It's a MMORPG. It's not some sort of shock that the client is sending information to the server. The server needs to know your character is near the "ad zone" in order to send you the ad, and it needs to know your character has moved so it'll stop sending you the ad, and send you whatever content applies to where you are now. Logging when both events occur would be pretty standard in a MMORPG. It's not "spyware" by any reasonable definition.
I guess you could call it adware, but given that the subject here is "putting ads in video games," that's kind of a given.
The thing that makes me the most skeptical about these supposed duping exploits (which the developers have investigated and say are false) is that every single one of them has a line like this that is apparently crucial: "This only works early in the morning when the servers first load up, and the the instance server is still loading."
What does that mean? The servers run 24 hours a day. They don't "first load up" early in the morning. The only time a server consistantly shuts down is the Tuesday maintenance, and there is nowhere in North America where that ends "early in the morning."
Also, all of the other supposed evidence of a duping exploit is seemingly unrelated to this description of how the exploit is acheived, because the duping everyone else is complaining about apparently happens at all times of day while zoning level 30 characters rapidly in and out of Maraudon.
Just curious, was there another MMORPG with daily maintenance shutdowns, that ended early in the morning in North America?
What is this one? With the first two, I assume you're suggesting that it is self-evident that Bill Gates is rich, and that Linux is better than Windows, but what's this last one? You state two opposite possibilities, and seem to be implying that both are clearly false.
Is it your feeling that some sort of Zen truth is painfully obvious to everyone on this subject?
"The war in Iraq shall not be successful, or unsuccessful. It is both, and neither."
Well, no. The two aren't actually particularly related. Despite both being called "routers" in the press releases, the PS3 was going to be a router, where you could plug computers (or more PS3s, or whatever) into it to get online. This is actually a USB wireless access point, which is basically not a router at all, and is just a way of connecting your Nintendo products to your computer and/or the internet.
Technology awareness is only half the battle - convincing people that the status quo is not acceptable is a whole other battle.
But... what happened to the second half of the first battle?;)
Re:And Paramount's response?
on
P2P and TV
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· Score: 1
The studio obviously thought it was crap so they shelved it as to not promote crap in the arts.
Hahaha! Yeah. That's how TV studios work.
Re:And Paramount's response?
on
P2P and TV
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· Score: 1
No, he's saying that if you create your Awesome-o-matic(tm), and then decide to never let anyone see or use it, it should be ok for people to make copies (not take it from you) and give them away for free. Creating things and hiding them in your basement is not within the spirit of copyright laws.
Many people would be extremely upset if a private collector bought the Mona Lisa or some other piece of famous artwork and wouldn't let people look at it. There's a general sense that these paintings should be available for people to see.
In the same way, the Global Frequency pilot should be available for people to see. I'm not going to try to pretend that it's fine art, but it's damn good TV!
Er... I mean... I assume it's good TV. Since there is no legal way for me to see it, I'm obviously just assuming this based on what I've heard.
Is there a general rule of thumb regarding how long this lag takes? Does either NVidia or ATI seem to keep this lag to a minimum?
There's not a general rule, but I'd say the lag time is getting progressively smaller. About 2 years ago when I bought my laptop, the best laptop video card I could find was about a generation or so behind desktop cards. Now, they make laptops with cards that use more-or-less the same technology as the current desktops, with relatively small lag time.
As for NVidia/ATI, it's actually not up to them. Or, well, it's up to their sales departments more than the R&D guys, anyway. Laptops are so tightly integrated that it's the laptop manufacturers who make the video cards, and decide whose GPUs to use.
I suppose it also makes sense to ask whether anyone bases their laptop purchases on what graphics chips are built into the machine.
Sure! I did. You have to realize, though, that laptop game performance is going to be slower than a comparable desktop (and a lot slower than a comparably priced desktop), and not just because of the video card. It's a lot more complicated than that, and a laptop with exactly the same specs as a desktop is unlikely to perform as well.
I know why people try to horde GIS data here, and I suspect it may be the same in Greenwich. GIS data is extremely expensive to create and work with, because the software involved tends to have very expensive per-user annual fees associated with it.
Now, you're thinking, "but my tax dollars paid that bill!"
Probably, yes. However, the tax dollars are apportioned in different amounts to different groups within government. Some group has to fight hard to justify a budget allocation big enough to cover their GIS software licenses... and they don't want other government groups to reap the benefits without helping to pay for it.
