And I think message really shows the problem: Let me show how I as a user see the beta communication:

Hey, we have this total broken beta slashdot site, and in a few months you will all be forced to use it if you want to browse slashdot. But don't worry we hope we will fix the worst bugs before the cutoff date.

Which raise the question: If you know its so broken that most people find it useless, why do you present it as "The new slashdot, which all users will be forced to browse in a few months".

Nope, it is getting anoying. But still: beta is so so much more anoying that all I want to say is

Fuck beta.

So why are you forcing users to use the beta when you even admit it's not done ?

To stay kinda on-topic, it reminds me of the release of kde 4.0

But I really hope the tech team will take a step back, look at why anyone thinks beta stops, and then do a re-design so we get a new usable site instead of beta.

ps: What about talking to the guys which did stackoverflow. They might want to take over development and they kinda know how to make modern cool websites.

So search for "Firefox 28" instead.

The problem with using names is that you then have to map them back to numbers to use. If this feature is included in Firefox ugly cat, and later, does it work in firefox 24?

No we are not. We are just forced to set eclipse to generate code which is compatible with Java 6. But there is absolutely no reason to use java 6, just because you do Android development.

Not as long as we have to write them in javascript. javascript might be an ok language, but it is not designed to help with development of large projects. The type system, and the prototype based objects are not good at doing that.

But if Oracle require special performance tuning which none of the other databases does, then it does suck in 90+ percent of all usecases for sql servers(That is: The usecases where there is no fulltime person hired just to tune the database).
   

They are not making mandatory sentences.

They are saying, that the MAXIMUM sentences a country can give for hacking, must be at least 2 years.

A: That is not possible. In order to crack the game, there need to be a protection to crack. There is none.
B: They can't do that. There is no code which phones home, so they can't remove it.

Would the "Try before buy" guys not play with the demo instead of the pirated copy?
Besides they will know what happend, and then buy the game if they like it, on not buy it if they don't

Let me try to explain it:

Java (The language and vm) does in general allow code to do anything. Mess up the system, call native methods and so on. In this it is no different from other languages such as c++ and php, which is why no one are running c++ og php directly in a browser*.

But sun wanted to be able to run Java code in the browser, so they made an security manager, which in principle allow you to specify exactly what parts of the java standard library a program should have access to. So you can restrict file access, to specific sub directories. Control thread and process control, class loading and so on.

So each call to a potential dangerous method first goes to the system manager to ask for permission, and if permission is granted the rest of the method is executed. And here is part of the problem: Default for all methods is access granted if there is no call to the security manager.

So for every method in the Java library, they had to determine if it could me misused, and it it could be misused, they had to insert call to the security manager to verify that the user have access to use this method in this way based on the arguments to the method.

And just one method which don't verify its argument as good as it should is enough to grant access.

The problem is made far worse by the combination of the java class loader which loads classes dynamicly, and the java reflection api which allows dynamic class loading and method calling. Verifying that code can't use the reflection and class loader to bypass the security system is really difficult, as proved by the many security problems.

So when people say the problem is in the java browser plugin, they are not exactly right. The problems are in the java security manager, but I think the browser plugin is the only component which uses the security manager. Our server code for example don't need a security manager to control exactly what our code have access to, because the code is written by guys we trust, and the rest of the security is handled by the system.

*Or at least should not. Active X is Microsofts version of the "Try to run untrusted general purpose code in the browser project". And its security record is as bad as javas.

You can make a region private. That way only you, or frieds who you explicit invite can play a city in the region. That way it is single player.

Don't prove much. Remember: All the citys in the region(Normally 3 or 5, but can be up to 16) will in most cases be controlled by the same player. No need for internet to emulate that.

Yes the game does have an online global component, but its effect is currently very limited, and the game would work just as fine without it. Its only effect is that the import/export prices changes, based on the import/export of all cityes on your server. You could just use a random function to change the prices of resources, and the game would run fine without any internet.

I guess the reason the pirates don't have a working server already, is that it's very difficult to reverse-engineer the client/server communication as long as it is as unreliable as it currently is.

The "Facebook like" referer to the fact that you get free items(Firetruck, police cars and so on) which you can't use in your own city, but which you can give to an other city and earn a bonus that way. Like all the facebook games, where you give resources to your facebook frinds.