The cameras are in place. If they are not being removed then the public SHOULD have full access to all the cameras to ensure that the government isn't burying "embarresing" images, and is actually using the cameras as promised. Having public access is the ponly way to prevent government abuse.
If the public cannot see the images from these publilc cmaeras then the cameras should be taken down.
This is the only way to prevent government abuse of these cameras. If the public has full acess to the cameras then government/police can't bury images they don't like.
If cameras do monitor public spaces it should be the law that ANY citizen can see both the live images and any stored images at any time.
The only question to discuss is if there should be cameras at all. If there are cameras then the public should have access to prevent government abuse.
I'm a programmer with a commercial game publish. My brother is a musician. Getting a music CD made is just as much work as creating "garage game".
To make a music CD or even an MP3 you can't just record a live a gig and put it out - no one will listen to it unless you have an established following for live concerts. Getting to the stage where a band can get regular local live gigs is HARD. You think managing programmers is hard? Try managing musicians.
To create a good music CD you have to do the following:
write the song lyrics
write the music
play the new song live over and over, refining and improving it
lay down all the tracks, eg druns, bass, guitar, vocals, keyboards etc...
mix the song
Do all the above at least 13 times for a CD
I can make a low-budget game all on my own, in a couple years in my spare time. It takes at least as long to make a full length CD, and the problems with keeping the band together are much worse than any programming project I ever worked on.
"What I see in the industry is a definite trend toward companies caring much less about their employees."
It is a trend that is especially strong in companies that do IT, and consulting has it worst of all. I worked for 13 years in a large firm in the internal IT department. Most of us do long term operational support, with a big upgrade done every 3 to 5 years in various systems. We were privatized 3 years ago and bought by a large firm with a strong background in IT consulting, but very little experience in operations. Their attidute towards employees is very simple: you are a replaceable cog.
They do not seem to care that the long term employees know the systems inside and out. They do not seem to have caught on that long term operations is not the same as a consulting gig. In the consulting world they expected employees to move up - or out. We have lots of people that have done the same job for 5 years or more at stretch. Some key people operating large legacy systems that are highly customized are very difficult to replace.
The new company, to get its foot in the door, agreed to a contract that loses money given our current level of salary and benefits. They now expect us to take a 25% cut, or leave.
This does not improve employee "engagement" or moral.
I was planning on working for another 17 years, collecting a pension, and living happily every after. The old employer wasn't perfect, but they never treated us with total contempt. Now I think I will stick it out until my kids get through university and move on to something else as fast as a can. If they actuall force the 25% cut on us, I'll leave sooner.
There are only 6 people in provice I leave that know anything about the large enterprise app I maintain, and it is so highly customized that it will take a new person one to two years to know enough about the system to make anything but trivial updates. Do I have a backup? Do I have a trainee? Of course not. Gives me job security, but it certainly isn't a best practise. I used to have 2 to 4 people working under me.
So, I would not worry about being loyal to most large firms, they certainly do not value you.
Thank you USA congress for passing yet another law that will help ensure that people outside of the USA will have an easier time making money using new technologies. Thanks for banning most of our streamcasting competition - OH! and thanks for stupid software patents too! Those realy help. Please, keep up the good work. Only the American Congress could work so hard to help the rest of the world make a buck using new technologies like the internet and digital media.
Re:That's an okay idea, but...
on
Abandoned Games
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Sometimes the code is just gone.
I wrote a commercial game back in 1989, and as far as I know the source code is GONE. A backup on floppies survived until the early 1990's, but I sure don't have a copy anymore. Even if I did, I don't own the copyright - the publisher does, and they got bought out by a bigger firm a long time ago (which in turn was itself eaten). The publisher owned all the art and sound copyright also.
Re:Is communism bad in theory or only in practice?
on
Google's China Problem
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· Score: 1
The first problem with communism is that it is a dictatorship which often (almost always) leads to abuse. those in charge help their friends and families, and otherwise abuse pwoer like any other dictator.
Centrally planned economies did not effectivley allocate resources so their economies did not grow very fast which lead to lower standards of living. The "5 year" plans mainly did not work. If someone high up had a really bone headed plan it got forced down everyones throats. In a free economy the bone headed plan wouldd only affect one company.
Another big problem is the "free rider". In theory everyone works as hard as they can for the good of society then every draws what they need, equal to every one. But in practise this leads to people doing minimal work because there is no advantage to working hard. A saying in old communist Russia was "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us".
You only have to watch Fox news once or twice to see that is very, very, slanted towards supporting the current USA republican government.
