Again. These companies are under no legal, moral or ethical constraint to assume the maximum tax burden possible.
They're under fiduciary constraints to maximize their shareholders' investments.
If you think that the current tax avoidance schemes are a Bad Thing, stop pissing and moaning at the companies who are simply doing what they're supposed to be doing and change the fucking laws.
Not. this again. The board is required to act in the best interests of the corporation entrusted to them by their shareholders. This notion that they are legally required to should maximize profits/stock price (shareholders' investments) is incorrect. If Google wanted to open a school or fund education so they can have a better workforce tomorrow, the board cannot be removed (well, except by a vote - but that can happen irrespective of what the board does). The board can claim that they are acting in the best interests of the company (long term interests).
On the other hand, the CEO generally owns shares in the company as well, so losing out on profits would impact their personal wealth. So there is a selfish reason to 'maximize profits'. But there seems to be this general idea that if the company behaves like a douche for profits it is okay because they have a legal duty to shareholders is simply not true.
From the little I've read, it seems that they use a distributed host of volunteer servers to run the TOR network, so it might not be that easy to 'shut-down' the entire network (lack of centralized host) - If I'm wrong, I'd love to know why.
My concern is that they will make TOR access illegal. Clearly, we can't count on Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple/Facebook/Big-Biz to raise a finger - they prey off identifying and targeting customers. Privacy and anonymity must hurt their bottom line. So unlike SOPA/PIPA, I doubt that any major group will oppose a new law against this. And most people won't care - hell, if Wikipedia didn't have a blackout, I doubt SOPA would have got any news time on a 'major' news network at all.
Is there a way to detect TOR access uniquely? Or does the encryption make it look like any VPN/secure connection? I recollect reading about a method that could identify IP address accessing TOR (don't remember the details), I'm not sure if that hole was plugged (or if it can be plugged).
I see a lot of variations of this answer to people who fear technology change:
People will just move into areas that require labor, like building and maintaining automation.
This type of statement always reminds me of this poster: The bad news is robots can do your job now. The good news is we're now hiring robot repair technicians. The worse news is we're working on robot-fixing robots- and we do not anticipate any further good news.
I kid, and I understand that people will move towards areas with more employment opportunity. However, in the short term there is going to be a lot of pain. This is also tied to the Luddite fallacy:
But as long as real prices fall or real incomes rise, the additional purchasing power gives consumers the ability to purchase entirely new products and services, such as better health care and wireless communication devices and services. This has many leading economists believing that technological change, although it disrupts the careers of individuals and the health of particular firms, cannot lead to systemic unemployment
The problem I see is that real income for most of the population has not risen (AFAIK).
Two (related) reasons that I have heard as to why IT isn't valued as much as it should be (I myself am not in the IT field, so this is more like hearsay):
Clueless PHB: This is partly the fault of those who work in IT not educating those higher up in the food chain. PHBs don't look on IT as producers, but as cost centers. So they try to skimp on hiring competent people. And the IT people don't have direct relations with the clients (in most firms), so when it comes time to decide bonuses or raises, IT is generally at the back of the line. While IT is what allows everyone else to raise money, the PHBs would rather look at a $60k fresher vs. a $120k experienced admin and ask why they shouldn't just outsource it for $45k. They don't see the downside in having a poor IT team even after it bites them (just fire one newbie and hire another in his place). One admin I know used this solution (based on "You and Your Research" by Richard Hamming) after most of his team were outsourced (not because the team was bad, but because the PHB saw cost savings): everytime the outsourcing created a problem and someone tried to scream at him (he was their internal liaison to the external contractor) he told them to go tell PHB "we lost/cost $X extra because the contractor screwed up." Only when the PHB saw how much the "real" cost of outsourcing IT was, did he reverse the policy.
Taking Credit: As an old saying goes - the competent IT admin fixes problems before they happen. And then the PHB wonders why he is paying $X for new servers and infrastructure when the current system works fine. IT people should be more proactive about boasting about what they do. Sure, this is distasteful to lots of technical people. But guess what? Everyone else brags and lets their manager know (in a not so subtle way) of why they deserve more money: "I sold $YYY to MY clients". So the IT team needs to take credit for sales they help with. If an employee used a lot of resources to construct a portfolio for a client, it isn't all to the trader's credit. YOUR software and hardware helped him run simulations and generate the portfolio. So add THAT to your pitch. If one of the IT workers stayed up half the night so a client could get some figures/data - he should get credit instead of letting the suit tell the story. A knight wouldn't have killed the dragon unless he had a magic sword - but the armorer doesn't get any songs written about him.
The flipside is to be realistic about what you are doing - this isn't the dot-com boom. Don't expect riches for trivial work. If you do good/tough work, expect to be compensated as well (and let your bosses know why YOU are better than everyone out there). But if you just make a CSS/HTML page, don't try to claim you are God's gift to the firm.
