Game Development

MickLH

4:00 PM

Ok so the system gain is too low to maintain oscillation

Where is the feedback path anyways?

John McDonald

All overlaid, based on time since the first post for the jam it was in:

SpartanDonut

It's beautiful

John McDonald

@SpartanDonut Thanks! (I realized that I screen capped, but hadn't uploaded it anywhere)

SpartanDonut

:P

John McDonald

So... there's a bit of a correlation, eh? Could be that voters come in during the jam, and only vote on what they see and never come back, OR it could be that the earlier submissions have had time to polish and are completely done in good time and thus are more likely to get votes

AttackingHobo

4:11 PM

@JohnMcDonald some kind of combo of both

John McDonald

Probably

AttackingHobo

I bet there are people who voted and then never came back to the page

MLM

@JohnMcDonald I would agree with that.

Costava touched on the first point

user4704

We can't really prevent voting until the jam is over without also preventing posts.

user4704

Unless we did a particularly ugly hack.

AttackingHobo

4:14 PM

@JoshPetrie Thats what Constava sugested. Don't allow posts till the jam is done.

MLM

Community wiki, Do they have votes? How do the moderator elections work?

John McDonald

yeah, there's really only 2 ways to do it: 1) Copy all of the answers to a new post for voting (what a pain) 2) Don't use SE

user4704

@MLM Wiki posts have votes, they just don't count against reputation. Elections can only be triggered by SE and only work as elections.

user4704

Yea, we'd have to do John's first option basically.

user4704

We let people submit their games into the jam thread, but don't "count" the scores.

user4704

4:16 PM

After the jam ends, a moderator locks the post and creates a new thread, posting all the games into it as separate answers.

John McDonald

I can see that getting messy really fast

user4704

I can see how it could be done; you'd have to bake the post beforehand in a text editor or whatever. But yeah. Not pretty. I don't want to do it.

user4704

I think if we want to keep having these we should build software for it.

MLM

Separate meta questions. Merged into another as answers? (messy)

user4704

It's really starting to get clunky.

user4704

4:18 PM

@MLM Yeah. I'd have to check what merging actually does to the answers too. I've never done it.

John McDonald

@MLM, I'm going to make some minor modifications to a couple of your words if that's alright. Merge some of the word pairs, and remove the parenthesis that is specifying how to interpret your word

MLM

@JohnMcDonald You mean add a dash? No problem with the parenthesis being removed on the one.

Feel free to use the email if you want to clarify

SpartanDonut

4:36 PM

Well I've got a rough prototype of custom game jam software that lost interest after I went on vacation this April.... I'm very willing to develop this if an individual or small committee would like to provide requirements that I can work closely with - gamejammed.com/GDSESpring2014

user4704

What is it built in?

SpartanDonut

MS MVC. I forget which version of MVC and EF I'm using right now

I think the SE API even allows me to authenticate users so we could implement a "Login with SE" type functionality

(or require it)

And when I say "allows me to authenticate users" I of course mean the way that OAuth works which isn't actually me doing the authentication...

AttackingHobo

So Apple's Tim Cook came out today. "Tim Cook is as straight as an iPhone 6 Plus"

Shroeder

Whats the deal with the new MoP for the iPhone. I got the generic news this morning about merchants backing out on the adoption of it after already having the hardware implementation ready.

user4704

@Shroeder MoP?

user4704

4:44 PM

Are you talking about the CurrentC / MCX debacle?

Shroeder

Method of Payment, and maybe? I am sorry I don't know the specifics.

user4704

You probably are.

user4704

There are two issues, distinct but correlated.

user4704

In early October Apple turned on Apple Pay, which is an NFC-based mobile payment system that works with it's TouchID stuff and focuses on convenience and privacy (in the sense that merchants who process the transactions with Apple Pay do not get to see anything about you -- not your name, your card numbers, etc; just an anonymous token).

user4704

For the last few years a conglomerate of retailers called the Merchant's Customer Exchange have been working on an alternative mobile payment processing system called CurrentC.

user4704

4:49 PM

CurrentC's main point is avoiding credit cards, so merchant's do not have to eat the credit card swipe fees. It's also focused on gathering customer information, and using it to feed into loyalty card programs and so on.

