Those of us who have know of 4chan for 10+ years can't help but be a little perplexed at this transformation of Anonymous into "Hacking Heroes of the People". For as long as I remember, Anonymous, or as they used to call themselves, "/b/tards", were more known for pulling elaborate Internet trolls, vandalizing web pages, and basically creating chaos just "for the lulz". Far from being heroic, these people could be a nightmare. Get the wrong kind of attention from the Anonymous horde, and find your personal information posted all over the web.
Then they chose a few targets who everybody agreed deserved it: white supremacists, Scientology, arrogant corporations. Suddenly the media decides they're heroes and everyone just eats it up.
Sorry, I don't buy it. This is the same group that popularized the phrase "TITS OR GTFO", who created Pedobear. I don't buy that these people have suddenly grown Hearts of Pure Good. In their heart, they still get off on creating chaos for fun, and eventually they'll go back to it. Some 4channers will web-harass some teenage girl who made an ass of herself on the Internet (as already happened once), or do something else morally reprehensible, and will use the Anonymous banner because why not? Then the media's collective head will explode as they try to understand why their wonderful Internet Bandit Heroes have turned bad.
I don't understand this. I can work with BitTorrent from behind my home router without doing anything special. It just works. Why would an additional level added at the ISP change anything? (Unless I don't understand what NAT is.)
Well, I guess it depends on your definition of the word "system". In recent years, I've designed, coded and implemented sets of new COBOL programs and CICS screens that automate processes that were still being done by hand. To me, that's a new system, especially since the user sees this development as something brand-new, not a addition to an existing set of screens. However, at the core, these new programs and screens have to interface with legacy files to manipulate data. If you require a system to be entirely new, even down to the data, you might disagree that this is a "new" system. But as far as the users are concerned, it's new.
Well, gee... I must be imagining the over 100 new COBOL programs I've written over the past seven years. You see, I do this for a living, and make a pretty decent living at that. I work for an insurance company. The policy and billing management systems are implemented in COBOL on an IBM mainframe, and if we want to keep pace with our competitors, new development is essential. Recently we upgraded the web interface external clients use to access our billing data. While that involved a lot of web design and Java programming, at its core was a set of brand new COBOL programs that fetch the data from the legacy system. (And send it back as XML. Yeah, COBOL can do that.)
I graduated from college in 1989, and didn't study COBOL because everyone told me it was a dead language. When I entered the job market in 1991, every job opening I found required COBOL experience. I was lucky to get a job with a consulting outfit that was willing to train me, and that was the beginning of an 18-year career programming COBOL, CICS, and occasionally DB2. Throughout that career, I would hear again and again that COBOL was a dinosaur language and was going away. Meanwhile, I continued to design and code new programs and systems in this supposedly dead language.
So you'll have to forgive me if I don't worry too much about the "death" of COBOL.
------RM
I just want to know when we get to laugh at them.
on
Angles On Anonymous
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· Score: 1
Seriously. I read on the web and hear on the news how Anonymous "crashed Visa.com and Mastercard.com"! Oooh! What a terrifying demonstration of their power! Let me check... Nope, both sites still up. Supposedly their next target was Amazon.com. If that was even true in the first place, the attack was ineffective.
C'mon folks -- These guys are a joke. They're not an awe-inspiring force of Internet destruction. They're an annoyance, a mosquito buzzing in your ear. So they took down a website for a moment or two. Like those sites have never been down before. The sites come back up, the world goes on. I doubt the majority of credit card customers were even aware anything had happened.
Face it, the only reason these kids are gaining so much attention is because the story sounds good on the news.
Look, it's not perfect, but for folks like me, who don't have either the time or the desire to craft a playlist for each mood I may happen to be in, it's a godsend. Before Genius came along, my options were either to listen to a specific album or artist, or shuffle the whole damn iPod. I'd do that occasionally, but the end result was heavy on Beatles and J-Pop. I obvious like both genres, or my iPod wouldn't be full of the stuff, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood for either. The Genius playlists do a decent job of segregating my collection into various flavors of rock, J-Pop, and anime soundtracks.
