Simple Computers

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Ryaga
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Ryaga » Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:37 am

YugoStrikesBack wrote:
Ryaga wrote:Basically it'd allow:

Obfuscation/Encryption and Decryption to be done automatically.
Basically if you had a computer that could only output to notes, yea you'd be able to do just about anything you could do with like a punchcard computer or a terminal computer.

It'd be ages before anything complex enough to even touch the average cantrian's life was made.


Even with encryption technology you know Joo is going to develop Cantr decrypt and make it completely useless right?

Encryption doesn't (read: shouldn't) work that way. Most encryptions use key to data comparisons or some type of key that may be known to encrypt/decrypt the string if it takes less time for a method to be broken than it does to be brute forced than obviously you don't use that method.
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Doug R.
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Doug R. » Wed Jun 02, 2010 12:58 pm

Ryaga wrote:Basically it'd allow:

Obfuscation/Encryption and Decryption to be done automatically.
Basically if you had a computer that could only output to notes, yea you'd be able to do just about anything you could do with like a punchcard computer or a terminal computer.

It'd be ages before anything complex enough to even touch the average cantrian's life was made.


This seems like lots of effort for little if any benefit. You can already do encryption and decryption using codes, and if the terminal was seized, it would be the same as a code key not being seized. You don't need a computer to do any of this.
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Ryaga
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Ryaga » Wed Jun 02, 2010 2:36 pm

Doug R. wrote:
Ryaga wrote:Basically it'd allow:

Obfuscation/Encryption and Decryption to be done automatically.
Basically if you had a computer that could only output to notes, yea you'd be able to do just about anything you could do with like a punchcard computer or a terminal computer.

It'd be ages before anything complex enough to even touch the average cantrian's life was made.


This seems like lots of effort for little if any benefit. You can already do encryption and decryption using codes, and if the terminal was seized, it would be the same as a code key not being seized. You don't need a computer to do any of this.

Yet we use them today. I don't mean to sound like a dick but radioing to your buddy in th van with stupid codewords doesn't compare to what I'm saying.

Not only that but it offers many many more possibilities, automated warning systems, hell with enough time you would probably see automatically updated town stocks that would be broadcast and interpreted by a computer onto a note, showing all the towns that are broadcasting's stock of items etc.
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Doug R.
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Doug R. » Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:12 pm

Even modern computers can't read what's sitting on the floor of my house. This is really out there, and the fact that it's automation is doubly damning. I'm moving to rejected.
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Ryaga
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Ryaga » Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:35 pm

Doug R. wrote:Even modern computers can't read what's sitting on the floor of my house. This is really out there, and the fact that it's automation is doubly damning. I'm moving to rejected.

I don't know if you've ever used a computer, but it does read from some type or i/o device, to be honest I don't think you fully understand the suggestion.

It number one would obviously not be able to read any note, but perhaps a single note, you know like a tape drive. And the 'automation' is about how much you could do with a WWII punch card computer. A computer would obviously not even be able to parse just any note. It'd basically be a radio/note formatting device with a radio for in out.
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Doug R. » Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:44 pm

Ryaga wrote:to be honest I don't think you fully understand the suggestion.


It would help if it was explained in plain English.

Radios already have an I/O system. They don't need notes; they already have characters to speak into them.

You've attempted to explain it twice, and neither time were able to do so in a manner that I could fully comprehend. Comparing it to a device I've never seen nor know how it works doesn't help. That means it's far too complicated. So, still rejected on those grounds.

If someone in programming or RD can interpret this and understand it, they can revive it if they think it's actually useful. Sorry if I'm over-reacting in a negative way to this suggestion, but something about it really rubbed me the wrong way.
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Ryaga
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Ryaga » Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:52 pm

Doug R. wrote:
Ryaga wrote:to be honest I don't think you fully understand the suggestion.


It would help if it was explained in plain English.

Radios already have an I/O system. They don't need notes; they already have characters to speak into them.

