Yeah, heard it before
on
The Web We Lost
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"A decade ago, there weren't many choices. Everyone I knew all used the same services and it was easy to find stuff. Now all the people I know use all sorts of different services and I can't find anything! We've lost the small, intimate web community we used to have!"
Yeah, yeah. Every few years someone with a blog goes through a mid-life crisis and realizes the world isn't the way it used to be. BFD, so the world changes. Get over it. Abe Simpson summed it up best...
"I used to be with it, but then they changed what *it* was. Now what I'm with isn't *it*, and what's *it* seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you... "
TFA says he's suing for $750k but only claiming damages of $300k.
So in reality, the maximum he'll get is $300K + lawyers' fees (assuming he can prove the Yelp post resulted in $300k of damages)
The article reads to me like a sophomore-level paper deconstructing some insignificant piece of drivel and claiming great insights into human nature.
"What can this one line -- '10 PRINT,' to use the authors' shorthand -- teach us about software, and culture at large?"
Damn! And that's just the review, I can't even imagine what the actual 294-page book must be like. Next up I expect a 500-page treatise on Vogon poetry.
The tech industry is discriminating against older people now? Crap! When did this happen? I thought we were still discriminating against women! Oh well, that chick I interviewed last week was a total MILF. That counts as old, right? So I'm still cool not hiring her?
I, for one, have never heard "GIF" used as a verb. Maybe I'm just too old. Like the way making simulated 8-bit blocky video games is currently all the rage, maybe "GIFing" is a hip, retro kind of thing now. For me it's not retro, it's just old. Hell, I remember downloading GIF porn back when my modem had a "high speed" light to let me know I was downloading at a blazing 1200 bps! Now, get off my lawn!
So it's true. Bad-ass lines from action movies really do sound asinine in real life. I'm sure the guy who leaked the memo is just pissing himself with fear. Er, I mean laughter. Pissing himself with laughter.
If giving users privacy by default is ignoring the spec then the spec is already meaningless.
If the standard is based on the bad guys doing the right thing, then the spec is already meaningless.
DNT makes as much sense as the evil bit. It would be a great thing, if only the opponent would cooperate. But that's not going to happen, is it? I don't care what the standard says, it's advisory at best. And it requires that the advertisers give a flying fuck about the desires of the end user, which they obviously don't(*). If they did, we wouldn't need anti-spam software and pop-up blockers. DNT only works in a world where the targets already all play nicely, but if they already all played nicely DNT wouldn't be necessary. It's a dumb idea and I hope it dies a quick death.
(* Okay, some vanishingly small number of advertisers do care. But they're not the targets of DNT.)
How come we let robots have all the fun? I'd sign up for a job as geosync satellite gas-station attendant in a heartbeat! Who wants to be a coddled planet-bound human? I'll welcome our robot overlords only if they let me in on a piece of the action.
I'm pretty sure that issue with multi-monitor setups and full screen apps have been resolves in Mountain Lion.
You're pretty mistaken. Mountain Lion full-screen apps work just like Lion full-screen apps did. Secondary monitors are grey. If the app has multiple windows you can arrange those on the secondary monitor, but that's the extent of multiple monitor support.
Except that "informing the people" isn't really the mission of the broadcaster. "Making money" is. And in order to make money, they need to get ratings. In order to get ratings they need to air programming that people will watch. You've got two big names that everyone recognizes, and half a dozen unknowns. What will more people watch? A reasoned debate of complex issues among a lot of (mostly unknown) people? Or a two-way pissing match that encourages people to cheer for their guy and boo the other guy?
TRS-80 Model III. A roomful of them networked together such that they could all simultaneously load a program off the one cassette tape drive. Now that I think about it, that "network" was probably just a multi-way splitter on the audio output to pipe it to all the computers' input jacks.
Nope, not buying it. If you're broadcasting your communications in the clear it's the same as speaking in a public place. Or if not truly "public", then a private place in which anyone can come and go at will, such as a grocery store. If you're discussing your medical problems in the produce section and I overhear them, it's not my fault. It's yours. Even if I intentionally sidle up next to you pretending to be interested in the rutabagas you're standing near just so I can be near enough to hear you, it's your own damned fault for talking about private stuff in a public place.
