The guy says he makes flash games *for a living*. Why should we assume that maybe this particular flash game is so special that he would never want to make a profit from it?
Not only that, but I have to wonder if he's set himself up to be sued with this juvenile "Gotcha back" stunt. He's made a potential win-win situation into a for-sure lose-lose situation -- even if Fuddruckers just kills the link and ignores the incident, if I were an employer researching a prospective employee, this sort of behaviour would put his resume on the trash pile. After all, what if he got ticked off at someone within my company -- would he retaliate by releasing a virus onto the company network?
A possible partial solution to the DRM issue: If you file for copyright, you must provide the Library of Congress an unencumbered, open-format copy of your work. Then once your copyright expires and the content is in the public domain, the LoC itself should release it to the general public.
As to works whose authors don't do the actual filing, not much we can do about removing their DRM when (or IF, in the current climate!) they fall to the public domain.
I agree with lessig, tho -- the system of creative works progressing from copyrighted to public domain is for practical purposes dead, and DRM will just make that worse.
As to works that are in the public domain from the gitgo -- well, they may be plentiful, but how much cultural influence do they have?? Seriously, outside of fringe groups, how much impact does the PD currently have??
I've been using the same vehicle key since 1978. That's right, it is 27 years old and it has never been replaced. It has been fried in the sun, run over, dropped in the toilet, frozen to -65F, xrayed at the airport, and despite all this use and abuse, it still works.
Not only that, but if it ever stops working, the reason will be obvious -- it'll be broken in half. Whereas you may have no hint that your USB key has failed, until you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with a car that won't start. And what happens if the startup data gets corrupted??
The only upside I can see is that it should be relatively easy to make perfect spare copies of your own key. Of course, that means that any unscrupulous parking valet with a laptop PC can do the same. Just wait til house keys are USB flash units too. Then we'll see REAL fun.
Dunno what the actual limit is, but I've had 30+ windows open in my beloved old Netscape 3, and I think a dozen or so is merely "normal". [I don't care for tabs and prefer discrete windows.] So I have a clue how you feel when the browser gags on being really busy.
Haven't tried Avant, but [reads FAQ] I see it's essentially a front end for IE, which has its own drawbacks. Even so, looks like it has some useful features for those times when a person is forced to use IE, so thanks for the pointer!
The way Mozilla (and therefore presumably Firefox, which I dislike even more) hogs both the connection and the system focus as it takes forever to render stuff is enough to drive a person round the bend. It's pretty clear to me that Moz/FF is never tested on anything so lowly as a mere P3-550 with a paltry gig of RAM, cuz it clearly expects a whole lot more hardware than I can give it.
I remember reading a couple years ago, about another study of long-term ozone-layer behaviour, that astonished its own researchers by concluding that this ozone hole was not only normal, but was probably now smaller than it had typically been over this megaclimate's history. This was not what they'd expected to find at all.
I think that's altogether too plausible -- that TC/Palladium will indeed become the "secure path" for rootkits and various other malware, and by its very nature the installed malware will be out of the user's reach.
That's yet another reason why once we're all stuck with it, and with no internet access except by a TC system -- my older computers, the ones that do my everyday work, will never interact with the TC machine. Not only will *I* be unable to trust said machine, it could easily be a hazard (out of my control) to my other systems.
Not to mention the potential for "whoops, TC chip or OS had a bug, and now all your files are irrevocably encrypted, cuz it thought you were trying to tamper with it. So sad."
I think in cases like what you cite, it would be really "interesting" to follow the money and learn exactly who is in bed with whom, beyond the obvious.
And I agree with you totally. So long as a given user's machine isn't spewing garbage, it's none of their damned business WHAT security apps they do or don't run.
Of course, TC will make it simple to enforce this: run the apps we say, or you won't be allowed to connect to the network. (Read posts by Alsee for what I believe is how things will wind up. http://slashdot.org/~Alsee
Personally, I think it would be better if TC/DRM *does* become a mess of incompatible "standards" with many points of failure -- if it's a PITA to the average person, TC has more chance of coming to the public notice as the negative thing it truly is.
