The Bridge

GnomeSlice

17:00

@SaintWacko if/when you get this later, shoot me a steam message with your paypal email. I can pay you for hammerwatch now.

FEichinger

@alexanderpas I'm not sure if there's anything actually wrong with it. It just murders kittens.

Sconibulus

@FEichinger most people would say murdering kittens is wrong...

alexanderpas

@FEichinger he used his own site, what else is there to say.

FEichinger

@alexanderpas Well, what he's distributing is random code we have no origin to - or even know what it actually does.

We have no idea what it is, what it does and whether or not it's appropriate.

@Sconibulus That was the shameful (unsuccessful) star bait ...

3

Sconibulus

A popup that says "Holy Crap! Someone actually loaded this?"

OrigamiRobot

17:04

Yep, Obsidian.jar contains a complete copy of Minecraft's original art assets and compiled Java code, in addition to the mods' compiled Java code. It's a pirate copy of Minecraft that happens to have some mods installed. — SevenSidedDie 1 min ago

fbueckert

@FEichinger Welp, I tried.

alexanderpas

Now, we need a mod/admin to burinate this shit.

fbueckert

I honestly don't think there's a version of Obsidian out there where it's not embedded in the client.

FEichinger

@FEichinger It's not a mod! It's code!!! You can add it to the .jar to use it! Here's the download link for the code, not a .jar: timtechsoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ObsidianCode.txt — Timtech 8 mins ago

That is literally the opposite of what he said before. "It's not a mod!"

Not to mention that "It's not a mod, it's code." is murdering kittens.

Kevin van der Velden

@FEichinger ... also I just downloaded the .txt (with curl ofcourse) it's a jar

OrigamiRobot

17:07

Sometimes I want to murder my kitten.

FEichinger

@KevinvanderVelden Seriously now? It's the full jar?

Kevin van der Velden

Given the size, jup

fbueckert

I'm pretty sure English isn't his first language, either, so let's go easy on the frustration, please.

Kevin van der Velden

4.28MB

Hmm it might not have the assets

Though it does have quite a few assets

Including the steve skin, that's copyright protected

oh well, I'll check the drama later :) Dinnertime

alexanderpas

@KevinvanderVelden all the assets are included.

fbueckert

17:13

-2

Q: Are there any good custom skin makers?

I've been making my own custom skins with http://freeminecraftskins.blogspot.com/2012/11/free-minecraft-skins-creator.html but I can't get it as precise as I want it. Does anyone know any good custom skin makers?

minecraft

burn

alexanderpas

@fbueckert sadly, even that is a better question.

fbueckert

@alexanderpas So even his, "standalone mod" isn't actually?

FEichinger

@fbueckert He basically just copied the binary into a *.txt.

fbueckert

@FEichinger He could have just renamed the .jar, no?

FEichinger

@fbueckert Could have, but that's not what he says. Would have the same result at any rate.

fbueckert

17:17

@FEichinger I honestly don't think he knows what we're asking him to provide.

FEichinger

@fbueckert I'm sure giving him the benefit of the doubt that he just doesn't understand it. Yes. But he is the one arguing semantics, which makes it frustrating and painful to discuss with him.

fbueckert

@FEichinger I don't think English is his first language, so trying to make the point isn't working so well.

FEichinger

@fbueckert Of course. But it still means that we have no way of telling him that he is wrong, because he's still arguing something he doesn't understand himself.

fbueckert

His site also links to a cracked Minecraft client, which just reinforces my belief that Obsidian isn't available in the format we want him to provide.

alexanderpas

@fbueckert not to mention version 2.0 of his site.

FEichinger

17:21

@fbueckert Okay, in all seriousness, as much as I agree with you that he may not understand the point we are making ... That is blatant piracy right there. And if he isn't aware of that, there's not much we can do anyway.

fbueckert

> We are glad to announce the realease of… TimTech Software 2.0! This content-packed update to our site has tons of new additions. Some of them are listed below:

All disputed, copyrighted, and illegal content in question has been removed! We’re very sorry for the infringement.

Oh, boy. His definition of piracy is even looser than mine!

FEichinger

@fbueckert If he doesn't see that that's piracy, then I'm openly questioning if we want a user like that on the site. That's willful ignorance, illegal and he links right at it on his profile.

fbueckert

@FEichinger As long as he keeps it off the site, I don't know what else we can do about him.

