This is a great point. Poker bots are really a reflection of the authors playing ability. This is not a game like chess where computers have a huge edge. Chess is a game of complete information. With a powerful enough computer you can play perfect chess. Poker is a game of incomplete information. There is no way to play perfect poker without knowing the hole cards (two cards dealt to each player) of your opponents. Using advanced AI, poker bots (not this WinHoldem BS) can be extremely difficult opponents. But this is due to their brilliant authors understanding of the game, and their ability to "teach a computer" how to play very well.
Poker bots are not cheating, but they are against most sites TOS. Because the average player is afraid of bots, I agree with the ban on bots. It's not cheating, but it does scare away the average player, which is what fuels the poker economy.
And even Collusion is short lived. It doesn't take long for sites to figure out that the same 3 people are always sitting at a table. And it's not trivial (although not impossible) to create dozens of unique accounts pointing to different people. Collusion among friends is much more of a concern than among bots which can be caught quickly using detection software.
The GP made great points about real problems. Just because he doesn't have a solution to those problems does not mean those problems don't exist. Instead of telling GP to "get a grip", why don't you explain to us why you feel he is so off base. Other than nit picking I'd say the larger points he made are spot on.
You really need to stop taking/. and its sources seriously. If a story isn't patently false then it's extremely exageratted. This generates lots of posts, and therefore lots of ad revenue. This is all wild speculation. It's true that MSR has done a LOT of UI research, especially around music players in the last ~5 years. You can visit MSR and see some of what they've accomplished. Obviously if they've spend millions on research in this area, they are going to try and protect that investment, and you can't blame them for that. However, Microsoft has not done anything to indicate that there is anything infringing in the iPod. This is just some struggling e-journalist making a loose correlation between a recent Apple patent rejection and another patent filed by MS in 2002.
I've even been accused on Slashdot of being a Microsoft astroturfer
Ya, me too, and I don't let wild speculation change my opinion of MS. I call BS on MS in full force when appropriate. They're a corporation that needs to know when it's customers aren't happy with their behavior. Just don't trust/. for any level of journalistic integrity. One day of trusting/. will turn you into a mindless anti-M$ drone in no time.
If you can point me to a PC manufacturer that makes well designed and high quality products like Apple does than I'd be very much obliged. Apple provides everything from a quality motherboard, quality case and parts (i.e. power supply and cooling fans that aren't 100db, etc.), and a simple and elegant design that is not only aesthetic but extremely functional. All brought to you buy a company that gives you decent customer support and you know will be around for a while. Again, if you can find me a PC manufacturer that comes close, that would be great because I'm in the market for one and I can't stand the crap I'm seeing (from Dell to Alienware). I know Apple's aren't perfect, but they are far closer to what I want in a computer from a hardware standpoint, x86 or not.
you risk the lives and property of others, your own life and propertybr.br. Not usually. It just depends on the flow of traffic. I'd argue that if the flow of traffic is 10mph over the limit, that the safest speed is the flow of traffic. Furthermore, when the government decides to increase a speed limit (it happens), does that mean that they're increasing the danger to all drivers? No, it means that based on their research, there's no measurable risk to increasing the speed of a given highway. So driving 85 on a 70, especially in a car which is designed to drive at this level (which modern cars are), is not in and of iteslf a safety issue. Actually, it's probably safer for a modern car to drive at 85 than a 20 year old car to drive the speed limit at 60. The real safety issue comes when you have someone speeding on a congested highway weaving in and out of traffic. Again you're breaking the flow of traffic, so you need to slow down. But I don't think that merely going faster has a huge impact on safety. Yes impact damage goes up, but they go up when we go from 25-40mph too. Yet I think we'd all agree that it's unreasonable to limit all roads to 40mph.
I'm not suggesting it's ok for people to speed. I just don't like the "going 15 over on a highway is a huge safety risk so fine the hell out of them" message.
What you've just described is reckless driving. Many times excessive speed is part of reckless driving. However speeding is not necessarily reckless driving, and speeding many times does not correlate to unsafe driving. I'm not advocating speeding, but I also don't think you need camera and radar-trap enforcement of speed limits because I don't think that's where the safety issues lie. It is just a great source of revenue, with the occasional "german car with a cocky driver doing 2.5x the speed limit in a residential neighborhood" sensationalism to justify speed-trap entrapment.
