Your requirements seem eminently reasonable, IMHO. I have no idea why you are getting pushback from the peanut gallery. I can only assume these people are employed at places where their disfunction isn't a major liability. Government, perhaps, or an educational institution. Geographically remote, perhaps. Or they have managed to find technically challenged management to bamboozle into thinking they are essential. The skills you describe have been invaluable in every place I've ever worked, at least the places that were worth working at. The technical people have been top-notch, and were also able to, you know, dress themselves and actually interact with other people. These skills aren't mutually exclusive.
Just remember this is from the same company that has beaten the dead horse known as Quake and Unreal Arena for waaaaaay too many years now. sure they are gonna push for new markets, as it gives them another excuse to sell the same shitty games they've been pushing forever. What I don't get is why so many other companies can think of new and exciting ideas to do with their engine, and they can't. Have they become too big, is the boss an asshole and scares off the talent, what?
Congratulations! You're the winner of today's "Seriously confused" award!
Epic Games has nothing to do with Quake - that is id Software. And Epic didn't make a game called 'Unreal Arena' - you might be thinking of Quake III: Arena, also by id. Aaaaand... You get bonus points for actually providing a link to a list of all Unreal Engine games made - a list that contains neither of your examples. The lack of reading comprehension is... well... epic.
On the bright side, you've seriously confused me as well - I have no idea which company you were attempting to trash. Bravo, sir.
Alright, reading the rest of your post more carefully, maybe I'm not in the group you are referring to. In the case of the "rest of the drivers" then, your argument suggests that more than phones should be banned. No passengers allowed, no radios, no food or drink. Nothing that can provide stimulus that distracts from driving. On the other hand, the "zombie driving" you refer to is a result of the monotony of repetition, so maybe a little outside stimulus in the form of music or conversation is actually useful to keep the mind alert overall.
Let me rephrase my point, since the original wording seems 'trollish', apparently.
Maybe muscle memory was the wrong term. I meant the way any activity that requires skill and training is carried out without requiring explicit thought for each action. Like not needing to think of each key when typing or each note when playing an instrument. The mind can be quite focused on the task but doesn't dwell on each explicit action - there's a kind of flow. Most of what I do while I drive is automatic - that is to say, I don't consciously think about the things I do. That doesn't mean I'm not concentrating, it means my skill level has developed to a certain level of proficiency. I don't think about braking at a light, my foot moves to the brake and applies the right pressure when I want to slow down. I don't think "I need to signal now" - my hand flips the signal when I want to turn or change lanes. My eyes flick to various points pretty much in a constant rotation that's punctuated by looking forward: rear view, forward, left mirror + peripheral vision, forward, right mirror + peripheral vision, forward, glance full left, forward, glance full right, forward. When I speak to a passenger, I don't gaze at them constantly, I flick to them briefly as part of the same visual rotation. Attention stays on the road. I don't think about any of this - it just happens automatically. I think most good drivers or experienced drivers operate the same way.
So in terms of distractions, speaking to a passenger or talking to the air on a hands free phone don't really differ in terms of distracting attention from the road. Speaking to someone on the phone doesn't feel significantly more distracting to me than listening to the radio, whether a talk show or singing along with the music. I'm still focused on the road and more importantly, my eyes and hands are not distracted. Heck, watch an automobile race - the drivers constantly communicate with the pit crew on their helmet mikes. Fighter pilots do the same. If this were significantly more distracting, they wouldn't be allowed to do it for safety reasons.
Contrast that with taking one hand from the wheel to hold a phone, looking at the screen, reading text messages, typing them etc. Much more distracting because they actually take attention away from the road by requiring the use of hands, eyes and mind. That *has* to be more distracting (and it is, based on observation).
So hands free *has* to be better than physically holding the phone or looking at the screen if for no other reason than it allows the senses that matter to stay focused on the road. I don't see why a phone is magically more distracting than talking to passengers actually in the car. It's a conversation in both cases.
Locking down the market isn't necessary - that kind of thinking is based on the assumption that locked down and fully free are the only options. Make it tiered. Let any and all comers in as now, but institute further requirements to get in to the 'premium' or 'trustworthy' or 'verified secure' categories.
iptables isn't in the stock kernels, as far as I know. You have to root and install a rom with a custom kernel (or just a custom kernel over the stock image, I suppose) that supports iptables. Then yes, you could easily set up a personal firewall. Of course in the meantime you've given trust to the root app, the custom kernel dev and the custom ROM dev, so you are still in a questionable place WRT security. At least the reputable 3rd party devs like Cyanogen provide full source code that you can use to build the ROM and kernels yourself, which at least allows the possibility of a source-level audit.