Around here, government departments tend to charge one another huge fees for their GIS output, thus sharing the cost of the software licenses. If they were required to give it to citizens for free (or, for $900), then obviously they wouldn't be able to charge another government department more than that.
So... they might actually have been worried about security. It seems more plausible to me that some guy was just worried that the folks over in the other department would get his data, and he'd be footing the bill with his budget allocation. Passing it off as a security concern just seems like a better way to get higher-ups on board.
Does it really matter that much? Is the story in some way about her inherent British-ness?
Anyway, if the movie people want to make her British, I think Sarah Michelle Gellar can pull it off. I like to think that she's a better actress than people give her credit for. I mean, just the fact that her character in The Grudge felt like a different person than Buffy was enough to convince me that she's better at acting than most people seem to think.
Good lord, is it some sort of secret? Man, I remember connecting to sunet when the only protocol I had access to was FTP, and that only via a text-based client. Someone gave me a list of a few FTP sites on a sheet of looseleaf, and sunet was one of the better ones.
So... was the guy with the looseleaf particularly well-connected or something?;)
Well, it's broadcast in "north" america. CBC in Canada airs Doctor Who episodes on Tuesday nights, but they're 2 episodes behind the latest british torrent.
But unless you pick up CBC somehow (I believe some people in northern states get it), no, it's not broadcast in the USA at all.
Re:Care to share?
on
Makers of MAKE
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· Score: 2, Informative
This is from a site for children (and on the first page of a google search for "casein plastic"). If you're really hardcore, you may be able to deviate from the recipe and get by without an adult to help you.;)
Make Casein Plastic Casein is a plastic that is made from milk. It was one of the first plastics ever made and was used for making things like buttons.
What you need: An adult to help you 2/3 of a cup of milk 8 teaspoons of vinegar a pot a plate a stirring spoon
What you do:Pour the milk into the pot and get an adult to help you bring it gently to the boil. When the milk begins to steam and bubble, dribble in the vinegar, stirring the milk all the time. You will see lumps begin to form. When the little lumps clump together to make a big solid lump get the adult to pour off the liquid and then tip your casein plastic lump onto a plate. When it cools a little bit mould it into a shape, like a button then leave it to harden over night. You'll end up with hard casein plastic. The first plastic that was ever invented - it's a bit different from the plastic we're used to!
some chunky army reject with a pointless afterburner thrown in for no good reason.
For no good reason? NO GOOD REASON? I'm just going to assume that someone hasn't been following the bat-news.
The vehicle they're using as the batmobile in Batman Begins actually works, and when it gets up to speed with its normal (quite powerful) engine, they can kick in that jet engine on the back, and it can literally jump over small cars. I don't remember the exact dimensions, but it jumps a few feet high and several feet horizontally. No good reason? That is the coolest feature I think anyone has ever built into a working vehicle!
Just a tiny disagreement... they're not going to make the level cap an odd number. You get new skills at even numbers, so the top level feels more special if there are a few nice top-level skills.;)
However, your theory of a small increase in the cap as opposed to a large one makes sense.
Yes, if you can't offer these people 100% freedom of expression, then obviously it's immoral to allow them any avenues for expression at all.
Seriously, how would Microsoft pulling out of the Chinese market help Chinese people? As it is now, they can blog, though there are several words they can't use (and presumably ideas that it would be unwise for them to express). But, given that that is the general situation in their country, don't you think that that's better than not being able to blog at all?
I never really expected to find myself defending MSN blogs, but it just seems to me like it's better than the alternative.
Well, you know... there has to be some way of getting the information out of the computer, otherwise there would be little point in maintaining it.
I mean, if the information were SO secret that NOBODY was allowed to know what it was, why bother keeping that information at all?
Anyway, if there's a legitimate way to get data out, there's likely some way of fooling that system and getting the information illegitimately. Maybe this guy employed field agents, or little spy robots.;)
Yup, that has to be it. And they're not telling us these details, because they don't want us to know how their security was compromised.;)
It's not super clear, but I don't think it's a contradiction. Saying "don't expect fusion to become readily available" doesn't mean that it won't, just that you shouldn't expect it. Saying "it really may not be long" doesn't mean it will happen soon, just that it could.
The summary of that is, "readily available fusion could happen soon, but don't count on it."
"First of all, what if you have a minor work? My father published a book, and made about £10 on it, if you take away the cost of printing etc. It would cost more in administrative costs for the government to collect the 10p tax on that." So, either they take the 10p tax as a matter of principle and make up their loss on the bigger IP, or they put a minimum on it, like they do with other taxes.