We've had other problem users I would've dearly loved to burninate.

OrigamiRobot

For further science, I copied the Obsidian/ folder containing Obsidian.jar and Obsidian.json directly into my versions folder without touching any official Minecraft jars—just a drag-and-drop into the versions folder. I created a new profile, and it let me choose "Obsidian" as the version. It ran. For extra fun, the menu is missing the usual "Coyright Mojang AB. Do not distribute!" text. — SevenSidedDie 5 mins ago

fbueckert

But we've never outright told anyone, "We don't want you around here ever again. Go away."

That's not how SE works.

FEichinger

17:27

@fbueckert No, but that's definitely something @AnnaLear or @GraceNote should eyeball, in my opinion.

alexanderpas

@fbueckert there is always that first time.

Mad Scientist

The rules for user profiles are very lax, moderators almost never intervene unless there is truly offensive content there

Jason Berkan

Regardless, I think we should get that meta question closed and deleted, as the comments contain links to cracked copies of Minecraft.

FEichinger

@MadScientist He's providing links to the same domain on that current meta.

alexanderpas

@JasonBerkan I already put up a moderator flag.

Mad Scientist

17:30

@FEichinger Not enough to intervene in my opinion, but there isn't really a lot of precedent for this

User profiles have very low visibility, they just don't matter all that much

FEichinger

@MadScientist Which is why I pinged the two about it, rather than mod flagging it. I just think this needs heavy eyeballing.

fbueckert

Piracy is a rather content driven industry; anything that affects us also affects Movies.SE, Anime.SE, and any other site that focuses on entertainment content. I don't think it's fair for us to decide policy site-wide on how to handle these things.

Anna Lear

@FEichinger the who what now?

DragonLord

We just ordered a retail copy of TES4: Oblivion GOTY Edition, but it'll be installed onto a old Vista system. (The video card has been upgraded to a GeForce GT 640, so performance is probably not an issue.)

I've read that Oblivion has several compatibility issues with Vista, so can I expect it to work, including the supplied DLC?

The system is fully patched and up to date.

Ben Brocka

@AnnaLear I think he wants your eyeballs

OrigamiRobot

17:34

@AnnaLear Where to even begin?

FEichinger

@AnnaLear timtechsoftware.com <-- Linked on user profile (and contains this rather blatant display of piracy. And then there's also this fancy meta, in which the same domain is used as a datadump.

Ben Brocka

@OrigamiRobot How it out

Kevin van der Velden

@DragonLord if it's using vista, it needs at least one patch to windows 7 =p

OrigamiRobot

@BenBrocka I everyone out!

FEichinger

@BenBrocka That, too. I collect them, you know?

DragonLord

17:36

Let's be serious here--upgrading Windows is not an option. The system itself is running fine, and we haven't had issues with the operating system itself.

Kevin van der Velden

@FEichinger I prefer ears, better resell value

Ben Brocka

Depends how you preserve them

Anna Lear

Our usual stance is that you guys can decide what you want to do w.r.t. game piracy, but you don't have to worry about or enforce any perceived legal things. Our ToS covers how someone can contact us if any content on the site is in violation of any laws. We'll take care of it from there.

4

FEichinger

@KevinvanderVelden I don't want to resell them! I want to look at them. They're so nice. :D

Kevin van der Velden

@DragonLord course course, just kidding :) It should work in theory, the patches to oblivion should have fixed most of the problems

fbueckert

17:37

@AnnaLear So...par for the course!

DragonLord

@KevinvanderVelden Do note that this is the boxed Game of the Year edition. From what I've read, this edition includes a fully up-to-date copy (with latest patch) of Oblivion.

@AnnaLear After all, Stack Exchange is community-driven at its heart.

alexanderpas

17

A: When does a question "support piracy and pirated games"?

When I think of the "no piracy" policy, I think of avoiding situations where we're suggesting an illegal or questionably legal activity to further another illegal or questionably legal activity. We close questions to prevent answers - in this case, the "evil" of the answer is the furtherance o...

Kevin van der Velden

@DragonLord according to uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:System_Requirements#Operating_Systems it should work, but the only way to know for sure on your system is to try it unfortunately

FEichinger

@AnnaLear My problem here is that we have made our stance regarding piracy pretty clear, and the user in question violates it blatantly to the point of willful ignorance ... Which I think really is a topic for you guys.

