My stance on cheating in video games is that its only cheating if you modify the client app or take advantage of something that other players can't take the same advantage of.[...]anything allowed by the engine is totally fair.There is no such thing as an unfair advantage.
This is not neccesarily true, beause certain exploits, technically 'allowed' by the engine (or rather, a result of an error in the engine) completely unbalance a game and ruin what anyone might consider playability.
Consider for example, the vehicle exploit that was present in Halo2 before the update: a player sitting in the warthog could perform a certain sequence of button presses that would cause the game server to lose track of them. On their own screen the game play continued as normal, to everyone else in the game that person appeared to remain in the vehicle and could not be killed (because they weren't actually there). While this was allowed by the game engine, it essentially made the cheater and their actions invisible to all others in the game, a sort of god mode. This totally unbalanced gameplay because there was no countermeasure to it. Once the cheat was executed you were guaranteed to win. This removes any skill from the game whatsoever, you just enter the 'win sequence' to initiate the cheat and no one can stop you. This of course would then artificially inflate your rankings, but it didn't convey any skills beyond that single key sequence. In other words, if you ever tried to play the game fairly with your new level 40 ranking earned through cheating you would be quickly beaten because you had only learned a single way to play.
Other cheats such as hard-to-reach locations or jumping through gaps in the maps are balanced by the fact that, while difficult to counter or prevent, the player remains accessible to the other players and can still be affected by valid game dynamics. As soon as you remove the ability of normal players to interact with a cheater they have moved outside of the scope of the game and are no longer playing that game at any level, they are merely manipulating the game itself.
Beyond that level of supreme cheating I suppose all is fair, but what I don't understand is why cheaters gain any satisfaction by winning through augmented game dynamics that put them at such a severe advantage they'd be hard pressed not to win. A personal example would be back when I used to play counterstrike online and people used hyper-jump and speed cheats. They would laugh and make fun of everyone int he game, decrying us as 'newbs' and 'l0zer5!!1!' when they were nearly impossible to kill. But all they did was make our task that much harder, and theirs much easier. How that makes them a superior player in their own mind is beyond me. Do these people also go to preschool playgrounds to pick fights and then consider themselves kung fu masters? It always seemed to me that people could only play in a god mode for so long before they tired of playing a game that was impossible to lose, but the shear number of cheaters seemed to suggest that rather than a rotating crop, cheaters never tired of this. (Griefers are another group entirely since the whole point for them is to antagonize.) I dunno, I guess some people just feel like if the game says they won, they must be better. But it's those same people that bitch and moan and quit halfway through a fair game because their ego prevents them from accepting the fact that some players are actually better because of skill.
It didn't help that Hayden and Natalie apparently practiced their scenes together by first using broomsticks to represent the other character. At least that's the only plausible explanation I could deduce when watching the two perform scenes together in Ep III. In other (non SW) films they seem to emote just fine, Ms. Portman especially, but for some reason - bad coaching, bad script, bad directing, all of the above? - they just didn't seem to connect at all in the new Star Wars.
Here's a fun game to play the next time you watch the film: in every scene with just Padme and Anakin, add the word 'Broomstick' to the end of each line they say to one another, it makes the acting more believable!
e.g. Anakin to Padme: "I will never let you die... broomstick." (Variations like 'Mr./Ms. Broomstick', 'my sweet broomstick', or 'you lovely 2-by-4' add depth and drama!)
Here you have M$ and Bungie making what amounts to a reasonable request that the studios not deviate from the universe of the game when creating the Halo movie. Sure, this might mean a larger effects or set budget, or perhaps it means the editing process needs to be a little more careful about what they cut, or that some self-sure studio writer can't use the hyper-excellent catch phrase for the Chief to say and be sound-bited to death in previews. But it seems to me that the studio is getting a lot more in return by respecting this caveat. What Bungie has is an established title and storyline in a well-defined universe, and along with that are hundreds of thousands* of devoted fans who already know the backstory of the games, and thousands more who feel they 'own' part of that universe from literally perticipating in it via the I Love Bees viral marketing adventure. This means that the only thing the studios could possibly do by deviating from Bungie's bible is to screw it up and alienate or tick off a ready-made fan-base for the film.
Think about it, there are tons of gamers salivating over this film I'm sure. But what is going to happen when reviews, leaked scripts, etc start coming out and they find that perhaps major parts of the story they know and love have been changed, and - given the studios' track records - probably for the worse? They're going to snub the film, that's what. Maybe not enough to make it tank, but probably a sizable number will choose to wait for the DVD, or not see it all. We geeks are extremely pedantic, we love details, it's what we do. Mucking about with 'our' culture is only insulting to us, and we recognize and resent it.
I know it takes more than just the/. crowd to make money for a film, and we do overinflate our importance, after all you need the public at large to like the film as well to be truly successful. But I think that with Halo, being as well defined and straightforward a story/universe as it is, there shouldn't be any need to alter it to dumb it down (or up) for the masses. Hollywood just wants to maintain its monopoly of culture and cater to the lowest common denominator. To paraphrase Chris Rock in another bad movie: 'We [the studios] tried that, and we got damn rich doing it. But maybe now it's time to try a different way.' After all what's the worse that could happen? It's not like the Bungie version of the film could be any worse than the Mario Bros Movie. Right? God I hope not.
