As more material is migrated from analog sources to digital formats, and as new material is created only as a digital entity, how do you see our history and knowledge being protected in a format that is both fair to the copyright holders and useful to the consumers? How will it remain useable in the future?
My concern here is that the current push to require DRM support in hardware seems to be focused on securing the right of profitability for the copyright holder of a given work. What legal protection does an author have to ensure that this work also becomes accessible when that copyright expires?
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but under current US law (DMCA), is it not illegal to remove the content from a DRM container, even if it is simply to transfer it to a different DRM container? If this is true, then archiving an existing work from one media to another becomes impossible. That, in turn, implies that any digital work which falls out of publication will be lost when existing copies become damaged, or are made obsolete. Are there any provisions for a legal way to transfer DRM-protected works to a non-DRM (or "empty password" accessible DRM) container once they enter public domain?
I just checked the site's poll stats:
Do you like real life?
Yes 1194 (64%)
No 666 (35%)
Apparently those who don't like Real Life prefer Eternal Damnation.
Hmmm, eternal damnation vs. limited damnation with the option for eternal damnation if you make any mistakes in your character building?
As one poster pointed out, unsubscribing is rather painful, and no help is ever offered to those seeking that course.
Another big problem is that Real Life pretty much only operates on a proprietary OS. With no alternatives, we are stuck having to run Real Life in EarthOS, which is subject to periodic crashes (every 35,000 years or so, it freezes up) and all kinds of instability.
Players have complained about the lack of customization options for their avatars, most choices are locked in when their character is created, with few user-chosen variables allowed. Starting equipment also varies wildly, and seems based on the arbitrary assignment of parents, another option beyond the player's control.
No saved games, limited configuration options, buggy overpopulated server, and VERY POOR documentation... I'd rate this game at 1/2 star. Steer clear of it if you can, maybe a better game designer will come along.
First there was login, kindof quick if you're a good typer.
Then there was su, slightly quicker if you're a good typer.
Then came screen, ^a1, ^a2... seems pretty quick to me!
Then came sudo, awfully fast, especially when combined with keybindings in screen.
Oh, you meant silly GUI switching? Fine. But why switch users when I can just 'sudo -u luser mongo-app --display:0'?
Maybe I really want to see a different desktop theme? Ok, how about binding those to virtual desktops....
All those patent lawyers must be bored, they've twisted the USPTO to the point where it's just a funny rubber stamp and mask outfit, so they need a new challenge!
I just want to play a SW MMOG that isn't a fp based, planet based, character interaction game. I wanted a space-sim, work on space based skills (like scounting, and lasers, engineering, and piloting, and mining, and capitalship systems), and join in massive wars, like the battle of endor.
Well, if you don't have your heart set on it being in the Star Wars universe, I'd suggest keeping your eyes open for XOL from egosoft. They're currently finishing X2, the single player version, and will probably use that as the core of the multi-player client for the MMORPG version in about two years.
It's a long wait, but having played X-Tension, and seeing how ambitious both X2 and the plans for XOL are, it just might be worth it.
Having said that, I do enjoy SWG (or I would if my GeForce 3 got more than 10FPS... grrrrr), but it is planet based and will never be a true space empire game. Which means, of course, that I have to kill the Rebel Scum one-at-a-time...
I think the real question is, what chance does any OTHER drive on the market have of reading something burned with this? Slim to none I bet.
Hence, it's not really a CD-R or CD-RW drive, it's a "Proprietary Format"-RW drive that happens to have a CD-RW fallback mode.
Don't get me wrong, the idea of variable pit length is a good one, and I'd love to see it adopted into a standard somewhere (probably on DVD=R (they've already used + and -)), but I'd hate to see someone burn off their backup discs using 900Meg formatting and then 3 years from now wonder why they can't read any of them in the new DVD+-=*^@$@!%_RW 64x drive with optical crystal port...
Well, it is possible to get an unlisted phone number, and if you have such a thing, you can basically tell anyone who calls you that if they do so again, you do have legal grounds to sue them (IANAL, so I don't know any details).
The problem is, the internet is one gigantic bathroom wall. Just like a pervert can wander around to gather phone numbers from walls all over the country, likewise spammers gather the scrawled email addresses from anything and everything public they can get their hands on (like slashdot postings!). If your retailer sells your information, it's just like your friend giving your number out to everyone at the bar... you suddenly find yourself popular, but not really in a good way.:)
Yeah, Microsoft has produced lots of NEW things in the last few years.
NEW DRM support, to protect you from viewing your files.
NEW online registration, to keep you from using your computer.
NEW media codecs, to make sure that you start migrating your media into a DRM-enabled format so you can be charged for it later.
