Why would you ever design a product that's completely and utterly dependent on a service provided by someone else, especially someone else who you view as a competitor or who may down the road view you as a competitor, without an iron-clad, air-tight contract guaranteeing exactly what services they'll provide you and providing scorched-earth-level penalties for their failure to provide service according to the agreed-upon terms?
So, wait, is your question to Facebook app devs, or Windows application developrs?
I basically wake up to an inbox full of bug reports and feature requests every morning, and I have to find time to deal with these in addition to all of the actual science I'm supposed to be working on. Despite being an obvious sign of success (people actually use our software!), it's become so discouraging that it helped drive out one of my (very competent) ex-coworkers.
You're doing it wrong then. Just because you release source doesn't mean you have to maintain it. If you don't maintain it, and it's important enough, then some one else will. Typically I find that people who are in your position cling too tightly to the reins. If you love it, set it free. Check up on it from time to time, hell, even if it's forked and you want to add a feature you need to the code you have two options: a) modify the onsite version you keep and push out the source; Letting the forkers figure out how to merge that feature if they like, or b) adopt the latest version of the forked code and make your changes there.
For fuck's sake people, you make it sound like simple resource management is a form of rocket science.
So, the answer to how the game stayed up is that it's not a twitch game, and is actually pretty fucking slow with regard to "real time" actions of other games. In other words: It's basically a turn based game where latency isn't an issue so big fucking deal folks.
The war on piracy is like the war on drugs. The arguments don't have to make sense, or even be of financial benefit to the aggressor (think of how many billions have been wasted busting and then jailing people for pot). It's all about setting this arbitrary goal, be it the eradication of piracy or the eradication of drugs, and throwing insane resources at it in the hope of achieving that goal.
No. The war on "piracy" is a war over artificial scarcity. Look, once the work is done by the developers for a set price, the Publisher tries to get as much money from their works by not adding anything of value to the product and enforcing non-features such as artificial scarcity enforcing software -- DRM.
The real war on "piracy" is happening in the reduction of artificial scarcity. What's scarce is my ability to configure the bits, not the configuration of bits itself. So, by marketing my programming/art labour directly to consumers I can bypass the Publisher's artificial scarcity. One way of doing this is crowd-sourced funding. If I set the price correctly I'll get the same $PAY for the same work be it working under a publisher or working for the public directly via Kickstarter, indegogo, etc. The difference is that without a Publisher I can actually just give the game away for free to everyone when I'm done doing the work of making it -- The work has already been paid for, and either way I'd just be getting paid when I do work...
By returning to the tried and true money-for-labour model, content creation can finally be piracy proof! You can't download that which I haven't made! I get paid for my work plus a bit of profit, just like every other labour field, like say Auto Mechanics. Mechanics give you an estimate for the work, then you agree to pay their price and only then do they do the work. This system is fair and it WORKS! Imagine if a publisher was involved there: Each fix to your car would mean you pay more each time someone else drives it... Publishers are Rent Seekers.
Unlike the War on Drugs, the War on Piracy can actually be won. It's not a war fought between content creators and end users; It's a war fought between Us (end users and developers) and Publishers. As soon as you end users and we developers realize we're both on the same side we can work out a deal between us and tell the Publishers to go fuck off and die, and thus end Artificial Scarcity and Piracy.
We're at the beginning of a transitionary period. This is the first generation of the global information publishing networks. The old models are obsolete, but there's still money to be made by them. By its very name "Kickstarter" is implying that devs should ask for less than they need to recoup costs + a bit of proffit; Thus, devs still need to engage in artificial scarcity and sell the copies after the work is done. However, you CAN ask for the amount you actually need, it just takes a strong will (and a few accountant aneurysms) to ignore profits that could be made via artificial scarcity after the work is done; Instead I'd just sell copies to supporters and also give them away, or maybe do a "pay what you want" ala Humble Indie Bundles... see? The more folks do this, the more others will need to compete with their prices and the sooner we can end Piracy.
What do devs get out of the deal that they wouldn't get under a Publisher? Job Security. Think about it, public funded projects don't get funded if the ideas suck -- That's free market research. You can avoid doing all that work of making a shitty project no one will buy and focus on the things that people actually want you to make! Of course this means being a bit more open about your in-progress work. The more renown you acquire as a developer of good games/music/movies the more fans you'll have and the more you can keep secret on trust -- See: Double Fine's Kickstarter, no prototypes, just an Idea, but the devs are beloved... Look at others w/ just ideas, no prototype footage, no funding.
Sometimes I buy them even if I don't want to play them (seriously). I think I bought a Humble Bundle last year that I still haven't even looked at yet. Hell, I'm not even a gamer. But I'll spend money on non-DRM software just to encourage more of it.
I think that was an important "test". They caught a lot of flack over it. I personally didn't buy #6, but I did buy all the others except #6. A quick search hasn't resulted in a link to #6 so I can't check the sales breakdown at the source. The current Humble Indie Bundle 7 is cross platform and DRM free. I'd be interested if anyone would post the numbers from HIB #6, for science!
Here are the sales as listed for the "recent" bundles I purchased: #4
Total payments: $2,373,878.85
Purchases #: 435,251
Average purchase: $5.45
Average Windows: $4.87
Average Mac: $7.61
Average Linux: $10.41
#V -- Which, surprisingly, did not include VVVVVV...
