I sometimes feel people forget the original purpose of the patent system. The alternative to patents is NOT that everything is free and open. The alternative is that companies keep things super-secret. The reason the patent system was invented is because people felt keeping inventions secret was a BAD thing for the society. A patent is just a deal between an inventor and the government that says "if you agree to share your work immediately, we will help you enforce an excluse right to use it for some period of time". It is a good deal for the society, because everyone immediately can see the idea. It is a good deal for the inventor, because enforcing the patent is typically cheaper/easier than maintaining secrecy.
The solution is NOT to get rid of the patent system. If you think no patents will result in openess, you are really naive. Quite the opposite - companies would immediately clamp down tight, and corporate spying would take off. The patent reform we need is really raising the bar of what counts as an invention, especially in the software domain. Oh, and I am writing this as someone who has several dozen software patents, some of which I feel are genuine inventions, others of which are merely interesting ideas.
There is already a system running somewhere around 420 million windows machines in a semi-private walled-off version of the internet, with no license fees paid to Microsoft, hosting several botnets and just about every virus under the sun.
This UI falls into the same pool as EULA user interface. It is lawyer-ware. If it actually helps someone not go to a bad site, that is great, but that is not the design goal. The goal is to limit liability and prevent a whole bunch of stupid people for suing the browser maker for damage caused by going to a bad site. This way if it goes to court, the defendant can just say "hey, we showed them a message saying it was a bad site and they clicked it anyway." Phishing filter is similar. It doesn't take a genius to understand that a phishing filter is only useful for people who can read URLs - after all, the filter just says "check this URL and make sure it is OK". But if you can read a URL, you don't need a phishing filter in the first place.
There are actually many pieces of UX that fall into this camp, where the UX makes little sense until you understand the various lawsuits that led to it. For instance, did you ever wonder why the "Pictures" item in the Windows start menu doesn't take you to the photo gallery - which is what something like 95% of users expect?
Unfortunately, over time we can expect this to increase instead of decrease.
Anyone who has actually designed a game - whether it is was Pac-Man or WoW - will tell you that the hard part is not the content - it is in tuning the game to be that ideal mix of challenging, fun, and rewarding without being too hard or discouraging. Say what you want about WoW's limitations but I think any game designer can appreciate the fantastic job they have done with making a game appealing to an extremely wide range of players.
Making content by hand is extremely expensive in terms of both time and money, but so far any non-trivial attempt to do this automatically has failed because of the tuning issue, even for "simple" games like Pac-Man. Hand-made maps in RTS or Counter-Strike or even Load Runner are just more fun than generated ones. Random behavior in a top-selling game is mostly limited to what is inside a locked chest or other things like that.
If you think about it, creating a fun game is no different than creating an interesting film or book. You will probably see fully computer-generated games that are fun to play about the same time you see a computer writing a best-seller.
I am also skeptical of user generated content/crowd-sourcing. Most people just make crap, so you need to have some human process in there acting as the editor. Most of the games that have any success at user content at all rely on professional content builders who are not themselves players. I don't even consider that user-generated content. Those authors are basically members of the development team who are not being paid.
While I agree that DRM is a bad idea, I am really surprised by the people's expectation that once you buy something, you have a permanent right to it. Reading that guy's email about not being able to have his digital book on 8 devices - geez, get a grip! Imagine you bought a physical book, in hard copy, for $40. And now you wanted the nice paperback for the airplane. Guess what? You have to buy another one. What if you left the book somewhere? Guess what - no would cares if you "already paid good money for it". You would STILL have to buy another one. If I buy a CD and it breaks - guess what? The store is not going to give me a new one.
DRM is an attempt to make digitial objects act more like physical objects. IRL, I can show you a photo of my kids without giving you the photo. IRL, if I give you my copy of a book, I no longer have it. Etc.
Also - I have to agree with many posters here in calling BS on people's "outrage" against DRM. If you don't like it, don't buy it. But don't complain about DRM while also posting gushing reviews of Hollywood movies.
