I think one of the hottest female characters to ever hit the video game market is Samus Aran. Throughout the game and most of the advertisement graphics etc, you never see her without being covered in a huge metallic spacesuit. And yet... somehow I find her a great character. The suit adds an aire of mystery to her, and we don't really know much about her background. But she's out to save the fucking universe and she's got an arsenal of big guns. I find Samus a particularly cool character for all these reasons. She is treated by the story just as if she were any other hero, but she happens to be female, and they never go out of their way to make her femininity part of the plot in any way. She is just a girl who wants to kick some alien ass. I love it.
Why would female characters need more depth than male characters? For the purposes of a video game, they don't. But they don't need to be used in a sexist way just to make them likeable, either.
For a long while I was playing Global War like every day. But sadly, I eventually found that the legally necessary modifications to the Risk rules just kind of ruined the game for me. It would almost always end up in a never-ending battle between the last 2 or 3 people, that got really boring really fast.
Does anyone remember the "Global War" BBS game, by the way? Now that was fun. ASCII Risk!
This is something that I've thought about recently.. feel free to criticise with more enlightened (ie, informed) opinions. Is there really a reality to the concept of "wasting water"?? I mean, there is a certain amount of hydrogen and oxygen, and it is constantly being recycled in the atmosphere, and in our own sewage systems. We filter it, we dump it, we do all sorts of things to get rid of it in ways that we deem "safe". But it's not like we dump it into a big sealed holed in the ground where it can never be used again. It's not like it disapears into some kind of abyss and vanishes off the face of the planet. Is leaving the tap running really a "waste" of water? If you leave the tap running the water goes through the pipes and comes out into the sewage system. So does the rain when it goes in the sewers. All you're doing is mixing extra relatively clean water with the dirty water. I really don't understand how, here in North America, we can really be "wasting" water. It's not like it GOES anywhere.
Sure in some countries FRESH water may be scarce, but that is simply not the case in NA. Are we taking the idea of "wasted" water from places where it does make sense and applying it to our own systems where it no longer has meaning? I just don't understand how flushing the toilet or leaving the tap running while I brush my teeth is really hurting the environment. How it is ending up in a net result of less available water than before? All it's doing is cycling water through the plumbing! What is being "wasted"?
Please inform me, I claim ignorance. It's just a question.
One little bug that's been griping me about gmail is that sometimes I go to gmail.com on my girlfriend's computer and find myself accessing her account because she forgot to click "log out" last time she was in there.
Now, I understand that while the web page is open, it makes sense to keep the user logged in using background XML requests, but once the browser has been closed, can't they implement a time-out?
I swear this has happened to me even when she logged in the night before, so I can't figure out why they would overlook this obvious flaw.
Otherwise I absolutely love the gmail interface, for the record... searching your old mail is incredibly easy and useful. But I just can't believe that I can simply browse to gmail.com and find myself in someone else's account without even clicking anything.
Of course, I always make sure to log out properly, but some people just never learn.
Cool! Thanks for the breakdown. Now I know why it is that when I compress a video down to a crappy resolution to fit it on a VCD it still looks pretty much okay when I watch it on a television. Nice.
So the moral of the story is not that vector-, or instruction-based graphics formats are bad, but that only a limited set of commands is needed, along with some good sanity checks.
Sorry, I see that I didn't properly express myself. You're right, there's nothing wrong with instruction-based formats. But since the WMF files are direct GDI instructions, they made to be loaded an executed, without proper checking. Not that you can't check them, or shouldn't check them, but that they were originally "designed" so that they wouldn't *need* checking. Which obviously didn't work.
On another note, the difference between PostScript and GDI is that PostScript is essentially a series of commands being executed in a virtual machine. (an interpreter) Whereas GDI commands are calls to the operating system. The worst you can do to the postscript interpreter is crash it and it stops. The worst you can do to an operating system? well...
I'm not saying that's the ONLY way to deal with WMF files, I'm saying that due to the way WMF files were "designed", I can imagine it's the most *likely* way they are handled.
But then, maybe it's just a weak argument. Oh well.:) I was just conjecturing.
The WMF and EMF formats are just basically little programs full of GDI instructions. When you create one, you execute a bunch of GDI calls, with the WMF file as your Device Context. So essentially it's a shortcut-- an "easy" way to create a file format, based on the structure of the operating system's drawing code.