It's just a matter of convenience for this casual listener. I can understand why a more hardcore music collector (like say, someone who has 300+GB of music) might not find Genius sufficient. But then, I find it hard to believe such a collector would be satisfied with any automated playlist generator.
I'm not so sure. $33 million sounds like a lot, but it was the total for 27,000 players. That's an average of about $1,200 each. A nice check, but these guys aren't exactly high rollers. I'd be surprised if more than a tiny minority had the funds to open offshore accounts. ------RM
I dunno, man. Watching this today, I thought it was incredibly cool. But when I was in college 20 years ago, I was a different person. It was a difficult time for me, socially, and my dorm room was the only place I could "get away" when I needed to. I think I might have been a little bitter if I was told I had to let someone in to wire up lights, and essentially be kicked out on show night ('cuz it's not like you could study or sleep in there when the show was on). I find it hard to believe that with as many as 240 students affected, there wasn't at least one poor schmuck who just wanted to be left alone.
I guess I'm just saying that I hope this wasn't crammed down everyone's throats without giving them a choice.
So let's look at the AAA exclusives for PS3: Resistance, Motorstorm, Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Now the AAA exclusives for PS3: Zelda, Wii Sports(!?!), Wario Ware (?????).
Note that all three of the PS3 titles listed appeal primarily to young adult males. While the Wii titles appeal to kids, older adults, and women.
This is why Nintendo is winning this war, folks. Sony and Microsoft have narrowed their focus to the testosterone-junkie market, leaving all the little kids, old folks, and females to be served by the DS and Wii.
My wife is the big gamer in our house. She owns almost console ever made. Yet until Ratchet & Clank comes out, there won't be anything on the PS3 to grab her attention.
It's not about creating a champion. The point of teaching a computer to play go is all you learn about artificial intelligence in the process. It's a true challenge and one worth pursuing.
HD-DVD or Blu-Ray will overtake DVD at the time the prices of the hardware and software begin to approach that of DVD, and not a moment before. DVD had huge advantages over VHS: random access, special features, vastly better picture, and CD-quality stereo sound. The only advantage of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray over DVD is a better picture. But it's not a vastly better picture, and the difference is notable only on larger sets.
I own a modest 32" 720p LCD set. Over the weekend, a friend brought over his PS3 and we watched a little of the Talladega Nights disc. The picture was better than DVD, but not by much. Certainly not enough to inspire me to run out and drop $600+ on a PS3 or Blu-Ray player.
Now, if I'd owned a 50"+ 1080p set, I'm sure I would have been blown away. But I didn't feel like re-engineering my living space around a monster TV set, so I went for the smaller one. Most people who buy HDTV sets will be like me. The biggest growth in HDTV sales is around the 32" range. They're more affordable and easier to find room for.
So given all that, I don't expect consumers to stampede toward HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Eventually, the price of whichever format wins will drop to the point where there will no longer be any reason not to upgrade, and only then will you see the new format be taken up in large numbers.
I'm going to make a guess. The owner's manual describes some "purge" features that it recommends you use before selling your console. One of these functions purges the virtual store records. Wanna bet that de-authorizes the machine from your account? If so, when you sign on to the store from your new machine, you'd be given the option to re-download.
I point to the fact that I haven't played, let alone bought, FFXII yet, and I was once a big fan of the series.
Yeah, that's kinda obvious -- because if you had played it, you'd realize that FFXII breaks many if not most of the "conventions" you cite.
The plot's different. No sappy love story -- it's a strange combination of political intrigue and sorcery.
The spells are indeed different. Oh, there are "summons", but they're in there to satisfy the hard-core "old-schoolers" and are pretty much useless. My wife beat the game without using them.
Combat is not strictly turn-based. You attack enemies as you see them. You program your characters using what is essentially a rule-based expert system, freeing you from the constant use of menus.
You don't have to wait for the airship to jump all over the world. You have access to "teleport crystals" right off the bat which allow you to jump back to any previously visited area.
You can do side quests at any time, and some send you all over the world.
In short, unlike FFVII-X, FFXII is not "run on rails". You have a lot of freedom of activity. It's almost the "Grand Theft Auto" of Final Fantasy games.