Same goes for wireless. If you're transmitting in the clear, don't be surprised when someone overhears you.(*)
Want to provide an open access point as a benefit to the neighborhood? Great! More power to you! But for cryin' out loud, encrypt your private conversations! Then you can have your private conversation in the public space you've set up. Or in the public space anyone else has set up.
(* Yes, I know that this contradicts court rulings intended to protect unencrypted cellphone conversations. I think those rulings are bad. The fact that they contradict rulings in similar cases regarding cordless land-line handsets indicates that something is wrong, in any case.)
Funny you should mention this. I just returned from a job fair at a major university where we were interviewing and hiring programmers. Yes, the new grads tend to be pretty green, but some of them are really good. It's not terribly hard to separate those who may just lack experience but who grok the fundamentals from those who really need to reconsider the last four years of their lives. I actually talked with seniors in CS who couldn't describe the difference between a queue and a stack.
As for the article specifically... Yes, they had "fresh-out-of-college newbie programmers working crunchtime with no supervision". Hired by programmers who were themselves once "fresh-out-of-college newbie programmers working crunchtime with no supervision". It's a self-perpetuating cycle that is really prevalent in the games industry. (Or at least was prevalent at the time this story takes place, which is roughly the same era in which I was a games programmer. Thankfully I got out. That scene is nuts!)
Thus demonstrating my long-time assertion (ever since my stint in the video game biz) that video game developers are crap programmers. No common routines to manipulate a heavily-used data structure? Not even a set of macros? This kind of story belongs over on The Daily WTF.
And the loser is ustream.tv, which was streaming the Hugo ceremonies live last night, right up until the best short-form dramatic presentation category. They cut the stream in the middle of Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech because of "violations of terms of service". I'm pretty sure they have a content-scanning bot which threw a hissy fit over the clips of the nominated shows.
At least, I hope it was a bot. I'd much rather imagine a mistake by an automated system than a conscious decision by a human that this particular use of the material was verboten.
And when was the last time you saw a woman in a video game who *didn't* have really pronounced curves? So yeah, the boob contours are *totally* there for practical reasons, not just because video game artists don't get out enough.
That comes from the observation that fantasy football is just D&D for people who spent their high school years beating up those of us who played D&D.
If you want a more serious answer, role-playing is cooperative storytelling. The rules exist to give a framework within which the story can be told, and to help determine the outcome of character interactions.
Really, though, it's not the kind of thing you can explain to someone who doesn't get it. It's like sports. Many of us on Slashdot are baffled by sport fans. We can't imagine why anyone would want to watch the game on TV, let alone paint themselves in team colors and go sit on a cold bleacher seat to pay $7 for a cup of pisswater beer. But we each probably have someone we love who does enjoy it. Or if it's not sports, it's My Little Pony fandom, or hunting, or cycling or fixing cars or playing music. Think of something you simply can't fathom. Then assume that's what RPGs are like to your spouse or whoever. If they don't get it then there's no point in trying to make them. Just say, "It's an excuse to go hang out with my friends for a few hours every week." and leave it at that.
Maybe that's the secret to this. MS paid the advertising firm to come up with a new logo, with the stipulation that it be created using only MS tools. With that in mind maybe this doesn't look so bad.
People are playing the game without paying money to Ubisoft. Even worse, there are these "first-hand" owners who are profiting from Ubisoft's hard work and intellectual property. If that's not piracy, what is?
Don't you know that every time someone plays the game and the publisher receives less than the full retail price, it's stealing? If you buy last year's $60 game new-in-box off the $10 bargain shelf, then 5/6ths of the game's cost is lost to piracy. It's plain old mathematics. Why is this so hard for you people to understand?
Slashdot Mirror
"A decade ago, there weren't many choices. Everyone I knew all used the same services and it was easy to find stuff. Now all the people I know use all sorts of different services and I can't find anything! We've lost the small, intimate web community we used to have!"
