> Microsoft's decisions have placed "user friendly" above "security" for years.
Exactly. Case in point: Even Win7 still hides known file extensions by default. Users can be easily manipulated into clicking on something they think is legit.
I'm a game programmer, designer, and my friends know that I tend to be very vocal about ranting (-negative) and rave (+postive) about games _with_ very specific design (& implementation) reasons WHY said games are good/bad.
You haven't listed _any_ reasons.
I am going to include what I emailed my friends back in Dec '09 when I finished it.
Raves
+ Story was engaging enough for me to actually finish the game - it was half-decent. I was entertained. Maybe I had no expectations, or was able to put all the hype aside. Regardless, they could of easily messed this one up, and was thankful EA didn't fuck it up or make it worse then it could of been.
+ The martial arts mini-boss battle with the white assassin was REAL interesting to figure out how to beat. The hand-to-hand combat was neat when you were able to execute the timing.
+ Artistic / Beautiful (over-saturated) world, even if bordering on "bland." The main menu definitely has a very cool look to it when you stop and considering it is all being rendered in real-time was used to be pre-rendered cut-scenes just 5 years ago. The "visuals" of the game reminds me of originality of the pre-rendered cut-scenes of Privater.
+ Music was awesome and fit the mood perfectly. Rank 11 / 10.
- Unfortunately, most of the time you have no clue how to actually get where you are supposed to go. Yes, I used the built-in hint to view. I still spent far too much time trying to figure out how the heck to get up there. Yes, this is a VERY fine line between spoon feeding the player and forcing him to solve difficult puzzles. While the overall level design was good, the individual specific environment hints of where to go next was terrible. The levels were for the most part, not intuitive. Which leads me to my next point...
- I grok the point of the game. I really do. You pull off all these amazing moves in one zen flow of execution and it feels fucking fantastic!
The hard Reality of the situation: You spend 1 minute figuring out where to go next. You die. You figure out that jump / climb, then you get stuck again trying to figure out the next 'segment'. Repeat ad nasuem. This constant interruption on trying to figure out how to make your way from 'Start' to some vague 'Finish' location, TOTALLY breaks the flow of the game. Each time you die, you figure out a little more of the "path" you are supposed to take. Finally, after 20 deaths, you can "chain" all the movement together, it feels awesome to do all these "stunts", and you think "this game has potential !" Then you die, and you realize you are a new checkpoint and you get to do it all over again until the chapter is done. LOL.
- Bad save-points. There was even one point where the save-point was BEFORE a cutscene, so when you died you had to skip it all the time. WTF? Place the dam save-point AFTER. If cut-scenes weren't skippable, I think this would of been a pretty major deal breaker.
- Was too easy to accidently skip the cutscenes. The first time I played I actually ended up skipping the cut scene when ending the first level because I didn't realize my direct action was over !
- The world is BARREN. Aside from a few pedestrations you see down below on the street, you never see anybody "normal" in any of the offices or indoors aside from Police or a few people dependent on the plot. Even the inside offices were "too clean." Not even a secretary was around ??? Grand Theft Auto was (partially) suc
> Does it want your money? Does it want your mind? Does it want to govern your life? It's a cult.
How is that different from government?:-) No, seriously?
There are cults that don't require any money, (or time), only your belief system.
> Of course/. 'ers will list about a hundred other things that fit that bill;-)
With all due respect, your _definition_ is too vague, and not specific enough. The money, and mind-control are simply symptoms of the problem -- that an organization has self-perservation as its basic focus.
Definition:
Cult: any group / organization that says there is only _one_ way (namely, theirs, go figure) to do _X_. Symptoms include all forms of mind control, brain washing, social pressure, etc., so that you never _question_.
Most churches are cults because unless you tow the party line (believe what they tell you, you won't get into heaven otherwise.)
There is nothing wrong with a faith based religion -- it is only the close-mindedness that does not accept criticism of any kind, which _is_ the problem. (The distinction between Blind Faith & Faith is something the Atheists can't seem to grok but that is a different discussion.)
-- Teacher: "The most important thing you can do is Question Authority'." Student: "Says Who !?";-)
> I would also suspect that someone who favors the church is running around with moderator points today!
