There's a generic term, privacy, that is overused to the point of becoming meaningless. This article, however, is trying to raise even more muck in already murky water. My response is two-fold:
Privacy on the Internet is an semi-oxymoron. To be completely anonymous, you must browse the 'nets from your library, choose handles that cannot be traced to your name, and never reveal any personal information. No blogs, no online purchases. It's like going to the library and never checking out any books. It's possible, but quite inconvenient.
Some privacy is paranoia. Using the Digg example: they (our overlords?) know what stories I enjoy, based on my handle. They can be very clever, and serve me ads related to technology. They can go on MySpace and figure out my age. They can go to my LiveJournal and learn that I like programming and that I have amusing dreams.
They can do (almost) the same by simply following me down the street. Storekeepers know that I visit electronic stores and game stores. Police know where I work because a police station is one block away from me. Restaurant owners know what kind of lunches I like to order. All these real-life people can potentially unite and create a database of facts about me.
Yes, interestingly enough, living in a city makes you a target for social observation. There's a phrase, "people-watching", that turns into "monitoring" when used for online content. And suddenly this sturs a panic among some who believe in the first place that the Internet is a dim and anonymous place. Probably, they also believe that no one sees them when they are out on a street.
permission to link is explicitly withheld from any website the contents of which may, in the opinion of the Access Copyright, be damaging or cause harm to the reputation of Access Copyright
Since when must I ask other websites if I may or may not link to them? Is there actually a law against hotlinking images and/or content, in the US or in Canada?
In a broader question, I believe that I can't hotlink a photographer's images and claim that they are my own (even though many people can view source and see that I'm not hosting them) [am I right?], but what about dropping a href to that image?
I'm using Sonic.net right now. I signed up for their 1.5-3Mbps plan which guarantees that my connection will not be slower than 1.5Mbps. That's the kind of guarantee I seek when I'm ordering broadband services.
I ignored the last Olympics because of how it was covered by the network(s) in this country. NBC, I believe, held exclusive rights to show the events it deemed most entertaining, with about 15 minutes of commercials between 10 minutes of events.
I also tried watching some events online, but I didn't have IE6, and it didn't support any other browser properly.
Because there is a mind-boggling embargomonopoly on the Olympics here, and because I'm not willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money to buy cable to watch just 1 station for 2 weeks, I ignored it. I'll probably ignore the World Cup this year for similar reasons.
What most lawmakers fail to account for is that the digital world is not equivalent to the material world. While the analogies between computers and real life (e.g. "memory") are fine at first, the discrepancies begin to build up.
What this means is that the same laws can no longer apply without disrupting the new medium. Whereas there is no problem for police to ask you to open your Safe or hand you over your papers, it gets much more difficult in the Digital Realm.
IRL, can you duplicate a Safe infinitely many times? IRL, can you make safe look like a breadbox? (One-Time-Pad.) IRL, can you annihilate a Safe and all the documents, and erase all your tracks completely in about 30 seconds?
No, you can't. You can't also continuously keep changing the locks on your Safe, just because it is unfeasible. But it's ridiculously easy in Digital Realm. So if I use an encrypted VoIP for communications, and AT&T decides to store all the data I have transferred, am I supposed to turn over all the AES / RSA (I don't actually know) keys that were used for encrypting the conversation? IRL, Safes don't continually change and morph; but in Digital Realm the dimention of Time is just as important as the first three.
So no, it's not reasonable to expect real-life, 3D people to always carry around with them their 4D representations, their history, all their keys, all their passwords, all their emotional luggage. It's even less reasonable to imprison those who don't.
You should try out FarCry. For an insanely fun game, start in "Realistic" mode. If you're detected, the AI will circle around you and attack you from the back, if they're able to. It's kinda creepy.
I dislike vim for the simple reason that I have a Dvorak keyboard, and having to press HJKL to move around is one of the most unintuitive things ever.:-D
What, you didn't hear? The latest technology requires you to have implants that bypass the ear drum and send signals straight to your brain. Without them, you won't hear the music at all!
This new HD-CD chipset will cost $1000 plus $10,000 installation fee. Each HD-CD will cost about $40.
Gameplay and realism are two different concepts. The whole point of playing games is to get away from reality: whenever I get tired of dealing with real-life stuff, I turn on my favourite game and relax. If that game happens to have the same limitations that I am trying to avoid, then I will pick up a different game instead.
That's why I love Oni. It's simple; it requires minimal number of commands, and it's ridiculously fun.
That's why I love FarCry. It's unrealistic in that the first bullet of almost every gun is insanely accurate, but it makes the game that much more fun.
