frik · HackerTrans

hace 9 añosdiscuss

The other issue here is what MS does regarding Windows 7. It would not surprise me in the least if they tried a clever/efficient patch for Windows 10 and a simpler (and slower) bodge-job for Windows 7/8. Still, I guess we'll find out soon enough. They'd also better make sure that the changes only apply to Intel machines. I don't want MS to arbitrarily slow down my AMD PC as a result of this - you'll note that AMD submitted a Linux patch to ensure their CPUs weren't caught up in this, will MS do the same? Afterall, there is a reason this partnership is called "Wintel", both know it's in their best interest not to screw each other over.

frik

hace 9 añosdiscuss

Does Source ship nowadays with a recent Havok physics library nowadays?

I heard they used to use an decade old physics library that just got bought by Havok company in the meantime and has nothing to do with the Havok physic engines everyone knows.

frik

hace 9 añosdiscuss

Yeah, I am still mad at Chris Roberts that he sold his former company "Digital Anvil" to Bill Gates / Microsoft in 2000.

Of course "Freelancer" (hyped like "Star Citizen" today, and basically the very same game idea) came out late and most announced features were missing - actually the same features are now announced again by Chris Roberts for Star Citizen.

And another game of "Digital Anvil" never got released thanks to Microsoft, it was called "Loose Cannon". It was announced in 1998 and it would have been the first 3D open world game in the very same sense of Grand Theft Auto 3, just released 1-2 years before GTA 3 !! Nowadays we could be playing Loose Cannon V and no one would play GTA. Anyway "Loose Cannon" was very good looking for it's time, and the actual gameplay video footage back then looked really promising. Barely any media can be found online today, but much more is on CD-ROMs of old PC Game mags (1998-2001 era):

https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/15/loose-cannon-xbox-cancel...

http://www.ign.com/games/loose-cannon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Anvil

Like the poster above me, I say the same: "Fool me once..." to both Chris and Bill.

frik

hace 9 añosdiscuss

The same with Sharepoint 2003 and Outlook WebApp 2003. Microsoft did a lot of things during the browser wars. Then later in Balmer era Microsoft was very soft and a rather good citizen, but since 2012 they changed back to Bill Gates style flavoured with indian spice.

frik

hace 9 añosdiscuss

I sent details to HN per mail and other means. One of the companies is MSFT (others here named the other companies), they created manys accounts around BUILD confernce 2015. Before that event HN was a pro-Apple, pro-open source with little MSFT news - something you would expect from startup and SV investors. If you would have a proper interface, you could watch such activity in real time and act. Some third party interfaces like http://hckrnews.com/ show also stories that got hidden despite high commitment from the community. Almost every day I find insightful stories that vanished off radar. And it visible that not so nice stories about certain companies get immediate reaction by publishing a minor news story that very rapidly gets traction on HN frontpage and the not so nice stories is spammed with comments and flags to push it off the frontpage.

Disclaimer: I have nothing against a certain company per se, I just don't like how the do their PR in a very shaddy way, and how they destroy things (like their own products for very short term greed). And I would prefer if HN algo doesn't punish stories if there are more comments than votes - as this is the most common way for them to "hide" stories.

Edit: Now it makes sense, it explains why MSFT is so interested in HN (woos Y Combinator startups into their eco-system, present a polished new MSFT, PR is trying to hide ugly truth), it fits my observation of a massive user increase (green accounts) around BUILD 2015 event, etc "Today, Scott Guthrie and I joined Sam Altman, to announce a partnership with Y Combinator, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators.": https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/stevengu/2015/02/09/y-combi... and "Microsoft woos Y Combinator startups with $500K in Azure cloud credits" http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/09/microsoft-woos-y-combinato... , "Microsoft offers $500k in Azure credit to woo Y Combinator startups" http://www.geekwire.com/2015/microsoft-offers-500k-azure-cre... "$500k of Azure credit for YC startups" http://blog.ycombinator.com/500k-of-azure-credit-for-yc-star... "Microsoft Wants To Buy Love In Silicon Valley" https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/10/microsoft-wants-to-buy-lov... ... as Alex Wilhelm of TechCrunch wrote "It will be interesting to see what percentage of the current Y Combinator class chooses Azure over AWS". What's then answer? It certainly changed HN, that's my impression.

frik

hace 9 añosdiscuss

Sadly it's true. Some companies game the HN ranking algo, and employ shills to divert the discussion of their product. At least two companies (that are infamous for such shady tactics anyway) do it actively regularly on HN.

The first thing to prevent it, would be to change the HN ranking algo so that stories with more comments than votes are not automatically punished and forced many pages backwards from the frontpage. Add a report button to report users. Implement an admin interface to monitor certain users and ban them.

frik

hace 12 añosdiscuss

Haven't heard of hitbox before, great there is now an alternative to Twitch. There were rumors that Google wants to buy Twitch (parent company already closed Justin.tv) But today Amazon.com has agreed to acquire Twitch for more than $1 billion.

Interesting, it's an Austrian company (http://about.hitbox.tv/imprint/). Keep up the good work!

Edit: changed the "Google bought" to "rumor that Google wants to buy", thanks ender7. Edit2: added Amazon.com deal sentence

frik

hace 12 añosdiscuss

> It is unlikely to be notable enough to meet the criteria for being included in Wikipedia

Why? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia [1], there is no need to keep the amount of pages low, storage is cheap and no one prints out Wikipedia on real paper.

The "not notable enough" is a real threat to Wikipedia and the future of the project. The German Wikipedia already lost a lot of former authors (volunteers) because of admins gone crazy. They don't want anyone to edit "their" pages, and revert and ban almost every new edit/user. You can read about this serious situation on Heise.de [2]. Read also the 650+ comments of the related discussion [3]. The English version is still better in shape, but it moves in the same direction, unfortunately.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia

[2] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Blutet-Wikipedia-aus-... ; Translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

[3] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/S-Blutet-Wikipedia-aus/...

Edit: I am not against "notability requirement", with a better balance it's fine. Wikimedia Foundation should have a closer look at the German branch... maybe resetting all "admin" privileges would help?