The way the summary was written, the question can be condensed to: "Will you spend more money at a local retailer, or less money and buy online"?
I'm all for supporting local retailers when they provide a valuable service - I visit my local library/store where I can chat to a librarian/store-clerk and get valuable feedback/information. But the article doesn't raise any of these issues. Instead, it focuses on the downsides of brick-and-mortar shopping, without raising any of the positives.
Wow, you actually use Yahoo for something? You must be REALLY old!
One word: Flickr. If you are really into photography (not just dumping 1000 vacation pics for Facebook/Google+ friends), there isn't any service I know that comes close.
This. It is hard to program "morals" when you can't even define it properly. Most civilizations had no moral qualms about slavery. Or killing civilians. Or hurting animals. Why is it moral for the driver to go off the bridge instead of crashing into the bus? Maybe everyone lives if he crashes in the bus, but he definitely dies if he goes off the bridge. Depending on your moral code, this alternative is preferable. Finally, legal solutions are what matters. If I make an ethical - to me - but illegal choice, I expect to be penalized.
What you can program for is costs - define a cost function and then optimize that... This is how (almost?) all decision making algorithms work - minimize a cost.
You then assign "cost" to a life (which can be very high), property, etc. And if it makes you feel better, call that a "moral" solution. But it isn't really.
The phone you get from Google is bloatware free and carrier unlocked. I don't know if that's the case with the T-Mobile version... anyone know?
But just as in the PC market, the phone market cannot resist the extra money (even if they are making insane profits already) they make by including crapware.
Don't know about T-mobile, but I recently got sick of the contract games and got an Virgin Mobile phone without contract, paying the full price for a phone. And it still had crapware that I couldn't remove. I ended up rooting it days after I got it and put in CM7 (or was it CM10). And this wasn't third party crapware - mainly Google stuff and a few small VM crapware. If I don't want maps/that-shit-known-as-latitude, let me get rid of it. I bought a phone. I paid for the hardware. And I can't remove stuff without rooting?
If the information that you charge for phone support is on your website, people will skip it in their hurry to get a number. Instead, during the installation, ask them which version they want to try. Don't call it "free" and "paid" versions (hint: they will click free), call it "with phone support" and "without phone support". If they choose the one with the phone support, send them to a sales website that then informs them that the phone support will cost them - but they are free to use the version without phone support (as well as information on purchasing support).
Basically, change the perception of the consumer - don't make them choose between "free" or "paid" versions, since they will pick the free one without understand ALL the consequences (the only consequence to them is saving money). Make them think in terms of supported and unsupported versions. Who knows, you might even drive up sales by this?
So then going by that, the per hour cost for creating a game should be a good deal more than writing a book, because it requires good writing skills in addition to other skills.
I see the skill-set as significantly different. While gaming requires imagination (to think of the idea), artwork, and programming, writing (fiction, for fair comparison) requires imagination and literary skills. And while programming well is hard, today's computing facilities are a lot more forgiving with sloppy code. So I find the comparison of writing novels with writing computer games to be a false comparison (maybe I should have just said that instead). Saying the average book takes 1/10th the effort of the average indie game is arbitrary.
It's pretty obvious why e-books are priced the way they are. The book industry is dominated by large established corporations, and the nature of the industry makes it a lot harder for newcomers to breakout and become popular than in the video-game industry. Thus, the corporations can set whatever prices they want without fear of competition, because the majority of the competition will never be discovered by the customers anyway.
On the whole, my experience is finding a good book to read is very hard - even if you actively try to do it. Once you remove the few big names (in any genre), the quality declines rapidly. It isn't just because the publishers are stifling them - look at any major Sci-Fi magazine that accepts submissions from anyone. You get the occasional author who goes on to win Hugo awards, but a majority of the accepted work is junk - and not because big-name publishers are against them. Authors (to a certain extent) do have platforms to launch their careers - magazines and newspapers. But good authors are very rare. And (as I mentioned) I don't think the high prices are only due to anti-competitive behavior; the publishers and big houses also offset a lot of losses by a few big gains (kind of like VC funding).
There also is a platform for indie-authors - the Kindle Direct Publishing. And so far, I haven't found anything even close to what an author - with the backing of a serious publisher - has created. I have, however, found many games that were great without the backing of EA or Blizzard. Either authors understand that the publishers provide services that are worth the reduced royalties, or writing is much harder than programming.
Sure, let's run with the ebooks vs. steam games comparison. Even small indie games take a lot more man-hours and monetary investment to create than the average ebook. A book typically takes one person less than a year to write, and another one or two people a few months to edit. Since we're focusing solely on the e-book here, you don't need to worry about any of the other costs typically involved in creating a book, such as cover design, etc. So if a small indie game that took probably 2x-10x more time to create sells for $5-10 on average, the average ebook should sell for about $.50-$5. Then they throw those same indie games in the bundles that usually bring about $5-10 for about as many games, so the sales for ebooks should be about $.10-$1 per book.