But realism? I stopped playing Soldier of Fortune as quickly as I started, because I didn't want to see each person die 20 different ways. I get annoyed with Half Life 2 every time I get hurt when I jump off a 6-foot ledge and lose health, because it substracts fun from the game, instead of adding to it.
When you think of a game, only its most memorable moments come to mind; the bland details are forgotten. Consider Half Life 2. What is more memorable: Ravenholm, or the trajectory of the crossbow as it curves down over time? The latter - an accomplishment of physics - is but a trivial detail, whereas the former leaves you with vivid images that you'll remember for quite a long time.
Now, Oblivion: for reasons described above, physics should be the last of its worries. It's definitely a great game for its time, but to be honest, it's not that much different from Morrowind: both have immense worlds; both have really neat graphics (for its time); both have absurd little annoying quests that you want to finish for the sake of completeness, but that tire you out over time? Even the fact that NPCs are talking doesn't really do much, because I get bored of the same voice actors, and read the subtitles to speed up the gameplay. No - what I'll remember are the Oblivion gates, the animation of casting magic, and the "feel" of each city.
Physics? I've seen plenty of ads for a PCI physics card; I don't need yet another article telling me that.
This one is easy to explain. When I was growing up, I was playing games like Doom II, then Quake, then Quake 2, then Half Life, then Unreal. They were simple; I walked around, explored different areas, fought different monsters, and overall enjoyed yourself. But already I saw how games were maturing: Quake introduced "jump"; Half Life revolutionised WASD and online gameplay (you must admit: people competing online after Counter-Strike >> people competing online before Counter-Strike); Deus Ex and Morrowind revolutionised the FPS & RPG genre...
The game industry has grown up. No one wants to make simple shoot-em-ups anymore. (Painkiller is an exception.) Games now compete not only in graphics but also in physics, AI, gameplay, you name it. It's getting increasingly difficult to just "jump" into the genre; heck, even I get lost among all the new games that have been released. And I'm only discussing FPSs.
Marvel decided that it's a good idea to start the Ultimates story arc where all the characters are re-introduced, because kids of today have no way of reading up on 50 years of past comics. In the same way, teenagers of tomorrow will find themselves wondering in game stores, not knowing where exactly to start. (At least I do: whenever I'm presented with a new topic, I always try to go back in time to understand the mechanisms of the present.)
So as the gaming industry grows up, so do its fans. It's only natural.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, the first couple of minutes of the game were actually good!
But then the intro movie ended...
You'd gain quite a bit more popularity with "She-Man Pictures".
Who will protect Metropolis then? Everyone knows that Superman is powerless without the sun!
Score: -1, Too Informative
Put a gun to its head.
Mods, how exactly is a link to a HP3000 Off-topic? *sigh*
They can do (almost) the same by simply following me down the street. Storekeepers know that I visit electronic stores and game stores. Police know where I work because a police station is one block away from me. Restaurant owners know what kind of lunches I like to order. All these real-life people can potentially unite and create a database of facts about me.
Yes, interestingly enough, living in a city makes you a target for social observation. There's a phrase, "people-watching", that turns into "monitoring" when used for online content. And suddenly this sturs a panic among some who believe in the first place that the Internet is a dim and anonymous place. Probably, they also believe that no one sees them when they are out on a street.
In a broader question, I believe that I can't hotlink a photographer's images and claim that they are my own (even though many people can view source and see that I'm not hosting them) [am I right?], but what about dropping a href to that image?
I'm using Sonic.net right now. I signed up for their 1.5-3Mbps plan which guarantees that my connection will not be slower than 1.5Mbps. That's the kind of guarantee I seek when I'm ordering broadband services.
Running. Hookers don't run.
I ignored the last Olympics because of how it was covered by the network(s) in this country. NBC, I believe, held exclusive rights to show the events it deemed most entertaining, with about 15 minutes of commercials between 10 minutes of events.
I also tried watching some events online, but I didn't have IE6, and it didn't support any other browser properly.
Because there is a mind-boggling embargomonopoly on the Olympics here, and because I'm not willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money to buy cable to watch just 1 station for 2 weeks, I ignored it. I'll probably ignore the World Cup this year for similar reasons.
Garry Larson, even!
Careful, or the RIAA will catch wind of this and will try to enforce something similar.
Wait a sec...
What most lawmakers fail to account for is that the digital world is not equivalent to the material world. While the analogies between computers and real life (e.g. "memory") are fine at first, the discrepancies begin to build up.
What this means is that the same laws can no longer apply without disrupting the new medium. Whereas there is no problem for police to ask you to open your Safe or hand you over your papers, it gets much more difficult in the Digital Realm.
IRL, can you duplicate a Safe infinitely many times?