It parrots the governments line on all topics, and often features right wing talking heads yelling at centerists. It makes Conrad Black look even handed.
The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. It did not start in the 14th century and end in the mid 19th. There is a great deal of evidence indicating that we have actually had an impact on the global environment by burning fossil fuels. Most evidence indiactes that humans have actually increased the rate at which the earth is warming. We do have the power, if we chose to wield it, to affect the global climate.
You have obviously never run your own small business.
Unless you inherit a lot of money the only capital you have is what you saved at your "real" job (and maybe some money from friends and family) before you started your business. Unless you REALLY luck out your indie game is not going to sell a million copies. Having a nice web site isn't going to make a big difference. You have to realisticly look at how much you can earn on a title and only invest the time and capital in the title that you think you can recoup - or there will not be a next game. Small business, game developer, restraunt owner, etc... are generally one bad year a way from disaster.
You mention "other sources of income". Well, main stream games, are "other sources of income". If there was a magic "other source of income" that actually made enough money to develop a complete game I think I might have heard about it by now.
Do you know how EA got big? By being mainstream. By never taking chances. by developing well polished, known to sell well, titles. The small guy may want to try something inovative, but if it bombs there may well not be a next title, and that isn't due to running the business poorly, that is just how it is when you are small. A well run small business only takes chances it knows it can afford.
It is a fact that kids do NOT seek out educational titles. Even if the game is educational you don't market it that way.
Spurious complaints could be a problem, but by looking at the overall picture of a managers "tickets" it should be easy to see if there is a problem or not. A culture that values honesty should also help a lot.
Re:Manned exploration is a stupid vanity project
on
US Plans Lunar Motel
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· Score: 1
We should do both. The long term goal of psace exploration should be self-sustaitining colonies on other planets, and the long, long term goal should be colonies on other start systems.
With goal in mind it makes sense to continually imporve our technology for getting people into psace, and continue with robatic science missions which do give us a better "bang for the buck".
If the Americans spent all the money they wasted on the war in Iraq on space exploration they could have a Mars base in 20 years.
If there was inflation after the big bang then current theories PREDICT that the back-ground microwave radiation will have certain features. These features have been found. This is how science works. This is how theories are TESTED.
They are sampling over large parts of the entire universe. They can point the microwave detector in whatever direction they want. They are making huge numbers of observations - not a small number.
I played single player half-life with a girl-friend. I used the mouse, she the keyboard. You have to work together, communicate, and it was fun to work on the puzzles together. After a while we could fight more effectively than I could playing normally.
There is no relation between strong property laws and SLAPP suites.
Strong property rights can take many forms. If you have strong indivual rights, as opposed to group rights, you generally also have strong property rights. I am talking about REAL property not so called intellectual property.
SLAPP suits come about because of bad tort law, not overly strong property laws.
I'm firmly of the belief that all rights should apply to individuals only - not groups. This is the only way to prevent the majority from abusing their power. Many bad things have been done in the name of "improving society" which turned out to just be an excuse to oppress individuals.
As for the "violence of poverty". You are correct that a "deemphasis on personal material gain" could make for a better society, but you can't pass laws to bring it about. It is a cultural change. A good example is drunk driving laws. Where I live there have been laws against drunk driving since there were cars, but drunk driving was socially acceptable so the practise continued. The laws was toughed up a bit, but what actually caused a drop in drunk driving was a change in attidute in genal towards it. It came to be seen as a very dangerous, selfish act that was likely to harm innocent people. It was this change in culture that brought down the drunk driving rates.
To stop silly lawsuits you have to change the culture. Jurys have to stop handing out huge settlements (lawsuit bingo). People have to think it is wrong to use the courts to settle every little dispute. People have to despise people who abuse the courst. Abusers have to be punished by the courts.
Back to poverty. Yes, the middle class is shrinking, but most of that is driven by globalization, and technology change. These things are hard to stop. Remember, only 200 years ago over 90% of Americans worked on farms. 200 years from now the idea that a large percentage of Americans worked at high paying blue collar factory jobs will seems just as quaint.
CEO pay is disgusting. Why don't sharholders revolt against that?
I still ike to see "epics" at the theatre. Star Wars, Troy, stuff that looks and sounds better on the big screen. I also go to see small "artsy" films that can be hard to find on DVD, but do get shown regularly at the smaller theares in town. Luckily, where I live there are lots of good, well maintained theatres.
