I'm fine mocking the guy over his hypocrisy, but if I'm not mistaken, Amazon is a publicly traded company. Amazon != Bezos anymore. He can't just shrug and not defend the company's IP (even if it's not really IP) because he owes it to the shareholders to protect the value and perceived value of the company and its properties. The company has to be seen doing due diligence in this case so that the shareholders will be confident that they will do it when it matters.
Yes, but society only tolerates businesses' profit-seeking behavior because ultimately society benefits. If your business becomes a net drain on society, then we either raise your taxes until we break even, legally constrain your behavior, or put you out of business.
I did, actually -- we needed it for a testing rig because other people might use our software on Vista.... which raises the numbers, and in turn convinces people that other people are using it, and so they buy it... good lord, what have I done?
Note that he didn't say that he's proud of it because it's good software, but because it "has had a good unit volume market reaction." In other words, he's not proud of his programmers, he's proud of his marketers.
Slightly too mouse-driven for my taste, but the demo was great fun. Lots of little asides to spread that PA humor around, good atmosphere, and (so far) pretty solid gameplay. I had probably better wait until after work to buy the full copy, though...
The original article said he made a little better than $1000/day, so this was about 100 days' work.
Now, let's compare that to the average programmer. I don't know about Rockstar, but in the rest of the industry mandatory overtime is the norm, and salaries aren't anywhere near $1000/day.
He can make the argument (and actors frequently do) that his talents were not interchangeable, and that his unique take on it was partly responsible for the game's success. If this were anything other than GTA IV, I'd be tempted to buy that argument, but this game was going to do well no matter what.
Yeah, out here in the sticks (but near a major hospital) they're not. It took me a while to realize why I was seeing a half-dozen different ambulances, each with their own logos. I think the point the AC was making, though, is not that the parent poster should be left to lie on the road (if nothing else, that could cause further accidents), but that he should pay for his own health care/transportation. Or maybe he's a jerk and really did mean that, I don't know.
That's not strictly correct. By that rationale, if Microsoft sold or gave away a Linux distribution, that distribution would be subject to the same limitations as Windows. The monopoly is from the fact that some ridiculous percent of the world's computers run Windows, and Microsoft owns and controls Windows. Having another operating system would not contribute to that monopoly, nor would sales of that system (or the software on it) benefit from Microsoft having its Windows monopoly.
Conversely, a consortium of companies can be a monopoly -- the RIAA, for example, is made up of several music companies that together control much of the commercial music in the US. Anti-trust action has been taken against them, if I'm not mistaken, over CD price-gouging.
But more public funds are used to screen out the search term than would be used to not screen the search -- they had to pay someone to go in and deliberately cause the database to not allow searches on that term, and that person probably had to insert custom code for the job.
This is why I suggested that XP should continue to be sold and supported. It would provide real competition and force them to not just phone it in, like they did with Vista.
I think that the big problem is that Microsoft is calling this new operating system "Windows". If they were to break with the past, and continue offering and supporting XP for the installed base, they would find a lot of benefits.
First, a non-Windows operating system would probably free them from the anti-trust agreements. After all, the old Windows line, that was the monopoly -- this new OS is competing with Windows.
Second, freeing themselves from the name allows them to experiment with new changes to the OS experience, which in turn would allow them to make much better use of their in-house R&D and their UI experience from their gaming division.
Third, it puts them in the position of underdog again, a position in which Microsoft historically thrives. They're a competitive bunch, and they just write better code in a competitive environment. With Vista, there was no real pressure to get it right, because they assumed that everyone would just upgrade from XP. If they're competing against XP, however, that frames the development process quite differently.
In a way, it's kind of a cheap trick, but I think that it would be very good for Microsoft to break out of this rut and break away from Windows. If they make a product, and compete fairly to get people to use it, they have the cash, talent, and reputation to pull off something good.
I had not meant to disparage economics -- in fact, I hold the field in very high regard. I do not consider it a science, but I don't mean that in a pejorative way: not everything that is rigorous and useful is a science, and vice versa. My fundamental problem with it is that while it is excellent at analyzing and explaining the present and the past, it has not really gotten to the point of being truly and reliably predictive in the way that, say, physics has. And because of its ornery subject matter, it is likely to never be predictive except on very large scales.
As a methodology and a way of thinking, it is tremendously valuable. This is why it would be important for politicians to accept economic analysis of their proposed policies: each policy is fundamentally based on assumptions that can be shown to be solid or faulty. Policies built on solid premised cannot be proven to succeed or even be a good idea, but you'd at least have a chance.
As near I can tell from other comments and bits and pieces I picked up, the "business decision" was to disable Dolby code on certain cards so that they would not have to pay Dolby royalties, so that the end users could get a cheaper sound card without having to have two production lines. Which suggests that when Daniel_K enabled the Dolby code, Dolby came knocking and demanded royalties from Creative.