Total payments: $5,108,725.09
Purchases #: 599,004
Average purchase: $8.53
Average Windows: $7.98
Average Mac: $9.99
Average Linux: $12.48
#7
Total payments: $2,651,762.57
Purchases #: 395,953
Average purchase: $6.70
Average Windows: $6.23
Average Mac: $7.95
Average Linux: $10.47
It's hard comparing sales because the games vary in quality and appeal from bundle to bundle -- #V (5) Had a strong showing with Pyschonauts, Braid, and Bastion, and others.
I think "DRM free" is the strongest selling point for me, but cross platform is a strong second -- even though actual Linux "support" seems flakey w/ most HiB games I still buy under Linux because A) I want them to know I'm (trying) to use Linux to play their games, and B) I won't enter my financial details into software I haven't audited and compiled myself (yes, I'm two of the "many eyes"). I have decent boxen for each OS, but prefer Linux. I even have multiple copies of the games on various platforms, yet I still buy the bundles if they don't have DRM. As a developer I've noted that the trivial amount of additional time it takes to support Linux natively when I start a project/game with a cross platform dev environment is well worth the additional revenue Linux users are willing to pay...
How do you write in C/C++? Using the common subset of both? You might like to try C++, it's very nice.
Allow me to interject. I too write in C/C++. Because C++'s name mangling is complier specific. To disable that feature we use the extern "C" {... } block. Within that block of a C++ file is C code that won't be name-mangled. This is neccesary to write any library code that may be called by code written with a different compiler. Protip: C++ is basically a very fancy preprocessor for C. What you're referring to as C++ is really C/C++ or as I've recently taken to calling it: C plus C++
The features tacked onto HTML5 like <audio> and <script> aren't considered a plugin, thus writing your animation w/ sound in it would seem to bypass the new default click-to-play. Ah, but it doesn't matter anyway since they're not making Flash click-to-play. So either this will make annoying BS more difficult to block without breaking the site, or it stengthens Flash in opposition to HTML5. Now browsers will be even less usable without NoScript and AdBlock.
Either way you look at it HTML5 is dead to me; It's been 13 years (half the age of the Web) and we're still stuck on HTML 4.01... Time to give up folks, HTML6 won't arrive before the Singularity. The Web even tanks as a cross platform dev platform -- I can make pixel perfect feature rich cross-platform native application for Linux, Win, BSD, OSX, Android, iOS in 1/3rd the time it takes me to ensure the same "web app" works in all the browsers and OSs. It was a bad idea to begin with -- Hack together the most inefficient scripting language and a stateless static document display engine to create stateful internet enabled applications (Every damn site is a stateful application now). HTML is ugly, and pointless. Long live the Internet, but Fuck The Web.
Anyone with physical access can probably reset the BIOS password and turn off secure boot.
The point of secure boot is to make possible a chain of proof attesting that everything that gets loaded into ring0 has not been modified. Clearly if you can disable the chain of proof then you can disabled the chain of proof, but you cannot do so invisibly, which is the entire point of secure boot.
So, uh, wouldn't we just then perform a SHA512 hash of the dumped hibernation memory? A salted hash is good enough to detect tampering if you're not concerned about hiding the data in the dump. A loader would then perform the same salted hash of memory as it's loading it and abort if the resulting hash doesn't match the on-disk hash. Of course the same code signing chain technology Secure Boot employs can be used to sign the salt & hash to ensure the dump's integrity.
OK, here's the thing: Is there any kernel level exploit in the OS? If the answer is yes, then return oriented programming can be used to create malware that runs even when the code is signed and encrypted -- It'll just use the existing valid code of the system to create itself. You don't even need to know exactly what the encrypted code does, you just have to observe the state changes of the system and develop your malicious return oriented "op-codes" out of the places you can jump to. There's no need to even tamper with the boot sector because said malware can simply re-exploit the OS after it's booted up.
An OS has to create a trust chain to maintain it after control leaves secure boot -- Really, all we needed was the ability to flash the BIOS with the OS bootloader, and give people the option to "allow OS installs on next boot" in the boot options menu. Way fucking easier than performing some ceremonious mental masturbation encryption key entry in BIOS, that end users are BOUND to fuck up on the first try. Secure boot has no more security that putting the OS bootloader on the MOBO, and it's 100 times more complex.
"Make everything as simple as possible but not simpler." -Albert Einstein.
Secure Boot is Epic Fail on all fronts except for pushing MS's proprietary FAT file system into every OS on the planet. I won't use it, and consider UEFI harmful. Also CoreBoot Already Exists, so that's what I use even on x86 systems to boot instantly to Linux. You can mount your whole/boot/ on the MOBO if it's got enough space... Up and running in milliseconds. Screw security theater boot, there is really no valid "point" for it to exist.
It's not just the license or DRM you have to wory about. Davlik performs some install time optimisiation and linking, eg: translates integer byte orders into machine native format and links with system libs. This means you need the installable APK, not a ripped version. The ripped APK may not be compatible with the next system you restore it onto -- different byte order, etc. In this way Davlik trades compatibility for speed vs the Java VM (which performs such linking and optimisations at run-time instead, leading to slower startup times).
