I get it. We can solve it mathematically. We can manipulate them with computers. We can inspect them with optics. We can do this all VERY FAST. That was news 5-10 years ago. There is literally nothing new left in the field.
Nope, not the previous lethal cocktail anymore. We mostly get those chemicals from other countries--and other countries decided to ban selling them to us, because we use them in executions. It's been bad for our medical field, because they have a lot of potential for curing as well.
Good god! I can only imagine all the nefarious purposes that drug testing companies use my samples for when I get tested for a job! Why, maybe they're even trying to pull my DNA out of them and sequence it so they can sell it to who-knows-what evildoers! If only a tinfoil hat worked for that.
No. I give VAC explicit permission, and it does its job. No VAC, no online games worth playing.
Yeah, I can't see Linux players being allowed on any servers for some games. "No VAC on Linux" is a reasonable statement. VAC-only games (I think CoD?) will therefore never make it onto the platform. Can you imagine if only one operating system didn't have cheat detection? Why not wave a big flag around saying "If you want to cheat, run Linux"?
There's a lot of players who actively choose VAC games over non-VAC games, even with full information about these countermeasures, because they want to lower the chances that they are playing against a cheater. Saying "I run Linux but please let me play your game" is like saying "I'm not willing to take a drug test but please hire me". Some places might. Some places never will.
Sounds good. It's nice that Free games are out there. However, after playing games that don't try to detect this stuff, I'm very happy to not only give VAC permission to check my stuff but also PAY for the privilege of playing against other people who do the same thing. I guess it's kind of like going to a restaurant with a dress code... sure, maybe it "infringes" on your "rights" to wear whatever you want, but there's people who choose to pay to be in a space where everyone follows the same restrictions. It gives a certain atmosphere. But hey, go ahead and cook bacon at home in your underpants, I'm not doing anything to stop you.
The guy who was filing the complaints commented on the site. So maybe he's a dick, sure. But if you're willing to give him good faith for his complaint--solely in the capacity that he honestly believes that the video oversteps fair use, and is violating copyright--then he did follow correct procedure.
He tried contacting the guy quite a few times (or so he claims), and after getting no response, he filed the takedown request personally, not through some automated thing. If he has good reason to honestly believe that his rights were violated, it wasn't even perjury. Strangely enough that's what I would do if I thought someone was violating my copyright.
Claiming fair use for informational purposes is really shaky ground. There's a lot of "I know it when I see it", and people like to stretch the definition on either side. I haven't seen the video so I don't know how long the clips are, but if they are too long then yes it's a violation, and I suspect that (much like with parody) there's a line between "informational purposes" and "openly hostile" that the law says you shouldn't cross. Does it cross the line? Hell if I know, but the guy sounds like he's at least justified in filing a claim. Whether a court would find it reasonable or not is up to them, but jackasses get to protect their own rights too.
> to verify that the VAC module was downloaded from the correct server...
...actually that sounds about right, if not that exactly then something close. I can totally see someone using a HOSTS file to screw around with a security system, it makes sense. In an ideal world, they would only upload very specific entries.
Many games require Steam to be running, usually because they use Steam services for online matchmaking or whatever. That's the game developers' choice though, they aren't obligated to do it.
Worth noting that VAC doesn't lock you out of running games or delete your account, it just prevents you from playing multiplayer on VAC servers. VAC is a voluntary-to-publisher service that Valve offers to creators of multiplayer games. If a publisher says "yeah, if someone cheats on a different game then we don't want them playing on our servers either", they can do that...it's pretty much the same as publicly shared email blackhole lists. If you have a problem with a publisher putting VAC in their games, complain about them and not Valve.
Many (most?) multiplayer games that let players run their own servers give an option of running a non-VAC one, or to connect directly to IP, whatever.
Seriously...even if Valve didn't run VAC, someone else would run an equivalent service (can you say Punkbuster?). All it takes is for one or two companies to say "hey we have this way to detect cheaters, why don't we share the steam keys of the cheaters we find and keep them from playing online on our servers", and there you go.
No questions here, but I'm impressed by the lifespan of a lot of your music. The soundtrack in Furcadia is still iconic of the game, and it's still going strong online about eighteen years later. It hasn't even fallen into 'old nostalgic retro game' territory.
