They might gain a bit of respect in some circles by open sourcing projects, but they most definitely don't open source anything that is core to their profitable businesses. Which is why, for the most part, it seems like open source is rarely a good idea for startups.
Which implies all people not losing stuff are smart.
No it doesn't. If you lost a USB stick you are stupid, does not mean if you didn't lose a USB stick you are not stupid. It means if you are not stupid, you haven't lost a USB stick. Contrapositive, not inverse.
But I do agree carelessness != stupidity:) Though I would also argue carelessness it much more common in malware infections, so the correlation could still be there...
I mostly agree that Google's interviewing practices are pretty poor overall (no sour grapes - I prefer startups, who wants to work for a company with 10,000+ employees;) - but from what I know about their bonus structure (which is not all that much) the bonus potential is huge, and tied more to performance than experience.
Annual bonuses of 30% of salary are common, and can be even higher for the superstars, which makes a "compressed pay scale" a lot less relevant, especially if the experienced employees actually show that their experience counted for something...
12 years and they haven't given you a better "title"? Usually that's the first thing a company will do to keep people around longer (it costs less to call you "Senior Member of Technical Staff" or "Software Architect" than give you a big raise).
I (and I'm sure many here) hate arbitrary titles, but the problem is a lot of companies look at your previous title to determine what salary range you should be at in their organization. You should at least get your current company to give you a "promotion" (if you think they value you enough to make demands) to a more appropriate title for someone with at least 12 years (and I assume more than that?) experience. Of course, it may not be in their best interest to make you seem more marketable...
Germany's system won't help much in other countries, because the reason Germans follow the traffic signals is that they are *German*.
And the vast majority of red lights run in the US are not by people who would stop but have bad reaction times, it's people who think their time is more important than everyone's safety, and consider yellow lights their last chance to get through the intersection any way they can.
Really, you *can* stop most of the illegal behavior. Make the yellow timing reasonable, definitely, but then put in a red light camera and a $500 fine for running the light. I guarantee after one of those tickets most people will start paying attention. The problem with this is that the installation and maintenance costs are so high cities lose money even with the increased tickets. And when they have tried sharing the profits with the camera companies to subsidize them, those companies lobby for profit over safety by having the yellow timing reduced as much as they can....
How about a ramp that pops up, so the red light runner will just end up flying over the intersection, Dukes of Hazzard style? Even better if the intersection had a PA system to play Dixie when it happens.
It might not be pretty when they land, that's their problem for running the light...
Newsflash, modern life means opportunities to go away have severly decreased. Newsflash: r/c flying requires practice and upkeep.
Newsflash: so does surfing, mountain biking, rock climbing, horseback riding, kayaking, sailing, skiing, hang gliding, golf, or plenty of other activities. Any of these can be done in under a 4 hour drive from the heart of Silicon Valley, a *fairly* populated area (toss out skiing and it's more like 1 hour). And I have have various friends who combined to every one of these, regularly. If you like your hobby, an hour drive on the weekend nothing.
Newsflash: just because your life sucks and you have no interest or time to go outside and have fun, doesn't mean the rest of us don't do it. If anything, modern life has *enabled* many more of these opportunities than previously available to the average person...
Sure, there are binary, trinary, decimal, and many other base number systems. How does that change that a binary bit no more and maybe less arbitrary than a decimal numeral?
Wow, that's horrible and backwards. I was in CS 90-94, and several of the class projects were specifically designed around "games". Games have always involved a lot of interesting and groundbreaking ideas in user interface, graphics, AI, optimization problems, etc. They are a great platform for teaching the foundations of computer science and programming.
Actually, nothing beyond one link was "echoed". And the link was to a BBC interview they contributed to, so I'm sure they are ecstatic that slashdot picked it up.
If you haven't noticed, this has never been a site for investigative journalism and hard hitting original reporting, it's mostly blog that posts links to other articles and lets people comment on them.
Except that bits and bytes are no more artificial than ones and zeroes, ie. Boolean algebra. And much less arbitrary than base 10 arithmetic, really. New technologies can help enable concepts like "fuzzy logic", but in the end even that is almost always represented in ones and zeroes...