Anna Lear

@FEichinger That's fair. I'm speaking off the cuff here, but if someone is violating site policy, a suspension seems appropriate.

Ben Brocka

17:40

Ban everyone forever

fbueckert

@BenBrocka As long as this does not include me, I approve.

Or new users who's questions I can arbitrarily close.

Or people I dislike, so I can close their questions, too.

Ben Brocka

So you only want people you like banned?

Lazers

0

Q: Assassins Creed Revelations Point of assigning assassins to cities

Hello everyone, What's the point of assigning assassins to cities in AC Revelations?? Does the experience income from those cities level up the assassins I put there in the city?? For example, if I place a level to assassin in a captured city does the experience income from that city help tha...

pc ac-revelations

Kevin van der Velden

@BenBrocka of course, he doesn't like anyone

fbueckert

@BenBrocka I can't exercise proper marshal abilities on people I like!

Ben Brocka

17:43

Mike Tyson plays Mike Tyson's Punchout for the first time:

►

DragonLord

I have to agree that we should not be supporting piracy. If the user has asked several questions involving pirated content, a moderator warning should be issued, and if the user continues to post questions that involve pirated content, he/she should be suspended.

FEichinger

@DragonLord The story is far longer and more complicated than that.

fbueckert

@FEichinger I think most of it is due to a language barrier.

He's asked one question that almost certainly is about a pirated client.

tugs

@FEichinger ? I can only see one arqade question and one meta discussion

fbueckert

Banning him because he doesn't understand what we're asking seems like overkill.

alexanderpas

17:44

@DragonLord this user actually posted direct download links to pirated content in the comments.

DragonLord

@alexanderpas I think that warrants a moderator warning off the bat.

or possibly a suspension (start with 3-5 days).

FEichinger

@fbueckert I don't doubt that that's part of it. But the website very much cries ignorance of what piracy even is.

OrigamiRobot

Perhaps we should invite him to chat.

Ben Brocka

If he clearly doesn't understand a firm, clear warning would be better than a suspension...I'm not familiar with the situation beyond some of the drama in here though

fbueckert

@FEichinger We shouldn't be using his website to justify a ban on this website.

FEichinger

17:46

@fbueckert No, but we should be using it to consider his position. And his position no longer seems like an innocent "doesn't understand it" to me at all.

DragonLord

If it is necessary for a moderator to communicate to a user who doesn't understand English that well, we should try to determine the user's native language and provide a translation of the relevant text to the user.

fbueckert

To be fair, when he first asked that Obsidian client question, he self answered it, with a link to his own website, and a video from his youtube account. That screamed self-promotion to me.

FEichinger

@fbueckert I didn't even see that, but that's just another notch that makes it scream promoting piracy.

alexanderpas

@FEichinger that's the benefit of having a high reputation. being able to see those deleted answers.

FEichinger

I'm sorry, but if he doesn't understand that a cracked client is piracy, I don't see what we can do beyond a huge friggin stop sign in bold, clear letters.

fbueckert

17:50

@alexanderpas Psst. I don't even have the required rep.

FEichinger

That said, I'm out for a bit.

DragonLord

From what I am reading, I think the user is actively trying to get around the piracy restriction and should be suspended for this conduct.

OrigamiRobot

I don't understand why SevenSidedDie's answer is so heavily downvoted. His is better than @alexanderpas's (no offense)

tugs

SSD has been the clearest and most concise through the whole discussion.

Ben Brocka

Solid State Drives are always level headed

alexanderpas

17:56

@OrigamiRobot +7 -3 vs. +7 -4

Jason Berkan

I'm not really certain why either of those answers are downvoted. Was it because we weren't sure Obsidian was cracked?

Ben Brocka

HDDs on the other head would lose their heads if they weren't parked!

OrigamiRobot

@alexanderpas Yours was only -2 when I said that.

Did someone downvote yours to push SSD's up? That's not how to do it.

fbueckert

The only voting I've done on that question is downvoting TimTech's answer.

Ben Brocka

I downvoted everyone because I am a seething ball of hatred

fbueckert

18:02

@BenBrocka Hey, that's my job!

Quit stealing my shtick!