Yeah I expected to be down-modded into oblivious because the truth hurts./sacasm Becausee we all know the Catholic Church is _such_ a bastion of Upstanding Morals./snort
The Priests just ignore what they don't like about the Bible. aka 1 Timothy 3:2 "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;"
Another me too. Used DD-WRT for 6 to 12 months, and switched over to Tomato ever since (a year or two now) due to the dd-wrt security hole(s) on the WRT54GL.
P2P apps seem to be the best way to test a router's stability:-)
const char *aQuestions[] = { 0 #if PRIEST_CONFESSIONS ,"Have you sodomized a child?" ,"And tried to cover it up?" ,"Have you fantasized about a nun?" ,"Have you had sex with a nun?" ,"Before or After the sermon?" ,"Sucked ^H^H^H^H^HPreached new converts with Heaven Insurance?" #else ,"Have you murdered an infidel?" ,"Have you coveted your neighbour's wife?" ,"Or your wife's sister?" ,"Have you had relations with someone of the same gender?" ,"And enjoyed it?" ,"Have you taken the Lord's Name in vain?" #endif
Until we either have 1 global currancy, or people actually learn the 2nd and 3rd meaning of money, we will have this nonsense of poverty, inflation, and people arguing over multiple meanings of the SAME DOLLAR ammount.
> The thing is: money serves as an exchange medium of value.
Ok, you understand the first meaning of money...
> Since the usefulness (or value) of gold (or just about anything else physical) depends on many factors, the only sane option is fiat. ... but not the 2nd or 3rd meaning.
May I remind you of a famous quote:
"Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws. â" Mayer Amsched Rothchild, a prominent European banker in the eighteenth century"
Other links that may be of interest ( I don't particular agree with them, but they do provide some perspectives.)
You mean like just "Einstein's Thought Experiment"? That's a complete oxymoron of the word "expirement" and bastardization of Science if there ever were one. It can lead to new insights though...
PageUp/PageDown works in FF (3.6.12)? NO. Changing the Threshold works on Mobiles? NO. Correct footer order at bottom of main page: Previous (oldest), Current, Next (newer) ? NO, the order is still fucked up./. v3.0 = FAYUL/. jumped the shark with the first re-design. (some would argue before that, but, meh, at least the users/comments make it worthwhile)
>> Ever since the end of Reloaded, I had hoped that's where the story would go. Neo had powers "outside" of the Matrix? > Exactly what I thought, too.
At the end of the first Matrix, Neo says:
I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end, I came here to tell you how this is going to begin. Now, I'm going to hang up this phone, and I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you...a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world...where anything is possible.
Neo, becoming "Jesus", and being able to "bring back the dead", is perfectly par for the course.
> Of course that's a receipt for arbitrary many sequels, because there is no real world, it's simulations all the way down.:-)
That's not true... See these excellent articles / analysis:
Note: It doesn't describe how Neo has power in the real world at the end of Matrix Reloaded aside from: "The conceptual barriers between the real world and the Matrix will be eroded -- as if it isn't already. But also the heightened man-machine interaction in the Matrix will be expressed more in the real world (a la Neo's power over the sentinels)."
Lastly, FINALLY, (smoking-gun?) proof that The Matrix was originally a trilogy: The Architect's wall of video monitors in 'Reloaded' appears briefly in 'The Matrix': Immediately after Neo is apprehended at MetaCorTechs, and before he is interrogated by Agent Smith, the camera slowly zooms in on several video monitors showing Neo sitting in the interrogation room. Many people assumed the monitors were connected to interrogation room cameras in the police station, but curiously, they all showed the same image of Neo in his room. The Architect was watching Neo even before he was awakened by Morpheus and his crew.
> 100GHz? 300GHz? 1-fucking-THz? > I started drooling just a bit. Talk about a jump in speed.
The US government has had 100 GHz for around ~20 years ago using graphene. It is only "new" to the civilian world, who can't afford the multi-million dollar cooling system that goes along with it.
> Why should user a be able to remove it for user b?
Because maybe it is a trojan/spyware/adaware that was installed by mistaked, you know.
