I don't know who your fly with, but we tell passengers to stow their stuff in the seatback or the overhead. If they ignore us, we can't force the issue, as holding your object isn't against the FAA rules but operating it is. They may be missing the point. In any event, since when have you ever known management to get the point of something and do the right thing? They probably think it's for interference too, and holding the turned-off object is fine.
As far as thinking I am exaggerating, it's simple physics, you are welcome to do the math yourself.
The ban on cellphone usage during takeoff and landing is for your safety. The ban on cellphone usage during cruise is due to weaknesses in the cell network and your sanity.
The reason we tell you not to use your phone for takeoff and landing is because those are the point during the flight when the aircraft is most likely to encounter problems and also when our navaid usage and workload is at its highest. We are trained to assume that the airplane will crash on every flight and act accordingly - Complacency Kills! You should be in the same mindset. First, there's the matter of the crash. When the aircraft goes from flying speed to nothing in a few seconds, the G-forces are going to make that iphone/laptop/whatever that you are holding in your hands suddenly weigh several times its normal weight. You WILL NOT be able to keep ahold of it. It's going to become a projectile and injure or kill the people sitting near you. Next is longer-term survival. The fact is, most deaths in air crashes happen not during the impact sequence, but in the post-crash environment. People panic and stampede. They don't know which way is out. The aircraft is dark and possibly filling with smoke or water. Situational awareness and decision-making ability are KEY to both your survival and that of your fellow passengers. Having to get your headphones off or figure out where your laptop went is not going to help. If you weren't paying attention to things before the crash you won't know where you are now and what direction you need to go. You probably ignored the safety briefing too. See where this is going? Finally, if you are alert and paying attention, the amount of information you will be able to provide to the crash investigators after the crash will be of higher quality. Those of us at the pointy end of the aircraft probably died in the impact. Being able to give information to the investigators could uncover flaws in the aircraft or our procedures, and by correcting those save hundreds of lives. We take this flying stuff seriously. You should too.
I've heard that cell usage during cruise overloads the cell network by switching cells too often - I'm not an expert on the cell system so I'll defer to a cell tech on that. In my eyes, the ban on cell usage during cruise is for reasons of everyone's sanity. Do you really want to hear the guy in the next seat shouting into his phone about the BIG IMPORTANT EXECUTIVE THINGS BIG IMPORTANT EXECUTIVES LIKE HIM DO, or THIS THING ON MY NECK IS GETTING BIGGER, or whatever other inane thing he wants to rattle on about at maximum volume? It's bad enough everywhere else, why must we suffer too? (Misery loves company?)
Anyway, that's the score. I've repeated this I don't know how many times now and it never sticks. STICK, DAMMIT!
XNA is all well and good but it's not the XDK. XNA is severely restricted when compared to the XDK. I'm talking about putting commercial developers and hobbyists on the same footing in terms of tool capability.
This is not a surcharge on hardware. It's what I expect management types to think the SDK and PSN is worth. The hardware isn't the only thing being sold here. The SDK and PSN have to be paid for too.
Just to be clear: I expect the $1-2K to cover a hardware device with full debug capability, complete SDK, reference material for the SDK, and the plugins and/or documentation of the appropriate file formats for asset generation (3D models, textures, audio, etc). There's also the homebrew PSN, forums and associated hosting and administration. It's not just the hardware. This would be the same stuff delivered with a commercial development license, just without the support entitlement.
True, but we're talking giving the homebrewers the same SDK and tools as the commercial devs, so there has to be some cost involved or it'll never ever sell to management.
The idea here is to prevent the commercial developers from being able to use the homebrew kit to avoid paying for the normal commercial development kit. Distribution between homebrew-enabled consoles is free, but distribution to retail consoles is not. See the response above for the pricing rationale.
Well, it has to be high enough to generate a profit on its own, since usual consoles are sold at a loss and make up for it by software sales. These development tool machines won't have much in the way of software sales. Someone will also have to pay for the PSN and such. The price can go down, but it's still not going to be as cheap as a retail console, not by a long shot. That was just my guess at what I thought Sony might possibly agree to. It's purely a guess.
