There's a minor problem with this idea: email is infamously insecure. On the protocol level, sending email almost never requires a password and, if it does, you can just use a different sending server. Forging emails is one of the easiest script kiddie tricks out there. Most of the security involved in email involves the receiving, not the sending. Want proof? Send me two email addresses: one to send an email from and one to send an email to. I'll demonstrate how simple it really is.
Actually, this isn't completely true. A year or two ago (possibly more) Apple changed the number of computers you could authorize at one time and the number of burns you could make of a given group of songs. Since they can't legally [IANAL] change the rights of music you have already purchased, you may have Fairplay music with two different sets of 'rights'. I'm pretty sure that there's a clause in the "Terms of Buying and Listening to the Music That We Provide You Because We Are Awesome What Do You Mean We Have Big Egos" thing that states that they can change said Terms of Use whenever and without prior notification. Most Terms of Use policies have such a clause. Thus, it's perfectly legal for them to change the rights of already-purchased music.
At least, probably. To my knowledge, no "We Can Change This Notice and Claim Your Firstborn Children" section has never been tested in court. Perhaps one day it will be, and will subsequently be ruled invalid.
Hell yes!
Rocket Jockey is one of my favorite games of all time. I would absolutely love to see it reincarnated in any format. For a while, I seem to recall that there was a Rocket Jockey mod in development for UT2K4, but it evaporated (a shame).
On the positive side, apparently somebody's started remaking it. Unfortunately, it's currently a solo effort. We must all pitch in and help, lest this effort, too, fall by the wayside!
if people didn't copy music and everybody paid for what they enjoyed, there would be no need for DRM
Of course. The problem with this statement is that it's somewhat akin to saying, "If people never did anything wrong, we wouldn't need laws". While it's perfectly true, it's also quite useless, as you cannot realistically expect every single person to be righteous enough.
While noted on the website, the/. post neglected to mention that this is merely a demo. I do not mean to deprecate the Dystopia team's work in any way, but people should bear in mind that this is not yet the finished product.
Hot damn, those prizes were amazing. I wish that nowadays there were contests with prizes on that order of total awesomeness. It wouldn't matter if said contests were very rare; the fact that they still happened would be good enough for me.
I've never used Yahoo chat before. Do they have very many non user created rooms? Sounds like they just destroyed their chat service.
From the post to/.:
The ability to publish user-created chat rooms in the public Yahoo! Chat directory is currently unavailable.
Emphasis mine.
I could be wrong, but I'm reading this as follows: Yahoo chat rooms are either the moderated, official rooms, or are private rooms, of which there is no public listing. That's what they seem to be saying.
The holes punched are incredibly small, as TFA says. This leads me to believe that they're not really visible by the naked eye. That is, they're not Braille or anything.
Additionally, I believe that the rule is simply that you can't add a single letter (or, I imagine, odd symbol thing) because that would be changing the word(s) of God. Minitiny holes that you can't really see don't seem to fit under this category, IMO. I think the rule more outlaws things made in ink, like sketches and letters and whatnot.
While it is true that one can optimize code to reduce its size and increase performance, optimization can only do so much. The same is true with compression; data can be compressed, but only up to a point, beyond which it cannot be compressed further. Additionally, compression introduces another problem: decompression. When something is compressed, it must be decompressed in order to be read, and this causes a performance hit. While this can be managed by using certain algorithms depending on what's being compressed, it cannot be fully eliminated. While it is true that, with enough compression, a whole lot can be shoved into 9 gigs, how long will it take to decompress? Will the game still be playable? When compression is used enough, the answer to this question becomes "no".
While it is true that Chrono Trigger was nice and small, things have changed since then. Chrono Trigger used 2 dimensions and sprites. Modern games usually use 3 dimensions and polygons and effects. The engines alone for these applications tend to be rather large, even when optimized.
However, the main consumers of resources are models, textures, and sounds. While sounds can be compressed somewhat, they tend to be either unwieldly large or compressed through lossy means. Textures can be compressed a lot, though they still tend to take up quite a lot of space. Meanwhile, models take up a lot of space and are not very easily. Bearing in mind that pretty much everything in a game needs a model (characters, maps, items, etc.) and that big models (e.g. maps) tend to be big size-wise as well, this can represent a large chunk of storage.