You say, "Not only can it protect your files from being accessed by spyware, it can protect them from being accessed by you. That is, when the 'key holders' decide that the information is forbidden. (or just politically incorrect)."
This brings to mind an ugly scenario, where the OS's TC component continually monitors your computer for disallowed content, which depending on the legal climate of the day, might be classed from "felonious" to merely "politically incorrect". And it might then report your transgression to the "appropriate authorities".
Even innocent use of the wrong "keyword" could become a risk.
What I don't understand is why they'd CARE what sort of device you use the Flash player on -- after all, isn't the ability to *play* Flash really advertising for Flash *creation* software, which they SELL? so it seems to me that ubiquitous market penetration would be their desire, not restricting it to one type of device.
Unless, of course, they have some license arrangement where the Flash player is not FREE for use on non-PC devices, so only paying customers get to use it, perhaps as an embedded app... does anyone know??
I vaguely recall that M$'s original fix for the Concept virus was itself infected, too.
Other commercialware that I know shipped infected versions -- the first Lucasarts Games Collection (ca. 1994, and I think only the floppy version was infected, as my CDROM version is not). PC Tools v7.something. One of the Night Owl shareware CDs. I'm sure there have been assorted others.
The fact is, shit happens, and occasionally it happens to software publishers too. Just because you sell software doesn't mean you're somehow magically immune to viruses. The wonder really should be that it doesn't happen more often, especially with large companies that have hordes of non-techie employees (secretaries, accountants, and the like) who nonetheless still use the company network.
Nope, me too... I looked at Firefox, decided it was lacking way too many little things that I actually use, and went back to the Mozilla suite as my alt-browser. And I think our bug reports have been eaten by a grue.:(
I have Off-By-One here too; despite lots of odd bugs and deficiencies, it's occasionally useful, and you can stuff it onto and even run it from a floppy.
I'd never liked the Opera interface, but given the incentive of a free reg'd version, I'll give it another look. What the hell, it never hurts to have another browser available.
(Normally I use an ancient Netscape, by *preference*. The performance difference is amazing, and I just can't get used to how slow ALL the modern browsers are, compared to my beloved NS3.)
When I saw this article here, I had exactly the same thought -- Google has somehow become the next "evil empire" that the average slashdotter wants to see crash and burn.
Remember when the same thing happened to attitudes about RedHat?
Who will be the next victim of the slashdot herd mentality?? Stay tooned...
It's not just Acrobat. It's ALL Adobe programs. Compared to any of the competition that I've ever tried, Adobe apps are all pigs, and have been since way back. Photoshop has by far the slowest image processing of any app I've ever used. When I use the exact same filters in Corel Photopaint, the same job gets done on average in about 1/4th the time.
I'm not sure how much of this came in when they acquired Aldus -- Pagemaker has always been slow (and has a horrible file format) even before it was under the Adobe label. One is led to wonder about programming methodologies that just plain suck, that might have pervaded the entire company over time.
I'm reminded of a section of Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly programming book, where he talks about how speed of an individual routine is not necessarily the best factor to make design decisions around. Frex, if you use a tiny, superfast routine that has to run a million times, that may well be far slower than using a big slow routine that only has to run once.
I have a suspicion that Adobe products are designed around bad Zen.
That'll be good if they can keep the old downtown alive. It really makes a huge difference in local attitudes -- and it keeps the malls honest, when they do come in.
Great Falls MT (pop. hovering around 60k) is a good example. Downtown tried to die when the first mall came along in the late 1960s, but the downtown stores bucked up and made themselves more attractive to shoppers despite the area's parking woes, and at least as of when I was last there (early 1980s) downtown was a more happening place than the mall, and the malls had to make themselves more like downtown to compete (which kept quality up).
It probably helps that there's no reason for yuppies to move there, tho -- GtF lacks immediate proximity to resort areas, and its main reasons for existence are still farming and the air force base. So the yuppie mentality remained happily limited.
