> TW2002 is really where I met Hemos, Nate, and Kurt The Pope.
No! Not Kurt The Pope! The Vatican have been looking for him for ages. No wonder the Catholic church is in such a bad state.
Seriously though, this is not as positive a thing as the old version. It seems less sociable - people won't meet for this version of the game - and that is something very significant.
Just imagine if Taco was 10 years younger, and instead of playing the game and meeting people, he just stayed at home. The result would be no Slashdot!
This, I think, more than anything else illustrates the damaging effects of these kind of games. People are playing games in their bedrooms with other people and not going out.
They are not socializing the same, and the undoubted result is the loss of things like Slashdot. There are good and bad effects here, and I think this shows how the internet can be negative - people using the internet imagine they are socializing when in fact they are not. This makes society a less sociable place, which has a number of bad effects:
1. as society disintegrates, the loss of trust for each other means that crime increases, as people no longer look out for each other, and no longer care for their neighbors.
2. meetings of minds no longer occur. This story, although it doesn't say it, says this: 'Progress means that the guys who invented/. would never have met', because now everything's done without face-to-face contact over the 'net.
This loss of contact is bad news: bad news individually, because human contact has important productivity implications - those who are happy and sociable are more productive.
3. there is the collapse of community businesses. As people withdraw further into their homes and internet games, businesses that relied on people like Rob going out go bust, since they no longer socialize.
I don't think this game is bad on its own, but it symbolizes a lot of other negative things.
I remember when I was in school, programming my Commodore 64, and the joy was in just how primitive it all was. Just typing in those BASIC commands, waiting while that tape drive chugged away - that was half the fun of it.
Nowadays, everything's instantaneous, and people don't realize the fun of waiting. This is a problem with our culture I think. Everything has to be so fast.
It's all fast food, fast cars, fast living, and it's not good for us.
It is no coincidence that in countries where they take things slowly that they have lower rates of heart disease, and lower incidence of stress-related industry.
Sure it's nice to have fast things every now and then, but I worry that people will forget the experience of waiting - the thrill of anticipation as that new game installs, the pause while the computer boots up, etc. It would be great to just go to a nice restaurant with nice slow service, and then to come back and use that Commodore 64 again.
All this speed means that people don't appreciate what they've got - they don't appreciate the joys of living - the call of birdsong, the flowers coming up in the spring - because they're too busy. And busy doing what? Busy doing things too damn quickly. Of course I'm not saying that progress is bad, but just that this is symptomatic of the ever faster pace of life; the way we don't speak to each other, the fact we take minutes for meals, and seconds for just talking. We should take the time out to enjoy life every now and then.
This is the way forward, and it's not something to be afraid of. What people always forget, is that TCO is the only thing that matters. By having a regular upgrade/subscription cycle, we have the following:
1. improved productivity, thanks to the improvements in software effected between upgrades
2. no compatibility issues - again these cost money; by constantly being up-to-date, we have no risk of not being able to read that vital document.
3. better budgeting. If we know that our software will cost $x/year, every year, we can budget for that. There is then no risk of unseen costs.
4. reduced impact on cashflow. Subscriptions mean that there is a lower initial cost - this means there is more money available to develop the business *now*.
The thing is, subscriptions are just being realistic - if you pretend that you're still going to be using those P3's running Office xxxx in 5 years time, you're wrong.
All the subscription/ASP approach acknowledges is that we have to upgrade anyway - companies are always upgrading hardware and software in order to gain the productivity benefits they attract.
Regularizing this, and making this explicit is not a harmful thing to do.
Kalvin? Isn't a bit unfair on Hobbes to reduce Kalvin so much? Would you like such small friend?
Seriously though, it's Kelvin, named after the scientist, and it's not degrees Kelvin, it's simply Kelvin, since Kelvin is an absolute scale.
For those who don't know, 1/1000000th of a Kelvin is very very slightly above absolute zero, the temperature at which there is absolutely no molecular movememnt (because there's no heat energy). 0 K = absolute zero - 272 degrees Celsius.
Kelvin is the same as the Celsius (1 K= 1degree C), but with absolute zero as 0 instead of 0 as the freezing pt of water at normal conditions.
I have studied intellectual property law, and there is protection for this.