Yep, good point - though the door lock, keyless entry, power windows, mirrors, seats, etc, are not really separate computers in any useful definition of "maintenance complexity", any more than my keyboard or mouse are separate computers because they happen to have a microcontroller in them:)
Complexity is only really added for things that can be firmware-upgraded, connected to do diagnostics, etc. The fact that there is a microcontroller in my mouse (or in a power mirror servo) doesn't mean it's any harder to replace.
But yeah, I'm sure even with that definition there are still more than 3...
Nowhere in any of the agreements you sign up to mention anything like that
Just not true. I guess it was too long for you to actually read before posting?.
Here are the relevant bits below. The summary is that they claim they may ("but are not obligated to") provide the software as a one-time stand-alone download or refund the purchase price on subscription termination, etc. And then it goes on to say that several of the limitations to their liability are invalid in the EU, that some states do not allow these limitations, and that if a court ruled against any part of the contract the other parts should still be valid.
In the end, it's a *contract*. A legal contract, so yes, there are legal obligations. If you feel the contract was violated, you have the right to sue to enforce it and/or receive damages/recompense, just like ANY contract. And Valve knows they will get their ass handed to them in court as well as damage the reputation of digital downloads in general if they sell you a product and then revoke your rights to it with no recompense.
====
2. In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase....
Valve's obligations are subject to existing laws and legal process and Valve may comply with law enforcement or regulatory requests or requirements notwithstanding any contrary term.... In the event that any provision of this Agreement shall be held by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction to be unenforceable, such provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining portions of this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect....
The terms of this section may not apply to European Union consumers....
YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY FOR ANY DISPUTE WITH VALVE WITH REGARD TO STEAM OR THE SOFTWARE IS TO DISCONTINUE USE OF STEAM AND CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT. BECAUSE SOME STATES OR JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR THE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, IN SUCH STATES OR JURISDICTIONS, VALVE, ITS LICENSORS, AND THEIR AFFILIATES LIABILITY SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
B. EXCLUSIVE REMEDY--MERCHANDISE.
YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT WITH REGARD TO ANY MERCHANDISE YOU PURCHASE VIA STEAM AS YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY, IN ADDITION TO THE REMEDIES EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN SECTION 3(C), VALVE MAY INCLUDE IN ITS OPTION THE RIGHT TO PAY TO YOU THE AMOUNT OF DIRECT DAMAGES ACTUALLY INCURRED BY YOU IN REASONABLE RELIANCE ON SUCH MERCHANDISE, AS LONG AS THAT AMOUNT DOES NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID VALVE FOR THE MERCHANDISE GIVING RISE TO THOSE DAMAGES.
I'm pretty sure more system administrators could learn how to troubleshoot a common cold than surgeons could learn to manage a Windows domain.
The common cold is a virus, there isn't anything to "troubleshoot". Oh, and it's not spread by opening infected Word documents... just in case that needed clarification.
And they get paid accordingly.
Yes, yes they do. I'm not sure whether you were intending to support or attack my comment, but you definitely did the former;)
The average person thinks a car (or even airplane for that matter) is more complicated than a computer.
And the average person is correct. Mechanical, electrical, and pneumatic complexities notwithstanding, my car has 3 computers in it as well.
If you are talking about designing the microprocessor from scratch, yes, computers are "complicated". If you are talking about building a computer from basic components and installing software on it - well, my 65 year old non-technical father figured out how to do that in a (long!;) weekend. He has also restored a car from fairly basic components, but that took over a year. And that was a '63 Triumph, which is about 1/10th as complex as a modern car...
If the end users knew better, they would be doing IT.
That right there is the exact attitude the OP was talking about;)
No offense, but I'm pretty sure more surgeons could learn how to troubleshoot a computer than system administrators could learn to remove an appendix. And they get paid accordingly.
1) they *are* obligated to in many states by law (CA one of those so I couldn't care less)
2) even in those they aren't they'd be hard pressed to win a class action lawsuit against them.
But it's mostly irrelevant - Valve/Steam is NOT out to get you, they are just a company distributing games. They don't want to go out of business any more than than their customers want them to, and based on their current success sounds like both parties are pretty happy so far.