And this is why the vast majority of geeks realize that ebooks are grossly overpriced.
By your argument, paper books should be less than the indie game as well, since printing and shipping costs are really not that high - or so I've heard. (FYI, every e-book I bought has cover art, and they still need to do media promotions, etc). And the editors? They don't work for free and contribute to "the project". That would be like an indie-game developer having to pay for all his artwork and music from a profession artist.
Also, just because it takes 2x-10x more time to do, they should get paid more? Really? So construction for five hours should get paid as much as programming for five hours? I don't think you understand how labor costs work. Also, the writing isn't the hard part (or so I've heard) - it is thinking about what to write. It make take 10 hours for someone to code up a good pong game, but I won't buy it because the idea is stale. His effort isn't worth much.
Also, most writers I know or have heard of are full time writers i.e. they don't do a day job on the side. Except for people who are starting out as writers. And guess what? Like the first indie game a guy-in-his-basement releases, very few people buy the first works of any author (I'm sure you can find exceptions, but I'm talking about the average).
I don't know what the "proper" price for ebooks is. I don't "believe" it is almost the same as a printed book. But I haven't heard any really good arguments either way, since I am not in the industry and I can't fact check where the majority of costs for printed books are.
I'm curious about tapping out (by which I believe you mean mean wrung out maximum performance from) a system - how do you know that this was the best performance you could get? In other words (and more generally) how do you know that you got the best performance possible from a system, and how much is lost due to code inefficiencies (which, I guess, will almost always exist for any non-trivial program).
Is there a way to say/measure that no matter how you changed the code (even a complete rewrite), you couldn't get significantly better performance for the same level of graphics and response time?
Not trolling or putting down the people who made the game, honestly curious.
From the article, it seems as if the TSA did the safe thing and called the bomb squad, which I guess is the right thing to do.
They have you nicely conditioned into thinking that a watch is something that it is OK to call in the bomb squad for.
What I liked about this situation is that the TSA agent did not know whether it was risky or not, and called someone with the proper qualifications. Also, if you show up with something that has wires hanging out, there would have been some suspicion/security concerns even prior to the TSA era (not necessarily bomb-squad levels, but there would still be some extra procedures).
I don't disagree with the rest of your post. But the idea that the bomb squad was called in for a generic watch is incorrect. They were called in because it was a device that looked like a trigger to the TSA agent. In an ideal situation, they should have checked other issues (are there any explosive chemicals, for example) and just let him board the plane. But I don't expect such behavior from people doing jobs that high-school dropouts apply to.
I can't comment on this article's watch since there are no pictures. But Woz's watch seems to look like a thick watch - nothing fancy or suspicious. A friend once wore a small dive computer (which is more conspicuous) on his wrist when he was going through security (like usual, he had to remove it and pass it through the X-ray machine). On the other hand, if Woz had started unscrewing it and pushing dials (in front of security - not while in air, like he mentions on the video) I guess he might have had a problem.
From the article, it seems as if the TSA did the safe thing and called the bomb squad, which I guess is the right thing to do. I don't expect the guy at the checkpoint to be able to decide if the "modified" watch is dangerous or not, and so they called in the experts (who decided that there were no explosives).
What bothers me is that he was then arrested: "McGann was taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin where he was charged with possessing materials to make an explosive device" (emphasis mine). Isn't that too broad a charge? I'm sure every household has material that could conceivably be used to make an explosive device. Is everyone a threat now (in an actual enforceable sense, not in a we-assume-everyone-is-guilty sense)?
So while India has a low life expectancy, it isn't horrible. And you haven't proved that meat eaters in India live longer (on average) than the vegetarians. On the whole, the lower life expectancy might be because of poverty and inferior health care. And saying everyone dies of heart problems seems to be just BS. Citation needed.
I've used Windows 8 for weeks as well, at work (the nature of my job) stretching back to the summer previews.
The start menu that is now full screen (that you seem so enamored with), doesn't really do it for me. On Windows 7 I could hit the windows key, and start typing to search installed apps. Now the windows key flips screens, and desktop -> metro, does not focus the search feature. No, I get to hover in the corner with the mouse, in order to pull the search "charm" from the side, to click it and search.
Umm... You hit the windows key and start typing, and it searches for all installed programs as well. It works almost the way Windows 7 search did, except that the results take up the screen. FYI, you don't need to use the mouse to bring up the charms bar (in case you want to, hit win+c).
