...and revoke the keys of those that don't implement it. Actually, they'll probably just revoke all keys and issue new ones to players with region code support.
I'm already waiting for the Vista downgrade competition. I bet they can probably go down as far as an Athlon 64 FX-60@2000 with 2 gigs of RAM if they turn off Aero.
The important part is not how stuff is stored on the server - in fact, that's completely irrelevant. Relevant is only what the client is presented. XML is rather good at storing structured data and most browsers can parse it already. OTOH packing everything into small SQLite database files and sending those to people would not only require every client to link against SQLite but also make it impossible for people to just open the file in a text editor and look at what's inside. Of course you could use direct SQL queries, but then all client would have to support all database softwares and you would give people direct access to your database, which is unwise.
If you don't want to store metalink files on your sever nobody forces you to; you can always generate the metalink file out of whatever your backend uses. Metalinks are the XML-based API you asked for.
I think it's a great idea. We should also get other parties known for their neutrality to educate the police - for example PETA, Microsoft or Scientology.
Plus, if the installation of the software is somewhat straightforward so is creating a custom ebuild. From then on installing a new version is no more complex than renaming and redigesting the ebuild and running emerge -u [packagename]. While that's non-trivial it is not very complicated.
It should not be my job to spend three hours searching the web for some obscure package that the program creators just couldn't do without.
Hence package management. You either distribute everything statically-linked (which means that if a critical bug is found in a library all programs using that library need to be updated) or you make the programs and the libraries they use separate packages, which allows fixes to be distributed more easily. With a good package repository you should not need to hunt down anything, ever.
Linking everything statically would mean no problems - provided that all programs come with an auto-update routine, the auto-update routine is implemented in a way that makes sense to be deployed in a sensitive network, all authors keep up to date regarding the libraries they use, fixed builds are made available as soon as possible.
As long as that scenario is not reality package managers are useful.
It's pretty annoying when people use obscure acronyms in the/. summmaries without resolving them, but acronyms that can't even be resolved are taking the annoyingness to a whole new level.
When you use Windows primarily for gaming you hate them with a passion. One wrong keypress and oops, your game gets swapped out of RAM because Windows urgently needs to give focus to the start menu.
The added buttons were a nice idea, but (like so many Microsoft ideas) implemented in the most obnoxious way possible.
1. Release almost-working drivers because messing with Vista's screwed DRM model makes developing a driver take too long
2. Receive complaints from users
3. Make the default answer in the FAQ to the following:
"Issues can arise from using Microsoft(TM) Windows(TM) Vista(TM). The way Vista handles video hardware is known to cause problems. Unless you need to run software that requires DirectX(TM) 10, we recommend downgrading to Windows(TM) XP(TM), where this problem does not exist. This is an OS-side problem and we can't vouch for the stability of Vista drivers."
Instead of telling Microsoft to piss off just inform the end users that Vista's DRM protection is the reason the drivers are late and/or don't work as advertised. Once the gaming media starts complaining about tilt bits Microsoft might consider loosening their requirements.
Of course that would also be a great opportunity for an advertising campaign by Mac game distributors, both among end users and developers.
Which is why I'm sticking with DVI for the forseeable future (actually VGA, but if I had a digital monitor I'd avoid any HDCP-capable connectors). It's going to be a long time until dual DVI runs out of bandwidth on my desktop.
If the key changes, we could refer to this key (and disks encoded with it) with the shorthand FDebDCC, named for the alphabetic hexits in the key. Other keys' alphabetic contributions should be sufficiently random for reference.
If someone creates a new container format for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray rips, using 0xFDEBDCC0 as the magic number would be a nice touch.
I'm not talking about cracking AES. I'm talking about the possibility of the real keys having properties that allow people to shrink the search space (perhaps far enough to make guessing keys feasible, thus "real-looking" keys) or someone managing to get their hands at the content producers' private keys/certs and software, thus being able to generate their own working device keys.
I'm not really into the workings of AACS, but I think that someone being able to issue real device keys or getting their hands on a bulk listing of such keys would seriously affect AACS. Of course, that amounts to industry espionage.
Also, if they locked out all HTPCs etc. they'd make their own media less attractive than streamed video - after all that doesn't magically not work even though the player is hardware compatible.
The format war isn't just between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
Or someone figures out how to generate real-looking keys (or even real keys), thus "breaking" random players. There are some extremely bright and/or determined people among the crackers and this might just happen.
Hey, if your piracy story doesn't check out you just make sure to alienate your customers so much that it's actually less of a hassle to risk legal problems and download a DVD image with the ads removed. Bam, suddenly your piracy story works...