I don't know about how the potential exploit works, but at first glance it seems like this is a typical case of designing a file format for "code convenience". Loading the file basically consists of loading a series of instructions and executing them. Now THAT sounds like a good idea! Easy to code for, but also easy to take advantage of. In other words, it's a lazy approach to coding.
Lesson to be learned: File formats can be complicated! They must be designed to be a good *format*, not just to make coding easier.
The more Microsoft designs its own file formats for each new technology it comes up with, the more we'll see this kind of thing. Better to find out what file formats are already out there, finding one that suits your needs, and supporting THAT, instead of coming up with one on your own. This is a case of re-inventing the wheel, badly.
One thing I never understood about this whole thing is why do workers feel the need to strike and unionise? If I were working at a job where I felt undervalued, I wouldn't do any of the above... too much work! I'd just find another job...
I'm not saying this to be mean, but I've just never understood the need to strike. I mean, don't like the job? Find another one!
(Yes, sometimes that's easier said than done, but putting in the legwork of finding another job is a better way to use your energy in the meantime, no?)
If enough employees quit, the corporation would get the picture... but instead all the see is a "bunch of ungrateful fools"..
Do you honestly think that the majority of consumers care about where their products are made? I know very few people (one, and he's an anarcho-socialist vegan millionare [honest!]) who really pays attention to that type of information. Information about manufacturing is not what brands need to worry about.
I think that in the example cited, if consumers discover that their Italian-made shoes are really made in China, it seriously lowers the market value of the product. Something marketted as "authentic" turns out to be a fake.. that can be a very bad blow to a business. (And of course, that's they're own fault for being lying bastards in the first place, but that's not the point.)
So yes, I think that in the high-end retail industry that we are discussing, consumers do care where their products are made.
So management decided to deploy the system even though it was a prototype
Oh god.... I feel for you. Seriously.
But ah... just so you know, we've all been there. Sigh.
For the record, I have a lot of experience programming real-time systems. Mostly to do with haptics, which always has a fairly high-speed servoloop running underneath a graphical 3D interface. The low-level stuff... it was in C++, i completely re-coded it in C just so I'd be able to port it to RTLinux. So I know what I'm talking about. And when I read your comment about debugging a real-time system written in VB.. well... I just had to say:
Exactly! That's what's always made me chuckle about this RIAA stuff. The threat goes: "if people keep stealing, there'll be no more music! Better watch out!" But the fact is, all ethical issues aside, that no matter WHAT happens, there will always be music. Oh well, I guess I can see that it's in their interest to convince everyone otherwise, but I've always found that argument so laughable. Sigh.
Are they trying to make life insanely difficult for student and amateur video makers?
What I don't get is that there is TONS of "analog signal" that is not RIAA-owned, so how can they legislate on it?
Or perhaps they won't, but apparently they'll make it very difficult to use the required equipment. Make life difficult for students, and you're cutting off your source of income 20 years down the road..
Actually this kind of file indexing was one of the things on MacOS X that I considered a real nuisance -- I liked MacOS X better before they added it.
Which is why it's nice to have to option of not compiling it into the kernel if you don't want it. Yay!
Sure, that's a good example, but didn't ext3 basically take care of file system corruption when you didn't power down correctly? And in any case, there's no substitute for backups.
And ext3 is??????? That's right, a kernel feature! Anyways, this is totally off the topic of my statement..
In general, developers tend to value new, shiny features way more than their end users value them. As a user, I typically just want bugs to be squashed as early and often as possible.
Ah, but you are not the only kind of user. Personally I don't mind new features at all.:) I really enjoy using and working with Linux, and I like to be able to be proud that it is "up to scratch" among its competitors. (For the most part anyway..)
Also, believe me that corporate servers depend on many features that you may not care about. The same I'm sure goes for embedded systems. There is a lot more to Linux than the desktop.
Anyways, I do understand what you're saying. But that's why these things are all optional. People who want them implemented will do so. Those who are more interested in bug fixes will do their part. It all works out nicely... and what we end up with is a damn nice operating system. I would agree with you but I think I realize that there's no lack of interest in fixing bugs. The article was about the new features, but I'm sure the new release contains plenty of bug fixes.
Hasn't the kernel pretty much reached the point where, for the average user, the only problems are those that just can't be fixed
A lot of things that the "average user" takes for granted are supported by features in the kernel that they didn't know even existed. A lot of things that Linux *applications* need to do require kernel features that need to be implemented. Take all the new search utilities (Beagle et al.) for example, they are depending on kernel features like "Inotify". If you read about Inotify you probably wouldn't give a damn, but you read about Beagle and then understand the point. Same goes for other types of features, like more secure/reliable filesystems. Sure the average user "doesn't care", but he sure cares when that feature wasn't implemented and he ended up losing half his work to a crash.