This isn't really so much about taking away the freedom to install anything - that's not what people are talking about. It's about the false of security and legitimacy that the Market provides by presenting itself as the "official source" for Android apps. The freedom you want is fully available: there is a checkbox in the Settings menu to allow installation of apps from non-Market sources. Using this allows you to browse to any site that has an apk file and install it if you wish. That's fine and as it should be to preserve freedom. Checking this box, however throws up a scary warning dialog stating you proceed at your own risk. The implication is that the Market is a "safe" source of apps that poses no serious risk compared to the 'non-market' app space. "Trust us - our apps are safe". Today's story suggests that this is mostly an illusion.
The risk for Android is that it puts Linux's chaos and complexity front and center in the mobile phone market and ends up burning out customers because people are overwhelmed with choices and malware.
Keep Linux out of this - the problem at its heart has nothing to do with Linux. Tux is just an innocent bystander in this instance. This situation could arise for any OS. In its current form, the Android Market isn't really much different from a site like tucows (http://www.tucows.com/). Download and install at your own risk applies throughout - platform/OS is irrelevant.
Indeed. This was discussed just yesterday. Knowing what the permissions mean even at a technical level does little to help with trust. Any non-trivial app (ie. those that actually do something interesting or useful) will pose a security risk. The only suitable choice for any but the most trivial apps is simple: Do Not Install. I'm not sure that is really the message Google wants to convey. What's the point of the app store and the "android ecosystem" if the only real choice to stay secure is don't install apps? Something needs to change.
I use that selection method too - it's the only meaningful one that can be made. But the choice isn't an informed one based on any *real and useful* information supplied by the permissions list. IT experience isn't needed to make the decision. Trouble is, some apps that are useful and safe do legitimately need all the permissions in the list. So the list doesn't really help with anything other than rather coursely avoiding risk. You have to use criteria other than what's on the list to make an informed choice. So the list is useless for all but the most trivial apps.
You should be kissing the author's feet
on
JavaScript Cookbook
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· Score: 3, Insightful
As I step back and reflect on this book, I think that many topics are solutions that cannot be implemented because the typically available browsers don't support the new features yet.
Most technical books are partially obsolete before they see print, or rapidly become obsolete. You're complaining because the book might have a longer shelf-life, thus giving a better return-on-investment and greater longevity and usefullness? Take a step back and think. Really.
I guarantee you that anything that keeps eyes on the road is less distracting than the need to look at a screen and (with modern smartphones) navigate the touchscreen and menus. Keep the senses that matter on the road and muscle memory will help, even if the mind is distracted. (Hint: What's the difference between a dialog with a text-to-speech smartphone and one or more passengers in the car?. My guess is not much. My other guess is that many of these studies involved a single occupant of the vehicle. In that case, any non-road stimulus would increase distraction. Duh.)
Yes, you are wrong. The granularity of what you can authorize is very coarse, and many useful apps require permissions that can be damaging in the wrong hands. You're left with trust - not exactly the most comfortable form of security.
Specific example: any app that needs access to your personal contacts list. A mapping app may need it to be able to show nearby contacts on a map, but that information could then also be harvested via the internet access permissions that the app also likely requires (putatively to download/update the mapping data). You have no assurance whatsoever that your personal information (family, friends, businesses and all their details) isn't being mined and sent to a server somewhere. None.
The permissions listings are about as opaque as they come. I've some experience with the soft white underbelly of technology, so I can make a good guess about what a particular permission entails and why it might be necessary, but I still can't quite figure whether an app is actually secure or not. And for many apps the list is quite long - not exactly user friendly or convenient. If I (after 20+ years of experience with computer technology) can barely make heads nor tails of the permissions, heaven help the butcher/backer/candlestickmaker who just wants to feels safe when installing an app on their phone. And I have the SDK installed and can actually read the details.
In a word, the permissions listings tell a person fuck-all about whether an app is actually safe or not. With a few exceptions. Apps that require no special permissions or just a very few, rare though they are, give one some sense of confidence. Internet connection required for a stock ticker app? Ok, can't be much harm in that. I'll install. Beyond that, as the list of required permissions grow, the difficulty in evaluating the safety of an app grows exponentially. Access to SD storage, personal contacts list, state of phone, location, yada yada. Most apps seem to require most of these. Access to SD storage is needed for reading/writing personal settings, caching data and the like. Fine. But is access to other data on the SD card limited? I have no clue. As far as I can tell, once an app has access the SD card, a full wipe is possible. There is little information to suggest otherwise.