Firefox should either a) let the _user_ uninstall it, with the dialog that pops up "Warning: This will effect all users!", or b) "You need to restart firefox in administrator mode to uninstall this plugin. Would you like to do that now? [ ]Yes, [ ] No"
> Similarly, preserving every game, regardless of merit or noteworthiness devalues all games.
WTF??
Noteworthiness & Value is _subjective_. I just payed a pretty penny to have the _original_ working Apple ][ versions of Kareteka, Lode Runner, Gumball, and Spare Change (yes, the classic Brøderbund games.) I'm _still_ trying to track down 2 of my favorite games in this trilogy: Empire II: Interstellar Sharks, and Empire III: Armageddon, but I can't because they are "obscure" games.
Just because they have _no_ value to the majority of the people, doesn't mean they don't have value. Their age, does in no way, "devalue" any other game. Sorry to be an ass, but here's a big F.U. to your "devalues all games" bullshit rhetoric.
Regards, Someone who works on an Apple// emulator.
> Encryption keys are numbers, you can't patent or claim copyright on numbers. You can't do that for a set of numbers either.
While you and I see the complete insanity in patenting numbers and agree that the concept of "owning" is freaking absurd, others are still ignorant of the ramifications of this.
e.g. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html
Because of their importance in encryption algorithms such as RSA encryption, prime numbers can be important commercial commodities. In fact, R. Schlafly (1994) has obtained U.S. Patent 5373560 on the following two primes (expressed in hexadecimal notation): 98A3DF52AEAE9799325CB258D767EBD1F4630E9B 9E21732A4AFB1624BA6DF911466AD8DA960586F4 A0D5E3C36AF099660BDDC1577E54A9F402334433 ACB14BCB (3)
and 93E8965DAFD9DFECFD00B466B68F90EA68AF5DC9 FED915278D1B3A137471E65596C37FED0C7829FF 8F8331F81A2700438ECDCC09447DC397C685F397 294F722BCC484AEDF28BED25AAAB35D35A65DB1F D62C9D7BA55844FEB1F9401E671340933EE43C54 E4DC459400D7AD61248B83A2624835B31FFF2D95 95A5B90B276E44F9.
Slashdot Mirror
> Microsoft's decisions have placed "user friendly" above "security" for years.
Exactly. Case in point: Even Win7 still hides known file extensions by default. Users can be easily manipulated into clicking on something they think is legit.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Win+7+still+hides+known+file+extension+type
e.g.
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001678.html
Granted, you can't protect ignorance from stupid, but c'mon, why make it harder then it needs to be.
> Mirror's Edge was crap,
I'm a game programmer, designer, and my friends know that I tend to be very vocal about ranting (-negative) and rave (+postive) about games _with_ very specific design (& implementation) reasons WHY said games are good/bad.
You haven't listed _any_ reasons.
I am going to include what I emailed my friends back in Dec '09 when I finished it.
Raves
+ Story was engaging enough for me to actually finish the game - it was half-decent. I was entertained. Maybe I had no expectations, or was able to put all the hype aside. Regardless, they could of easily messed this one up, and was thankful EA didn't fuck it up or make it worse then it could of been.
+ The martial arts mini-boss battle with the white assassin was REAL interesting to figure out how to beat. The hand-to-hand combat was neat when you were able to execute the timing.
+ Artistic / Beautiful (over-saturated) world, even if bordering on "bland." The main menu definitely has a very cool look to it when you stop and considering it is all being rendered in real-time was used to be pre-rendered cut-scenes just 5 years ago. The "visuals" of the game reminds me of originality of the pre-rendered cut-scenes of Privater.
+ Music was awesome and fit the mood perfectly. Rank 11 / 10 .
+ The game is literally a puzzle game -- where do I go next. I enjoyed the last few levels of the game the best. Initial frustration turned to joy of figuring them out.
http://www.mahalo.com/mirrors-edge-kate (Start watching around 5 min mark)
http://faqs.ign.com/articles/953/953471p8.html (or start here)
+ You can skip the cutscenes! Thank-God.
