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The Humble Indie Bundle
supersloshy writes "Last year, 2D Boy, the developers of the popular independent game World of Goo, had a pay-what-you-want birthday sale with curious results. For the next seven days, Wolfire Games is attempting the same kind of sale, but with some new twists. Wolfire Games' Humble Indie Bundle contains five independent games (World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra) with no DRM and they are all cross-platform. In addition to directly supporting the developers of these five games, part of the money also goes to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Child's Play Charity. No matter how much you spend, you also get to choose who your money goes to (charity only, developers only, evenly, or custom)."
All of the games work great on Mac, Windows, and Linux. We didn't want to leave anyone out.
No *BSD, but still kinda neat!
Great games. I've already bought WoG last year, and I will probably snag the rest of these for $25 or so.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Which they shouldn't.
Why release your work for free? Does freedom feed you at the end of the day? Does it pay for your rent?
Fast?
There is a war going on for your mind.
Maybe they "shouldn't" but they WILL. I'm sorry your circle-jerk of a philosophy doesn't pan out in the real world, really. You can go cry in the corner with the communists and every other extremist.
World of Goo alone is worth your time and money.
Aha!
If I pay a lot for it, that will make it fast and good
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I went in for $40. I've got World of Goo already, but I thought it would be nice to have Linux versions of these games. I figure that if even the indy devs don't get financial support for publishing Linux versions of software, the market will stay slow and dry forever.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Not true. Ayn Rand-types won't necessarily pay zero for this. You're assuming they give no thoughts to future desires and only think of immediate costs and instant gratification, and that just isn't true.
The developers get advertising, which they would otherwise have to pay for -- hence a measurable, monetary cost and a selfish desire on their par. Their similar stunt with World of Goo led me to purchase other games they developed because WoG showed me they were delivering quality, entertaining games. I no longer purchase games for any system without trying them out first. I've been burned too many times with over-hyped commercial games that turn out to be shit and a waste of money.
Because *I* want these developers to continue what they are doing -- a selfish desire on my part -- I will pay cash towards that end. Consider it an opportunity to invest in future products by these developers. Speculation in the market, or an investment in future return if you will.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
World of Goo: .deb .run .tar.gz .bin .sh
Aquaria:
Gish
Lugaru HD:
Penumbra
Now that's just silly :D
Supporting something you enjoy is acting in your own self interest.
Freedom allows us to fulfill our desires, not just our basic needs. Food and shelter alone are not enough for happiness.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Which they shouldn't.
I'm sorry, what? There is no "should" or "shouldn't", there's merely what is. And clearly these people are eating just fine. So anything or anyone that says they shouldn't is plainly wrong. What you fail to grasp is that people are willing to pay something more than they necessarily have to for the knowledge that they are contributing and therefore encouraging future work - both from those particular individuals and others who can see from that example that talent and hard work can be enough to make a living.
In other words, there are plenty of consumers who need only the carrot (the prospect that their payment will be rewarded by production of future works) to pay fairly. Unfortunately most established industries are managed by people who like you who continue to deny what's actually happening with the belief that their philosophy will prove true in the end, and therefore always fall back to the stick method of threatening, DRM-encumbering, and generally treating their (potential) customers like criminals.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
It's a Metroid-like game set underwater with you playing as a sort of a mermaid. The world is fairly large - maybe a bit too large, even. Good mix of puzzle solving and action. The control style takes some getting used to, but that helps to add to the sense that you're not playing the same old platforming game. Some of the boss fights will make you want to throw a controller. The art design is seriously beautiful - it's 2D sprites for everything, but the overall direction of the graphics is really lovely, as well as the excellent music. I recommend it (though I haven't finished it yet - it really is a bit long.)
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
The Dwarf Fortress guy made $16k last month. And his game is donation-only. And the donations aren't required.
Fellowship 9/11
I wish more console games in the Xbox Live Marketplace, PSN, etc. would/could do charity stuff like this. A lot of us have went over to console gaming and just don't game on our PC's anymore. I would love to be able to participate, but so many things like this are PC-only--and I am NEVER going back to the "Gotta upgrade my video card...gotta upgrade my CPU...gotta get more memory...now I gotta upgrade my video card again..." mess I was in back in the 90's.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Any sufficiently advanced selfishness is indistinguishable from altruism?
Why no plain "payment with CC" option?
I haven't used PayPal account for quite sometime (they changed their status in Europe at least twice already; a major pita to reauthorize myself again after the years) and I do not think other options would let me buy the bundle from over here.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Which they shouldn't.
Why release your work for free? Does freedom feed you at the end of the day? Does it pay for your rent?
Only if you sell advertising for your free product.
I've seen plenty of these experiments; especially from musicians. What ends up happening is everyone pays jack squat for the application and the artists scratch their heads dumbfounded that all the fans, claiming they were sticking it to the man by pirating music, are now sticking it to the artists. That being said, I'll probably contribute even though I'm not interested in the product (as I have before) because I dreadfully want to see this work.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Why release your work for free? Does freedom feed you at the end of the day? Does it pay for your rent?