So basically, for apps that require a non-trivial list of permissions to function, one is left with trust in the developer as the only security. The rest is a roll of the dice.
To be honest, I think most people treat the list of permissions much as they treat an EULA: a list of incomprehensible gibberish that one must ignore to get to the actual goal (an installed app, in this case). It's in the Google market, so it must be safe, right? Click, click, install.
Android app permissions as a way to assess the safety of an app? You've got to be kidding. Epic fail.
Not really the point. I don't have time either, but I don't use Chrome so porting SyncPlaces would do me no good. The SyncPlaces author probably doesn't have time since he's, well, already busy with SyncPlaces. And my comment wasn't targeted at *you* alone, though it comes across that way - better to maintain the conversational tone in these discussion threads, I suppose.
The real point is that the building blocks already exist, are freely available standards, and a working example already exists to provide a design target. Somebody (or group of somebodies) out there with the time and resources (and Chrome knowledge) could put together a SyncPlaces compatible Chrome implementation without too much effort, I would think. Maybe the missing element is a way to connect those folks with people who desire such a tool (such as yourself) and might be willing to donate as a way of providing motivation.
So write one. SyncPlaces uses standard protocols for communication and standard file/data formats for storage. It should be easy enough to handle the chrome bookmarks in the same way. And you can use your own server, so your bookmarks are yours alone and private, and won't go away just because somebody shut down their free service.
You might consider that you can't actually control data usage with the default settings provided by the stock firmware (without going into "airplane mode" on the Droid, for example), so monthly data usage for a phone is not relevant to your usage needs and quite irrelevant to the 'capabilities' of the phone. Insist on better control at the user level of data usage (as well as a better way to monitor usage data) and you might find that your data needs are much more modest than the default configuration of the phone forces you to use. There's not a lot of configurability vis-a-vis caching for offline use at a global device level unless the application developer provides settings to control this. Oh, and don't forget about defaulting to Wi-Fi over 3G for any open or known network within range - that could cut down a lot on data usage, particularly for those that spend much of their day around known networks (campus, workplace, home, coffee shop, library, bookstore). Smartphones could be a lot... smarter... about data usage and still fulfill their needs quite readily.
I don't think they provided enough of a value-add above and beyond the (IMHO very good) value they offered on the games. For example, DRM-free was great, and the price was right, but they didn't really play up the fact that purchasing through them rather than torrenting provided a *legal* copy to the purchaser. It may seem a rather trivial thing, but these days in which everyone is presumed to be an illegal downloader and the 'rightsholder police' can threaten lawsuits on a whim, the ability to produce valid proof of ownership is powerful. "Why, no, I did not pirate that game - in fact, here is a copy of my proof of purchase certificate (digitally signed and verifiable as authentic by downloading GoG's public verification key). As you can see, your honor, I have the right to possess a copy of the game. The plaintiff has no case." I tried a few times on the forums to advocate that they provide some sort of distinct proof of purchase, whether a signed 'digital receipt' of some sort, or even a nicely formatted pdf document that provided proof of ownership, but nobody was interested.
Other areas they might have explored: tangible media (for an extra fee) and gifting (with on-demand shipping of hard copies ready for wrapping). The former would be great for those that want a disk for backup/security purposes, or nice graphics and a case. The latter would be useful for giving 'Cousin Bob who loved Psychonauts but can't play his copy on the new PC' a cool gift for christmas that you could wrap up and put under the tree. GoG did gift certificates or somesuch thing, as I recall, but that is just no substitute for something that can be unwrapped and admired. Maybe the answer is to partner with someone like Amazon who has the infrastructure to target a broad audience and could properly sell the DRM-free message, as well as produce and ship tangible media at reasonable cost for those that want to purchase gifts.
All in all, DRM-free at a low price alone wasn't enough.
That's funny. I've used my science degree to find work outside my field precisely because I sell it as training in the ability to think and solve problems. Maybe you're using yours wrong?