Seriously, the studios seem to be pretty desperate to keep people from buying their products.
For any other game: not at all. I'm no hedgehog, Japanese prince(ss) or Italian plumber either, but that that never stopped me from playing any of those games.
You're not? I only play characters I can easily identify with; that's why I play games like Lost Vikings, Quake IV, Morrowind and Clay Fighter.
Actually, the whole thing applies rather neatly to everyone who doesn't fit the majority (or a particularly large subculture) in either the USA or Japan. When you have a black character it's usually because some of the stereotypical "black traits" are used to give him some character. Similarly you rarely find someone with glasses who isn't the scientist-type. Stereotypes are just too good replacements for actual characterization that people would randomly waste traits without exploiting them.
Maybe there just should be some more randomness. If there's no particular point to having a certain character have a certain type then one might as well randomly choose the type (using a weighted randomness, though). At least in games where a multicultural environment makes sense that might give some underrepresented races/types/etc. a bit of presence.
In yet other news, Microsoft declared itself winner over Apple in the OS war before being interrupted by the Linux community.
"We pretty much crushed them," Microsoft spokesperson Lotsa Cash announced on a press conference, "they released one version a couple of months ago, now ported it to their smartphone and another version is to come. We've got about twenty. I mean, there's Starter, Home Basic, Home Basic Upgrade, Home Basic OEM, Home Premium in the same flavors, Business-- there's no way they can match that. We've--"
At that moment Richard S. Torvalds and two hundred Linux distribution maintainers barged in and seized control of the microphone.
"Twenty?" RST laughed into the microphone, "You declare yourself winner because of twenty lousy versions? We tried counting all Linux distributions but lost interest at one thousand. Go home and play with your twenty versions, loser." At this point, the Microsoft delegation left the room in shame.
Joseph R. User, when interviewed as to whether he thinks the OS war is over, answered: "What the heck are you people smoking? Many versions do not a winner make." Then he went back to his PC to be indecisive about which flavor of Ubuntu he wanted to install.
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...and revoke the keys of those that don't implement it. Actually, they'll probably just revoke all keys and issue new ones to players with region code support.
And that is worse than a pit stained fat guy dancing all over a stage screaming "Give it up for me!" like a doped up schoolgirl?
Yeah, Microsoft's CEO looks real Professional.
Except in Nebraska.
I'm already waiting for the Vista downgrade competition. I bet they can probably go down as far as an Athlon 64 FX-60@2000 with 2 gigs of RAM if they turn off Aero.
The important part is not how stuff is stored on the server - in fact, that's completely irrelevant. Relevant is only what the client is presented. XML is rather good at storing structured data and most browsers can parse it already. OTOH packing everything into small SQLite database files and sending those to people would not only require every client to link against SQLite but also make it impossible for people to just open the file in a text editor and look at what's inside. Of course you could use direct SQL queries, but then all client would have to support all database softwares and you would give people direct access to your database, which is unwise.
If you don't want to store metalink files on your sever nobody forces you to; you can always generate the metalink file out of whatever your backend uses. Metalinks are the XML-based API you asked for.
(did I miss anything? ... oh yeah! not sure where the hot grits go...)
Down your pants, duh!
They teach them the MPAA way: Sue first, ask questions later.
I think it's a great idea. We should also get other parties known for their neutrality to educate the police - for example PETA, Microsoft or Scientology.
Plus, if the installation of the software is somewhat straightforward so is creating a custom ebuild. From then on installing a new version is no more complex than renaming and redigesting the ebuild and running emerge -u [packagename]. While that's non-trivial it is not very complicated.
It should not be my job to spend three hours searching the web for some obscure package that the program creators just couldn't do without.
Hence package management. You either distribute everything statically-linked (which means that if a critical bug is found in a library all programs using that library need to be updated) or you make the programs and the libraries they use separate packages, which allows fixes to be distributed more easily. With a good package repository you should not need to hunt down anything, ever.
Linking everything statically would mean no problems - provided that all programs come with an auto-update routine, the auto-update routine is implemented in a way that makes sense to be deployed in a sensitive network, all authors keep up to date regarding the libraries they use, fixed builds are made available as soon as possible.
As long as that scenario is not reality package managers are useful.
Come on, Mars has more than enough moons; nobody would miss Phobos if we were to carve it out and turn it into a giant colony ship...
It's pretty annoying when people use obscure acronyms in the /. summmaries without resolving them, but acronyms that can't even be resolved are taking the annoyingness to a whole new level.
/.ers?
Won't somebody think of the
What, you don't work with thin clients and run all of your application and file servers on one machine?