I paid $10 for it... that wasn't free.
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
I wish he'd integrate & improve Stonesense into Dwarf Fortress. Awesome idea, I just can't get into it personally.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Hey, at least I'd deserve a Flaimbait tag.
However, there's no guarantee that they'll make future games ...
For some of us, programming is about recreation. Slashdot likes car analogies, so how about this: I know people who make money working on cars, and I have friends who do the same thing for themselves on the weekend because they enjoy it.
You know, there are lots of individuals and businesses whose business plan includes giving something away for free. It absolutely does help pay the bills.
If only they get that kind of money month after month...
2010
April Donations: $16,104.49
March Donations: $4,387.99
February Donations: $1,452.57
January Donations: $2,291.50
2009
December Donations: $4,762.98
November Donations: $5,122.29
October Donations: $1,759.27
September Donations: $2,138.21
August Donations: $2,510.86
July Donations: $2,202.37
June Donations: $2,723.83
May Donations: $2,221.92
April Donations: $2,549.15
March Donations: $2,997.46
February Donations: $1,428.62
January Donations: $2,099.48
2008
December Donations: $5,279.49
November Donations: $1,305.10
October Donations: $1,868.30
September Donations: $1,695.48
source
Any sufficiently advanced selfishness is indistinguishable from altruism?
_The Origins of Virtue_ is an excellent book on this subject. Turns out the "fuzzy-headed, emotional" choice is often the most correct for survival in a complex society where people will remember you and your actions can have repurcussions beyond the immediate.
(GP is right about what Rand would have said, though Rand's followers at the Rand Institute and friends would likely say the best choice is to be a cheapskate who convinces other people to give the developers cash. But they're a bunch of parasitic assholes.)
That's brilliant! I wish I'd thought of such a pithy way to put it. I usually end up going on about keeping the full context in mind (something Ms. Rand went to some lengths to emphasize, but clearly not enough given how people interpret her work*), what goes around comes around, etc. * Not that she wasn't batshit crazy about some things. Ever read her essay about why a woman should not want to be President?
I just checked out Penumbra on Youtube, and the control system was really innovative, and people raved in comments. Do you have any idea what these games are, or you just felt to urge to use a cliche?
Maybe. Does the free release of my work gain me notoriety that helps me to make future sales? We're not all short term minimalist thinkers.
And besides, both food and housing are guaranteed to all US citizens.*
* Some restrictions may apply, see county jail for details.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Mac OS X *is* BSD, and it is the ... most usable BSD ever made.
I consider price to be an obstacle to usability.
That being said, I do my gaming in XP.
You might get best designed and most usable (for point and clickers), but most secure and most reliable is kinda pushing it.
Altruism is always a disguised form of selfishness. Even anonymous donors donate because it makes them feel good.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Because you don't own Apple-approved hardware to run it on, but you want (legal) BSD anyway?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
He isn't doing so bad. If he fails to pay taxes, he earned more money in those 20 months than my take home pay for my 9 to 5 programming gig.
Hey, don't trash this guy. The post was about different business-models so dragging some economic philosophy in isn't really that trollish.
You know, it's funny that you say that, because all a homeless person really needs to do is heartlessly slaughter and rape a few innocent people and they've got food and shelter for the rest of their lives. I guess no homeless people are short-term, minimalist thinkers either.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Mac OS X *is* BSD, and it is the best designed, most secure, most reliable, most usable BSD ever made. Why would you use anything else?
I use shell expansion of the * character -- so *BSD expands to NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, etc. It doesn't expand to Mac OS X.
So when EA does overwork their developers, so that they finally burn out, and get cheap new ones, is because they hate games?
True but without them life sucks.
That's all very nice, but when will he be brought up on charges for what happend at Boatmurdered?
I mean, your 20$ (or whatever amount you choose) will only matter, if others are speculating in the long run as well. If they're in short term returns, they'll pay minimum amount, and the company call still go bankrupt, see tragedy of commons.
Slashdot ate my sarcastic tags.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
You bastard! You breathe to satisfy your selfish desire to live!
All perceived altruism is obscure selfishness.
We don't use DRM. When you buy these games, they are yours. Feel free to play them without an internet connection, back them up, and install them on all of your Macs and PCs freely.
Now, from the EULA:
1.1 License Grant. 2D BOY hereby grants to you a non-exclusive license to use a single copy of the object code version of the Game for your personal, non-commercial home entertainment use on one personal computer or other compatible electronic device. You may sell or transfer your copy of the Game to another person along with, and subject to, your rights under this EULA, only if you do not retain any copies.
Emphasis is mine. It looks like Marketing might want to talk to Legal here...
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
You don't want to fail to pay taxes when self employed. The IRS scrutinizes you much more closely.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"Shouldn't"?
When you say "Shouldn't" you are making a judgment. You don't say "'won't" or "can't", but "shouldn't".
I'm really interested in hearing you explain your worldview that allows you to judge whether or not these game makers "should" or "should not" earn anything. Please help me here.