You've attempted to explain it twice, and neither time were able to do so in a manner that I could fully comprehend. Comparing it to a device I've never seen nor know how it works doesn't help. That means it's far to0 complicated. So, still rejected on those grounds.

A computer, by definition is something that computes. I'm suggesting implementation of a simple computer with a simple programmable language, something symbolic. It had two input channels, local and radio, and two output channels, local and radio. This would allow automatic formatting/encrypting/saving of radio input and output. Basically a programmable formatter for for radios.

It's also flawed to say "I don't understand it so it shouldn't be in." unless you're of a certain background most people have no clue how an engine works and they're all over.
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Doug R.
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Doug R. » Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:59 pm

The critical difference it that I know how to use an engine. I have no idea how to use this, and neither would 98% of the players. The fact that you can't seem to explain it to me seems to confirm this.
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Ryaga
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Ryaga » Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:05 pm

Doug R. wrote:The critical difference it that I know how to use an engine. I have no idea how to use this, and neither would 98% of the players. The fact that you can't seem to explain it to me seems to confirm this.

You know how to use a computer too, don't you? I'll bet you that less than 10% of players have never made an engine, probably more, yet they make use of them.

If my explanation of a simple programmable radio input and output formatter didn't make something click in your noggin I don't know what to tell you, I'll bet more than 2% of the players understand that sentence and most will never need to understand the inner workings, that's the point.
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Doug R.
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Doug R. » Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:14 pm

Having computers in the game has been rejected previously. Why is this different? Having steno machines attached to radios has been proposed multiple times and rejected. How is this different? What would I possibly program into this computer (I honestly can't think of anything that I can't do with a radio already, easily)? Why would I bother to learn even a simple symbolic programming language to do it? Most people don't bother using a sextant to it's full power because it requires advanced math. Why would this be different?

It strikes me that this would only be a toy for the characters of real-life programmers. Unless you plan on creating a market for and distributing these programs to the ignorant. Except if they're just notes, that won't work because people would just copy them, unless you just want to do it for the glory, like a map maker.
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby nateflory » Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:48 pm

I will admit I understand the basic premise of your suggestion, however, I'll add my voice to the disagreement.

Radio/note automation has been declined already as a suggestion.
computers (in a general sense) have been suggested before and rejected.

I am not willing to learn a simplistic/symbolic Card-reader language merely to add depth to any RP and encoded messages, and am guessing not many others would either.
It would add additinoal processing to the 'Process ticks" for each computer, with limited value added, other than intellectual curiosity.
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Ryaga
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Ryaga » Wed Jun 02, 2010 6:59 pm

The suggestion that it would slow Cantr down is pretty silly. To execute the kind of code you'd parse and run you'd be looking at a few milliseconds per computer TOPS. Don't have time to get deeper into that atm but if you look it up you'll find that execution time (which this is, purely execution, very little io) accounts for very little CPU time.
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Cdls
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Cdls » Wed Jun 09, 2010 3:35 am

Doug R. wrote:Even modern computers can't read what's sitting on the floor of my house. This is really out there, and the fact that it's automation is doubly damning. I'm moving to rejected.



Actually....have you heard of Google Goggles? It is an android app (love my nexus one!!) that allows you to take a picture and from that image, it will open up a search based around it. So for example, take a picture of an orange, and Google will display a search on oranges. This is on a phone mind you, so something more complex is certainly out there (Google goggles as a vid expansion would be quite fun to play with).

Now, expanding on that, you can modify such a process to do other things. Say, if a book was scanned, an added function to scan the cover (or available surface) for a title, and then index that title with a timestamp or something. The possibilities go on and on, and within that reasoning, it is very possible to read whats sitting on the floor of your house.

Anyways, nothing to actually do with the suggestion (which I do understand and still don't accept, there is no place for it in Cantr, at least not now or the foreseeable future) but more of a piece of information I thought I would throw out there.
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby BZR » Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:36 pm

Android SUX 8)
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Cdls
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Re: Simple Computers

Postby Cdls » Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:01 pm

Oh great, an Apple fangirl :roll:

:D

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