Your making the basic assumption that this power would not have concentrated in one company. History has shown that when a standard is needed, the market coalesces around one or two dominant players. Postulating that MS didn't rise to power doesn't mean that all the money sits in the hands of consumers, in fact, I think you would have to say either IBM or perhaps Xerox become our overlords. Bash Microsoft all you want, it HAS created a number of industries around it (those it doesn't want to get into anyway). I do not think you could say the same if 1980 IBM (monopoly-driven, hardware lock-in) had come to same power.
Internal, in-house software is rarely important enough to justify hiring rock stars. Nobody hires Dolly Parton to sing at weddings. That's why the most satisfying careers, if you're a software developer, are at actual software companies, not doing IT for some bank.
I agree with the first part of the statement but not necessairly the second. The reason is as someone who has friends in both worlds rarely does the "software house" ever care about your outside life. If fufilled means being challenged, constantly engaged in your work, but constantly on deadline death marches, always-on fire control, and no life outside of work I guess you can call that satisfied. Have a friend who works MS. LOVES his job, but everything in his life revolves around it and the insane hours he keeps there.
Work to Live, Don't Live to Work.
I respect the heck out of Joel but he seems to fall in that second camp. When the tale of your life is told make sure its not about the code you cranked out but the lives and people you touched.
I write to you today as a concerned citizen and businessperson. As a member of the business community and information technology field, I am dismayed by the impending introduction of the Broadcast Flag attached as a rider to a bill currently moving through the Appropriations Committee. This rider, if passed, shirks comment and voting in the full Senate, circumvents a negative judicial judgment, and puts a tax on one of America's most dynamic and leading industries, while aiding the de-facto monopoly of another.
The Broadcast Flag, if voted into law, would prohibit the sale of any of kind of electronic device with a video playback capability, unless the device had copy-protection standards built-in respecting the Broadcast Flag. My opposition to this bill is four fold:
1. The Broadcast Flag will increase the cost of manufacturing for high-tech businesses here in Texas such as Dell, HP, and AMD. 2. Those increased costs of doing business will be passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices; affecting our schools and the less fortunate most by increasing the price of technology for all. The only purpose of this technology is protect an industry that has fought against innovation and enjoyed success despite itself i.e. VCRs. 3. It does not make good economic sense to penalize an industry that contributed over $600 billion to the US economy and is our flagship industry; for Hollywood, which only contributed 6% of that amount. 4. The Broadcast Flag is being introduced through an appropriations bill to shirk comment and public notice and circumvent a negative judicial judgment.
I agree that content providers need to be paid for their work, but penalizing the rest of the economy and trying to do so in a backroom deal is not the way to do it.
I have been an enthusiastic supporter of you Senator, back to your years as state treasurer. However, I will make this issue a key voting point in the next election and if by chance you and others do not stop the Broadcast Flag from becoming law I will be forced to look at your opposition. So I urge you to reject Hollywood's attempt to enforce the Broadcast Flag by penalizing our dynamic electronics industry. Thank you for your continuing leadership in Washington and here in Texas.
I have used Mozilla for over a year now and have been VERY satisfied with the release schedule especially as it comes to security releases. I get alerted with the little icon, I press icon, I download update, restart Mozilla, done. When it comes to security updates I do not want to see the release hampered because the distros haven't built it yet because quite frankly most of the exploits out there are for Windows anyway. No, I will not be transitioning to Linux anytime soon but I do support it where I can:).
When I was investigating a start-up, I began to read about all the different liquor laws across the country. Quite frankly, its insane. Here in Texas, certain beverage sizes are restricted to an uncommon size and wholesalers control the entire market. Alcohol producers cannot send product directly to stores it MUST BY LAW go through a distributor then sent on to your local store. Literally there are warehouses where all they do is unload the truck and reload another right there. Thank the Texas legislature and a whole lot of campaign contributions for that one.
If your really interested in learning more about the situation and how crazy it gets you can read this great article from the Houston Press (Houston's Counter Culture Weekly Magazine) here
Everyone, please all of you who are mirroring this information, stop. Nothing in the secret portion of the document will contribute to the understanding in the report. Quite simply, the operational details contained within this report can get someone killed.