Are you saying that they "shouldn't" earn anything because they have decided to deal with their customers on the honor system? Or is it that they "shouldn't" make any money because they don't share your view of the world where only cutthroat business plans are worthy? Maybe you think they "shouldn't" earn anything because they are "small fish" and in a true "free market" the big strong fish must always eat the little weaker fish and if they should succeed it would throw your entire "free market=DRM" philosophy into question.
By saying they "shouldn't earn anything" you are saying that they should somehow be punished for some violation of the Order of Things.
I think your very telling use of the word "shouldn't" says a lot more about you and your own place in the Order of Things than you might care to think.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But not for long.
Good Jerb Slashdot editors
Like every quarter. And you have to pay both sides of the tax equation, employer and employee. Figure on loosing 25% to taxes at a minimum. Probably more like 30%.
Which is why the tax law is hideously complicated; to allow for deductions to help offset their own crushing red tape requirements. It helps a little, but I quit my biz for the regulation reqs (and a down economy).
I abstain from buying because I don't think I can pay enough for so many games in good conscience. The games are decent, and the 20 USD I can afford now wouldn't do the games justice.
The whole "experiment" is useless without this option, in my opinion. They're going to see a bunch of people paying 1 cent going to EFF and conclude "what a bunch of cheapskates", when there is a good amount of people who either could buy later (after the offer limit), or refuse to buy that many games hands-down, because they actually *value* those games at 70-80 USD and think it's too much money to spend.
These kind of people won't show up in the statistics.
yeah, I'm a bit of a cheapskate, but I'm on a gaming & fun budget each month, so I gotta watch things. Gotta save some money for Zeevex Cards for diamonds for Runs of Magic. :-)
True. Even after taxes, it is likely comparable to the salary he would have earned if he had stayed on at the math department.
And he earned it working on his life goal, crafting video games. Whereas, I spend each and every day having my soul sucked out in a monotonous grind of code reviews and ever shifting and contradicting requirements.
If you're satisfied with the console, you can be quite satisfied with PC gaming and dialing down the resolution and quality appropriately. Most major Xbox games don't even hit 720p (let alone 1080p) and often play at 30fps, so even though you have that nice 1080p monitor hooked to your PC, dial the resolution down in the game to get the same playability. Remember that every console is using outdated hardware in comparison to a current PC.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
-1 Troll. No /.er ever uses a car analogy that fits perfectly with their point. Nice try.
Which they shouldn't.
Why release your work for free? Does freedom feed you at the end of the day? Does it pay for your rent?
Well, it looks like it is going to this time (latest balance showed $70kUS) . Maybe they are just better at what they do, than you are at what you do? I mean, really, they COULD slap a mandatory price on the product, then alter it over the following months until they found a price point that customers are happy with. Instead, their sales and marketing tactic has just eliminated all that dinking around. But you go ahead and stick with what you're comfortable with, even if the market is leaving you behind. Some people just aren't comfortable floating the risk a market segment demands.
Except when it's about the homeless.
In most cases, homeless people are not rational thinkers at all. Most homeless people have serious mental illness problems. It's just not hard to acquire housing (at least in this country) if you're mentally whole.
And if they were at all rational, they'd probably realize that the rape and slaughter strategy is not their best option. Grand theft will get them food and shelter for life without the risk of lethal injection or the moral quandaries of rape and murder.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
That's a somewhat different kind of selfishness, though. Rand, being somewhat Nietzschean in orientation (especially early on), isn't a pure hedonist (do what makes you feel good), but feels that some kinds of instincts and desires are "better" than other kinds, and (like Nietzsche) classifies some of the things traditionally thought of as "altruism" as bad ones.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Altruism is always a disguised form of selfishness.
That's some pretty bizarre bullshit. That's right up there with concluding that every human behavior is logical and can always be explained. In aggregate, maybe there is a small tendency for altruism to improve the status of the altruistic. But for individual actions, you could never make that claim that an altruistic person always expects a benefit.
Not to mention that Rand felt that altruism was ethically unsupportable. That claim has led her followers to propose some really zany ideas.
Support SETI@home
"Unselfish concern for the welfare of others" is always a disguised form of selfishness? A dictionary definition is sufficient to refute your position.
Insert self-referential sig here.
Seems the experiment runs very well. The slashvertisment surely helped to spread the word.
Biggest problem for such Indie-Developers is imho not the intentional lack of DRM and the resulting unlicensed copying of the games, but the lack of media coverage. As the numbers show, there are enough people out there who are willing to pay for games, even if they could get them for free. And I was one of them.
btw. while I typed this, the counter went over 84.000 $. I wonder how much they'll collect over the remaining 6 days.
there are plenty of consumers who need only the carrot (the prospect that their payment will be rewarded by production of future works) to pay fairly. Unfortunately most established industries are managed by people who like you who continue to deny what's actually happening with the belief that their philosophy will prove true in the end, and therefore always fall back to the stick method of threatening, DRM-encumbering, and generally treating their (potential) customers like criminals.