As for specific gripes, have you actually tried using any of the metro apps? Like to view pictures for example? The "Photo" app only lets you see ones your Pictures folder (Library->Pictures). I've got games and apps that don't happen to use that as the default directory. As a result, I need to copy or move all my pics into this ONE place that is usable, or hunt them down in the explorer for desktop mode, then double click (causes a "flip" to metro mode) to view each one. This blows chunks and my compromise (for now) is to enable the small preview mode (lower right toggle).
Unfortunately true - however, my pictures app shows pictures from lots of folders, my facebook account, my flickr account, and my homegroup computers as well. All I did was use the library like it was meant to be used, and added folders to it (kind of like symbolic links in Windows/Linux). Yes, it is an extra step, but doesn't duplicate data (not a copy in the traditional sense). You might have to take a similar step to tell the pictures app to add other folders if the pictures app allowed adding other folders. I know that computers should behave the way you want it to (which is why I consider this limitation unfortunate at the start), and if you want to add folders without using libraries, you should be able to.
Fundamentally, the whole grafting together of desktop and metro interfaces isn't as smooth as it could be.
Agreed. I use a dual monitor (with the metro on one screen, and the traditional desktop on the other) and I really got used to it, but it would suck on a single monitor desktop. Plus, it did take me a while to figure out the shortcuts. But not that I am used to it (I didn't use any previews, just got the Win8 pro from the academic alliance), I don't think I'd go back to 7 (though my work computer is on 7). This is a home computer for entertainment and my online-social stuff. While most of my work software should run on 8, I can't sacrifice a monitor for the live tiles (even though I like them).
Did you not read the summary or did you recently get a lobotomy? The summary clearly lays out the dick moves he pulled. Nothing in his lame excuse drivel clears any of that shit up other than saying other people are wrong.
And who submitted the entry? An AC. And with the high editorial standards at slashdot, I'm sure they did a thorough investigation and fact-checking before posting.
As to the fact that his excuses were lame - that is exactly what the previous poster said. So congratulations on missing the whole point (while implying he/she is an idiot).
My first reaction (before RTFA) was that the problem might not have been the employee, but the person doing the name calling. However, the link is to a blog that lists a generic list of precautions to take. Whoever wrote that blog still has some growing up to do, but I'll give him/her the benefit of doubt and assume they were going for humor.
In any case, I notice that HP paid for the content. Now we know why they are in such trouble.
If people are knowledgeable/care enough to choose a non IE browser, wouldn't they know how to get Firefox for themselves?
The graph shows an initial peak (when the ballot is introduced?), followed by a decline (and even a big drop in the start of 2011, before the ballot box debacle). Most of the decline in 2011 was quite steady. If they really claim the ballot box was the driving factor, shouldn't there be more of a discontinuity?
(I personally use FF and think the ballot is a good thing - I don't have to manually download FF from the Mozilla site. But when claiming a "loss", you need hard numbers to prove it. The graph, IMO, doesn't support that claim).
I am not sure, but doesn't any new technology require a long period of testing before getting certified as air-worthy?
I raise this point not because I am against regulations (I think certain bodies like the FAA are necessary), but because those will play a role in any new technology (not only solar). If someone came up with a much more efficient engine/turbine, could those be integrated into a new plane right away?
I once heard that the requirements are (fortunately) stringent, and that aircrafts still use old (and highly tested) algorithms and computers, instead of the latest technology.
Can someone knowledgeable about boats and yachts tell me if it that is a good design for a yacht? I only know what I see on TV/movies/web/Bay area, so while I don't consider it as aesthetically pleasing as others I've seen (okay, I find in almost ugly), I would like to know if there is some sort of functional/minimalistic reason why that is a great boat (I don't "understand" most modern art either, so I'm curious if this is something along those lines that a trained designer might appreciate).
What this strategy misses is the fact that people are not replacing their PCs with tablets. They still use PCs, but they don't upgrade them very often. So Windows doesn't have any special advantage as a tablet OS, and is unlikely to rival Android or iOS.
I think what MS is counting on is interoperability. Sure, they have a tablet, and a desktop, and a phone. If you can make sure you can seamlessly (in an information sense) transition from one to another (desktop at home, tablet/phone on the road) and they all contain the same information (i.e. constant sync), then you would like it. Amazon does the same thing with its Kindle app - doesn't matter if I use a phone/PC/Kindle/Fire to read a book; they are all in sync.
While the idea is good, they want to make the experience seamless as well (putting a tablet UI on a desktop). That is where the issue gets interesting/depressing/irrelevant. On a dual monitor desktop, I found that the Windows 8 experience is great. I think I'd hate it on a single monitor setup (which most people use).
Has anyone seen a case where a passenger is waved through security? Each time I go through, everyone in line for screening goes through the same process (then again, I am completely average and might not have seen advanced/reduced security for anyone except pilots).