Rants:
- Unfortunately, most of the time you have no clue how to actually get where you are supposed to go. Yes, I used the built-in hint to view. I still spent far too much time trying to figure out how the heck to get up there. Yes, this is a VERY fine line between spoon feeding the player and forcing him to solve difficult puzzles. While the overall level design was good, the individual specific environment hints of where to go next was terrible. The levels were for the most part, not intuitive. Which leads me to my next point...
- I grok the point of the game. I really do. You pull off all these amazing moves in one zen flow of execution and it feels fucking fantastic!
The hard Reality of the situation: You spend 1 minute figuring out where to go next. You die. You figure out that jump / climb, then you get stuck again trying to figure out the next 'segment'. Repeat ad nasuem. This constant interruption on trying to figure out how to make your way from 'Start' to some vague 'Finish' location, TOTALLY breaks the flow of the game. Each time you die, you figure out a little more of the "path" you are supposed to take. Finally, after 20 deaths, you can "chain" all the movement together, it feels awesome to do all these "stunts", and you think "this game has potential !" Then you die, and you realize you are a new checkpoint and you get to do it all over again until the chapter is done. LOL.
- Bad save-points. There was even one point where the save-point was BEFORE a cutscene, so when you died you had to skip it all the time. WTF? Place the dam save-point AFTER. If cut-scenes weren't skippable, I think this would of been a pretty major deal breaker.
- Was too easy to accidently skip the cutscenes. The first time I played I actually ended up skipping the cut scene when ending the first level because I didn't realize my direct action was over !
- The world is BARREN. Aside from a few pedestrations you see down below on the street, you never see anybody "normal" in any of the offices or indoors aside from Police or a few people dependent on the plot. Even the inside offices were "too clean." Not even a secretary was around ??? Grand Theft Auto was (partially) suc
> Does it want your money? Does it want your mind? Does it want to govern your life? It's a cult.
How is that different from government? :-) No, seriously?
There are cults that don't require any money, (or time), only your belief system.
> Of course /. 'ers will list about a hundred other things that fit that bill ;-)
With all due respect, your _definition_ is too vague, and not specific enough. The money, and mind-control are simply symptoms of the problem -- that an organization has self-perservation as its basic focus.
Definition:
Cult: any group / organization that says there is only _one_ way (namely, theirs, go figure) to do _X_. Symptoms include all forms of mind control, brain washing, social pressure, etc., so that you never _question_.
Most churches are cults because unless you tow the party line (believe what they tell you, you won't get into heaven otherwise.)
There is nothing wrong with a faith based religion -- it is only the close-mindedness that does not accept criticism of any kind, which _is_ the problem. (The distinction between Blind Faith & Faith is something the Atheists can't seem to grok but that is a different discussion.)
-- ;-)
Teacher: "The most important thing you can do is Question Authority'."
Student: "Says Who !?"
> I would also suspect that someone who favors the church is running around with moderator points today!
Yeah I expected to be down-modded into oblivious because the truth hurts. /sacasm Becausee we all know the Catholic Church is _such_ a bastion of Upstanding Morals. /snort
The Priests just ignore what they don't like about the Bible.
aka 1 Timothy 3:2 "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;"
Another me too. Used DD-WRT for 6 to 12 months, and switched over to Tomato ever since (a year or two now) due to the dd-wrt security hole(s) on the WRT54GL.
P2P apps seem to be the best way to test a router's stability :-)
That should be ][, //e, or //c, //e+, and IIgs.
Adding GT or GS the model name makes it sound "bad-ass" :-)
LG is making Panasonic Plasma panels now ??
Since when?
That's easy to fix ...
;-)
const char *aQuestions[] = { 0
#if PRIEST_CONFESSIONS
,"Have you sodomized a child?"
,"And tried to cover it up?"
,"Have you fantasized about a nun?"
,"Have you had sex with a nun?"
,"Before or After the sermon?"
,"Sucked ^H^H^H^H^HPreached new converts with Heaven Insurance?"
#else
,"Have you murdered an infidel?"
,"Have you coveted your neighbour's wife?"
,"Or your wife's sister?"
,"Have you had relations with someone of the same gender?"
,"And enjoyed it?"