Besides, one of the biggest complaints about Linux is that when a brand-new application comes along that requires a user to "patch and recompile the kernel", it's *too hard* for the average user. So be happy when these features become included by default.
There's definitly something amazing about the short story format. It is particularly well-suited to sci-fi, as can be evidenced by the beginnings of the genre in Amazing Stories, etc, and thousands of issues of Omni and Asimov's Science Fiction that continue to publish great fiction. And there's something wonderful about holding the latest issue in your hand, taking it with you on the bus, reading it cover to cover, one story at a time.
It's great that Orson Scott Card is doing his own magazine! I've read some anthologies that he's edited, and they were very good. However, I'd really love to order this in PRINT, if I could, or head over to the magazine store to pick up the latest issue.
As much as we'd like websites to take over the print market, I just don't see it happening. I still want a piece of paper in my hand when it comes to reading. Even if it was on one of those nice new paper-like LCD screens, I can't imagine it would be an equal experience to holding a book in your hand. I think it's not resolution that is the defining factor here. It is something about the permanence of ink on paper that wins me over. When I finish reading a great story, I never want to lose it. I want to put it on my shelf so I know where it is. The harddrive is such a volatile place to store memories that you don't want to lose...
The URL under my name says it all. I've been using Linux for audio performances lately, using my LoopDub software. It's kind of like a real-time loop sequencer, with a few effects. Actually it uses PortAudio so I'm planning on a Windows and Mac version, but so far I'm quite happy with using Linux for my own shows. It's GPL if anyone's interested in helping me develop it into something more professional. I have personal experience showing that it's quite successful, if you're into loopy music.
As for sound editing, although Audacity is okay, I have to admit I still use SoundForge in Windows a lot. And I absolutely love Renoise, which I REALLY wish was available on Linux. (Yes I would pay for it, I even paid for the Windows version but I'd love to be able to run it without rebooting to Windows.)
Thanks for actually getting my point.
Yes my comment was whiny (hey, it happens), but that was what I meant.
It's not hard to choose a format that could be used in Linux, so why exclude it.
Slashdot Mirror
I think one of the hottest female characters to ever hit the video game market is Samus Aran. Throughout the game and most of the advertisement graphics etc, you never see her without being covered in a huge metallic spacesuit. And yet... somehow I find her a great character. The suit adds an aire of mystery to her, and we don't really know much about her background. But she's out to save the fucking universe and she's got an arsenal of big guns. I find Samus a particularly cool character for all these reasons. She is treated by the story just as if she were any other hero, but she happens to be female, and they never go out of their way to make her femininity part of the plot in any way. She is just a girl who wants to kick some alien ass. I love it.
Why would female characters need more depth than male characters? For the purposes of a video game, they don't. But they don't need to be used in a sexist way just to make them likeable, either.
For a long while I was playing Global War like every day. But sadly, I eventually found that the legally necessary modifications to the Risk rules just kind of ruined the game for me. It would almost always end up in a never-ending battle between the last 2 or 3 people, that got really boring really fast.
Does anyone remember the "Global War" BBS game, by the way? Now that was fun. ASCII Risk!
Thanks. :)
Some things to think about...
This is something that I've thought about recently.. feel free to criticise with more enlightened (ie, informed) opinions. Is there really a reality to the concept of "wasting water"?? I mean, there is a certain amount of hydrogen and oxygen, and it is constantly being recycled in the atmosphere, and in our own sewage systems. We filter it, we dump it, we do all sorts of things to get rid of it in ways that we deem "safe". But it's not like we dump it into a big sealed holed in the ground where it can never be used again. It's not like it disapears into some kind of abyss and vanishes off the face of the planet. Is leaving the tap running really a "waste" of water? If you leave the tap running the water goes through the pipes and comes out into the sewage system. So does the rain when it goes in the sewers. All you're doing is mixing extra relatively clean water with the dirty water. I really don't understand how, here in North America, we can really be "wasting" water. It's not like it GOES anywhere.
Sure in some countries FRESH water may be scarce, but that is simply not the case in NA. Are we taking the idea of "wasted" water from places where it does make sense and applying it to our own systems where it no longer has meaning? I just don't understand how flushing the toilet or leaving the tap running while I brush my teeth is really hurting the environment. How it is ending up in a net result of less available water than before? All it's doing is cycling water through the plumbing! What is being "wasted"?