I am certain that the algorithms being used today will never result with human level AI. If we want to design strong AI we need to first prove P = NP.
I am certain that you are ignorant about much of the field of machine intelligence.
Must you prove P = NP to become sentient? Think man! I can train a small neural network to do OCR, or recognize shapes or colors, with more complexity it can do more things. I can train a Dog's neural network to do many tricks, the same for Parrots. Why would a digital neural network be any less capable of sentience than your own mind? I do not need advanced mathematics knowledge beyond our current understanding to create a framework for neuron simulation and scale it up to human levels of complexity, then genetically program it via selection pressure.
The only thing that we need is bigger and faster machines to run the scalable neural network simulations, and time to train it. Ergo, it's only a matter of time. If my OCR neural network doesn't have to be self aware to do OCR, and your brain doesn't have to know whether P = NP to be sentient, then neither does Strong AI. The intelligence of my machine's neural networks is not artificial -- It's as real as that of any living neural network. The network is artificial, but the intelligence is real! Intelligence isn't invented, it's a phenomena that emerges from any sufficiently complex interaction.
Any sufficiently complex interaction is indistinguishable from a sentient being because that's what a sentient being is. What's designed in my MI systems is merely a scalable framework for efficient interaction and reflection; Datasets then dictate the flow of information in that framework, and they are EVOLVED to produce the results desired -- Evolution through Selection Pressure is something we CAN prove exists, and it's all we need.
To truly UNDERSTAND how strong AI thinks might require a proof that P = NP, but for the strong AI to actually exist does not require this knowledge. In other words: I couldn't tell you exactly how my OCR program learns to recognize the letter Z at any angle, I just know that it has evolved the encoding of such an understanding because that's what I trained it to do -- I don't know how it works exactly, it just does (to a sufficient degree). I can explain/document one instance of the series of changes that resulted in that capability, but I can not completely explain the process precisely. I have tried decoding the logic pathways of advanced cyclic neural networks and become mired in a tangle too deep for anyone to fully understand, especially considering that the same knowledge can be learned by a myriad of different AI frameworks, where my documented process diverges sharply from the process employed in the others. Pattern recognition can be learned by info. networks, and genetic programming can be used to produce better pattern recognition, and that's all the understanding we need to create strong AI -- Syntax is merely an application of pattern recognition. Your abliity to read the words of this sentence without sounding them out is an application of compressed pattern recognition -- esp. the second misspelled word. Mathematics and Science are merely an application of compression in a cybernetic system: A preliminary processing of data produces a pattern that is recognized to indicate that further processing will result in an expected result (previously processed fully).
Once you know a bit of information theory it's ridiculous to be so Chauvinistic about your own Sentience -- You're not special! I suspect you've been reading too much into Asimov and the whole "laws of robotics", and other such nonsense. My machine intelligences are not based on expert systems, and if they become complex enough to develop self preservation they may very well try to harm a human that's attempting to harm them -- As will a Dog, or Parrot, or Bear, or any brained creature with sufficiently complex interactions going on in their heads
What's the health impact of these getting into the ecosystem? Pass right thru a human? Cause serious disease? What happens when it hits the water IN a human? If this becomes in any way widespread these are going to be issues.
Says the guy who likely starts up an internal combustion engine with a lead acid battery and dumps the toxic exhaust directly into the ecosystem.
Hasn't Samsung learned its lesson when it copied Apple and got fined a billion dollars for doing so?
Apple Stock Crash Coming in 3... 2... 1... BOOM There, 50% of APPL valuation gone.
You really think MS wants to drag their fucking name through the mud too? "Mess with the Best, Die like the Rest", Hehe, yeah, no.
If that sounds worrying you shouldn't worry, the worrying only just makes your heart beat faster and brings your inevitable demise that much closer....
Is your Heart attacking you? Well tell it to Beat It! Don't Despair, and Don't Delay!
Get your AbioCor Pulse-less blood pump today!
Our patented double helix flow system monitors and regulates your blood pressure smoothly, for all your oxygenation and cooling needs.
Now your blood can course through your veins without the noisy and annoying pounding in your ears!
Other implants have embarrassing charging wires, but you won't have a mess hanging out of your chest with our new wireless Transcutaneous Energy Transmission System.
Give a gift that keeps on giving this Valentine's Day; Give your loved one a Heart of Gold.
(and Slashdot, moving one PC from Fedora with Ubuntu VM to just Ubuntu isn't 'switching to Ubuntu')
Ah, I get it. It's like how sleeping with just one member of the same sex doesn't 'switch you to gay'. You see, just like with sexuality there can be degrees of distro use, it doesn't have to be so black and white -- you don't have to be just a Fedora or Ubuntu user, you could be Bi-distro. Ah, but it doesn't even end there: You could even enjoy OS hybrids like that Arch/BSD chick with a dick, or you can even use Wubi to run GNU/Linux inside Windows, if you're more the man with a clam type.
As a kernel developer, he's beyond mere experimenting; Alan Cox is a connoisseur of all flavors...
With a name like that, would you expect any less?