Ultimately, it's a balance game between compression and performance. Unfortunately, it's exceedingly hard to achieve a good balance.
For those who haven't been watching, the DS is killing the PSP globally.
That may be true, but one needs to take into account the fact that the DS had a several month head start on the PSP. A more accurate indicator of popularity might be one that compares their launch months or perhaps sales-per-month. I don't have this data, so I can't say that one is beating the other, but I imagine someone here knows where to get it. A little help, anyone?
I'm alarmed by the prospect of the Revolution using DVD discs. Why this fear? I'm afraid that its limited storage space will limit game designers.
Right now you might be thinking, "Are you insane? DVD-9 discs can store 9 gigs of data! What do you mean, limited?" Well, here's what I mean.
As most people probably know, both the Xbox and the PS2 use DVD discs. They both support DVD-5 and DVD-9. The support for DVD-9 indicates something; some games are too big to fit on one DVD-5 disc. This can be conclusively proven by looking at some recent games, like Xenosaga Episode II (see the bottom of the page, "Lasting Appeal"), which use multiple discs. At smallest size, these games are unable to fit on a single DVD-5 disc. At largest, they're too big to fit on a single DVD-9.
That's a lot of data.
I recently read in an article (probably in Game Informer, though I can't find it at the moment) that many recent games, including Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, only barely miss filling a DVD-9.
That this is on the PS2. A current-gen system.
I think that says something.
What I'm getting at here is that games are getting bigger and bigger. There's no way around it. As our technology improves and our systems become capable of bigger and better graphics, we must supply more and more data in order to make said graphics.
If a PS2, whose capabilities are far eclipsed by the next-gen systems, almost requires multiple discs, how will those next-gen systems fit all their data in the same space? Better graphics require more data: bigger textures, more polygons, more custom shaders, etc. So how will it all fit?
And bear in mind that this isn't even taking into account the data needed for the actual game. A lot of code and other data is needed for the actual game. Furthermore, the Revolution is supposed to be, as Nintendo says, "revolutionary". How much extra code will it take to do cool things with these "revolutionary" features? A lot, I imagine.
This poses a problem. Where will all that data go? It has to go somewhere. Sure, wonders can be worked with compression, and yes, Nintendo has somehow managed to shove DVD-5 games from other systems into the 1.8 gigs offered by its proprietary format, but there is a limit to how small things can get. Furthermore, too much compression will result in decreased performance, which is a bad thing.
This is definitely a big problem. Sony got around it by flinging enormous Blu-Ray discs into its next-gen system, aided somewhat by the fact that it partially owns that standard. For Nintendo or Microsoft to use Blu-Ray would require licensing the technology, and you can be sure Sony would charge them up the wazoo for both the drives and the discs.
That's a problem.
The way I see it, both Microsoft and Nintendo are in trouble if they use normal DVD drives on their next-gen systems. Nintendo possibly more so, depending on the "revolutionary" aspects of their device, but this doesn't change the fact that they're both rather screwed.
For Microsoft, it looks like it's already too late; the Xbox 360 specs declare that it has a "12x dual-layer DVD-ROM". There is still some hope left for Nintendo, though, as they've only announced support for "12cm optical disks", which could be nearly anything.
Here's to hoping that Nintendo chooses something better than DVD-9.
can a subscriber cancel their account and keep the email address as a free one?
Unfortunately, you can't do that. I know this from experience. I was subscribed (via my parents) to AOL, which I used mostly for AIM access. Then we got broadband and got it from another company. We switched to AOL's "Bring Your Own Access" plan for a few months and then eventually canceled.
It was then that I noticed that I could not log on to my screen name anymore. It had been Suspended. What a great surprise to wake up to.
Apparently, AOL's policy on free services is as follows: "You can use our free services as much as you like. If, however, you ever give us money, you have to continue doing so to keep using the free things. If you don't, suck it up and make another account."
Really. I called tech support and spent roughly 2 hours talking to various people, trying to get them to convert my account to a free AIM account. According to the people I talked to, their database supports conversion of AIM accounts into AOL subscriber accounts, but going the other way is not supported for some reason. They actually suggested that I make a new screen name "like your old one with a number after it". No! I want my screen name, not a new one!