I am shocked. After reading the article and a little more about EOCS organization, it seems that Japan makes some games that do NOT involve rape. Who would have guessed?
For the low end of that range, it is fun to PLAY robot. Explain the concept that robots only do exactly what you say, and then make some "commands" like "move forward", "turn left", "pick up object" and then work together to try to solve problems, like "how can we get the rubber snake into your sister's bed?". The kid plays the role of the programmer, the CPU, the robot motor (we use toy dump trucks typically for this), and the all-important role of the debugger.
My research shows that it will take you 10 YEARS before your big screen TV, Blu-Disc player, and surround sound system will pay for itself, versus going to see a movie in the theater. Plus, we all know the theater is better because it has that nice popcorn smell. I will upload a spreadsheet if you aren't convinced...
I don't understand this at all. Whoever said that "The Press" is supposed to be unbiased? The whole idea is that you choose what you want to read. If you want to get an unbiased view, then read a mix of press. Have people stopped thinking all together?
It's not just FISA, there's also the death penalty for child rapists
I think death penalty for child rapists is a little harsh. I mean, if they are a child, they don't know that rape is wrong... What next, life in prison for child arsonists?
hmm? what? oh... nevermind!
On the other hand, at least someone is thinking of the children...
This sounds to me like a measure of the average customer's IQ, not of banking security. Things like phishing scams are almost entirely outside the bank's control. BTW, this would also explain why Bank of America did so badly. I can't imagine anyone who is capable of doing math would open an account at that place.
Personally I find this whole focus on "web safety" is overrated. I still see lots of people giving their credit card with signature and photo ID (with DL#, DOB, address, etc.) to minimum wage workers at stores across america every day.
I live in China. As anyone who has visited here knows, the concept of a queue or waiting in line doesn't exist. When the doors open, there is a unorganzied hoard pushing madly to get into the plane. On top of this, people totally ignore the carry-on rules and routinely have several large boxes. It is pure chaos.
And yet, my china flights always board much faster than my US flights. The last flight I took was a fully-loaded 747 from Shanghai to Beijing. It boarded in about 10 minutes. A similar flight in US I had a few months ago took almost 30 minutes to board. I think there is something to be said for highly motivated chaos.
On a related note, I've never been able to figure out exactly why going through security in the US takes so long. As near as I can tell, the China and US airports do the exact same screening - the liquids in the bag, laptops out, no shoes, etc. - plus a passport check - and still it is on average 3x faster. So strange...
You don't have to wonder - this is exactly how they do it. People are paid for every X images that they successfully type. It is a variation on the pay-for-click schemes. The low accuracy rate is partially human error and partially because sometimes no one is "working" when the request comes in. There are plenty of places on earth where making $100/month doing this in an i-cafe is a reasonable job.
An 18 month old will eat thumbtacks if you leave them out. Would you suggest banning them as well?
Wow, you know I always sort of thought of myself as an average parent. I never baby-proofed the house or played Mozart in the womb. My parenting duties consist mostly of reading Dr. Seuss books, playing pen&paper RPGs, and laying down the law. But after reading a few comments it seems that the bar has sunk so low that this now qualifies me as SuperDad or something. It is like we are living in a live-action version of the movie Idiocracy!
This is not rocket science. Kids have stages:
From birth to 6 months, they need to always in physical contact with another human.
From 6-12, they are either being held or in some baby-safe "sandbox" - a crib, playpen, etc.
1-3 or 4 are the danger years - they can wander around and get into everything. Here you really have to keep an eye on them and make sure they aren't eating your WarHammer 40k figures, drain cleaner, date-rape beads, etc. If they do - guess whose fault that is? (hint: not the maker of the drain cleaner)
Older than that, they can speak and reason and have increasing self-control. You give them opportunities, set expectations, see if they are responsible, and adjust permissions accordingly. This continues right up until they leave for college.