OrigamiRobot

I'm waiting for @BenBrocka to post an answer so I can downvote it with all my sockpuppets.

Sterno

I am so disappointed that there is this much drama and I just don't care about it. :(

Grace Note

@BenBrocka And I just wrote a Meta post today about how voting out of being a seething ball of hatred is something we shouldn't do.

OrigamiRobot

It was all for you @Sterno!

Wipqozn

@BenBrocka Typical penguin.

Ben Brocka

18:03

@GraceNote That's discrimination against seething balls of hatred and I won't have it

Kevin van der Velden

@Sterno you really should get into modded minecraft, there's so much drama going on

(And I dont mean this question, I mean regular minecraft modding)

Grace Note

@BenBrocka Then ready your downvotes! At dawn!

DragonLord

elderscrolls.com

I'm surprised to see that The Elder Scrolls website is using [HTML5 video](HTML5 video):

...and that's even when Flash Player is enabled in my Web browser.

Whoops, messed up the link:

HTML5 video

The HTML5 draft specification introduced the video element for the purpose of playing videos or movies, partially replacing the object element. HTML5 video is intended by its creators to become the new standard way to show video on the web without plugins, but has been hampered by lack of agreement as to which video formats should be supported in web browsers. History of element The element was proposed by Opera Software in February 2007. Opera also released a preview build that was showcased the same day, and a manifesto that called for video to become a first-class citizen of the web...

tugs

@DragonLord Maybe they'll publish upcoming games to html5 too. Fingers crossed.

alexanderpas

@DragonLord most of the time, when HTML5 video is used, Flash video is used as the fallback.

Kevin van der Velden

18:09

@tugs you want the playstation 3 oblivion experience on a machine with 128GB ram?

alexanderpas

@KevinvanderVelden don't you mean MB?

Kevin van der Velden

@alexanderpas No, no I do not =p

DragonLord

@alexanderpas That's contrary to what I'm used to seeing. Most websites simply use Flash, and may fall back on HTML5 when the site is viewed on mobile devices, not the other way around.

Kevin van der Velden

Skyrim style games in javascript? So much overhead xp

DragonLord

What is surprising is that the video is shown in HTML5 on desktop Firefox, even when Flash is enabled.

tugs

18:11

@KevinvanderVelden It doesn't need to be that bad

alexanderpas

@DragonLord it all depends on the HTML nesting.

Kevin van der Velden

@tugs a garbage collected program needs a LOT more memory than it would if you take care of memory manually, in some cases 3 times as much.

It'll be bad =p

tugs

@KevinvanderVelden I don't know that ram is a real bottleneck. I'd be more worried about graphics card use, and webgl is fine.

alexanderpas

@tugs yup... unrealengine.com/html5

tugs

But then I'm probably not Bethesda's target audience

Kevin van der Velden

18:18

@tugs I'm not worried about webgl either, but oblivion and skyrim already push the limits of available memory on 32 bit systems, but yeah 128GB is a bit of an exageration =p

It'd probably work with between 16 and 32 GB of ram

user43095

rugatu.com

tugs

@KevinvanderVelden Also stuff compiled to asm.js is very different than hand coded javascript. I understand that it's not as close to the metal as C++, but I don't think 3X overhead is huge.

Unionhawk

Apr 4 at 13:54, by OrigamiRobot

BITCOINS ARE OFF TOPIC FOR THE BRIDGE

Kevin van der Velden

@tugs possibly, don't know much about asm.js

user43095

Completely unrelated

alexanderpas

18:22

user43095

Kevin van der Velden

@tugs plus it's not technically that much overhead, but more that you need enough space that half the CPU time isn't taken up by the garbage collector.

@jeffreylin_ kill it with fire!

alexanderpas

@tugs the best thing about asm.js is that interpreters can optimize for it.

tugs

@KevinvanderVelden I just know that for myself in any larger scale project that I'd trust garbage collection to do better memory management than I could do manually.

@alexanderpas Yes, this is accomplished by strong typing.

mostly

Kevin van der Velden

@tugs hmm meh, I'm fairly certain that I can do a better job according to SOME parameters, mainly low overhead (little to no bookkeeping) and quickly releasing memory when done

murgatroid99

18:28

@KevinvanderVelden It's always possible to do more efficient memory management manually than with a garbage collector, but as a project gets larger it becomes less likely that you can do the manual memory management correctly

Kevin van der Velden

@murgatroid99 there is always at least one parameter a garbage collector will beat you in, time spend =p

alexanderpas

@KevinvanderVelden but when (not if) you make a bug, by forgetting to release some memory, you suddenly have a leak, which could've been caught by the GC.