When you use Windows primarily for gaming you hate them with a passion. One wrong keypress and oops, your game gets swapped out of RAM because Windows urgently needs to give focus to the start menu.
The added buttons were a nice idea, but (like so many Microsoft ideas) implemented in the most obnoxious way possible.
1. Release almost-working drivers because messing with Vista's screwed DRM model makes developing a driver take too long
2. Receive complaints from users
3. Make the default answer in the FAQ to the following:
"Issues can arise from using Microsoft(TM) Windows(TM) Vista(TM). The way Vista handles video hardware is known to cause problems. Unless you need to run software that requires DirectX(TM) 10, we recommend downgrading to Windows(TM) XP(TM), where this problem does not exist. This is an OS-side problem and we can't vouch for the stability of Vista drivers."
Instead of telling Microsoft to piss off just inform the end users that Vista's DRM protection is the reason the drivers are late and/or don't work as advertised. Once the gaming media starts complaining about tilt bits Microsoft might consider loosening their requirements.
Of course that would also be a great opportunity for an advertising campaign by Mac game distributors, both among end users and developers.
...the Awesome Foundation. Much better PR. "Do you want to use proprietary software or awesome software?"
Which is why I'm sticking with DVI for the forseeable future (actually VGA, but if I had a digital monitor I'd avoid any HDCP-capable connectors). It's going to be a long time until dual DVI runs out of bandwidth on my desktop.
If the key changes, we could refer to this key (and disks encoded with it) with the shorthand FDebDCC, named for the alphabetic hexits in the key. Other keys' alphabetic contributions should be sufficiently random for reference.
If someone creates a new container format for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray rips, using 0xFDEBDCC0 as the magic number would be a nice touch.
I'm not talking about cracking AES. I'm talking about the possibility of the real keys having properties that allow people to shrink the search space (perhaps far enough to make guessing keys feasible, thus "real-looking" keys) or someone managing to get their hands at the content producers' private keys/certs and software, thus being able to generate their own working device keys.
I'm not really into the workings of AACS, but I think that someone being able to issue real device keys or getting their hands on a bulk listing of such keys would seriously affect AACS. Of course, that amounts to industry espionage.
Also, if they locked out all HTPCs etc. they'd make their own media less attractive than streamed video - after all that doesn't magically not work even though the player is hardware compatible.
The format war isn't just between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
Or someone figures out how to generate real-looking keys (or even real keys), thus "breaking" random players. There are some extremely bright and/or determined people among the crackers and this might just happen.
Hey, if your piracy story doesn't check out you just make sure to alienate your customers so much that it's actually less of a hassle to risk legal problems and download a DVD image with the ads removed. Bam, suddenly your piracy story works...
Seriously, the studios seem to be pretty desperate to keep people from buying their products.
Sequentially or simultaneously?
For any other game: not at all. I'm no hedgehog, Japanese prince(ss) or Italian plumber either, but that that never stopped me from playing any of those games.
You're not? I only play characters I can easily identify with; that's why I play games like Lost Vikings, Quake IV, Morrowind and Clay Fighter.
Actually, the whole thing applies rather neatly to everyone who doesn't fit the majority (or a particularly large subculture) in either the USA or Japan. When you have a black character it's usually because some of the stereotypical "black traits" are used to give him some character. Similarly you rarely find someone with glasses who isn't the scientist-type. Stereotypes are just too good replacements for actual characterization that people would randomly waste traits without exploiting them.
Maybe there just should be some more randomness. If there's no particular point to having a certain character have a certain type then one might as well randomly choose the type (using a weighted randomness, though). At least in games where a multicultural environment makes sense that might give some underrepresented races/types/etc. a bit of presence.
In yet other news, Microsoft declared itself winner over Apple in the OS war before being interrupted by the Linux community.
"We pretty much crushed them," Microsoft spokesperson Lotsa Cash announced on a press conference, "they released one version a couple of months ago, now ported it to their smartphone and another version is to come. We've got about twenty. I mean, there's Starter, Home Basic, Home Basic Upgrade, Home Basic OEM, Home Premium in the same flavors, Business-- there's no way they can match that. We've--"
At that moment Richard S. Torvalds and two hundred Linux distribution maintainers barged in and seized control of the microphone.
"Twenty?" RST laughed into the microphone, "You declare yourself winner because of twenty lousy versions? We tried counting all Linux distributions but lost interest at one thousand. Go home and play with your twenty versions, loser." At this point, the Microsoft delegation left the room in shame.
Joseph R. User, when interviewed as to whether he thinks the OS war is over, answered: "What the heck are you people smoking? Many versions do not a winner make." Then he went back to his PC to be indecisive about which flavor of Ubuntu he wanted to install.