I can understand where Creative is coming from, but they really should have used a carrot-and-stick approach: tell him to stop giving away the driver and asking for donations, and in return offering to buy the driver code from him and remove the Dolby stuff. Everybody would win: Creative's reputation would stay intact, Daniel_K would get reasonable compensation for his work, and consumers would get what they paid for (no more: sorry, no Dolby if they didn't pay for it. But also no less: a working sound card with solid drivers)
While I applaud the professed willingness to leave scientists alone to do their jobs without partisan interference, not all of the government's experts are scientists. It's one thing to denounce Bush for suppressing government scientists who are warning about climate change in favor of his own partisan hacks who are saying, "hey, no problem here, just weird weather is all" You're right to denounce that kind of thing.
But I can easily foresee a day when government economists come to the Democrats and say, "Look, your health care plan just isn't going to work." Are you going to accept that and re-work your plan, or are you going to dig through and find your own experts to counter them?
It seems ridiculous to me that we even carry our carry-on luggage through security. They should have a security line for people, and a security conveyor for bags, and we can claim/sign for our carry-ons from a TSA officer on the other side. If they want to take the laptop out of a bag to get a better look, let them make the decision right then. If they find anything they want to question someone about, wait until they come to claim their bag. If people are worried about their items (let's face it, stuff "disappears"), video tape it from start to finish and let people inspect the tape.
As a bonus, you can thereby reduce the possibility that someone will detonate a bomb in the security line: the line will move faster, and people will have fewer items on them as they move through it. The carry-on line will also move more quickly, as you'll have trained (or at least practiced) people doing the quick unpacking instead of a whole lot of fumbling amateurs who don't know the procedure.
Many of the truly excellent programmers I've known have never left a job without knowing exactly where they were going. This especially includes graduate students, by the way, who frequently are long on talent but short on connections, clue, and time to search. Just like the pretty girl sitting by herself at the prom, the geeks aren't going to approach you, even if they realize you exist. (Cue the commenters taking that analogy WAY too far)
Go to trade shows and chat with the scruffy-looking folks with bags full of swag, go to conferences (ACM and IEEE) and read the papers, look into interesting projects on Sourceforge, go to college recruitment fairs. Be specific in your job description, and approach people with an idea of what they would add to your company. Be ready with a business card and the phrase, "My company is looking for people like you."
On the attracting side of things, make yourself visible in the right places. Publish academic papers, if you can, and send people to conferences. (iRobot is particularly good at this) Contribute to the open source community -- and try to maintain good relationships with fellow contributors.
He's going to run into this problem time and again if he continues to focus on Congress: there is always someone with more experience in the state legislature itching for a "promotion". Why not start by collecting a handful of people and run them for state legislature?
I dislike this notion that anything below the federal level is not worth their attention. True, it's not as bad as the Edwards or Nader position, "If I can't be president, I'm not going to bother." But if a new movement can prove itself on the local level, it can gain both the infrastructure and momentum necessary to advance.
However, I often buy products after clicking that link, so sales are being generated. Case in point: I read an economics blog, Marginal Revolution. They frequently have ads for books I'd be interested in reading anyway, so I make it a point to click through the ads when I'm thinking about buying that book. And the ads do serve a purpose, reminding me about books I thought looked interesting but had forgotten about, and occasionally the ads themselves look interesting.
If MR were not getting the kickback, I would not bother looking at the ads (and would eventually get an ad-blocker). I only tolerate ads in the first place because they support sites that I enjoy. This is useful information to the advertiser: it helps them gauge not just the readership of the site, but also the extent to which those readers are willing to expose themselves to marketing just to support the site.
This would make me far less likely to click on ads. Right now, I only click on ads for two reasons: 1) I am already interested in that product 2) I would like to kick back a little money to the site I'm currently surfing. (I frequently have no other way of supporting them) (OK, I also occasionally click on ads by accident -- especially those annoying ones that hover over the text and have really tiny "close" boxes)
If I'm no longer supporting the site I'm on by clicking an ad, then I lose all motivation to click on them. At that point, I start remembering how annoying ads are, and start considering an ad blocker.
Furthermore, it defeats the efforts of conscientious site hosters like Penny Arcade and Something*Positive (both webcomics, oddly) who are careful to only pick ads for products/sites they can support, and tailor the ads to be useful to their readers. As a result, I strongly suspect that their ads lead to more clicks and more purchases. A scheme like Microsoft's would add a whole lot of free-loaders to their hard work and make it no longer worth while (financially, anyway -- they still have their reputations, of course)
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I'm fine mocking the guy over his hypocrisy, but if I'm not mistaken, Amazon is a publicly traded company. Amazon != Bezos anymore. He can't just shrug and not defend the company's IP (even if it's not really IP) because he owes it to the shareholders to protect the value and perceived value of the company and its properties. The company has to be seen doing due diligence in this case so that the shareholders will be confident that they will do it when it matters.