Simple. Outlaw Bribery, i.e. Outlaw Lobbyists, Campaign Contributions, Perks, Promises of Jobs after your term, etc. There should be strict punishments for that type of corruption. Then the only people who'll want to do the job of governing are the people who actually care about people, not corporate and foreign interests. Vastly reduce the amount of classified information -- There's no reason we have to make shady (illegal) deals with enemies for diplomacy, we can put forth a stance and stick by it, and be open about the times when we say, sell a bunch of weapons to warlords for intel; The public will understand if you tell them why (if not, then you shouldn't be doing it, what have they got to hide?). Get rid of the redundant agencies, e.g., we have Police and FBI, we don't need Federal Police (DHS), that's a huge tax burden and they serve no purpose that a well armed public could not. Protip: The police can't protect you, after you or your loved ones are dead then they go after the bad guys; It's the citizen's job to protect themselves. Place a 6mo to 1yr probationary period for new laws so that knee jerk reactions like ridiculous gun control regs or things like the PATRIOT Act, or SOPA can easily get tossed out. Teach civics in school along with US history, EVERY YEAR, not just one course -- If ignorance is a big problem, then education is the answer. Ditch the current voting system and have votes be a prioritized list of candidates, so if your option #1 loses, then the votes are recalculated using your option #2, then repeat for #3 and so on removing candidates until there's one winner. This way you can show support for a 3rd (or 7th) party in your #1 vote, and still use #2 as your fall-back vote. It's not rocket science we have the technology.
Do I think ANY of that will happen? No, not at all. All of this is easier said than done, and most people are lazy and greedy; Unwilling to spend the money to change anything. Read the history books folks, nations begin with people having some degree of power & rights, then governments take those powers for themselves and reduce the citizen's rights and freedoms until shit hits the fan. Every Time. The only way to stop the cycle is to give the people back the control, and make the government accountable for their actions by the people. It seems the US is going the other direction... You can't let the government police itself! You don't put rats in charge of cheese! Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was destroyed in one, that day was September 4, 476.
I really get annoyed when people describe something they've thought of (or something they've found) as something they've invented.
Then be prepared to get bent: When I was 10 years old I independently invented masturbation. I tried to keep it secret for almost a year, but only while I studied the effects because I thought I'd be rich beyond dreams someday after I patented the process... I even let a few of my close friends in on the revolutionary discovery, contingent upon their swearing to not reveal the technique.
It was their own fault, but still you could imagine my parent's consternation: "Mom, Dad, I need $375 to file a patent... I figured out a new way to, um, touch... things that is really amazing! You're not going to believe this..."
Now, when I look back I'm not embarrassed, I'm angry that the information wasn't readily available.
The point is: Perhaps your annoyance is aimed in the wrong direction. I mean, either A) Everyone knows about 3D printing tech, and they're just describing for completeness, or B) They think they're Wanktomus Prime and can't wait to tell everyone about being the first wankers ever... Would you really be annoyed in either instance? Life's too short to be pissed off all the time; I suggest substituting humor in place of annoyance and sarcasm in place of outrage.
* 3. How come the American scientists never detected this viral gene?
* 3(a). Was it because of incompetence, or was it because the American scientists were not allowed to publish their finding, if they had found it before the Europeans?
Here's another question you can add:
* 4. Why the fuck don't we test GMO crops for 20+ years before we start feeding them to people, and esp. children?
The answer to this and all your other questions is "we're morons, but profit is king". I'm all for science, and I realize genetcially modifying foods is what humans have always done, but never at this speed until recently. Personally I don't take drugs that haven't been on the market for at least two decades... I'd like to be able to take the same stance on GMO foods, but the lobbyists don't like the idea of giving me the information I require to make decisions regarding foodstuffs by requiring "This Contains Genetically Engineered Food" on labels.
I stay up to date on bioengineering and other life sciences, but it seems that most people don't understand that we really are fucking idiots when it comes to this stuff. It's like blindly copy & pasting huge swaths of code and changing a few numbers in a complex genetics program because it seems to have some of the results we want, but we really don't know if it has only the results we want, we don't really know what the fuck we're doing. We're like those fools who know just enough about computers to be dangerous, only instead of frying their systems we risk harming millions or billions of humans.::sigh:: It's "patience" that's the virtue, not "patients"... If I ever tackle a problem that's beyond my power / knowledge, where I don't know exactly what I'm doing then I step back and say so, do more research, I don't just plow ahead heedlessly thinking: "What can possibly go wrong?!" then push the uncertain code into production...
I wouldn't want to eat food that's made this way!
Ugh, Humans, what a crap species: Brains just the right size to end all sentient life on the planet, and with just enough motivation to do so accidentally. There's the answer to your Fermi paradox, folks.
Or, maybe copyright infringement shouldn't be a felony. Or, maybe researchers should publish via open access instead of ransoming back the findings taxpayers payed them to make.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would you ever design a product that's completely and utterly dependent on a service provided by someone else, especially someone else who you view as a competitor or who may down the road view you as a competitor, without an iron-clad, air-tight contract guaranteeing exactly what services they'll provide you and providing scorched-earth-level penalties for their failure to provide service according to the agreed-upon terms?
So, wait, is your question to Facebook app devs, or Windows application developrs?