NEW service packs, to ensure that your software has new bugs that can be fixed in future service packs, along with even better DRM support!
and of course,
NEW EULAs!!! To ensure that you no longer have to make worrying choices about upgrading or which files you want Microsoft and their good buddies at the RIAA to see.
Well, how many linux games have come out... recently... as a product that makes money? ATI has to spend alot of money on things like chip design, fabrication plants, board layout, espionage to see what NVidia is up to, counter-intelligence to make NVidia think they're further ahead than they are, bribes to magazines to publish rave reviews, and of course bribes to benchmark authors to get details about what will make their cards work faster in those benchmarks.
That's alot of cash! They expect ROI, and nobody out there will buy the bleeding-edge 3D graphics card with vibrating codpiece cooling system if the best they can do is run TuxRacer, or 2 year old ports of Unreal Tournament.
If you want hardware which supports linux, you have a few options.
(1) Reverse Engineer and write them yourself... excpet that's now illegal. (2) Haul Microsoft up on monopoly charges so competition can flourish... oh wait, that's been done. (3) Ummmm, convince the RIAA that there's a new Windows-ONLY file sharing protocol that uses the latest video drivers to convert mp3's into explosion graphics? (4) Setup a windoze machine to play games on, and keep it quarenteened off in its own DMZ (5) Play games using WineX and software drivers and enjoy how solid and uncrashable solitare is!
I chose option 4 and just pretend it's an old Atari 2600 -- pretend that the reboot between games is the tube-type TV warming up!
The $50 box fee will probably cover the development costs and maybe the first year of the server maintenance/bandwidth fees, and the salaries of the developers (who now have to both fix it, and add new features), and the salaries of all the tech-support people who man the phones, sit in the games as GM's, etc.
*IF* it turns out to be a good game, and people not only buy it but keep playing it, THEN the $15/month fee starts becoming profit... but probably not until the game has been online for a year or more.
Back in the days of Venture Capital, you could have turned out a game that was $15/month and freely downloadable... but then the VC would keep you going for 2-3 years until you recouped the costs... most companies don't have the luxury of running negative for this long now (although Sony probably does!).
A big one is hardware abstraction. Sure, you can produce a 100% optimised 100% assembly program for a given system configuration. However I for one value the ability to have different hardware. For that you need abstraction. The Os needs to present a unified API for a given function (like OpenGL for graphics) and then handle the abstraction to the driver layer.
Well, as one who has programmed in assembly, I can assure you that there certainly can be uniform API's in assembly without needing the five gazillion layers that Windoze uses. There's a difference between a nice clean API, and every department that touches the code adding their OWN API as another layer...
The only reason NOT to program in hand-optimized assembly is the fact that it takes a really long time (especially now that nobody bothers to learn assembly), and you do have to recode for each platform. Big hurdles if you have a elephantine OS like Windoze, but not so much if your kernel fits in 32K of RAM.
Another bigge is features. So great, they got a multi taking OS that runs a clock and such on an old system. Show me one that does the same things Linux or Windows does (like have a full featured web browser, 3d graphics, sound, etc) and then I'll jump on the bloat train.
QNX release a very nice graphical web browser on a floppy not so long ago (self booting, dhcp, etc). Contrary to popular belief, things like 3d graphics have no business being part of an OS. The OS is there to manage program execution, hardware resources, and provide a central API scheme for applications to use when talking to hardware. OTOH, I fondly recall the boot-sector breakout game for the Amiga (because it did provide all this in the ROM-based kernel) -- which fit in
Then there are others like maintainability, expandibility, portability and so on. Go ahead and write a major application, like something on the order of Office or Mozilla in pure assembly. Supposing you can even tackle that task, then try and maintain it. For even more fun, try porting it. You'll quickly see why C++ is a plus.
I agree that portability is difficult with assembly (some may argue impossible, but that depends on how much you optimize for each chip -- by that I mean that a 6502 program could probably be translated to run on a 68000 CPU by a script, but the reverse would not be true).
As for the other complaints, that's not so much a problem with assembly as it is a problem with design. If you write something as complex as Office or Mozilla to do tasks which really don't require 80% of the features they provide, you have a basic design strategy that's flawed to begin with. It's called creeping featurism, and is the bane of bored developers all around the globe, whatever language they program in.
That's my response, the rest is rambling so stop here unless you're bored at work or something!
Let me ask you (both you and anyone happening to read this) this basic question: Do you honestly feel that you are MORE productive with your computer of 2000, than you were with your computer of 1990? How about 1980?
The computer I have on my desk is by no means cutting edge, but it's 900 times faster than the Commodore 64 I used, and has 4000 times the amount of RAM. The removeable media is 6000 times larger, and it has fixed media.