If some extremely cool 3rd-party controller/widget maker just doesn't want to get into the MS zone, then they can just focus their ultra-cool talents, superior pricing, and fantastic wonderfulness somewhere else.
Great point. Furtheremore, the extremely cool controller/wedget maker is most likely not going to be affected by this as they're probably all about making licensed products. It's the knock-off-will-break-in-six-months-more-expensive- than-the-real-thing-in-the-long-run Chineese made products that we'll be seeing less of. Darn.
I'll be the first to admit that the $2300 Dell does not have the fit 'n' finish quality of the Apple. But it does have a higher quality screen (the 1920 screen are awesome from all angles), and a much faster CPU. If I could have Dell's value and pay an extra 10% for a higher quality box, I would. But I'm not going to pay a 60% premium for better fit 'n' finish, but less overall value.
Yes, but the company you should be inferring is Apple. Windows has the widest range and variety of software of any other OS. Windows runs on the widest range and variety of hardware than any other OS (out of the box, at least).
So tell me what did Microsoft give us other than a combination of other peoples technologies and ideas?
They brought all of the technologies you mentioned to the masses in a productized form. Say what you want about IE, but it's a lot more then anything the NCSA came up with. Say what you want about the GUI, but no one else (Apple had a year or so of glory) was able to bring it to the average Joe. Let's not forget that Windows is a great gaming platform. Nothing comes close to DirectX (especially a few years ago, the OSS world has been making a lot of progress in this area) and the virtually plug 'n' play nature of complex games. It's ludicrious to say that Microsoft hasn't brought us anything (in the positive sense).
HDTV and Surround Sound aren't Status Symbols
on
Xbox 360 for $300
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· Score: 1
All of those factors are part of the fun. It's fun to hear monsters walking around you. It's fun to see them with lifelike graphics. Yes, if good game design is sacrificed because of these things you have a point. Otherwise, I'll take the platform that allows game developers to give me the best experience possible.
If I have to comment on what my code is doing, in the majority of cases there is a problem with how my code is written. Comments for why something is done in code is a lot more useful when the why is not obvious. That and API documentation (publically explosed method headers, for example) are where I see comments being uself. The article takes commenting to an extreme, and ignores the real problems which create the desire to comment heavily. From TFA:
function beginBattle(attacker, defender) {
var isAlive;// Boolean inidicating life or death after attack
var teamCount;// Loop counter// Check for pre-emptive strike
if(defender.agility > attacker.agility) {
isAlive = defender.attack(attacker);
}// Continue original attack if still alive
if(isAlive) {
isAlive = attacker.attack(defender);
}// See if any of the defenders teammates wish to counter attack
for(teamCount = 0; teamCount < defender.team.length; i++) {
var teammate = defender.team[teamCount];
if(teammate.counterAttack = 1) {
isAlive = teammate.attack(attacker);
}
}// TODO: Process the logic that handles attacker or defender deaths
return true; }// End beginBattle
All of these comments get in the way of reading the code. However they're required because this method is not written well. The variable names are not self describing. The method also violates the Single Responsibility Principle on multiple counts. The method is also too long (mainly due to the SRP violations). Instead of spending the time mudding up the code with comments, spend the time refactoring the code so that the majority of the comments aren't necessary in the first place. Comments main purpose is to assist a developer in understanding the code. If too much of this assitance is necessary, it is probably due to problems with the code itself; even problems which may have a negative impact on the codebase beyond readability issues.
Your subject is misleading, as you can't be convicted of being a monopoly since being a monopoly isn't illegal. There are a few practices, like predatory pricing, that are illegal. MS has in fact followed the DOJ's pricing guidelines with the largest OEM's like Dell. The DOJ is watching them closely in this regard, so there is no injustice here.
Another issue is MSIE. Many (most?) of us don't consider bundling IE with Windows injustice. We look at it as "duh" evolution of Windows. As a Windows developer, it's very nice knowing that I can rely on MSIE.dll et al being available for my applications. Netscape was useless from a development standpoint (their SDK's were horrible and their redistributable license was a pain as well). Once we could rely on IE being there, our development time and costs went down while our customers got a more consistent product. For the record I'm not talking about web sites I'm talking about products that embed a browser, in which many MS ISV's rely on and would be screwed if the DOJ made the silly ruling to force MS to remove MSIE. What MS did do is make it stupid-easy for anyone to select alternative browsers, email clients, etc. as defaults. While this has always been possible, MS made it even easier with a with a very user friendly UI.
