If you like what you do, you aren't reading the TPS reports about your job, you are actually doing your job. There have been times when I got so much more work done off the clock (yes, working for free is stupid, but that stupidity is mitigated with a hard deadline and your job on the line) because I only worked, I didn't check every stupid piece of corporate sponsored spam in my inbox, and they never scheduled meetings about the proper way to fill in a request for more TPS pre-printed cover sheet request forms.
Checking Email? That's usually not work, that's corporate politics. The fine art of brown-nosing.
Look, police informants are not whistle blowers. You may think they deserve to be protected, but the term whistle blower has a specific meaning that does not equate to police informant.
There's no point in even comparing a smartphone to an Xbox. Conflating smartphones (still primarily used as phones, therefore always connected to network) with tablets (often WiFi only and connected only when an available network is within range) actually hurts your argument. (Xboxes are stationary so they don't have the same connectivity problems of Wifi tablets.)
No one I know uses Xbox Live, and of the 4 360 owners I know (myself and 3 others) I'm the only one who has it connected to the Internet. Two of the others are typical gamers who like shooting things, the other is a lady who bought it so she could use Kinect for... whatever it is one uses Kinect for. I think it's yoga or dancing or something... but I don't really know.
Now, the main reason those others never connected is because they don't have WiFi for their Xboxes and they don't have a hub near it due to the layout of their homes. Which brings us to our next difficulty and a fatal flaw in the current Microsoft strategy.
Microsoft, like many before them, has contempt for video games. They want a system that's an "everything box" and "used by the whole family." "Women are the new core, " is not just a pickup line for Microsoft executives, it signals a major change in how they are positioning the Xbox in the home.
Currently, my Xbox is hooked up in my office to a computer monitor with HDMI inputs. Why isn't it hooked to the big screen TV in the living room, one might ask? Because if it were, my wife would literally have killed me by now. Then she'd have all that blood to clean up off the carpet, not to mention disposing of the body. I love my wife, so I don't want to put her through that.
So, our set up now assures her that she will never have to miss a single episode of Law & Order: SVU, and I will never have to watch a single episode of Law & Order: SVU. Marital Bliss!
But it means I don't need to use the TV functions of the Xbox. If I want to watch Netflix, or Amazon, or HBOGo, I just switch the monitor over to my computer, although when I'm watching TV I prefer to do it with my wife (unless it's SVU or something about those non-Star Trek Cardassians.)
Now, if I do what Microsoft wants, and hook the Xbox One (which I'm not planning to ever get, but I said that about 360, so you never know) up in the living room, I will no longer be able to use it to play video games.
In which case, aren't I better off with a Web connected Blu Ray player, or a Roku Player?
1. Pick a Tablet (I suggest notApple unless you need Apple for work... well, or if you are rich and don't mind being a wastrel.)
2. Make sure the tablet has the following things: Mini-HDMI Out (For when you have access to a decent sized monitor.) Ability to connect Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse BSSH Ghost commander Remote Desktop Wifi Some kind of case that doubles as a stand bigger bag to carry tablet and accessories
3. Suggest buying 16gb and rigging up personal server for external storage.
4. Buy the tablet
5. set up tablet screen with stand, connect bluetooth keyboard and mouse, BSSH to linux box. (Or remote desktop, depending).
People don't buy consoles for other applications, they buy them for games. To give you an idea of the problem with PCs (and understand, I'm perfectly ok with tossing all the consoles into the Crack of Doom and just having non-gimped PC hardware, in fact that sounds like a perfect world) I'll just talk about my joystick experience.
I have a lot of extra Wii classic controllers. I keep getting them as gifts, I've got like half a dozen of them. Seriously.
So, the crummy, used, knock-off XBox 360 controller clone I was using with my console-style PC games went to controller Hell, so I thought, "I'll buy an adaptor for my extra Wii controllers, and use them." and I did buy the adaptor.... and what did my console style Pc games say?
"Nah-ah! We only work with Monopoly brand controllers! Take your non-Microsoft controllers elsewhere, peasant!"
Now, I hunted around and found some hackware that said, "Use our clunky hack-ware into tricking your Pc into thinking that your non Xbox 360 controller is an xbox 360 controller."
Now, obviously, it's stupid to complain about this, because if I had an Xbox console, I wouldn't be given the option to use a Wii controller on it.
But I wasn't using a console, I was using a PC. It wasn't just adapted Wii controllers either, I checked, it was anything that you couldn't also plug into an Xbox and expect to work.