,"Have you taken the Lord's Name in vain?"
#endif
Apologies to the first post of the AC
{Post got cut off}
Until we either have 1 global currancy, or people actually learn the 2nd and 3rd meaning of money, we will have this nonsense of poverty, inflation, and people arguing over multiple meanings of the SAME DOLLAR ammount.
> That's a common myth: gold-backed currency has "real value" and fiat currency has no "real value".
That's because people don't understand (hyper) inflation or what causes it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar
> The thing is: money serves as an exchange medium of value.
Ok, you understand the first meaning of money ...
> Since the usefulness (or value) of gold (or just about anything else physical) depends on many factors, the only sane option is fiat.
... but not the 2nd or 3rd meaning.
With all due respect, you are either insane, an idiot, or ignorant of history. Try google "Local Currency", and research specifically, "LETS", for one.
e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Exchange_Trading_Systems
Second, read this white paper:
"What Has Government Done to Our Money? " by Murray N. Rothbard
http://mises.org/books/whathasgovernmentdone.pdf
Third, at least watch "The Corporation"
http://www.thecorporation.com/
May I remind you of a famous quote:
"Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws. â" Mayer Amsched Rothchild, a prominent European banker in the eighteenth century"
Other links that may be of interest ( I don't particular agree with them, but they do provide some perspectives.)
Money as Debt by Paul Grignon
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
The Corruption that is Modern Banking - Money as Debt
http://bsalert.com/news/2085/The_Corruption_That_Is_Modern_Banking_Money_As_Debt.html?r3
You don't need fiat currency, and you don't need usary to have an economic model. The only reason economic systems fail is for one reason only: greed.
Until we either have 1 global currancy,
You mean like just "Einstein's Thought Experiment"? That's a complete oxymoron of the word "expirement" and bastardization of Science if there ever were one. It can lead to new insights though...
http://www.google.com/search?q=Einstein's+Thought+Expirement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
You corect the AC GP mentioned Apple.
Apple is no better (or worse) then MS in this regard. ... OR said another way ...
MS is no better (or worse) then Apple in this regard.
Why people shocked that tech companies buy other tech companies?
Get the point now idiot??
I thought it was
Never A Straight Answer ...
Aka, something strange is filmed here when the tether breaks, but they just ignore it...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8524267568796529301#
Likewise, this is ON topic .. when the shuttle explodes something funny can be seen off to the side around the ~3:05 mark or so
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmbSupnmK8k&feature=related
> No, they haven't. They were lucky to be able to steal/copy/buy the best ideas for a long time.
You mean *shock* just like MS ?
Q-Dos -> MS-DOS
Spyglass -> Internet Explorer
I could go on, but I'll let you read it for yourself ...
http://www.mcmillan.cx/innovation.html
Mod parent +infinity
In FireFox:
Tools, Options, Content, Load Images Autamatically, Exceptions
images.slashdot.org
a.fsdn.com
c.fsdn.com
s.fsdn.com
Yeah no kidding.
PageUp/PageDown works in FF (3.6.12)? NO. /. v3.0 = FAYUL /. jumped the shark with the first re-design. (some would argue before that, but, meh, at least the users/comments make it worthwhile)
Changing the Threshold works on Mobiles? NO.
Correct footer order at bottom of main page: Previous (oldest), Current, Next (newer) ? NO, the order is still fucked up.
> This sounds like any number of hoaxes that have been perpetrated; be they related to cold fusion or perpetual motion machines.
Dumb question, so tell me, how "long" does an electron (pick any atom) orbit the atomic nucleus?
Where does it "get" the energy from?
>> Ever since the end of Reloaded, I had hoped that's where the story would go. Neo had powers "outside" of the Matrix?
> Exactly what I thought, too.
At the end of the first Matrix, Neo says:
I didn't come here to
tell you how this is going to end, I came here to tell you
how this is going to begin. Now, I'm going to hang up
this phone, and I'm going to show these people what you
don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world
without you...a world without rules and controls, without
borders or boundaries. A world...where anything is
possible.
Neo, becoming "Jesus", and being able to "bring back the dead", is perfectly par for the course.