Being a monopoly should not prohibit you from adding on to your product just because some 3rd party makes a similar addon to your product already. That doesn't help customers, it just forces them to buy or download more crap. Sure, it may not help Netscape, but they're just whining because, like many things in technology, their product became commoditized and they couldn't make money on it.
The software industry has gotten away with robbery for too long.
You have obviously never worked on a medium to large sized quality software package before. The cost for market research, design, development, QA, marketing, etc. is in the millions for even smaller projects. Even for "open source" projects where people donate their personal time to work for "for-profit" organizations, there is still a cost around the non-dev related tasks that are required to get a commercial level product shipped. I used to think software was way overpriced too. That was before I had eight years of experience in the industry.
Longhorn does not require a special monitor to view movies. That's just laughable. Longhorn will have DRM features for certain content providers who want draconian control over their content. Don't buy their content. iMovies store will be out soon enough and will probably have more palatable DRM that doesn't require new hardware.
You buy Longhorn, you've just given control of your machine to more than content producers. You've handed control of your machine to a third party - be it Hi-Def content producers or Microsoft itself. You've given someone else the right to redefine *your* rights under copyright law and to control to which materials you even have access - now DRM becomes censorship.
You can still view DVD's that you own, movies that you make, MP3's that you own or have downloaded. The only thing that you can't watch are special movies that are required to have authentication in order to be viewed at full resolution. Those special movies should be boycotted.
Regardless, there is no censorship going on here. Microsoft is simply catering to content providers' feature requests. I'm sure Apple would love to trust its users and do without DRM, but in order to provide the content it wants Apple needed to provide a DRM solution. If you don't like it, go ahead an use AAC or whatever for your own music, just don't buy from the Apple store. The same goes with content providers who use Longhorn's DRM.
Intel doesn't come close to a monopoly in the compiler market, so I fail to see what this has to do with the antitrust suit.
That's because you're trivializing the issue. Intel has a chip monopoly their compiler has a huge influence - even if it isn't used in production by the majority of their customers. Purposely reducing the efficiency for AMD chips is a great example of anti-competition, which is what monopoly laws are all about.
Call me crazy, but if the FBI needs 10 minute wiretapping on a WIFI setup to keep my plane from being blown up by a bunch of Islamic radicals, then so be it.
Your faith in the FBI's ability to do anything with such information is what's allowing the FBI et al. to increase their ability to spy. If the FBI finds something suspicious they can not send superman to come save you. The best they can do is alert the pilot to lock his door and land immediately, which will most likely cause a lot of unneeded havoc due to many false alarms, and do little to prevent a bomb in the cabin from going off. Furthermore, even with supercomuters at their disposal, the FBI will not be able to crack the encryption that the terrorist (and many law abiding citzens like myself) are using within a meanful amount of time.
The end result is the FBI spying on us with no real affect on flight safety. If a terrorist tries to take over any plane I'm on I'm going to do my best to kick their ass. It's time to start taking responsiblity for our own safety and stop relying on big brother to protect us all the time (obviously the govt does have a role in safety, but that doesn't negate our own role), and stop letting them take our freedoms that so many people have died to protect.
At a glance it looks like trivial transparancy. But further investigation shows that it's transaparancy that with guassian blur. Now that's what I call innovation!
if you board a taxpayer-subsidized airline's plane (let's be honest here, there are no private airlines in the strictest sense of the word), and you use that taxpayer-subsidized airline's network connectivity, then you surf by whatever rules your taxpayer-subsidized government chooses to impose on them
And since we live in a democracy, we can voice our opinion against certain network policies.
So we have backend driver development and increased stability, but have nothing in terms of user features, such as a 3d desktop rendered on the video card.