When your entire business is totally dependent on someone else's business, you have absolutely no control.
That explains why all applications are cross platform.
Seriously though, it's why the ones I develop are.
I basically wake up to an inbox full of bug reports and feature requests every morning, and I have to find time to deal with these in addition to all of the actual science I'm supposed to be working on. Despite being an obvious sign of success (people actually use our software!), it's become so discouraging that it helped drive out one of my (very competent) ex-coworkers.
You're doing it wrong then. Just because you release source doesn't mean you have to maintain it. If you don't maintain it, and it's important enough, then some one else will. Typically I find that people who are in your position cling too tightly to the reins. If you love it, set it free. Check up on it from time to time, hell, even if it's forked and you want to add a feature you need to the code you have two options: a) modify the onsite version you keep and push out the source; Letting the forkers figure out how to merge that feature if they like, or b) adopt the latest version of the forked code and make your changes there.
For fuck's sake people, you make it sound like simple resource management is a form of rocket science.
So, the answer to how the game stayed up is that it's not a twitch game, and is actually pretty fucking slow with regard to "real time" actions of other games. In other words: It's basically a turn based game where latency isn't an issue so big fucking deal folks.
The war on piracy is like the war on drugs. The arguments don't have to make sense, or even be of financial benefit to the aggressor (think of how many billions have been wasted busting and then jailing people for pot). It's all about setting this arbitrary goal, be it the eradication of piracy or the eradication of drugs, and throwing insane resources at it in the hope of achieving that goal.
No. The war on "piracy" is a war over artificial scarcity. Look, once the work is done by the developers for a set price, the Publisher tries to get as much money from their works by not adding anything of value to the product and enforcing non-features such as artificial scarcity enforcing software -- DRM.
The real war on "piracy" is happening in the reduction of artificial scarcity. What's scarce is my ability to configure the bits, not the configuration of bits itself. So, by marketing my programming/art labour directly to consumers I can bypass the Publisher's artificial scarcity. One way of doing this is crowd-sourced funding. If I set the price correctly I'll get the same $PAY for the same work be it working under a publisher or working for the public directly via Kickstarter, indegogo, etc. The difference is that without a Publisher I can actually just give the game away for free to everyone when I'm done doing the work of making it -- The work has already been paid for, and either way I'd just be getting paid when I do work...
By returning to the tried and true money-for-labour model, content creation can finally be piracy proof! You can't download that which I haven't made! I get paid for my work plus a bit of profit, just like every other labour field, like say Auto Mechanics. Mechanics give you an estimate for the work, then you agree to pay their price and only then do they do the work. This system is fair and it WORKS! Imagine if a publisher was involved there: Each fix to your car would mean you pay more each time someone else drives it... Publishers are Rent Seekers.
Unlike the War on Drugs, the War on Piracy can actually be won. It's not a war fought between content creators and end users; It's a war fought between Us (end users and developers) and Publishers. As soon as you end users and we developers realize we're both on the same side we can work out a deal between us and tell the Publishers to go fuck off and die, and thus end Artificial Scarcity and Piracy.
We're at the beginning of a transitionary period. This is the first generation of the global information publishing networks. The old models are obsolete, but there's still money to be made by them. By its very name "Kickstarter" is implying that devs should ask for less than they need to recoup costs + a bit of proffit; Thus, devs still need to engage in artificial scarcity and sell the copies after the work is done. However, you CAN ask for the amount you actually need, it just takes a strong will (and a few accountant aneurysms) to ignore profits that could be made via artificial scarcity after the work is done; Instead I'd just sell copies to supporters and also give them away, or maybe do a "pay what you want" ala Humble Indie Bundles... see? The more folks do this, the more others will need to compete with their prices and the sooner we can end Piracy.
What do devs get out of the deal that they wouldn't get under a Publisher? Job Security. Think about it, public funded projects don't get funded if the ideas suck -- That's free market research. You can avoid doing all that work of making a shitty project no one will buy and focus on the things that people actually want you to make! Of course this means being a bit more open about your in-progress work. The more renown you acquire as a developer of good games/music/movies the more fans you'll have and the more you can keep secret on trust -- See: Double Fine's Kickstarter, no prototypes, just an Idea, but the devs are beloved... Look at others w/ just ideas, no prototype footage, no funding.
Sometimes I buy them even if I don't want to play them (seriously). I think I bought a Humble Bundle last year that I still haven't even looked at yet. Hell, I'm not even a gamer. But I'll spend money on non-DRM software just to encourage more of it.
New Humble Bundle Is Windows Only, DRM Games
I think that was an important "test". They caught a lot of flack over it. I personally didn't buy #6, but I did buy all the others except #6. A quick search hasn't resulted in a link to #6 so I can't check the sales breakdown at the source. The current Humble Indie Bundle 7 is cross platform and DRM free. I'd be interested if anyone would post the numbers from HIB #6, for science!
Here are the sales as listed for the "recent" bundles I purchased:
#4
Total payments: $2,373,878.85
Purchases #: 435,251
Average purchase: $5.45
Average Windows: $4.87
Average Mac: $7.61
Average Linux: $10.41
#V -- Which, surprisingly, did not include VVVVVV...