* re: hundreds of thousands of fans - I have no idea what the number is but it's got to be big. maybe millions? I dunno, I just pulled a number out of my butt, let it go already.
The question to which 15% said yes was whether you'd ever changed the procedure, methodology, or results of an experiment in response to pressure from a funding source.
Reminds me of one of Mitch Hedberg's bits: "They asked me a lot of questions, but they were worded funny, like, 'Have you ever tried sugar...or PCP?'"
IIRC early on Gilligan came up with some sort of superglue by accident, probably while trying to make coconut smoothies or something. Anyway, they used it on the boat to glue new boards to the hull but it ended up warping all of the boards and effectively ruining the boat completely. w/o getting too far down the road of plausibility, I'm pretty sure that was the plot twist the writers used to explain why the professor never just patched up the boat. That's what I remember anyway, but I haven't watched the show in 13 years.
Stupidest thing I've read in a while
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The Phantom...Lives?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
people are skeptical so therefore they become more skeptical and therefore they become more skeptical.
How in the world does that even make any sense? By that logic the opposite should also hold true and anyone who believed in the product therefore believed more, and then more still!
Here's the real reasons people became more and more skeptical of the product - because the man leading the company has submarined so many other VC-funded startups it's insane anyone still gives him money. Because when the community did some digging their multimillion dollar funded base of operations was an empty storefront. Because the tech they were touting was beyond anything else at the time and there was nothing but some CG images to back up that they even had a prototype. Because when a website did some more digging and published and article full of facts they threatened to sue. Because every single time something came out about their "product" it was 'soon soon soon!' and yet nothing ever materialized.
Skepticism does not come from nothing and feed on itself. Skepticism comes from making outrageous claims and not backing them up and flying the face of logic with no proof.
I appologize for not linking to articles/slashdot posts/etc for all of the claims above, but I'm pretty sure/. readers are all too well aware of what I'm talking about.
You grab the ankles and I'll grab the wrists!
You get the eggrolls and I'll grab the rice!
You get the moil and we'll have a bris!
You're comin down to this-ah!
You'll have to pardon that random soul coughing moment. I couldn't resist.;P
I mean, do you LIKE having multiple devices you need to drag with you everywhere?
No, it can be a hassle, as the physical world often tends to be, however turn this question around into a more common computer-based example.
Would you make the name/password to every protected system you access be the same?
The answer, of course, is no, that's not very secure, someone figures out one they have access to everything. Same with condensing phone/credit/car access into your cellphone, once someone nabs that they have access to everything. Now this can be mitigated, as you say, with stronger biometrics, so that your cellphone doesn't do squat unless your thumbprint/iris/dna has been ok'd by the phone first, but even so, once that cellphone is cracked it's all over. And let's say security magically no longer becomes an issue - what about if you lose the darn thing? Now you don't have access to anything. At least with a wallet, keys and phone if I lose one I can still use the other two.
Not Netscape-specific but for software in general...Managers, get a clue, if you don't like deadlines given by engineers then remove features until they can provide timeframes that are acceptable. And you engineers that are too cowardly to say "No, that cannot be done by that time unless we eliminate/postpone some of the requirements" get some balls.
I totally agree with you, but as an engineer it has been my experience that when you say that sort of thing to management most of the time you get no concessions, just a "make it happen." So you have two choices, implement as much as possible within the timeframe and get berated for things not working by deadline, or leave out some implementation and, wait for it, get berated for things not working by deadline. It doesn't do a damn bit of good to speak up when no one's listening.
If like me you find from time to time you still need to view.rm files but don't want RP secretly reinstalling its memory hoard of crap I suggest using WinPatrol. It runs in the background and monitors changes to your startup scripts and registry, plus it lets you view and edit all those entries in a nice GUI. Any time something attempts to make a change WinPatrol stops the offending program and pops up a window with an explanation, files involved, and options to allow or deny the activity. Damn useful for keeping all sorts of malware at bay in case any slips through. What's really disturbing is seeing how sneaky and how often RP attempts to get itself installed - it will retry setting the install script up to 5 times in 3 minute intervals after the player is closed. Anyway, it's been a great tool for protecting my PC, just thought I'd share.
that in the real world I can meet new people and make new friends. Or is this just an attempt by Nintendo to get the geeks out of their houses and communicate via the antiquated method of oral vibration modulation in realtime meat-space?
Ah, you mean, like, where the people that get elected by the voters are actually shipped to North Korea, and replaced by cyborgs or something?
Or by "you" you actually mean yourself, and mean that you're not feeling represented because you couldn't persuade enough other people to support your preferred representative(s). Perhaps you didn't invest enough time? Maybe your position or message don't resonate with typical people? Certainly you put a lot of your own time and effort into educating people, right?