Somehow, I don't think most of us are 900 times more productive... In fact, the most productive coding time I ever had was working on a vt220 terminal, because it removed all the distractions that a desktop GUI provides (lynx still works to get information off the web, but it's not as much fun to just surf with it).
I did word processing on both, and I probably waste more time fiddling with fonts and styles and color now than I did when my choices were Pica, Elite, or Compressed. The C64 felt faster.
1957 - Can we have this overly broad patent? No! 1964 - How about this other broad patent? No! 1967 - No. 1974 - No, it's not specific enough 1977 - No, we said more details! 1984 - Go away, we're busy. 1987 - Oh here, just take this and leave us alone. 1992 - Fine, we really don't have time to argue. 2000 - Hey, anyone want this patent on silicon? 2005 - We'll pay you to take this patent on an electron...
I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer.
Woah! Windows came free with my home-built computers? All of them, even the Sparc ELC? Kick ass! I'm gonna run right over and install that on the sparc... I'm sure Warcraft III will be great on the 17" monochrome display, and the 75MHz Sparc CPU should be fine...
Not everyone who want to run windoze apps (or games) bought a Dell dude. (although at today's prices, I begin to wonder if I should -- before they get all the DRM hardware working!).
Customer: We insist on having USB 2 controllers! MFR 1: It costs us $0.25 cents more, we'll have to raise the price of your laptop $25. Customer: Whatever, we want USB 2.0 MFR 2: psst -- why not just pay the standards committee to rename USB 1.1? MFR 1: Hey, there's an idea... What say you USB Gods? USB: Hmmm, that would be unethical and confusing and... how much? Ok! MFR 1: Ok, PRESTO! You now have USB 2 in your laptops!
I guess this will finally convince people that Firewire really *IS* the better choice?
PRESTO! divx is reborn, only this time you get to pay the cost up-front, and you STILL get a nice shiny coaster after you've watched it.
Don't these clowns ever learn? I guess as long as they keep the towel wrapped around their heads, they can say whatever they want about what we really want, and it'll all look true.
I hope that self-destructing media leads to a self-destructing RIAA. I will buy my music and movie collection again IF AND WHEN they come out with solid-state no-moving-parts lifelong media that is the size of an SD card. Then it'll be worth spending N*$20 again. Until then, I hope they enjoy their little plans -- since the first time I ever find a CD or DVD that fails outright, will be the last time I ever buy one.
This is one of the things that labor unions were created to solve. The fact that so many IT people sit back and take it is also one of the big reasons none of the unions has made significant headway into the IT field (that, plus the fact that all the employers scream bloody murder, as they don't want the gravy train to stop running).
Let's face it, even the best of employers will (politely) ask their workers to stay late if a problem or deadline is looming. It's hard to resist, and many don't even try. With no union rep standing around with a billy club, and no legal responsibility (unless your contract is carefully worded for that exact circumstance) if the worker agrees to it... they see no reason not to twist the thumscrews.
Once upon a time, switching from hourly to saleried meant job security. Most salaried people knew they'd work more hours, and not get compensated, but at least they'd be the last to be cut if the axes started swinging. That's no longer true, so the benefits are all with the employer now (when's the last time you finished your work for the day at 3pm and management said, "Go on home"?).
So, while I hate the idea of having to go "on-strike" for things that happen half across the country and aren't related to my company at all... I also am not keen on working from the time I get up to the time I go to bed (even peasants had a sort of job security).
Kinda depends on your field...
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
My intuition tells me that people looking to hire programmers for mission-critical applications (database, infrastructure, medical, etc.) are going to be far more interested in older, more experienced programmers than game companies or in-house applications.
A young programmer might be cheaper, might have more energy and drive, and might in fact produce more code -- but they may not produce the right code for the task. If your requirements are to bang out a rendering engine so you can get your game to market before BubbaSoft, then you want cheap programmers who are desperate/naieve enough to work 90 hours a week, and if they make a few mistakes so you can see through the corners, or your weapon can be slighly embedded in a wall texture... it can be fixed in a patch, noone will care.
OTOH, if you're looking to upgrade the medical database that's been running on a VAX for 30 years, and you really need to move it to a linux/oracle system before your VMS tape gets eaten by mice... you might want someone who's been doing this for a while so the mistakes they make are less likely to cost you 5 years of records.
I'm 34 myself, and I remember the stuff I wrote when I was 24. Yes, I churned out a bit more code, but boy was it ugly by comparison. What managers should remember is that programming is like writing, or composing... the more experience you have, the more elegant solutions you can find, and the more naturally you can express them. Young people don't worry about things like maintainability, or how some other fellow is going to figure out what they did. Some do, but most don't.