I just taught a class back at my college last week. I recommended to everyone A. Do what you love. -That doesn't seem to be much of a problem anymore. I graduated in 2001 and only the ones who are hard-core seem to be left.
B. Make sure you know the business. Yes, many jobs are being outsourced but those jobs that are being outsourced belong to very large conglomerates who can afford to spend six months to spec out an application and then turn it over to a Bangalore firm. This is not the case for SME (Small Medium Enterprises). These firms are not set up for this type of development and you can make a good living working for and consulting for these firms.
Good Luck and do what you love i.e. if you like Philosophy and your Comp Sci go over and get your Philosophy degree.
Agreed, the AI needs a great deal of work. That was my complaint as well...lots of buddies missing but nobody looking for them.
The game has gotten better in terms of its linearity? in this version. You mentioned you played the demo of the Peruvian lighthouse, which is VERY linear and indicative of the first version. Some of the more advanced levels in this version are not nearly so linear. However, the argument still remains true for the most part. You have to complete certain tasks before others open.
I have played all three SCs and I can say I have enjoyed this one the most.
Pros: Best cut scenes and voice acting Great storyline Addition of the soundmeter has added a great deal of skill necessary to complete some missions Better AI (still pretty average overall) Mission statistics Detailed levels and character interactions (those going through Japanese house through the floor shaft know what I mean) Sam's mannerisms change when moving close to objects (creeping up on people) Better and more realistic weapon selection The EM jammer on the pistol (no need to blow out every light) Breaking, kicking in doors Primary, secondary, bonus, and opportunity objectives Hacking computers Changing weapon shoulders Jumpy NPCs when you have spooked them a couple of times
Misses: Mission statistics subtract for all kills but not for knocking everyone out...would like to have seen this modified to at least deduct from the mission score if a NPC was not guarding a particular computer or target. Mission scores should reward pure stealth. No back-to-the-wall shooting AI still is pretty bad, but is getting better. For instance, I take down a buddy and the other NPC does not try to look for him. Also, everyone seems to have radios but NPCs are not worried when someone doesn't check-in. However, it has gotten better, if doors are left open or closed the NPCs will get suspicious also the NPCs will at least use some squad tactics when challenged.
In all I have enjoyed SC:CT a great deal. Also, I will be crawling back through the game again because the mission statistics now make it a challenge to try to go through the entire game unnoticed and unseen.
Apparently you did not live through the 80's and Apartheid in South Africa. There were many protests here in the US over a policy for a nation across the world that we were having dealings with as a country.
Peaceful protestors (not the ones who like to throw trash cans through McDonald's) at the G8 summit.
In actuality whenever one of the foreign dignitaries shows up in Washington you will have a group gathering to protest against them.
While he was inside the building, a Tibetan youth climbed up a tower and remained perched above Wen's car, throwing flyers and waving the Tibetan flag. He shouted "Free Tibet! Wen Jiabao, you cannot suppress the truth!" Five officers climbed up and arrested him.
On Saturday, police detained two Tibetan leaders to prevent them from organizing demonstrations and prevented 50 Tibetan students from leaving their college hostels to protest, a police officer said.
Please feel free to generate profits and bring tax funds back to the state, but do not believe this entitles you to the ability to speak your mind.
We are truly lucky in the western world to have the ability to move up the wealth ladder and speak out against our government's practices as well.
Re:and thus, R.Stallman was right after all
on
No More BitKeeper Linux
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Excellent analogy and good point. I would refine it further for this piece.
Your friends want to go out of state but you drive a Ford POS and don't feel comfortable driving it that far. A kind stranger upon hearing this has two cars and doesn't drive the late-model Toyota Camary and tells you you can drive it if you just help make repairs on it. The stranger also says not to drive out of state because his insurance won't cover you if you do.
Your group of friends howl at this and say you should be able to drive anywhere you want. Go ahead and take your Ford POS they say will work on it making it better and if you break down will give you a boost. Against their wishes you decide to take the Camary.
The first few months are great, you have a good car and you return the favor by putting a stereo in it, tires, get it washed regularly, etc. You and the stranger are both happy. Then your group of friends start telling you "the car looks to good, he's going to sell it, lets take it out while we still can." You resist but later find find out your friends took the car out anyway across the state.