Yes, but society only tolerates businesses' profit-seeking behavior because ultimately society benefits. If your business becomes a net drain on society, then we either raise your taxes until we break even, legally constrain your behavior, or put you out of business.
Seriously. An arms race is not going to solve your problem.
I did, actually -- we needed it for a testing rig because other people might use our software on Vista. ... which raises the numbers, and in turn convinces people that other people are using it, and so they buy it... good lord, what have I done?
One could ask the same question of the original post.
Note that he didn't say that he's proud of it because it's good software, but because it "has had a good unit volume market reaction." In other words, he's not proud of his programmers, he's proud of his marketers.
Slightly too mouse-driven for my taste, but the demo was great fun. Lots of little asides to spread that PA humor around, good atmosphere, and (so far) pretty solid gameplay. I had probably better wait until after work to buy the full copy, though...
The original article said he made a little better than $1000/day, so this was about 100 days' work.
Now, let's compare that to the average programmer. I don't know about Rockstar, but in the rest of the industry mandatory overtime is the norm, and salaries aren't anywhere near $1000/day.
He can make the argument (and actors frequently do) that his talents were not interchangeable, and that his unique take on it was partly responsible for the game's success. If this were anything other than GTA IV, I'd be tempted to buy that argument, but this game was going to do well no matter what.
Yeah, out here in the sticks (but near a major hospital) they're not. It took me a while to realize why I was seeing a half-dozen different ambulances, each with their own logos. I think the point the AC was making, though, is not that the parent poster should be left to lie on the road (if nothing else, that could cause further accidents), but that he should pay for his own health care/transportation. Or maybe he's a jerk and really did mean that, I don't know.
That's not strictly correct. By that rationale, if Microsoft sold or gave away a Linux distribution, that distribution would be subject to the same limitations as Windows. The monopoly is from the fact that some ridiculous percent of the world's computers run Windows, and Microsoft owns and controls Windows. Having another operating system would not contribute to that monopoly, nor would sales of that system (or the software on it) benefit from Microsoft having its Windows monopoly.
Conversely, a consortium of companies can be a monopoly -- the RIAA, for example, is made up of several music companies that together control much of the commercial music in the US. Anti-trust action has been taken against them, if I'm not mistaken, over CD price-gouging.
But more public funds are used to screen out the search term than would be used to not screen the search -- they had to pay someone to go in and deliberately cause the database to not allow searches on that term, and that person probably had to insert custom code for the job.
This is why I suggested that XP should continue to be sold and supported. It would provide real competition and force them to not just phone it in, like they did with Vista.
I think that the big problem is that Microsoft is calling this new operating system "Windows". If they were to break with the past, and continue offering and supporting XP for the installed base, they would find a lot of benefits.
First, a non-Windows operating system would probably free them from the anti-trust agreements. After all, the old Windows line, that was the monopoly -- this new OS is competing with Windows.
Second, freeing themselves from the name allows them to experiment with new changes to the OS experience, which in turn would allow them to make much better use of their in-house R&D and their UI experience from their gaming division.
Third, it puts them in the position of underdog again, a position in which Microsoft historically thrives. They're a competitive bunch, and they just write better code in a competitive environment. With Vista, there was no real pressure to get it right, because they assumed that everyone would just upgrade from XP. If they're competing against XP, however, that frames the development process quite differently.
In a way, it's kind of a cheap trick, but I think that it would be very good for Microsoft to break out of this rut and break away from Windows. If they make a product, and compete fairly to get people to use it, they have the cash, talent, and reputation to pull off something good.
I had not meant to disparage economics -- in fact, I hold the field in very high regard. I do not consider it a science, but I don't mean that in a pejorative way: not everything that is rigorous and useful is a science, and vice versa. My fundamental problem with it is that while it is excellent at analyzing and explaining the present and the past, it has not really gotten to the point of being truly and reliably predictive in the way that, say, physics has. And because of its ornery subject matter, it is likely to never be predictive except on very large scales.
As a methodology and a way of thinking, it is tremendously valuable. This is why it would be important for politicians to accept economic analysis of their proposed policies: each policy is fundamentally based on assumptions that can be shown to be solid or faulty. Policies built on solid premised cannot be proven to succeed or even be a good idea, but you'd at least have a chance.
As near I can tell from other comments and bits and pieces I picked up, the "business decision" was to disable Dolby code on certain cards so that they would not have to pay Dolby royalties, so that the end users could get a cheaper sound card without having to have two production lines. Which suggests that when Daniel_K enabled the Dolby code, Dolby came knocking and demanded royalties from Creative.