They might seem unrelated, but consider: - If thieves know that a stolen smartphone is worthless, they will stop stealing them. - However, they only know a stolen smartphone is worthless if ALL cell phones can be bricked if stolen. - Much like being one vaccinated person in a country of unvaccinated people is actually pretty weak protection, it doesn't do you any good to have the only phone that bricks when stolen. By the time your mugger finds out it's worthless, you've already had it stolen at knifepoint. - Police departments all over the country are calling cell phone muggings an epidemic. It's a HUGE trend. It has serious, real-world implications on public safety and health (being stabbed for your phone is unhealthy).
So yes, this mandate would absolutely improve public safety, and that is absolutely within the government's power to regulate.
Just so you don't think I'm pulling it out of my ass:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/... Official police statistics show that there were more than 40 cell phone muggings in November. The number may not seem high, but it is unsettling with just a portion of the crimes reported, and virtually all of them involve a gun, knife or physical assault.
http://mashable.com/2012/12/20... Officer Gordon Shyy, media relations unit of the San Francisco Police Department, tells Mashable they don't have any data about whether cellphones deterred crime in the 90s, but said today cellphone muggings are "an epidemic nationwide." From January 2012 through Nov. 30, 2012, there were approximately 1,732 cellphone related thefts reported in San Francisco out of a total of 3,487 robberies — making 50% of all robberies cellphone related.
Unfortunately, you are wrong: Violent muggings IS the way they are stolen. Many cities have seen a downturn in most violent crime, BUT a sharp rise in cell phone muggings. There is a wide demand from police stations all over the country to find some way to reduce the value of stolen cell phones and thus prevent those cell phone muggings. Bricking stolen phones would accomplish that very quickly, stop thefts, and even save lives.
It's not that I don't believe you...but I don't believe you. Find a hole in the post ID numbers where yours used to be. It looks like they're incremental, so if there is a post 47190001 and 47190003 but no 47190002, then we know something is wrong. (Same thing if they fill the gap with a later post and the timestamp on 47190002 is greater than the one on 47190003.) Yeah yeah I know it's a pain to track all the post IDs you make, but for something like this, if it's really happening to you, it would be worthwhile.
One of the absolute core tenets of Slashdot has always been that they don't delete things (unless someone sues them for a billion dollars, and even then, only once). It's important to be able to prove it if it happens.
Err, what happens if two or three or more users are flying these at the same time, along the same ideal path and elevation? Until we get some real nice automated localized collision avoidance, you're going to end up with tangled wrecks of drones falling out of the sky into traffic.
See though, I don't know if that's actually a fact. For all I know, those stories are popular...with a completely different audience, who doesn't comment, but sells ads really well.
Okay, devil's advocate, even though by now I'm just coming across as a huge apologist.
We're vocal. We're probably even a majority. But is it/entirely/ unbelievable that some people don't care that much about the beta thing, and really do just want relevant comments? Sure it's important to deal with the beta, but some people are content to fiddle while things burn. I can totally see some of those people downvoting this stuff (for a while, until they run out of points and give up).
Of course--the day that Slashdot deletes comments, even beta-hostile ones, is the day that the exodus becomes unstoppable. It's only happened what, once before, and the backlash lasted months. I don't think we'll hit that point.
Yeah. One common thread that's starting to come out of this is, these directives are from on-high. Just about every single one of us has been stuck on projects that we know are doomed but can't convince higher-ups about. The best you can accomplish is to try and change minds, keep the doom to a minimum, do the best you are allowed to for your users...but you can't always convince management.
It's pretty rare to watch it happen from the outside.
Well, if that's true...at least know that (some of) the editors know how bad it is and know what the consequences of Beta will be. The ignoring is happening above the level of people who read the feedback mail. If they're going to keep fighting, I'm all for giving them all the ammo we can.
I'm not going to quote them without permission, but from talking with one of the editors, some of our sentiment about the beta is shared by them, and they really do want user feedback to help things go in the right direction. Presumably they have no power directly, but if literate and thought-out comments get submitted to the beta feedback, they will do what they can to send them upwards. Don't just complain in the comments, help the editors help you, at least some of them are on your side.
Slashdot Mirror
I get it. We can solve it mathematically. We can manipulate them with computers. We can inspect them with optics. We can do this all VERY FAST. That was news 5-10 years ago. There is literally nothing new left in the field.