I stand by my earlier comments. Sony must either enable homebrew or it will be enabled later without their consent. This is not difficult:
First, make a homebrew/hobby developer package and sell it. The SDK and hardware provided ABSOLUTELY MUST be absolutely identical in every way to that supplied to commercial developers. Pricing should be high enough to make a direct profit (Since there will be fewer games sold for these units), but low enough to be obtainable. Say, $1500-2500 or so. There should be no software support entitlement (to control costs), and a non-disclosure agreement on any proprietary technologies in the SDK.
Second, make a homebrew/hobby version of the PSN. There is already a developer version of the PSN, and this would ensure that everyone stays separated. Access to the homebew/hobby PSN must be conditioned upon acceptance of the non-disclosure agreement. Then create some message boards or forums in the PSN. This would enable the hobby/homebrew programmers to communicate with and support one another while being assured they are in compliance with the NDA. Consider allowing commercial developers access to the hobby/homebrew PSN as well, so if we find anything interesting they get access to it too.
The third item is the only item that is really new. There should be some sort of release mechanism where games can be released from the homebrew/hobby community to the rest of the world running retail hardware. This shouldn't be free - Sony needs to pay their bills, and it would discourage releasing crap that sucks. Homebrew releases should be prevented from generating profit for the programmer, to keep commercial developers from using the homebrew SDK as a cheap substitute for the commercial SDK. The homebrew developer would pay Sony's QA costs, and once the QA passes, the release is cryptographically signed and becomes a free item in the PSN online store. If the game has serious commercial potential, perhaps an agreement could be made between Sony and the programmer for a full commercial release, with Sony keeping the majority of the proceeds. This is so there is an incentive for upgrading from the homebrew SDK to the commercial SDK if you are interested in making a profit.
It is of EXCEEDINGLY VITAL importance that the only difference between a commercial SDK and homebrew SDK be the software support entitlement and ability to generate a profit. If there are ANY technical limitations in the homebrew SDK that are not present in the commercial SDK, people will be motivated to jailbreak, and we will have the present situation all over again. As long is there is no reason to jailbreak the machine other than piracy, everyone wins. (Except the pirates, and nobody important cares about them.) In addition, the presence and popularity of this homebrew/hobby SDK would also give Sony more credibility when prosecuting pirates.
You are wrong. Part 15 says: 1) Your device MAY NOT cause harmful interference. 2) Your device must ACCEPT any interference received, including that which may cause undesired operation.
I would consider donation to Wikipedia if you didn't treat us like shit over on Wikia. Serving spyware via drive-by downloads is one thing, you can claim you didn't know about it, but disabling the accounts of wiki editors when they talk about moving off Wikia because of it? Making malicious edits to the new wiki after they move? Playing games with Google to keep wikia's pagerank above the pagerank of the departed? That's childish and immoral. You can make WIkia the "Roach Motel" of wiki if you like, but remember, eventually the motel is full and gets thrown away.
As far as I am concerned you can't go bankrupt quickly enough. It's a pity that wikipedia must die with you, but I absolutely refuse to feed your ego or reward your dishonest behavior.
"Us" means my employer, of which I am one of the founding employees. We don't qualify for an IPv6 allocation because the minimum IPv6 allocation size is larger than what used to be the minimum IPv4 allocation, and is far beyond our needs. We would not be able to justify the usage of an entire block, so ARIN won't give us one. (Which is good; We don't need that much space.) So I am not necessarily attached to my IPv4 block because it is IPv4, I am attached to it because it is mine.
Since this is Slashdot, we'll use a car analogy: Assume that you have bought a new car, and shortly after your purchase, someone decides that the roads are too crowded and everyone who has less than 4 friends must ride a bus. Cars are now reserved for people who can fill all of the seats all of the time. Everyone who rides a bus must be going to places approved by the bus owners at times approved by the bus owners. Any travel otherwise is forbidden, unless you are taking a large group with you. Since I use my car to do my job, and the bus owners are very unlikely to accommodate my business needs aboard their bus, giving it up means I lose my job. So even though it's in the best interest of everyone else that I fall upon my sword and commit suicide so they can declutter the roads, I am too big of a chicken to become an hero, and I will selfishly hang on to my car until such time as someone comes to kill me and take it.
This isn't an option for us. We qualified for address space under ARIN's old rules, and as such, we own a directly allocated IPv4/24. The requirements for IPv6 space are higher, and we don't qualify for an allocation. If we give up our IPv4/24 we get nothing for it, we'll be at the mercy of our ISP for address space, and that will make it impossible for me to add redundant uplinks later.