We do have that. The UI in Longhorn is vector based and can offload processing to the GPU.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a great point. Poker bots are really a reflection of the authors playing ability. This is not a game like chess where computers have a huge edge. Chess is a game of complete information. With a powerful enough computer you can play perfect chess. Poker is a game of incomplete information. There is no way to play perfect poker without knowing the hole cards (two cards dealt to each player) of your opponents. Using advanced AI, poker bots (not this WinHoldem BS) can be extremely difficult opponents. But this is due to their brilliant authors understanding of the game, and their ability to "teach a computer" how to play very well.
Poker bots are not cheating, but they are against most sites TOS. Because the average player is afraid of bots, I agree with the ban on bots. It's not cheating, but it does scare away the average player, which is what fuels the poker economy.
And even Collusion is short lived. It doesn't take long for sites to figure out that the same 3 people are always sitting at a table. And it's not trivial (although not impossible) to create dozens of unique accounts pointing to different people. Collusion among friends is much more of a concern than among bots which can be caught quickly using detection software.
The GP made great points about real problems. Just because he doesn't have a solution to those problems does not mean those problems don't exist. Instead of telling GP to "get a grip", why don't you explain to us why you feel he is so off base. Other than nit picking I'd say the larger points he made are spot on.
You really need to stop taking /. and its sources seriously. If a story isn't patently false then it's extremely exageratted. This generates lots of posts, and therefore lots of ad revenue. This is all wild speculation. It's true that MSR has done a LOT of UI research, especially around music players in the last ~5 years. You can visit MSR and see some of what they've accomplished. Obviously if they've spend millions on research in this area, they are going to try and protect that investment, and you can't blame them for that. However, Microsoft has not done anything to indicate that there is anything infringing in the iPod. This is just some struggling e-journalist making a loose correlation between a recent Apple patent rejection and another patent filed by MS in 2002.
/. for any level of journalistic integrity. One day of trusting /. will turn you into a mindless anti-M$ drone in no time.
I've even been accused on Slashdot of being a Microsoft astroturfer
Ya, me too, and I don't let wild speculation change my opinion of MS. I call BS on MS in full force when appropriate. They're a corporation that needs to know when it's customers aren't happy with their behavior. Just don't trust
If you can point me to a PC manufacturer that makes well designed and high quality products like Apple does than I'd be very much obliged. Apple provides everything from a quality motherboard, quality case and parts (i.e. power supply and cooling fans that aren't 100db, etc.), and a simple and elegant design that is not only aesthetic but extremely functional. All brought to you buy a company that gives you decent customer support and you know will be around for a while. Again, if you can find me a PC manufacturer that comes close, that would be great because I'm in the market for one and I can't stand the crap I'm seeing (from Dell to Alienware). I know Apple's aren't perfect, but they are far closer to what I want in a computer from a hardware standpoint, x86 or not.
you risk the lives and property of others, your own life and propertybr.br.
Not usually. It just depends on the flow of traffic. I'd argue that if the flow of traffic is 10mph over the limit, that the safest speed is the flow of traffic. Furthermore, when the government decides to increase a speed limit (it happens), does that mean that they're increasing the danger to all drivers? No, it means that based on their research, there's no measurable risk to increasing the speed of a given highway. So driving 85 on a 70, especially in a car which is designed to drive at this level (which modern cars are), is not in and of iteslf a safety issue. Actually, it's probably safer for a modern car to drive at 85 than a 20 year old car to drive the speed limit at 60. The real safety issue comes when you have someone speeding on a congested highway weaving in and out of traffic. Again you're breaking the flow of traffic, so you need to slow down. But I don't think that merely going faster has a huge impact on safety. Yes impact damage goes up, but they go up when we go from 25-40mph too. Yet I think we'd all agree that it's unreasonable to limit all roads to 40mph.
I'm not suggesting it's ok for people to speed. I just don't like the "going 15 over on a highway is a huge safety risk so fine the hell out of them" message.
What you've just described is reckless driving. Many times excessive speed is part of reckless driving. However speeding is not necessarily reckless driving, and speeding many times does not correlate to unsafe driving. I'm not advocating speeding, but I also don't think you need camera and radar-trap enforcement of speed limits because I don't think that's where the safety issues lie. It is just a great source of revenue, with the occasional "german car with a cocky driver doing 2.5x the speed limit in a residential neighborhood" sensationalism to justify speed-trap entrapment.