"Second of all, what about compilations? If an anthology of work is published, do you have to tax every individual who owns some IP within the book?" Yes. But not on the profits of the anthology... on the money the individuals make. It's not that hard. They'd be taxed on that money anyway with income tax.
"What about books that are in the public interest to be in print. Imagine if Darwin had been subject to a '1% of peak annual profit' copyright tax. Initially, a large profit would have come in, as there was a great deal of interest in the work. However, after about a decade or so, he (or his estate) would have to pay a very large amount of copyright tax. If they couldn't afford this, "On the Origin of Species" would have had to go out of print. Somehow, I doubt this would have been a benefitial outcome for anyone." No... it wouldn't have to go out of print, it would have to become public domain. That would be beneficial. In your example, Darwin has already made lots of money, and isn't making money from the book any more, so what he's losing is worth very little to him. And, with the book in the public domain, people with their own printing presses at home can make copies of the book for their friends, distributing Darwin's knowledge more widely than would otherwise have happened.
I'm not saying that this "copyright tax" will necessarily work, but your counter-arguments seem a bit confused.
The "better" phishers sometimes recreate your bank's login page, then forward your form input to the actual bank page, and return the result to you. Your login information gets stolen, but as far as you can tell, everything's going fine.
Anyway, in these cases, your idea would involved DOSing a phisher... and a real bank. It seems less than ideal.
Yeah, Ender's Game could make an ok video game. I'm not sure it would be great though. The "game" bits of the story were good because of the ways the kids thought "outside the box," which is difficult to implement in a video game. On the other hand...if it said "Ender's Game" on the box, I'd probably buy it regardless, so maybe it's a good idea.;)
As for some of the other things on the list... does anyone else feel like this was more a list of "stuff I like" than "good properties for a video game?"
I mean, Farenheit 451? Where's the game? Are we talking about a game where you run around burning books, or a game where you have to sneak around reading books without getting caught? Oooh... a stealth reading game! It could be a new genre!
Similarly, 1984 is a good story, but I don't see it making a good game.
I think the article would have been better if the author had explained in more detail what sort of game he envisioned being made based on these books (the TV shows are more obvious). Maybe he does have some good ideas, but I'm not seeing them here.
He was suggesting that hobbyists innovate, but don't follow through, while the people who do follow through don't innovate.
He was also saying that the given examples of complete, well-done open source software are not particularly innovative. They might have an interesting feature or two that their closed-source counterpart lacks, but in every one of those cases, the closed-source counterpart came first.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a MMORPG. It's not some sort of shock that the client is sending information to the server. The server needs to know your character is near the "ad zone" in order to send you the ad, and it needs to know your character has moved so it'll stop sending you the ad, and send you whatever content applies to where you are now. Logging when both events occur would be pretty standard in a MMORPG. It's not "spyware" by any reasonable definition.
I guess you could call it adware, but given that the subject here is "putting ads in video games," that's kind of a given.
The thing that makes me the most skeptical about these supposed duping exploits (which the developers have investigated and say are false) is that every single one of them has a line like this that is apparently crucial: "This only works early in the morning when the servers first load up, and the the instance server is still loading."
What does that mean? The servers run 24 hours a day. They don't "first load up" early in the morning. The only time a server consistantly shuts down is the Tuesday maintenance, and there is nowhere in North America where that ends "early in the morning."
Also, all of the other supposed evidence of a duping exploit is seemingly unrelated to this description of how the exploit is acheived, because the duping everyone else is complaining about apparently happens at all times of day while zoning level 30 characters rapidly in and out of Maraudon.
Just curious, was there another MMORPG with daily maintenance shutdowns, that ended early in the morning in North America?
What is this one? With the first two, I assume you're suggesting that it is self-evident that Bill Gates is rich, and that Linux is better than Windows, but what's this last one? You state two opposite possibilities, and seem to be implying that both are clearly false.
Is it your feeling that some sort of Zen truth is painfully obvious to everyone on this subject?
"The war in Iraq shall not be successful, or unsuccessful. It is both, and neither."
Watch out! Any day now, "almost wanting to pirate music" will be a crime, too! ;)
Well, no. The two aren't actually particularly related. Despite both being called "routers" in the press releases, the PS3 was going to be a router, where you could plug computers (or more PS3s, or whatever) into it to get online. This is actually a USB wireless access point, which is basically not a router at all, and is just a way of connecting your Nintendo products to your computer and/or the internet.