With this stuff in mind, I intend to defend my IPv4 allocation until such time as ARIN forcibly reclaims it.
How did Apple manage to get these faults into the phone in the first place? They must have spies deeper than we originally thought! For shame, to stoop to sabotage! Will Jobs stop at NOTHING?
Sony could have prevented the whole PS3 jailbreak fiasco without exposing their games to piracy if they had simply given homebrew/hobby developers the same access to the hardware as their commercial developers. The drive to jailbreak the PS3 was purely because of the restrictions placed on the OtherOS environment. (OtherOS has no access to the RSX graphics hardware and restricted access to the Cell SPUs.)
First some background: All software in the PS3 is cryptographically signed, and Sony already has multiple signing keys for different applications. Software is either signed by the programmer with a key present in Sony's SDK during development, or signed by Sony for production releases.
There are three main types of PS3 hardware. PS3 TOOL is the development machine. It has an extra processor in it that runs a debug monitor allowing manipulation of the Cell and RSX. Tool can run programs signed with Sony's SDK key or signed with Sony's release keys. Tool also has twice the RAM of a retail PS3 and a blu-ray emulation function. It cannot play Blu-ray movies. PS3 TEST is a development test machine intended for use in QA. It does not have the debug processor, and is identical to retail hardware with the exception that it has a second ethernet interface for use with debugging software, it has the blu-ray emulation function, and it can run programs signed with Sony's SDK key or the release keys. The last version is the garden-variety retail PS3.
The blu-ray emulator used in TOOL and TEST lacks the cryptographic signature present on retail disks, so if you make a image of a retail disc and try to load it with the emulator, it will fail to decrypt. Only executables signed with the SDK key can be used with the blu-ray emulator. This means you can't use a tool or test machine to pirate released software.
Here's what Sony needs to do:
First, make a homebrew/hobby developer package and sell it. The SDK and TOOL provided ABSOLUTELY MUST be absolutely identical in every way to that supplied to commercial developers. Pricing should be high enough to make a profit, but low enough to be obtainable. Say, $1500-2500 or so. There should be no software support entitlement (to control costs), and a non-disclosure agreement on any proprietary technologies in the SDK.
Second, make a homebrew/hobby version of the PSN. There is already a developer version of the PSN, and this would ensure that everyone stays separated. Access to the homebew/hobby PSN must be conditioned upon acceptance of the non-disclosure agreement. Then create some message boards or forums in the PSN. This would enable the hobby/homebrew programmers to communicate with one another while being assured they are in compliance with the NDA. Consider allowing commercial developers access to the hobby/homebrew PSN as well, so if we find anything interesting they get access to it too.
The third item is the only item that is really new. There should be some sort of release mechanism where games can be released from the homebrew/hobby community to the rest of the world running retail hardware. This shouldn't be free - Sony needs to pay their bills, and it would discourage releasing crap that sucks. Homebrew releases should be prevented from generating profit for the programmer, to keep commercial developers from using the homebrew SDK as a cheap substitute for the commercial SDK. The homebrew developer would pay Sony's QA costs, and once the QA passes, the release is cryptographically signed and becomes a free item in the PSN online store. If the game has serious commercial potential, perhaps an agreement could be made between Sony and the programmer for a full commercial release, with Sony keeping the majority of the proceeds. This is so there is an incentive for upgrading from the homebrew SDK to the commercial SDK if you are interested in making a profit.
It is of EXCEEDINGLY VITAL importance that the only difference between a commercial SDK and homebrew SDK be the software support entitlement and ability to generat
I think programming on an old machine should be required for any sort of programming course. It would teach people to conserve resources and think about how the machine works. He who cannot program in 64K cannot program in more.
They didn't get to push the ditching switch in the hudson river incident, which is why it sank so quickly. Airbus Industrie documentation specifies that an A320-family aircraft landed intact on the water (which is highly improbable, but...) with the ditching mode activated should float for at least three days. That is an ideal case, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know who your fly with, but we tell passengers to stow their stuff in the seatback or the overhead. If they ignore us, we can't force the issue, as holding your object isn't against the FAA rules but operating it is. They may be missing the point. In any event, since when have you ever known management to get the point of something and do the right thing? They probably think it's for interference too, and holding the turned-off object is fine.
As far as thinking I am exaggerating, it's simple physics, you are welcome to do the math yourself.
