Is the title needlessly alarming. Of course, this is slashdot. "Wants" is a crappy word to apply to a corporation. the only thing a corporation "wants" to do is make money. If they can do this without providing any services or products, they will do so. In this case they "want" to track people's browsing habits because some American company will pay them to do so.
I don't care to give the idea away for free; the important thing is that such an app(lication) actually comes to life.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. See my original post for an example. The hard part is execution.
Seriously. As a software engineer I cannot recall how many times I have heard this exact pitch. "I got this great idea for a program, but I have no idea how to write software or run a company. I will be willing to go 50/50 with you as long as you do all the work." To the GP: Your idea is worth exactly nothing, and you are worth exactly nothing for thinking someone else will do all the work and somehow give you the profit. Also, your idea is probably stupid and will lose money. (Do not feel bad about that last part, few ideas are actually good.)
we immediately engaged with him to try to make things right
With lawyers.
I guaranteed that they'll end up suing Barr. For something. It doesn't really matter what, as long as he can't afford to defend himself.
Well I think at this point the negative press will shame the company into backpedaling on this. I would damn well bet they planned on suing Barr out of existence if nobody showed up to support him.
It is a terrible thing that a corporation can do whatever they want to an individual and the only defense is to shine some negative press on the company and hope they care enough about marketing to back off.
What was inaccurate about it? It sounds to me like Qantas desires to track everything the users of this toolbar does and send it to a third party. Just like every other toolbar.
In 1999 a company cold-called me to ask me to sign up for some program to watch all internet use on my newfangled cable internet in return for cash. The telemarketer seemed genuinely confused when I laughed in her face, she said she really could not understand why someone would would have a problem having everything they do online tracked.
My solution was to quit my job at a fortune 50 company and take one at a 15 person software shop.
Granted, the rouge sysadmin syndrome is far amplified as a company gets smaller, but the team we have here gets along great and works well together. I could not be happier.
The problem is that it is not your or IT's fault that the policies are stupid. Yet your management expects you and IT to somehow accomplish your jobs within the bounds of stupid policies.
If you are blocked due to a policy problem, you send it up your management chain. If they refuse to rectify the situation, you ask them how you are supposed to do your job. If your manager is spineless (as many of mine have been) and refuses to confront the policymaker in the IT hierarchy and asks you to circumvent them; ask for the order in writing. You will find that instead of exposing himself to the unlimited liability of ordering an employee to circumvent company policy, they will contact the necessary people to fix it.
If this was true and it was possible to prove, said MS bigwigs would either go to jail or get a strongly worded scolding from the SEC, or whatever non-punishment stock faudsters get these days.
Theoretically, QA as well as a large distribution network (which one no longer truly NEEDS for indie titles due to a nifty invention called the Internet ).
Of course, much like Microsoft themselves, the publisher wants their cut...
Choice of operating system is difficult, as operating systems give out base services needed to software to abstract and decouple the underlying hardware from the software logic. You still need to either virtualize the game (risking too hard performance hits) or give it an operating system that does the necessary housekeeping.
But even with the potential of vendor lock-in via obscurity with a Microsoft Operating system; Microsoft cannot come up with "xboneheaded" decrees like "You must have a publisher or you are not allowed to develop for our platform."
What are the publishers going to do, get some law passed that allows Microsoft to turn Windows into a walled garden? And even if it was possible, wouldn't this just cause developers to jump to a new platform that imposes no such restrictions?
This is why "PC gaming is dead" is such an absurd statement.
Article is nothing more than an attempt to play with the stock market. It is quite obvious when you start off with a giant pile of bullshit line like:
Over the last decade, just three companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing.
Right, because there are only like 5 or 6 computing companies in the world. Certainly smaller companies could never contribute anything worthwhile to society. Oops, what he really means is that smaller companies are not good for stock trading.
And even still, the premise of "Apple and Google have run out of ideas," is ludicrous at best. (I will give him Facebook, they never had any ideas to begin with.)
Given the damage he's done to the US and the West, he will suffer consequences, there's no doubt about that.
While it raises important issues, I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason. By doing what he did, he's ended himself as surely as if he'd put a gun to his own head. Except he'll probably have the US government do it for him (or if he's lucky, life in supermax).
You can't do what he did, and not expect consequences.
So you support the government assassinating people for the sake of national pride?
As a person who drives a lot for work and has to be always available to answer a phone call, I do use my cell-phone A LOT while driving. Texting while driving is the worst idea ever especially with touchscreens - a person actually needs to look at what he or she touches. I, personally, miss calls and don't answer texts (thank Android for speech recognition) if it is not safe.
I also can see why law is in place. Mostly because of teenagers who don't have proper driving skills but possess texting addictions.
A sandwich is a handheld device but nobody is banning food in the vehicles. They should. Some people would benefit from that.
Use the cellphone or not while driving it is always your judgement call.
It requires a lot less brainpower to use a sandwich than a phone. Even if the phone is hands-free.
Slashdot Mirror
It's Slashdot, the truth tends to piss people off around here.
Your statement pisses me off.
Is the title needlessly alarming. Of course, this is slashdot. "Wants" is a crappy word to apply to a corporation. the only thing a corporation "wants" to do is make money. If they can do this without providing any services or products, they will do so. In this case they "want" to track people's browsing habits because some American company will pay them to do so.
Not only does that not make it right... that makes it worse.
I don't care to give the idea away for free; the important thing is that such an app(lication) actually comes to life.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. See my original post for an example. The hard part is execution.