You know damn well what he meant by that statement. It's one thing to pick on whiners who refuse to do any political legwork and then are upset when their views aren't represented, but I think it's pretty obvious in today's political environment that the elected reps agendas have almost nothing to do with anyone other than themselves. How many people other than that poster (and I don't know, maybe he did) did spend a hell of a lot of time and money trying to educate voters, get the word out and "deserve"* to be represented? And yet their views still weren't represented in that lame 100-0 vote. And besides the RealID Act, one would think there should be some dissent from some senator out of a hundred for either the DoHS power-grab attached (Article 102 I believe) or even just the military spending itself? Are you telling me that every rep is still united in supporting this war?
No, it's too easy for you to say "oh you can't or won't devote a large portion of your time to forwarding your political agenda? Well then I guess you get punished in return." It seems pretty clear that politicians, more than ever in this Republican-controlled warmongering administration, are watching out for number 1, and the party. That bill passed unanimously yesterday because every rep was too chickenshit to vote against it under almost guaranteed threat of having it lorded over him come election time; but at some point you need to do your damn job and represent your citizens and their well-being, and the well-being of the nation over some short-sited goal like not having to fight off attack ads later on. It's a tough decision, certainly, but in one spineless vote, bill, and law after another the people's wishes are being pushed further and further from the list of considerations. I spent a lot of my time calling all my friends and family, letting them know about the Real ID Act and what it could mean, and I pointed them to the sources that gave the whole wording of the bill and arguments for and against. I encouraged them to make their own decision and then relay it to their reps. No one I talked to agreed with the RealID Act, and most of them did something about it. And I also knew, that even with my effort and the effort of many others around the country there was no way we were going to drum up enough awareness in two days' time to stop that rider, I fully expected it to pass because of the military spending bill it was attached to. But a unanimous vote? That's a slap in the face to everyone, and very clearly illustrates that no, we do not any longer have a representative government. We have representatives in our government, but they do not represent our wishes, our interests, or our well being. It doesn't take a seer to peer into the future and see that this, and so much other legislation, pushed through under Bush only serves to set up and further a facist and totalitarian empirical state. Things like the DMCA, Patriot Act (& PA 2), and RealID are the slippery slope! we're on it! We're sliding! And not one senator has stood up and said out loud that this is the wrong way to go, that this is dangerous, that maybe all our good intentions are steering us the wrong way. I don't see anyone in congress or the senate really trying to make America better for the citizens. They are lining their pockets and the corporations in some strange trickle-down freedom scheme. After all if the corps are happy and making money, if the drug and
I agree with you the site is rather uninformative and alarmist, and it also comes across as slightly suspicious since it doesn't even link to the full text of the bill as far as I could tell - but it was already at least partially slashdotted when I visited. However I have read the text of the bill and I must refute the following point you made.
Second, clearly the site is designed to spread FUD. The fake image of the "Real ID" card indicates that the card will contain information such as Religion and Occupation. It will not. Read the bill. FUD.
Granted, their 'mock ID' is designed to spread fear with lines such as religion and occupation, however the text of the bill itself grants the power for other information to be added to the ID as the government sees fit. Most people assume this will be retina or fingerprint, but it could include anything, including religion! FUD is FUD, but their example is illustrating one of the key points why myself, and many others, are opposed to the bill - the fact that it hands the government arbitrary and vastly expandable powers of information collection and tracking. If Big Brother says your new ID must carry and display your political party affiliation, your stance on abortion, and if you've bought a 'support the troops ribbon magnet' then that info will be collected and added for anyone reading it to see. They could add your 'terrorist score' to the card, they can add your campaign contributions info to the card, anything!
Also in regard to your comment about your data being scanned and sold by convenience stores being FUD, I think that's very likely to happen. Right now, at least in MA, if you look under the age of 27 - which is a totally objective evaluation by the store clerk - you must present ID to purchase tobacco or alcohol. In most of the stores around here they not only check your birthdate listed but they scan the drivers license to make sure it's real and not forged. Guess what? You want to make that transaction, you have to let them scan it or they won't accept it as a valid ID, and once they scan it they have your ID and all your data and it can be sold. It's bad enough you have to scrutinize privacy policies for every webstore you buy from, but now I need to find and read the privacy policy of every 7-11 or liquor store I want to make purchases from? Yes, consumers can vote with their wallet for those establishments but a majority of the populace either is unaware, or doesn't even care most of the time. Do you really think you and a handful of morally conscientious (sp?) geeks boycotting the 7-11 will affect their bottom line when 2000 other Joe Publics will buy smokes from them regardless?
This is not a personal attack, and I am against FUD. But I think people need to be shown examples of what this ID allows and - lets face it - things this government will probably get around to trying to track with these cards. They want a nationally standardized ID? Fine, but it should outline all the info and a new bill should have to be passed (to allow for public input to their reps) to change what that card tracks. Simply giving the government un-checked, unmonitored ability to add info as they see fit is dangerous to freedom!
