Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: The United States of Surveillance?, in reply to Rich Lock,
They should have their contest on an island, someway off the mainland, inviting only the elite fighters from all around the world. We could send Sonny Bill Williams, who wouldn't even notice when he's beat because he'll be too busy looking good. I'd like to see Winston Peters play the grumpy old coach.
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Hard News: The United States of Surveillance?, in reply to David Hood,
The advantages are a little underwhelming. Their intelligence meant they kept the Pacific Fleet small. Not sure if that was a sound strategy in the end. But hell, the Peace to end all Peace wasn't played well by anyone.
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Field Theory: Part of the Game, in reply to Gareth Davidson,
And it was bloody funny, and bloody good fun.
Indeed, without profanity and homophobia, you actually have to say something witty. It's quite inspiring to hear people sledging each other with actual wit.
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Field Theory: Part of the Game, in reply to Euan Mason,
I would have raised my eyebrows under water.
You can pretty much yell anything you like underwater and get away with it. It's very therapeutic, actually. Talking audibly underwater is quite an art. You have to do it with your mouth shut.
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Capture: Autumn lite, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Save it to my desktop and turn it upside down and it becomes blindingly clear. Look at it upside down again and I’m struggling :) Great photo.
Yes, it's a clever optical illusion. The fact that the waterline is indistinct and not straight made it hard to spot what was going on. I couldn't even see the scum in the water by the sticks that are poking out, but invert the picture and it's really obvious. One doesn't expect to find scum in the clouds.
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Hard News: Media3: Game On, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
How would an Android console world work?
Pretty much like the Android device world works generally, just with consoles. A device as grunty as you want it, in a state of continual upgrade. The 1% will buy the latest one, always, because it's the best. 95% of people will wait a couple of years for it to be worth $100. 99% of the games will be low budget. 1% will be made by big houses, who will make 99% of the actual money. Hardware vendors will compete viciously with each other over every feature. On release day, the console will already have several hundred thousand compatible apps, 30% of which will be games, 95% of which are free with ads. Every kid who likes playing games will have more games than they could ever play in a lifetime, for a few hundred dollars. The hardware will be compatible with every device, including the controllers from the big hardware manufacturers, every type of disk format, wire connection, playback CODEC, etc.
It's a scary vision!
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Alternatively, some people held that they both fell flat.
I didn't even need to look at the link to know that would be the Indie-lovers saying that. Interesting idea, though, that Android could open a world of hurt for the gaming console giants. But so long as there is a market for the high budget games, I'm pretty sure the high budget hardware developers will have their market.
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Hard News: The United States of Surveillance?, in reply to Sacha,
I helps if you know their negotiating postions as you go.
I guess so. But really, when you're holding the cards, you're holding them. Eventually, they all get played. Most of the real sorting into who gets what happens at the deal, not during the playing. If you have a bottom line, then you stick to it. If something else is offered, you weigh up whether it's worth it. It's not really a magical secret process - if it is, as I said, then it's really dysfunctional to even play the game. Why the hell should sorting out international trade be like high stakes poker? What a ridiculous way to organize things.
Also, on the security of communication angle, I can't fathom how any government in this day and age couldn't work out how to make their communication 100% secure from being compromised by encryption attacks. Against a physical compromise it's more tricky, but it's also far easier to get caught out and shamed doing that. Given I could write the code to make a system that would be secure against even infinite decryption power, and it's not even an area of specialization for me, I can only assume that if delegates have been hacked in that way, then the security spooks either can't be bothered, or they actively don't want the delegates to have communications that can't be spyed on.
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Hard News: The United States of Surveillance?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I’m not sure what they want to keep quiet, but it’s one of the ostensible reasons for giving GCSB all that money and power.
Not having anything to keep quiet is an ostensible reason to remove that money and power. And that's the least of the reasons not to have anything to keep quiet. The main reason is because transparency in our political and economic agreements is actually a good thing, in a democracy. It doesn't matter how competently or incompetently they keep secrets, the point is that they shouldn't be keeping secrets. I could possibly understand secrecy if the discussions were of a military nature.
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Hard News: The United States of Surveillance?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Do we even have anything we'd be trying to keep secret from Cheltenham/Langley? I don't know how these conferences work, what the great need for secrecy even is. Surely nations turn up with their list of wants and find some compromise. How much of that is really secret? If it is secret, it strikes me as also incredibly dysfunctional.
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