Slashdot Mirror
Again. These companies are under no legal, moral or ethical constraint to assume the maximum tax burden possible.
They're under fiduciary constraints to maximize their shareholders' investments.
If you think that the current tax avoidance schemes are a Bad Thing, stop pissing and moaning at the companies who are simply doing what they're supposed to be doing and change the fucking laws.
Not. this again. The board is required to act in the best interests of the corporation entrusted to them by their shareholders. This notion that they are legally required to should maximize profits/stock price (shareholders' investments) is incorrect. If Google wanted to open a school or fund education so they can have a better workforce tomorrow, the board cannot be removed (well, except by a vote - but that can happen irrespective of what the board does). The board can claim that they are acting in the best interests of the company (long term interests).
On the other hand, the CEO generally owns shares in the company as well, so losing out on profits would impact their personal wealth. So there is a selfish reason to 'maximize profits'. But there seems to be this general idea that if the company behaves like a douche for profits it is okay because they have a legal duty to shareholders is simply not true.
From the little I've read, it seems that they use a distributed host of volunteer servers to run the TOR network, so it might not be that easy to 'shut-down' the entire network (lack of centralized host) - If I'm wrong, I'd love to know why.
My concern is that they will make TOR access illegal. Clearly, we can't count on Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple/Facebook/Big-Biz to raise a finger - they prey off identifying and targeting customers. Privacy and anonymity must hurt their bottom line. So unlike SOPA/PIPA, I doubt that any major group will oppose a new law against this. And most people won't care - hell, if Wikipedia didn't have a blackout, I doubt SOPA would have got any news time on a 'major' news network at all.
Is there a way to detect TOR access uniquely? Or does the encryption make it look like any VPN/secure connection? I recollect reading about a method that could identify IP address accessing TOR (don't remember the details), I'm not sure if that hole was plugged (or if it can be plugged).
I see a lot of variations of this answer to people who fear technology change:
People will just move into areas that require labor, like building and maintaining automation.
This type of statement always reminds me of this poster:
The bad news is robots can do your job now.
The good news is we're now hiring robot repair technicians.
The worse news is we're working on robot-fixing robots- and we do not anticipate any further good news.
I kid, and I understand that people will move towards areas with more employment opportunity. However, in the short term there is going to be a lot of pain. This is also tied to the Luddite fallacy:
But as long as real prices fall or real incomes rise, the additional purchasing power gives consumers the ability to purchase entirely new products and services, such as better health care and wireless communication devices and services. This has many leading economists believing that technological change, although it disrupts the careers of individuals and the health of particular firms, cannot lead to systemic unemployment
The problem I see is that real income for most of the population has not risen (AFAIK).
Two (related) reasons that I have heard as to why IT isn't valued as much as it should be (I myself am not in the IT field, so this is more like hearsay):
Clueless PHB: This is partly the fault of those who work in IT not educating those higher up in the food chain. PHBs don't look on IT as producers, but as cost centers. So they try to skimp on hiring competent people. And the IT people don't have direct relations with the clients (in most firms), so when it comes time to decide bonuses or raises, IT is generally at the back of the line. While IT is what allows everyone else to raise money, the PHBs would rather look at a $60k fresher vs. a $120k experienced admin and ask why they shouldn't just outsource it for $45k. They don't see the downside in having a poor IT team even after it bites them (just fire one newbie and hire another in his place).
One admin I know used this solution (based on "You and Your Research" by Richard Hamming) after most of his team were outsourced (not because the team was bad, but because the PHB saw cost savings): everytime the outsourcing created a problem and someone tried to scream at him (he was their internal liaison to the external contractor) he told them to go tell PHB "we lost/cost $X extra because the contractor screwed up." Only when the PHB saw how much the "real" cost of outsourcing IT was, did he reverse the policy.
Taking Credit: As an old saying goes - the competent IT admin fixes problems before they happen. And then the PHB wonders why he is paying $X for new servers and infrastructure when the current system works fine. IT people should be more proactive about boasting about what they do. Sure, this is distasteful to lots of technical people. But guess what? Everyone else brags and lets their manager know (in a not so subtle way) of why they deserve more money: "I sold $YYY to MY clients". So the IT team needs to take credit for sales they help with. If an employee used a lot of resources to construct a portfolio for a client, it isn't all to the trader's credit. YOUR software and hardware helped him run simulations and generate the portfolio. So add THAT to your pitch. If one of the IT workers stayed up half the night so a client could get some figures/data - he should get credit instead of letting the suit tell the story. A knight wouldn't have killed the dragon unless he had a magic sword - but the armorer doesn't get any songs written about him.
The flipside is to be realistic about what you are doing - this isn't the dot-com boom. Don't expect riches for trivial work. If you do good/tough work, expect to be compensated as well (and let your bosses know why YOU are better than everyone out there). But if you just make a CSS/HTML page, don't try to claim you are God's gift to the firm.