Of course, that's my opinion, and being an Old Fart (TM), I might just be biased.... or maybe I just can't remember it right...:)
"He should try this in "Real Life". There's money, power, romance, derring-do... It's a rush."
Ok, so what's the "Real-Life" equivalent LEGAL activity that corresponds to running around killing goblins? Most fantasy-based MMPORPG's allow the brand-new character to wander in off the street and immediately be able to go find something they can kill and loot to imporve their position.
In this "Real-Life" place, you have to either already have resources, or have the training needed to someone in an authority position will allow you to do it. If the game worked this way, you'd create your character and then have to immediately convince some guild to let you join before you could do anything.
In the US, we have freedom of CHOICE. That means you may freely WANT to do something, but it doesn't imply that you will be able to do it. You have to meet whatever the pre-requisites are, and that usually means you (a) come from a wealthy background, (b) get lucky, or (c) do something you don't want to do long enough to make (a) or (b) happen.
I love religious debate... it's so much fun because it almost always breaks down into "Prove it!" vs. "You have to believe."
It's understandable that Egypt (with a rocky political situation these days, and a strong Islamic population that, like its two brethren religions, is not know for tolerance of conflicting ideas) might want to exercise a little caution in how the philosophical/religious views of The Matrix are presented... but to ban something entirely because you're afraid to let people draw their own conclusions is just going to make it worse.
What Egypt has done is declare this film to be forbidden fruit. The younger people will now go to every extreme to find that movie and watch it, and they'll make more of it then they would have if it were just another flick, because it's on the forbidden list!
Consider, people under the age of 21 (here in the US) usually make a big deal out of consuming alcohol -- they get older friends to buy it for them, they get fake ID's, they do all kinds of things because the perceived value has been elevated by the fact that they can't just go buy it themselves. About 1-5 years after turning 21, the charm wears off, and it just becomes another item on the shopping list.
I suspect you can extend that concept to any illegal substance, but that's a different debate.
Religion and Science are not as different as both sides like to think. They are both predicated on logical systems built up from fundemental "facts" which have to be taken as faith.
In science, we build systems of proof which allow you to extend a concept, using the assumption that the underlying concept was correct. Hence, we can talk about molecular bonds in terms of the interaction of subatomic particles... using the assumptions that those subatomic particles work as we believe. Make that a recursive algorithim, and you're on your way to defining the Universe by science.
In a religion, the depth of the predicate tree is usually much shorter. We describe how the world came to be, and why things are, and why we should act in certain ways. The ultimate predicate for this is that the Creator said so.
The difference between the two is that science breaks things down far enough so that it becomes difficult to fragment into factions. Unlike most (other) religions, scientists are generally willing to modify their belief system when another theory makes more sense. Example: Relativity vs. Quantuum Mechanics. For decades, those have been two rival belief systems, but now they are resolving their differences and merging those systems to get a step closer to God (The Unified Field Theory).
Imagine, for a moment, how interesting it would be if the various religions would take a similar approach...
But, people always have strong feelings when they get ideas in their heads. Denying the "truth" of one man's interpretation of a single line in the Bible is just like telling a computer scientist that a bit can be half on, or SCO/Caldera that they don't matter anymore. They'd rather fight to defend their belief, than have to change the way they see the world around them.
SCO President and Chief Executive Darl McBride told Reuters News. 'We've basically mapped out what we will do. People will be running AIX without a valid license.
Wow, those 4 people will be really bummed, and on Friday the 13th too!
SCO's scheme for proving Linux violation:
"Have you seen the grail?"
"We already got one!"
"The HOLY grail?"
"Yes, yes, it's ah very nice. Go away stupid English Kniggits!"
The reason I started programming (on my Commodore 64) was that computers were cool. I loved computer games, and wanted (doesn't everyone?) to write my own. I leaned BASIC by a combination of trial-and-error-and-error-and-error, and good old COMPUTE magazine.
After a little while, I learned 6510 assembly, because I wanted to do things fast, and was amazed at just how fast assembly would do little things.
Because I learned assembly *before* any formal classroom computer education, I had a really easy time with things that other kids struggled over. If you learn assembly, you understand what the computer really does with your data, and concepts like pointers and data structures are really easy.
The problem is, kids today have 3GHz P4 boxes on their desks. They have 512M of RAM or more. Therefore, they can write in bloated languages and it STILL goes fast. Since everything has to have lots of pointy-click buttons and menus everywhere, you can't write assembly from scratch the way we used to... so we're back to trying to teach kids the abstract ideas of programming without having a totally hands-on way of showing them why it works the way it does.
The concern most people have here, though, is not that they have a right not to view the ads; such a right is quite basic, as it goes hand-in-hand with your right not to view TV. This is quite different from a right, however, to view TV without the ads; when you accept an essentially free gift from the networks (however crappy the programming may be) you accept it on their terms; they would be well within their rights to say, "Don't like ads? Don't watch TV." As the ads become more pervasive, this is essentially what they are saying.