Offhand I can't think of anything else... and even these have been to a large degree already "outsourced" by using 1) cheap illegal immigrants, and 2) cheap foreign doctors here on a temporary intern Visa.
Take a look at who actually owns "American" companies anymore. Way too many are partly or wholly foreign-owned.
Maybe the trick is to tax companies for being based elsewhere but doing business here, and likewise for employees -- so they only get tax breaks when they bring their business and their jobs back to America.
Indeed, a company could be taxed in direct proportion to how much of their business is based elsewhere, and on how many of their jobs are not in America.
Instead, what do we do? the exact opposite. No wonder it at least looks cheaper to move your business (and jobs) elsewhere.
Maybe there's no job genre called "Asian Expert", but there *are* related positions within international business, which needs people who understand the culture they're dealing with on the other side of the ocean. Perhaps a minor in Business or the like is in order?? Indeed, majoring in your passion, and minoring in something related but more marketable, is probably a good strategy for most folks.
One problem is that at the age most kids go to college, they usually don't yet KNOW what their life's passion is (they may think they do at the time, but at that age most kids don't have enough life experience to really KNOW), and may not find out until years later, after burning out on their primary job and turning to "something else entirely".
I'm not sure it matters that much what you study, so long as you use college to generally enhance your knowledge base, so that when you do discover your passion, you'll be able to apply yourself to it intelligently -- whether it's your job, your hobby, or whatever.
(I had a chem/microbiology double major; I'm now a professional dog trainer and computer fixer/consultant/webdude. Makes you wonder.:)
Slashdot Mirror
The guy says he makes flash games *for a living*. Why should we assume that maybe this particular flash game is so special that he would never want to make a profit from it?
Not only that, but I have to wonder if he's set himself up to be sued with this juvenile "Gotcha back" stunt. He's made a potential win-win situation into a for-sure lose-lose situation -- even if Fuddruckers just kills the link and ignores the incident, if I were an employer researching a prospective employee, this sort of behaviour would put his resume on the trash pile. After all, what if he got ticked off at someone within my company -- would he retaliate by releasing a virus onto the company network?
A possible partial solution to the DRM issue: If you file for copyright, you must provide the Library of Congress an unencumbered, open-format copy of your work. Then once your copyright expires and the content is in the public domain, the LoC itself should release it to the general public.
As to works whose authors don't do the actual filing, not much we can do about removing their DRM when (or IF, in the current climate!) they fall to the public domain.
I agree with lessig, tho -- the system of creative works progressing from copyrighted to public domain is for practical purposes dead, and DRM will just make that worse.
As to works that are in the public domain from the gitgo -- well, they may be plentiful, but how much cultural influence do they have?? Seriously, outside of fringe groups, how much impact does the PD currently have??
Feel free to ignore all those peer-reviewed statements of yore that declared the Earth was flat, too ;)
I've been using the same vehicle key since 1978. That's right, it is 27 years old and it has never been replaced. It has been fried in the sun, run over, dropped in the toilet, frozen to -65F, xrayed at the airport, and despite all this use and abuse, it still works.
Not only that, but if it ever stops working, the reason will be obvious -- it'll be broken in half. Whereas you may have no hint that your USB key has failed, until you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with a car that won't start. And what happens if the startup data gets corrupted??
The only upside I can see is that it should be relatively easy to make perfect spare copies of your own key. Of course, that means that any unscrupulous parking valet with a laptop PC can do the same. Just wait til house keys are USB flash units too. Then we'll see REAL fun.
Five. ;)
Dunno what the actual limit is, but I've had 30+ windows open in my beloved old Netscape 3, and I think a dozen or so is merely "normal". [I don't care for tabs and prefer discrete windows.] So I have a clue how you feel when the browser gags on being really busy.
Haven't tried Avant, but [reads FAQ] I see it's essentially a front end for IE, which has its own drawbacks. Even so, looks like it has some useful features for those times when a person is forced to use IE, so thanks for the pointer!