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Your requirements seem eminently reasonable, IMHO. I have no idea why you are getting pushback from the peanut gallery. I can only assume these people are employed at places where their disfunction isn't a major liability. Government, perhaps, or an educational institution. Geographically remote, perhaps. Or they have managed to find technically challenged management to bamboozle into thinking they are essential. The skills you describe have been invaluable in every place I've ever worked, at least the places that were worth working at. The technical people have been top-notch, and were also able to, you know, dress themselves and actually interact with other people. These skills aren't mutually exclusive.
NitPicker, is that you?
You have favorite companies? Dude, you are so twisted.
Just remember this is from the same company that has beaten the dead horse known as Quake and Unreal Arena for waaaaaay too many years now. sure they are gonna push for new markets, as it gives them another excuse to sell the same shitty games they've been pushing forever. What I don't get is why so many other companies can think of new and exciting ideas to do with their engine, and they can't. Have they become too big, is the boss an asshole and scares off the talent, what?
Congratulations! You're the winner of today's "Seriously confused" award!
Epic Games has nothing to do with Quake - that is id Software. And Epic didn't make a game called 'Unreal Arena' - you might be thinking of Quake III: Arena, also by id. Aaaaand ... You get bonus points for actually providing a link to a list of all Unreal Engine games made - a list that contains neither of your examples. The lack of reading comprehension is ... well ... epic.
On the bright side, you've seriously confused me as well - I have no idea which company you were attempting to trash. Bravo, sir.
Alright, reading the rest of your post more carefully, maybe I'm not in the group you are referring to. In the case of the "rest of the drivers" then, your argument suggests that more than phones should be banned. No passengers allowed, no radios, no food or drink. Nothing that can provide stimulus that distracts from driving. On the other hand, the "zombie driving" you refer to is a result of the monotony of repetition, so maybe a little outside stimulus in the form of music or conversation is actually useful to keep the mind alert overall.
Let me rephrase my point, since the original wording seems 'trollish', apparently.
Maybe muscle memory was the wrong term. I meant the way any activity that requires skill and training is carried out without requiring explicit thought for each action. Like not needing to think of each key when typing or each note when playing an instrument. The mind can be quite focused on the task but doesn't dwell on each explicit action - there's a kind of flow. Most of what I do while I drive is automatic - that is to say, I don't consciously think about the things I do. That doesn't mean I'm not concentrating, it means my skill level has developed to a certain level of proficiency. I don't think about braking at a light, my foot moves to the brake and applies the right pressure when I want to slow down. I don't think "I need to signal now" - my hand flips the signal when I want to turn or change lanes. My eyes flick to various points pretty much in a constant rotation that's punctuated by looking forward: rear view, forward, left mirror + peripheral vision, forward, right mirror + peripheral vision, forward, glance full left, forward, glance full right, forward. When I speak to a passenger, I don't gaze at them constantly, I flick to them briefly as part of the same visual rotation. Attention stays on the road. I don't think about any of this - it just happens automatically. I think most good drivers or experienced drivers operate the same way.
So in terms of distractions, speaking to a passenger or talking to the air on a hands free phone don't really differ in terms of distracting attention from the road. Speaking to someone on the phone doesn't feel significantly more distracting to me than listening to the radio, whether a talk show or singing along with the music. I'm still focused on the road and more importantly, my eyes and hands are not distracted. Heck, watch an automobile race - the drivers constantly communicate with the pit crew on their helmet mikes. Fighter pilots do the same. If this were significantly more distracting, they wouldn't be allowed to do it for safety reasons.
Contrast that with taking one hand from the wheel to hold a phone, looking at the screen, reading text messages, typing them etc. Much more distracting because they actually take attention away from the road by requiring the use of hands, eyes and mind. That *has* to be more distracting (and it is, based on observation).
So hands free *has* to be better than physically holding the phone or looking at the screen if for no other reason than it allows the senses that matter to stay focused on the road. I don't see why a phone is magically more distracting than talking to passengers actually in the car. It's a conversation in both cases.
Locking down the market isn't necessary - that kind of thinking is based on the assumption that locked down and fully free are the only options. Make it tiered. Let any and all comers in as now, but institute further requirements to get in to the 'premium' or 'trustworthy' or 'verified secure' categories.
iptables isn't in the stock kernels, as far as I know. You have to root and install a rom with a custom kernel (or just a custom kernel over the stock image, I suppose) that supports iptables. Then yes, you could easily set up a personal firewall. Of course in the meantime you've given trust to the root app, the custom kernel dev and the custom ROM dev, so you are still in a questionable place WRT security. At least the reputable 3rd party devs like Cyanogen provide full source code that you can use to build the ROM and kernels yourself, which at least allows the possibility of a source-level audit.