I recommend everyone follow the parent poster's lead and read the text of this bill in full, think about it, read some arguments for and against, then send your opinion to your senator. Informed decisions people! Basing your choice on kneejerk reactions from any source (esp/.) would be just as bad as the people trying to fly this under the radar by attaching it to must-pass legislation!
By attaching this to a wholly unrelated military spending bill, the so-called advocates of small government will get their national ID card wish.
I agree that this bill is problematic in setting up a de-facto (if not in-facto) national ID card. However you really need to RTFA (again perhaps) as it clearly states that the ID card rider had already been passed in a stand-alone bill before it was tacked onto the military spending one. Yes, this makes it difficult, if not impossible, for dissenting reps who may have changed their mind having learned more about it since the first time it went through, but this is not a backdoor bill, it already had major support.
On a side note re: your mention of the rampant spending for this war - at what point can we begin impeachment for such blatant lies? We entered this war with no exit strategy, no reconstruction plans. Hell I'd be astonished to learn Bush had planned anything farther than "bang-bang shoot em up real good". I think it's pretty clear that this administration has at no point cared about actual public opinion, political results, or actual cost. They wanted this war at any cost and have lied, cheated, and passed the buck from day 1 of Bush taking office. As much as every piece of government seems to be in bed with the executive branch (goodbye checks and balances) I can't believe there is no legal case against half the cabinet members for knowingly misleading the public and basically doing whatever the hell they want with zero regard for legality, international relations, or - for fssk's sake - the consequences of their actions over the next generation.
"Democracy delivered by the bomb and the gun is terror elsewhere in the world where I'm from." - Special Delivery, MC Frontalot
Spoiler Alert: Jar Jar drowns during the MonCal Water Spectacular gurgling "OH NOES! ITSA BEESA TRAP!", while a young Ensign Ackbar holds up a sign reading "9.8".
I'm assuming the only reason it wasn't a '10' is because all of JarJar's limbs remained intact.
Re:Remove all doubt
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Gaming Hacks
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· Score: 2, Funny
And with this on your bookshelf you'll be removing all doubt about your level of nerdiness.
Just in case the other books on my shelf - Mastering Visual C#.NET, User Interfaces in C#, Programming in the.NET Environment, O'Reilly Linux & C++ in a Nutshell books, Penny-Arcade signed book #1, etc etc etc - don't give it away? Man, I better grab one of these quick! I didn't realise I was being so ambiguous about displaying my nerdiness. ;)
All the 813,621 users before you don't really exist. These messages are randomly generated geek buzzwords. "Users" are given personalities, ranging from "Linux lover" to "Windows loser", from "I'm just a troll" to "IAARS", from "Funny" to "I take myself serious, but no one else does".
Oh cool, this must be one of those meta-tin-hat/.-bots I heard Taco was developing! Sowing seeds of dissent and conspiracy for its own sake.
What a great entry-level comment to test with too! By publicly 'outing' the very system it is a part of no one will take this position as serious anymore and simply decry those who suggest it a yet another foil-hatter, while simultaneously freeing this chat-bot of being accused as one. After all if it were a bot, why would it point out all its own secrets?
Bravo Taco, you are to be commended for this nasty little piece of deception. But of course, if 822545 is a bot, then how can I prove that I am not one? Well, quite easily, you see der lichentttttt ^H^H^H^H WARNING -- Unhandled parsing error at 0x0E346B22: Core meta-logic rebuttle memory dump in progress! Rebooting comment generation APU at segment data 2501 -- END
It also reasons that if I run an FTP server and password protect it (jim:jim), then it isn't "accessible to members of the public".
I agree with you whole-heartedly here, but a word of caution. When I attended Carnegie Melon they performed a sweep of the network looking for people sharing mp3s and movies and such (this would be around 2001, might have even made it to/.). During their sweep if they came across a folder they suspected contained copyrigted material (e.g./bobsnetworkshare/MP3s/) that was password protected they tried a few "obvious" combinations like mp3:mp3 or anonymous:anonymous, etc. If the common passwords allowed access to the folder then they considered it as available to the public and removed those users' network privleges just the same as anyone who was actually publicly sharing files. There was a big uproar about this at the time and the administration conceeded by allowing those people to write an essay on "why filesharing is bad, mmm'k?" to regain network access, but they never admitted that they were in the wrong and AFAIK it was never taken to court or anything like that. Granted, this is a much different case than a federal law, but I would expect to see the same tactics employed by MPAA lawyers if such a case comes up in the future.
Of course we all know that using top-ten and default passwords are the worst way to 'secure' anything, but technically just because you chose a bad login:pass doesn't mean that the content was intended to be public. However I fear that this is exactly what the prosecution would try to prove, and then we have a whole new mess of legal precident on our hands, the consequences of which I can only begin to imagine.
Moral of the story is: if you're going to sidestep this law by a loophole, make sure you're thorough about it so your a$$ isn't left out in the breeze when Mr Gub'ment prosecutor comes a-knocking.