To their credit, I, a potential customer, am a criminal (though less in terms of pirating and more in terms of public urination) and I hate carrots.
Best designed implies the engineering know how to make the most secure and reliable operating system in history. Apple has undeniably demonstrated that with proper engineering, even something originally based on open source can be fast, reliable, secure and usable.
Why would you use anything else when nothing else compares even remotely?
Have you even read Ayn Rand? She may have been a right-wing cracker, but her utopian hideaways (e.g. in Atlas Shrugged) involved a payment system for hard work. Her little crew of elite businesspeople may have been snobs but they weren't thieves.
I don't care at all for what Rand felt or thought, she had crazy ideas. But the notion that altruism is just a form of selfishness is straight out of fundamental psychology. Why does any organism engage in any behavior: either shaping by genetics or shaping by environment. Either way, it's the reward based feedback system that creates altruism.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
My point is that altruism doesn't exist in reality, not that the definition is incorrect. All actual instances of something labeled 'altruism' are in fact examples of the positive feedback mechanism of fundamental psychology. There are only two things that shape all behavior: genes and environment. All behavior comes from those two sources. 'Altruism' exists because it gets reinforced, either in genetics or by the environment.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
And to be fair you get unlimited slashdot time.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Yes in fact, it does.
Ann Rand was full of shit. the exact kind of shit the fits well with people just beginning to learn under their own responsibility. i.e. collage.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yes, but if there was free public toilet, would you have used it?
How can you hate carrots and their sugar goodness? you're weird.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If there lucky, it might just get them a free car to sleep in.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Then be more careful about what you say in the future.
Regardless, seeing as you insist on using words like "always" and "all", you're still making life difficult for yourself.
And your new point about genetic and/or environmental reinforcement doesn't seem to have anything to do with the possibility of the existence of altruism unless you intend to deny that we have any responsibility for our actions at all. If I choose to help others at my own expense because of my genes or my background, that doesn't seem to preclude the possibility that my actions are genuinely altruistic.
Insert self-referential sig here.
SELinux, there. Beat your vaunted security by orders of magnitude.
When I said best design, I meant pretty, not technically masterful. Mac OS X isn't anywhere near as good as you are claiming.
It is good. But it isn't godlike compared the competition.
Indeed you can make quite a wonderful collage out of the chopped up covers of Ayn Rand works.
But what would you expect to expect to feel if you were altruistic? Bad? No, you would still feel good. In fact, a lot of things make you feel good. The fact that you feel good by charity and the fact that you give to charity rather than, say, feel good by doing something else is, in fact, a perfect example of altruistic behaviour. (liberal use of in fact in this context focuses your brain on ... you guessed it ... the facts)
Wow, that sounds like my proposal that all models of government are equally good in an ideal world. It's just too bad we don't live in an ideal world, although it isn't as dystopian as your statement implies. Any action can be self-serving, that doesn't mean it is. Or are they just lying to themselves and you know better?
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Ayn Rand-types won't necessarily pay zero for this. You're assuming they give no thoughts to future desires and only think of immediate costs and instant gratification, and that just isn't true.
I don't think that's the assumption. A $30 donation isn't enough to produce future games from these developers. Neither is a $300 donation or $3000. An individual isn't going to have enough money to donate to single-handedly ensure future games from these developers.
A donor has to understand that even though their own individual actions are insignificant, the collective behavior enabled by themselves and others donating small amounts will make a difference. But the defining trait of randites is that they do NOT understand this, because the philosophy is founded on a complete abject failure to understand the commons dilemma.
Therefore, a randite would pay zero.
No, never read it. I've read enough about her to agree she was batshit crazy, and egotist of the first order and a major hypocrite on many subjects. I'm not a follower of Rand so much as I'm intrigued about much of her philosophy in Atlas Shrugged.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Well, I'll agree that Rand didn't seem to understand the Tragedy of the Commons and many of her direct followers also don't. Again, I'm not so much an acolyte of Rand -- who had many flaws -- as I am intrigued by much of the philosophy of objectivism. Some is wrong, but it has a good base from my perspective.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
About 4 hours later, total sales have roughly doubled:
- Total raised $103,758
- Average contribution $7.96
- Number of contributions 13038
I can't help but wonder how long this thing has been running. The article claims "7 days", but considering the current timer state (6days19hours35min) and the article timestamp (-5hours), that appears unlikely to be entirely accurate.
I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
'No,' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.'
'No,' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.'
'No,' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.'
I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...
Rapture.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Except that the rules are slightly different in software. Specifically, there is minimal marginal cost involved after the initial creation, which isn't true with physical goods.
So, with the World of Goo experiment you can see that they sold over 83,000 copies with an average payment of between $2.00 and $3.00 over a 13 day period. That works out to about $160,000 to $240,000 over just that 13 day period. Blizzard they ain't, but that isn't a bad haul for 2 weeks. While a typical game of their type may sell for $20, what percentage of that goes directly to the developers as opposed to marketing, distributors, duplication, etc.?
http://2dboy.com/2009/10/26/pay-what-you-want-birthday-sale-wrap-up/
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Further details. 2D Boy, the makers of World of Goo, consists of 2 people. Their marginal cost on the software was $0.30.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Dwarf Fortress is awesome, but I wouldn't donate unless it's open sourced.