If some extremely cool 3rd-party controller/widget maker just doesn't want to get into the MS zone, then they can just focus their ultra-cool talents, superior pricing, and fantastic wonderfulness somewhere else.
- than-the-real-thing-in-the-long-run Chineese made products that we'll be seeing less of. Darn.
Great point. Furtheremore, the extremely cool controller/wedget maker is most likely not going to be affected by this as they're probably all about making licensed products. It's the knock-off-will-break-in-six-months-more-expensive
I'll be the first to admit that the $2300 Dell does not have the fit 'n' finish quality of the Apple. But it does have a higher quality screen (the 1920 screen are awesome from all angles), and a much faster CPU. If I could have Dell's value and pay an extra 10% for a higher quality box, I would. But I'm not going to pay a 60% premium for better fit 'n' finish, but less overall value.
Yes, but the company you should be inferring is Apple. Windows has the widest range and variety of software of any other OS. Windows runs on the widest range and variety of hardware than any other OS (out of the box, at least).
So tell me what did Microsoft give us other than a combination of other peoples technologies and ideas?
They brought all of the technologies you mentioned to the masses in a productized form. Say what you want about IE, but it's a lot more then anything the NCSA came up with. Say what you want about the GUI, but no one else (Apple had a year or so of glory) was able to bring it to the average Joe. Let's not forget that Windows is a great gaming platform. Nothing comes close to DirectX (especially a few years ago, the OSS world has been making a lot of progress in this area) and the virtually plug 'n' play nature of complex games. It's ludicrious to say that Microsoft hasn't brought us anything (in the positive sense).
All of those factors are part of the fun. It's fun to hear monsters walking around you. It's fun to see them with lifelike graphics. Yes, if good game design is sacrificed because of these things you have a point. Otherwise, I'll take the platform that allows game developers to give me the best experience possible.
If I have to comment on what my code is doing, in the majority of cases there is a problem with how my code is written. Comments for why something is done in code is a lot more useful when the why is not obvious. That and API documentation (publically explosed method headers, for example) are where I see comments being uself. The article takes commenting to an extreme, and ignores the real problems which create the desire to comment heavily. From TFA:
// Boolean inidicating life or death after attack // Loop counter // Check for pre-emptive strike // Continue original attack if still alive // See if any of the defenders teammates wish to counter attack // TODO: Process the logic that handles attacker or defender deaths
// End beginBattle
function beginBattle(attacker, defender) {
var isAlive;
var teamCount;
if(defender.agility > attacker.agility) {
isAlive = defender.attack(attacker);
}
if(isAlive) {
isAlive = attacker.attack(defender);
}
for(teamCount = 0; teamCount < defender.team.length; i++) {
var teammate = defender.team[teamCount];
if(teammate.counterAttack = 1) {
isAlive = teammate.attack(attacker);
}
}
return true;
}
All of these comments get in the way of reading the code. However they're required because this method is not written well. The variable names are not self describing. The method also violates the Single Responsibility Principle on multiple counts. The method is also too long (mainly due to the SRP violations). Instead of spending the time mudding up the code with comments, spend the time refactoring the code so that the majority of the comments aren't necessary in the first place. Comments main purpose is to assist a developer in understanding the code. If too much of this assitance is necessary, it is probably due to problems with the code itself; even problems which may have a negative impact on the codebase beyond readability issues.
Your subject is misleading, as you can't be convicted of being a monopoly since being a monopoly isn't illegal. There are a few practices, like predatory pricing, that are illegal. MS has in fact followed the DOJ's pricing guidelines with the largest OEM's like Dell. The DOJ is watching them closely in this regard, so there is no injustice here.
Another issue is MSIE. Many (most?) of us don't consider bundling IE with Windows injustice. We look at it as "duh" evolution of Windows. As a Windows developer, it's very nice knowing that I can rely on MSIE.dll et al being available for my applications. Netscape was useless from a development standpoint (their SDK's were horrible and their redistributable license was a pain as well). Once we could rely on IE being there, our development time and costs went down while our customers got a more consistent product. For the record I'm not talking about web sites I'm talking about products that embed a browser, in which many MS ISV's rely on and would be screwed if the DOJ made the silly ruling to force MS to remove MSIE. What MS did do is make it stupid-easy for anyone to select alternative browsers, email clients, etc. as defaults. While this has always been possible, MS made it even easier with a with a very user friendly UI.