AttackingHobo

CurrentC already got hacked. Not interested at all in their BS.

user4704

A few weeks after Apple Pay went live, a few retailers disabled their NFC terminals -- effectively turning off both Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

user4704

Turns out these retailers are MCX retailers, and are presumably doing this because they are contractually obligated (although that's been denied by MCX now) or are just trying to discourage adoption of Apple Pay in the hope that when CurrentC starts to roll out next summer that people will prefer it.

user4704

A lot of people -- particularly pro-Apple folks -- have tried to spin this thing as a "MCX-versus-Apple" thing, which is maybe sort of kind of realistic.

user4704

But mostly CurrentC is a horrible, horrible system irrespective of Apple and Apple Pay.

3

user4704

4:52 PM

It's massively clunky, using QR codes and mobile apps and token-based handshakes, it requires a massive investment of your personal data (social security number, bank account numbers), and it works as a debit system and not a credit system (obviously, to avoid CC swipe fees), which means it's probably got much, much weaker fraud protection than credit cards do.

user4704

And they've already been compromised. There was an interesting article on iMore about the data they potentially collection and/or will send back to you in the clear.

Seth Battin

it's comical how often people try to avoid credit cards fees without understanding the difficulty of protecting financial infomation

user4704

Here: imore.com/…

snake5

@JoshPetrie whoa, QR codes for payment? what kind of crap is that

Seth Battin

QR codes as tokens

user4704

4:54 PM

@SethBattin And to be clear, CurrentC doesn't avoid fees for the customer, only the merchant. There's basically no benefit to the customer in this system at all, unless you really really like loyalty cards.

user4704

(which themselves mainly exist for merchants to data mine your soul)

snake5

@SethBattin how's that work?

Seth Battin

@JoshPetrie I said people, i sohuld have said "entities who want to process digital payments"

snake5

iirc, QR are made to be scanned by a camera

user4704

@SethBattin Yeah, I said that mostly for the clarification of other people listening.

snake5

4:55 PM

and camera likes to wear a phone's battery down quite fast

Seth Battin

QR codes hold arbitrary data, which can be completely random tokens

user4704

so that imore article points out that this huge dictionary of data is sent back to you regardless of which email you send to CurrentC as a login.

snake5

@SethBattin obviously, I'm just concerned about the way the data is delivered

user4704

So in theory if you knew the email of somebody who was using the system right now, you could get their address and stuff just by trying to log in with their email

Seth Battin

@snake5 oh, so, you try to authenticate a payment with merchant,

user4704

4:57 PM

(I don't think there has been any confirmation of this, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is how they got customer emails leaked)

Seth Battin

you can isntead authenticate with 3rd party (for example only, facebook)

you give facebook your password, then facebook gives you a token

then you give the token to merchant, merchant sends token to facebook, facebook verifies it

now you have authenticated with merchant without actually submitting identifying information to them

payment tokens should work identically...but who knows if CurrentC does that properly

snake5

oh, I understand how tokens work

I'd like to know how CurrentC does it with QR codes

Seth Battin

oh, i guess i'm totally speculating here

but QR would make an ok medium if NFC isn't available

that's really all that i meant

snake5

oh, well, what about bluetooth/IR?

Seth Battin

sure, those woudl be fine too

snake5

5:00 PM

QR seems like a waste of battery life

AttackingHobo

@snake5 all merchants have scanners, they would just use the code

@snake5 that doesn't make sense

snake5

only good for printed ads, the way I see it

Seth Battin

well, displaying them isn't that hard, expect for the backlight

generating them does not require a camera

snake5

@AttackingHobo battery life of the scanning device

AttackingHobo

you show the QR code for a few seconds and its scanned.

Seth Battin

5:01 PM

scanning device does not need portable power

well...not at retail, i guess

snake5

oh, so it's the other way around?

phone shows QR and store device reads it?

AttackingHobo

does the store give you money when you buy stuff?

user4704

Starbucks is the only corporation that has made QR codes a viable method for payment.

AttackingHobo

hmmm not sure. might be both ways

but really scanning a code doesn't take that much power at all

user4704

QR codes are laughable, and CurrentC is DOA.

