically gets blown to hell, several other buildings are burnt down, two students are murdered, and--
Err, I mean, it wasn't my school. Any similarities were entirely coincidental, and were mere plot devices.
Re:I had an interview with Google a few weeks ago
on
Want To Work At Google?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
In regards to #2... Wait a second, they just want it sorted by BYTES? Wow...
1) Make 256-element array 2) Iterate through file, incrementing array elements to count occurrences of each byte value 3) Iterate through array, outputting desired number of each value.
Total storage required: 256 x 4 bytes, supporting file sizes up to 4GB, working in O(n) time.
Of course they probably meant the file contained a list of strings or numbers, but then it's their fault for being too vague...
(I applied on their website, and didn't get past the first screenings... Guess my 2.9 GPA wasn't good enough, huh? Stupid history courses...)
It's just waiting for someone to build it, a politician to buy it, and a population to accept it.
Oh, wait, I can do this...
Build: Someone is probably already building it, because...
Buy: There's always a politician who will arrange to purchase this to gain brownie points with his constituents. Probable arguments include "Think of the children", "Stop terrorism", and "Find that bastard who stole your wallet"
Accept: Irrelevant. People are sheep. Feed them one of the above arguments, and a majority of people will accept it. As good ol' St. George said (I hold him in much higher esteem than any "official" saints), "Think of how smart the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!"
Child porn is completely illegal, because kids under 18 (Varies by state, actually) are legally unable to consent to it.
COPA is about preventing children from SEEING LEGAL porn. Basically, I think COPA requires web sites to make an effort to prevent children from accessing stuff like that... You know, age checks, requiring credit cards to prove age, etc etc. The judge is saying that forcing webmasters to restrict their content like this is a violation of free speech, and that the government has no right to determine when a child is old enough to view adult material. That's the parents' job.
(This is Slashdot, so I'm sure someone will chime in if I have this wrong)
How did that meme go? I am intrigued by this judge's ideas, and would like to subscribe to his newsletter.
The Wheel of Code turns, and programs come and pass, leaving binaries that become distros. Distros fade to archives, and even archives are long forgotten when the program that gave them birth comes again. In one program, called Linux by some, a program yet to come, a program long past, a lawsuit blew across the offices of IBM....
"What do I want? I want to live just long enough to see them cut off your head and stick it on a pike for display on Centauri Prime, as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come at too high a price. I want to look up at it, and wave.... like this..."
Sorry... Heads on pikes just always remind me of that... I'd offer bonus points to whoever can place the quote, but it's far too easy.
I've got a similar experience... When I was still new to driving (I was only 16 at the time), and had my mother in the car, I took a low-visibility left turn out of an office complex.
Now, the road curved out of sight on both sides, and maybe I didn't look fast enough, because as I got into the lane, I realized I was about to get hit from behind by a red convertible doing about 60. I quickly swerved across the double-line into the left lane, only to see three cars coming from straight ahead. Another instant reaction, and I swerved back into the original lane, since the convertible had managed to slow down just enough that he didn't hit me. No collisions, and my mother didn't quite keel over from the shock.
I suddenly want something very bad to happen to you.
PLEASE no more Pokemon... Let it die! Let it go away! Sure, it'd get a lot of the little kiddies out of Warcraft (And thus make WoW players more mature on average), but do you REALLY want millions of kids doing nothing but Pokemon-related activities every day? Give it a month, and they'll be running around repeating their own names...
"Squirtle Squirtle! Squir-- Wait, what the #(*% am I doing? This doesn't make any sense!" "Quiet, Earl, or you'll get the gas!" "For chrissake, kids! Go read a book!" -- Robot Chicken
Slashdot Mirror
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Hey, don't get me wrong... I don't expect to go to work in a T-shirt from Thinkgeek (As I would with friends), but ties just need to go.
I work for the NYC financial industry, right smack in the middle of Manhattan, so it's all formal here. I can see how everyone wants to look professional when interacting with clients, but I still think that those of us who are just sitting in the office all day, not seeing any outsiders, should be able to at least get away with "business casual."
Of course, if I could actually go to the office in a T-shirt (Without writing, of course) and jeans... Ahh... That'd be nice. One can dream.
Hey, don't underestimate the secretaries!
In a big firm with a lot of red tape, a good secretary can be the difference between something getting done today, and it taking three to six months. A good one will know who to call and what to do to Get. Things. Done.
If we had a secretary in this department, I would be writing code, instead of trying to coordinate with support people and filling out forms just to get a few computers moved around...
Q: is it right to buy and sell in-game items?
A: It's against the terms of service for the game. You agree to these by becoming a paying subscriber. Hence, unless those rules change, it is wrong, and can get you banned from the game. Is it wrong, in the moral sense, regardless of terms? Well, if there was an infinite money/resources cheat in Counterstrike or Starcraft, would it be right or wrong to use it (Not counting single-player mode)?