It's called passing off - where a product or company is confusingly similar to another company, such that consumers might be misled, the tort of passing off is committed.
In this case, there is certainly such a risk of confusion - many companies simply prepend e to their names to form their electronic division - and so ereferee would seem to be referee's electronic division.
It is not, as is claimed a ban on the use of the word. This is a very restrictive action in law, designed to protect the goodwill of companies trading from ripoff merchants.
If this happened in the physical world, there would be no complaint, so why should the internet be any difference?
It's just the natural evolution of the internet - as it comes under the same regulation as the rest of human endeavor, companies will be protected at last.
I predict that this will happen on Maslyanitsa (the Russian festival just before Lent).
After all, for the once mighty Russian nation, a space station represents a major symbol of pride, so they will certainly want minimum publicity as it crashes into the ocean - it's an act of impotence rather symoblic of the state of the Russian nation as a whole - and so they will choose a day when people are too busy partying to care.
What they have said, is that the government should not encourage it.
And this is more fair.
Let me explain:
The ultimate goal of Open Source is free software.
Now this means that you don't pay anything for it.
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses, since, as is the stated aim of many OS people, MS will be dead - and MS funds a lot of universities.
Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced.
Finally, the fact is that nothing is truly free, and nothing costs money.
Let me talk about the economy. You would agree that in the past few years, it's been doing great.
Furthermore, if you ask an economist to tell you why, they will tell you it's due to IT growth.
Industry produces wealth - they produce the fact that California is the 6-th wealthiest nation worth, and they help the economy.
Killing this industry will not make everything free, but will rather damage the economy.
Without the growth from *purchases* (which business can afford), the economy will not do as well.
A self-healing material sounds marvellous, but the fact is, as in real life, things need to break, as part of the natural cycle - if not, there is a potentially greater risk to us.
The potential that this gives is that machinery will be kept for many years - and since it won't break, it will be kept far past the point where it is safe to use.
There will be a lot of obsolete technology in use as a result in future, which will, at best, mean the users of the technology will be disadvantaged, and, at worst, subjected to inferior safety standards compared to modern machinery.
The fact is that much of the improvements made in society come through built-in obsolescence; without things breaking, we would be stuck using the technology of the 1940s - and no-one would want that.
Still further, people often don't realize the extent to which obsolescence is important to the economy - without it, after a few years an industry would become almost obsolete, since all the old equipment would still be in use.
By having things break, however, jobs are created, and improvements are made - it is far better overall to have a rolling replacement cycle than to persist with the same crappy machinery forever.
The problem with this is that remote administration restricts you to using Windows or Apple (because PCAnywhere isn't available for Unix) - and you might prefer a 'free' solution (although I guess this demonstrates the importance of TCO - it's not the initial purchase price that counts, it's the total cost of ownership).
> putting it into mobile devices becomes easier to do.
is not really a good thing.
Mobile devices translate to
* more work for someone. They mean that people will never be free from work wherever they go.
This is not a good thing.
I can't see anywhere where this is going to have positive benefits in human terms - more wives separated from their husbands, more stress, less time spent by parents with their children, etc.
IAAL, and if you use confidential information gained during the course of your employment, you are probably in trouble.
Simply describing incompetence or whatever is perfectly reasonable.
The only thing you could get in shit for is, for example, revealing confidential information (such as trade secrets), or dealing with their customers if the contract of employment reasonably (this is key in contracts in restraint of trade, which are enforced leniently by the courts).
Make sure:
(a) what you say is true
(b) what you say is not a trade secret
and you'll be fine.
But what you say is not true.
They do not have those rights. They can put that in the contract, but because it is considered a bad thing by the courts to restrain people's freedom of employment, they will not necessarily be enforced.
For example, forbidding you from working in the same employment would be unreasonable, whereas forbidding you from dealing with the company's customers for a specified period (not forever - that would be unenforceable) after the end of your employment would not be allowed.
When I sign contracts I take this into account - I ignore, and anticipate breaking, all of those that are legally unreasonable.
This is something that Slashdot does. When it posts a link to a small site, it knows, from experience, that this is likely to break the site.
This is no different from a script kiddie attacking a site. Both are acting irresponsibility.
Slashdot knows that by posting the link it is likely to cause serious loss of function - so do the hackers. It's like driving your car at 150mph and then saying "You can't blame me because people are dead". It's a silly argument.