Seth Battin

5:02 PM

it is an antiquated technical design, i agree

user4704

Especially after this thing, which has drummed up basically nothing but massively negative press for them.

user4704

(their apps on Google and iOS have been tanked to 1-star ratings, thousands of them)

Seth Battin

quick work rant:

i am current parsing XML that is sent with a wrong encoding written at the top of it in order to extract a single continuous string of error messages from one node which was generated by serializing a stack trace from a caught exception, in order to determine why a "RESTful" service which transmits all its data in post-body-XML failed

god damn it

snake5

indeed

Shroeder

6:09 PM

Thank you for the knowledge bomb @JoshPetrie, helpful as always.

user4704

This Microsoft Band thing came out of left field a little bit.

CaptainRedmuff

Doesn't look half bad though

interested to see how accurate the UV sensor is

i.e.: wearing it under a long sleeve shirt would throw off the readings

AttackingHobo

@CaptainRedmuff how are you going to look at it, if its under a shirt?

CaptainRedmuff

;]

Shroeder

@Josh Petrie Have you looked into Microsoft's Project Spark at all? Can a person make a "full" game from this?

CaptainRedmuff

6:15 PM

I don't know. Surely you wouldn't wear it over the cuffs of your shirt though.

user4704

It's not a watch; isn't the point of most of these things to sit passively and collect data?

user4704

I figured you'd pull your sleeve up to look at it if you needed to.

user4704

It doesn't sound like the UV sensor is a passive collector though, so it shouldn't matter if it's normally under a shirt.

AttackingHobo

@JoshPetrie if you are looking at it to get real time UV info, its not going to be under a shirt.

exactly

user4704

This: microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-us/support/tiles/uv suggests you activate it to gather a sample, so it's not like it's passively graphing your UV exposure over the day (where it would be a problem if it were under a shirt).

user4704

6:18 PM

@Shroeder Sure you can.

Noctrine

Every time I have a good run going in FTL - something comes along and destroys me

Shroeder

How do the users generate custom content?

Like Models, for instance.

user4704

I dunno, I've never used it.

Shroeder

Okay:P

Noctrine

You should ask on the main site :O

user4704

6:20 PM

Would need to be a little more specific.

Shroeder

I'm wondering if Microsoft releases content packages that people buy.

Or if they are providing graphical tools to generate models.

user4704

►

user4704

First hit for "project spark custom model import" or something like that.

Shroeder

What to do when someone posts a question as an answer to an old topic? gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/73234/…

user4704

If it's not an answer, flag it as such.

user4704

6:23 PM

Doesn't matter how old the question is.

Noctrine

Answers are just for answering the question.

You actually get badges and stuff for answering old questions

user4704

Users should especially be discouraged from commenting in answers because "they can't comment yet."

Almo

^

John McDonald

This is going to be an enormous jam if everyone that has submitted words actually competes. There are 22 submissions so far

Almo

I won't be; have too much other stuff to do this weekend

but I think I gave you some good words for it :)

John McDonald

6:34 PM

Yes you did. I'll still assign you some words, but we may recycle them for stragglers

SpartanDonut

My goal is to make something tiny. First weekend my brother is back in Wisconsin so I may or may not spend some time with him depending on his other plans

John McDonald

:) small is good

Almo

@JohnMcDonald ok

SpartanDonut

tehwardy just went live on twitch!

Almo

yeah i got the memo too :)

MickLH

6:48 PM

So I'm charging $1000 / hour now :)

SpartanDonut

Damn. I'm only worth like $150 to my company :(

MickLH

I am much happier with my job situation now, but it's not as crazy as it sounds because I finish projects that take a team 2 hours, by myself in 30 minutes

Almo

so what you're saying is that you're still competitively priced

just that you have a much higher $/time efficiency ratio

MickLH

Pretty much... and then I actually just address the issues that come up in testing, instead of pointing fingers.

Almo

:D

Shroeder

6:52 PM

Haha

MickLH

lol I've been up all night though and the world around me is feeling spatially distorted

so it took me 38 minutes this morning instead of 30

Jon

got my bombs roughed in, blam

Lasse

7:10 PM

welcome to finland :D

people queue here for $1 buckets and burgers

Icy Defiance

advisory says to assume all versions of the Drupal 7.x branch before version 7.32 are compromised. some sql injection vulnerability allowing people to take control of the thing, run code on it, etc.