The stranger finds out and asks you not to do it again, but your friends just knowing that the stranger is going to sell it decide to do it again anyway.
The stranger at this point cannot trust you so he decides to sell the car. Your friends all howl once again telling you "We told you so, we told you should have just worked on the Ford and that he would sell it."
So whose at fault,
The stranger for loaning you a good car and taking all the changes you made with him.
You for using the car for a couple of months and being able to get around well instead of in the Ford POS.
The group of friends who told you the stranger would sell the car at some point but also took it joyriding.
And what is BitMover so upset about? That anyone would dare compete with them?
Yea the gall of someone to take there ball and go home after you played with it and then punched them in the face when he asked you not too, what audacity indeed.
No, there upset that the community went back on a simple promise.
I've got no dog in this fight, I don't develop on Linux, use Linux, just a techy and businessman who gets to watch from the sidelines and been around Slashdot for about seven years.
Perhaps I do not get the religous thing, but as the simple business person I am struck at the audacity of the free software communitity sometimes. This was an individual and company that doubled the output of main-line Linux development over a couple year span and the only thing asked was not to try to reverse the product.
Personally, I do not think that was too much to ask. At this point, the way I read yours and other responses is that the Linux faithful have NO trust in the mores and motivations of anyone. After reading the argument its sounds like there was a very symbiotic relationship to quote the book "Getting to Yes", a win-win for each side. I think you and others in this group should take a very good look in the mirror because it was decisions made by individuals that share your viewpoint that ended this relationship because you cannot and do not trust anyone to do the right thing.
My question is where is the outrage at the OSDL for going back on its word. All I hear is bad-mouthing saying "I told you so." The reason everyone is saying I told you so is because the community broke the rules of the game is now going to pay for it. Either grow-up, trust others to do the right thing, and invite commerical enterprises into Linux passed just the shops that develop the big iron or doom yourselves to an existence where Linux only runs on servers and has no commercial packages avaliable.
These sorts of actions by the community always trouble me because I will be creating software as a commercial enterprise one day but when certain factions within the community can't respect the agreement well that makes you less likely to write for Linux. Unlike most arguments the community does not hold the moral high-ground on this one.
No, we will just see people sending their game cards to certain persons that keep up with all the stats and player names. As long as you keep your engine open to name/statistic updating who cares, people will just find a way to update all the names at once. Go Google it.
Actually this is a pretty interesting comment because the first portion of the comment is kinda of the antithesis of Sony. There is some fascinating literature about how Sony went about creating the Walkman never listening to what really consumers said they wanted. The key thought being that consumers never know what they want. This kinda of flag is great to have when you busting through into a new market, witness the Walkman itself, but suicide when your going into a very mature market. This is where Sony stumbled. If this were 1998 again and Sony was facing off against the first solid-state MP3 player (the Rio from Diamond Multimedia for you history buffs) then it may well of had an excellent chance of succeeding. However, since this MP3 player came out six years after the fact it was DOA. Policy and thought must be flexible, if it is not then you risk something far worse then Sony faced, obsolences and bankruptcy.
Second, there is a reason the number of conglomerates is very small (when I say conglomerates I mean companies that have business that vary widely from each other) for instance Sony who makes tape drives but also produces feature films. Too many hands in the cookie jar and too much politics across the business units. If Sony Electronics was its own seperate entity then I would wager there would be no such thing as an iPod because Sony would have cornered the market and we would all have Sony MP3 players.
My guess is this is what your talking about in your post. Give it two years and we should be seeing these coming out and all the other formats going by the wayside.
Ben Stein Bio: Undergrad in Econ from Columbia - Honors Yale Law School - Valedictorian Speech Writer and Lawyer for Nixon Columnist and Editorial Writer for the WSJ Written seven novels and nine non-fiction books Commercial, TV, and Movie actor
And in Ferris Bueller's Day Off that is him just a lecture from one of his classes, none of it was scripted
Slashdot Mirror
Your making the basic assumption that this power would not have concentrated in one company. History has shown that when a standard is needed, the market coalesces around one or two dominant players. Postulating that MS didn't rise to power doesn't mean that all the money sits in the hands of consumers, in fact, I think you would have to say either IBM or perhaps Xerox become our overlords. Bash Microsoft all you want, it HAS created a number of industries around it (those it doesn't want to get into anyway). I do not think you could say the same if 1980 IBM (monopoly-driven, hardware lock-in) had come to same power.