The ban on cellphone usage during takeoff and landing is for your safety. The ban on cellphone usage during cruise is due to weaknesses in the cell network and your sanity.
The reason we tell you not to use your phone for takeoff and landing is because those are the point during the flight when the aircraft is most likely to encounter problems and also when our navaid usage and workload is at its highest. We are trained to assume that the airplane will crash on every flight and act accordingly - Complacency Kills! You should be in the same mindset. First, there's the matter of the crash. When the aircraft goes from flying speed to nothing in a few seconds, the G-forces are going to make that iphone/laptop/whatever that you are holding in your hands suddenly weigh several times its normal weight. You WILL NOT be able to keep ahold of it. It's going to become a projectile and injure or kill the people sitting near you. Next is longer-term survival. The fact is, most deaths in air crashes happen not during the impact sequence, but in the post-crash environment. People panic and stampede. They don't know which way is out. The aircraft is dark and possibly filling with smoke or water. Situational awareness and decision-making ability are KEY to both your survival and that of your fellow passengers. Having to get your headphones off or figure out where your laptop went is not going to help. If you weren't paying attention to things before the crash you won't know where you are now and what direction you need to go. You probably ignored the safety briefing too. See where this is going? Finally, if you are alert and paying attention, the amount of information you will be able to provide to the crash investigators after the crash will be of higher quality. Those of us at the pointy end of the aircraft probably died in the impact. Being able to give information to the investigators could uncover flaws in the aircraft or our procedures, and by correcting those save hundreds of lives. We take this flying stuff seriously. You should too.
I've heard that cell usage during cruise overloads the cell network by switching cells too often - I'm not an expert on the cell system so I'll defer to a cell tech on that. In my eyes, the ban on cell usage during cruise is for reasons of everyone's sanity. Do you really want to hear the guy in the next seat shouting into his phone about the BIG IMPORTANT EXECUTIVE THINGS BIG IMPORTANT EXECUTIVES LIKE HIM DO, or THIS THING ON MY NECK IS GETTING BIGGER, or whatever other inane thing he wants to rattle on about at maximum volume? It's bad enough everywhere else, why must we suffer too? (Misery loves company?)
Anyway, that's the score. I've repeated this I don't know how many times now and it never sticks. STICK, DAMMIT!
XNA is all well and good but it's not the XDK. XNA is severely restricted when compared to the XDK.
I'm talking about putting commercial developers and hobbyists on the same footing in terms of tool capability.
This is not a surcharge on hardware. It's what I expect management types to think the SDK and PSN is worth. The hardware isn't the only thing being sold here. The SDK and PSN have to be paid for too.
Just to be clear: I expect the $1-2K to cover a hardware device with full debug capability, complete SDK, reference material for the SDK, and the plugins and/or documentation of the appropriate file formats for asset generation (3D models, textures, audio, etc). There's also the homebrew PSN, forums and associated hosting and administration. It's not just the hardware. This would be the same stuff delivered with a commercial development license, just without the support entitlement.
True, but we're talking giving the homebrewers the same SDK and tools as the commercial devs, so there has to be some cost involved or it'll never ever sell to management.
The idea here is to prevent the commercial developers from being able to use the homebrew kit to avoid paying for the normal commercial development kit.
Distribution between homebrew-enabled consoles is free, but distribution to retail consoles is not.
See the response above for the pricing rationale.
Well, it has to be high enough to generate a profit on its own, since usual consoles are sold at a loss and make up for it by software sales. These development tool machines won't have much in the way of software sales. Someone will also have to pay for the PSN and such. The price can go down, but it's still not going to be as cheap as a retail console, not by a long shot. That was just my guess at what I thought Sony might possibly agree to.
It's purely a guess.
I stand by my earlier comments. Sony must either enable homebrew or it will be enabled later without their consent. This is not difficult:
First, make a homebrew/hobby developer package and sell it. The SDK and hardware provided ABSOLUTELY MUST be absolutely identical in every way to that supplied to commercial developers. Pricing should be high enough to make a direct profit (Since there will be fewer games sold for these units), but low enough to be obtainable. Say, $1500-2500 or so. There should be no software support entitlement (to control costs), and a non-disclosure agreement on any proprietary technologies in the SDK.