I don't accept the gift. I have cable television, which I pay for. Why then, do channels that exist ONLY on cable and satellite networks (Sci-Fi Channel comes to mind) have commercials?
I don't object (much) to commercials on broadcast television, even though I'm already paying for it through a portion of my cable bill. I do object to them on channels that have never had the burden of maintaining a broadcast tower, and have never been available on the free airwaves.
As has been stated many times before, the model of commercial television has been outdated for decades now. I should not have to watch idiotic commercials for products that I don't care about, and in many cases can't even apply to me... just because the networks have the same problem as the RIAA -- they can't think of a way to take advantage of current technology to create a viable business model, so they work to stifle alternatives and keep their old one alive.
Advertisements are a way of putting your message in a public place (the airwaves) so that the public can CHOOSE to watch them. Saying anything different is like saying that if a city worker stands on a street corner (which they built, and you didn't pay for), that you MUST stop and listen to everything they say as you walk past them to work.
"Ahhh, but you did pay for the street, through taxes!" Yes, my point exactly. I already paid for the network programming through the cable company's payment to carry it, and in some cases through things like a broadcasting service tax.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually no, we don't have to blame you as you said YANAL. :)
As more material is migrated from analog sources to digital formats, and as new material is created only as a digital entity, how do you see our history and knowledge being protected in a format that is both fair to the copyright holders and useful to the consumers? How will it remain useable in the future?
My concern here is that the current push to require DRM support in hardware seems to be focused on securing the right of profitability for the copyright holder of a given work. What legal protection does an author have to ensure that this work also becomes accessible when that copyright expires?
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but under current US law (DMCA), is it not illegal to remove the content from a DRM container, even if it is simply to transfer it to a different DRM container? If this is true, then archiving an existing work from one media to another becomes impossible. That, in turn, implies that any digital work which falls out of publication will be lost when existing copies become damaged, or are made obsolete. Are there any provisions for a legal way to transfer DRM-protected works to a non-DRM (or "empty password" accessible DRM) container once they enter public domain?
First there was login, kindof quick if you're a good typer.
:0'?
Then there was su, slightly quicker if you're a good typer.
Then came screen, ^a1, ^a2... seems pretty quick to me!
Then came sudo, awfully fast, especially when combined with keybindings in screen.
Oh, you meant silly GUI switching? Fine. But why switch users when I can just 'sudo -u luser mongo-app --display
Maybe I really want to see a different desktop theme? Ok, how about binding those to virtual desktops....
All those patent lawyers must be bored, they've twisted the USPTO to the point where it's just a funny rubber stamp and mask outfit, so they need a new challenge!
Grrrrroooaaaaarrrr!
Playing cute anime-style non-violent video game makes Morbag want to CRUSH LAWYERS!
It's a long wait, but having played X-Tension, and seeing how ambitious both X2 and the plans for XOL are, it just might be worth it.
Having said that, I do enjoy SWG (or I would if my GeForce 3 got more than 10FPS... grrrrr), but it is planet based and will never be a true space empire game. Which means, of course, that I have to kill the Rebel Scum one-at-a-time...
I think the real question is, what chance does any OTHER drive on the market have of reading something burned with this? Slim to none I bet.
Hence, it's not really a CD-R or CD-RW drive, it's a "Proprietary Format"-RW drive that happens to have a CD-RW fallback mode.
Don't get me wrong, the idea of variable pit length is a good one, and I'd love to see it adopted into a standard somewhere (probably on DVD=R (they've already used + and -)), but I'd hate to see someone burn off their backup discs using 900Meg formatting and then 3 years from now wonder why they can't read any of them in the new DVD+-=*^@$@!%_RW 64x drive with optical crystal port...
Well, it is possible to get an unlisted phone number, and if you have such a thing, you can basically tell anyone who calls you that if they do so again, you do have legal grounds to sue them (IANAL, so I don't know any details).
:)
The problem is, the internet is one gigantic bathroom wall. Just like a pervert can wander around to gather phone numbers from walls all over the country, likewise spammers gather the scrawled email addresses from anything and everything public they can get their hands on (like slashdot postings!). If your retailer sells your information, it's just like your friend giving your number out to everyone at the bar... you suddenly find yourself popular, but not really in a good way.
Yeah, Microsoft has produced lots of NEW things in the last few years.
NEW DRM support, to protect you from viewing your files.
NEW online registration, to keep you from using your computer.
NEW media codecs, to make sure that you start migrating your media into a DRM-enabled format so you can be charged for it later.