Justice for sale...sweet, yummy justice for sale
Kitchen-Aid seems to do pretty well for itself and you NEVER buy the same Kitchen-Aid appliance twice.
I agree with the first part of the statement but not necessairly the second. The reason is as someone who has friends in both worlds rarely does the "software house" ever care about your outside life. If fufilled means being challenged, constantly engaged in your work, but constantly on deadline death marches, always-on fire control, and no life outside of work I guess you can call that satisfied. Have a friend who works MS. LOVES his job, but everything in his life revolves around it and the insane hours he keeps there.
Work to Live, Don't Live to Work.
I respect the heck out of Joel but he seems to fall in that second camp. When the tale of your life is told make sure its not about the code you cranked out but the lives and people you touched.
Dear Senator Hutchinson,
I write to you today as a concerned citizen and businessperson. As a member of the business community and information technology field, I am dismayed by the impending introduction of the Broadcast Flag attached as a rider to a bill currently moving through the Appropriations Committee. This rider, if passed, shirks comment and voting in the full Senate, circumvents a negative judicial judgment, and puts a tax on one of America's most dynamic and leading industries, while aiding the de-facto monopoly of another.
The Broadcast Flag, if voted into law, would prohibit the sale of any of kind of electronic device with a video playback capability, unless the device had copy-protection standards built-in respecting the Broadcast Flag. My opposition to this bill is four fold:
1. The Broadcast Flag will increase the cost of manufacturing for high-tech businesses here in Texas such as Dell, HP, and AMD.
2. Those increased costs of doing business will be passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices; affecting our schools and the less fortunate most by increasing the price of technology for all. The only purpose of this technology is protect an industry that has fought against innovation and enjoyed success despite itself i.e. VCRs.
3. It does not make good economic sense to penalize an industry that contributed over $600 billion to the US economy and is our flagship industry; for Hollywood, which only contributed 6% of that amount.
4. The Broadcast Flag is being introduced through an appropriations bill to shirk comment and public notice and circumvent a negative judicial judgment.
I agree that content providers need to be paid for their work, but penalizing the rest of the economy and trying to do so in a backroom deal is not the way to do it.
I have been an enthusiastic supporter of you Senator, back to your years as state treasurer. However, I will make this issue a key voting point in the next election and if by chance you and others do not stop the Broadcast Flag from becoming law I will be forced to look at your opposition. So I urge you to reject Hollywood's attempt to enforce the Broadcast Flag by penalizing our dynamic electronics industry. Thank you for your continuing leadership in Washington and here in Texas.
Sincerely,
Kudos poster, excellent idea! Doesn't inhibit the car from moving but does act as a warning to the driver.
I have used Mozilla for over a year now and have been VERY satisfied with the release schedule especially as it comes to security releases. I get alerted with the little icon, I press icon, I download update, restart Mozilla, done. When it comes to security updates I do not want to see the release hampered because the distros haven't built it yet because quite frankly most of the exploits out there are for Windows anyway. No, I will not be transitioning to Linux anytime soon but I do support it where I can :).
When I was investigating a start-up, I began to read about all the different liquor laws across the country. Quite frankly, its insane. Here in Texas, certain beverage sizes are restricted to an uncommon size and wholesalers control the entire market. Alcohol producers cannot send product directly to stores it MUST BY LAW go through a distributor then sent on to your local store. Literally there are warehouses where all they do is unload the truck and reload another right there. Thank the Texas legislature and a whole lot of campaign contributions for that one.
s /news.html
If your really interested in learning more about the situation and how crazy it gets you can read this great article from the Houston Press (Houston's Counter Culture Weekly Magazine) here
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2005-04-07/new
Everyone, please all of you who are mirroring this information, stop. Nothing in the secret portion of the document will contribute to the understanding in the report. Quite simply, the operational details contained within this report can get someone killed.
I just taught a class back at my college last week. I recommended to everyone
A. Do what you love. -That doesn't seem to be much of a problem anymore. I graduated in 2001 and only the ones who are hard-core seem to be left.