Almo

woa

Icy Defiance

best part is, they knew about the vulnerability since November 2013 and didn't do anything about it until another researcher discovered it and made it public knowledge, so people started making automated attacks.

infoworld.com/article/2840939/security/…

Almo

:o

"Worse, in some instances compromised websites were actually patched by the attackers, in order to prevent further exploitation."

Jon

thats nice

Almo

7:18 PM

"Either way, the entire server will need to be checked for malicious code, and signs of malicious activity. This is because a single vulnerable Drupal install is all that's needed to compromise the server and all the other websites on it, which compounds the problem for administrators hosting Drupal on re-seller hosting accounts or shared hosting environments."

Lasse

hmm would it be against US law to make a virus that fixes the vulnerabilities it got inside your system and then removing itself?

Jon

White Hat hacking

user4704

@Lasse law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030#a_5

Lasse

I'm sure it would be illegal in finland at least, because it would be counted as harassing other systems

Jon

Icy Defiance

7:20 PM

it would probably be illegal in the US too, but it's not like creators of actual malware ever get arrested

user4704

a.5.a suggests it would be illegal, since you hve to cause the harm to repair it.

Lasse

a protected computer? how about unprotected?

wouldn't it be unprotected against the attack if the attack gets through? :D

user4704

Unclear what "protected" means here, looking.

user4704

Doesn't seem to define it.

user4704

So it could mean anything.

Almo

7:22 PM

typical

user4704

Password-protected? Behind any consumer-grade firewall?

Lasse

but the port would be then opened up that uses the vulnerability, wouldn't that make it unprotected on that particular port?

user4704

I think this implicitly defines it:

user4704

"intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains"

user4704

so for example if you don't "have authorization."

Lasse

7:24 PM

yeah that would be it

user4704

Anyway, I'm not a lawyer, but my reading of this one law (and my gut feeling) suggests "nope."

Lasse

but if the virus removes itself, how can they know it was my virus doing it?

user4704

Irrelevant.

user4704

If you get away with murder, that doesn't make it legal.

user4704

Just means you did not get caught.

Lasse

7:26 PM

how about anyone patching up the vulnerability by themselves lets them have the right to sue me for that virus? could that be possible?

Seth Battin

drupal is also terrible to work in. imo. they should take away the PhD of that guy who invented it.

Lasse

because my virus can do it, and no evidence was found to support my thory that they patched it up themselves

@SethBattin you sure the guy had any PhD?

It's open source, anyone could have created it

Seth Battin

he did acquire one yes. His thesis was java optimizing, totally unrelated. It's just that the dupral stuff is that bad for the world

not the recent exploit, i mean the whole thing

terrible

Lasse

okay

CaptainRedmuff

This is absolutely hilarious: usvsth3m.com/post/101331390133/…

The video at the bottom seals the deal.

Lasse

7:34 PM

imgur.com/gallery/tmNEI

Wardy

8:15 PM

im about to start up LoL in case anyone is interested

im streaming it on twitch too

SpartanDonut

@Wardy awww - I'm headed home. I'll hit you up if you're on later.

Wardy

if I don't get wound up too much I'll be playing for about the next 4 hours

twitch.tv/tehwardy

Pip

I just borked my Debian install on my second PC :/

SpartanDonut

The best advice I can give is to use the /ignore (or is it /mute?) feature when people start raging

Wardy

lol

it happens a lot on WoT

Pip

8:17 PM

@Wardy you should try Dota if you like LoL!

Wardy

so im used to it

SpartanDonut

Ignore Pip. Just play whatever your friends play

That's how you'll have the most fun

Pip

True, true

I play both with different people

SpartanDonut

I personally think I'd like Dota 2 better if I played it a lot but I don't have anyone (other than Pip) to play with so I don't

Wardy

yeh i'm not that in to gaming that I have the time for many

Pip

8:18 PM

anyhow, I need to burn a new sd card with Debian now :/

SpartanDonut

But I'm truly leaving now. Later folks.