I very rarely play standalone games, and prefer MMO's. But if one of the kids gets some fun out of one of them, then it was a bargain. Hell at $10.00 I sent all mine to the developers. My hats are off to you guys. Sorry I couldn't spend more. Damn MMO's eating up all my spare cash.
Does freedom feed you at the end of the day? Does it pay for your rent?
Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Next question.
That is some severe lack of thought put into that question and a severe lack of foresight.
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
If I remember correctly, it started at $6 and now, it is a $7.99 (Apple would be happy ;)). I guess people don't want to appear as cheap and give a bit above the mean.
Anyway, in something like 6h, they already made $115k, which is pretty awesome. I wonder how much the total will be buy the end of the promotion in 6 days.
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
He's not planning on selling DF, EVER. pure donationware. Isn't that enough for you?
I reserve the right to have a physical object so I can sell it later, and recover my money.
All those games are of really high quality. The devs deserve more IMO.
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
In most cases, homeless people are not rational thinkers at all. Most homeless people have serious mental illness problems. It's just not hard to acquire housing (at least in this country) if you're mentally whole.
I agree that most homeless people have other problems: for some, the problem is mental, but for others, it's drug related or something else. Once you lose a job and a place to live, it's very hard to get one back. Try getting a place to live without income, or a job that will cover rent without an address or phone number. It's tough to climb out of that hole.
Put identity in the browser.
I paid $30 for my copy of the bundle. That was about 4 hours ago, when the total was at ~$56,000 and the average price spent was $7.95. At the time of this writing (9:05 EST) the total is at $114,678, and the average has gone up...three cents. Still, that's up. :D
I would gladly give my money directly to developers, or have a middleman that skims very little of the hard work of the creators. I will be buying all these games and routing money to the developers primarily, along with EFF and CP.
Altruism is always a disguised form of selfishness. Even anonymous donors donate because it makes them feel good.
This argument makes the definition of altruism worthless.
For instance, lets say temperature wise you can call everything HOT, because anything greater than 0K is actually hot (and equate that to selfish). If someone says -10 degrees is cold (altruistic), you'll just say, no, that's actually some form of hot. It renders the terms hot and cold worthless because you're just playing semantics.
He's not planning on selling DF, EVER. pure donationware. Isn't that enough for you?
NOTHING is ever enough for zealots.
Actually nobody will pay zero for this, I tried, they don't accept it. You get a picture of a developer begging for change and it sends you back to correct your amount.
Dunno what the lowest allowed is.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Lowest acceptable amount is $1. If I really like it I'll donate more later.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Altruism is always a disguised form of selfishness. Even anonymous donors donate because it makes them feel good.
Except that the money spent donating to charity could just as easily be spent directly on the self, probably engendering even greater feelings of 'good'. So why do these individuals spend on charity instead of themselves?
I seriously doubt the validity your remarks about "secure".
Comparing the results of the Pwn 2 Own contest, having similar attack surfaces and only lasting 2 minutes doesn't engender visions of "secure". In fact, it was Windows that people thought would last only that long.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Meh, I reread my post and I think it was clear enough that my quibble with altruism was not with the definition but rather with its nature.
If you choose to do something altruistically, why do you do so? Is there nothing to your choice, are you a simple automaton? Is it an act of pure randomness? Or is it because it makes you sad to do so? Because it's the 'right' thing to do? (reinforcing yourself for right action).
The remaining choice would be that it makes you feel good to do so, in which case the altruism is gone.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Move out of your Mom's basement.
Pretty much. 'Enlightened self-interest' and 'altruism' are just different words for expanding the horizon of the self.
Thinking about 'me in the future' rather than just acting on the current desires of 'me in the past' is a form of altruism, but it's usually called 'self-control' or 'good planning'. Thinking about 'me in another person's situation' is usually called empathy' but is pretty much the same thing. What goes around, comes around.
Ultimately, we're all sufficiently interconnected and interdependent and share so many critical resources (as the ecologists are starting to realise) that it's as true to say 'I am you' as it is to say 'I am me'. So self-interest is altruism, and that's where Rand fails. She thought people were strictly separated point-source singularities with absolutely zero interests in common; that's not actually true either of matter (overlapping waveforms and fields of forces is a better model), or of personality, but the connections are becoming startlingly obvious in the world of information, which does exist in multiple 'places' at once.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Altruism is always a disguised form of selfishness. Even anonymous donors donate because it makes them feel good.
It's not necessarily about anything as mushy as 'feeling'. They may well donate for hard-nosed rational reasons: they sincerely want to live in the kind of world their donation will bring about. That's just good strategic thinking - otherwise called 'investment'.