B. Make sure you know the business. Yes, many jobs are being outsourced but those jobs that are being outsourced belong to very large conglomerates who can afford to spend six months to spec out an application and then turn it over to a Bangalore firm. This is not the case for SME (Small Medium Enterprises). These firms are not set up for this type of development and you can make a good living working for and consulting for these firms.
Good Luck and do what you love i.e. if you like Philosophy and your Comp Sci go over and get your Philosophy degree.
Agreed, the AI needs a great deal of work. That was my complaint as well...lots of buddies missing but nobody looking for them.
The game has gotten better in terms of its linearity? in this version. You mentioned you played the demo of the Peruvian lighthouse, which is VERY linear and indicative of the first version. Some of the more advanced levels in this version are not nearly so linear. However, the argument still remains true for the most part. You have to complete certain tasks before others open.
I have played all three SCs and I can say I have enjoyed this one the most.
Pros:
Best cut scenes and voice acting
Great storyline
Addition of the soundmeter has added a great deal of skill necessary to complete some missions
Better AI (still pretty average overall)
Mission statistics
Detailed levels and character interactions (those going through Japanese house through the floor shaft know what I mean)
Sam's mannerisms change when moving close to objects (creeping up on people)
Better and more realistic weapon selection
The EM jammer on the pistol (no need to blow out every light)
Breaking, kicking in doors
Primary, secondary, bonus, and opportunity objectives
Hacking computers
Changing weapon shoulders
Jumpy NPCs when you have spooked them a couple of times
Misses:
Mission statistics subtract for all kills but not for knocking everyone out...would like to have seen this modified to at least deduct from the mission score if a NPC was not guarding a particular computer or target. Mission scores should reward pure stealth.
No back-to-the-wall shooting
AI still is pretty bad, but is getting better. For instance, I take down a buddy and the other NPC does not try to look for him. Also, everyone seems to have radios but NPCs are not worried when someone doesn't check-in. However, it has gotten better, if doors are left open or closed the NPCs will get suspicious also the NPCs will at least use some squad tactics when challenged.
In all I have enjoyed SC:CT a great deal. Also, I will be crawling back through the game again because the mission statistics now make it a challenge to try to go through the entire game unnoticed and unseen.
Apparently you did not live through the 80's and Apartheid in South Africa. There were many protests here in the US over a policy for a nation across the world that we were having dealings with as a country.
Peaceful protestors (not the ones who like to throw trash cans through McDonald's) at the G8 summit.
In actuality whenever one of the foreign dignitaries shows up in Washington you will have a group gathering to protest against them.
While he was inside the building, a Tibetan youth climbed up a tower and remained perched above Wen's car, throwing flyers and waving the Tibetan flag. He shouted "Free Tibet! Wen Jiabao, you cannot suppress the truth!" Five officers climbed up and arrested him.
On Saturday, police detained two Tibetan leaders to prevent them from organizing demonstrations and prevented 50 Tibetan students from leaving their college hostels to protest, a police officer said.
Please feel free to generate profits and bring tax funds back to the state, but do not believe this entitles you to the ability to speak your mind.
We are truly lucky in the western world to have the ability to move up the wealth ladder and speak out against our government's practices as well.
Excellent analogy and good point. I would refine it further for this piece.
Your friends want to go out of state but you drive a Ford POS and don't feel comfortable driving it that far. A kind stranger upon hearing this has two cars and doesn't drive the late-model Toyota Camary and tells you you can drive it if you just help make repairs on it. The stranger also says not to drive out of state because his insurance won't cover you if you do.
Your group of friends howl at this and say you should be able to drive anywhere you want. Go ahead and take your Ford POS they say will work on it making it better and if you break down will give you a boost. Against their wishes you decide to take the Camary.
The first few months are great, you have a good car and you return the favor by putting a stereo in it, tires, get it washed regularly, etc. You and the stranger are both happy. Then your group of friends start telling you "the car looks to good, he's going to sell it, lets take it out while we still can." You resist but later find find out your friends took the car out anyway across the state.
The stranger finds out and asks you not to do it again, but your friends just knowing that the stranger is going to sell it decide to do it again anyway.
The stranger at this point cannot trust you so he decides to sell the car. Your friends all howl once again telling you "We told you so, we told you should have just worked on the Ford and that he would sell it."