If I buy a toy that says "Safe for 3 year olds" and then it turns out to have lead paint, etc., then by all means we should be going after the manufacturer. But there are an infinite number of dangerous objects being made - where do you draw the line? There has to be some base expectation placed on humans - parents AND children - if they want to be members of a functioning society.
When I was a kid, I had a friend who glued his lips together with SuperGlue "just to see what would happen." And you know what? That kid was a moron, and probably still is one (assuming he didn't die in a college binge-drinking "accident"). If that happened today, people would probably be demanding that superglue be banned... geez!
Thanks for reading, and please enjoy a handjob from Starbuck's on your way out...
"Child seriously ill after drinking Chinese-made drain cleaner!"
Seriously, what kind of kid eats non-edible beads when they are 10 years old? This seems like a case of Darwinism at work... Are people just supposed to be able to be as dumb as they want, do anything, disregard all common sense, and still somehow make it through life? Geez...
And yes, I have kids. My three year old is smart enough to not eat his older sister's toy beads. He is even smart enough to keep them away from a baby. I guess now that qualifies as "super genius".
when I lived in LA during college, at one point I was living in a loft out by the subway construction in downtown. I had a really junky car - different color doors, plus the starter was shot so I had to push-start it. I never locked it, because I figured people would just break the windows. However, this didn't stop the problems at all. First, homeless people would sleep in the car. I would come out in the morning and have to evict them, and often wash the urine away. Second, my windows were still broken several times - people didn't even bother to check the door. One time it looked like someone had hammered a screwdriver into the trunk lock. Previously it had been unlocked, but after that move it never opened again. I also would frequently find all of the ignition wires hanging out as the local criminal geniuses tried to hotwire it.
Ah, fun times! Needless to say, I don't miss living in that area...
Slashdot Mirror
I sometimes feel people forget the original purpose of the patent system. The alternative to patents is NOT that everything is free and open. The alternative is that companies keep things super-secret. The reason the patent system was invented is because people felt keeping inventions secret was a BAD thing for the society. A patent is just a deal between an inventor and the government that says "if you agree to share your work immediately, we will help you enforce an excluse right to use it for some period of time". It is a good deal for the society, because everyone immediately can see the idea. It is a good deal for the inventor, because enforcing the patent is typically cheaper/easier than maintaining secrecy.
The solution is NOT to get rid of the patent system. If you think no patents will result in openess, you are really naive. Quite the opposite - companies would immediately clamp down tight, and corporate spying would take off. The patent reform we need is really raising the bar of what counts as an invention, especially in the software domain. Oh, and I am writing this as someone who has several dozen software patents, some of which I feel are genuine inventions, others of which are merely interesting ideas.
... I wouldn't be surprised if the photo was originally was white and the US side photoshopped in a black guy.
There is already a system running somewhere around 420 million windows machines in a semi-private walled-off version of the internet, with no license fees paid to Microsoft, hosting several botnets and just about every virus under the sun.
It is called "China".
This UI falls into the same pool as EULA user interface. It is lawyer-ware. If it actually helps someone not go to a bad site, that is great, but that is not the design goal. The goal is to limit liability and prevent a whole bunch of stupid people for suing the browser maker for damage caused by going to a bad site. This way if it goes to court, the defendant can just say "hey, we showed them a message saying it was a bad site and they clicked it anyway." Phishing filter is similar. It doesn't take a genius to understand that a phishing filter is only useful for people who can read URLs - after all, the filter just says "check this URL and make sure it is OK". But if you can read a URL, you don't need a phishing filter in the first place.
There are actually many pieces of UX that fall into this camp, where the UX makes little sense until you understand the various lawsuits that led to it. For instance, did you ever wonder why the "Pictures" item in the Windows start menu doesn't take you to the photo gallery - which is what something like 95% of users expect?
Unfortunately, over time we can expect this to increase instead of decrease.
Anyone who has actually designed a game - whether it is was Pac-Man or WoW - will tell you that the hard part is not the content - it is in tuning the game to be that ideal mix of challenging, fun, and rewarding without being too hard or discouraging. Say what you want about WoW's limitations but I think any game designer can appreciate the fantastic job they have done with making a game appealing to an extremely wide range of players.