Total payments: $5,108,725.09
Purchases #: 599,004
Average purchase: $8.53
Average Windows: $7.98
Average Mac: $9.99
Average Linux: $12.48
#6
Reported as $2,048,330.42 @ joystiq
#7
Total payments: $2,651,762.57
Purchases #: 395,953
Average purchase: $6.70
Average Windows: $6.23
Average Mac: $7.95
Average Linux: $10.47
It's hard comparing sales because the games vary in quality and appeal from bundle to bundle -- #V (5) Had a strong showing with Pyschonauts, Braid, and Bastion, and others.
I think "DRM free" is the strongest selling point for me, but cross platform is a strong second -- even though actual Linux "support" seems flakey w/ most HiB games I still buy under Linux because A) I want them to know I'm (trying) to use Linux to play their games, and B) I won't enter my financial details into software I haven't audited and compiled myself (yes, I'm two of the "many eyes"). I have decent boxen for each OS, but prefer Linux. I even have multiple copies of the games on various platforms, yet I still buy the bundles if they don't have DRM. As a developer I've noted that the trivial amount of additional time it takes to support Linux natively when I start a project/game with a cross platform dev environment is well worth the additional revenue Linux users are willing to pay...
C/C++,
How do you write in C/C++? Using the common subset of both? You might like to try C++, it's very nice.
Allow me to interject. I too write in C/C++. Because C++'s name mangling is complier specific. To disable that feature we use the extern "C" { ... } block. Within that block of a C++ file is C code that won't be name-mangled. This is neccesary to write any library code that may be called by code written with a different compiler. Protip: C++ is basically a very fancy preprocessor for C. What you're referring to as C++ is really C/C++ or as I've recently taken to calling it: C plus C++
The features tacked onto HTML5 like <audio> and <script> aren't considered a plugin, thus writing your animation w/ sound in it would seem to bypass the new default click-to-play. Ah, but it doesn't matter anyway since they're not making Flash click-to-play. So either this will make annoying BS more difficult to block without breaking the site, or it stengthens Flash in opposition to HTML5. Now browsers will be even less usable without NoScript and AdBlock.
Either way you look at it HTML5 is dead to me; It's been 13 years (half the age of the Web) and we're still stuck on HTML 4.01... Time to give up folks, HTML6 won't arrive before the Singularity. The Web even tanks as a cross platform dev platform -- I can make pixel perfect feature rich cross-platform native application for Linux, Win, BSD, OSX, Android, iOS in 1/3rd the time it takes me to ensure the same "web app" works in all the browsers and OSs. It was a bad idea to begin with -- Hack together the most inefficient scripting language and a stateless static document display engine to create stateful internet enabled applications (Every damn site is a stateful application now). HTML is ugly, and pointless. Long live the Internet, but Fuck The Web.
Anyone with physical access can probably reset the BIOS password and turn off secure boot.
The point of secure boot is to make possible a chain of proof attesting that everything that gets loaded into ring0 has not been modified. Clearly if you can disable the chain of proof then you can disabled the chain of proof, but you cannot do so invisibly, which is the entire point of secure boot.
So, uh, wouldn't we just then perform a SHA512 hash of the dumped hibernation memory? A salted hash is good enough to detect tampering if you're not concerned about hiding the data in the dump. A loader would then perform the same salted hash of memory as it's loading it and abort if the resulting hash doesn't match the on-disk hash. Of course the same code signing chain technology Secure Boot employs can be used to sign the salt & hash to ensure the dump's integrity.
OK, here's the thing: Is there any kernel level exploit in the OS? If the answer is yes, then return oriented programming can be used to create malware that runs even when the code is signed and encrypted -- It'll just use the existing valid code of the system to create itself. You don't even need to know exactly what the encrypted code does, you just have to observe the state changes of the system and develop your malicious return oriented "op-codes" out of the places you can jump to. There's no need to even tamper with the boot sector because said malware can simply re-exploit the OS after it's booted up.
An OS has to create a trust chain to maintain it after control leaves secure boot -- Really, all we needed was the ability to flash the BIOS with the OS bootloader, and give people the option to "allow OS installs on next boot" in the boot options menu. Way fucking easier than performing some ceremonious mental masturbation encryption key entry in BIOS, that end users are BOUND to fuck up on the first try. Secure boot has no more security that putting the OS bootloader on the MOBO, and it's 100 times more complex.
"Make everything as simple as possible but not simpler." -Albert Einstein. /boot/ on the MOBO if it's got enough space... Up and running in milliseconds. Screw security theater boot, there is really no valid "point" for it to exist.
Secure Boot is Epic Fail on all fronts except for pushing MS's proprietary FAT file system into every OS on the planet. I won't use it, and consider UEFI harmful. Also CoreBoot Already Exists, so that's what I use even on x86 systems to boot instantly to Linux. You can mount your whole
"Anti-oxidants" Psha! Your cells acquire oxidants as you age to better to assist in fixing oxygen! Anti-Oxidants are counter productive, Fools!
It's not just the license or DRM you have to wory about. Davlik performs some install time optimisiation and linking, eg: translates integer byte orders into machine native format and links with system libs. This means you need the installable APK, not a ripped version. The ripped APK may not be compatible with the next system you restore it onto -- different byte order, etc. In this way Davlik trades compatibility for speed vs the Java VM (which performs such linking and optimisations at run-time instead, leading to slower startup times).
