I more or less agree--the first one did stand on its own. The sequels fit, but clearly reading RendesvousGarden of Rama but I enjoyed the first on as well.
For what it's worth, it was this series that brought me into SF. A friend suggested Childhood's End (awesome) and I liked it so he recommended the Rama series. I was hooked on SF and especially Clarke ever since.
I sure hope this get's done, it seems like a quality production company (amazing how Freeeman adds class to anything he does). I'm afraid nothing will ever come of this though I desperately hope otherwise. Is there a movie equivalent to software's vaporware?
I have to disagree with CmdrTaco on this one. Not that Xbox is evil or anything like that. But since when has Microsoft ever rolled out version 1 of something that didn't suck. Their MO is to get it out, sucky as it may be and gradually fix it. This is usually even true with products they buy from others to sell as their own. Then usually somewhere around version 3-5 the product is mature and stable enough that it's actually pretty good. I don't expect them to change their process this late in the game.
I read the article (unlike some people) but I'm still a little confused.
I'm imaginging writing a program to win minesweeper--the rules to play by are fairly clear (how to tell if certain squares are bombs not). The a program could very easily play by the same rules I do--only much much faster. And as some people have stated, no matter how good you are there are certain times where you are required to make a guess--again something a computer can do quickly. So I can very easily comprehend writing a program that in a fraction of seconds either wins or loses--if it loses, it plays again until it wins. I'm a pretty weak programmer and I think I could create such a program.
But this is basically just a rework and (slight) refinement of the brute force methods.
The problem in this is that in encryption, there is no indication of how close you are--like the numbers 1-8 indicate in minsweep. Is this what they're talking about and are looking for, uncovering some indication about quicker paths to take and eliminate unnecessary steps (like when a square has a 1 and you already know for certain of 1 bomb touching it so you can very quickly click all of the other open squares around the 1 square). This I what I don't get--how the encryption will provide any sort of feedback as to likely directions to go. And if it does, it seems like it would require a flaw of some sort.
I am patenting the process of using a real world image or scenario to represent a computer image or scenario. This "metaphor" process for which I can show prior art(1) means that the Xerox/Apple/Microsoft legal actions over Graphical Interfaces are all irrelavenent because they all used my process to use a desktop and file folder metaphor to represent their operating system. In addition, the terms "mouse", "explorer", "key" in computer encryption, "windows", and "copy and paste" just to name a few.
(1)Upon seeing the ENIAC in 1946, I said, "That thing looks like a bunch of cables and bulbs." I was the first to use this process of comparing a computer element to a real world element and all others are infringing on my patent.
This is just another example of how terrible our current patent system is. It's similar to problems with the court system as well as our legislative process--it's all part of the technology divide. What it comes down to is that judges, patent clerks and legislators just don't get it and probably never will. Not that I blame them, in many cases, they've dedicated their lives to learning their job and the ins and outs of computers and other complicated technologies weren't a part of their education. So we get judges making rulings that don't make sense to those "in the know"; we get absolutely ludicrous patents being awarded, etc.
I see this as the heart of the problem. Does any one have any suggestions on a better way to do things? As far as I'm concerned, a good starting point would be to credo from medicine: First, do no harm.
Stop making rulings, laws and patents that screw things up worse than if nothing were done at all.
I agree with FirstProst with the analogy of buying a paperback that you can read anywhere. But I don't think that's the problem. I think what happed is that a lot of people did what I did--saw all the hype and thought they'd give it a try, and downloaded the first one. I didn't care for it that much and sent in my buck and that was it. So the numbers of downloads and percentage of payers for the first one is pretty high. The number of downloads are off for the second one are down by quite a bit, as are the percentage of payers. I'm imaging a lot of people did what I did, and maybe one out of every few checked out the second one to see if they liked it better and didn't pay, dropping the percentage off by a bit too.
One thing that seems to be forgotten with this whole deal is the relative value of the thing. King explains that his model of payment is based on the cost of a trade paperback. So if this things goest to completion, people would end up paying $13 for the whole thing. Part of the problem I see is that the book format has a greater intrinsic value than a digital file. It takes up space, you can take it anywhere, it's professional printed--Buyers of digital books are getting a less valuable product and are saving the publisher the cost of producing the book, so the price should be greatly discounted--say 25-50% cutting out the middleman should result in a less expensive product for the consumer and more revenue for the producer.
As stated, this different from HTML because HTML is supposed to do this and we can view it's source.
But you're just plain wrong to say that if you're doing something on the Internet, to just accept that you're being logged. First of all, opening a word document is an offline activity.
MS Word peaked with version 5.1 (for the Mac anyway whatever the equivalent version was for windows) and has been downhill bloat-ware ever since.
This whole thing is just another symptom of the problem--no real competition. The whole DSL vs Cable holy war is another. Some people have had a great experience with cable/DSL some have had an awful one. The problem is, for most people there is only once choice, and whichever one that happens to be will treat the customer like crap because they can. It's a very frustrating time to be a home user and double that if you're in a small market. I hate government intervention but...no I can't believe I said that, there has to be a better solution?