But pickings have been slim this year. I buy discount coupons in bulk (3 kids), but there hasn't been anything worth watching in 4 or 5 weeks. I'll go see a movie a week if there is something good to see. Rotten Tomatoes has saved many a wasted afternoon. You see the add on TV or the trailer in the theatre, the action looks cool, the story doesn't seem too stupid, so I check it out and find out its getting 13% or 5%!! Read a couple of reviews (sometimes I like "bad" movies) just to make sure it realy does suck. I used to have to chance it because it might be gone before a friend saw it. Now bad movies don't get a weeks grace, they get opening day grace.
The original $10,000 threshold for reporting cash transactions is from 1970. A few tweaks have been made over the yers, but no big changes until 2001 and the anti-patriot act.
Business doesn't hire old people because old people generally know their rights and won't accept poor working conditions and wages. The business knows that you are technically compentant, but they want to hire some youngster that they can abuse - work unpaid over-time, accept lower wages, etc...
I disagree. If you use words in non-standard ways people who are not already familiar with the unique way you use the words will not understand what you are are trying to say. Writing in an informal manner, even using slang, is fine if you are writing to a small circle of friends, but when writing for the general public you will get your ideas and meaning across clearly only if you use standard english.
Many groups and many people in various professions use jargon to speed up their communications, but these same professionals have to remember that when communicating to people outside of their profession they will not share their jargon. It is especially important when using common words or phrases in a manner specific to your field. For example, when our pay department writes about "reported time" they are not talking about when a report was written or printed which is the meaning most people would think they mean in most of their notes. No, "reported time" means anything that is not regular salary that appears on a time sheet.
Writing using correct grammar and puncuation makes the writing easier to read. You do not have to stop and puzzle out what an oddly phrased sentance is trying to say. Well written essays are simply more enjoyable to read. This doesn't mean we should revert to the ornate writting of the 17th century English court, only that being able to write clearly in standard english is a skill worth cultivating if you plan on effectively communicating with the general public.
"delayed indefinitely" is NASA speak for cancelled.
For more information on the cancelled science mission see The planetary Society which has been fighting Congress for science mission funding for years. You don't have to be a member to help out.
Cops only need a high school diploma only? Do you live in a third world country? Where I live, in the great white north, most cops are university educated, and then are trained for 6 months at a special cop school, then get 6 months field training before becoming police officers.
Sure they spend some time writing speeding tickets, but cases where sections of road have artificially low speed limits just don't exist. Unless there has been a rash of speeding, or a fatality caused by speeding, you rarely see a group of cops pulling people over. Usualy you see exactly one, and he has his lights on and flashing everytime he pulls some over as a warning to everyone else. The provincial governent actually got rid of photo-radar for speeding, and limits its use for running reds.
If your police suck so bad why don't you vote for a politicion willing to fix the problem?
High quality music cannot be made smaller. mp3's compress music by throwing away parts of the music using clever algorithms that take advantage of the way your brain processes sound. mp3's are fine for listening to music on cheap headphones, but they certainly do not cut it for a good quality home stereo system.
Storage is getting cheap. Full-CD quality files will be fit just fine on devices with huge storage. I'm not switching to downloading music until I can buy it in full CD quality, legally.
I have seen no evidence that any of the liberal profs made the classroom hostile to other points of view. Have any students complained that essays and papers are graded by the idealology they support instead of the quality of the way their ideas are expressed?
In some classes students are invited to discuss issues, but in general the prof is in charge. The place for students to disagree loudly is outside the classroom. A fair prof will give good grades for papers that do not refelct his views, but I must admit that there are a few profs that fail to do this.
As for a neutral POV, I disagree. Some subjects, especially in the arts, do not lend themselves to a neutral POV. A good prof will state his biases, will teach all sides as best as possible, but the student will be aware of the profs biases and be able to take them into account.
Slashdot Mirror
If the public cannot see the images from these publilc cmaeras then the cameras should be taken down.
If cameras do monitor public spaces it should be the law that ANY citizen can see both the live images and any stored images at any time.
The only question to discuss is if there should be cameras at all. If there are cameras then the public should have access to prevent government abuse.
To make a music CD or even an MP3 you can't just record a live a gig and put it out - no one will listen to it unless you have an established following for live concerts. Getting to the stage where a band can get regular local live gigs is HARD. You think managing programmers is hard? Try managing musicians.
To create a good music CD you have to do the following:
I can make a low-budget game all on my own, in a couple years in my spare time. It takes at least as long to make a full length CD, and the problems with keeping the band together are much worse than any programming project I ever worked on.