Wardy

too much time programming

later @SpartanDonut

Pip

Cya!

Lasse

Hey mom, I'm on TV!

lol

Wardy

LoL patch servers are dam slow!

Pip

8:19 PM

lol

Wardy

@Lasse huh ?

Lasse

watching your stream, just had to say it :P

Wardy

lol

Pip

Also.... fuck I need to either find an SD card somewhere or burn a disc.... which one should I do.....

Wardy

usb ?

Lokkij

8:19 PM

I was curious about F# so I'm doing a tutorial on it. It's.. strange.

Wardy

@Lokkij i love the idea of functional programming

just find it hard to get my head round

Lokkij

Yep

Wardy

I think too OO

Lokkij

I'm having the same problem.

Wardy

but noise gens are all about passing functions about

voxel engines sort of need a functional head

Pip

8:21 PM

@Wardy not one handy

have a bunch of DVD-Rs tho... eh, I guess I'll use one of them

Jon

this is cool..

youtube.com/user/HondaVideo

2

Press R while the video is playing

Wardy

?

Almo

@Pip only if he likes excessive complexity where it isn't necessary. :)

some people DO like that though. he might be one of them :)

Lokkij

@Jon that's so cool!

Pip

@Almo ey, shush

I like Dota

:P

Wardy

8:24 PM

@Jon that is some seriously clever programming

Jon

Yeah tell me about it :)

Wardy

@Almo games should be easy to play hard to master

those are the best kind

Almo

@Jon woa that is very cool

@Wardy I won't disagree with that.

Wardy

too many games want depth but just add complexity

Almo

yeah, it's an easy trap to fall into

Wardy

8:28 PM

and im for complexity for experienced players

Lokkij

►

Wardy

but noobies don't care about that

they just want to get in to the game and play

Pip

god dang.... 35 mins to download a 3.5 gb iso file....

Almo

to be fair, in DotA's case, the complexities I refer to as being excessive come from maintaining fidelity to the original W3 mod.

Wardy

35 mins !!!! wtf kinda slow ass connection speed is that ?

Pip

8:31 PM

@Almo eh, fair enough :)

@Wardy it's because I'm downloading over ftp

Almo

FTP doesn't mean slow

Pip

I actually canceled and am using jigdo instead

Wardy

@Pip I found that for getting linux distros torrenting is the best source

Pip

@Almo but THIS ftp is throttled very harshly

@Wardy yeah, but there's no official torrent for Debian 8 Jessie yet

Almo

so it's not ftp itself that's the problem :P

Pip

8:32 PM

true :P

Wardy

more data allocation testing while I wait

Icy Defiance

so basically it's pip that is the problem

bad pip

shame on you

Wardy

@Pip not posted on newsgroups yet ?

that would be my second goto

brb

Pip

I actually don't know, I don't use newsgroups at all

Wardy

8:48 PM

usenet usually has just about everything

MLM

@MickLH I know you have experience with some complicated algorithms. Have you ever done anything with polygon offsetting/straight skeleton? I am having trouble finding a javascript library or an algorithm to port over.

Pip

would you look for me? I don't have any subscriptions or anythin

Wardy

what is it you're after ?

debian 8 ?

Pip

yep

will most likely be called debian jessie

Wardy

looks like theres a whole branch of it

Pip

8:56 PM

where?

Looking for the one called revision 2 or update 2 or whatever

Wardy

you'll need a newsgroup account to get the binaries and im not really equipped for random searching

I tend to have the accounts but only the software for things like movie / tv searches

Pip

ah

thanks for looking at least

I'll just grab a minimal one if I can, and install all of the updates over network

Icy Defiance

@AidanMueller I think it was you who seemingly found a paradox with time dilation a while ago, which I couldn't answer. I just got linked to this, which reminded me of that discussion, and might help you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox
If it wasn't you and I'm crazy, then just disregard this message.

Pip

yeah, looks like there's a 640mb one that I can grab

Almo

time dilation is a real hassle

Pip

8:59 PM

still going to take 15 mins because of the stupid throttling :/

Almo

paradoxes usually come down to "simultaneity does not exist"

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