The way the summary was written, the question can be condensed to: "Will you spend more money at a local retailer, or less money and buy online"?
I'm all for supporting local retailers when they provide a valuable service - I visit my local library/store where I can chat to a librarian/store-clerk and get valuable feedback/information. But the article doesn't raise any of these issues. Instead, it focuses on the downsides of brick-and-mortar shopping, without raising any of the positives.
Wow, you actually use Yahoo for something? You must be REALLY old!
One word: Flickr. If you are really into photography (not just dumping 1000 vacation pics for Facebook/Google+ friends), there isn't any service I know that comes close.
Morality is subjective.
This. It is hard to program "morals" when you can't even define it properly. Most civilizations had no moral qualms about slavery. Or killing civilians. Or hurting animals. Why is it moral for the driver to go off the bridge instead of crashing into the bus? Maybe everyone lives if he crashes in the bus, but he definitely dies if he goes off the bridge. Depending on your moral code, this alternative is preferable. Finally, legal solutions are what matters. If I make an ethical - to me - but illegal choice, I expect to be penalized.
What you can program for is costs - define a cost function and then optimize that... This is how (almost?) all decision making algorithms work - minimize a cost. You then assign "cost" to a life (which can be very high), property, etc. And if it makes you feel better, call that a "moral" solution. But it isn't really.
The phone you get from Google is bloatware free and carrier unlocked. I don't know if that's the case with the T-Mobile version... anyone know?
But just as in the PC market, the phone market cannot resist the extra money (even if they are making insane profits already) they make by including crapware.
Don't know about T-mobile, but I recently got sick of the contract games and got an Virgin Mobile phone without contract, paying the full price for a phone. And it still had crapware that I couldn't remove. I ended up rooting it days after I got it and put in CM7 (or was it CM10). And this wasn't third party crapware - mainly Google stuff and a few small VM crapware. If I don't want maps/that-shit-known-as-latitude, let me get rid of it. I bought a phone. I paid for the hardware. And I can't remove stuff without rooting?
If the information that you charge for phone support is on your website, people will skip it in their hurry to get a number. Instead, during the installation, ask them which version they want to try. Don't call it "free" and "paid" versions (hint: they will click free), call it "with phone support" and "without phone support". If they choose the one with the phone support, send them to a sales website that then informs them that the phone support will cost them - but they are free to use the version without phone support (as well as information on purchasing support).
Basically, change the perception of the consumer - don't make them choose between "free" or "paid" versions, since they will pick the free one without understand ALL the consequences (the only consequence to them is saving money). Make them think in terms of supported and unsupported versions. Who knows, you might even drive up sales by this?
So then going by that, the per hour cost for creating a game should be a good deal more than writing a book, because it requires good writing skills in addition to other skills.
I see the skill-set as significantly different. While gaming requires imagination (to think of the idea), artwork, and programming, writing (fiction, for fair comparison) requires imagination and literary skills. And while programming well is hard, today's computing facilities are a lot more forgiving with sloppy code. So I find the comparison of writing novels with writing computer games to be a false comparison (maybe I should have just said that instead). Saying the average book takes 1/10th the effort of the average indie game is arbitrary.
It's pretty obvious why e-books are priced the way they are. The book industry is dominated by large established corporations, and the nature of the industry makes it a lot harder for newcomers to breakout and become popular than in the video-game industry. Thus, the corporations can set whatever prices they want without fear of competition, because the majority of the competition will never be discovered by the customers anyway.
On the whole, my experience is finding a good book to read is very hard - even if you actively try to do it. Once you remove the few big names (in any genre), the quality declines rapidly. It isn't just because the publishers are stifling them - look at any major Sci-Fi magazine that accepts submissions from anyone. You get the occasional author who goes on to win Hugo awards, but a majority of the accepted work is junk - and not because big-name publishers are against them. Authors (to a certain extent) do have platforms to launch their careers - magazines and newspapers. But good authors are very rare. And (as I mentioned) I don't think the high prices are only due to anti-competitive behavior; the publishers and big houses also offset a lot of losses by a few big gains (kind of like VC funding).
There also is a platform for indie-authors - the Kindle Direct Publishing. And so far, I haven't found anything even close to what an author - with the backing of a serious publisher - has created. I have, however, found many games that were great without the backing of EA or Blizzard. Either authors understand that the publishers provide services that are worth the reduced royalties, or writing is much harder than programming.
