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Slashback: Attenuation, Maturity, Packaging
from the second-time-around dept.
Sorry, but the print doesn't get any smaller. If the recent release of the Foresight Institute's nanotech guidelines intriguing to you, you might want to check out the new forum for nanotech advances and issues. bento writes: "From the press release: "I'm happy to report that one of Foresight's long-term goals -- to have a way to meet online that truly works -- is now a reality at http://nanodot.org. We think of this site as our daily newspaper -- all the news that's fit to "print" -- combined with a continual Nanoschmooze discussion. No login is needed to read the site." For those who are interested in nanotechnology's social and technological implications, this site should prove a great resource in finding out what's up in the field of nanotechnology."
One man's trash is other people's trash, too. psxndc writes: "FGNOnline has the scoop about the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association unveiling new packaging options for PC Games at their annual conference. It brings up the point about games with large documentation not fitting into smaller DVD-type Keep Cases, but wasn't the digital revolution supposed to cut down if not eliminate the need for paper in the first place?? Most game-box contents are a jewel-cased CD, some docs, some ads, and a whole lot of unused space? Why?" Well, in the bad old days of the CD longbox (which are not that long ago), the most commonly cited reasons for the box of mostly-air were 1) the space is helpful for marketing purposes (pictures and blurbs and artwork, oh my!) and 2) everyone's favorite eupehmism for shoplifting, "shrinkage." Probably the same rules apply; game makers want to "stand out on the shelf." But if CDs can handle the switch, I bet games can, too.
How will the children survive? CuriousGeorge113 writes: "In a major decision today, a Federal Appeals Court has struck down COPA (The Children's Online Protection Act). According to this ACLU Press Release, a federal appeals court has deemed the law unconstitutional in nature and 'impossible to establish one "community standard" by which Internet speech could be governed.' You can also see the official court case here."
And in news that can only be called related ... Rude Turnip writes: "It looks like Mattel, one of the most despised toy companies discussed on Slashdot, is sellling off its notorious Cyber Patrol censorware. Cyber Patrol's parent company, The Learning Co., which is also owned by Mattel, is being sold off separately. Mattel said they would like to concentrate on their "core competency" of toys. The lucky buyer of Cyber Patrol is the British firm, JSB Software Technologies, PLC, who paid $100 million. With people like Jamie McCarthy out there fighting these purveyours of censorship and great sites like peacefire.org, I bet JSB will soon realize they paid just a little too much :-)" Maybe it's just not a sellers market; the article indicating that Cyber Patrol was to be sold went up a few months ago.
In six years, Tux will be driving. xannax writes: "I just bought a new IWILL VD133 motherboard, and after the usual setup and such, popped in the configuration cdrom - and was suprised to see a Linux kernel boot up on the monitor. When the cd boots, it gives users without an fdisk'ed partition a chance to make disks for board and chipset config; but the neat thing is the use of Linux for the cd. I mean, two years ago, when I wore my "Penguin Power" t-shirt, most of the attention I got was from hockey fans. But just as the logo on the shirt has faded from repeated washing, the exact opposite has happened to the visibility of the Linux OS; it's gone from hackers and nerds only to mainstream. Great to see a company with a reputation like IWILL use Linux in this fashion."
Come sirrah Jack Straw! MrM writes: "An IDG.net story on CNN says that in the face of increasing pressure from privacy groups, business groups and Internet service providers (ISPs), the U.K. government is backing away from some of the more controversial aspects of its e-mail surveillance bill currently under consideration in the House of Lords." The controversy is mostly over little things like, oh, (from the article) "Under the provisions of the RIP bill, the U.K. government -- specifically the Home Office and its head, the Home Secretary -- can demand encryption keys to any and all data communications with a prison sentence of two years for those who do not comply with the order."
Game packaging (Score:4)
The only possible advantages I see in online documentation:
Those are nice features, but I'd still choose paper any day of the week. I'm particularly fond of the emerging trend of packaging books with a CD-ROM containing the text of the book plus extra goodies - that way, you get the best of both worlds.
In summary, if it comes down to a choice between large packaging and online-only docs, I'll take the large packaging any day. Maybe I'm just selfish, but hey, I like books.
Re:That last thing... (Score:3)
Who says you'd even have to go to the trouble of actually encrypting it. Well encrypted data should be indistiguishable from randomness.
Not quite. Look at a PGP message, for instance. Most people would probably agree that, properly used, PGP provides good encryption--but it also has a very recognizable message format. There's an entity which specifies the algorithm to use (IDEA, 3DES, CAST128, etc.), an entity which is the sender's public key, an entity which is... etc., and so on. If the PGP message format was not precisely defined and recognizable, it would be vastly more difficult to use PGP. ("Damn! Err, okay, so what algorithm did they use to encrypt this, anyway?")
If all you want to do is run data through a cryptographic algorithm, then yes, it will come back out as something which should pass every statistical test for randomness.