The way Mozilla (and therefore presumably Firefox, which I dislike even more) hogs both the connection and the system focus as it takes forever to render stuff is enough to drive a person round the bend. It's pretty clear to me that Moz/FF is never tested on anything so lowly as a mere P3-550 with a paltry gig of RAM, cuz it clearly expects a whole lot more hardware than I can give it.
I installed Vista, and now my computer is a minefield!!
We don't have to do that ourselves here in America. We have hurricanes that will do it for us. :/
I remember reading a couple years ago, about another study of long-term ozone-layer behaviour, that astonished its own researchers by concluding that this ozone hole was not only normal, but was probably now smaller than it had typically been over this megaclimate's history. This was not what they'd expected to find at all.
I think that's altogether too plausible -- that TC/Palladium will indeed become the "secure path" for rootkits and various other malware, and by its very nature the installed malware will be out of the user's reach.
That's yet another reason why once we're all stuck with it, and with no internet access except by a TC system -- my older computers, the ones that do my everyday work, will never interact with the TC machine. Not only will *I* be unable to trust said machine, it could easily be a hazard (out of my control) to my other systems.
Not to mention the potential for "whoops, TC chip or OS had a bug, and now all your files are irrevocably encrypted, cuz it thought you were trying to tamper with it. So sad."
I think in cases like what you cite, it would be really "interesting" to follow the money and learn exactly who is in bed with whom, beyond the obvious.
And I agree with you totally. So long as a given user's machine isn't spewing garbage, it's none of their damned business WHAT security apps they do or don't run.
Of course, TC will make it simple to enforce this: run the apps we say, or you won't be allowed to connect to the network. (Read posts by Alsee for what I believe is how things will wind up. http://slashdot.org/~Alsee
Personally, I think it would be better if TC/DRM *does* become a mess of incompatible "standards" with many points of failure -- if it's a PITA to the average person, TC has more chance of coming to the public notice as the negative thing it truly is.
You say, "Not only can it protect your files from being accessed by spyware, it can protect them from being accessed by you. That is, when the 'key holders' decide that the information is forbidden. (or just politically incorrect)."
This brings to mind an ugly scenario, where the OS's TC component continually monitors your computer for disallowed content, which depending on the legal climate of the day, might be classed from "felonious" to merely "politically incorrect". And it might then report your transgression to the "appropriate authorities".
Even innocent use of the wrong "keyword" could become a risk.
I think I need my tinfoil hat refitted.
What I don't understand is why they'd CARE what sort of device you use the Flash player on -- after all, isn't the ability to *play* Flash really advertising for Flash *creation* software, which they SELL? so it seems to me that ubiquitous market penetration would be their desire, not restricting it to one type of device.
... does anyone know??
Unless, of course, they have some license arrangement where the Flash player is not FREE for use on non-PC devices, so only paying customers get to use it, perhaps as an embedded app
I vaguely recall that M$'s original fix for the Concept virus was itself infected, too.
Other commercialware that I know shipped infected versions -- the first Lucasarts Games Collection (ca. 1994, and I think only the floppy version was infected, as my CDROM version is not). PC Tools v7.something. One of the Night Owl shareware CDs. I'm sure there have been assorted others.
The fact is, shit happens, and occasionally it happens to software publishers too. Just because you sell software doesn't mean you're somehow magically immune to viruses. The wonder really should be that it doesn't happen more often, especially with large companies that have hordes of non-techie employees (secretaries, accountants, and the like) who nonetheless still use the company network.
Nope, me too... I looked at Firefox, decided it was lacking way too many little things that I actually use, and went back to the Mozilla suite as my alt-browser. And I think our bug reports have been eaten by a grue. :(
I have Off-By-One here too; despite lots of odd bugs and deficiencies, it's occasionally useful, and you can stuff it onto and even run it from a floppy.
I'd never liked the Opera interface, but given the incentive of a free reg'd version, I'll give it another look. What the hell, it never hurts to have another browser available.