Ah, but "theme" wasn't a buzzword during the period these essays were written. ;)
Hahaha! Yeah. That's how TV studios work.
No, he's saying that if you create your Awesome-o-matic(tm), and then decide to never let anyone see or use it, it should be ok for people to make copies (not take it from you) and give them away for free. Creating things and hiding them in your basement is not within the spirit of copyright laws.
Many people would be extremely upset if a private collector bought the Mona Lisa or some other piece of famous artwork and wouldn't let people look at it. There's a general sense that these paintings should be available for people to see.
In the same way, the Global Frequency pilot should be available for people to see. I'm not going to try to pretend that it's fine art, but it's damn good TV!
Er... I mean... I assume it's good TV. Since there is no legal way for me to see it, I'm obviously just assuming this based on what I've heard.
There's not a general rule, but I'd say the lag time is getting progressively smaller. About 2 years ago when I bought my laptop, the best laptop video card I could find was about a generation or so behind desktop cards. Now, they make laptops with cards that use more-or-less the same technology as the current desktops, with relatively small lag time.
As for NVidia/ATI, it's actually not up to them. Or, well, it's up to their sales departments more than the R&D guys, anyway. Laptops are so tightly integrated that it's the laptop manufacturers who make the video cards, and decide whose GPUs to use.
Sure! I did. You have to realize, though, that laptop game performance is going to be slower than a comparable desktop (and a lot slower than a comparably priced desktop), and not just because of the video card. It's a lot more complicated than that, and a laptop with exactly the same specs as a desktop is unlikely to perform as well.
I know why people try to horde GIS data here, and I suspect it may be the same in Greenwich. GIS data is extremely expensive to create and work with, because the software involved tends to have very expensive per-user annual fees associated with it.
Now, you're thinking, "but my tax dollars paid that bill!"
Probably, yes. However, the tax dollars are apportioned in different amounts to different groups within government. Some group has to fight hard to justify a budget allocation big enough to cover their GIS software licenses... and they don't want other government groups to reap the benefits without helping to pay for it.
Around here, government departments tend to charge one another huge fees for their GIS output, thus sharing the cost of the software licenses. If they were required to give it to citizens for free (or, for $900), then obviously they wouldn't be able to charge another government department more than that.
So... they might actually have been worried about security. It seems more plausible to me that some guy was just worried that the folks over in the other department would get his data, and he'd be footing the bill with his budget allocation. Passing it off as a security concern just seems like a better way to get higher-ups on board.
Does it really matter that much? Is the story in some way about her inherent British-ness?
Anyway, if the movie people want to make her British, I think Sarah Michelle Gellar can pull it off. I like to think that she's a better actress than people give her credit for. I mean, just the fact that her character in The Grudge felt like a different person than Buffy was enough to convince me that she's better at acting than most people seem to think.
Good lord, is it some sort of secret? Man, I remember connecting to sunet when the only protocol I had access to was FTP, and that only via a text-based client. Someone gave me a list of a few FTP sites on a sheet of looseleaf, and sunet was one of the better ones.
;)
So... was the guy with the looseleaf particularly well-connected or something?
Well, it's broadcast in "north" america. CBC in Canada airs Doctor Who episodes on Tuesday nights, but they're 2 episodes behind the latest british torrent.
But unless you pick up CBC somehow (I believe some people in northern states get it), no, it's not broadcast in the USA at all.
This is from a site for children (and on the first page of a google search for "casein plastic"). If you're really hardcore, you may be able to deviate from the recipe and get by without an adult to help you. ;)
t Sheet=114
http://www.suzy.co.nz/suzysworld/Factpage.asp?Fac
Make Casein Plastic
Casein is a plastic that is made from milk. It was one of the first plastics ever made and was used for making things like buttons.
What you need:
An adult to help you
2/3 of a cup of milk
8 teaspoons of vinegar
a pot
a plate
a stirring spoon
What you do:Pour the milk into the pot and get an adult to help you bring it gently to the boil. When the milk begins to steam and bubble, dribble in the vinegar, stirring the milk all the time. You will see lumps begin to form. When the little lumps clump together to make a big solid lump get the adult to pour off the liquid and then tip your casein plastic lump onto a plate. When it cools a little bit mould it into a shape, like a button then leave it to harden over night. You'll end up with hard casein plastic. The first plastic that was ever invented - it's a bit different from the plastic we're used to!