Slashdot is being hypocritical by posting this story, considering it hass killed more sites than any script kiddie.
Excuses are not good enough. Slashdot has no obligation to link to sites. Other business are forced to act in a responsible manner - they don't let factories release any amount of chemical they like, and so it should be with Slashdot.
I'm sorry if I'm a traditionalist, but aren't games about having fun?
Why do they have to teach us about zero sum?
They shouldn't teach us anything.
I think that's the most important lesson. Games are about escapism - tell your kids that the best thing to do in life is to go out and enjoy it, and they'll be doing pretty well. If you stopped trying to teach them things they'd be a lot happier.
Think like that.
Don't try and take the fun out of it for them. Kids who grow up thinking about game theory and who are taught that life is depressing and unfair (non-zero) will not be happy.
Just play cards with them.
Read them a book.
Take them to the movies - anything but depressing games.
It's really nice to see something as literate and well-written as that posted to Slashdot.
Perhaps it will start a trend:-).
On the American right to lie, I think it's a good point - Americans do think they have a right to lie.
But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's through the American arrogance that such a great nation has been built.
You don't make the greatest country on Earth by being nice to everyone.
Also, even though lieing is a positive thing from a success point of view, I think in many respects Americans have a right to lie - as human beings (the most successful animal), we have dominion over the animals, and as the most successful nation, I think America should be allowed a little leeway.
Slashdot Mirror
NASA make most of their stuff open source.
This isn't an extra HTTP header, as is correctly stated at the article. It's a modification of a value of an existing one.
An HTTP header is e.g., Content-type: text/html; this is just changing the value of an existing one.
And, what is more, the User-Agent header is an informative header, so it's just adding more information about the user agent. So what?
As a computer-illiterate boss, one wants to know that ones staff know what they are doing. A certificate shows this - your word doesn't.
> TW2002 is really where I met Hemos, Nate, and Kurt The Pope.
/. would never have met', because now everything's done without face-to-face contact over the 'net.
No! Not Kurt The Pope! The Vatican have been looking for him for ages. No wonder the Catholic church is in such a bad state.
Seriously though, this is not as positive a thing as the old version. It seems less sociable - people won't meet for this version of the game - and that is something very significant.
Just imagine if Taco was 10 years younger, and instead of playing the game and meeting people, he just stayed at home. The result would be no Slashdot!
This, I think, more than anything else illustrates the damaging effects of these kind of games. People are playing games in their bedrooms with other people and not going out.
They are not socializing the same, and the undoubted result is the loss of things like Slashdot. There are good and bad effects here, and I think this shows how the internet can be negative - people using the internet imagine they are socializing when in fact they are not. This makes society a less sociable place, which has a number of bad effects:
1. as society disintegrates, the loss of trust for each other means that crime increases, as people no longer look out for each other, and no longer care for their neighbors.
2. meetings of minds no longer occur. This story, although it doesn't say it, says this: 'Progress means that the guys who invented
This loss of contact is bad news: bad news individually, because human contact has important productivity implications - those who are happy and sociable are more productive.
3. there is the collapse of community businesses. As people withdraw further into their homes and internet games, businesses that relied on people like Rob going out go bust, since they no longer socialize.
I don't think this game is bad on its own, but it symbolizes a lot of other negative things.
But that's symptomatic of the problem. You need to opt out of that slippery slide down the road towards work/slavery.
I remember when I was in school, programming my Commodore 64, and the joy was in just how primitive it all was. Just typing in those BASIC commands, waiting while that tape drive chugged away - that was half the fun of it.
Nowadays, everything's instantaneous, and people don't realize the fun of waiting. This is a problem with our culture I think. Everything has to be so fast.
It's all fast food, fast cars, fast living, and it's not good for us.
It is no coincidence that in countries where they take things slowly that they have lower rates of heart disease, and lower incidence of stress-related industry.
Sure it's nice to have fast things every now and then, but I worry that people will forget the experience of waiting - the thrill of anticipation as that new game installs, the pause while the computer boots up, etc. It would be great to just go to a nice restaurant with nice slow service, and then to come back and use that Commodore 64 again.