FYI: The PS3 has sold slightly more units then the XBOX 360 sold in its first three months.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but during the XBox360's first three months, wasn't it the case that you couldn't find a unit on the shelves anywhere? And isn't it also true that, at the same point in the PS3's lifecycle, scads of them are currently gathering dust on shelves at retailers near everyone?
And where I live, they sit in a stack on the sales floor along side the PS3's.
Horsesh*t. Take a picture and post it somewhere. If there's a retailer that has a "stack" of Wiis on the sales floor, that has to be the world's dumbest retailer. I think this "magic land of easy-to-get Wiis" would be huge news on the gaming blogs.
Look, if running around doing tasks, and performing repetitive tasks to level up bore you, then maybe RPGs aren't for you. My wife absolutely loves RPGs. They are by far and away her favorite gaming genre. She is currently engrossed in FFXII. For her, levelling up isn't a chore, it's one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. She finds it relaxing to spend an hour or two slaughtering beasts in one region or another so she can get the license points she needs to give this character or that better weapons, or more HP.
RPGs aren't for impatient people, and they never will be.
I don't have the time or the inclination to spend
hours a day learning arcane controller-button sequences.
Preach on, brother!
Thanks to the Wii, I'm finding myself excited by the prospect of playing video games. The last time I was this excited was when my parents owned a Commodore 64, and most games were controlled by a joystick with one fire button.
I'm no gamer. Always wanted to be, but the controllers always put me off.
Well, no. With just half of the Xbox 360 users having connected their 360 to the Internet and used Xbox Live Silver or Gold in any form, I doubt the Wii has even half of it's users connected to the Internet and taking advantage of the channels.
There's a big difference with the Wii. Internet connectivity on the XBox360 is primarily for online games. The Wii, on the other hand, has several online channels installed by default that have nothing to do with online gaming. Unless it's a huge hassle to do so, every owner is going to hook the Wii up just to try out the News and Weather channels.
Plus, the Virtual Console is a huge selling point.
The fact of the matter is that you're still more likely *not* to see a PS3 on the shelf than you are to see one available.
That very much depends on where you are, doesn't it? My local Target has had the same two 60GB PS3s sitting on the shelf for weeks! Meanwhile, the same store still has to give out tickets to campers when it gets Wiis, three months after launch.
Yeah, this is an anecdote, but c'mon! How is this even possible, unless the PS3 really is having sales problems? (Unless between each visit, the store is selling the PS3s, getting two more, and painstakingly arranging them in the precise same position on the shelf.)
The DMCA is supposed to mean that YouTube and Google are not responsible for what their users upload, but are obliged to remove all copyrighted material when requested to do so by the copyright holders.
Think about what that means. Yes, YouTube removes copyrighted material as soon as it is aware, but more copyrighted material is posted as fast as they can remove it. This means that, at any given time, YouTube is full of copyrighted material, even if they are complying with the DMCA. And they're making money off it via advertising.
Nice racket, huh? It's a way to make money off other people's property. Just remove the offending material at the same rate it comes in.
Trust me, either a court will find that the DMCA doesn't allow this, or the DMCA will be amended to specifically forbid it.
This is what Peak Oil sceptics don't get: Yes, we have a shitload of oil, but when you eliminate the stuff that's a PITA to recover, it doesn't leave a whole lot.
Right. Because we'll never, EVER invent newer and better technologies that make it easier to get at that "hard to recover" oil.
Having said that, I still don't belive a 53C cup of liquid poured on to bare skin would require a graft.
As I recall, the victim was wearing sweatpants, which absorbed the hot liquid and held it against her legs long enough to inflict the burns. It wasn't instantaneous.
------RM
Slashdot Mirror
Those of us who have know of 4chan for 10+ years can't help but be a little perplexed at this transformation of Anonymous into "Hacking Heroes of the People". For as long as I remember, Anonymous, or as they used to call themselves, "/b/tards", were more known for pulling elaborate Internet trolls, vandalizing web pages, and basically creating chaos just "for the lulz". Far from being heroic, these people could be a nightmare. Get the wrong kind of attention from the Anonymous horde, and find your personal information posted all over the web.
Then they chose a few targets who everybody agreed deserved it: white supremacists, Scientology, arrogant corporations. Suddenly the media decides they're heroes and everyone just eats it up.