Q: There are plenty of consumers who want that action.
A: You can say that about nearly anything, including assault weapons, drugs, and nuclear weapons. An entirely different scale, of course, but the point is that just because people want something doesn't mean it has to be available.
Q: Furthermore, nobody is getting "hurt" in any traditional sense.
A: I join a group with someone who just bought their level 70 warrior on E-Bay, or whatever service. The group spends the next half hour or so in a frustrating attempt to clear a dungeon, trying to teach him the most basic concepts of the game so he can actually contribute to the team, before finally giving up. Have I been physically hurt? No. Has it damaged my play experience? Yes.
(Note: This is based on actual first-hand experience, except the warrior was only a level 64)
Q: This seems to me a case of a societal split in attitude, not a deep philosophical problem. Should the man walk into the room first or second when escorting a lady? That's the kind of argument we are seeing here.
A: What does this have to do with anything?
Advancing in a game in any way other than playing within the rules of the game is cheating. If you enter IDDQD (god mode) in Doom, you're cheating. If you edit your save-game file in Civilization to give you ten billion dollars, you're cheating. If your friend is a programmer, and you give him $5 to edit your save game file, you're still cheating. The difference is that in a single-player game, it only affects you, so nobody cares.
These Sparter guys are trying to convince us that cheating in a multiplayer game is just fine. Honestly, I don't see why this is even a question.
Disclaimer: I'm an avid WoW player, with 3 level 70 characters and 4 others above 60. I've never used any "RMT" services, nor have I "powerleveled," as I personally consider the latter to be contrary to my self-imposed moral code. Yes, I have a full-time job. I've just been playing a long time.
Second disclaimer: Yeah, it's a quiet day at work...
Here's how I define it.
Prove that I'm not a god. You can't do it, can you? Sure, it's completely obvious, but you can't prove it. You can't base your proof on old stories (i.e. holy books), because those themselves aren't proven to be genuine. If I'm omnipotent, I could have just messed with them anyway. You can't prove it based on any physical characteristics, because everything you know about your chosen "god" is based on said stories.
That's how I think of it. No, I can't prove that a god (or gods) doesn't exist, but why should I have to? If I have to prove that, then I'd like to see your proof of the non-existence of the flying spaghetti monster, to use a well-known example. The burden of proof, as I see it, is on the preachers of the religion or of faith in general, to prove that "god" exists.
Now, if by some unlikely event, someone -does- present proof, then my stance will change. I'd be utterly shocked if that ever happened, but I'm interested in facts, not beliefs.
Honestly, though, I can't really fault the Theists, of any type. I look around at this meaningless existence, and I see how it would be nice to have some way to justify it. Give it some actual purpose beyond mere survival and reproduction. That would be easier, and maybe I'd sleep better if I could actually convince myself of it... Oh well. Back to work...
Heh, I remember that... People got used to "standard" cheat codes after Doom 2, since it used most of the ones from Doom 1...
Oh, except it replaced IDSPISPOPD with IDCLIP (Noclip mode). It still used IDDQD (god mode) and IDKFA (All weapons)...
It's sad that I still have them memorized...
Excel 97... But it's not really a game... Just a simple 3D engine with some terrain mapping and the application credits "rolling" on the face of a "hill".
Still...
Best. Easter. Egg. Ever.
I hate to admit it, myself being a hypocritical, Micro$oft-hating, .NET programmer, but I actually have to agree with you and side with the gorilla on this one.
Yes, the APIs are available, but assuming your information is correct, his software obviously bypasses a "technical limitation," as the license states. I mean, that looks like a pretty obvious example of a backdoor to me.
Now I'm no lawyer, but it looks like in the most literal possible sense, he MAY not be in violation (That'd for the lawyers to decide), but ethically he's way in the red zone. If his product had just worked in the Express version without any modifications, it would be MSFT's fault. As he pretty much hacked his way into it, well, if he's smart, he'll just remove the hack and publicly apologize.
Hey, I love to see the big corporations get their teeth kicked in, but not this time.
My thoughts exactly... I never thought being a warcrack addict would help me write financial software for a securities firm, but it really is helping me think along different lines when I set up the UI.
I mean, sure, I could bombard the user with a screen full of numbers, and cram as much data onto the screen at once. I could, but would that be the best way to do it?
No. Game designers realized this a long time ago, because the person viewing the data doesn't NEED to see ALL of that data ALL of the time.
If I'm attacking some ogre up in the mountains, do I really care how many doodads I collected for that quest down in the marsh lands? Do I care how many other players I've killed lately? No, I only care about which abilities I can use, how much health/mana I have, and so on.