Please inform me, I claim ignorance. It's just a question.
One little bug that's been griping me about gmail is that sometimes I go to gmail.com on my girlfriend's computer and find myself accessing her account because she forgot to click "log out" last time she was in there.
Now, I understand that while the web page is open, it makes sense to keep the user logged in using background XML requests, but once the browser has been closed, can't they implement a time-out?
I swear this has happened to me even when she logged in the night before, so I can't figure out why they would overlook this obvious flaw.
Otherwise I absolutely love the gmail interface, for the record... searching your old mail is incredibly easy and useful. But I just can't believe that I can simply browse to gmail.com and find myself in someone else's account without even clicking anything.
Of course, I always make sure to log out properly, but some people just never learn.
while listening my occasional rants about the **OS-with-biggest-market-share**. She naturally got interested over time
Cool! When *I* rant about this kind of thing, people just kind of roll their eyes and tell me to shut up about it already!
You're a lucky man.
Cool! Thanks for the breakdown.
Now I know why it is that when I compress a video down to a crappy resolution to fit it on a VCD it still looks pretty much okay when I watch it on a television.
Nice.
Sorry, I see that I didn't properly express myself. You're right, there's nothing wrong with instruction-based formats. But since the WMF files are direct GDI instructions, they made to be loaded an executed, without proper checking. Not that you can't check them, or shouldn't check them, but that they were originally "designed" so that they wouldn't *need* checking. Which obviously didn't work.
On another note, the difference between PostScript and GDI is that PostScript is essentially a series of commands being executed in a virtual machine. (an interpreter) Whereas GDI commands are calls to the operating system. The worst you can do to the postscript interpreter is crash it and it stops. The worst you can do to an operating system? well...
I'm not saying that's the ONLY way to deal with WMF files, I'm saying that due to the way WMF files were "designed", I can imagine it's the most *likely* way they are handled.
But then, maybe it's just a weak argument. Oh well. :) I was just conjecturing.
The WMF and EMF formats are just basically little programs full of GDI instructions. When you create one, you execute a bunch of GDI calls, with the WMF file as your Device Context. So essentially it's a shortcut-- an "easy" way to create a file format, based on the structure of the operating system's drawing code. I don't know about how the potential exploit works, but at first glance it seems like this is a typical case of designing a file format for "code convenience". Loading the file basically consists of loading a series of instructions and executing them. Now THAT sounds like a good idea! Easy to code for, but also easy to take advantage of. In other words, it's a lazy approach to coding. Lesson to be learned: File formats can be complicated! They must be designed to be a good *format*, not just to make coding easier. The more Microsoft designs its own file formats for each new technology it comes up with, the more we'll see this kind of thing. Better to find out what file formats are already out there, finding one that suits your needs, and supporting THAT, instead of coming up with one on your own. This is a case of re-inventing the wheel, badly.
Perhaps you'd be interested in klik then, which pretty much solves all the problems you just mentioned..
Maybe you can email your favorite game companies and try to get them to support it.
I dunno about you, but I, for one, enjoy a little second hand smoke with my coffee in the morning.
I'm not saying this to be mean, but I've just never understood the need to strike. I mean, don't like the job? Find another one!
(Yes, sometimes that's easier said than done, but putting in the legwork of finding another job is a better way to use your energy in the meantime, no?)
If enough employees quit, the corporation would get the picture... but instead all the see is a "bunch of ungrateful fools"..
I think that in the example cited, if consumers discover that their Italian-made shoes are really made in China, it seriously lowers the market value of the product. Something marketted as "authentic" turns out to be a fake.. that can be a very bad blow to a business. (And of course, that's they're own fault for being lying bastards in the first place, but that's not the point.)
So yes, I think that in the high-end retail industry that we are discussing, consumers do care where their products are made.
So management decided to deploy the system even though it was a prototype Oh god.... I feel for you. Seriously. But ah... just so you know, we've all been there. Sigh.
Dude.
Wow.
For the record, I have a lot of experience programming real-time systems. Mostly to do with haptics, which always has a fairly high-speed servoloop running underneath a graphical 3D interface. The low-level stuff... it was in C++, i completely re-coded it in C just so I'd be able to port it to RTLinux. So I know what I'm talking about. And when I read your comment about debugging a real-time system written in VB.. well... I just had to say:
"Ouch."