Not everything real can be measured by money unless your money is defined strictly in terms of real things. Even gold isn't as real as water, food and oxygen in the sense of translating directly into human happiness. What you measure, you get; if your society's money measures fleeting social popularity (exchange value), then making hard-nosed rational decisions about the true value of things will necessarily involve making decisions that, valued in transient monetary terms, seem irrational - but aren't.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I had the demo version of World of Goo from Steam and kind of enjoyed it but didn't think it was worth $20. I paid $5 for World of Goo and probably wont even download the others. The 99c iPhone games have really spoilt my expectations of what games are worth. In my Amiga days I would not have thought $20 for a game like world of Goo was a bargain but now I can get addictive games like Angry Birds and Doodle Jump for 99c while on the bus my perspective has changed.
I don't believe that's true. There's widespread evidence that beyond a certain basis covering the necessities, that additional consumer indulgence actually generates a net negative experience.
There's lots of psychological literature on this phenomenon.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I'm doing the opposite of semantics ... the problem is actually with the semantic definition in my opinion.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
They are lying to themselves, and I know better. Read the psych literature, this is well established fact.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Paid $50, that was all I could muster.
World of Goo was the only game I had heard of before, and this is the first time I've played it. Definitely worth more than the ~$7.14 the devs got from me!
Haven't tried the others yet.
And if you have a few $ left after this (ok 10 of them), have a look at Osmos also. Great game, Linux + DRM free etc. http://www.hemispheregames.com/2010/04/28/linux-osmos-release/
$100.00 for the cause of Linux gaming. Would have been nice to have a comment field so all the devs at the various companies would get the message. As it was, I talked to one of the guys at Wolfire over IM and made my feelings known to him at least.
I already bought and played through all the Penumbra series games on Linux this past winter. Really good. Can't wait for Amnesia!
There was a full-game beta of Aquaria for Linux around that time and I dabbled with it. The initial story didn't do much for me, but it is very pretty. It really is like an underwater Metroid though, so I'll probably play through it.
World of Goo is cute. Lemmings with oil blobs.
Lugaru is very raw, but its successor, Overgrowth, looks like it could be good. I'll throw down to support Wolfire while they make it.
The terminology is arbitrary and awkward though. Altruism has a benefit not for the individual but for it's descendents, other relatives or other members of it's species. So saving someone from drowning might have the effect of making yourself feel good (at the risk of losing your own life), but so would taking his money (while he is drowning) and then going partying with some hookers. Now when someone chooses to make himself feel good by pursuing the former option instead of the latter, we would call that altruistic behaviour. Someone picking the hooker option to make himself feel good we'd call selfish. You might as well say that we have a built-in sense of altruism it fits the terms and the behaviour.
Also even if acting altruistic makes you feel good, that on it's own does not imply that you are doing it because it makes you feel good. If you jump in front of a car to save your child, you are not calculating: "hey saving my child's life will make me feel good" - it's instinctive you are not even thinking about it. So it's not a rewards-based system which will train you to always pick the option "save the child".
That's some pretty bizarre bullshit. That's right up there with concluding that every human behavior is logical and can always be explained.
Every human behaviour is logical and can always be explained as the inevitable result of the laws of physics applied to the matter it's made of. Everything else is mysticism and superstition.
If nothing else remotely compared, there would be no reason to use anything else. Of course, since there are several perfectly comparable, good alternatives, it can be left to reasonable choice whther someone wants to use OSX or something else.
Or did you mean to imply that OSX is the only good operating system there is? A patently flawed and untrue assessment of reality (although the RDF sometimes makes it a challenge for people stuck inside to realize how grossly out of touch they are).
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
My claim is only that altruism, pure of any selfish motive, doesn't exist. You seem to agree. That some things are better for others as well I also agree.
However, on the child bit, I disagree. Save the child comes from selfish genes, rewarded over many generations.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Rand argued that selfisness is the ultimate moral, therefore I think she would choose paying the lowest price possible ($0.01).
Because it's proprietary, expensive (VERY expensive - you need to buy a new computer for it), actually not the most secure (partly because the others are too obscure for anyone to bother targeting, partly because of OS-level virtualization (ie. jails), partly because of Free/OpenBSD's policies of minimalism), and because it's diverged quite a bit from the other BSDs, so you can't say one's anything close to a substitute for the other.
It does expand to MacOSXhasbeenclosedsourcedbutusedtobeBSD, though.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Mod me -1 nitpick, but you mean globbing, not "shell expansion".
Except they found the Altruistic gene. It is the altruistic persons nature, not a motivation like selfishness, that causes them to behave the way they do.
Many an altruistic person will rationalise that they did what they did because it was the right thing to do, NOT because it made them feel good.
He doesn't want to open source it, because he wants to keep control of the project. It's HIS game.
Also, I believe he said that he doesn't want to get stuck being a manager for all the other people who would be working on DF if he open sourced it, he wants to actually code.
As much as I'd love to help code DF, I understand his position, and play it, have donated, and await each new version eagerly.
I seriously doubt the validity your remarks about "secure".