All this speed means that people don't appreciate what they've got - they don't appreciate the joys of living - the call of birdsong, the flowers coming up in the spring - because they're too busy. And busy doing what? Busy doing things too damn quickly. Of course I'm not saying that progress is bad, but just that this is symptomatic of the ever faster pace of life; the way we don't speak to each other, the fact we take minutes for meals, and seconds for just talking. We should take the time out to enjoy life every now and then.
This is the way forward, and it's not something to be afraid of. What people always forget, is that TCO is the only thing that matters. By having a regular upgrade/subscription cycle, we have the following:
1. improved productivity, thanks to the improvements in software effected between upgrades
2. no compatibility issues - again these cost money; by constantly being up-to-date, we have no risk of not being able to read that vital document.
3. better budgeting. If we know that our software will cost $x/year, every year, we can budget for that. There is then no risk of unseen costs.
4. reduced impact on cashflow. Subscriptions mean that there is a lower initial cost - this means there is more money available to develop the business *now*.
The thing is, subscriptions are just being realistic - if you pretend that you're still going to be using those P3's running Office xxxx in 5 years time, you're wrong.
All the subscription/ASP approach acknowledges is that we have to upgrade anyway - companies are always upgrading hardware and software in order to gain the productivity benefits they attract.
Regularizing this, and making this explicit is not a harmful thing to do.
Kalvin? Isn't a bit unfair on Hobbes to reduce Kalvin so much? Would you like such small friend?
Seriously though, it's Kelvin, named after the scientist, and it's not degrees Kelvin, it's simply Kelvin, since Kelvin is an absolute scale.
For those who don't know, 1/1000000th of a Kelvin is very very slightly above absolute zero, the temperature at which there is absolutely no molecular movememnt (because there's no heat energy). 0 K = absolute zero - 272 degrees Celsius.
Kelvin is the same as the Celsius (1 K= 1degree C), but with absolute zero as 0 instead of 0 as the freezing pt of water at normal conditions.
This is also covered by law.
There has to be a risk of confusion. For example, MacDonalds construction and McDonalds burgers have no risk of confusion.
Basically if you are in widely different industries, it's ok. In this case, however, both products are magazines, so confusion is likely.
I have studied intellectual property law, and there is protection for this.
It's called passing off - where a product or company is confusingly similar to another company, such that consumers might be misled, the tort of passing off is committed.
In this case, there is certainly such a risk of confusion - many companies simply prepend e to their names to form their electronic division - and so ereferee would seem to be referee's electronic division.
It is not, as is claimed a ban on the use of the word. This is a very restrictive action in law, designed to protect the goodwill of companies trading from ripoff merchants.
If this happened in the physical world, there would be no complaint, so why should the internet be any difference?
It's just the natural evolution of the internet - as it comes under the same regulation as the rest of human endeavor, companies will be protected at last.
I really can't see any problem here.
I predict that this will happen on Maslyanitsa (the Russian festival just before Lent).
After all, for the once mighty Russian nation, a space station represents a major symbol of pride, so they will certainly want minimum publicity as it crashes into the ocean - it's an act of impotence rather symoblic of the state of the Russian nation as a whole - and so they will choose a day when people are too busy partying to care.
MS do not want to outlaw Open Source.
What they have said, is that the government should not encourage it.
And this is more fair.
Let me explain:
The ultimate goal of Open Source is free software.
Now this means that you don't pay anything for it.
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses, since, as is the stated aim of many OS people, MS will be dead - and MS funds a lot of universities.
Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced.
Finally, the fact is that nothing is truly free, and nothing costs money.
Let me talk about the economy. You would agree that in the past few years, it's been doing great.
Furthermore, if you ask an economist to tell you why, they will tell you it's due to IT growth.
Industry produces wealth - they produce the fact that California is the 6-th wealthiest nation worth, and they help the economy.
Killing this industry will not make everything free, but will rather damage the economy.
Without the growth from *purchases* (which business can afford), the economy will not do as well.
Hmm.
A self-healing material sounds marvellous, but the fact is, as in real life, things need to break, as part of the natural cycle - if not, there is a potentially greater risk to us.
The potential that this gives is that machinery will be kept for many years - and since it won't break, it will be kept far past the point where it is safe to use.
There will be a lot of obsolete technology in use as a result in future, which will, at best, mean the users of the technology will be disadvantaged, and, at worst, subjected to inferior safety standards compared to modern machinery.