NEW service packs, to ensure that your software has new bugs that can be fixed in future service packs, along with even better DRM support!
and of course,
NEW EULAs!!! To ensure that you no longer have to make worrying choices about upgrading or which files you want Microsoft and their good buddies at the RIAA to see.
Excellent, now I can sit at the local mexican restaurant ALL DAY, and my laptop will keep up as long as the refriend beans and beer keep coming!
Well, how many linux games have come out... recently... as a product that makes money? ATI has to spend alot of money on things like chip design, fabrication plants, board layout, espionage to see what NVidia is up to, counter-intelligence to make NVidia think they're further ahead than they are, bribes to magazines to publish rave reviews, and of course bribes to benchmark authors to get details about what will make their cards work faster in those benchmarks.
That's alot of cash! They expect ROI, and nobody out there will buy the bleeding-edge 3D graphics card with vibrating codpiece cooling system if the best they can do is run TuxRacer, or 2 year old ports of Unreal Tournament.
If you want hardware which supports linux, you have a few options.
(1) Reverse Engineer and write them yourself... excpet that's now illegal.
(2) Haul Microsoft up on monopoly charges so competition can flourish... oh wait, that's been done.
(3) Ummmm, convince the RIAA that there's a new Windows-ONLY file sharing protocol that uses the latest video drivers to convert mp3's into explosion graphics?
(4) Setup a windoze machine to play games on, and keep it quarenteened off in its own DMZ
(5) Play games using WineX and software drivers and enjoy how solid and uncrashable solitare is!
I chose option 4 and just pretend it's an old Atari 2600 -- pretend that the reboot between games is the tube-type TV warming up!
Development costs.
The $50 box fee will probably cover the development costs and maybe the first year of the server maintenance/bandwidth fees, and the salaries of the developers (who now have to both fix it, and add new features), and the salaries of all the tech-support people who man the phones, sit in the games as GM's, etc.
*IF* it turns out to be a good game, and people not only buy it but keep playing it, THEN the $15/month fee starts becoming profit... but probably not until the game has been online for a year or more.
Back in the days of Venture Capital, you could have turned out a game that was $15/month and freely downloadable... but then the VC would keep you going for 2-3 years until you recouped the costs... most companies don't have the luxury of running negative for this long now (although Sony probably does!).
Well, as one who has programmed in assembly, I can assure you that there certainly can be uniform API's in assembly without needing the five gazillion layers that Windoze uses. There's a difference between a nice clean API, and every department that touches the code adding their OWN API as another layer...
The only reason NOT to program in hand-optimized assembly is the fact that it takes a really long time (especially now that nobody bothers to learn assembly), and you do have to recode for each platform. Big hurdles if you have a elephantine OS like Windoze, but not so much if your kernel fits in 32K of RAM.
QNX release a very nice graphical web browser on a floppy not so long ago (self booting, dhcp, etc). Contrary to popular belief, things like 3d graphics have no business being part of an OS. The OS is there to manage program execution, hardware resources, and provide a central API scheme for applications to use when talking to hardware. OTOH, I fondly recall the boot-sector breakout game for the Amiga (because it did provide all this in the ROM-based kernel) -- which fit in
I agree that portability is difficult with assembly (some may argue impossible, but that depends on how much you optimize for each chip -- by that I mean that a 6502 program could probably be translated to run on a 68000 CPU by a script, but the reverse would not be true).
As for the other complaints, that's not so much a problem with assembly as it is a problem with design. If you write something as complex as Office or Mozilla to do tasks which really don't require 80% of the features they provide, you have a basic design strategy that's flawed to begin with. It's called creeping featurism, and is the bane of bored developers all around the globe, whatever language they program in.
That's my response, the rest is rambling so stop here unless you're bored at work or something!
Let me ask you (both you and anyone happening to read this) this basic question: Do you honestly feel that you are MORE productive with your computer of 2000, than you were with your computer of 1990? How about 1980?
The computer I have on my desk is by no means cutting edge, but it's 900 times faster than the Commodore 64 I used, and has 4000 times the amount of RAM. The removeable media is 6000 times larger, and it has fixed media.
Somehow, I don't think most of us are 900 times more productive... In fact, the most productive coding time I ever had was working on a vt220 terminal, because it removed all the distractions that a desktop GUI provides (lynx still works to get information off the web, but it's not as much fun to just surf with it).
I did word processing on both, and I probably waste more time fiddling with fonts and styles and color now than I did when my choices were Pica, Elite, or Compressed. The C64 felt faster.
I did C programming on both. The compiler is cert
1957 - Can we have this overly broad patent? No!
1964 - How about this other broad patent? No!
1967 - No.
1974 - No, it's not specific enough
1977 - No, we said more details!
1984 - Go away, we're busy.