The main problem B&N has is the lack of truly open tablets. When I want to read one of my Nook books, I read it on my Kindle using the Nook app (or on my old E-ink Nook if it's a novel and not a technical manual).
So, given that, why were they in the tablet business? Because if they relied on other tablets to carry their application, they risked being muscled completely out of the market.Now the Nook app was trivial to install on my Kindle, but I expect that Amazon could break it in their gimped implementation/fork of Android if they wanted.
(Incidentally, before anyone thinks, "well you are the sucker who bought a gimped Android Kindle," I haven't bought either a Nook or a Kindle, they were both gifts. I did buy a Blackberry Playbook, so who be smart now? Yaaarr....)
i'm trying to figure out who "walled garden" is good for other than the first movers who get a demi-monopoly and the top also ran who gets to live on the edge of the cliff unless they take the throne. (See: The History of Video Games NES to Present.)
To me it's idiotic that Microsoft, who built their business on "we don't care who makes software as long as it's for our platform, though someday we may steal your idea and give it away for free with the OS," trying to be the 4th place Also-ran walled garden. but I'm just a simple country programmer... I still think there's money to be made by someone saying "screw the walled garden, we'll make it up in marketshare."
In Bioshock Infinite, Fink allowed potential to employees to bid on jobs. "Who can do it in 30 minutes?" I have 30 minutes. How about 15, who'll bid 15."
Utopia.
Although some might think it's insulting to a professional to have to bid for a job and pay for the bid with free work, I feel that this innovative thinking tells you what a wonderful place Facebook would be to work.
"As manufacturing goes the way of agriculture, the job market must shift into new types of work lest mass technological unemployment and civil unrest overtake these beneficial gains."
Yeah, the job market can't do that. That's the problem right there. People who were doing skilled or unskilled labor and were replaced by machines aren't suddenly going to be able to become successful in a "creative class" job. If they could have, they'd probably have done that instead of the manufacturing job.
On the plus side, with so many manufacturing jobs having been shipped overseas, if they actually build the automated factories here in the US then that might make some number of jobs come back. (However, they'll probably build them in one of the Labor Hell countries anyway, which only sucks for the people in those countries.)
The fittest survive. What is meant by the fittest? Not the strongest; not the cleverest -- Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive. There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive. "Fitness," then, is only another name for "survival." Darwinism: That survivors survive.
I'll field this one. There's a few different Gods we refer to when we start using "God" in thought experiments:
1. A Blind Watchmaker. 2. A Spoiled, Brutal Child 3. A Perfect, Immortal Machine 4. Further interesting ideas
However, people who are talking about God who isn't part of a thought experiment, but who actually worship Him usually are referring to American Jesus, who cries when you:
1.Look at pictures of naked women 2. Play Dungeons and Dragons 3. Read Harry Potter books 4. Are gay 5. Refuse to believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.
Pity that they are sitting on IP worth millions in competent hands, but those are the breaks. (And they've been sitting on lots of great IP for decades, so this isn't a new phenomenon.)
Oh, as to treatment of employees... it seems I have to link to this at least once in any discussion of EA:
If you would like to meet Kate, I suggest you go into a bathroom, turn off the lights, and say "Bloody Kate" three times in front of the darkened mirror.
DRM versus Copy-protection: I have re-bought games on Steam because I lost the 16 digit CD key necessary to reinstall them with the CD and they cost 5 Yankee dollars on Steam. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
(Yes, I could have hunted for a hack, but I can do that for the Steam games as well. Again, six of one, half a dozen of the other.)
It's funny, when I take a DVD and turn it into digital content (using Forbidden Majicks!), I never have any problem trusting it. It's totally DRM free, will play on practically and device, and I can make unlimited copies....
Oh, you mean DRMed digital content....
Oh, by the way, the above is a fantasy story. It's impossible to turn a DVD into digital content without the consent of the Lords of Copyright. CSS for DVDs is completely unbreakable both legally and through forbidden knowledge. (I certainly don't own a T-Shirt with the DeCSS code on it...)
Put the rat cage on Julia, not me! Do it to Julia!
"Latest Update to Amazon's Video Player disables Roku Players and Internet Enabled Blu-ray players from playing their content."
"An Amazon spokesman was quoted as saying, 'Unfortunately, due to piracy concerns, we are unable to continue supporting non-Amazon set-top devices. We are sympathetic to our customers who's set top devices will no longer play our content, and are offering them a $10 off coupon for KindleTV....'"