Making content by hand is extremely expensive in terms of both time and money, but so far any non-trivial attempt to do this automatically has failed because of the tuning issue, even for "simple" games like Pac-Man. Hand-made maps in RTS or Counter-Strike or even Load Runner are just more fun than generated ones. Random behavior in a top-selling game is mostly limited to what is inside a locked chest or other things like that.
If you think about it, creating a fun game is no different than creating an interesting film or book. You will probably see fully computer-generated games that are fun to play about the same time you see a computer writing a best-seller.
I am also skeptical of user generated content/crowd-sourcing. Most people just make crap, so you need to have some human process in there acting as the editor. Most of the games that have any success at user content at all rely on professional content builders who are not themselves players. I don't even consider that user-generated content. Those authors are basically members of the development team who are not being paid.
Can't he make his child porn in Sims 3 like a normal person?
While I agree that DRM is a bad idea, I am really surprised by the people's expectation that once you buy something, you have a permanent right to it. Reading that guy's email about not being able to have his digital book on 8 devices - geez, get a grip! Imagine you bought a physical book, in hard copy, for $40. And now you wanted the nice paperback for the airplane. Guess what? You have to buy another one. What if you left the book somewhere? Guess what - no would cares if you "already paid good money for it". You would STILL have to buy another one. If I buy a CD and it breaks - guess what? The store is not going to give me a new one.
DRM is an attempt to make digitial objects act more like physical objects. IRL, I can show you a photo of my kids without giving you the photo. IRL, if I give you my copy of a book, I no longer have it. Etc.
Also - I have to agree with many posters here in calling BS on people's "outrage" against DRM. If you don't like it, don't buy it. But don't complain about DRM while also posting gushing reviews of Hollywood movies.
You have to use the American definition of "Arab", which is "anyone who practices Islam". Imagine how confused they get in Malaysia!
I am shocked. After reading the article and a little more about EOCS organization, it seems that Japan makes some games that do NOT involve rape. Who would have guessed?
I suspect it will be similar to the great cultural loss of the ability to memorize long narratives that was brought about by the invention of writing.
For the low end of that range, it is fun to PLAY robot. Explain the concept that robots only do exactly what you say, and then make some "commands" like "move forward", "turn left", "pick up object" and then work together to try to solve problems, like "how can we get the rubber snake into your sister's bed?". The kid plays the role of the programmer, the CPU, the robot motor (we use toy dump trucks typically for this), and the all-important role of the debugger.
My research shows that it will take you 10 YEARS before your big screen TV, Blu-Disc player, and surround sound system will pay for itself, versus going to see a movie in the theater. Plus, we all know the theater is better because it has that nice popcorn smell. I will upload a spreadsheet if you aren't convinced...
I don't understand this at all. Whoever said that "The Press" is supposed to be unbiased? The whole idea is that you choose what you want to read. If you want to get an unbiased view, then read a mix of press. Have people stopped thinking all together?
This being slashdot, I feel that we should mod the parent off-topic!
It's not just FISA, there's also the death penalty for child rapists
I think death penalty for child rapists is a little harsh. I mean, if they are a child, they don't know that rape is wrong... What next, life in prison for child arsonists?
hmm? what? oh... nevermind!
On the other hand, at least someone is thinking of the children...
I think my company can use it for recruiting! :-P
This sounds to me like a measure of the average customer's IQ, not of banking security. Things like phishing scams are almost entirely outside the bank's control. BTW, this would also explain why Bank of America did so badly. I can't imagine anyone who is capable of doing math would open an account at that place.
Personally I find this whole focus on "web safety" is overrated. I still see lots of people giving their credit card with signature and photo ID (with DL#, DOB, address, etc.) to minimum wage workers at stores across america every day.
- davevr
I live in China. As anyone who has visited here knows, the concept of a queue or waiting in line doesn't exist. When the doors open, there is a unorganzied hoard pushing madly to get into the plane. On top of this, people totally ignore the carry-on rules and routinely have several large boxes. It is pure chaos.