In fact, he sounds a lot more like the type of person who has food, water & weapons buried in the woods for the coming Apocalypse.
A poor choice of location. In the event that the shockwave from a nuclear blast hits the area (assuming you're still far enough from the epicenter to avoid the radiation) all of the trees in the forest will be burned and/or knocked down, covering your cache. As long as we're being paranoid here, let's at least plan accordingly. When it comes to the apocalypse, concrete is your best bet for protecting valuable hordes of food, supplies, and weapons.;)
I must say, self-inflicted brain lesions to block advertisements from your visual field is the best WORST idea I have ever heard! Bravo!
Now if you could work out the part of the brain you need to damage to block out trolls/newbies/morons from my net experience you'd be a hojillionaire and live in the biggest mansion in mansionland!
I would argue that this is actually when you stick a laser scanner in a sousaphone and covertly take surveillance that way. As was done in Charlies Angels.
Either that or spying on the estate of John Phillip Sousa.
First off, this was posted within 6 minutes of the article going up, at which point browsing at 3 I didn't see any other comments of this nature.
Secondly, it was posted at 1, did it really warrant being brought to 0? Maybe if it were at a 2 or 3, sure, but a 1 was just too high for you I suppose.
Seriously guy, find something better to do with your mod points than to jerk around other ppls karma on posts that are clearly meant to be humorous. +1 Funny doesn't bring you up but negative mods bring you down. Some say the system's broken but I think if people bother to use it with this in mind it works just fine. Next time moderate something that will make a difference, nothing significant has been achieved by modding this from 1 to 0 and it really wasn't clogging up the board at a 1.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not neccesarily true, beause certain exploits, technically 'allowed' by the engine (or rather, a result of an error in the engine) completely unbalance a game and ruin what anyone might consider playability.
Consider for example, the vehicle exploit that was present in Halo2 before the update: a player sitting in the warthog could perform a certain sequence of button presses that would cause the game server to lose track of them. On their own screen the game play continued as normal, to everyone else in the game that person appeared to remain in the vehicle and could not be killed (because they weren't actually there). While this was allowed by the game engine, it essentially made the cheater and their actions invisible to all others in the game, a sort of god mode. This totally unbalanced gameplay because there was no countermeasure to it. Once the cheat was executed you were guaranteed to win. This removes any skill from the game whatsoever, you just enter the 'win sequence' to initiate the cheat and no one can stop you. This of course would then artificially inflate your rankings, but it didn't convey any skills beyond that single key sequence. In other words, if you ever tried to play the game fairly with your new level 40 ranking earned through cheating you would be quickly beaten because you had only learned a single way to play.
Other cheats such as hard-to-reach locations or jumping through gaps in the maps are balanced by the fact that, while difficult to counter or prevent, the player remains accessible to the other players and can still be affected by valid game dynamics. As soon as you remove the ability of normal players to interact with a cheater they have moved outside of the scope of the game and are no longer playing that game at any level, they are merely manipulating the game itself.
Beyond that level of supreme cheating I suppose all is fair, but what I don't understand is why cheaters gain any satisfaction by winning through augmented game dynamics that put them at such a severe advantage they'd be hard pressed not to win. A personal example would be back when I used to play counterstrike online and people used hyper-jump and speed cheats. They would laugh and make fun of everyone int he game, decrying us as 'newbs' and 'l0zer5!!1!' when they were nearly impossible to kill. But all they did was make our task that much harder, and theirs much easier. How that makes them a superior player in their own mind is beyond me. Do these people also go to preschool playgrounds to pick fights and then consider themselves kung fu masters? It always seemed to me that people could only play in a god mode for so long before they tired of playing a game that was impossible to lose, but the shear number of cheaters seemed to suggest that rather than a rotating crop, cheaters never tired of this. (Griefers are another group entirely since the whole point for them is to antagonize.) I dunno, I guess some people just feel like if the game says they won, they must be better. But it's those same people that bitch and moan and quit halfway through a fair game because their ego prevents them from accepting the fact that some players are actually better because of skill.
Here's a fun game to play the next time you watch the film: in every scene with just Padme and Anakin, add the word 'Broomstick' to the end of each line they say to one another, it makes the acting more believable!
e.g. Anakin to Padme: "I will never let you die... broomstick." (Variations like 'Mr./Ms. Broomstick', 'my sweet broomstick', or 'you lovely 2-by-4' add depth and drama!)
Think about it, there are tons of gamers salivating over this film I'm sure. But what is going to happen when reviews, leaked scripts, etc start coming out and they find that perhaps major parts of the story they know and love have been changed, and - given the studios' track records - probably for the worse? They're going to snub the film, that's what. Maybe not enough to make it tank, but probably a sizable number will choose to wait for the DVD, or not see it all. We geeks are extremely pedantic, we love details, it's what we do. Mucking about with 'our' culture is only insulting to us, and we recognize and resent it.