The timeframes for these things are facts--and what was fueling this progression of advancement? Growth of communication and information. The better able we are to communicate with each other and share ideas, the faster society moves forward. Humans are naturally curious creatures who want to learn and I think it is that aspect of human nature that propels the "information wants to be free" principle. We constantly strive to digest more and more information--demand is always greater than supply. But will there be an end? Do we reach a point where we can all communicate instantly and have access to the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips? I sure belive so. But what then? Anyone?
First and foremost, I am a big Macintosh fan. I also happen really hate Microsoft as well as a great number of their products.
That said, I just found it interesting that what you criticize IE for--doing things for you instead of letting you choose for yourself--is the same thing Windows biased people criticize about the Mac OS.
You make a very good point about no operating system being the be all end all. The success of the Palm OS is the best example. Make an informed choice on the best tool for the job. You wouldn't eat soup with a fork, why run Windows on a PDA. If I want to webserver scripts and set up mail servers, I use Linux. If I want to do graphics or more general stuff I use MacOS. If I want to scream and yell and be frustrated, I use Windows.
Reverse engineering has always been a hot topic. The issue comes down to what exactly was done. The ethical (and I believe legal as well but IANAL) litmus test that has generally been accepted is the black box idea--you treat something as a black box--info goes into it and then info comes out of it--and you make something that performs exactly the same way without actually looking into the box. My understanding was that Connectix (with previous experience in emulation software) was very careful to do it this way and could prove they did it this way. The Sony lawsuit was not about winning, but rather about pushing back the release and slowing sales of the Connectix product. It worked, and with the PS2 out, they'll probably do the same thing again.
As an aside, thankfully Compaq reverse engineered the IBM PC ROM using the same "black box" technique and helped launch an industry and change the world (tough to admit for a Mac lover).
I vehemently agree that censorship is bad--always. But I think companies should be able to try and make products that filter out things--if there's enough parents who want software to filter out pornographic images, then companies will try and make them. The question is choice--as long as it is not forced on people (excluding kids) as long as they choose to use software that does this, I see no problem.
Of course the companies that are just playing PR games and the like (and this one sounds like one of them) are bad.
I guess I just believe that parents should be able to raise their kids the way they see fit and should probably have some help in internet filtration if they want it
Of course as someone else said, if the software is 95% or even 99% accurate, that 1% or 5% is still an awful lot of content.
The stories seem to emphasize that Bungie will keep it's autonomy. But if you read them a little closer, you get a different picture. Bungie claims it will still be free to make it's own platform decisions. BUT they "have the responsibility to make smart business decisions," meaning comply with Microsofts biz plan. The other quote that jumped out at me was "It's obviously going to be unlikely that our future titles will be developed for the PS2" That really doesn't sound like it's their decision now does it?
What will happen: The Bungie guys will be absorbed into the rest of Microsoft and eventually they'll get tired of not being able to make their own decisions. They'll end up leaving and going their own separate ways, and the world will be a little worse for the whole process. Take2 may try to find another developer but without the Bungie guys doing it, it won't be the same and will fail.
Old story--MS buys a company, makes more people rich, but destroys something good in the process.
As stated, this is the Inventor's Hall of Fame. I sure am happy for Woz. He really was the brains and effort behind so much of the PC revolution, and never got much credit--and never seemed to mind which makes him even more deserving in my book. Anyway, on his site (http://www.woz.org/), he had some comments about this and more-among them, that he hopes this will lead to more engineers getting credit for their creations. A good thought where especially the last 15-20 years, we know everything about the people who ran the companies and made millions but hear very little of the engineers, programmers and designers who did the work.
Slashdot Mirror
For what it's worth, it was this series that brought me into SF. A friend suggested Childhood's End (awesome) and I liked it so he recommended the Rama series. I was hooked on SF and especially Clarke ever since.
I sure hope this get's done, it seems like a quality production company (amazing how Freeeman adds class to anything he does). I'm afraid nothing will ever come of this though I desperately hope otherwise. Is there a movie equivalent to software's vaporware?
I have to disagree with CmdrTaco on this one. Not that Xbox is evil or anything like that. But since when has Microsoft ever rolled out version 1 of something that didn't suck. Their MO is to get it out, sucky as it may be and gradually fix it. This is usually even true with products they buy from others to sell as their own. Then usually somewhere around version 3-5 the product is mature and stable enough that it's actually pretty good. I don't expect them to change their process this late in the game.
I'm imaginging writing a program to win minesweeper--the rules to play by are fairly clear (how to tell if certain squares are bombs not). The a program could very easily play by the same rules I do--only much much faster. And as some people have stated, no matter how good you are there are certain times where you are required to make a guess--again something a computer can do quickly. So I can very easily comprehend writing a program that in a fraction of seconds either wins or loses--if it loses, it plays again until it wins. I'm a pretty weak programmer and I think I could create such a program.
