Scratch

You're forgetting that, and I could be wrong about this, but you can quote me, around 109% of the internet is inhabitted by things for adults only

Look above your post.

TheGameMaster1231 wrote:

This Is Both A Great Idea, And A Bad Idea. It's A Great Idea Because... Uh... It Just Is. It's A Bad Idea, Because People Could Make It Go To A Site With A Virus On It Or Something For Adults Only. And Little Kids Are On This Site You Know. And It Wouldn't Look Pretty If A Little Kid Opened Up A Link To A Video On Youtube Of Elmo Shooting Barney Killing Him. 

Of course, a nasty person could just upload a project with Elmo shooting Barney...

I admit that when I heard of this first, I thought it would be a great idea, but you're all right, there are too many people who would abuse this block. on one hand, the scratch server could automatically check all the links placed in URL block to check that they are safe, but on the other hand, as someone pointed out, the vast majority of internet sites are adult only so there is NO WAY that the server could filter out 100% of all dangerous websites. then there is the problem that different countries consider different things innapropriate at different ages. It would be nice, certainly, but the virus count would go up, the cyberbullying count would rise and the complaints and banned projects would soar through the roof, not to mention the work that this could cause the Scratch team.

fullmoon wrote:

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

{Image URL = [adultsitexxx.ca/fakeimage]}

See what I mean? If it automatically downloads images from sites to use them in projects, it would be disasterous. 100% more work for the scratch team.

I don't see how that's any different than putting adult content directly into a Scratch project. It would be flagged exactly the same way.

The project could be flaggged by the community in the same way,  but a lot of posts and projects are currently automatically flagged if they have innapropriate words in them, to stop them showing up in the first place. Also, a project could state : "delete this sprite for bonus features" or something so that it runs harmlessly online, but downloading and deleting that sprite may trigger a script that opens hundreds of windows or an innapropriate/virus containing link.

Me and my dada made a clapping monkey, and it starts clapping if you get close to it, etc. We put in an Arduino chip onto it, so it can interact with the web... and if we do get  a url block for scratch, and all it does is draw data FROM the site you put on, then you could access the clapping monkey server and control the clapping monkey from scratch...  so i definitely give my consent. 

venus8000 wrote:

Also, if you REALLY wanted to do this to kids,

1) you would have to be a pretty experienced hacker, and

2)even though this is a site FOR hackers,

3) this would involve actually messing with the squeak language itself, and if it isn't done right, tons of things could go wrong, so it's a really risky thing to do... and

4)you would probably do the same thing with the current version of squeak, only it's not quite as easy, so i doubt it would be very widespread around scratch...

1) not really, to trigger a script by deleting a sprite, all you have to do is set a variable to a value, then get the currently undeleted sprite to change the value to somthing else. a script in the stage can then have its contents (eg, an URL block) triggered by testing if that variable value had been changed or not. (if it's deleted, it won't have changed)

2) what? we're not hackers, we're programmers! hackers open up areas they shouldn't really and fidddle with it, maliciously or not.

3) not at all, squeak can remain unchanged because the variable script I described is centred in scratch.

4) you can't send a virus or anything like that by tampering with squeak, because if you do, the only thing you mess with is YOUR OWN COPY. therefore any scripts you write to mess things up that require a change in the scratch source code would be useless because the same change would not exist on the other person's copy of scratch. in the same way, it is currently possible to make a working URL block (I have done it) but the URL block won't work online or on someone elses copy of scratch because it does not exist on that copy's source code, the block appears as [OBSOLETE!] and does nothing.

oh, and if you accidentally mess up squeak, all you have to do is quit without saving changes and when you start scratch back up, it'll be good as new!

Last edited by sparks (2010-02-21 15:24:21)

sparks wrote:

2) what? we're not hackers, we're programmers! hackers open up areas they shouldn't really and fidddle with it, maliciously or not.

Kinda... around MIT the tradition of "Hacking" refers to pranks like the time students put an MIT police car on top of the Dome.

http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N5/hack.5f.html
http://hacks.mit.edu/

They are quite different than "hacking" someone's account  - not malicious, more like all in good fun. 

Lightnin wrote:

sparks wrote:

2) what? we're not hackers, we're programmers! hackers open up areas they shouldn't really and fidddle with it, maliciously or not.

Kinda... around MIT the tradition of "Hacking" refers to pranks like the time students put an MIT police car on top of the Dome.

http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N5/hack.5f.html
http://hacks.mit.edu/

They are quite different than "hacking" someone's account  - not malicious, more like all in good fun. 

1) yeah, when the MIT guys do that, it's hilarious. once, i was walking past the state house with my dad when he was going to work, and we look up, and there's a telephone booth on top of the dome. We both burst out laughing because we know it's actually the harvard kids trying to be as great as the MIT guys. MIT PWNS HARVARD

2) hacking someone's account isn't true hacking, here on scratch. it's a mixture of guesswork and knowing the person well.

3) hacking is reverse engineering, like cracking a code, or just plain programming. it's also slang for a bunch of other things that i wouldn't care to describe.

Last edited by venus8000 (2010-02-22 18:14:01)

billyedward wrote:

I think that if this is implemented, the next step would be to give it AJAX support... maybe only server push method. This would allow dynamic internet generated costumes! Thoughts?

that would be a great idea. importing costumes from a folder or the internet directly as a costume without exiting scratch woulld mean that people could choose "avatars" or costumes from the internet to play games with... in which case a few other graphic blocks might be a good idea. for instance a "set size to ( )screen pixils" would set any imported costume from the internet to the same screen size. I suggested a while back that the same be done with webcams as you could then take a photo of your face as the avatar for a game (see the suggesting project here: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/sparks/745619 ). I would certainly like to see more interaction between scratch2.0 and other programs and systems.

billyedward wrote:

All we need is a [send request to [] with [get|post] parameters []].
The simple nature of HTTP allows us to just send this request, and allow the HTTP response body to be caught and stored for access in a (response) block.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but if the information for a costume was stored as a reporter block, what would the block report as, and how could that be used to generate/edit a costume?

billyedward wrote:

This would work by having a combobox menu and string insertion field.
If it is a costume label, go with that.
If it is a URL or file:// call, get the image.

an excellent solution