Yeah, yeah. Every few years someone with a blog goes through a mid-life crisis and realizes the world isn't the way it used to be. BFD, so the world changes. Get over it. Abe Simpson summed it up best...
"I used to be with it, but then they changed what *it* was. Now what I'm with isn't *it*, and what's *it* seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you... "
So, $750k then.
The article reads to me like a sophomore-level paper deconstructing some insignificant piece of drivel and claiming great insights into human nature.
"What can this one line -- '10 PRINT,' to use the authors' shorthand -- teach us about software, and culture at large?"
Damn! And that's just the review, I can't even imagine what the actual 294-page book must be like. Next up I expect a 500-page treatise on Vogon poetry.
The tech industry is discriminating against older people now? Crap! When did this happen? I thought we were still discriminating against women! Oh well, that chick I interviewed last week was a total MILF. That counts as old, right? So I'm still cool not hiring her?
Putting a "DO NOT USE REPLY ALL" line in their message? They're doing it wrong. Someone needs to learn the marvels of BCC:.
Mail that includes a "DO NOT RESPOND VIA REPLY-ALL" line? They're doing it wrong. Sounds like someone needs to be introduced to the wonders of BCC:.
I don't mind Reply-All so much, but can we get rid of the yahoos who top-post and quote the whole damn email chain?
I, for one, have never heard "GIF" used as a verb. Maybe I'm just too old. Like the way making simulated 8-bit blocky video games is currently all the rage, maybe "GIFing" is a hip, retro kind of thing now. For me it's not retro, it's just old. Hell, I remember downloading GIF porn back when my modem had a "high speed" light to let me know I was downloading at a blazing 1200 bps! Now, get off my lawn!
So it's true. Bad-ass lines from action movies really do sound asinine in real life. I'm sure the guy who leaked the memo is just pissing himself with fear. Er, I mean laughter. Pissing himself with laughter.
If the standard is based on the bad guys doing the right thing, then the spec is already meaningless.
DNT makes as much sense as the evil bit. It would be a great thing, if only the opponent would cooperate. But that's not going to happen, is it? I don't care what the standard says, it's advisory at best. And it requires that the advertisers give a flying fuck about the desires of the end user, which they obviously don't(*). If they did, we wouldn't need anti-spam software and pop-up blockers. DNT only works in a world where the targets already all play nicely, but if they already all played nicely DNT wouldn't be necessary. It's a dumb idea and I hope it dies a quick death.
(* Okay, some vanishingly small number of advertisers do care. But they're not the targets of DNT.)
How come we let robots have all the fun? I'd sign up for a job as geosync satellite gas-station attendant in a heartbeat! Who wants to be a coddled planet-bound human? I'll welcome our robot overlords only if they let me in on a piece of the action.
You're pretty mistaken. Mountain Lion full-screen apps work just like Lion full-screen apps did. Secondary monitors are grey. If the app has multiple windows you can arrange those on the secondary monitor, but that's the extent of multiple monitor support.
Except that "informing the people" isn't really the mission of the broadcaster. "Making money" is. And in order to make money, they need to get ratings. In order to get ratings they need to air programming that people will watch. You've got two big names that everyone recognizes, and half a dozen unknowns. What will more people watch? A reasoned debate of complex issues among a lot of (mostly unknown) people? Or a two-way pissing match that encourages people to cheer for their guy and boo the other guy?
TRS-80 Model III. A roomful of them networked together such that they could all simultaneously load a program off the one cassette tape drive. Now that I think about it, that "network" was probably just a multi-way splitter on the audio output to pipe it to all the computers' input jacks.
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love.
I thought audiophiles preferred vinyl for the same reason they prefer Monster cable and wooden volume knobs.
Nope, not buying it. If you're broadcasting your communications in the clear it's the same as speaking in a public place. Or if not truly "public", then a private place in which anyone can come and go at will, such as a grocery store. If you're discussing your medical problems in the produce section and I overhear them, it's not my fault. It's yours. Even if I intentionally sidle up next to you pretending to be interested in the rutabagas you're standing near just so I can be near enough to hear you, it's your own damned fault for talking about private stuff in a public place.