This isn't really so much about taking away the freedom to install anything - that's not what people are talking about. It's about the false of security and legitimacy that the Market provides by presenting itself as the "official source" for Android apps. The freedom you want is fully available: there is a checkbox in the Settings menu to allow installation of apps from non-Market sources. Using this allows you to browse to any site that has an apk file and install it if you wish. That's fine and as it should be to preserve freedom. Checking this box, however throws up a scary warning dialog stating you proceed at your own risk. The implication is that the Market is a "safe" source of apps that poses no serious risk compared to the 'non-market' app space. "Trust us - our apps are safe". Today's story suggests that this is mostly an illusion.
The risk for Android is that it puts Linux's chaos and complexity front and center in the mobile phone market and ends up burning out customers because people are overwhelmed with choices and malware.
Keep Linux out of this - the problem at its heart has nothing to do with Linux. Tux is just an innocent bystander in this instance. This situation could arise for any OS. In its current form, the Android Market isn't really much different from a site like tucows (http://www.tucows.com/). Download and install at your own risk applies throughout - platform/OS is irrelevant.
Indeed. This was discussed just yesterday. Knowing what the permissions mean even at a technical level does little to help with trust. Any non-trivial app (ie. those that actually do something interesting or useful) will pose a security risk. The only suitable choice for any but the most trivial apps is simple: Do Not Install. I'm not sure that is really the message Google wants to convey. What's the point of the app store and the "android ecosystem" if the only real choice to stay secure is don't install apps? Something needs to change.
I use that selection method too - it's the only meaningful one that can be made. But the choice isn't an informed one based on any *real and useful* information supplied by the permissions list. IT experience isn't needed to make the decision. Trouble is, some apps that are useful and safe do legitimately need all the permissions in the list. So the list doesn't really help with anything other than rather coursely avoiding risk. You have to use criteria other than what's on the list to make an informed choice. So the list is useless for all but the most trivial apps.
As I step back and reflect on this book, I think that many topics are solutions that cannot be implemented because the typically available browsers don't support the new features yet.
Most technical books are partially obsolete before they see print, or rapidly become obsolete. You're complaining because the book might have a longer shelf-life, thus giving a better return-on-investment and greater longevity and usefullness? Take a step back and think. Really.
I guarantee you that anything that keeps eyes on the road is less distracting than the need to look at a screen and (with modern smartphones) navigate the touchscreen and menus. Keep the senses that matter on the road and muscle memory will help, even if the mind is distracted. (Hint: What's the difference between a dialog with a text-to-speech smartphone and one or more passengers in the car?. My guess is not much. My other guess is that many of these studies involved a single occupant of the vehicle. In that case, any non-road stimulus would increase distraction. Duh.)
Yes, you are wrong. The granularity of what you can authorize is very coarse, and many useful apps require permissions that can be damaging in the wrong hands. You're left with trust - not exactly the most comfortable form of security.
Specific example: any app that needs access to your personal contacts list. A mapping app may need it to be able to show nearby contacts on a map, but that information could then also be harvested via the internet access permissions that the app also likely requires (putatively to download/update the mapping data). You have no assurance whatsoever that your personal information (family, friends, businesses and all their details) isn't being mined and sent to a server somewhere. None.
Right.
The permissions listings are about as opaque as they come. I've some experience with the soft white underbelly of technology, so I can make a good guess about what a particular permission entails and why it might be necessary, but I still can't quite figure whether an app is actually secure or not. And for many apps the list is quite long - not exactly user friendly or convenient. If I (after 20+ years of experience with computer technology) can barely make heads nor tails of the permissions, heaven help the butcher/backer/candlestickmaker who just wants to feels safe when installing an app on their phone. And I have the SDK installed and can actually read the details.
In a word, the permissions listings tell a person fuck-all about whether an app is actually safe or not. With a few exceptions. Apps that require no special permissions or just a very few, rare though they are, give one some sense of confidence. Internet connection required for a stock ticker app? Ok, can't be much harm in that. I'll install. Beyond that, as the list of required permissions grow, the difficulty in evaluating the safety of an app grows exponentially. Access to SD storage, personal contacts list, state of phone, location, yada yada. Most apps seem to require most of these. Access to SD storage is needed for reading/writing personal settings, caching data and the like. Fine. But is access to other data on the SD card limited? I have no clue. As far as I can tell, once an app has access the SD card, a full wipe is possible. There is little information to suggest otherwise.