Sorry, I don't buy it. This is the same group that popularized the phrase "TITS OR GTFO", who created Pedobear. I don't buy that these people have suddenly grown Hearts of Pure Good. In their heart, they still get off on creating chaos for fun, and eventually they'll go back to it. Some 4channers will web-harass some teenage girl who made an ass of herself on the Internet (as already happened once), or do something else morally reprehensible, and will use the Anonymous banner because why not? Then the media's collective head will explode as they try to understand why their wonderful Internet Bandit Heroes have turned bad.
------RM
I don't understand this. I can work with BitTorrent from behind my home router without doing anything special. It just works. Why would an additional level added at the ISP change anything? (Unless I don't understand what NAT is.)
------RM
Well, I guess it depends on your definition of the word "system". In recent years, I've designed, coded and implemented sets of new COBOL programs and CICS screens that automate processes that were still being done by hand. To me, that's a new system, especially since the user sees this development as something brand-new, not a addition to an existing set of screens. However, at the core, these new programs and screens have to interface with legacy files to manipulate data. If you require a system to be entirely new, even down to the data, you might disagree that this is a "new" system. But as far as the users are concerned, it's new.
------RM
Well, gee... I must be imagining the over 100 new COBOL programs I've written over the past seven years. You see, I do this for a living, and make a pretty decent living at that. I work for an insurance company. The policy and billing management systems are implemented in COBOL on an IBM mainframe, and if we want to keep pace with our competitors, new development is essential. Recently we upgraded the web interface external clients use to access our billing data. While that involved a lot of web design and Java programming, at its core was a set of brand new COBOL programs that fetch the data from the legacy system. (And send it back as XML. Yeah, COBOL can do that.)
I graduated from college in 1989, and didn't study COBOL because everyone told me it was a dead language. When I entered the job market in 1991, every job opening I found required COBOL experience. I was lucky to get a job with a consulting outfit that was willing to train me, and that was the beginning of an 18-year career programming COBOL, CICS, and occasionally DB2. Throughout that career, I would hear again and again that COBOL was a dinosaur language and was going away. Meanwhile, I continued to design and code new programs and systems in this supposedly dead language.
So you'll have to forgive me if I don't worry too much about the "death" of COBOL.
------RM
Seriously. I read on the web and hear on the news how Anonymous "crashed Visa.com and Mastercard.com"! Oooh! What a terrifying demonstration of their power! Let me check... Nope, both sites still up. Supposedly their next target was Amazon.com. If that was even true in the first place, the attack was ineffective.
C'mon folks -- These guys are a joke. They're not an awe-inspiring force of Internet destruction. They're an annoyance, a mosquito buzzing in your ear. So they took down a website for a moment or two. Like those sites have never been down before. The sites come back up, the world goes on. I doubt the majority of credit card customers were even aware anything had happened.
Face it, the only reason these kids are gaining so much attention is because the story sounds good on the news.
------RM
They use hover-cover.
(Now to see if I'm the only person in the universe who still gets that reference.)
------RM
Well, actually, yes. I use Genius. A lot.
Look, it's not perfect, but for folks like me, who don't have either the time or the desire to craft a playlist for each mood I may happen to be in, it's a godsend. Before Genius came along, my options were either to listen to a specific album or artist, or shuffle the whole damn iPod. I'd do that occasionally, but the end result was heavy on Beatles and J-Pop. I obvious like both genres, or my iPod wouldn't be full of the stuff, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood for either. The Genius playlists do a decent job of segregating my collection into various flavors of rock, J-Pop, and anime soundtracks.
It's just a matter of convenience for this casual listener. I can understand why a more hardcore music collector (like say, someone who has 300+GB of music) might not find Genius sufficient. But then, I find it hard to believe such a collector would be satisfied with any automated playlist generator.
------RM
I'm not so sure. $33 million sounds like a lot, but it was the total for 27,000 players. That's an average of about $1,200 each. A nice check, but these guys aren't exactly high rollers. I'd be surprised if more than a tiny minority had the funds to open offshore accounts.