Kevin van der Velden

@alexanderpas there are tools that help with that

murgatroid99

@alexanderpas Yeah, this is what I was trying to say

tugs

@KevinvanderVelden With an open world like skyrim, they'll be dealing with a lot of entities that appear and disappear randomly depending on the user's motion. I'd imagine this will lead to a lot of fragmentation.

Kevin van der Velden

18:30

@tugs unless you can prevent that with memory pooling, yes

murgatroid99

@KevinvanderVelden but it is nearly impossible to get manual memory management perfect

alexanderpas

@murgatroid99 and that's why they made GC in the first place.

murgatroid99

@alexanderpas exactly

tugs

@KevinvanderVelden True. The way I look at it every additional difficulty and solution like this leads us further towards a full garbage collection system.

Kevin van der Velden

True, and GC certainly has its uses (like, 98% of programs written) but for some things it's costs are just to high

alexanderpas

18:33

@KevinvanderVelden 98% of the programs written = 100% of the non-trivial PC programs written.

tugs

@alexanderpas = assignment? or == ?

Kevin van der Velden

@alexanderpas any hard-realtime application, most games, OS-es, most embedded software, etc

alexanderpas

Equality (mathematics)

In mathematics equality is a relationship between two quantities or, more generally two mathematical expressions, asserting that the quantities have the same value or that the expressions represent the same mathematical object. The equality between A and B is written A = B, and pronounced A equals B. The symbol "=" is called "equals sign". When A and B may be viewed as functions of some variables, then A = B means that A and B define the same function. Such an equality of functions is sometimes called an identity. For example (x + 1)2 = x2 +&nb...

Kevin van der Velden

Several non-trivial programs exist that are a bad match for garbage collection =p

alexanderpas

@KevinvanderVelden exception to the rule. just like goto usage in the linux kernel.

GnomeSlice

18:37

75% off To the Moon on Steam (Daily Deal)

Ben Brocka

So apparently that Ouya ad wasn't an official ad

Allegedly...that's pretty solid animation for a random fan

GnomeSlice

@BenBrocka Looks like something from adult swim sort of

Ben Brocka

It really does

Sterno

18:51

0118999

fbueckert

@FEichinger The comments on this page are incredible. I think it's safe to say he is well aware of what is happening.

FEichinger

@fbueckert "It’s ok to play cracked minecraft; don’t worry."

fbueckert

> Downloading Minecraft from TimTech Software is completely legal and takes less than a minute to download.

3

tugs

Can't we go back to talking about html5?

fbueckert

@tugs Feel free.

I'm just hijacking, as per my usual modus operandi.

Sterno

18:55

Well, if TimTech says its legal, I guess it's time for me to get Minecraft!

tugs

@fbueckert I'm really excited about the prospects of WebRTC in particular

FEichinger

@fbueckert It doesn't matter either way. If he isn't aware, that's a very skewed view of piracy, bordering or reaching way into willful ignorance. If he is aware, we're way beyond doubts.

fbueckert

@tugs I care nothing at all about HTML5. :P

Kevin van der Velden

@tugs can we talk about c++ :)

tugs

@KevinvanderVelden C++ 11?

@KevinvanderVelden :D

Kevin van der Velden

18:57

@tugs Perfectly acceptable :)

Sterno

Ah, the good old days of CComPtr.

tugs

@Sterno AHH!

FEichinger

@Sterno There's one thing that's kinda true about it: Notch said that he has no qualms with people consuming the pirated content. (That stance, however, is probably gone with the new crew and launcher.)

StrixVaria

@tugs Read that as Web Roller Coaster Tycoon at first. Now I'm disappointed.

tugs

@StrixVaria i'm sorry, I had no idea I could cause that kind of damage

Kevin van der Velden

18:58

@FEichinger I seem to remember it was more of a "If you cant play it otherwise, I won't try to stop you" but I might be wrong

tugs

I'm a little bit disappointed that C++ 11 didn't include any coroutine functionality

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