> Of course that's a receipt for arbitrary many sequels, because there is no real world, it's simulations all the way down. :-)
That's not true... See these excellent articles / analysis:
* http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrix_reloaded.html
* http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrix_revolutions.html
Note: It doesn't describe how Neo has power in the real world at the end of Matrix Reloaded aside from: "The conceptual barriers between the real world and the Matrix will be eroded -- as if it isn't already. But also the heightened man-machine interaction in the Matrix will be expressed more in the real world (a la Neo's power over the sentinels)."
Lastly, FINALLY, (smoking-gun?) proof that The Matrix was originally a trilogy:
The Architect's wall of video monitors in 'Reloaded' appears briefly in 'The Matrix': Immediately after Neo is apprehended at MetaCorTechs, and before he is interrogated by Agent Smith, the camera slowly zooms in on several video monitors showing Neo sitting in the interrogation room. Many people assumed the monitors were connected to interrogation room cameras in the police station, but curiously, they all showed the same image of Neo in his room. The Architect was watching Neo even before he was awakened by Morpheus and his crew.
> 100GHz? 300GHz? 1-fucking-THz?
> I started drooling just a bit. Talk about a jump in speed.
The US government has had 100 GHz for around ~20 years ago using graphene. It is only "new" to the civilian world, who can't afford the multi-million dollar cooling system that goes along with it.
But still, yeah, dam cool. :-)
> Why should user a be able to remove it for user b?
Because maybe it is a trojan/spyware/adaware that was installed by mistaked, you know.
Firefox should either
a) let the _user_ uninstall it, with the dialog that pops up "Warning: This will effect all users!", or
b) "You need to restart firefox in administrator mode to uninstall this plugin. Would you like to do that now? [ ]Yes, [ ] No"
It's not fricken rocket science.
It was the very _first_ version that did.
Now get off ma lawn ! ;-)
> Or maybe like SimCity which had the list of codes that couldn't be photocopied.
I just cracked the dam thing and displayed my own "Kracked by The ..." message instead. :-)
Of course my older tech friend got the clever idea of just feeding successive copies through a fax machine. lol.
FAYUL.
[citation]
Your crash test data is where again to be examined ? ...
> Similarly, preserving every game, regardless of merit or noteworthiness devalues all games.
WTF??
Noteworthiness & Value is _subjective_. I just payed a pretty penny to have the _original_ working Apple ][ versions of Kareteka, Lode Runner, Gumball, and Spare Change (yes, the classic Brøderbund games.) I'm _still_ trying to track down 2 of my favorite games in this trilogy: Empire II: Interstellar Sharks, and Empire III: Armageddon, but I can't because they are "obscure" games.
Just because they have _no_ value to the majority of the people, doesn't mean they don't have value. Their age, does in no way, "devalue" any other game. Sorry to be an ass, but here's a big F.U. to your "devalues all games" bullshit rhetoric.
Regards, // emulator.
Someone who works on an Apple
> Encryption keys are numbers, you can't patent or claim copyright on numbers. You can't do that for a set of numbers either.
While you and I see the complete insanity in patenting numbers and agree that the concept of "owning" is freaking absurd, others are still ignorant of the ramifications of this.
e.g.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html
Because of their importance in encryption algorithms such as RSA encryption, prime numbers can be important commercial commodities. In fact, R. Schlafly (1994) has obtained U.S. Patent 5373560 on the following two primes (expressed in hexadecimal notation):
98A3DF52AEAE9799325CB258D767EBD1F4630E9B 9E21732A4AFB1624BA6DF911466AD8DA960586F4 A0D5E3C36AF099660BDDC1577E54A9F402334433 ACB14BCB
(3)
and
93E8965DAFD9DFECFD00B466B68F90EA68AF5DC9 FED915278D1B3A137471E65596C37FED0C7829FF 8F8331F81A2700438ECDCC09447DC397C685F397 294F722BCC484AEDF28BED25AAAB35D35A65DB1F D62C9D7BA55844FEB1F9401E671340933EE43C54 E4DC459400D7AD61248B83A2624835B31FFF2D95 95A5B90B276E44F9.