Give them the information that's most relevant, and give them the OPTION to view the rest.
Now if I could just figure out some way to get rid of all these grids...
I think it basically says...
"Everyone knows how to make stuff on the screen you can click on, but we did it better. Just trust us."
Haha, brilliant. I was walking by those stupid tables in Grand Central and Times Square for months, but I was always too much in a hurry, or just too lazy to confront them.
I was going to paraphrase Maria Bamford...
"You know what really stresses me out? The chance that I might get sucked into some creepy religious cult!"
Yet another opportunity missed.
I don't remember when I signed up, but ICQ used to be great... Now, if I log in with my six-digit (178xxx), I get nothing but constant spam.
Hahaha, beautiful!
I'd mod you up if I could.
Hey, I wrote a text adventure loosely-based on my college, in which the astronomy building basically gets blown to hell, several other buildings are burnt down, two students are murdered, and--
Err, I mean, it wasn't my school. Any similarities were entirely coincidental, and were mere plot devices.
In regards to #2... Wait a second, they just want it sorted by BYTES? Wow...
1) Make 256-element array
2) Iterate through file, incrementing array elements to count occurrences of each byte value
3) Iterate through array, outputting desired number of each value.
Total storage required: 256 x 4 bytes, supporting file sizes up to 4GB, working in O(n) time.
Of course they probably meant the file contained a list of strings or numbers, but then it's their fault for being too vague...
(I applied on their website, and didn't get past the first screenings... Guess my 2.9 GPA wasn't good enough, huh? Stupid history courses...)
Hmm, true... Especially since you could use THEIR bodies to build the bridge instead of your own people.
I can't...
+1 Funny
-1 Wrong Ocean
It's just waiting for someone to build it, a politician to buy it, and a population to accept it.
Oh, wait, I can do this...
Build: Someone is probably already building it, because...
Buy: There's always a politician who will arrange to purchase this to gain brownie points with his constituents. Probable arguments include "Think of the children", "Stop terrorism", and "Find that bastard who stole your wallet"
Accept: Irrelevant. People are sheep. Feed them one of the above arguments, and a majority of people will accept it. As good ol' St. George said (I hold him in much higher esteem than any "official" saints), "Think of how smart the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!"
This isn't about child porn or murder.
Child porn is completely illegal, because kids under 18 (Varies by state, actually) are legally unable to consent to it.
COPA is about preventing children from SEEING LEGAL porn. Basically, I think COPA requires web sites to make an effort to prevent children from accessing stuff like that... You know, age checks, requiring credit cards to prove age, etc etc. The judge is saying that forcing webmasters to restrict their content like this is a violation of free speech, and that the government has no right to determine when a child is old enough to view adult material. That's the parents' job.
(This is Slashdot, so I'm sure someone will chime in if I have this wrong)
How did that meme go? I am intrigued by this judge's ideas, and would like to subscribe to his newsletter.
Stop that! I almost cracked up at work, and my boss sits right behind me!
:)
Hilarious
+5 Idiocracy reference
The Wheel of Code turns, and programs come and pass, leaving binaries that become distros. Distros fade to archives, and even archives are long forgotten when the program that gave them birth comes again. In one program, called Linux by some, a program yet to come, a program long past, a lawsuit blew across the offices of IBM....
"What do I want? I want to live just long enough to see them cut off your head and stick it on a pike for display on Centauri Prime, as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come at too high a price. I want to look up at it, and wave.... like this..."
Sorry... Heads on pikes just always remind me of that... I'd offer bonus points to whoever can place the quote, but it's far too easy.
I've got a similar experience... When I was still new to driving (I was only 16 at the time), and had my mother in the car, I took a low-visibility left turn out of an office complex.
Now, the road curved out of sight on both sides, and maybe I didn't look fast enough, because as I got into the lane, I realized I was about to get hit from behind by a red convertible doing about 60. I quickly swerved across the double-line into the left lane, only to see three cars coming from straight ahead. Another instant reaction, and I swerved back into the original lane, since the convertible had managed to slow down just enough that he didn't hit me. No collisions, and my mother didn't quite keel over from the shock.
Maybe it was luck... Maybe it was Quake TF...
I suddenly want something very bad to happen to you.
PLEASE no more Pokemon... Let it die! Let it go away! Sure, it'd get a lot of the little kiddies out of Warcraft (And thus make WoW players more mature on average), but do you REALLY want millions of kids doing nothing but Pokemon-related activities every day? Give it a month, and they'll be running around repeating their own names...
"Squirtle Squirtle! Squir-- Wait, what the #(*% am I doing? This doesn't make any sense!"
"Quiet, Earl, or you'll get the gas!"
"For chrissake, kids! Go read a book!"
-- Robot Chicken