Comparing the results of the Pwn 2 Own contest, having similar attack surfaces and only lasting 2 minutes doesn't engender visions of "secure". In fact, it was Windows that people thought would last only that long.
Unfortunately the times in Pwn2Own mean nothing; the researchers work for months beforehand perfecting their attack and then simply implement it on the day. Often, the reason the macs get hacked first is that the researcher wants a new mac. No operating system is objectively secure; even relative comparisons are pretty meaningless.
I'd tell a UDP joke, but you may not get it. I'd tell a TCP joke, but I'd have to keep repeating it until you got it.
Likewise. I paid $10 - Devs 100% although I do realize that the bundle is worth far more. It was an unplanned purchase on my part. Lots of expenses this month. I would have gladly shelled out $30-$40 if this was an on-going offer instead of just several days. I have a feeling a number of people share my sentiments. In any case, the experiment appears to be a smashing success, in terms of demonstrating that this is a workable business model and that a number of people want to see more quality games on Linux.
That's bullshit. Plenty of people give money to those without just because they have money, and those without, don't. Not to feel good, but because they see something they can do to help, and choose to help.
Their similar stunt with World of Goo led me to purchase other games they developed because WoG showed me they were delivering quality, entertaining games.
What other games have the WoG developers made?
"Often, the reason the macs get hacked first is that the researcher wants a new mac." Ludicrous.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
If you pay $100 or more (split any way you like), you get a complimentary EFF Pioneer Level Membership.
Source.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Yes, but what's the motivation behind the choice? Do they do it because they are emotionless robots? Or because giving that money away makes them feel bad? None of our decisions happen in a void.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Altruism and selfishness are sides of the same coin, whether shaped by environment or by genetics, both options support my point.
And 'rationalise' is precisely what they're doing, which is my point, exactly.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Well, altruism evolved somehow.
Rethinking email
It's naive to claim they don't do it because derive pleasure (feeling good) from helping the less fortunate. I don't see why people are so defensive about that; the needy are still getting helped, everyone wins.
Actually I paid $0.53 and it worked fine.
I think the problem is you used the term "always." I might agree that altruism can often be due to selfishness, but "always?"
Anyone who uses the term "always" to describe the cause of any human behaviour has obviously never met a human being.
Again, in aggregate pushing someone out of the way of an oncoming bus may benefit society or the species and therefore be selfish. I can't imagine what form of "self" that applies to. Self implies an individual, not a species or a society.
If I pushed an old childless lady out of the way of a bus and I got killed in the process, in that specific case there would neither be benefit to me or to the species. And I doubt I'll feel good about it while I'm dying. I find it hard to consider that sort of behavior selfish.
Support SETI@home
I use the term always because I truly believe this is all behavior, and behavior has only two inputs. This is particularly true of the bus case ... you're talking about what has to be a split second decision. Why does that decision go the way it does? Have you been trained to be good, and therefore you act good? What causes you to make a split second decision that puts someone else's life before your own?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
For 5 games you paid $1. Go fuck yourself.
I bought World of Goo last time it was offered, and I'm only interested in TRYING Gish. Didn't actually like it. That's $1 more or less well spent in my opinion. Like I said if I liked any of them I could always pay again later. I paid $1 for a game demo that's hardly ripping off independent publishers. But if they don't allow flexible feedback options they may think the same thing you do, that's their problem.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Sadly, prostitutes and brothels aren't amongst them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You can always dispute whether something is wholly altruistic if you're cynical enough.
A soldier throws himself on a grenade to save his buddies - you can say he is just selfishly thinking of his posthumous reputation, glory for his family or whatever.
A parent donates a kidney to their child - they are just selfishly thinking of prolonging their DNA.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You are allowed to employ help such as lawyers or accountants you know.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yep, exactly. There's always that little bit of ulterior motive driving things.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I am about to buy this. , and will pay much more than I *have* to. Just because many companies are happy to screw me on price whenever they get the chance hasn't (yet) made me want to screw all companies when I get the chance. *I* still have some morals.
Half the bundled games are from 2007, and Gish dates to 2004.
So "fast", apparently.
But. That's also a job. Work is work. Tarn Adams doesn't just program video games, he also has to keep the community involved by talking with them, fulfilling wishes, confirming the status of bugs, blogging about progress.
The Wolfire guys have it easier there. Their games require less of each because how skilled these guys are in designing & programming them in the first place (they are good for a small team like that). Honestly, Tarn has to compensate way more for not so good programming skills, even after these years. Sort of like you probably do. =)
Oh yes, the zealots who merely play other games. Wow, look at the zealotry.
It's not an issue of price, or commercialization, but of having the source.
If you like writing or tweaking games it's not an academic difference. All you show is that you can't imagine ever modding a game.
It's his game, yes. But he wants others to play it. Don't both go without saying?
I too eagerly await new df, specifically not having to set my gridsize and playing natively again.
But I'd think about it more if I had the code, and especially if I could tweak it. I know I'm a niche customer and all but that's the difference between a $5 donation for a game I visit every month or two and a $50 repeating donation for my favorite game.