I ultimately got a new AIM account for IMing, but it was terribly annoying. I had lost my entire buddy list, profile, and other account data. That sucked. They said that if I waited 6 months or so, my account would be purged and I could possible make it again, but I didn't feel like waiting that long.
In conclusion, once you become a subscriber, you're stuck that way forever. Unless, of course, you don't mind the hassle of making a new account.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a minor problem with this idea: email is infamously insecure. On the protocol level, sending email almost never requires a password and, if it does, you can just use a different sending server. Forging emails is one of the easiest script kiddie tricks out there. Most of the security involved in email involves the receiving, not the sending.
Want proof? Send me two email addresses: one to send an email from and one to send an email to. I'll demonstrate how simple it really is.
Trained with Gears of War, have we?
At least, probably. To my knowledge, no "We Can Change This Notice and Claim Your Firstborn Children" section has never been tested in court. Perhaps one day it will be, and will subsequently be ruled invalid.
Hell yes!
Rocket Jockey is one of my favorite games of all time. I would absolutely love to see it reincarnated in any format. For a while, I seem to recall that there was a Rocket Jockey mod in development for UT2K4, but it evaporated (a shame).
On the positive side, apparently somebody's started remaking it. Unfortunately, it's currently a solo effort. We must all pitch in and help, lest this effort, too, fall by the wayside!
if people didn't copy music and everybody paid for what they enjoyed, there would be no need for DRM Of course. The problem with this statement is that it's somewhat akin to saying, "If people never did anything wrong, we wouldn't need laws". While it's perfectly true, it's also quite useless, as you cannot realistically expect every single person to be righteous enough.
If all of your peers tell you not to succumb to peer pressure, what do you do?
There's one, big, fundamental difference in the services provided. Internode caps the amount of data you're allowed to download (15-60 gigs, depending on how much you pay). Meanwhile, Be has no download cap whatsoever. This, I think, makes Be's service significantly better.
That's not what I meant. I simply meant that they haven't finished the development process yet. I imagine that it'll be free, upon completion.
While noted on the website, the /. post neglected to mention that this is merely a demo. I do not mean to deprecate the Dystopia team's work in any way, but people should bear in mind that this is not yet the finished product.
And, amusingly, Jack Tompson is far more guilty of demonizing his critics.
Those prizes were far cooler than a million dollars. Perhaps not worth as much, but much more awesome.
Hot damn, those prizes were amazing. I wish that nowadays there were contests with prizes on that order of total awesomeness. It wouldn't matter if said contests were very rare; the fact that they still happened would be good enough for me.
I could be wrong, but I'm reading this as follows: Yahoo chat rooms are either the moderated, official rooms, or are private rooms, of which there is no public listing. That's what they seem to be saying.
The holes punched are incredibly small, as TFA says. This leads me to believe that they're not really visible by the naked eye. That is, they're not Braille or anything. Additionally, I believe that the rule is simply that you can't add a single letter (or, I imagine, odd symbol thing) because that would be changing the word(s) of God. Minitiny holes that you can't really see don't seem to fit under this category, IMO. I think the rule more outlaws things made in ink, like sketches and letters and whatnot.
As far as availability of Blu-Ray? If you live in Japan, at least 3 players/recorders exist and you can even buy at least one model. As for the discs, they have a transfer rate of 36 Mbps and cost roughly 33 dollars a pop for rewritable discs.
Blu-Ray is currently used only by video player/recorders, but will eventually be used on computers, in the PS3 (quite obvious, by now), and, I imagine, in many other devices, including video cameras.
While it is true that one can optimize code to reduce its size and increase performance, optimization can only do so much. The same is true with compression; data can be compressed, but only up to a point, beyond which it cannot be compressed further. Additionally, compression introduces another problem: decompression. When something is compressed, it must be decompressed in order to be read, and this causes a performance hit. While this can be managed by using certain algorithms depending on what's being compressed, it cannot be fully eliminated. While it is true that, with enough compression, a whole lot can be shoved into 9 gigs, how long will it take to decompress? Will the game still be playable? When compression is used enough, the answer to this question becomes "no".
While it is true that Chrono Trigger was nice and small, things have changed since then. Chrono Trigger used 2 dimensions and sprites. Modern games usually use 3 dimensions and polygons and effects. The engines alone for these applications tend to be rather large, even when optimized.