The fact is that much of the improvements made in society come through built-in obsolescence; without things breaking, we would be stuck using the technology of the 1940s - and no-one would want that.
Still further, people often don't realize the extent to which obsolescence is important to the economy - without it, after a few years an industry would become almost obsolete, since all the old equipment would still be in use.
By having things break, however, jobs are created, and improvements are made - it is far better overall to have a rolling replacement cycle than to persist with the same crappy machinery forever.
The problem with this is that remote administration restricts you to using Windows or Apple (because PCAnywhere isn't available for Unix) - and you might prefer a 'free' solution (although I guess this demonstrates the importance of TCO - it's not the initial purchase price that counts, it's the total cost of ownership).
but:
> putting it into mobile devices becomes easier to do.
is not really a good thing.
Mobile devices translate to
* more work for someone. They mean that people will never be free from work wherever they go.
This is not a good thing.
I can't see anywhere where this is going to have positive benefits in human terms - more wives separated from their husbands, more stress, less time spent by parents with their children, etc.
IAAL, and if you use confidential information gained during the course of your employment, you are probably in trouble.
Simply describing incompetence or whatever is perfectly reasonable.
The only thing you could get in shit for is, for example, revealing confidential information (such as trade secrets), or dealing with their customers if the contract of employment reasonably (this is key in contracts in restraint of trade, which are enforced leniently by the courts).
Make sure:
(a) what you say is true
(b) what you say is not a trade secret
and you'll be fine.
But what you say is not true.
They do not have those rights. They can put that in the contract, but because it is considered a bad thing by the courts to restrain people's freedom of employment, they will not necessarily be enforced.
For example, forbidding you from working in the same employment would be unreasonable, whereas forbidding you from dealing with the company's customers for a specified period (not forever - that would be unenforceable) after the end of your employment would not be allowed.
When I sign contracts I take this into account - I ignore, and anticipate breaking, all of those that are legally unreasonable.
This is something that Slashdot does. When it posts a link to a small site, it knows, from experience, that this is likely to break the site.
This is no different from a script kiddie attacking a site. Both are acting irresponsibility.
Slashdot knows that by posting the link it is likely to cause serious loss of function - so do the hackers. It's like driving your car at 150mph and then saying "You can't blame me because people are dead". It's a silly argument.
Slashdot is being hypocritical by posting this story, considering it hass killed more sites than any script kiddie.
Excuses are not good enough. Slashdot has no obligation to link to sites. Other business are forced to act in a responsible manner - they don't let factories release any amount of chemical they like, and so it should be with Slashdot.
I really don't like this hypocrisy.
Someone provides something.
They want you to register for that service.
Big deal!
It's not news.
It's about as newsworthy as saying that Sears want you to give them your details before they'll send you a catalog.
Oh wait.
They do already.
So what?
Now maybe if Sears stopped providing their service that might be interesting.
But this, this is of no significance.
Promiscuous devices sending matter flying through the air?
Are you sure this is suitable for a family website?
Oh well.
But you might as well say that as you won't leave your house, you're untouched by street crime.
While it's true, you're missing out on a lot. Personally I prefer to live life to the full.
Here is the login-free URL
I'm sorry if I'm a traditionalist, but aren't games about having fun?
Why do they have to teach us about zero sum?
They shouldn't teach us anything.
I think that's the most important lesson. Games are about escapism - tell your kids that the best thing to do in life is to go out and enjoy it, and they'll be doing pretty well. If you stopped trying to teach them things they'd be a lot happier.
Think like that.
Don't try and take the fun out of it for them. Kids who grow up thinking about game theory and who are taught that life is depressing and unfair (non-zero) will not be happy.
Just play cards with them.
Read them a book.
Take them to the movies - anything but depressing games.
It's really nice to see something as literate and well-written as that posted to Slashdot.
:-).
Perhaps it will start a trend
On the American right to lie, I think it's a good point - Americans do think they have a right to lie.
But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's through the American arrogance that such a great nation has been built.
You don't make the greatest country on Earth by being nice to everyone.
Also, even though lieing is a positive thing from a success point of view, I think in many respects Americans have a right to lie - as human beings (the most successful animal), we have dominion over the animals, and as the most successful nation, I think America should be allowed a little leeway.