Basically, somewhere in the chain is usually an incompetent manager or product development person who will shut you down if you give honest development estimates for a good, bug free release, and encourage you to lie. This has the effect of training, the first couple of warnings you get over giving realistic estimates, which are overruled anyway, and you turn into Gale Boetticher on Breaking Bad giving his scary drug lord boss estimates on how long it will take him to exactly duplicate Walter White's Meth formula.
Gale Boetticher: l suppose if we had......at least a few more cooks together.
Gustavo Fring: You don't think you're ready now?
Gale Boetticher: Well, l mean......he is such a.... A master.
Gale Boetticher: There's always more for me to learn. But l'm thinking that if we had......say......one or two more cooks.
Gustavo Fring: [Icy Silence, the temperature in the room drops 10 degrees]
Gale Boetticher: One more......l guess would do it. l suppose.
Gustavo Fring: l believe in you, Gale.
On the other hand, at least things worked out really well for Gale, eh?
"3) Ok, ok, this last one is easy. Booker DeWitt scounges around some trashcans for food all the time right? All we ask is that a cocacola be in there. Easy as pie. Easier then pie. Pie has that flakey crust. All we want is a simple aluminum can in the trash. Is that too much to ask? There's all sorts of reasons it could be in there. Come ON baby, work with me here!"
See, again, all kinds of product placement could be done with Tears.. Dishonored would be much more challenging....
Does anyone remember the Coca-Cola in the old Infocom game "The Lurking Horror?"
No, no, everyone knows that if you wanted to do product placement for Coca-cola in Bioshock Infinite, you simple call Coke Classic "Bucking Bronco" for a month or two, maybe change Mountain Dew to "Possession."
Slashdot Mirror
If you like what you do, you aren't reading the TPS reports about your job, you are actually doing your job. There have been times when I got so much more work done off the clock (yes, working for free is stupid, but that stupidity is mitigated with a hard deadline and your job on the line) because I only worked, I didn't check every stupid piece of corporate sponsored spam in my inbox, and they never scheduled meetings about the proper way to fill in a request for more TPS pre-printed cover sheet request forms.
Checking Email? That's usually not work, that's corporate politics. The fine art of brown-nosing.
Look, police informants are not whistle blowers. You may think they deserve to be protected, but the term whistle blower has a specific meaning that does not equate to police informant.
There's no point in even comparing a smartphone to an Xbox. Conflating smartphones (still primarily used as phones, therefore always connected to network) with tablets (often WiFi only and connected only when an available network is within range) actually hurts your argument. (Xboxes are stationary so they don't have the same connectivity problems of Wifi tablets.)
No one I know uses Xbox Live, and of the 4 360 owners I know (myself and 3 others) I'm the only one who has it connected to the Internet. Two of the others are typical gamers who like shooting things, the other is a lady who bought it so she could use Kinect for... whatever it is one uses Kinect for. I think it's yoga or dancing or something... but I don't really know.
Now, the main reason those others never connected is because they don't have WiFi for their Xboxes and they don't have a hub near it due to the layout of their homes. Which brings us to our next difficulty and a fatal flaw in the current Microsoft strategy.
Microsoft, like many before them, has contempt for video games. They want a system that's an "everything box" and "used by the whole family." "Women are the new core, " is not just a pickup line for Microsoft executives, it signals a major change in how they are positioning the Xbox in the home.
Currently, my Xbox is hooked up in my office to a computer monitor with HDMI inputs. Why isn't it hooked to the big screen TV in the living room, one might ask? Because if it were, my wife would literally have killed me by now. Then she'd have all that blood to clean up off the carpet, not to mention disposing of the body. I love my wife, so I don't want to put her through that.
So, our set up now assures her that she will never have to miss a single episode of Law & Order: SVU, and I will never have to watch a single episode of Law & Order: SVU. Marital Bliss!
But it means I don't need to use the TV functions of the Xbox. If I want to watch Netflix, or Amazon, or HBOGo, I just switch the monitor over to my computer, although when I'm watching TV I prefer to do it with my wife (unless it's SVU or something about those non-Star Trek Cardassians.)
Now, if I do what Microsoft wants, and hook the Xbox One (which I'm not planning to ever get, but I said that about 360, so you never know) up in the living room, I will no longer be able to use it to play video games.
In which case, aren't I better off with a Web connected Blu Ray player, or a Roku Player?
Sounds like someone doesn't like their Telescreen....