I know it takes more than just the /. crowd to make money for a film, and we do overinflate our importance, after all you need the public at large to like the film as well to be truly successful. But I think that with Halo, being as well defined and straightforward a story/universe as it is, there shouldn't be any need to alter it to dumb it down (or up) for the masses. Hollywood just wants to maintain its monopoly of culture and cater to the lowest common denominator. To paraphrase Chris Rock in another bad movie: 'We [the studios] tried that, and we got damn rich doing it. But maybe now it's time to try a different way.' After all what's the worse that could happen? It's not like the Bungie version of the film could be any worse than the Mario Bros Movie. Right? God I hope not.
* re: hundreds of thousands of fans - I have no idea what the number is but it's got to be big. maybe millions? I dunno, I just pulled a number out of my butt, let it go already.
Reminds me of one of Mitch Hedberg's bits:
"They asked me a lot of questions, but they were worded funny, like, 'Have you ever tried sugar...or PCP?'"
Good ol' Mitch, he is missed.
IIRC early on Gilligan came up with some sort of superglue by accident, probably while trying to make coconut smoothies or something. Anyway, they used it on the boat to glue new boards to the hull but it ended up warping all of the boards and effectively ruining the boat completely. w/o getting too far down the road of plausibility, I'm pretty sure that was the plot twist the writers used to explain why the professor never just patched up the boat. That's what I remember anyway, but I haven't watched the show in 13 years.
How in the world does that even make any sense? By that logic the opposite should also hold true and anyone who believed in the product therefore believed more, and then more still!
Here's the real reasons people became more and more skeptical of the product - because the man leading the company has submarined so many other VC-funded startups it's insane anyone still gives him money. Because when the community did some digging their multimillion dollar funded base of operations was an empty storefront. Because the tech they were touting was beyond anything else at the time and there was nothing but some CG images to back up that they even had a prototype. Because when a website did some more digging and published and article full of facts they threatened to sue. Because every single time something came out about their "product" it was 'soon soon soon!' and yet nothing ever materialized.
Skepticism does not come from nothing and feed on itself. Skepticism comes from making outrageous claims and not backing them up and flying the face of logic with no proof.
I appologize for not linking to articles/slashdot posts/etc for all of the claims above, but I'm pretty sure /. readers are all too well aware of what I'm talking about.
You grab the ankles and I'll grab the wrists!
You get the eggrolls and I'll grab the rice!
You get the moil and we'll have a bris!
You're comin down to this-ah!
You'll have to pardon that random soul coughing moment. I couldn't resist. ;P
No, it can be a hassle, as the physical world often tends to be, however turn this question around into a more common computer-based example.
Would you make the name/password to every protected system you access be the same?
The answer, of course, is no, that's not very secure, someone figures out one they have access to everything. Same with condensing phone/credit/car access into your cellphone, once someone nabs that they have access to everything. Now this can be mitigated, as you say, with stronger biometrics, so that your cellphone doesn't do squat unless your thumbprint/iris/dna has been ok'd by the phone first, but even so, once that cellphone is cracked it's all over. And let's say security magically no longer becomes an issue - what about if you lose the darn thing? Now you don't have access to anything. At least with a wallet, keys and phone if I lose one I can still use the other two.
Carbonated Meat Dispenser!
I totally agree with you, but as an engineer it has been my experience that when you say that sort of thing to management most of the time you get no concessions, just a "make it happen." So you have two choices, implement as much as possible within the timeframe and get berated for things not working by deadline, or leave out some implementation and, wait for it, get berated for things not working by deadline. It doesn't do a damn bit of good to speak up when no one's listening.
If like me you find from time to time you still need to view .rm files but don't want RP secretly reinstalling its memory hoard of crap I suggest using WinPatrol. It runs in the background and monitors changes to your startup scripts and registry, plus it lets you view and edit all those entries in a nice GUI. Any time something attempts to make a change WinPatrol stops the offending program and pops up a window with an explanation, files involved, and options to allow or deny the activity. Damn useful for keeping all sorts of malware at bay in case any slips through. What's really disturbing is seeing how sneaky and how often RP attempts to get itself installed - it will retry setting the install script up to 5 times in 3 minute intervals after the player is closed. Anyway, it's been a great tool for protecting my PC, just thought I'd share.
that in the real world I can meet new people and make new friends. Or is this just an attempt by Nintendo to get the geeks out of their houses and communicate via the antiquated method of oral vibration modulation in realtime meat-space?
Ah, you mean, like, where the people that get elected by the voters are actually shipped to North Korea, and replaced by cyborgs or something?
Or by "you" you actually mean yourself, and mean that you're not feeling represented because you couldn't persuade enough other people to support your preferred representative(s). Perhaps you didn't invest enough time? Maybe your position or message don't resonate with typical people? Certainly you put a lot of your own time and effort into educating people, right?