Second, make a homebrew/hobby version of the PSN. There is already a developer version of the PSN, and this would ensure that everyone stays separated. Access to the homebew/hobby PSN must be conditioned upon acceptance of the non-disclosure agreement. Then create some message boards or forums in the PSN. This would enable the hobby/homebrew programmers to communicate with and support one another while being assured they are in compliance with the NDA. Consider allowing commercial developers access to the hobby/homebrew PSN as well, so if we find anything interesting they get access to it too.
The third item is the only item that is really new. There should be some sort of release mechanism where games can be released from the homebrew/hobby community to the rest of the world running retail hardware. This shouldn't be free - Sony needs to pay their bills, and it would discourage releasing crap that sucks. Homebrew releases should be prevented from generating profit for the programmer, to keep commercial developers from using the homebrew SDK as a cheap substitute for the commercial SDK. The homebrew developer would pay Sony's QA costs, and once the QA passes, the release is cryptographically signed and becomes a free item in the PSN online store. If the game has serious commercial potential, perhaps an agreement could be made between Sony and the programmer for a full commercial release, with Sony keeping the majority of the proceeds. This is so there is an incentive for upgrading from the homebrew SDK to the commercial SDK if you are interested in making a profit.
It is of EXCEEDINGLY VITAL importance that the only difference between a commercial SDK and homebrew SDK be the software support entitlement and ability to generate a profit.
If there are ANY technical limitations in the homebrew SDK that are not present in the commercial SDK, people will be motivated to jailbreak, and we will have the present situation all over again.
As long is there is no reason to jailbreak the machine other than piracy, everyone wins. (Except the pirates, and nobody important cares about them.)
In addition, the presence and popularity of this homebrew/hobby SDK would also give Sony more credibility when prosecuting pirates.
Where's The Fucking Article?
What The Fuck,Aye?
You are wrong.
Part 15 says:
1) Your device MAY NOT cause harmful interference.
2) Your device must ACCEPT any interference received, including that which may cause undesired operation.
There is no skinny man behind a curtain pulling levers and pushing buttons, there is ONLY the GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ!
I would consider donation to Wikipedia if you didn't treat us like shit over on Wikia. Serving spyware via drive-by downloads is one thing, you can claim you didn't know about it, but disabling the accounts of wiki editors when they talk about moving off Wikia because of it? Making malicious edits to the new wiki after they move? Playing games with Google to keep wikia's pagerank above the pagerank of the departed? That's childish and immoral. You can make WIkia the "Roach Motel" of wiki if you like, but remember, eventually the motel is full and gets thrown away.
As far as I am concerned you can't go bankrupt quickly enough. It's a pity that wikipedia must die with you, but I absolutely refuse to feed your ego or reward your dishonest behavior.
"Us" means my employer, of which I am one of the founding employees. We don't qualify for an IPv6 allocation because the minimum IPv6 allocation size is larger than what used to be the minimum IPv4 allocation, and is far beyond our needs. We would not be able to justify the usage of an entire block, so ARIN won't give us one. (Which is good; We don't need that much space.) So I am not necessarily attached to my IPv4 block because it is IPv4, I am attached to it because it is mine.
Since this is Slashdot, we'll use a car analogy: Assume that you have bought a new car, and shortly after your purchase, someone decides that the roads are too crowded and everyone who has less than 4 friends must ride a bus. Cars are now reserved for people who can fill all of the seats all of the time. Everyone who rides a bus must be going to places approved by the bus owners at times approved by the bus owners. Any travel otherwise is forbidden, unless you are taking a large group with you. Since I use my car to do my job, and the bus owners are very unlikely to accommodate my business needs aboard their bus, giving it up means I lose my job. So even though it's in the best interest of everyone else that I fall upon my sword and commit suicide so they can declutter the roads, I am too big of a chicken to become an hero, and I will selfishly hang on to my car until such time as someone comes to kill me and take it.
This isn't an option for us. We qualified for address space under ARIN's old rules, and as such, we own a directly allocated IPv4 /24. The requirements for IPv6 space are higher, and we don't qualify for an allocation. If we give up our IPv4 /24 we get nothing for it, we'll be at the mercy of our ISP for address space, and that will make it impossible for me to add redundant uplinks later.
With this stuff in mind, I intend to defend my IPv4 allocation until such time as ARIN forcibly reclaims it.
Oh, this is easy! We'll just beat you with this rubber hose until you give up the key.
The beatings shall continue until the key is revealed!
