Just like airplanes are always falling from the sky because they are owned by private, cost sensitive companies...
Airplanes are one of the goddamn safest things on the planet. Not only that, aircraft accidents per mile flown are down by a factor of about two over the past twenty years, from an already very low base. Of course, when one happens, you hear about it on every news outlet. Why? Because it almost never happens. It's *news*.
"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes... and all of this... all of this was for nothing - unless we go to the stars."
What happens a lot is that the sales people tell we can do A, B and C for you. Then pricing happens, and client is only willing to pay for A. Contract is limited to A and closed. Then client figures out that in the end they need B and C. Is that the sales peoples fault?
It is if the salesman promised them they'd be getting B and C after the contract is drawn up. And don't tell me that doesn't happen.
I actually flagged this article "graygoo" myself, but in fact, it's not as likely as a lot of people think. The microbial ecology of the earth is a battlefield, with each micro-organism looking to expand its niche at the expense of others. Our would-be gray goo organism isn't going to take over the earth--it's going to get mugged for its lunch money and its carcass eaten by whatever can find nutrient value in it.
I'm hoping these funds will act like a big fat carrot to get these administrations to update their lines of thinking and adapt.
More likely it will act like a big fat carrot to get these administrations to write up proposals as to why they need that money to keep doing things the way they always have. If it has to go to "innovation" they'll argue as to how the way they've always done things is "innovative".
In the U.K. they can't. In the U.S., employment is "at-will"; employees can be dismissed for any reason, or no reason given at all, as long as there is no illegal discrimination involved.
If this rubs SF.net the wrong way so much, why do they continue to operate in the US?
Because there isn't any place better. Most are worse, many considerably worse. They may not have the same constraints as the US, but they will have ones of their own, more onerous than what the US mandates.
...thought at first that the headline was "Humans Went Extinct Nearly 1.2M Years Ago" and thought, "Boy, we're doing pretty well for an extinct species..."
IPv6 works like this. Every ISP and backbone peer has looked at the massive investment necessary to make their entire installed plant IPv6 ready, the large amount of work required, the fact that they will probably break everything about five times in the process because they did something wrong, and has decided that they will migrate when someone holds a gun to their heads and absolutely forces them. Not before.
I always liked Scott McCloud's definition in _Understanding Comics_, which is similar to Zappa's but a little narrower, and, I think, more useful: art is anything a human does that is not related to his drives for food/gain or sex. In fact, you could make a case that this is *not* art even by this very broad definition if you postulate that it was done solely to make money for the "artist".
As with Zappa's definition, using it means that "art" contains no implication of quality. Something really bad can still be "art", it's just *bad* art.
Mod parent up. I hadn't even thought of this, but he's right. The video will have occasional jerkiness not found in either remote noninteractive video or local gaming video and it's going to be very jarring.
They're already experiencing plenty of computational lag on their end. This service may not be any different than that,
But they can't make a living on "not any different than that". They have to justify their subscription fee by being much, much better than what the average gamer has in his box, which is already paid for and he doesn't have to pay monthly for. This is not gonna work.
But rest assured, they'll hire a security expert when (not if) they encounter a security breach and his 1.something million $ advice will be to change it. And then it will change.
Mind you, the new change won't be any more secure than the old way, but at least it'll change...
Slashdot Mirror
I guess you never went to the movies.
Thank you for that insightful analysis, Mr. Gates.
You've got "leftist" and then you've got "moonbat".
"This new system renders all customers beholden to Ubisoft in perpetuity whenever they buy their games."
And Ubisoft management says, "You say that like it's a *bad* thing."
Airplanes are one of the goddamn safest things on the planet. Not only that, aircraft accidents per mile flown are down by a factor of about two over the past twenty years, from an already very low base. Of course, when one happens, you hear about it on every news outlet. Why? Because it almost never happens. It's *news*.
"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes... and all of this... all of this was for nothing - unless we go to the stars."
But the root cause is usually a management creep.
It is if the salesman promised them they'd be getting B and C after the contract is drawn up. And don't tell me that doesn't happen.
I actually flagged this article "graygoo" myself, but in fact, it's not as likely as a lot of people think. The microbial ecology of the earth is a battlefield, with each micro-organism looking to expand its niche at the expense of others. Our would-be gray goo organism isn't going to take over the earth--it's going to get mugged for its lunch money and its carcass eaten by whatever can find nutrient value in it.
So how are you enjoying Virtua Fighter?
More likely it will act like a big fat carrot to get these administrations to write up proposals as to why they need that money to keep doing things the way they always have. If it has to go to "innovation" they'll argue as to how the way they've always done things is "innovative".
In the U.K. they can't. In the U.S., employment is "at-will"; employees can be dismissed for any reason, or no reason given at all, as long as there is no illegal discrimination involved.
Because there isn't any place better. Most are worse, many considerably worse. They may not have the same constraints as the US, but they will have ones of their own, more onerous than what the US mandates.
Hence the popularity of the term, "Project Death Spiral".
And embiggening the English language!
...thought at first that the headline was "Humans Went Extinct Nearly 1.2M Years Ago" and thought, "Boy, we're doing pretty well for an extinct species..."
IPv6 works like this. Every ISP and backbone peer has looked at the massive investment necessary to make their entire installed plant IPv6 ready, the large amount of work required, the fact that they will probably break everything about five times in the process because they did something wrong, and has decided that they will migrate when someone holds a gun to their heads and absolutely forces them. Not before.
You can get sexually abused by a girl on slashdot now? Why don't people *tell* me these things?
I always liked Scott McCloud's definition in _Understanding Comics_, which is similar to Zappa's but a little narrower, and, I think, more useful: art is anything a human does that is not related to his drives for food/gain or sex. In fact, you could make a case that this is *not* art even by this very broad definition if you postulate that it was done solely to make money for the "artist".
As with Zappa's definition, using it means that "art" contains no implication of quality. Something really bad can still be "art", it's just *bad* art.
Mod parent up. I hadn't even thought of this, but he's right. The video will have occasional jerkiness not found in either remote noninteractive video or local gaming video and it's going to be very jarring.
But they can't make a living on "not any different than that". They have to justify their subscription fee by being much, much better than what the average gamer has in his box, which is already paid for and he doesn't have to pay monthly for. This is not gonna work.
Because remember, kids, "fascist" means "something I personally don't approve of."
And keep the encrypted password store on a USB drive, not a computer's hard disk.
Mind you, the new change won't be any more secure than the old way, but at least it'll change...
CCP and Square-Enix come to mind. There are probably others.