Admittedly the new version answered a lot of my specific gripes, but being open source would mean I don't need to track down changing memory locations between each build to keep using my tools.
Communists aren't extremists, people who take things to extremes are extremists. Many extremists believe the same things you do.
Why would you lump libertarians with communists, btw, even in wanting them to cry in the same corner? They're about as different as you could imagine. Just because they've both got unusual views? At that, apathy is the consensus these days, every actual view is a minority one.
I know I'm a niche customer and all but that's the difference between a $5 donation for a game I visit every month or two and a $50 repeating donation for my favorite game.
Have you ever done a repeating donation of that much for your favourite open-source game? Presumably DF wasn't always your favourite game.
being open source would mean I don't need to track down changing memory locations between each build to keep using my tools.
So would a decent API, or improving the interface (e.g. grid view of dwarf vs skills) so that the tools are no longer necessary.
Personally the only external tools I use are visualisers, which would be better served by an API than hacking.
I do my gaming in =/ because, come on.. what percentage of games aren't huge let-downs?
Just bought the bundle. The stats right now are:
- Total contributed $1,133,822
- Number of contributions 123,924
- Average contribution $9.15
Win: $8.03 | Mac: $10.22 | Linux: $14.56 (was 14.55 ten minutes ago)
Worth noting that the average Linux contributor pay more than the avg Mac who also pays more than the avg Win - for games. Maybe, 1.) Game dev companies should take notice of that and 2.) That's the proportion of how desperate they are for games and hence, happy to pay up. Yes, the OS you contribute to is selectable by you but how many of the 123k+ contributors are faking it?
btw, the top contributors are: Anonymous - $3333.33; Anonymous - $1337.0; Anonymous - $1000.0
I'm really glad there was an "Open Source Extension" since I wasn't aware of this before - yes, that makes me a terrible /. member. Quite happy to support Indie game devs.
You forget habit, or conditioned response.
I grew up in a family that gave to the needy (my dad buys sleeping bags, then drives around town handing them to anyone who looks like the need them. He also buys pallets of bottled water at Costco to give to shelters during the summer, etc...), so I give to the needy. It is just something I do reflexively.
I don't even really think about it.
I'm sure I might get some small modicum of pleasure from it in retrospect, but that is completely tertiary to the act. I do it because my upbringing tells me that it is what people should do.
Not everything in our life is a biological prerogative, nor is everything a rational weighing of consequences.
Personally I don't understand this debate one bit. What purpose does it serve?
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
God I love Blondie. /me dances.
No, I definitely count conditioned response as environmental, as does the field of psychology.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I have never had a favorite open source game that wasn't totally open source - ie would prefer code rather than cash. I played a lot of OpenTTD for a while, but that's about it.
Presumably DF wasn't always your favourite game.
It isn't now. It could be, if all the things he does that I don't like were removed. I'd love a quick-save key. Losing a fort to a magma leak is the game, losing hours of work to a crash is NOT fun and cancels a lot of what was fun.
Toady will *never* change that because it goes against his view of how the game should be played.
I'd also have changed the date format it uses for saves to have the year first so I can sort the damned things.
Have you ever done a repeating donation of that much for your favourite open-source game?
No, but I can imagine being absolutely hooked on Dwarf for longer than on most. If I was still playing heavily when significant enhancements came out I'd donate again. I wouldn't set it up to repeat, I just mean I could picture being around that long.
So would a decent API, or improving the interface (e.g. grid view of dwarf vs skills) so that the tools are no longer necessary.
Depends which tools you use - if you're satisfied with Dwarf Therapist, etc, then yes. If you're trying to write your own, no, again. It's unlikely Toady's ever going to see my need for finding the most traveled areas, etc, or at least not outside of the pathfinding algorithm. Certainly not up where I'd be able to get feedback for fortress layout.
Personally the only external tools I use are visualisers, which would be better served by an API than hacking.
Amusingly, that's the thing I've never gotten to. I really want to be able to issue my own orders from Ruby.
If you've heard of Armadillo Run (unfortunately not open source), I wrote a Ruby library for outputting maps. With a little code in IRB I can generate huge truss structures, rocket wheels, etc.
I'd love to be able to play Dwarf the same way.
What tileset do you use when not using a visualizer? I use Kelora16 for the diagonal walls. It's nice because it reflects how dwarves can move diagonally, but also for how sharp a properly smoothed fort looks.
I use Guybrush, because it was in a pre-made graphics pack yonks ago, and I'm used to it. I use a dwarf/animal graphics pack that came with it, which I've ported to 2010 and added a little to (medic dwarf, donkey, goat).
It is environmental, sorry to imply otherwise, but my point was that it is an example of a motive towards altruism that isn't driven by (at least immediate) "self-interest", though I'm sure we can draw this back further and claim that, yes, even unthinking habitual responses evolved out of self-interest. But when we get to this level I would like to wave my hands and proclaim that the argument has become rather silly.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Oh, and I have played Armadillo run. 'twas fun.