Sure, let's run with the ebooks vs. steam games comparison. Even small indie games take a lot more man-hours and monetary investment to create than the average ebook. A book typically takes one person less than a year to write, and another one or two people a few months to edit. Since we're focusing solely on the e-book here, you don't need to worry about any of the other costs typically involved in creating a book, such as cover design, etc. So if a small indie game that took probably 2x-10x more time to create sells for $5-10 on average, the average ebook should sell for about $.50-$5. Then they throw those same indie games in the bundles that usually bring about $5-10 for about as many games, so the sales for ebooks should be about $.10-$1 per book.
And this is why the vast majority of geeks realize that ebooks are grossly overpriced.
By your argument, paper books should be less than the indie game as well, since printing and shipping costs are really not that high - or so I've heard. (FYI, every e-book I bought has cover art, and they still need to do media promotions, etc). And the editors? They don't work for free and contribute to "the project". That would be like an indie-game developer having to pay for all his artwork and music from a profession artist.
Also, just because it takes 2x-10x more time to do, they should get paid more? Really? So construction for five hours should get paid as much as programming for five hours? I don't think you understand how labor costs work. Also, the writing isn't the hard part (or so I've heard) - it is thinking about what to write. It make take 10 hours for someone to code up a good pong game, but I won't buy it because the idea is stale. His effort isn't worth much.
Also, most writers I know or have heard of are full time writers i.e. they don't do a day job on the side. Except for people who are starting out as writers. And guess what? Like the first indie game a guy-in-his-basement releases, very few people buy the first works of any author (I'm sure you can find exceptions, but I'm talking about the average).
I don't know what the "proper" price for ebooks is. I don't "believe" it is almost the same as a printed book. But I haven't heard any really good arguments either way, since I am not in the industry and I can't fact check where the majority of costs for printed books are.
I'm curious about tapping out (by which I believe you mean mean wrung out maximum performance from) a system - how do you know that this was the best performance you could get? In other words (and more generally) how do you know that you got the best performance possible from a system, and how much is lost due to code inefficiencies (which, I guess, will almost always exist for any non-trivial program).
Is there a way to say/measure that no matter how you changed the code (even a complete rewrite), you couldn't get significantly better performance for the same level of graphics and response time?
Not trolling or putting down the people who made the game, honestly curious.
They have you nicely conditioned into thinking that a watch is something that it is OK to call in the bomb squad for.
What I liked about this situation is that the TSA agent did not know whether it was risky or not, and called someone with the proper qualifications. Also, if you show up with something that has wires hanging out, there would have been some suspicion/security concerns even prior to the TSA era (not necessarily bomb-squad levels, but there would still be some extra procedures).
I don't disagree with the rest of your post. But the idea that the bomb squad was called in for a generic watch is incorrect. They were called in because it was a device that looked like a trigger to the TSA agent. In an ideal situation, they should have checked other issues (are there any explosive chemicals, for example) and just let him board the plane. But I don't expect such behavior from people doing jobs that high-school dropouts apply to.
I can't comment on this article's watch since there are no pictures. But Woz's watch seems to look like a thick watch - nothing fancy or suspicious. A friend once wore a small dive computer (which is more conspicuous) on his wrist when he was going through security (like usual, he had to remove it and pass it through the X-ray machine). On the other hand, if Woz had started unscrewing it and pushing dials (in front of security - not while in air, like he mentions on the video) I guess he might have had a problem.
From the article, it seems as if the TSA did the safe thing and called the bomb squad, which I guess is the right thing to do. I don't expect the guy at the checkpoint to be able to decide if the "modified" watch is dangerous or not, and so they called in the experts (who decided that there were no explosives).
What bothers me is that he was then arrested: "McGann was taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin where he was charged with possessing materials to make an explosive device" (emphasis mine). Isn't that too broad a charge? I'm sure every household has material that could conceivably be used to make an explosive device. Is everyone a threat now (in an actual enforceable sense, not in a we-assume-everyone-is-guilty sense)?
India? Lifespan there is short and everybody dies of heart problems.
Average life span (life expectancy for different countries)
United states: 78.2
India: 64.7
World average: 67.2
So while India has a low life expectancy, it isn't horrible. And you haven't proved that meat eaters in India live longer (on average) than the vegetarians. On the whole, the lower life expectancy might be because of poverty and inferior health care. And saying everyone dies of heart problems seems to be just BS. Citation needed.
I've used Windows 8 for weeks as well, at work (the nature of my job) stretching back to the summer previews.
The start menu that is now full screen (that you seem so enamored with), doesn't really do it for me. On Windows 7 I could hit the windows key, and start typing to search installed apps. Now the windows key flips screens, and desktop -> metro, does not focus the search feature. No, I get to hover in the corner with the mouse, in order to pull the search "charm" from the side, to click it and search.
Umm... You hit the windows key and start typing, and it searches for all installed programs as well. It works almost the way Windows 7 search did, except that the results take up the screen. FYI, you don't need to use the mouse to bring up the charms bar (in case you want to, hit win+c).