You know damn well what he meant by that statement. It's one thing to pick on whiners who refuse to do any political legwork and then are upset when their views aren't represented, but I think it's pretty obvious in today's political environment that the elected reps agendas have almost nothing to do with anyone other than themselves. How many people other than that poster (and I don't know, maybe he did) did spend a hell of a lot of time and money trying to educate voters, get the word out and "deserve"* to be represented? And yet their views still weren't represented in that lame 100-0 vote. And besides the RealID Act, one would think there should be some dissent from some senator out of a hundred for either the DoHS power-grab attached (Article 102 I believe) or even just the military spending itself? Are you telling me that every rep is still united in supporting this war?
No, it's too easy for you to say "oh you can't or won't devote a large portion of your time to forwarding your political agenda? Well then I guess you get punished in return." It seems pretty clear that politicians, more than ever in this Republican-controlled warmongering administration, are watching out for number 1, and the party. That bill passed unanimously yesterday because every rep was too chickenshit to vote against it under almost guaranteed threat of having it lorded over him come election time; but at some point you need to do your damn job and represent your citizens and their well-being, and the well-being of the nation over some short-sited goal like not having to fight off attack ads later on. It's a tough decision, certainly, but in one spineless vote, bill, and law after another the people's wishes are being pushed further and further from the list of considerations. I spent a lot of my time calling all my friends and family, letting them know about the Real ID Act and what it could mean, and I pointed them to the sources that gave the whole wording of the bill and arguments for and against. I encouraged them to make their own decision and then relay it to their reps. No one I talked to agreed with the RealID Act, and most of them did something about it. And I also knew, that even with my effort and the effort of many others around the country there was no way we were going to drum up enough awareness in two days' time to stop that rider, I fully expected it to pass because of the military spending bill it was attached to. But a unanimous vote? That's a slap in the face to everyone, and very clearly illustrates that no, we do not any longer have a representative government. We have representatives in our government, but they do not represent our wishes, our interests, or our well being. It doesn't take a seer to peer into the future and see that this, and so much other legislation, pushed through under Bush only serves to set up and further a facist and totalitarian empirical state. Things like the DMCA, Patriot Act (& PA 2), and RealID are the slippery slope! we're on it! We're sliding! And not one senator has stood up and said out loud that this is the wrong way to go, that this is dangerous, that maybe all our good intentions are steering us the wrong way. I don't see anyone in congress or the senate really trying to make America better for the citizens. They are lining their pockets and the corporations in some strange trickle-down freedom scheme. After all if the corps are happy and making money, if the drug and
Second, clearly the site is designed to spread FUD. The fake image of the "Real ID" card indicates that the card will contain information such as Religion and Occupation. It will not. Read the bill. FUD.
Granted, their 'mock ID' is designed to spread fear with lines such as religion and occupation, however the text of the bill itself grants the power for other information to be added to the ID as the government sees fit. Most people assume this will be retina or fingerprint, but it could include anything, including religion! FUD is FUD, but their example is illustrating one of the key points why myself, and many others, are opposed to the bill - the fact that it hands the government arbitrary and vastly expandable powers of information collection and tracking. If Big Brother says your new ID must carry and display your political party affiliation, your stance on abortion, and if you've bought a 'support the troops ribbon magnet' then that info will be collected and added for anyone reading it to see. They could add your 'terrorist score' to the card, they can add your campaign contributions info to the card, anything!
Also in regard to your comment about your data being scanned and sold by convenience stores being FUD, I think that's very likely to happen. Right now, at least in MA, if you look under the age of 27 - which is a totally objective evaluation by the store clerk - you must present ID to purchase tobacco or alcohol. In most of the stores around here they not only check your birthdate listed but they scan the drivers license to make sure it's real and not forged. Guess what? You want to make that transaction, you have to let them scan it or they won't accept it as a valid ID, and once they scan it they have your ID and all your data and it can be sold. It's bad enough you have to scrutinize privacy policies for every webstore you buy from, but now I need to find and read the privacy policy of every 7-11 or liquor store I want to make purchases from? Yes, consumers can vote with their wallet for those establishments but a majority of the populace either is unaware, or doesn't even care most of the time. Do you really think you and a handful of morally conscientious (sp?) geeks boycotting the 7-11 will affect their bottom line when 2000 other Joe Publics will buy smokes from them regardless?
This is not a personal attack, and I am against FUD. But I think people need to be shown examples of what this ID allows and - lets face it - things this government will probably get around to trying to track with these cards. They want a nationally standardized ID? Fine, but it should outline all the info and a new bill should have to be passed (to allow for public input to their reps) to change what that card tracks. Simply giving the government un-checked, unmonitored ability to add info as they see fit is dangerous to freedom!
I recommend everyone follow the parent poster's lead and read the text of this bill in full, think about it, read some arguments for and against, then send your opinion to your senator. Informed decisions people! Basing your choice on kneejerk reactions from any source (esp /.) would be just as bad as the people trying to fly this under the radar by attaching it to must-pass legislation!
I agree that this bill is problematic in setting up a de-facto (if not in-facto) national ID card. However you really need to RTFA (again perhaps) as it clearly states that the ID card rider had already been passed in a stand-alone bill before it was tacked onto the military spending one. Yes, this makes it difficult, if not impossible, for dissenting reps who may have changed their mind having learned more about it since the first time it went through, but this is not a backdoor bill, it already had major support.