It might be elastic if the majority of HDDs were people buying them at Fry's or Newegg. But that's noise compared to the current system integrator/OEM industry (Apple, Dell, HP, etc), that gets first dibs. The current fluctuation is because even with elasticity the supply to that last few percent or discount retailers is severely limited...
The reason is that multinational retailers, etc set their prices based on an exchange rate at a specific date, and then don't tend to change it based on the fluctuation of currency exchange rates. This is even more obvious for books in North America - most publishers use the same print for US & Canada, and on paperbacks they list MSRP as something like "$9.95 US, $13.95 CA". That was true in about 1990, but it's $1 US : $0.95 CA today!
In 2009, $1 AUS = $0.60 US Today it's almost 1:1. $80-90 AUS for a game that's $60 US wasn't too bad in 2009, but now it *seems* horrible in comparison.
On the up side, the Australian dollar is kicking ass against most foreign currencies right now, so Australian travelers are getting great deals these days.
It's not like there was 40% deflation in the Australian currency, though, so you no one is going to be too sympathetic. Software may be weirdly priced, but other physical imports should be cheaper. Probably not the best for the domestic tourism industry, though...
Just like how there's no guarantee that they won't at some future time take everybody's games away or require a subscription to access them.
Duh, yes, there is. As annoying as they are, ToS, EULA, purchase agreements, etc go both ways. And the way Steam's is worded, along with applicable laws, means they would have to either make the game available for download without Steam DRM, or refund you the purchase price.
Short of going out of business in a spectacular fashion (which is always a risk with an online service), the customer's purchases are reasonably protected.
Actually, it's even worse - *all* companies providing video content (even those doing PPV VOD, which the studios have no problem with in generall) currently have to negotiate individual contracts for each studio/network in each country.
If you have ever wondered why so many of the US companies providing streaming content have had such a hard time expanding into other countries... no, it's not translating the software or setting up the CDNs (those are big tasks, but well understood) - it's the f-ing studio contracts.
Slashdot Mirror
Drone in action!
They might gain a bit of respect in some circles by open sourcing projects, but they most definitely don't open source anything that is core to their profitable businesses. Which is why, for the most part, it seems like open source is rarely a good idea for startups.
Which implies all people not losing stuff are smart.
No it doesn't. If you lost a USB stick you are stupid, does not mean if you didn't lose a USB stick you are not stupid. It means if you are not stupid, you haven't lost a USB stick. Contrapositive, not inverse.
But I do agree carelessness != stupidity :) Though I would also argue carelessness it much more common in malware infections, so the correlation could still be there...
I mostly agree that Google's interviewing practices are pretty poor overall (no sour grapes - I prefer startups, who wants to work for a company with 10,000+ employees ;) - but from what I know about their bonus structure (which is not all that much) the bonus potential is huge, and tied more to performance than experience.
Annual bonuses of 30% of salary are common, and can be even higher for the superstars, which makes a "compressed pay scale" a lot less relevant, especially if the experienced employees actually show that their experience counted for something...
12 years and they haven't given you a better "title"? Usually that's the first thing a company will do to keep people around longer (it costs less to call you "Senior Member of Technical Staff" or "Software Architect" than give you a big raise).
I (and I'm sure many here) hate arbitrary titles, but the problem is a lot of companies look at your previous title to determine what salary range you should be at in their organization. You should at least get your current company to give you a "promotion" (if you think they value you enough to make demands) to a more appropriate title for someone with at least 12 years (and I assume more than that?) experience. Of course, it may not be in their best interest to make you seem more marketable...
Germany's system won't help much in other countries, because the reason Germans follow the traffic signals is that they are *German*.
And the vast majority of red lights run in the US are not by people who would stop but have bad reaction times, it's people who think their time is more important than everyone's safety, and consider yellow lights their last chance to get through the intersection any way they can.
Really, you *can* stop most of the illegal behavior. Make the yellow timing reasonable, definitely, but then put in a red light camera and a $500 fine for running the light. I guarantee after one of those tickets most people will start paying attention. The problem with this is that the installation and maintenance costs are so high cities lose money even with the increased tickets. And when they have tried sharing the profits with the camera companies to subsidize them, those companies lobby for profit over safety by having the yellow timing reduced as much as they can....