I am certain that the algorithms being used today will never result with human level AI. If we want to design strong AI we need to first prove P = NP.
I am certain that you are ignorant about much of the field of machine intelligence.
Must you prove P = NP to become sentient? Think man! I can train a small neural network to do OCR, or recognize shapes or colors, with more complexity it can do more things. I can train a Dog's neural network to do many tricks, the same for Parrots. Why would a digital neural network be any less capable of sentience than your own mind? I do not need advanced mathematics knowledge beyond our current understanding to create a framework for neuron simulation and scale it up to human levels of complexity, then genetically program it via selection pressure.
The only thing that we need is bigger and faster machines to run the scalable neural network simulations, and time to train it. Ergo, it's only a matter of time. If my OCR neural network doesn't have to be self aware to do OCR, and your brain doesn't have to know whether P = NP to be sentient, then neither does Strong AI. The intelligence of my machine's neural networks is not artificial -- It's as real as that of any living neural network. The network is artificial, but the intelligence is real! Intelligence isn't invented, it's a phenomena that emerges from any sufficiently complex interaction.
Any sufficiently complex interaction is indistinguishable from a sentient being because that's what a sentient being is. What's designed in my MI systems is merely a scalable framework for efficient interaction and reflection; Datasets then dictate the flow of information in that framework, and they are EVOLVED to produce the results desired -- Evolution through Selection Pressure is something we CAN prove exists, and it's all we need.
To truly UNDERSTAND how strong AI thinks might require a proof that P = NP, but for the strong AI to actually exist does not require this knowledge. In other words: I couldn't tell you exactly how my OCR program learns to recognize the letter Z at any angle, I just know that it has evolved the encoding of such an understanding because that's what I trained it to do -- I don't know how it works exactly, it just does (to a sufficient degree). I can explain/document one instance of the series of changes that resulted in that capability, but I can not completely explain the process precisely. I have tried decoding the logic pathways of advanced cyclic neural networks and become mired in a tangle too deep for anyone to fully understand, especially considering that the same knowledge can be learned by a myriad of different AI frameworks, where my documented process diverges sharply from the process employed in the others. Pattern recognition can be learned by info. networks, and genetic programming can be used to produce better pattern recognition, and that's all the understanding we need to create strong AI -- Syntax is merely an application of pattern recognition. Your abliity to read the words of this sentence without sounding them out is an application of compressed pattern recognition -- esp. the second misspelled word. Mathematics and Science are merely an application of compression in a cybernetic system: A preliminary processing of data produces a pattern that is recognized to indicate that further processing will result in an expected result (previously processed fully).
Once you know a bit of information theory it's ridiculous to be so Chauvinistic about your own Sentience -- You're not special! I suspect you've been reading too much into Asimov and the whole "laws of robotics", and other such nonsense. My machine intelligences are not based on expert systems, and if they become complex enough to develop self preservation they may very well try to harm a human that's attempting to harm them -- As will a Dog, or Parrot, or Bear, or any brained creature with sufficiently complex interactions going on in their heads
What's the health impact of these getting into the ecosystem? Pass right thru a human? Cause serious disease? What happens when it hits the water IN a human? If this becomes in any way widespread these are going to be issues.
Says the guy who likely starts up an internal combustion engine with a lead acid battery and dumps the toxic exhaust directly into the ecosystem.
If your pathetic genome had better redundancy and error correction you wouldn't care about the radiation.
Oh wook at da poor wittle hue-mans, can't come out an pway in the milky way because them scawed for cosmic rays. Have fun being grounded dork!
I'm sorry, were you under the assumption that idiots can't write code?
Hasn't Samsung learned its lesson when it copied Apple and got fined a billion dollars for doing so?
Apple Stock Crash Coming in 3... 2... 1... BOOM There, 50% of APPL valuation gone.
You really think MS wants to drag their fucking name through the mud too? "Mess with the Best, Die like the Rest", Hehe, yeah, no.
Also in consideration of refutation:
PlayHer
HimHimORPG
FPenis
Pro-Grammar
Opti-Call Media
HackHer
Best Bi
Amarriedcan
Vaginerd
PrograMen
PedoFiles
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From his G+ page:
Ah, I get it. It's like how sleeping with just one member of the same sex doesn't 'switch you to gay'. You see, just like with sexuality there can be degrees of distro use, it doesn't have to be so black and white -- you don't have to be just a Fedora or Ubuntu user, you could be Bi-distro. Ah, but it doesn't even end there: You could even enjoy OS hybrids like that Arch/BSD chick with a dick, or you can even use Wubi to run GNU/Linux inside Windows, if you're more the man with a clam type.
As a kernel developer, he's beyond mere experimenting; Alan Cox is a connoisseur of all flavors...
With a name like that, would you expect any less?
I don't know how we fix this.