I'm pretty sure that those groups don't have much overlap. They seem to be polarized and linked opinions in terms of political party.
Nope, not the previous lethal cocktail anymore. We mostly get those chemicals from other countries--and other countries decided to ban selling them to us, because we use them in executions. It's been bad for our medical field, because they have a lot of potential for curing as well.
Selwyn Larcher agrees.
Good god! I can only imagine all the nefarious purposes that drug testing companies use my samples for when I get tested for a job! Why, maybe they're even trying to pull my DNA out of them and sequence it so they can sell it to who-knows-what evildoers! If only a tinfoil hat worked for that.
No. I give VAC explicit permission, and it does its job. No VAC, no online games worth playing.
VAC only runs when you are actively connected to a VAC-enabled server.
Yeah, I can't see Linux players being allowed on any servers for some games. "No VAC on Linux" is a reasonable statement. VAC-only games (I think CoD?) will therefore never make it onto the platform. Can you imagine if only one operating system didn't have cheat detection? Why not wave a big flag around saying "If you want to cheat, run Linux"?
There's a lot of players who actively choose VAC games over non-VAC games, even with full information about these countermeasures, because they want to lower the chances that they are playing against a cheater. Saying "I run Linux but please let me play your game" is like saying "I'm not willing to take a drug test but please hire me". Some places might. Some places never will.
Yes, and you can't trust the guys who do steroid testing in baseball, either. Who knows what they are doing with your precious bodily fluids?!
If you're in a poker tournament, and there's a guy standing behind your opponent telling you what cards he has, is that free speech as well?
Sounds good. It's nice that Free games are out there. However, after playing games that don't try to detect this stuff, I'm very happy to not only give VAC permission to check my stuff but also PAY for the privilege of playing against other people who do the same thing. I guess it's kind of like going to a restaurant with a dress code... sure, maybe it "infringes" on your "rights" to wear whatever you want, but there's people who choose to pay to be in a space where everyone follows the same restrictions. It gives a certain atmosphere. But hey, go ahead and cook bacon at home in your underpants, I'm not doing anything to stop you.
The guy who was filing the complaints commented on the site. So maybe he's a dick, sure. But if you're willing to give him good faith for his complaint--solely in the capacity that he honestly believes that the video oversteps fair use, and is violating copyright--then he did follow correct procedure.
He tried contacting the guy quite a few times (or so he claims), and after getting no response, he filed the takedown request personally, not through some automated thing. If he has good reason to honestly believe that his rights were violated, it wasn't even perjury. Strangely enough that's what I would do if I thought someone was violating my copyright.
Claiming fair use for informational purposes is really shaky ground. There's a lot of "I know it when I see it", and people like to stretch the definition on either side. I haven't seen the video so I don't know how long the clips are, but if they are too long then yes it's a violation, and I suspect that (much like with parody) there's a line between "informational purposes" and "openly hostile" that the law says you shouldn't cross. Does it cross the line? Hell if I know, but the guy sounds like he's at least justified in filing a claim. Whether a court would find it reasonable or not is up to them, but jackasses get to protect their own rights too.
> to verify that the VAC module was downloaded from the correct server...
...actually that sounds about right, if not that exactly then something close. I can totally see someone using a HOSTS file to screw around with a security system, it makes sense. In an ideal world, they would only upload very specific entries.
Many games require Steam to be running, usually because they use Steam services for online matchmaking or whatever. That's the game developers' choice though, they aren't obligated to do it.
Worth noting that VAC doesn't lock you out of running games or delete your account, it just prevents you from playing multiplayer on VAC servers. VAC is a voluntary-to-publisher service that Valve offers to creators of multiplayer games. If a publisher says "yeah, if someone cheats on a different game then we don't want them playing on our servers either", they can do that...it's pretty much the same as publicly shared email blackhole lists. If you have a problem with a publisher putting VAC in their games, complain about them and not Valve.
Many (most?) multiplayer games that let players run their own servers give an option of running a non-VAC one, or to connect directly to IP, whatever.
Seriously...even if Valve didn't run VAC, someone else would run an equivalent service (can you say Punkbuster?). All it takes is for one or two companies to say "hey we have this way to detect cheaters, why don't we share the steam keys of the cheaters we find and keep them from playing online on our servers", and there you go.