Seriously. As a software engineer I cannot recall how many times I have heard this exact pitch. "I got this great idea for a program, but I have no idea how to write software or run a company. I will be willing to go 50/50 with you as long as you do all the work." To the GP: Your idea is worth exactly nothing, and you are worth exactly nothing for thinking someone else will do all the work and somehow give you the profit. Also, your idea is probably stupid and will lose money. (Do not feel bad about that last part, few ideas are actually good.)
With lawyers.
I guaranteed that they'll end up suing Barr. For something. It doesn't really matter what, as long as he can't afford to defend himself.
Well I think at this point the negative press will shame the company into backpedaling on this. I would damn well bet they planned on suing Barr out of existence if nobody showed up to support him.
It is a terrible thing that a corporation can do whatever they want to an individual and the only defense is to shine some negative press on the company and hope they care enough about marketing to back off.
This seems already to have been done.
Also, QantasToolbar has logged your IP address to make sure that you'll never sit next to a minor on a plane again.
Hopefully with enough more searching they will not seat you on the same plane as a minor.
What was inaccurate about it? It sounds to me like Qantas desires to track everything the users of this toolbar does and send it to a third party. Just like every other toolbar.
In 1999 a company cold-called me to ask me to sign up for some program to watch all internet use on my newfangled cable internet in return for cash. The telemarketer seemed genuinely confused when I laughed in her face, she said she really could not understand why someone would would have a problem having everything they do online tracked.
Of coruse they also throw the people that reported the contimaniation in jail.
Arbitrary indeed.
The death penalty has never been an effective deterrent for any crime.
Well... it will deter that person from committing another crime.
The second word would be "off"; the first left to the imagination.
No.... off?
My solution was to quit my job at a fortune 50 company and take one at a 15 person software shop.
Granted, the rouge sysadmin syndrome is far amplified as a company gets smaller, but the team we have here gets along great and works well together. I could not be happier.
The problem is that it is not your or IT's fault that the policies are stupid. Yet your management expects you and IT to somehow accomplish your jobs within the bounds of stupid policies.
If you are blocked due to a policy problem, you send it up your management chain. If they refuse to rectify the situation, you ask them how you are supposed to do your job. If your manager is spineless (as many of mine have been) and refuses to confront the policymaker in the IT hierarchy and asks you to circumvent them; ask for the order in writing. You will find that instead of exposing himself to the unlimited liability of ordering an employee to circumvent company policy, they will contact the necessary people to fix it.
CLAP.
Article was so bad it gave him the clap.
Every 10 years or so everyone wants to go all Thin Client.
Last one was Web 2.0, before that was the Java Thin Client machines, before that mainframes with green screen terminals.
"All this has happened before, and all this will happen again."
The City of Barron is located within the Town of Barron located in the County of Barron?
Yo dawg, I heard you like Barrons...
If this was true and it was possible to prove, said MS bigwigs would either go to jail or get a strongly worded scolding from the SEC, or whatever non-punishment stock faudsters get these days.
Theoretically, QA as well as a large distribution network (which one no longer truly NEEDS for indie titles due to a nifty invention called the Internet ).
Of course, much like Microsoft themselves, the publisher wants their cut...
So... nothing.
Choice of operating system is difficult, as operating systems give out base services needed to software to abstract and decouple the underlying hardware from the software logic. You still need to either virtualize the game (risking too hard performance hits) or give it an operating system that does the necessary housekeeping.
But even with the potential of vendor lock-in via obscurity with a Microsoft Operating system; Microsoft cannot come up with "xboneheaded" decrees like "You must have a publisher or you are not allowed to develop for our platform."
What are the publishers going to do, get some law passed that allows Microsoft to turn Windows into a walled garden? And even if it was possible, wouldn't this just cause developers to jump to a new platform that imposes no such restrictions?
This is why "PC gaming is dead" is such an absurd statement.
xbone
Ha, nice. Like a skull and cross-bones. Sums up this system well.
Article is nothing more than an attempt to play with the stock market. It is quite obvious when you start off with a giant pile of bullshit line like:
Over the last decade, just three companies — Google, Apple, and Facebook — have generated most of the new ideas and most of the business momentum in the world of computing.
Right, because there are only like 5 or 6 computing companies in the world. Certainly smaller companies could never contribute anything worthwhile to society. Oops, what he really means is that smaller companies are not good for stock trading.
And even still, the premise of "Apple and Google have run out of ideas," is ludicrous at best. (I will give him Facebook, they never had any ideas to begin with.)
Slashdot might not be RockPaperShotgun in terms of title puns, but every once in a while you get a good one off.
I believe you think you were not supporting assassination.
However how is what you were saying any different than: "She deserves to get raped for wearing something like that in public."
Given the damage he's done to the US and the West, he will suffer consequences, there's no doubt about that.
While it raises important issues, I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason. By doing what he did, he's ended himself as surely as if he'd put a gun to his own head. Except he'll probably have the US government do it for him (or if he's lucky, life in supermax).
You can't do what he did, and not expect consequences.
So you support the government assassinating people for the sake of national pride?
Cloud City. Floating on the water instead of the air.
As a person who drives a lot for work and has to be always available to answer a phone call, I do use my cell-phone A LOT while driving. Texting while driving is the worst idea ever especially with touchscreens - a person actually needs to look at what he or she touches. I, personally, miss calls and don't answer texts (thank Android for speech recognition) if it is not safe.
I also can see why law is in place. Mostly because of teenagers who don't have proper driving skills but possess texting addictions.
A sandwich is a handheld device but nobody is banning food in the vehicles. They should. Some people would benefit from that.
Use the cellphone or not while driving it is always your judgement call.
It requires a lot less brainpower to use a sandwich than a phone. Even if the phone is hands-free.
Now, a hands-free sandwich... hmm.