I can understand where Creative is coming from, but they really should have used a carrot-and-stick approach: tell him to stop giving away the driver and asking for donations, and in return offering to buy the driver code from him and remove the Dolby stuff. Everybody would win: Creative's reputation would stay intact, Daniel_K would get reasonable compensation for his work, and consumers would get what they paid for (no more: sorry, no Dolby if they didn't pay for it. But also no less: a working sound card with solid drivers)
This is also a good question, but it's setting the bar a tad low, don't you think?
While I applaud the professed willingness to leave scientists alone to do their jobs without partisan interference, not all of the government's experts are scientists. It's one thing to denounce Bush for suppressing government scientists who are warning about climate change in favor of his own partisan hacks who are saying, "hey, no problem here, just weird weather is all" You're right to denounce that kind of thing.
But I can easily foresee a day when government economists come to the Democrats and say, "Look, your health care plan just isn't going to work." Are you going to accept that and re-work your plan, or are you going to dig through and find your own experts to counter them?
Who's to say the "debunker" isn't just having fun himself?
It seems ridiculous to me that we even carry our carry-on luggage through security. They should have a security line for people, and a security conveyor for bags, and we can claim/sign for our carry-ons from a TSA officer on the other side. If they want to take the laptop out of a bag to get a better look, let them make the decision right then. If they find anything they want to question someone about, wait until they come to claim their bag. If people are worried about their items (let's face it, stuff "disappears"), video tape it from start to finish and let people inspect the tape.
As a bonus, you can thereby reduce the possibility that someone will detonate a bomb in the security line: the line will move faster, and people will have fewer items on them as they move through it. The carry-on line will also move more quickly, as you'll have trained (or at least practiced) people doing the quick unpacking instead of a whole lot of fumbling amateurs who don't know the procedure.
Many of the truly excellent programmers I've known have never left a job without knowing exactly where they were going. This especially includes graduate students, by the way, who frequently are long on talent but short on connections, clue, and time to search. Just like the pretty girl sitting by herself at the prom, the geeks aren't going to approach you, even if they realize you exist. (Cue the commenters taking that analogy WAY too far)
Go to trade shows and chat with the scruffy-looking folks with bags full of swag, go to conferences (ACM and IEEE) and read the papers, look into interesting projects on Sourceforge, go to college recruitment fairs. Be specific in your job description, and approach people with an idea of what they would add to your company. Be ready with a business card and the phrase, "My company is looking for people like you."
On the attracting side of things, make yourself visible in the right places. Publish academic papers, if you can, and send people to conferences. (iRobot is particularly good at this) Contribute to the open source community -- and try to maintain good relationships with fellow contributors.
I mean former Senator Edwards, yes, who has spent more time running for President at this point than he spent in his short do-nothing Senate career.
Why does it need a "Translation:"? He said so outright, repeatedly. He's not running because he would lose, big time.
He's going to run into this problem time and again if he continues to focus on Congress: there is always someone with more experience in the state legislature itching for a "promotion". Why not start by collecting a handful of people and run them for state legislature?
I dislike this notion that anything below the federal level is not worth their attention. True, it's not as bad as the Edwards or Nader position, "If I can't be president, I'm not going to bother." But if a new movement can prove itself on the local level, it can gain both the infrastructure and momentum necessary to advance.
However, I often buy products after clicking that link, so sales are being generated. Case in point: I read an economics blog, Marginal Revolution. They frequently have ads for books I'd be interested in reading anyway, so I make it a point to click through the ads when I'm thinking about buying that book. And the ads do serve a purpose, reminding me about books I thought looked interesting but had forgotten about, and occasionally the ads themselves look interesting.
If MR were not getting the kickback, I would not bother looking at the ads (and would eventually get an ad-blocker). I only tolerate ads in the first place because they support sites that I enjoy. This is useful information to the advertiser: it helps them gauge not just the readership of the site, but also the extent to which those readers are willing to expose themselves to marketing just to support the site.
This would make me far less likely to click on ads. Right now, I only click on ads for two reasons:
1) I am already interested in that product
2) I would like to kick back a little money to the site I'm currently surfing. (I frequently have no other way of supporting them)
(OK, I also occasionally click on ads by accident -- especially those annoying ones that hover over the text and have really tiny "close" boxes)
If I'm no longer supporting the site I'm on by clicking an ad, then I lose all motivation to click on them. At that point, I start remembering how annoying ads are, and start considering an ad blocker.
Furthermore, it defeats the efforts of conscientious site hosters like Penny Arcade and Something*Positive (both webcomics, oddly) who are careful to only pick ads for products/sites they can support, and tailor the ads to be useful to their readers. As a result, I strongly suspect that their ads lead to more clicks and more purchases. A scheme like Microsoft's would add a whole lot of free-loaders to their hard work and make it no longer worth while (financially, anyway -- they still have their reputations, of course)