However, the main consumers of resources are models, textures, and sounds. While sounds can be compressed somewhat, they tend to be either unwieldly large or compressed through lossy means. Textures can be compressed a lot, though they still tend to take up quite a lot of space. Meanwhile, models take up a lot of space and are not very easily. Bearing in mind that pretty much everything in a game needs a model (characters, maps, items, etc.) and that big models (e.g. maps) tend to be big size-wise as well, this can represent a large chunk of storage.
Ultimately, it's a balance game between compression and performance. Unfortunately, it's exceedingly hard to achieve a good balance.
I'm alarmed by the prospect of the Revolution using DVD discs. Why this fear? I'm afraid that its limited storage space will limit game designers.
Right now you might be thinking, "Are you insane? DVD-9 discs can store 9 gigs of data! What do you mean, limited?" Well, here's what I mean.
As most people probably know, both the Xbox and the PS2 use DVD discs. They both support DVD-5 and DVD-9. The support for DVD-9 indicates something; some games are too big to fit on one DVD-5 disc. This can be conclusively proven by looking at some recent games, like Xenosaga Episode II (see the bottom of the page, "Lasting Appeal"), which use multiple discs. At smallest size, these games are unable to fit on a single DVD-5 disc. At largest, they're too big to fit on a single DVD-9.
That's a lot of data.
I recently read in an article (probably in Game Informer, though I can't find it at the moment) that many recent games, including Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, only barely miss filling a DVD-9.
That this is on the PS2. A current-gen system.
I think that says something.
What I'm getting at here is that games are getting bigger and bigger. There's no way around it. As our technology improves and our systems become capable of bigger and better graphics, we must supply more and more data in order to make said graphics.
If a PS2, whose capabilities are far eclipsed by the next-gen systems, almost requires multiple discs, how will those next-gen systems fit all their data in the same space? Better graphics require more data: bigger textures, more polygons, more custom shaders, etc. So how will it all fit?
And bear in mind that this isn't even taking into account the data needed for the actual game. A lot of code and other data is needed for the actual game. Furthermore, the Revolution is supposed to be, as Nintendo says, "revolutionary". How much extra code will it take to do cool things with these "revolutionary" features? A lot, I imagine.
This poses a problem. Where will all that data go? It has to go somewhere. Sure, wonders can be worked with compression, and yes, Nintendo has somehow managed to shove DVD-5 games from other systems into the 1.8 gigs offered by its proprietary format, but there is a limit to how small things can get. Furthermore, too much compression will result in decreased performance, which is a bad thing.
This is definitely a big problem. Sony got around it by flinging enormous Blu-Ray discs into its next-gen system, aided somewhat by the fact that it partially owns that standard. For Nintendo or Microsoft to use Blu-Ray would require licensing the technology, and you can be sure Sony would charge them up the wazoo for both the drives and the discs.
That's a problem.
The way I see it, both Microsoft and Nintendo are in trouble if they use normal DVD drives on their next-gen systems. Nintendo possibly more so, depending on the "revolutionary" aspects of their device, but this doesn't change the fact that they're both rather screwed.
For Microsoft, it looks like it's already too late; the Xbox 360 specs declare that it has a "12x dual-layer DVD-ROM". There is still some hope left for Nintendo, though, as they've only announced support for "12cm optical disks", which could be nearly anything.
Here's to hoping that Nintendo chooses something better than DVD-9.
It was then that I noticed that I could not log on to my screen name anymore. It had been Suspended. What a great surprise to wake up to.
Apparently, AOL's policy on free services is as follows: "You can use our free services as much as you like. If, however, you ever give us money, you have to continue doing so to keep using the free things. If you don't, suck it up and make another account."
Really. I called tech support and spent roughly 2 hours talking to various people, trying to get them to convert my account to a free AIM account. According to the people I talked to, their database supports conversion of AIM accounts into AOL subscriber accounts, but going the other way is not supported for some reason. They actually suggested that I make a new screen name "like your old one with a number after it". No! I want my screen name, not a new one!
I ultimately got a new AIM account for IMing, but it was terribly annoying. I had lost my entire buddy list, profile, and other account data. That sucked. They said that if I waited 6 months or so, my account would be purged and I could possible make it again, but I didn't feel like waiting that long.
In conclusion, once you become a subscriber, you're stuck that way forever. Unless, of course, you don't mind the hassle of making a new account.