So whose at fault,
The stranger for loaning you a good car and taking all the changes you made with him.
You for using the car for a couple of months and being able to get around well instead of in the Ford POS.
The group of friends who told you the stranger would sell the car at some point but also took it joyriding.
You make the call.
And what is BitMover so upset about? That anyone would dare compete with them?
Yea the gall of someone to take there ball and go home after you played with it and then punched them in the face when he asked you not too, what audacity indeed.
No, there upset that the community went back on a simple promise.
I've got no dog in this fight, I don't develop on Linux, use Linux, just a techy and businessman who gets to watch from the sidelines and been around Slashdot for about seven years.
Perhaps I do not get the religous thing, but as the simple business person I am struck at the audacity of the free software communitity sometimes. This was an individual and company that doubled the output of main-line Linux development over a couple year span and the only thing asked was not to try to reverse the product.
Personally, I do not think that was too much to ask. At this point, the way I read yours and other responses is that the Linux faithful have NO trust in the mores and motivations of anyone. After reading the argument its sounds like there was a very symbiotic relationship to quote the book "Getting to Yes", a win-win for each side. I think you and others in this group should take a very good look in the mirror because it was decisions made by individuals that share your viewpoint that ended this relationship because you cannot and do not trust anyone to do the right thing.
My question is where is the outrage at the OSDL for going back on its word. All I hear is bad-mouthing saying "I told you so." The reason everyone is saying I told you so is because the community broke the rules of the game is now going to pay for it. Either grow-up, trust others to do the right thing, and invite commerical enterprises into Linux passed just the shops that develop the big iron or doom yourselves to an existence where Linux only runs on servers and has no commercial packages avaliable.
These sorts of actions by the community always trouble me because I will be creating software as a commercial enterprise one day but when certain factions within the community can't respect the agreement well that makes you less likely to write for Linux. Unlike most arguments the community does not hold the moral high-ground on this one.
Oh to the contrary...you obviously do not remember WindowsME
my hand should be totally numb and unfunctioning given the amount of Nintendo I grew up playing. Yawn. Move-on.
No, we will just see people sending their game cards to certain persons that keep up with all the stats and player names. As long as you keep your engine open to name/statistic updating who cares, people will just find a way to update all the names at once. Go Google it.
Actually this is a pretty interesting comment because the first portion of the comment is kinda of the antithesis of Sony. There is some fascinating literature about how Sony went about creating the Walkman never listening to what really consumers said they wanted. The key thought being that consumers never know what they want. This kinda of flag is great to have when you busting through into a new market, witness the Walkman itself, but suicide when your going into a very mature market. This is where Sony stumbled. If this were 1998 again and Sony was facing off against the first solid-state MP3 player (the Rio from Diamond Multimedia for you history buffs) then it may well of had an excellent chance of succeeding. However, since this MP3 player came out six years after the fact it was DOA. Policy and thought must be flexible, if it is not then you risk something far worse then Sony faced, obsolences and bankruptcy.
Second, there is a reason the number of conglomerates is very small (when I say conglomerates I mean companies that have business that vary widely from each other) for instance Sony who makes tape drives but also produces feature films. Too many hands in the cookie jar and too much politics across the business units. If Sony Electronics was its own seperate entity then I would wager there would be no such thing as an iPod because Sony would have cornered the market and we would all have Sony MP3 players.
This was no coincidence. Someone saw this coming change and decided to cash-in while they still could.
My guess is this is what your talking about in your post. Give it two years and we should be seeing these coming out and all the other formats going by the wayside.
_ 04 .html
http://www.lexar.com/newsroom/press/press_12_13
http://www.lexar.com/image/UFC_penny.jpg
Ben Stein Bio:
:)
Undergrad in Econ from Columbia - Honors
Yale Law School - Valedictorian
Speech Writer and Lawyer for Nixon
Columnist and Editorial Writer for the WSJ
Written seven novels and nine non-fiction books
Commercial, TV, and Movie actor
And in Ferris Bueller's Day Off that is him just a lecture from one of his classes, none of it was scripted
Answering your question, yes he is that bright.
http://www.benstein.com/bio.html
Its been down for a couple of days now, not just due to Slashdot.