But this is basically just a rework and (slight) refinement of the brute force methods.
The problem in this is that in encryption, there is no indication of how close you are--like the numbers 1-8 indicate in minsweep. Is this what they're talking about and are looking for, uncovering some indication about quicker paths to take and eliminate unnecessary steps (like when a square has a 1 and you already know for certain of 1 bomb touching it so you can very quickly click all of the other open squares around the 1 square). This I what I don't get--how the encryption will provide any sort of feedback as to likely directions to go. And if it does, it seems like it would require a flaw of some sort.
(1)Upon seeing the ENIAC in 1946, I said, "That thing looks like a bunch of cables and bulbs." I was the first to use this process of comparing a computer element to a real world element and all others are infringing on my patent.
I see this as the heart of the problem. Does any one have any suggestions on a better way to do things? As far as I'm concerned, a good starting point would be to credo from medicine:
First, do no harm.
Stop making rulings, laws and patents that screw things up worse than if nothing were done at all.
One thing that seems to be forgotten with this whole deal is the relative value of the thing. King explains that his model of payment is based on the cost of a trade paperback. So if this things goest to completion, people would end up paying $13 for the whole thing. Part of the problem I see is that the book format has a greater intrinsic value than a digital file. It takes up space, you can take it anywhere, it's professional printed--Buyers of digital books are getting a less valuable product and are saving the publisher the cost of producing the book, so the price should be greatly discounted--say 25-50% cutting out the middleman should result in a less expensive product for the consumer and more revenue for the producer.
But you're just plain wrong to say that if you're doing something on the Internet, to just accept that you're being logged. First of all, opening a word document is an offline activity.
MS Word peaked with version 5.1 (for the Mac anyway whatever the equivalent version was for windows) and has been downhill bloat-ware ever since.
This whole thing is just another symptom of the problem--no real competition. The whole DSL vs Cable holy war is another. Some people have had a great experience with cable/DSL some have had an awful one. The problem is, for most people there is only once choice, and whichever one that happens to be will treat the customer like crap because they can. It's a very frustrating time to be a home user and double that if you're in a small market. I hate government intervention but...no I can't believe I said that, there has to be a better solution?
The timeframes for these things are facts--and what was fueling this progression of advancement? Growth of communication and information. The better able we are to communicate with each other and share ideas, the faster society moves forward. Humans are naturally curious creatures who want to learn and I think it is that aspect of human nature that propels the "information wants to be free" principle. We constantly strive to digest more and more information--demand is always greater than supply. But will there be an end? Do we reach a point where we can all communicate instantly and have access to the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips? I sure belive so. But what then? Anyone?
That said, I just found it interesting that what you criticize IE for--doing things for you instead of letting you choose for yourself--is the same thing Windows biased people criticize about the Mac OS.
You make a very good point about no operating system being the be all end all. The success of the Palm OS is the best example. Make an informed choice on the best tool for the job. You wouldn't eat soup with a fork, why run Windows on a PDA. If I want to webserver scripts and set up mail servers, I use Linux. If I want to do graphics or more general stuff I use MacOS. If I want to scream and yell and be frustrated, I use Windows.
Reverse engineering has always been a hot topic. The issue comes down to what exactly was done. The ethical (and I believe legal as well but IANAL) litmus test that has generally been accepted is the black box idea--you treat something as a black box--info goes into it and then info comes out of it--and you make something that performs exactly the same way without actually looking into the box. My understanding was that Connectix (with previous experience in emulation software) was very careful to do it this way and could prove they did it this way. The Sony lawsuit was not about winning, but rather about pushing back the release and slowing sales of the Connectix product. It worked, and with the PS2 out, they'll probably do the same thing again.
As an aside, thankfully Compaq reverse engineered the IBM PC ROM using the same "black box" technique and helped launch an industry and change the world (tough to admit for a Mac lover).
Of course the companies that are just playing PR games and the like (and this one sounds like one of them) are bad.
I guess I just believe that parents should be able to raise their kids the way they see fit and should probably have some help in internet filtration if they want it
Of course as someone else said, if the software is 95% or even 99% accurate, that 1% or 5% is still an awful lot of content.
Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeros
What will happen:
The Bungie guys will be absorbed into the rest of Microsoft and eventually they'll get tired of not being able to make their own decisions. They'll end up leaving and going their own separate ways, and the world will be a little worse for the whole process.
Take2 may try to find another developer but without the Bungie guys doing it, it won't be the same and will fail.
Old story--MS buys a company, makes more people rich, but destroys something good in the process.
Sad.
As stated, this is the Inventor's Hall of Fame. I sure am happy for Woz. He really was the brains and effort behind so much of the PC revolution, and never got much credit--and never seemed to mind which makes him even more deserving in my book. Anyway, on his site (http://www.woz.org/), he had some comments about this and more-among them, that he hopes this will lead to more engineers getting credit for their creations. A good thought where especially the last 15-20 years, we know everything about the people who ran the companies and made millions but hear very little of the engineers, programmers and designers who did the work.