I tried to buy one once but they wouldn't sell to me up here in Canada.. :(
Seriously the Neuros is pretty cool. I'd like one.
Exactly!
That's what's always made me chuckle about this RIAA stuff. The threat goes: "if people keep stealing, there'll be no more music! Better watch out!"
But the fact is, all ethical issues aside, that no matter WHAT happens, there will always be music.
Oh well, I guess I can see that it's in their interest to convince everyone otherwise, but I've always found that argument so laughable.
Sigh.
Are they trying to make life insanely difficult for student and amateur video makers?
What I don't get is that there is TONS of "analog signal" that is not RIAA-owned, so how can they legislate on it?
Or perhaps they won't, but apparently they'll make it very difficult to use the required equipment. Make life difficult for students, and you're cutting off your source of income 20 years down the road..
This isn't about technical methods. This is about legislation.
Actually this kind of file indexing was one of the things on MacOS X that I considered a real nuisance -- I liked MacOS X better before they added it.
Which is why it's nice to have to option of not compiling it into the kernel if you don't want it. Yay!
Sure, that's a good example, but didn't ext3 basically take care of file system corruption when you didn't power down correctly? And in any case, there's no substitute for backups.
And ext3 is??????? That's right, a kernel feature! Anyways, this is totally off the topic of my statement..
In general, developers tend to value new, shiny features way more than their end users value them. As a user, I typically just want bugs to be squashed as early and often as possible.
Ah, but you are not the only kind of user. Personally I don't mind new features at all. :) I really enjoy using and working with Linux, and I like to be able to be proud that it is "up to scratch" among its competitors. (For the most part anyway..)
Also, believe me that corporate servers depend on many features that you may not care about. The same I'm sure goes for embedded systems. There is a lot more to Linux than the desktop.
Anyways, I do understand what you're saying. But that's why these things are all optional. People who want them implemented will do so. Those who are more interested in bug fixes will do their part. It all works out nicely... and what we end up with is a damn nice operating system. I would agree with you but I think I realize that there's no lack of interest in fixing bugs. The article was about the new features, but I'm sure the new release contains plenty of bug fixes.
Hasn't the kernel pretty much reached the point where, for the average user, the only problems are those that just can't be fixed
A lot of things that the "average user" takes for granted are supported by features in the kernel that they didn't know even existed.
A lot of things that Linux *applications* need to do require kernel features that need to be implemented.
Take all the new search utilities (Beagle et al.) for example, they are depending on kernel features like "Inotify". If you read about Inotify you probably wouldn't give a damn, but you read about Beagle and then understand the point.
Same goes for other types of features, like more secure/reliable filesystems. Sure the average user "doesn't care", but he sure cares when that feature wasn't implemented and he ended up losing half his work to a crash.
Besides, one of the biggest complaints about Linux is that when a brand-new application comes along that requires a user to "patch and recompile the kernel", it's *too hard* for the average user. So be happy when these features become included by default.
There's definitly something amazing about the short story format. It is particularly well-suited to sci-fi, as can be evidenced by the beginnings of the genre in Amazing Stories, etc, and thousands of issues of Omni and Asimov's Science Fiction that continue to publish great fiction. And there's something wonderful about holding the latest issue in your hand, taking it with you on the bus, reading it cover to cover, one story at a time.
It's great that Orson Scott Card is doing his own magazine! I've read some anthologies that he's edited, and they were very good. However, I'd really love to order this in PRINT, if I could, or head over to the magazine store to pick up the latest issue.
As much as we'd like websites to take over the print market, I just don't see it happening. I still want a piece of paper in my hand when it comes to reading. Even if it was on one of those nice new paper-like LCD screens, I can't imagine it would be an equal experience to holding a book in your hand. I think it's not resolution that is the defining factor here. It is something about the permanence of ink on paper that wins me over. When I finish reading a great story, I never want to lose it. I want to put it on my shelf so I know where it is. The harddrive is such a volatile place to store memories that you don't want to lose...
As for sound editing, although Audacity is okay, I have to admit I still use SoundForge in Windows a lot. And I absolutely love Renoise, which I REALLY wish was available on Linux. (Yes I would pay for it, I even paid for the Windows version but I'd love to be able to run it without rebooting to Windows.)
Off topic? that's the best slashdot comment i've read in a _while_...
Thanks for actually getting my point. Yes my comment was whiny (hey, it happens), but that was what I meant. It's not hard to choose a format that could be used in Linux, so why exclude it.