1987 - Oh here, just take this and leave us alone.
1992 - Fine, we really don't have time to argue.
2000 - Hey, anyone want this patent on silicon?
2005 - We'll pay you to take this patent on an electron...
Google: mission critical
...
transferring....done.
pages about mission critical softare
M$oogle: mission critical
transferring.....clippy waves at you...
transferring.....banner ad pops up...
transferring.....license key checked...
BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!
Not everyone who want to run windoze apps (or games) bought a Dell dude. (although at today's prices, I begin to wonder if I should -- before they get all the DRM hardware working!).
Customer: We insist on having USB 2 controllers!
MFR 1: It costs us $0.25 cents more, we'll have to raise the price of your laptop $25.
Customer: Whatever, we want USB 2.0
MFR 2: psst -- why not just pay the standards committee to rename USB 1.1?
MFR 1: Hey, there's an idea... What say you USB Gods?
USB: Hmmm, that would be unethical and confusing and... how much? Ok!
MFR 1: Ok, PRESTO! You now have USB 2 in your laptops!
I guess this will finally convince people that Firewire really *IS* the better choice?
Again???
PRESTO! divx is reborn, only this time you get to pay the cost up-front, and you STILL get a nice shiny coaster after you've watched it.
Don't these clowns ever learn? I guess as long as they keep the towel wrapped around their heads, they can say whatever they want about what we really want, and it'll all look true.
I hope that self-destructing media leads to a self-destructing RIAA. I will buy my music and movie collection again IF AND WHEN they come out with solid-state no-moving-parts lifelong media that is the size of an SD card. Then it'll be worth spending N*$20 again. Until then, I hope they enjoy their little plans -- since the first time I ever find a CD or DVD that fails outright, will be the last time I ever buy one.
This is one of the things that labor unions were created to solve. The fact that so many IT people sit back and take it is also one of the big reasons none of the unions has made significant headway into the IT field (that, plus the fact that all the employers scream bloody murder, as they don't want the gravy train to stop running).
Let's face it, even the best of employers will (politely) ask their workers to stay late if a problem or deadline is looming. It's hard to resist, and many don't even try. With no union rep standing around with a billy club, and no legal responsibility (unless your contract is carefully worded for that exact circumstance) if the worker agrees to it... they see no reason not to twist the thumscrews.
Once upon a time, switching from hourly to saleried meant job security. Most salaried people knew they'd work more hours, and not get compensated, but at least they'd be the last to be cut if the axes started swinging. That's no longer true, so the benefits are all with the employer now (when's the last time you finished your work for the day at 3pm and management said, "Go on home"?).
So, while I hate the idea of having to go "on-strike" for things that happen half across the country and aren't related to my company at all... I also am not keen on working from the time I get up to the time I go to bed (even peasants had a sort of job security).
My intuition tells me that people looking to hire programmers for mission-critical applications (database, infrastructure, medical, etc.) are going to be far more interested in older, more experienced programmers than game companies or in-house applications.
:)
A young programmer might be cheaper, might have more energy and drive, and might in fact produce more code -- but they may not produce the right code for the task. If your requirements are to bang out a rendering engine so you can get your game to market before BubbaSoft, then you want cheap programmers who are desperate/naieve enough to work 90 hours a week, and if they make a few mistakes so you can see through the corners, or your weapon can be slighly embedded in a wall texture... it can be fixed in a patch, noone will care.
OTOH, if you're looking to upgrade the medical database that's been running on a VAX for 30 years, and you really need to move it to a linux/oracle system before your VMS tape gets eaten by mice... you might want someone who's been doing this for a while so the mistakes they make are less likely to cost you 5 years of records.
I'm 34 myself, and I remember the stuff I wrote when I was 24. Yes, I churned out a bit more code, but boy was it ugly by comparison. What managers should remember is that programming is like writing, or composing... the more experience you have, the more elegant solutions you can find, and the more naturally you can express them. Young people don't worry about things like maintainability, or how some other fellow is going to figure out what they did. Some do, but most don't.
Of course, that's my opinion, and being an Old Fart (TM), I might just be biased.... or maybe I just can't remember it right...
"He should try this in "Real Life". There's money, power, romance, derring-do... It's a rush."
Ok, so what's the "Real-Life" equivalent LEGAL activity that corresponds to running around killing goblins? Most fantasy-based MMPORPG's allow the brand-new character to wander in off the street and immediately be able to go find something they can kill and loot to imporve their position.
In this "Real-Life" place, you have to either already have resources, or have the training needed to someone in an authority position will allow you to do it. If the game worked this way, you'd create your character and then have to immediately convince some guild to let you join before you could do anything.