And yet, my china flights always board much faster than my US flights. The last flight I took was a fully-loaded 747 from Shanghai to Beijing. It boarded in about 10 minutes. A similar flight in US I had a few months ago took almost 30 minutes to board. I think there is something to be said for highly motivated chaos.
On a related note, I've never been able to figure out exactly why going through security in the US takes so long. As near as I can tell, the China and US airports do the exact same screening - the liquids in the bag, laptops out, no shoes, etc. - plus a passport check - and still it is on average 3x faster. So strange...
- davevr
You don't have to wonder - this is exactly how they do it. People are paid for every X images that they successfully type. It is a variation on the pay-for-click schemes. The low accuracy rate is partially human error and partially because sometimes no one is "working" when the request comes in. There are plenty of places on earth where making $100/month doing this in an i-cafe is a reasonable job.
Estonia is a real country??
The real irony here is that the car flipped because they were playing America's Army on their in-dash PC...
An 18 month old will eat thumbtacks if you leave them out. Would you suggest banning them as well?
Wow, you know I always sort of thought of myself as an average parent. I never baby-proofed the house or played Mozart in the womb. My parenting duties consist mostly of reading Dr. Seuss books, playing pen&paper RPGs, and laying down the law. But after reading a few comments it seems that the bar has sunk so low that this now qualifies me as SuperDad or something. It is like we are living in a live-action version of the movie Idiocracy!
This is not rocket science. Kids have stages:
From birth to 6 months, they need to always in physical contact with another human.
From 6-12, they are either being held or in some baby-safe "sandbox" - a crib, playpen, etc.
1-3 or 4 are the danger years - they can wander around and get into everything. Here you really have to keep an eye on them and make sure they aren't eating your WarHammer 40k figures, drain cleaner, date-rape beads, etc. If they do - guess whose fault that is? (hint: not the maker of the drain cleaner)
Older than that, they can speak and reason and have increasing self-control. You give them opportunities, set expectations, see if they are responsible, and adjust permissions accordingly. This continues right up until they leave for college.
If I buy a toy that says "Safe for 3 year olds" and then it turns out to have lead paint, etc., then by all means we should be going after the manufacturer. But there are an infinite number of dangerous objects being made - where do you draw the line? There has to be some base expectation placed on humans - parents AND children - if they want to be members of a functioning society.
When I was a kid, I had a friend who glued his lips together with SuperGlue "just to see what would happen." And you know what? That kid was a moron, and probably still is one (assuming he didn't die in a college binge-drinking "accident"). If that happened today, people would probably be demanding that superglue be banned... geez!
Thanks for reading, and please enjoy a handjob from Starbuck's on your way out...
"Child seriously ill after drinking Chinese-made drain cleaner!"
Seriously, what kind of kid eats non-edible beads when they are 10 years old? This seems like a case of Darwinism at work... Are people just supposed to be able to be as dumb as they want, do anything, disregard all common sense, and still somehow make it through life? Geez...
And yes, I have kids. My three year old is smart enough to not eat his older sister's toy beads. He is even smart enough to keep them away from a baby. I guess now that qualifies as "super genius".
Similar story -
when I lived in LA during college, at one point I was living in a loft out by the subway construction in downtown. I had a really junky car - different color doors, plus the starter was shot so I had to push-start it. I never locked it, because I figured people would just break the windows. However, this didn't stop the problems at all. First, homeless people would sleep in the car. I would come out in the morning and have to evict them, and often wash the urine away. Second, my windows were still broken several times - people didn't even bother to check the door. One time it looked like someone had hammered a screwdriver into the trunk lock. Previously it had been unlocked, but after that move it never opened again. I also would frequently find all of the ignition wires hanging out as the local criminal geniuses tried to hotwire it.
Ah, fun times! Needless to say, I don't miss living in that area...
Finally I have the excuse I need to pee in my wetsuit! Thank god for science!