As for specific gripes, have you actually tried using any of the metro apps? Like to view pictures for example? The "Photo" app only lets you see ones your Pictures folder (Library->Pictures). I've got games and apps that don't happen to use that as the default directory. As a result, I need to copy or move all my pics into this ONE place that is usable, or hunt them down in the explorer for desktop mode, then double click (causes a "flip" to metro mode) to view each one. This blows chunks and my compromise (for now) is to enable the small preview mode (lower right toggle).
Unfortunately true - however, my pictures app shows pictures from lots of folders, my facebook account, my flickr account, and my homegroup computers as well. All I did was use the library like it was meant to be used, and added folders to it (kind of like symbolic links in Windows/Linux). Yes, it is an extra step, but doesn't duplicate data (not a copy in the traditional sense). You might have to take a similar step to tell the pictures app to add other folders if the pictures app allowed adding other folders. I know that computers should behave the way you want it to (which is why I consider this limitation unfortunate at the start), and if you want to add folders without using libraries, you should be able to.
Fundamentally, the whole grafting together of desktop and metro interfaces isn't as smooth as it could be.
Agreed. I use a dual monitor (with the metro on one screen, and the traditional desktop on the other) and I really got used to it, but it would suck on a single monitor desktop. Plus, it did take me a while to figure out the shortcuts. But not that I am used to it (I didn't use any previews, just got the Win8 pro from the academic alliance), I don't think I'd go back to 7 (though my work computer is on 7). This is a home computer for entertainment and my online-social stuff. While most of my work software should run on 8, I can't sacrifice a monitor for the live tiles (even though I like them).
Did you not read the summary or did you recently get a lobotomy? The summary clearly lays out the dick moves he pulled. Nothing in his lame excuse drivel clears any of that shit up other than saying other people are wrong.
And who submitted the entry? An AC. And with the high editorial standards at slashdot, I'm sure they did a thorough investigation and fact-checking before posting.
As to the fact that his excuses were lame - that is exactly what the previous poster said. So congratulations on missing the whole point (while implying he/she is an idiot).
My first reaction (before RTFA) was that the problem might not have been the employee, but the person doing the name calling. However, the link is to a blog that lists a generic list of precautions to take. Whoever wrote that blog still has some growing up to do, but I'll give him/her the benefit of doubt and assume they were going for humor.
In any case, I notice that HP paid for the content. Now we know why they are in such trouble.
The graph shows an initial peak (when the ballot is introduced?), followed by a decline (and even a big drop in the start of 2011, before the ballot box debacle). Most of the decline in 2011 was quite steady. If they really claim the ballot box was the driving factor, shouldn't there be more of a discontinuity?
(I personally use FF and think the ballot is a good thing - I don't have to manually download FF from the Mozilla site. But when claiming a "loss", you need hard numbers to prove it. The graph, IMO, doesn't support that claim).
... and should go back to college as freshmen.
What makes you think they went to college before being hired at the TSA?
I raise this point not because I am against regulations (I think certain bodies like the FAA are necessary), but because those will play a role in any new technology (not only solar). If someone came up with a much more efficient engine/turbine, could those be integrated into a new plane right away?
I once heard that the requirements are (fortunately) stringent, and that aircrafts still use old (and highly tested) algorithms and computers, instead of the latest technology.
Can someone knowledgeable about boats and yachts tell me if it that is a good design for a yacht? I only know what I see on TV/movies/web/Bay area, so while I don't consider it as aesthetically pleasing as others I've seen (okay, I find in almost ugly), I would like to know if there is some sort of functional/minimalistic reason why that is a great boat (I don't "understand" most modern art either, so I'm curious if this is something along those lines that a trained designer might appreciate).
What this strategy misses is the fact that people are not replacing their PCs with tablets. They still use PCs, but they don't upgrade them very often. So Windows doesn't have any special advantage as a tablet OS, and is unlikely to rival Android or iOS.
I think what MS is counting on is interoperability. Sure, they have a tablet, and a desktop, and a phone. If you can make sure you can seamlessly (in an information sense) transition from one to another (desktop at home, tablet/phone on the road) and they all contain the same information (i.e. constant sync), then you would like it. Amazon does the same thing with its Kindle app - doesn't matter if I use a phone/PC/Kindle/Fire to read a book; they are all in sync.
While the idea is good, they want to make the experience seamless as well (putting a tablet UI on a desktop). That is where the issue gets interesting/depressing/irrelevant. On a dual monitor desktop, I found that the Windows 8 experience is great. I think I'd hate it on a single monitor setup (which most people use).
Has anyone seen a case where a passenger is waved through security? Each time I go through, everyone in line for screening goes through the same process (then again, I am completely average and might not have seen advanced/reduced security for anyone except pilots).