The vehicle they're using as the batmobile in Batman Begins actually works, and when it gets up to speed with its normal (quite powerful) engine, they can kick in that jet engine on the back, and it can literally jump over small cars. I don't remember the exact dimensions, but it jumps a few feet high and several feet horizontally. No good reason? That is the coolest feature I think anyone has ever built into a working vehicle!
Just a tiny disagreement... they're not going to make the level cap an odd number. You get new skills at even numbers, so the top level feels more special if there are a few nice top-level skills. ;)
However, your theory of a small increase in the cap as opposed to a large one makes sense.
Yes, if you can't offer these people 100% freedom of expression, then obviously it's immoral to allow them any avenues for expression at all.
Seriously, how would Microsoft pulling out of the Chinese market help Chinese people? As it is now, they can blog, though there are several words they can't use (and presumably ideas that it would be unwise for them to express). But, given that that is the general situation in their country, don't you think that that's better than not being able to blog at all?
I never really expected to find myself defending MSN blogs, but it just seems to me like it's better than the alternative.
Well, you know... there has to be some way of getting the information out of the computer, otherwise there would be little point in maintaining it.
;)
;)
I mean, if the information were SO secret that NOBODY was allowed to know what it was, why bother keeping that information at all?
Anyway, if there's a legitimate way to get data out, there's likely some way of fooling that system and getting the information illegitimately. Maybe this guy employed field agents, or little spy robots.
Yup, that has to be it. And they're not telling us these details, because they don't want us to know how their security was compromised.
It's not super clear, but I don't think it's a contradiction. Saying "don't expect fusion to become readily available" doesn't mean that it won't, just that you shouldn't expect it. Saying "it really may not be long" doesn't mean it will happen soon, just that it could.
The summary of that is, "readily available fusion could happen soon, but don't count on it."
I don't think you quite got it.
"First of all, what if you have a minor work? My father published a book, and made about £10 on it, if you take away the cost of printing etc. It would cost more in administrative costs for the government to collect the 10p tax on that." So, either they take the 10p tax as a matter of principle and make up their loss on the bigger IP, or they put a minimum on it, like they do with other taxes.
"Second of all, what about compilations? If an anthology of work is published, do you have to tax every individual who owns some IP within the book?" Yes. But not on the profits of the anthology... on the money the individuals make. It's not that hard. They'd be taxed on that money anyway with income tax.
"What about books that are in the public interest to be in print. Imagine if Darwin had been subject to a '1% of peak annual profit' copyright tax. Initially, a large profit would have come in, as there was a great deal of interest in the work. However, after about a decade or so, he (or his estate) would have to pay a very large amount of copyright tax. If they couldn't afford this, "On the Origin of Species" would have had to go out of print. Somehow, I doubt this would have been a benefitial outcome for anyone." No... it wouldn't have to go out of print, it would have to become public domain. That would be beneficial. In your example, Darwin has already made lots of money, and isn't making money from the book any more, so what he's losing is worth very little to him. And, with the book in the public domain, people with their own printing presses at home can make copies of the book for their friends, distributing Darwin's knowledge more widely than would otherwise have happened.
I'm not saying that this "copyright tax" will necessarily work, but your counter-arguments seem a bit confused.
The "better" phishers sometimes recreate your bank's login page, then forward your form input to the actual bank page, and return the result to you. Your login information gets stolen, but as far as you can tell, everything's going fine.
Anyway, in these cases, your idea would involved DOSing a phisher... and a real bank. It seems less than ideal.
Yeah, Ender's Game could make an ok video game. I'm not sure it would be great though. The "game" bits of the story were good because of the ways the kids thought "outside the box," which is difficult to implement in a video game. On the other hand...if it said "Ender's Game" on the box, I'd probably buy it regardless, so maybe it's a good idea. ;)
As for some of the other things on the list... does anyone else feel like this was more a list of "stuff I like" than "good properties for a video game?"
I mean, Farenheit 451? Where's the game? Are we talking about a game where you run around burning books, or a game where you have to sneak around reading books without getting caught? Oooh... a stealth reading game! It could be a new genre!
Similarly, 1984 is a good story, but I don't see it making a good game.
I think the article would have been better if the author had explained in more detail what sort of game he envisioned being made based on these books (the TV shows are more obvious). Maybe he does have some good ideas, but I'm not seeing them here.
"vigilance"
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
He was suggesting that hobbyists innovate, but don't follow through, while the people who do follow through don't innovate.
He was also saying that the given examples of complete, well-done open source software are not particularly innovative. They might have an interesting feature or two that their closed-source counterpart lacks, but in every one of those cases, the closed-source counterpart came first.