(Normally I use an ancient Netscape, by *preference*. The performance difference is amazing, and I just can't get used to how slow ALL the modern browsers are, compared to my beloved NS3.)
When I saw this article here, I had exactly the same thought -- Google has somehow become the next "evil empire" that the average slashdotter wants to see crash and burn.
Remember when the same thing happened to attitudes about RedHat?
Who will be the next victim of the slashdot herd mentality?? Stay tooned...
It's not just Acrobat. It's ALL Adobe programs. Compared to any of the competition that I've ever tried, Adobe apps are all pigs, and have been since way back. Photoshop has by far the slowest image processing of any app I've ever used. When I use the exact same filters in Corel Photopaint, the same job gets done on average in about 1/4th the time.
I'm not sure how much of this came in when they acquired Aldus -- Pagemaker has always been slow (and has a horrible file format) even before it was under the Adobe label. One is led to wonder about programming methodologies that just plain suck, that might have pervaded the entire company over time.
I'm reminded of a section of Michael Abrash's Zen of Assembly programming book, where he talks about how speed of an individual routine is not necessarily the best factor to make design decisions around. Frex, if you use a tiny, superfast routine that has to run a million times, that may well be far slower than using a big slow routine that only has to run once.
I have a suspicion that Adobe products are designed around bad Zen.
That'll be good if they can keep the old downtown alive. It really makes a huge difference in local attitudes -- and it keeps the malls honest, when they do come in.
Great Falls MT (pop. hovering around 60k) is a good example. Downtown tried to die when the first mall came along in the late 1960s, but the downtown stores bucked up and made themselves more attractive to shoppers despite the area's parking woes, and at least as of when I was last there (early 1980s) downtown was a more happening place than the mall, and the malls had to make themselves more like downtown to compete (which kept quality up).
It probably helps that there's no reason for yuppies to move there, tho -- GtF lacks immediate proximity to resort areas, and its main reasons for existence are still farming and the air force base. So the yuppie mentality remained happily limited.
And what sort of jobs *can't* be outsourced?
1) Manual labour.
2) Medical services.
Offhand I can't think of anything else... and even these have been to a large degree already "outsourced" by using 1) cheap illegal immigrants, and 2) cheap foreign doctors here on a temporary intern Visa.
Take a look at who actually owns "American" companies anymore. Way too many are partly or wholly foreign-owned.
Maybe the trick is to tax companies for being based elsewhere but doing business here, and likewise for employees -- so they only get tax breaks when they bring their business and their jobs back to America.
Indeed, a company could be taxed in direct proportion to how much of their business is based elsewhere, and on how many of their jobs are not in America.
Instead, what do we do? the exact opposite. No wonder it at least looks cheaper to move your business (and jobs) elsewhere.
[laughing] Balmy fall day. Come to central Montana and enjoy a cool -65F January evening, after a daily high of a blistering -45F.
No, I'm not exaggerating, I lived there for 20 years... but Montana gets 70F in February, too. Unlike Minnesota!!
[Former resident of MT, ND, and MN, current resident of SoCal, and future resident of some farming area a Long Way from metro sprawl]
Maybe there's no job genre called "Asian Expert", but there *are* related positions within international business, which needs people who understand the culture they're dealing with on the other side of the ocean. Perhaps a minor in Business or the like is in order?? Indeed, majoring in your passion, and minoring in something related but more marketable, is probably a good strategy for most folks.
:)
One problem is that at the age most kids go to college, they usually don't yet KNOW what their life's passion is (they may think they do at the time, but at that age most kids don't have enough life experience to really KNOW), and may not find out until years later, after burning out on their primary job and turning to "something else entirely".
I'm not sure it matters that much what you study, so long as you use college to generally enhance your knowledge base, so that when you do discover your passion, you'll be able to apply yourself to it intelligently -- whether it's your job, your hobby, or whatever.
(I had a chem/microbiology double major; I'm now a professional dog trainer and computer fixer/consultant/webdude. Makes you wonder.