It is a trend that is especially strong in companies that do IT, and consulting has it worst of all. I worked for 13 years in a large firm in the internal IT department. Most of us do long term operational support, with a big upgrade done every 3 to 5 years in various systems. We were privatized 3 years ago and bought by a large firm with a strong background in IT consulting, but very little experience in operations. Their attidute towards employees is very simple: you are a replaceable cog.
They do not seem to care that the long term employees know the systems inside and out. They do not seem to have caught on that long term operations is not the same as a consulting gig. In the consulting world they expected employees to move up - or out. We have lots of people that have done the same job for 5 years or more at stretch. Some key people operating large legacy systems that are highly customized are very difficult to replace.
The new company, to get its foot in the door, agreed to a contract that loses money given our current level of salary and benefits. They now expect us to take a 25% cut, or leave.
This does not improve employee "engagement" or moral.
I was planning on working for another 17 years, collecting a pension, and living happily every after. The old employer wasn't perfect, but they never treated us with total contempt. Now I think I will stick it out until my kids get through university and move on to something else as fast as a can. If they actuall force the 25% cut on us, I'll leave sooner.
There are only 6 people in provice I leave that know anything about the large enterprise app I maintain, and it is so highly customized that it will take a new person one to two years to know enough about the system to make anything but trivial updates. Do I have a backup? Do I have a trainee? Of course not. Gives me job security, but it certainly isn't a best practise. I used to have 2 to 4 people working under me.
So, I would not worry about being loyal to most large firms, they certainly do not value you.
Thank you USA congress for passing yet another law that will help ensure that people outside of the USA will have an easier time making money using new technologies. Thanks for banning most of our streamcasting competition - OH! and thanks for stupid software patents too! Those realy help. Please, keep up the good work. Only the American Congress could work so hard to help the rest of the world make a buck using new technologies like the internet and digital media.
I wrote a commercial game back in 1989, and as far as I know the source code is GONE. A backup on floppies survived until the early 1990's, but I sure don't have a copy anymore. Even if I did, I don't own the copyright - the publisher does, and they got bought out by a bigger firm a long time ago (which in turn was itself eaten). The publisher owned all the art and sound copyright also.
Centrally planned economies did not effectivley allocate resources so their economies did not grow very fast which lead to lower standards of living. The "5 year" plans mainly did not work. If someone high up had a really bone headed plan it got forced down everyones throats. In a free economy the bone headed plan wouldd only affect one company.
Another big problem is the "free rider". In theory everyone works as hard as they can for the good of society then every draws what they need, equal to every one. But in practise this leads to people doing minimal work because there is no advantage to working hard. A saying in old communist Russia was "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us".
It parrots the governments line on all topics, and often features right wing talking heads yelling at centerists. It makes Conrad Black look even handed.
The last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. It did not start in the 14th century and end in the mid 19th. There is a great deal of evidence indicating that we have actually had an impact on the global environment by burning fossil fuels. Most evidence indiactes that humans have actually increased the rate at which the earth is warming. We do have the power, if we chose to wield it, to affect the global climate.
Unless you inherit a lot of money the only capital you have is what you saved at your "real" job (and maybe some money from friends and family) before you started your business. Unless you REALLY luck out your indie game is not going to sell a million copies. Having a nice web site isn't going to make a big difference. You have to realisticly look at how much you can earn on a title and only invest the time and capital in the title that you think you can recoup - or there will not be a next game. Small business, game developer, restraunt owner, etc... are generally one bad year a way from disaster.
You mention "other sources of income". Well, main stream games, are "other sources of income". If there was a magic "other source of income" that actually made enough money to develop a complete game I think I might have heard about it by now.
Do you know how EA got big? By being mainstream. By never taking chances. by developing well polished, known to sell well, titles. The small guy may want to try something inovative, but if it bombs there may well not be a next title, and that isn't due to running the business poorly, that is just how it is when you are small. A well run small business only takes chances it knows it can afford.
It is a fact that kids do NOT seek out educational titles. Even if the game is educational you don't market it that way.
Spurious complaints could be a problem, but by looking at the overall picture of a managers "tickets" it should be easy to see if there is a problem or not. A culture that values honesty should also help a lot.
With goal in mind it makes sense to continually imporve our technology for getting people into psace, and continue with robatic science missions which do give us a better "bang for the buck".
If the Americans spent all the money they wasted on the war in Iraq on space exploration they could have a Mars base in 20 years.
They are sampling over large parts of the entire universe. They can point the microwave detector in whatever direction they want. They are making huge numbers of observations - not a small number.