IRL, can you make safe look like a breadbox? (One-Time-Pad.)
IRL, can you annihilate a Safe and all the documents, and erase all your tracks completely in about 30 seconds?
No, you can't. You can't also continuously keep changing the locks on your Safe, just because it is unfeasible. But it's ridiculously easy in Digital Realm. So if I use an encrypted VoIP for communications, and AT&T decides to store all the data I have transferred, am I supposed to turn over all the AES / RSA (I don't actually know) keys that were used for encrypting the conversation? IRL, Safes don't continually change and morph; but in Digital Realm the dimention of Time is just as important as the first three.
So no, it's not reasonable to expect real-life, 3D people to always carry around with them their 4D representations, their history, all their keys, all their passwords, all their emotional luggage. It's even less reasonable to imprison those who don't.
You should try out FarCry. For an insanely fun game, start in "Realistic" mode. If you're detected, the AI will circle around you and attack you from the back, if they're able to. It's kinda creepy.
switch (x)
{
};
No, otherwise satisfying the first condition inside a switch statement will cause your program to execute all statements inside of it.
I dislike vim for the simple reason that I have a Dvorak keyboard, and having to press HJKL to move around is one of the most unintuitive things ever. :-D
You have slain the goblin!
> l in corpse
You find 10 gold coins. IRS collects 2 of them.
Mine was $123.45.
What, you didn't hear? The latest technology requires you to have implants that bypass the ear drum and send signals straight to your brain. Without them, you won't hear the music at all!
This new HD-CD chipset will cost $1000 plus $10,000 installation fee. Each HD-CD will cost about $40.
There is also a law banning mandatory implants. We'll see how long until that law is repealed.
I have to express my opinion.
Gameplay and realism are two different concepts. The whole point of playing games is to get away from reality: whenever I get tired of dealing with real-life stuff, I turn on my favourite game and relax. If that game happens to have the same limitations that I am trying to avoid, then I will pick up a different game instead.
That's why I love Oni. It's simple; it requires minimal number of commands, and it's ridiculously fun.
That's why I love FarCry. It's unrealistic in that the first bullet of almost every gun is insanely accurate, but it makes the game that much more fun.
But realism? I stopped playing Soldier of Fortune as quickly as I started, because I didn't want to see each person die 20 different ways. I get annoyed with Half Life 2 every time I get hurt when I jump off a 6-foot ledge and lose health, because it substracts fun from the game, instead of adding to it.
When you think of a game, only its most memorable moments come to mind; the bland details are forgotten. Consider Half Life 2. What is more memorable: Ravenholm, or the trajectory of the crossbow as it curves down over time? The latter - an accomplishment of physics - is but a trivial detail, whereas the former leaves you with vivid images that you'll remember for quite a long time.
Now, Oblivion: for reasons described above, physics should be the last of its worries. It's definitely a great game for its time, but to be honest, it's not that much different from Morrowind: both have immense worlds; both have really neat graphics (for its time); both have absurd little annoying quests that you want to finish for the sake of completeness, but that tire you out over time? Even the fact that NPCs are talking doesn't really do much, because I get bored of the same voice actors, and read the subtitles to speed up the gameplay. No - what I'll remember are the Oblivion gates, the animation of casting magic, and the "feel" of each city.
Physics? I've seen plenty of ads for a PCI physics card; I don't need yet another article telling me that.
How exactly is that off-topic? Has the moderator even read the article?
This one is easy to explain. When I was growing up, I was playing games like Doom II, then Quake, then Quake 2, then Half Life, then Unreal. They were simple; I walked around, explored different areas, fought different monsters, and overall enjoyed yourself. But already I saw how games were maturing: Quake introduced "jump"; Half Life revolutionised WASD and online gameplay (you must admit: people competing online after Counter-Strike >> people competing online before Counter-Strike); Deus Ex and Morrowind revolutionised the FPS & RPG genre...
The game industry has grown up. No one wants to make simple shoot-em-ups anymore. (Painkiller is an exception.) Games now compete not only in graphics but also in physics, AI, gameplay, you name it. It's getting increasingly difficult to just "jump" into the genre; heck, even I get lost among all the new games that have been released. And I'm only discussing FPSs.
Marvel decided that it's a good idea to start the Ultimates story arc where all the characters are re-introduced, because kids of today have no way of reading up on 50 years of past comics. In the same way, teenagers of tomorrow will find themselves wondering in game stores, not knowing where exactly to start. (At least I do: whenever I'm presented with a new topic, I always try to go back in time to understand the mechanisms of the present.)
So as the gaming industry grows up, so do its fans. It's only natural.
You're right - I'm slightly over half that age. :-)