How did Apple manage to get these faults into the phone in the first place? They must have spies deeper than we originally thought!
For shame, to stoop to sabotage! Will Jobs stop at NOTHING?
Later model teletypes had lower-case letters. Mine even has graphics printing capability.
I've been on IRC with a teletype before. It's not anything new or unusual.
No, we called a Teletype. TTY for short.
Sony could have prevented the whole PS3 jailbreak fiasco without exposing their games to piracy if they had simply given homebrew/hobby developers the same access to the hardware as their commercial developers.
The drive to jailbreak the PS3 was purely because of the restrictions placed on the OtherOS environment. (OtherOS has no access to the RSX graphics hardware and restricted access to the Cell SPUs.)
First some background:
All software in the PS3 is cryptographically signed, and Sony already has multiple signing keys for different applications. Software is either signed by the programmer with a key present in Sony's SDK during development, or signed by Sony for production releases.
There are three main types of PS3 hardware.
PS3 TOOL is the development machine. It has an extra processor in it that runs a debug monitor allowing manipulation of the Cell and RSX. Tool can run programs signed with Sony's SDK key or signed with Sony's release keys. Tool also has twice the RAM of a retail PS3 and a blu-ray emulation function. It cannot play Blu-ray movies.
PS3 TEST is a development test machine intended for use in QA. It does not have the debug processor, and is identical to retail hardware with the exception that it has a second ethernet interface for use with debugging software, it has the blu-ray emulation function, and it can run programs signed with Sony's SDK key or the release keys.
The last version is the garden-variety retail PS3.
The blu-ray emulator used in TOOL and TEST lacks the cryptographic signature present on retail disks, so if you make a image of a retail disc and try to load it with the emulator, it will fail to decrypt.
Only executables signed with the SDK key can be used with the blu-ray emulator. This means you can't use a tool or test machine to pirate released software.
Here's what Sony needs to do:
First, make a homebrew/hobby developer package and sell it. The SDK and TOOL provided ABSOLUTELY MUST be absolutely identical in every way to that supplied to commercial developers. Pricing should be high enough to make a profit, but low enough to be obtainable. Say, $1500-2500 or so. There should be no software support entitlement (to control costs), and a non-disclosure agreement on any proprietary technologies in the SDK.
Second, make a homebrew/hobby version of the PSN. There is already a developer version of the PSN, and this would ensure that everyone stays separated. Access to the homebew/hobby PSN must be conditioned upon acceptance of the non-disclosure agreement. Then create some message boards or forums in the PSN. This would enable the hobby/homebrew programmers to communicate with one another while being assured they are in compliance with the NDA. Consider allowing commercial developers access to the hobby/homebrew PSN as well, so if we find anything interesting they get access to it too.
The third item is the only item that is really new. There should be some sort of release mechanism where games can be released from the homebrew/hobby community to the rest of the world running retail hardware. This shouldn't be free - Sony needs to pay their bills, and it would discourage releasing crap that sucks. Homebrew releases should be prevented from generating profit for the programmer, to keep commercial developers from using the homebrew SDK as a cheap substitute for the commercial SDK. The homebrew developer would pay Sony's QA costs, and once the QA passes, the release is cryptographically signed and becomes a free item in the PSN online store. If the game has serious commercial potential, perhaps an agreement could be made between Sony and the programmer for a full commercial release, with Sony keeping the majority of the proceeds. This is so there is an incentive for upgrading from the homebrew SDK to the commercial SDK if you are interested in making a profit.
It is of EXCEEDINGLY VITAL importance that the only difference between a commercial SDK and homebrew SDK be the software support entitlement and ability to generat
I think programming on an old machine should be required for any sort of programming course. It would teach people to conserve resources and think about how the machine works.
He who cannot program in 64K cannot program in more.
They didn't get to push the ditching switch in the hudson river incident, which is why it sank so quickly.
Airbus Industrie documentation specifies that an A320-family aircraft landed intact on the water (which is highly improbable, but...) with the ditching mode activated should float for at least three days.
That is an ideal case, of course.
Valve blogged about it, which is what drove a big chunk of those sales.
The game is basically first-person Dwarf Fortress. Your job is mine riches out of the ground while not dying.
That'll work real well until someone with a legitimate need gets in an accident and gets left to die because he can't swing the bill.
That'd be a good place to start. If you can't find one, www.arrl.org and www.qrz.com are other good places to start.