How about a ramp that pops up, so the red light runner will just end up flying over the intersection, Dukes of Hazzard style? Even better if the intersection had a PA system to play Dixie when it happens.
It might not be pretty when they land, that's their problem for running the light...
You'd think that would be enough time to write a *new* open source game engine...
Newsflash, modern life means opportunities to go away have severly decreased. Newsflash: r/c flying requires practice and upkeep.
Newsflash: so does surfing, mountain biking, rock climbing, horseback riding, kayaking, sailing, skiing, hang gliding, golf, or plenty of other activities. Any of these can be done in under a 4 hour drive from the heart of Silicon Valley, a *fairly* populated area (toss out skiing and it's more like 1 hour). And I have have various friends who combined to every one of these, regularly. If you like your hobby, an hour drive on the weekend nothing.
Newsflash: just because your life sucks and you have no interest or time to go outside and have fun, doesn't mean the rest of us don't do it. If anything, modern life has *enabled* many more of these opportunities than previously available to the average person...
Sure, there are binary, trinary, decimal, and many other base number systems. How does that change that a binary bit no more and maybe less arbitrary than a decimal numeral?
Wow, that's horrible and backwards. I was in CS 90-94, and several of the class projects were specifically designed around "games". Games have always involved a lot of interesting and groundbreaking ideas in user interface, graphics, AI, optimization problems, etc. They are a great platform for teaching the foundations of computer science and programming.
Actually, nothing beyond one link was "echoed". And the link was to a BBC interview they contributed to, so I'm sure they are ecstatic that slashdot picked it up.
If you haven't noticed, this has never been a site for investigative journalism and hard hitting original reporting, it's mostly blog that posts links to other articles and lets people comment on them.
Except that bits and bytes are no more artificial than ones and zeroes, ie. Boolean algebra. And much less arbitrary than base 10 arithmetic, really. New technologies can help enable concepts like "fuzzy logic", but in the end even that is almost always represented in ones and zeroes...
Yep, good point - though the door lock, keyless entry, power windows, mirrors, seats, etc, are not really separate computers in any useful definition of "maintenance complexity", any more than my keyboard or mouse are separate computers because they happen to have a microcontroller in them :)
Complexity is only really added for things that can be firmware-upgraded, connected to do diagnostics, etc. The fact that there is a microcontroller in my mouse (or in a power mirror servo) doesn't mean it's any harder to replace.
But yeah, I'm sure even with that definition there are still more than 3...
Nowhere in any of the agreements you sign up to mention anything like that
Just not true. I guess it was too long for you to actually read before posting?.
Here are the relevant bits below. The summary is that they claim they may ("but are not obligated to") provide the software as a one-time stand-alone download or refund the purchase price on subscription termination, etc. And then it goes on to say that several of the limitations to their liability are invalid in the EU, that some states do not allow these limitations, and that if a court ruled against any part of the contract the other parts should still be valid.
In the end, it's a *contract*. A legal contract, so yes, there are legal obligations. If you feel the contract was violated, you have the right to sue to enforce it and/or receive damages/recompense, just like ANY contract. And Valve knows they will get their ass handed to them in court as well as damage the reputation of digital downloads in general if they sell you a product and then revoke your rights to it with no recompense.
====
2. In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase. ...
Valve's obligations are subject to existing laws and legal process and Valve may comply with law enforcement or regulatory requests or requirements notwithstanding any contrary term. ... ...
In the event that any provision of this Agreement shall be held by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction to be unenforceable, such provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining portions of this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect.
The terms of this section may not apply to European Union consumers. ...
YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY FOR ANY DISPUTE WITH VALVE WITH REGARD TO STEAM OR THE SOFTWARE IS TO DISCONTINUE USE OF STEAM AND CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT. BECAUSE SOME STATES OR JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR THE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, IN SUCH STATES OR JURISDICTIONS, VALVE, ITS LICENSORS, AND THEIR AFFILIATES LIABILITY SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
B. EXCLUSIVE REMEDY--MERCHANDISE.
YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT WITH REGARD TO ANY MERCHANDISE YOU PURCHASE VIA STEAM AS YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY, IN ADDITION TO THE REMEDIES EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN SECTION 3(C), VALVE MAY INCLUDE IN ITS OPTION THE RIGHT TO PAY TO YOU THE AMOUNT OF DIRECT DAMAGES ACTUALLY INCURRED BY YOU IN REASONABLE RELIANCE ON SUCH MERCHANDISE, AS LONG AS THAT AMOUNT DOES NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID VALVE FOR THE MERCHANDISE GIVING RISE TO THOSE DAMAGES.