------RM
I dunno, man. Watching this today, I thought it was incredibly cool. But when I was in college 20 years ago, I was a different person. It was a difficult time for me, socially, and my dorm room was the only place I could "get away" when I needed to. I think I might have been a little bitter if I was told I had to let someone in to wire up lights, and essentially be kicked out on show night ('cuz it's not like you could study or sleep in there when the show was on). I find it hard to believe that with as many as 240 students affected, there wasn't at least one poor schmuck who just wanted to be left alone.
I guess I'm just saying that I hope this wasn't crammed down everyone's throats without giving them a choice.
------RM
This is why Nintendo is winning this war, folks. Sony and Microsoft have narrowed their focus to the testosterone-junkie market, leaving all the little kids, old folks, and females to be served by the DS and Wii.
My wife is the big gamer in our house. She owns almost console ever made. Yet until Ratchet & Clank comes out, there won't be anything on the PS3 to grab her attention.
------RM
------RM
I own a modest 32" 720p LCD set. Over the weekend, a friend brought over his PS3 and we watched a little of the Talladega Nights disc. The picture was better than DVD, but not by much. Certainly not enough to inspire me to run out and drop $600+ on a PS3 or Blu-Ray player.
Now, if I'd owned a 50"+ 1080p set, I'm sure I would have been blown away. But I didn't feel like re-engineering my living space around a monster TV set, so I went for the smaller one. Most people who buy HDTV sets will be like me. The biggest growth in HDTV sales is around the 32" range. They're more affordable and easier to find room for.
So given all that, I don't expect consumers to stampede toward HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Eventually, the price of whichever format wins will drop to the point where there will no longer be any reason not to upgrade, and only then will you see the new format be taken up in large numbers.
------RM
------RM
Yeah, that's kinda obvious -- because if you had played it, you'd realize that FFXII breaks many if not most of the "conventions" you cite.
In short, unlike FFVII-X, FFXII is not "run on rails". You have a lot of freedom of activity. It's almost the "Grand Theft Auto" of Final Fantasy games.
------RM
Habbo used to have more users, but they all left when the pool was closed due to AIDS. ------RM
Sez you! I'd love to see a super-deformed Kratos rampaging through the Mii Plaza, decapitating Miis left and right!
------RM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but during the XBox360's first three months, wasn't it the case that you couldn't find a unit on the shelves anywhere? And isn't it also true that, at the same point in the PS3's lifecycle, scads of them are currently gathering dust on shelves at retailers near everyone?
Really, the two situations are not comparable.
------RM
Horsesh*t. Take a picture and post it somewhere. If there's a retailer that has a "stack" of Wiis on the sales floor, that has to be the world's dumbest retailer. I think this "magic land of easy-to-get Wiis" would be huge news on the gaming blogs.
In other words, I don't believe you.
------RM
RPGs aren't for impatient people, and they never will be.
------RM
Preach on, brother!
Thanks to the Wii, I'm finding myself excited by the prospect of playing video games. The last time I was this excited was when my parents owned a Commodore 64, and most games were controlled by a joystick with one fire button.
I'm no gamer. Always wanted to be, but the controllers always put me off.
------RM
There's a big difference with the Wii. Internet connectivity on the XBox360 is primarily for online games. The Wii, on the other hand, has several online channels installed by default that have nothing to do with online gaming. Unless it's a huge hassle to do so, every owner is going to hook the Wii up just to try out the News and Weather channels.
Plus, the Virtual Console is a huge selling point.
------RM
That very much depends on where you are, doesn't it? My local Target has had the same two 60GB PS3s sitting on the shelf for weeks! Meanwhile, the same store still has to give out tickets to campers when it gets Wiis, three months after launch.
Yeah, this is an anecdote, but c'mon! How is this even possible, unless the PS3 really is having sales problems? (Unless between each visit, the store is selling the PS3s, getting two more, and painstakingly arranging them in the precise same position on the shelf.)
------RM
Nice racket, huh? It's a way to make money off other people's property. Just remove the offending material at the same rate it comes in.
Trust me, either a court will find that the DMCA doesn't allow this, or the DMCA will be amended to specifically forbid it.
------RM
------RM
As I recall, the victim was wearing sweatpants, which absorbed the hot liquid and held it against her legs long enough to inflict the burns. It wasn't instantaneous. ------RM