Same goes for wireless. If you're transmitting in the clear, don't be surprised when someone overhears you.(*)
Want to provide an open access point as a benefit to the neighborhood? Great! More power to you! But for cryin' out loud, encrypt your private conversations! Then you can have your private conversation in the public space you've set up. Or in the public space anyone else has set up.
(* Yes, I know that this contradicts court rulings intended to protect unencrypted cellphone conversations. I think those rulings are bad. The fact that they contradict rulings in similar cases regarding cordless land-line handsets indicates that something is wrong, in any case.)
Funny you should mention this. I just returned from a job fair at a major university where we were interviewing and hiring programmers. Yes, the new grads tend to be pretty green, but some of them are really good. It's not terribly hard to separate those who may just lack experience but who grok the fundamentals from those who really need to reconsider the last four years of their lives. I actually talked with seniors in CS who couldn't describe the difference between a queue and a stack.
As for the article specifically... Yes, they had "fresh-out-of-college newbie programmers working crunchtime with no supervision". Hired by programmers who were themselves once "fresh-out-of-college newbie programmers working crunchtime with no supervision". It's a self-perpetuating cycle that is really prevalent in the games industry. (Or at least was prevalent at the time this story takes place, which is roughly the same era in which I was a games programmer. Thankfully I got out. That scene is nuts!)
Thus demonstrating my long-time assertion (ever since my stint in the video game biz) that video game developers are crap programmers. No common routines to manipulate a heavily-used data structure? Not even a set of macros? This kind of story belongs over on The Daily WTF.
And just how do the pollsters know that people are telling the truth about who they'd vote for?
Lie to polls!
And the loser is ustream.tv, which was streaming the Hugo ceremonies live last night, right up until the best short-form dramatic presentation category. They cut the stream in the middle of Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech because of "violations of terms of service". I'm pretty sure they have a content-scanning bot which threw a hissy fit over the clips of the nominated shows.
At least, I hope it was a bot. I'd much rather imagine a mistake by an automated system than a conscious decision by a human that this particular use of the material was verboten.
And when was the last time you saw a woman in a video game who *didn't* have really pronounced curves? So yeah, the boob contours are *totally* there for practical reasons, not just because video game artists don't get out enough.
It's like fantasy football, without the football.
That comes from the observation that fantasy football is just D&D for people who spent their high school years beating up those of us who played D&D.
If you want a more serious answer, role-playing is cooperative storytelling. The rules exist to give a framework within which the story can be told, and to help determine the outcome of character interactions.
Really, though, it's not the kind of thing you can explain to someone who doesn't get it. It's like sports. Many of us on Slashdot are baffled by sport fans. We can't imagine why anyone would want to watch the game on TV, let alone paint themselves in team colors and go sit on a cold bleacher seat to pay $7 for a cup of pisswater beer. But we each probably have someone we love who does enjoy it. Or if it's not sports, it's My Little Pony fandom, or hunting, or cycling or fixing cars or playing music. Think of something you simply can't fathom. Then assume that's what RPGs are like to your spouse or whoever. If they don't get it then there's no point in trying to make them. Just say, "It's an excuse to go hang out with my friends for a few hours every week." and leave it at that.
Maybe that's the secret to this. MS paid the advertising firm to come up with a new logo, with the stipulation that it be created using only MS tools. With that in mind maybe this doesn't look so bad.
People are playing the game without paying money to Ubisoft. Even worse, there are these "first-hand" owners who are profiting from Ubisoft's hard work and intellectual property. If that's not piracy, what is?
Don't you know that every time someone plays the game and the publisher receives less than the full retail price, it's stealing? If you buy last year's $60 game new-in-box off the $10 bargain shelf, then 5/6ths of the game's cost is lost to piracy. It's plain old mathematics. Why is this so hard for you people to understand?