1. Pick a Tablet (I suggest notApple unless you need Apple for work... well, or if you are rich and don't mind being a wastrel.)
2. Make sure the tablet has the following things:
Mini-HDMI Out (For when you have access to a decent sized monitor.)
Ability to connect Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse
BSSH
Ghost commander
Remote Desktop
Wifi
Some kind of case that doubles as a stand
bigger bag to carry tablet and accessories
3. Suggest buying 16gb and rigging up personal server for external storage.
4. Buy the tablet
5. set up tablet screen with stand, connect bluetooth keyboard and mouse, BSSH to linux box. (Or remote desktop, depending).
6. Use use Lynx, IRC, Pine.
You are now the coolest kid on your block.
People don't buy consoles for other applications, they buy them for games. To give you an idea of the problem with PCs (and understand, I'm perfectly ok with tossing all the consoles into the Crack of Doom and just having non-gimped PC hardware, in fact that sounds like a perfect world) I'll just talk about my joystick experience.
I have a lot of extra Wii classic controllers. I keep getting them as gifts, I've got like half a dozen of them. Seriously.
So, the crummy, used, knock-off XBox 360 controller clone I was using with my console-style PC games went to controller Hell, so I thought, "I'll buy an adaptor for my extra Wii controllers, and use them." and I did buy the adaptor.... and what did my console style Pc games say?
"Nah-ah! We only work with Monopoly brand controllers! Take your non-Microsoft controllers elsewhere, peasant!"
Now, I hunted around and found some hackware that said, "Use our clunky hack-ware into tricking your Pc into thinking that your non Xbox 360 controller is an xbox 360 controller."
Now, obviously, it's stupid to complain about this, because if I had an Xbox console, I wouldn't be given the option to use a Wii controller on it.
But I wasn't using a console, I was using a PC. It wasn't just adapted Wii controllers either, I checked, it was anything that you couldn't also plug into an Xbox and expect to work.
The main problem B&N has is the lack of truly open tablets. When I want to read one of my Nook books, I read it on my Kindle using the Nook app (or on my old E-ink Nook if it's a novel and not a technical manual).
So, given that, why were they in the tablet business? Because if they relied on other tablets to carry their application, they risked being muscled completely out of the market.Now the Nook app was trivial to install on my Kindle, but I expect that Amazon could break it in their gimped implementation/fork of Android if they wanted.
(Incidentally, before anyone thinks, "well you are the sucker who bought a gimped Android Kindle," I haven't bought either a Nook or a Kindle, they were both gifts. I did buy a Blackberry Playbook, so who be smart now? Yaaarr....)
i'm trying to figure out who "walled garden" is good for other than the first movers who get a demi-monopoly and the top also ran who gets to live on the edge of the cliff unless they take the throne. (See: The History of Video Games NES to Present.)
To me it's idiotic that Microsoft, who built their business on "we don't care who makes software as long as it's for our platform, though someday we may steal your idea and give it away for free with the OS," trying to be the 4th place Also-ran walled garden. but I'm just a simple country programmer... I still think there's money to be made by someone saying "screw the walled garden, we'll make it up in marketshare."
And this, too, can be laid at George Lucas's doorstep....
In Bioshock Infinite, Fink allowed potential to employees to bid on jobs. "Who can do it in 30 minutes?" I have 30 minutes. How about 15, who'll bid 15."
Utopia.
Although some might think it's insulting to a professional to have to bid for a job and pay for the bid with free work, I feel that this innovative thinking tells you what a wonderful place Facebook would be to work.
I only want such a mask if I also have the ability to summon hordes of flesh eating rats.
The owls are not what they seem.
"As manufacturing goes the way of agriculture, the job market must shift into new types of work lest mass technological unemployment and civil unrest overtake these beneficial gains."
Yeah, the job market can't do that. That's the problem right there. People who were doing skilled or unskilled labor and were replaced by machines aren't suddenly going to be able to become successful in a "creative class" job. If they could have, they'd probably have done that instead of the manufacturing job.
On the plus side, with so many manufacturing jobs having been shipped overseas, if they actually build the automated factories here in the US then that might make some number of jobs come back. (However, they'll probably build them in one of the Labor Hell countries anyway, which only sucks for the people in those countries.)