I played single player half-life with a girl-friend. I used the mouse, she the keyboard. You have to work together, communicate, and it was fun to work on the puzzles together. After a while we could fight more effectively than I could playing normally.
Strong property rights can take many forms. If you have strong indivual rights, as opposed to group rights, you generally also have strong property rights. I am talking about REAL property not so called intellectual property.
SLAPP suits come about because of bad tort law, not overly strong property laws.
I'm firmly of the belief that all rights should apply to individuals only - not groups. This is the only way to prevent the majority from abusing their power. Many bad things have been done in the name of "improving society" which turned out to just be an excuse to oppress individuals.
As for the "violence of poverty". You are correct that a "deemphasis on personal material gain" could make for a better society, but you can't pass laws to bring it about. It is a cultural change. A good example is drunk driving laws. Where I live there have been laws against drunk driving since there were cars, but drunk driving was socially acceptable so the practise continued. The laws was toughed up a bit, but what actually caused a drop in drunk driving was a change in attidute in genal towards it. It came to be seen as a very dangerous, selfish act that was likely to harm innocent people. It was this change in culture that brought down the drunk driving rates.
To stop silly lawsuits you have to change the culture. Jurys have to stop handing out huge settlements (lawsuit bingo). People have to think it is wrong to use the courts to settle every little dispute. People have to despise people who abuse the courst. Abusers have to be punished by the courts.
Back to poverty. Yes, the middle class is shrinking, but most of that is driven by globalization, and technology change. These things are hard to stop. Remember, only 200 years ago over 90% of Americans worked on farms. 200 years from now the idea that a large percentage of Americans worked at high paying blue collar factory jobs will seems just as quaint.
CEO pay is disgusting. Why don't sharholders revolt against that?
But pickings have been slim this year. I buy discount coupons in bulk (3 kids), but there hasn't been anything worth watching in 4 or 5 weeks. I'll go see a movie a week if there is something good to see. Rotten Tomatoes has saved many a wasted afternoon. You see the add on TV or the trailer in the theatre, the action looks cool, the story doesn't seem too stupid, so I check it out and find out its getting 13% or 5%!! Read a couple of reviews (sometimes I like "bad" movies) just to make sure it realy does suck. I used to have to chance it because it might be gone before a friend saw it. Now bad movies don't get a weeks grace, they get opening day grace.
A simple, scalable, system.
The original $10,000 threshold for reporting cash transactions is from 1970. A few tweaks have been made over the yers, but no big changes until 2001 and the anti-patriot act.
Business doesn't hire old people because old people generally know their rights and won't accept poor working conditions and wages. The business knows that you are technically compentant, but they want to hire some youngster that they can abuse - work unpaid over-time, accept lower wages, etc...
Many groups and many people in various professions use jargon to speed up their communications, but these same professionals have to remember that when communicating to people outside of their profession they will not share their jargon. It is especially important when using common words or phrases in a manner specific to your field. For example, when our pay department writes about "reported time" they are not talking about when a report was written or printed which is the meaning most people would think they mean in most of their notes. No, "reported time" means anything that is not regular salary that appears on a time sheet.
Writing using correct grammar and puncuation makes the writing easier to read. You do not have to stop and puzzle out what an oddly phrased sentance is trying to say. Well written essays are simply more enjoyable to read. This doesn't mean we should revert to the ornate writting of the 17th century English court, only that being able to write clearly in standard english is a skill worth cultivating if you plan on effectively communicating with the general public.
For more information on the cancelled science mission see The planetary Society which has been fighting Congress for science mission funding for years. You don't have to be a member to help out.
Sure they spend some time writing speeding tickets, but cases where sections of road have artificially low speed limits just don't exist. Unless there has been a rash of speeding, or a fatality caused by speeding, you rarely see a group of cops pulling people over. Usualy you see exactly one, and he has his lights on and flashing everytime he pulls some over as a warning to everyone else. The provincial governent actually got rid of photo-radar for speeding, and limits its use for running reds.
If your police suck so bad why don't you vote for a politicion willing to fix the problem?
Storage is getting cheap. Full-CD quality files will be fit just fine on devices with huge storage. I'm not switching to downloading music until I can buy it in full CD quality, legally.
I have seen no evidence that any of the liberal profs made the classroom hostile to other points of view. Have any students complained that essays and papers are graded by the idealology they support instead of the quality of the way their ideas are expressed?
As for a neutral POV, I disagree. Some subjects, especially in the arts, do not lend themselves to a neutral POV. A good prof will state his biases, will teach all sides as best as possible, but the student will be aware of the profs biases and be able to take them into account.