No questions here, but I'm impressed by the lifespan of a lot of your music. The soundtrack in Furcadia is still iconic of the game, and it's still going strong online about eighteen years later. It hasn't even fallen into 'old nostalgic retro game' territory.
Does it have the authority to mandate vaccines?
They might seem unrelated, but consider:
- If thieves know that a stolen smartphone is worthless, they will stop stealing them.
- However, they only know a stolen smartphone is worthless if ALL cell phones can be bricked if stolen.
- Much like being one vaccinated person in a country of unvaccinated people is actually pretty weak protection, it doesn't do you any good to have the only phone that bricks when stolen. By the time your mugger finds out it's worthless, you've already had it stolen at knifepoint.
- Police departments all over the country are calling cell phone muggings an epidemic. It's a HUGE trend. It has serious, real-world implications on public safety and health (being stabbed for your phone is unhealthy).
So yes, this mandate would absolutely improve public safety, and that is absolutely within the government's power to regulate.
Just so you don't think I'm pulling it out of my ass:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/...
Official police statistics show that there were more than 40 cell phone muggings in November. The number may not seem high, but it is unsettling with just a portion of the crimes reported, and virtually all of them involve a gun, knife or physical assault.
http://mashable.com/2012/12/20...
Officer Gordon Shyy, media relations unit of the San Francisco Police Department, tells Mashable they don't have any data about whether cellphones deterred crime in the 90s, but said today cellphone muggings are "an epidemic nationwide."
From January 2012 through Nov. 30, 2012, there were approximately 1,732 cellphone related thefts reported in San Francisco out of a total of 3,487 robberies — making 50% of all robberies cellphone related.
Unfortunately, you are wrong: Violent muggings IS the way they are stolen. Many cities have seen a downturn in most violent crime, BUT a sharp rise in cell phone muggings. There is a wide demand from police stations all over the country to find some way to reduce the value of stolen cell phones and thus prevent those cell phone muggings. Bricking stolen phones would accomplish that very quickly, stop thefts, and even save lives.
It's not that I don't believe you...but I don't believe you. Find a hole in the post ID numbers where yours used to be. It looks like they're incremental, so if there is a post 47190001 and 47190003 but no 47190002, then we know something is wrong. (Same thing if they fill the gap with a later post and the timestamp on 47190002 is greater than the one on 47190003.) Yeah yeah I know it's a pain to track all the post IDs you make, but for something like this, if it's really happening to you, it would be worthwhile.
One of the absolute core tenets of Slashdot has always been that they don't delete things (unless someone sues them for a billion dollars, and even then, only once). It's important to be able to prove it if it happens.
Err, what happens if two or three or more users are flying these at the same time, along the same ideal path and elevation? Until we get some real nice automated localized collision avoidance, you're going to end up with tangled wrecks of drones falling out of the sky into traffic.
See though, I don't know if that's actually a fact. For all I know, those stories are popular...with a completely different audience, who doesn't comment, but sells ads really well.
Okay, devil's advocate, even though by now I'm just coming across as a huge apologist.
We're vocal. We're probably even a majority. But is it /entirely/ unbelievable that some people don't care that much about the beta thing, and really do just want relevant comments? Sure it's important to deal with the beta, but some people are content to fiddle while things burn. I can totally see some of those people downvoting this stuff (for a while, until they run out of points and give up).
Of course--the day that Slashdot deletes comments, even beta-hostile ones, is the day that the exodus becomes unstoppable. It's only happened what, once before, and the backlash lasted months. I don't think we'll hit that point.
Yeah. One common thread that's starting to come out of this is, these directives are from on-high. Just about every single one of us has been stuck on projects that we know are doomed but can't convince higher-ups about. The best you can accomplish is to try and change minds, keep the doom to a minimum, do the best you are allowed to for your users...but you can't always convince management.
It's pretty rare to watch it happen from the outside.
Well, if that's true...at least know that (some of) the editors know how bad it is and know what the consequences of Beta will be. The ignoring is happening above the level of people who read the feedback mail. If they're going to keep fighting, I'm all for giving them all the ammo we can.
I'm not going to quote them without permission, but from talking with one of the editors, some of our sentiment about the beta is shared by them, and they really do want user feedback to help things go in the right direction. Presumably they have no power directly, but if literate and thought-out comments get submitted to the beta feedback, they will do what they can to send them upwards. Don't just complain in the comments, help the editors help you, at least some of them are on your side.