In the US, we have freedom of CHOICE. That means you may freely WANT to do something, but it doesn't imply that you will be able to do it. You have to meet whatever the pre-requisites are, and that usually means you (a) come from a wealthy background, (b) get lucky, or (c) do something you don't want to do long enough to make (a) or (b) happen.
I love religious debate... it's so much fun because it almost always breaks down into "Prove it!" vs. "You have to believe."
:)
It's understandable that Egypt (with a rocky political situation these days, and a strong Islamic population that, like its two brethren religions, is not know for tolerance of conflicting ideas) might want to exercise a little caution in how the philosophical/religious views of The Matrix are presented... but to ban something entirely because you're afraid to let people draw their own conclusions is just going to make it worse.
What Egypt has done is declare this film to be forbidden fruit. The younger people will now go to every extreme to find that movie and watch it, and they'll make more of it then they would have if it were just another flick, because it's on the forbidden list!
Consider, people under the age of 21 (here in the US) usually make a big deal out of consuming alcohol -- they get older friends to buy it for them, they get fake ID's, they do all kinds of things because the perceived value has been elevated by the fact that they can't just go buy it themselves. About 1-5 years after turning 21, the charm wears off, and it just becomes another item on the shopping list.
I suspect you can extend that concept to any illegal substance, but that's a different debate.
Religion and Science are not as different as both sides like to think. They are both predicated on logical systems built up from fundemental "facts" which have to be taken as faith.
In science, we build systems of proof which allow you to extend a concept, using the assumption that the underlying concept was correct. Hence, we can talk about molecular bonds in terms of the interaction of subatomic particles... using the assumptions that those subatomic particles work as we believe. Make that a recursive algorithim, and you're on your way to defining the Universe by science.
In a religion, the depth of the predicate tree is usually much shorter. We describe how the world came to be, and why things are, and why we should act in certain ways. The ultimate predicate for this is that the Creator said so.
The difference between the two is that science breaks things down far enough so that it becomes difficult to fragment into factions. Unlike most (other) religions, scientists are generally willing to modify their belief system when another theory makes more sense. Example: Relativity vs. Quantuum Mechanics. For decades, those have been two rival belief systems, but now they are resolving their differences and merging those systems to get a step closer to God (The Unified Field Theory).
Imagine, for a moment, how interesting it would be if the various religions would take a similar approach...
But, people always have strong feelings when they get ideas in their heads. Denying the "truth" of one man's interpretation of a single line in the Bible is just like telling a computer scientist that a bit can be half on, or SCO/Caldera that they don't matter anymore. They'd rather fight to defend their belief, than have to change the way they see the world around them.
At least it's entertaining...
Wow, those 4 people will be really bummed, and on Friday the 13th too!
SCO's scheme for proving Linux violation:
"Have you seen the grail?"
"We already got one!"
"The HOLY grail?"
"Yes, yes, it's ah very nice. Go away stupid English Kniggits!"
The reason I started programming (on my Commodore 64) was that computers were cool. I loved computer games, and wanted (doesn't everyone?) to write my own. I leaned BASIC by a combination of trial-and-error-and-error-and-error, and good old COMPUTE magazine.
After a little while, I learned 6510 assembly, because I wanted to do things fast, and was amazed at just how fast assembly would do little things.
Because I learned assembly *before* any formal classroom computer education, I had a really easy time with things that other kids struggled over. If you learn assembly, you understand what the computer really does with your data, and concepts like pointers and data structures are really easy.
The problem is, kids today have 3GHz P4 boxes on their desks. They have 512M of RAM or more. Therefore, they can write in bloated languages and it STILL goes fast. Since everything has to have lots of pointy-click buttons and menus everywhere, you can't write assembly from scratch the way we used to... so we're back to trying to teach kids the abstract ideas of programming without having a totally hands-on way of showing them why it works the way it does.
I don't object (much) to commercials on broadcast television, even though I'm already paying for it through a portion of my cable bill. I do object to them on channels that have never had the burden of maintaining a broadcast tower, and have never been available on the free airwaves.
As has been stated many times before, the model of commercial television has been outdated for decades now. I should not have to watch idiotic commercials for products that I don't care about, and in many cases can't even apply to me... just because the networks have the same problem as the RIAA -- they can't think of a way to take advantage of current technology to create a viable business model, so they work to stifle alternatives and keep their old one alive.
Advertisements are a way of putting your message in a public place (the airwaves) so that the public can CHOOSE to watch them. Saying anything different is like saying that if a city worker stands on a street corner (which they built, and you didn't pay for), that you MUST stop and listen to everything they say as you walk past them to work.
"Ahhh, but you did pay for the street, through taxes!" Yes, my point exactly. I already paid for the network programming through the cable company's payment to carry it, and in some cases through things like a broadcasting service tax.