BrainKing Knowledge Base

According to the BrainKing statistics page, the popularity of our newest game is growing and it is currently occupying the 17th position (out of 103) at the started games chart. Very well. I am glad to see that even the simple games can be widely accepted by the player community, or maybe that's the reason why so many people play them, because their rules are very easy to adopt and learn. Which makes me think, would it be a good idea to add more variants of the Mancala family of games? From a programmer's point of view, it would be a relatively easy task to do, because a modification of an existing game model is always more convenient than a creation of the completely new game. On the other hand, do we really need more games to add?

Heh, today's entry is full of questions. But I will probably answer them myself soon.

You might have noticed certain changes in the advertisements on BrainKing sites, some kinds of banners have been removed and new ways of ads (simple text links, mostly) have appeared. This is a result of our experiments, investigations and, in a few cases, specific contracts with several companies. I am aware of complaints from several users about certain too aggressive banners which, if nothing else, cause a bad overall experience of a new user who visits the site. If nothing goes wrong, all banners which are not under our full control should be removed from the site completely later this year.

However, if you are a paying member, nothing mentioned in the previous paragraph should be affecting you. And if you are not, there is still a chance to catch a bonus color code in April.

Every site which supports some kind of a public discussion system becomes a target of spam posts, sooner or later (certain statistical data say that more than 90% of all e-mails is a spam). BrainKing is not an exception and if you were with us 4 years ago, you might remember the spam attacks which caused a temporary suppression of automatic new account creating process. Now we have much better controlled system of a fake account generation and although it's still not perfect (what is perfect?), BrainKing can be called a "safe site", regarding the public discussion boards content. There are many different ways to avoid different kinds of spam but all of them have their negative aspects. Based on my observations, I have made the following conclusions:

• Only registered users can post - this method prevents anonymous spamming which can filter out the easiest spam robots (not too effective). Since the user registration process does not require to enter any important or private data, more sophisticated robots usually pass this point.


• IP address check - it can block the attacker's IP address and add it to a black list. It means that if a new post request comes from an IP which is found in the black list, it is automatically rejected. However, since many computers can share the same IP address (e.g. all employees in one company which connects through a proxy server), such method could easily cut off innocent people as well.


• CAPTCHA verification - CAPTCHA is widely used on many sites around the world and its main function is to generate an image containing a set of numbers/letters which must be written to a text field by the user to validate the form. The advantage is obvious - since the letters are usually distorted in many ways, robots should not be able to "read" them and pass this checking point. Unfortunately, modern spam robots already use an OCR algorithm and a CAPTCHA is no longer an obstacle for them. I have even seen a Firefox extension which is able to read the CAPTCHA image generated on eBay pages. Furthermore, blind people would not be allowed to register on CAPTCHA protected sites until an audio alternative is added to the form as well. BrainKing does not plan to use this solution, it is not worth the effort.


• Asirra verification - Asirra is a Microsoft product which generates one or more images and asks the user to identify them. For example, on this page you are given a set of animal photos with the request to identify all cats. This is what the robots are unable to solve, as long as there is no artificial intelligence adopted by them. But - the Microsoft solution works only if JavaScript is enabled in the user's browser (which is not always a true) and, regarding the server side, it does not support all programming languages, ergo the programmer would need to create his own implementation based on this idea. And how can a blind user recognize a computer generated image?


• Logic and mathematics - this is an interesting proposal but easily could drive some people crazy. The server generates an image which contains a simple task, e.g. "5 + 3 = " and the user is supposed to write "8" to the text field. Yes, it is very easy but when the robots start to solve the simple questions of this kind, the server will be forced to create more complicated tasks and there are not many people who would be happy to use a calculator every time they want to register an account or post to a board. Logical questions ("what color is a grass?") should be a more difficult block to crack by a robot but something like that can work on English site only - I really don't plan to create stupid questions in all 19 supported languages on BrainKing and update them each time when a new localization is added.

Well, if there is someone who does not understand why all new BrainKing registrations must be manually approved before they can be used, I hope the answer is more than descriptive. And, of course, I'll be glad for all comments (on this site, please).

I guess I was writing about that during the last summer and it really saved me a lot of time to refer to the already written article instead of answering the same question individually. Which is one of the advantages of writing this blog. However, since the BrainKing design is changed now, the former instructions are not fully valid anymore and the time has come to update them. Okay, if you log in BrainKing and see the pages in other language (for any reason), simply follow these instructions:

• If you use the Castle style, find your language flag at the right column (containing flags of all supported localizations) and click it. The language will be changed and stored to your account settings, ergo becomes persistent for all future BrainKing sessions of yours, no matter which computer you would use to log in.


• If you use another style which does not display the language column, find the Castle | Simple | No fonts row at the page top. This section is available in all styles and always shown in English, regardless your current language. The easiest solution is to switch to the Castle style temporarily and use the previous point, then to switch back to your former style. I think I will make the language column displayable in all styles and optionally turnable off.


• The universal solution is to visit the Settings page and set the language there directly because it works with all styles and always. But it may be a small problem if the page is displayed in a foreign language you don't understand.

And about the new record in March - our stats say that BrainKing.info site (this blog) has reached 71,000 unique visitors during the last month, which is almost the same value as the one of BrainKing.com site. Not a bad result for a mere blog.

It is a really good satisfaction to observe how people place the membership orders when a light bulb indicating the Red Code appears for a couple of minutes. I like to see when new ideas are quickly adopted. And since some misunderstandings and confusions have been experienced too, I would like to answer the most important questions here (before an official (and translated) FAQ is created):

• Question: How do I know if the bonus is active when I place an order?
• Answer: After placing the order, have a look at the top right corner of the order page and you will see the bonus color code and the time left to send the payment (actually, it is the time when we receive your payment what counts, so don't send it with a longer delay). If there is nothing, it means that the bonus was deactivated before you placed your order and you can try it again when it appears for the next time.


• Question: How often are the bonuses activated?
• Answer: Each bonus type is activated at least once a day. The higher bonuses (100%, 75%, 50%) are usually visible for a much shorter time than the lower ones (25%, 1 month).


• Question: I don't understand the rules of this action, where can I find more information?
• Answer: Have a look at the current Server News and read the Bonus Page.

And don't be angry if the Red Code stops flashing a minute before you decide to take advantage of it. The chances are equal for everyone.