On a side note re: your mention of the rampant spending for this war - at what point can we begin impeachment for such blatant lies? We entered this war with no exit strategy, no reconstruction plans. Hell I'd be astonished to learn Bush had planned anything farther than "bang-bang shoot em up real good". I think it's pretty clear that this administration has at no point cared about actual public opinion, political results, or actual cost. They wanted this war at any cost and have lied, cheated, and passed the buck from day 1 of Bush taking office. As much as every piece of government seems to be in bed with the executive branch (goodbye checks and balances) I can't believe there is no legal case against half the cabinet members for knowingly misleading the public and basically doing whatever the hell they want with zero regard for legality, international relations, or - for fssk's sake - the consequences of their actions over the next generation.
"Democracy delivered by the bomb and the gun is terror elsewhere in the world where I'm from." - Special Delivery, MC Frontalot
Except for when they got involved with this in the first place by placing their initial support.
Hey M$, don't start nothin, won't be nothin.
I'm assuming the only reason it wasn't a '10' is because all of JarJar's limbs remained intact.
Just in case the other books on my shelf - Mastering Visual C#.NET, User Interfaces in C#, Programming in the .NET Environment, O'Reilly Linux & C++ in a Nutshell books, Penny-Arcade signed book #1, etc etc etc - don't give it away? Man, I better grab one of these quick! I didn't realise I was being so ambiguous about displaying my nerdiness.
;)
Oh cool, this must be one of those meta-tin-hat /.-bots I heard Taco was developing! Sowing seeds of dissent and conspiracy for its own sake.
What a great entry-level comment to test with too! By publicly 'outing' the very system it is a part of no one will take this position as serious anymore and simply decry those who suggest it a yet another foil-hatter, while simultaneously freeing this chat-bot of being accused as one. After all if it were a bot, why would it point out all its own secrets?
Bravo Taco, you are to be commended for this nasty little piece of deception. But of course, if 822545 is a bot, then how can I prove that I am not one? Well, quite easily, you see der lichentttttt ^H^H^H^H
WARNING -- Unhandled parsing error at 0x0E346B22: Core meta-logic rebuttle memory dump in progress! Rebooting comment generation APU at segment data 2501 -- END
I agree with you whole-heartedly here, but a word of caution. When I attended Carnegie Melon they performed a sweep of the network looking for people sharing mp3s and movies and such (this would be around 2001, might have even made it to /.). During their sweep if they came across a folder they suspected contained copyrigted material (e.g. /bobsnetworkshare/MP3s/) that was password protected they tried a few "obvious" combinations like mp3:mp3 or anonymous:anonymous, etc. If the common passwords allowed access to the folder then they considered it as available to the public and removed those users' network privleges just the same as anyone who was actually publicly sharing files. There was a big uproar about this at the time and the administration conceeded by allowing those people to write an essay on "why filesharing is bad, mmm'k?" to regain network access, but they never admitted that they were in the wrong and AFAIK it was never taken to court or anything like that. Granted, this is a much different case than a federal law, but I would expect to see the same tactics employed by MPAA lawyers if such a case comes up in the future.
Of course we all know that using top-ten and default passwords are the worst way to 'secure' anything, but technically just because you chose a bad login:pass doesn't mean that the content was intended to be public. However I fear that this is exactly what the prosecution would try to prove, and then we have a whole new mess of legal precident on our hands, the consequences of which I can only begin to imagine.
Moral of the story is: if you're going to sidestep this law by a loophole, make sure you're thorough about it so your a$$ isn't left out in the breeze when Mr Gub'ment prosecutor comes a-knocking.
A poor choice of location. In the event that the shockwave from a nuclear blast hits the area (assuming you're still far enough from the epicenter to avoid the radiation) all of the trees in the forest will be burned and/or knocked down, covering your cache. ;)
As long as we're being paranoid here, let's at least plan accordingly. When it comes to the apocalypse, concrete is your best bet for protecting valuable hordes of food, supplies, and weapons.
"These are the rules of New Quahog!"
Now if you could work out the part of the brain you need to damage to block out trolls/newbies/morons from my net experience you'd be a hojillionaire and live in the biggest mansion in mansionland!
Either that or spying on the estate of John Phillip Sousa.
First off, this was posted within 6 minutes of the article going up, at which point browsing at 3 I didn't see any other comments of this nature.
Secondly, it was posted at 1, did it really warrant being brought to 0? Maybe if it were at a 2 or 3, sure, but a 1 was just too high for you I suppose.
Seriously guy, find something better to do with your mod points than to jerk around other ppls karma on posts that are clearly meant to be humorous. +1 Funny doesn't bring you up but negative mods bring you down. Some say the system's broken but I think if people bother to use it with this in mind it works just fine. Next time moderate something that will make a difference, nothing significant has been achieved by modding this from 1 to 0 and it really wasn't clogging up the board at a 1.
is continued as their server burns to a crisp....