I'm pretty sure more system administrators could learn how to troubleshoot a common cold than surgeons could learn to manage a Windows domain.
The common cold is a virus, there isn't anything to "troubleshoot". Oh, and it's not spread by opening infected Word documents... just in case that needed clarification.
And they get paid accordingly.
Yes, yes they do. I'm not sure whether you were intending to support or attack my comment, but you definitely did the former ;)
The average person thinks a car (or even airplane for that matter) is more complicated than a computer.
And the average person is correct. Mechanical, electrical, and pneumatic complexities notwithstanding, my car has 3 computers in it as well.
If you are talking about designing the microprocessor from scratch, yes, computers are "complicated". If you are talking about building a computer from basic components and installing software on it - well, my 65 year old non-technical father figured out how to do that in a (long! ;) weekend. He has also restored a car from fairly basic components, but that took over a year. And that was a '63 Triumph, which is about 1/10th as complex as a modern car...
If the end users knew better, they would be doing IT.
That right there is the exact attitude the OP was talking about ;)
No offense, but I'm pretty sure more surgeons could learn how to troubleshoot a computer than system administrators could learn to remove an appendix. And they get paid accordingly.
Except:
1) they *are* obligated to in many states by law (CA one of those so I couldn't care less)
2) even in those they aren't they'd be hard pressed to win a class action lawsuit against them.
But it's mostly irrelevant - Valve/Steam is NOT out to get you, they are just a company distributing games. They don't want to go out of business any more than than their customers want them to, and based on their current success sounds like both parties are pretty happy so far.
Really? Now that is some serious bullshit, I have to agree...
It might be elastic if the majority of HDDs were people buying them at Fry's or Newegg. But that's noise compared to the current system integrator/OEM industry (Apple, Dell, HP, etc), that gets first dibs. The current fluctuation is because even with elasticity the supply to that last few percent or discount retailers is severely limited...
Damn, reversed it. I reversed the AUS:US ratio, too, but then fixed it before I posted :) Point is the same, any comment other than than nitpicks?
The reason is that multinational retailers, etc set their prices based on an exchange rate at a specific date, and then don't tend to change it based on the fluctuation of currency exchange rates. This is even more obvious for books in North America - most publishers use the same print for US & Canada, and on paperbacks they list MSRP as something like "$9.95 US, $13.95 CA". That was true in about 1990, but it's $1 US : $0.95 CA today!
In 2009, $1 AUS = $0.60 US Today it's almost 1:1. $80-90 AUS for a game that's $60 US wasn't too bad in 2009, but now it *seems* horrible in comparison.
On the up side, the Australian dollar is kicking ass against most foreign currencies right now, so Australian travelers are getting great deals these days.
It's not like there was 40% deflation in the Australian currency, though, so you no one is going to be too sympathetic. Software may be weirdly priced, but other physical imports should be cheaper. Probably not the best for the domestic tourism industry, though...
Just like how there's no guarantee that they won't at some future time take everybody's games away or require a subscription to access them.
Duh, yes, there is. As annoying as they are, ToS, EULA, purchase agreements, etc go both ways. And the way Steam's is worded, along with applicable laws, means they would have to either make the game available for download without Steam DRM, or refund you the purchase price.
Short of going out of business in a spectacular fashion (which is always a risk with an online service), the customer's purchases are reasonably protected.
Actually, it's even worse - *all* companies providing video content (even those doing PPV VOD, which the studios have no problem with in generall) currently have to negotiate individual contracts for each studio/network in each country.
If you have ever wondered why so many of the US companies providing streaming content have had such a hard time expanding into other countries... no, it's not translating the software or setting up the CDNs (those are big tasks, but well understood) - it's the f-ing studio contracts.