Simple. Outlaw Bribery, i.e. Outlaw Lobbyists, Campaign Contributions, Perks, Promises of Jobs after your term, etc. There should be strict punishments for that type of corruption. Then the only people who'll want to do the job of governing are the people who actually care about people, not corporate and foreign interests. Vastly reduce the amount of classified information -- There's no reason we have to make shady (illegal) deals with enemies for diplomacy, we can put forth a stance and stick by it, and be open about the times when we say, sell a bunch of weapons to warlords for intel; The public will understand if you tell them why (if not, then you shouldn't be doing it, what have they got to hide?). Get rid of the redundant agencies, e.g., we have Police and FBI, we don't need Federal Police (DHS), that's a huge tax burden and they serve no purpose that a well armed public could not. Protip: The police can't protect you, after you or your loved ones are dead then they go after the bad guys; It's the citizen's job to protect themselves. Place a 6mo to 1yr probationary period for new laws so that knee jerk reactions like ridiculous gun control regs or things like the PATRIOT Act, or SOPA can easily get tossed out. Teach civics in school along with US history, EVERY YEAR, not just one course -- If ignorance is a big problem, then education is the answer. Ditch the current voting system and have votes be a prioritized list of candidates, so if your option #1 loses, then the votes are recalculated using your option #2, then repeat for #3 and so on removing candidates until there's one winner. This way you can show support for a 3rd (or 7th) party in your #1 vote, and still use #2 as your fall-back vote. It's not rocket science we have the technology.
Do I think ANY of that will happen? No, not at all. All of this is easier said than done, and most people are lazy and greedy; Unwilling to spend the money to change anything. Read the history books folks, nations begin with people having some degree of power & rights, then governments take those powers for themselves and reduce the citizen's rights and freedoms until shit hits the fan. Every Time. The only way to stop the cycle is to give the people back the control, and make the government accountable for their actions by the people. It seems the US is going the other direction... You can't let the government police itself! You don't put rats in charge of cheese! Rome wasn't built in a day, but it was destroyed in one, that day was September 4, 476.
"Are auto-complete results even useful?"
Well, let's ask Google.
...
Autocomplete is:
Autocomplete is not a function
Autocomplete is not working
Autocomplete is not working in outlook 2010
I'm afraid I have to agree with Google on this one.
How this could possibly be cost effective?
Simple: Consider the huge gravity-well tax on Earth mining efforts. Asteroids are relatively tax free.
I really get annoyed when people describe something they've thought of (or something they've found) as something they've invented.
Then be prepared to get bent: When I was 10 years old I independently invented masturbation. I tried to keep it secret for almost a year, but only while I studied the effects because I thought I'd be rich beyond dreams someday after I patented the process... I even let a few of my close friends in on the revolutionary discovery, contingent upon their swearing to not reveal the technique.
It was their own fault, but still you could imagine my parent's consternation: "Mom, Dad, I need $375 to file a patent... I figured out a new way to, um, touch... things that is really amazing! You're not going to believe this..."
Now, when I look back I'm not embarrassed, I'm angry that the information wasn't readily available.
The point is: Perhaps your annoyance is aimed in the wrong direction. I mean, either A) Everyone knows about 3D printing tech, and they're just describing for completeness, or B) They think they're Wanktomus Prime and can't wait to tell everyone about being the first wankers ever... Would you really be annoyed in either instance? Life's too short to be pissed off all the time; I suggest substituting humor in place of annoyance and sarcasm in place of outrage.
There are many questions one should ask:
* 1. Why is that viral gene in there?
* 2. Was it put there by accident or by purpose?
* 2(a). If by accident, how, when, what happened?
* 2(b). If by purpose, why, and by whom?
* 3. How come the American scientists never detected this viral gene?
* 3(a). Was it because of incompetence, or was it because the American scientists were not allowed to publish their finding, if they had found it before the Europeans?
Here's another question you can add:
* 4. Why the fuck don't we test GMO crops for 20+ years before we start feeding them to people, and esp. children?
The answer to this and all your other questions is "we're morons, but profit is king". I'm all for science, and I realize genetcially modifying foods is what humans have always done, but never at this speed until recently. Personally I don't take drugs that haven't been on the market for at least two decades... I'd like to be able to take the same stance on GMO foods, but the lobbyists don't like the idea of giving me the information I require to make decisions regarding foodstuffs by requiring "This Contains Genetically Engineered Food" on labels.
I stay up to date on bioengineering and other life sciences, but it seems that most people don't understand that we really are fucking idiots when it comes to this stuff. It's like blindly copy & pasting huge swaths of code and changing a few numbers in a complex genetics program because it seems to have some of the results we want, but we really don't know if it has only the results we want, we don't really know what the fuck we're doing. We're like those fools who know just enough about computers to be dangerous, only instead of frying their systems we risk harming millions or billions of humans. ::sigh:: It's "patience" that's the virtue, not "patients"... If I ever tackle a problem that's beyond my power / knowledge, where I don't know exactly what I'm doing then I step back and say so, do more research, I don't just plow ahead heedlessly thinking: "What can possibly go wrong?!" then push the uncertain code into production...
I wouldn't want to eat food that's made this way!
Ugh, Humans, what a crap species: Brains just the right size to end all sentient life on the planet, and with just enough motivation to do so accidentally. There's the answer to your Fermi paradox, folks.
Or, maybe copyright infringement shouldn't be a felony. Or, maybe researchers should publish via open access instead of ransoming back the findings taxpayers payed them to make.