So basically, for apps that require a non-trivial list of permissions to function, one is left with trust in the developer as the only security. The rest is a roll of the dice.
To be honest, I think most people treat the list of permissions much as they treat an EULA: a list of incomprehensible gibberish that one must ignore to get to the actual goal (an installed app, in this case). It's in the Google market, so it must be safe, right? Click, click, install.
Android app permissions as a way to assess the safety of an app? You've got to be kidding. Epic fail.
Not really the point. I don't have time either, but I don't use Chrome so porting SyncPlaces would do me no good. The SyncPlaces author probably doesn't have time since he's, well, already busy with SyncPlaces. And my comment wasn't targeted at *you* alone, though it comes across that way - better to maintain the conversational tone in these discussion threads, I suppose.
The real point is that the building blocks already exist, are freely available standards, and a working example already exists to provide a design target. Somebody (or group of somebodies) out there with the time and resources (and Chrome knowledge) could put together a SyncPlaces compatible Chrome implementation without too much effort, I would think. Maybe the missing element is a way to connect those folks with people who desire such a tool (such as yourself) and might be willing to donate as a way of providing motivation.
So write one. SyncPlaces uses standard protocols for communication and standard file/data formats for storage. It should be easy enough to handle the chrome bookmarks in the same way. And you can use your own server, so your bookmarks are yours alone and private, and won't go away just because somebody shut down their free service.
Flash a custom firmware and you can put a stop to that shit pretty darn quick.
You might consider that you can't actually control data usage with the default settings provided by the stock firmware (without going into "airplane mode" on the Droid, for example), so monthly data usage for a phone is not relevant to your usage needs and quite irrelevant to the 'capabilities' of the phone. Insist on better control at the user level of data usage (as well as a better way to monitor usage data) and you might find that your data needs are much more modest than the default configuration of the phone forces you to use. There's not a lot of configurability vis-a-vis caching for offline use at a global device level unless the application developer provides settings to control this. Oh, and don't forget about defaulting to Wi-Fi over 3G for any open or known network within range - that could cut down a lot on data usage, particularly for those that spend much of their day around known networks (campus, workplace, home, coffee shop, library, bookstore). Smartphones could be a lot ... smarter ... about data usage and still fulfill their needs quite readily.
they still won't have a download client.
The only download client needed is a web browser. That is as it should be.
That much wasn't in doubt - they were legit. They built up their catalog bit by bit as they got publishers on board, all very public and above board.
Sorry, MPAA representative. Your right to control your media and micro-extract from me value ends at my property line.
I don't think they provided enough of a value-add above and beyond the (IMHO very good) value they offered on the games. For example, DRM-free was great, and the price was right, but they didn't really play up the fact that purchasing through them rather than torrenting provided a *legal* copy to the purchaser. It may seem a rather trivial thing, but these days in which everyone is presumed to be an illegal downloader and the 'rightsholder police' can threaten lawsuits on a whim, the ability to produce valid proof of ownership is powerful. "Why, no, I did not pirate that game - in fact, here is a copy of my proof of purchase certificate (digitally signed and verifiable as authentic by downloading GoG's public verification key). As you can see, your honor, I have the right to possess a copy of the game. The plaintiff has no case." I tried a few times on the forums to advocate that they provide some sort of distinct proof of purchase, whether a signed 'digital receipt' of some sort, or even a nicely formatted pdf document that provided proof of ownership, but nobody was interested.
Other areas they might have explored: tangible media (for an extra fee) and gifting (with on-demand shipping of hard copies ready for wrapping). The former would be great for those that want a disk for backup/security purposes, or nice graphics and a case. The latter would be useful for giving 'Cousin Bob who loved Psychonauts but can't play his copy on the new PC' a cool gift for christmas that you could wrap up and put under the tree. GoG did gift certificates or somesuch thing, as I recall, but that is just no substitute for something that can be unwrapped and admired. Maybe the answer is to partner with someone like Amazon who has the infrastructure to target a broad audience and could properly sell the DRM-free message, as well as produce and ship tangible media at reasonable cost for those that want to purchase gifts.
All in all, DRM-free at a low price alone wasn't enough.
That's funny. I've used my science degree to find work outside my field precisely because I sell it as training in the ability to think and solve problems. Maybe you're using yours wrong?