Running data through a cryptographic system, what comes back out should be easily recognizable as the output of that specific system (unless, of course, the system was specifically designed to be indistinguishable from random noise).
Very few people use cryptographic algorithms by themselves. Most of the time, when people say "I encrypted it with Blowfish", they mean "I encrypted it using a cryptosystem which used Blowfish for its cryptographic core".
Chicken & Egg w/ PC boxes (Score:3)
Now console game companies can do it because the console maker can impose packaging standards from above in a way that noone can in the PC world. Everyone's equal, and no one has to go first.
That last thing... (Score:5)
While we're on that topic, if they're looking for evidence that you killed OJ's wife and find that you're innocent of that crime (Headline: Real Killers Still At Large!) but found that you bought a pound of crack and are the primary provider of Live Goat Porn for the east coast, can they legally convict you on those things? Touchy stuff, eh?
Meanwhile, I'm merrily encrypting data from /dev/random to (similarly random) keys and mailing it off to an assortment of random UK Citizens with various amusing filenames like "murderconfession.txt.pgp," "your_herion_is_in.txt.pgp" etc. Guess you guys will be pretty fucked when they come a knocking and demanding that you provide the keys. God I'm a bastard sometimes, really.
On the plus side, perhaps this would persuade people that it really IS a good idea to set the expiration date on those PGP keys. Nothing worse than being locked up for a couple of years because you can't remember the passphrase for the key you generated 8 years ago. And I expect Belgium will welcome the exodus of businesses leaving the UK. Have you been to Belgium? Every cloud has a silver lining, eh?
Re:Print manuals are always best (Score:3)
1) Find out a way to make browsing easier. Don't get this confused with searching, which is _much_ easier on the computer because you don't have to look things up in first the contents, then the index, while spending 10 sec. inbetween each step to find the page. Browsing, OTOH, is a _lot_ easier in a book, where you can just flip through and look for interesting stuff. As a programmer, I have no clue how this would be implemented, but it would help a lot.
2) Make it easier to read. Despite all the hype recently surrounding e-books, they still strain your eyes after a few hours.
3) Figure out how to display the manual without flipping away from a fullscreen game, something that will never be possible due to the nature of the beast. This is the biggest time when print manuals still rock.
Of course, the obvious solution is just to make the learning curve shallower... but hey
Ooo! Pretty Picture! Must be true! (Score:3)
Yup, you heard me. The chart is rigged. Both with carefully selected points and with outright fabricated data.
First, point selection: Where are the mini's and mainframes and supercomputers of the 80s/90s? ("They aren't the most cost effective!" you cry) Okay, then where are the wang and other desktop (sometimes desk-sized) programmable calculators of the 60's/70's? The HP and other pocket calculators of the 70's/80's? ("They aren't the same thing," you argue, weakly.)
Second, bad data: "Fine," I say, "then do you really expect me to believe that a Hollerith tabulator took 3-30 hrs per operation? 10^(-4) to 10^(-5)ops/sec (according to the chart) = 10,000-100,000 seconds/op. In fact, there isn't a single computer capable of 1 op/sec until 1950 in the chart. Am I to believe that business spent millions on computers that were far slower than a moderately bright child using an abacus?
And how about the Apple II, the first personal computer I owned -- a 6502 used two clocks (out of phase) at roughly 1 MHz to run 500K single cycle ops/sec. I don't recall any common op codes that took more than 5-6 cycles, but there may have been one or two oddballs at 7-8 under worst case scenarios. (Most took 2-3.) Yet the Apple is listed as being roughly 30K ops/sec? (log(ops/sec) = 4.5)?
"Oh but we're talking about 64-bit adds" you argue, whipping out your abacus "...er, make that 'multiply's!"
I could invent justifications for each point on the chart, but by the time you're done, you'll realize, as I did, that the chart isn't worth the paper it's written on, and that it is utterly shocking that this hasn't been pointed out and ridiculted a million times by now.
3-30 hours for a single operation? C'mon!
I like game manuals.. (Score:4)
I'd be perfectly happy if manuals for most apps were in digital form only, but when it comes to games, the printed manual is much preferred. This is mainly because when I'm playing a game, it's rather difficult to switch to a text editor to read up on how to do something, and then switch back to the game. Much easier to just keep the manual in my lap.
Public Statement (Score:3)
Jack Straw is introducing a LOT of new legislation that gives the Home Secretary (him) a LOT of power. In a way this is worse than dictators such as Hitler because Straw is doing this silently under the guise of protecting the public interest. He must be stopped from committing human rights crimes and I will try to do anything possible in the courts that I can to stop him.
Perhaps we do need some kind of new provisions in the law, but let's do it by extending existing laws not introducing new laws . I will not ever hand over my computer decryption keys and if the British Government don't like it then I'll have the ECHR remove them from office.
-- Jonathan.