-- Charles Fort
I'll field this one. There's a few different Gods we refer to when we start using "God" in thought experiments:
1. A Blind Watchmaker.
2. A Spoiled, Brutal Child
3. A Perfect, Immortal Machine
4. Further interesting ideas
However, people who are talking about God who isn't part of a thought experiment, but who actually worship Him usually are referring to American Jesus, who cries when you:
1 .Look at pictures of naked women
2. Play Dungeons and Dragons
3. Read Harry Potter books
4. Are gay
5. Refuse to believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.
A lot of people really don't like that guy.
Ia, Ia Slashdot fhtagn!! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!
They plan to Zynga-fy their company.
Pity that they are sitting on IP worth millions in competent hands, but those are the breaks. (And they've been sitting on lots of great IP for decades, so this isn't a new phenomenon.)
Oh, as to treatment of employees... it seems I have to link to this at least once in any discussion of EA:
A Cut Above
M.U.L.E., Archon, Archon II:Adept, Mail Order Monsters, Realm of Impossibility.....
Sigh, good times....
But that company is dead, and it's shambling corpse is a zombie devouring the industry...
If you would like to meet Kate, I suggest you go into a bathroom, turn off the lights, and say "Bloody Kate" three times in front of the darkened mirror.
DRM versus Copy-protection: I have re-bought games on Steam because I lost the 16 digit CD key necessary to reinstall them with the CD and they cost 5 Yankee dollars on Steam. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
(Yes, I could have hunted for a hack, but I can do that for the Steam games as well. Again, six of one, half a dozen of the other.)
It's funny, when I take a DVD and turn it into digital content (using Forbidden Majicks!), I never have any problem trusting it. It's totally DRM free, will play on practically and device, and I can make unlimited copies....
Oh, you mean DRMed digital content....
Oh, by the way, the above is a fantasy story. It's impossible to turn a DVD into digital content without the consent of the Lords of Copyright. CSS for DVDs is completely unbreakable both legally and through forbidden knowledge. (I certainly don't own a T-Shirt with the DeCSS code on it...)
Put the rat cage on Julia, not me! Do it to Julia!
"Latest Update to Amazon's Video Player disables Roku Players and Internet Enabled Blu-ray players from playing their content."
"An Amazon spokesman was quoted as saying, 'Unfortunately, due to piracy concerns, we are unable to continue supporting non-Amazon set-top devices. We are sympathetic to our customers who's set top devices will no longer play our content, and are offering them a $10 off coupon for KindleTV....'"
Basically, somewhere in the chain is usually an incompetent manager or product development person who will shut you down if you give honest development estimates for a good, bug free release, and encourage you to lie. This has the effect of training, the first couple of warnings you get over giving realistic estimates, which are overruled anyway, and you turn into Gale Boetticher on Breaking Bad giving his scary drug lord boss estimates on how long it will take him to exactly duplicate Walter White's Meth formula.
Gale Boetticher: l suppose if we had......at least a few more cooks together.
Gustavo Fring: You don't think you're ready now?
Gale Boetticher: Well, l mean......he is such a.... A master.
Gale Boetticher: There's always more for me to learn. But l'm thinking that if we had......say......one or two more cooks.
Gustavo Fring: [Icy Silence, the temperature in the room drops 10 degrees]
Gale Boetticher: One more......l guess would do it. l suppose.
Gustavo Fring: l believe in you, Gale.
On the other hand, at least things worked out really well for Gale, eh?
Yes, but they've also prevented me from watching Farscape, and I'm going to go farbot from a lack of puppets!
Well, ok, sure I could dig out the DVDs, but it's so inconvenient!
"3) Ok, ok, this last one is easy. Booker DeWitt scounges around some trashcans for food all the time right? All we ask is that a cocacola be in there. Easy as pie. Easier then pie. Pie has that flakey crust. All we want is a simple aluminum can in the trash. Is that too much to ask? There's all sorts of reasons it could be in there. Come ON baby, work with me here!"
See, again, all kinds of product placement could be done with Tears.. Dishonored would be much more challenging....
Does anyone remember the Coca-Cola in the old Infocom game "The Lurking Horror?"
Good times.
No, no, everyone knows that if you wanted to do product placement for Coca-cola in Bioshock Infinite, you simple call Coke Classic "Bucking Bronco" for a month or two, maybe change Mountain Dew to "Possession."
Really though, Bioshock Infinite is a bad example, since it did have plenty of Product Placement in the form of songs.
Although, knowing the crazy way the music biz works, Levine & co probably had to pay the RIAA for the right to use the songs....
The spiral pattern that catches the eye...
Unretouched pictures, from Florida