Being a monopoly should not prohibit you from adding on to your product just because some 3rd party makes a similar addon to your product already. That doesn't help customers, it just forces them to buy or download more crap. Sure, it may not help Netscape, but they're just whining because, like many things in technology, their product became commoditized and they couldn't make money on it.
Mr. Roberson is entitled to his opinion
I think the GP's point is that he's not someone who's opinion should be newsworthy.
The software industry has gotten away with robbery for too long.
You have obviously never worked on a medium to large sized quality software package before. The cost for market research, design, development, QA, marketing, etc. is in the millions for even smaller projects. Even for "open source" projects where people donate their personal time to work for "for-profit" organizations, there is still a cost around the non-dev related tasks that are required to get a commercial level product shipped. I used to think software was way overpriced too. That was before I had eight years of experience in the industry.
Longhorn does not require a special monitor to view movies. That's just laughable. Longhorn will have DRM features for certain content providers who want draconian control over their content. Don't buy their content. iMovies store will be out soon enough and will probably have more palatable DRM that doesn't require new hardware.
You buy Longhorn, you've just given control of your machine to more than content producers. You've handed control of your machine to a third party - be it Hi-Def content producers or Microsoft itself. You've given someone else the right to redefine *your* rights under copyright law and to control to which materials you even have access - now DRM becomes censorship.
You can still view DVD's that you own, movies that you make, MP3's that you own or have downloaded. The only thing that you can't watch are special movies that are required to have authentication in order to be viewed at full resolution. Those special movies should be boycotted.
Regardless, there is no censorship going on here. Microsoft is simply catering to content providers' feature requests. I'm sure Apple would love to trust its users and do without DRM, but in order to provide the content it wants Apple needed to provide a DRM solution. If you don't like it, go ahead an use AAC or whatever for your own music, just don't buy from the Apple store. The same goes with content providers who use Longhorn's DRM.
RTables are useless with the implementation of salts and/or secure hash implementations like HMAC.
Intel doesn't come close to a monopoly in the compiler market, so I fail to see what this has to do with the antitrust suit.
That's because you're trivializing the issue. Intel has a chip monopoly their compiler has a huge influence - even if it isn't used in production by the majority of their customers. Purposely reducing the efficiency for AMD chips is a great example of anti-competition, which is what monopoly laws are all about.
Call me crazy, but if the FBI needs 10 minute wiretapping on a WIFI setup to keep my plane from being blown up by a bunch of Islamic radicals, then so be it.
Your faith in the FBI's ability to do anything with such information is what's allowing the FBI et al. to increase their ability to spy. If the FBI finds something suspicious they can not send superman to come save you. The best they can do is alert the pilot to lock his door and land immediately, which will most likely cause a lot of unneeded havoc due to many false alarms, and do little to prevent a bomb in the cabin from going off. Furthermore, even with supercomuters at their disposal, the FBI will not be able to crack the encryption that the terrorist (and many law abiding citzens like myself) are using within a meanful amount of time.
The end result is the FBI spying on us with no real affect on flight safety. If a terrorist tries to take over any plane I'm on I'm going to do my best to kick their ass. It's time to start taking responsiblity for our own safety and stop relying on big brother to protect us all the time (obviously the govt does have a role in safety, but that doesn't negate our own role), and stop letting them take our freedoms that so many people have died to protect.
At a glance it looks like trivial transparancy. But further investigation shows that it's transaparancy that with guassian blur. Now that's what I call innovation!
if you board a taxpayer-subsidized airline's plane (let's be honest here, there are no private airlines in the strictest sense of the word), and you use that taxpayer-subsidized airline's network connectivity, then you surf by whatever rules your taxpayer-subsidized government chooses to impose on them
And since we live in a democracy, we can voice our opinion against certain network policies.
So we have backend driver development and increased stability, but have nothing in terms of user features, such as a 3d desktop rendered on the video card.
We do have that. The UI in Longhorn is vector based and can offload processing to the GPU.
How is this modded as insightful? I had a working Longhorn DVD from 18 months ago. Just because a product isn't finished doesn't make it vaporware.