The fact that a word you think sounds "cool" does not give you license to go out and try to change the English language. Sheesh.
Actually it does. English is a living language and usage dictates the meanings of words. A dictionary is not the guide to how words are spelled and what they mean, it is rather a reflection of usage.
From Ambrose Bierce:
"DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. "
Thinking of buying plants from Pet Warehouse? Don't.
Actually the plants I received were average to maybe a bit below average, but they'll pull through in my tank. What is crappy is their service! And they're maybe even a bit dishonest.
Way back in the beginning of April (April 10th to be exact) I was seduced by the huge list of plants for sale on their web site. I ordered 4 types of plants, all quite common. Though it states on their web site that they directly import their plants, I didn't realize that they'd import the plants you ordered *after* you placed your order! Or at least that's the way it seemed...
I received my order today, May 15th. It only took them 4.5 weeks. And this is after 6 phone calls. Twice they promised they'd be shipped on a certain date, then nada. And dealing with them on the phone is, well, let's just say they stick to their pat answers and work very hard at getting you off the phone as quickly as possible. My 6th call was last week, and when they realized I was calling about a plant order they proclaimed "They will be shipped on Monday". Click. And I didn't even give them my name or order number! Maybe *all* orders finally went out on Monday?
There was never a "sorry for the delay" or any sign whatsoever that I was the valued customer and they were the business providing a product that I was paying for.
Though I found all of this very annoying, it wasn't what annoyed me the most. On my order confirmation I was quoted a shipping price of $7.50. Nice... it was one of the selling points for me. Then the order arrived complete with an invoice stating that shipping was $18.50! When I called them today to straighten this out, they informed me that the original quote was wrong and that I was stuck with the $18.50. Again, no "sorry for the mixup" or any indication that they would fix the problem (with the web site and order confirmation system).
Another hassle - their shipments *require* a signature. I quote their email notice telling me the plants had been shipped: "You must be home to sign for it. We guarantee live arrival if the order is accepted on the first delivery attempt." Yikes. This was the first I knew of this policy. So I actually had to take a half day off work in order to be there to receive the order! These plants are getting *very* expensive.
The whole organization has the feel of someone who started yesterday out of your neighbors garage. It even sounds that way when you talk to them on the phone.
Maybe I expect too much?
Though I have a few gripes about Arizona Aquatics as well, they're light years ahead of this outfit as far as service.
"It means that you can see what the program does. So if you are concerned it might have a back door, you can check what it really does. And you can study it to learn how you do those jobs. You can study it to see precisely what it does."
Yes, it might be free to have, but no one at my job knows Linux or anything else about free software, therefore we'd have to hire a consultant at perhaps $80.00 an hour to analyze the code and solve the problem.
This is major $ compared to the price of licenses. Sometimes the "free software" argument is grasping at straws, since there is cost to maintaing software, no matter whose software it is.
But you need to compare that to the software that Microsoft gives you. Are you telling me that you have authorized developers on site? If you don't you can't even open the code.
More to the point, since open software is looked at by literally thousands of people, you don't need to hire anyone... it's already been looked at and the information is available online, again for free.
What Richard is saying is that Free Software allows you to know what the code does, exactly what it does, and perhaps change it. What Microsoft is saying is that proprietary software is fine and you don't need to know how it works and you certainly shouldn't try to change it, and only use it in a particular manner that benefits MS.
Take the car analogy. What if every Ford care came with a user license that said you couldn't change anything on the car... and you could only have it repaired at an authorized dealer. No oil changes, no wiperblades, no air filters, nothing. Well obviously they wouldn't sell well, because everyone would buy something else. Now imagine that Ford is the only company that can make cars that work on the highways. Ah... taste the monopoly.
It would be interesting for Sony to counter sue for the diaries of both the child and the mother in order to defend their case. If the mother wishes to sue on the grounds that it was Sony's fault, the counter suit should attempt to prove that it was hers for neglect. She clearly should already know what level/class/guild her child was associating with. My guess is she didn't or she would have plenty of people online to talk to about her child.
At the end of the day, parents don't want any blame on themselves.
Years ago, it was Rock 'n' Roll. Then it was Dungeons and Dragons (anyone remember the Tom Hanks movie Mazes and Monsters?) Now it's computer games. The simple fact of the matter is that certain forms of entertainment tend to appeal to certain types of people, and that for some people...
Statistical analysis of this have always shown that people who play D&D are less likely to commit suicide than the average public.
The only reason these types of games get associated is because the public image of the players has consistently been that of the outsider/geeky/skinny runt. The facts are actually quite different. You can find the results on Wizards of the Coast. I play D&D and I'm 33 years old with a wife. I enjoy playing for the same reason people like to play poker. I get a chance to be with my friends on a regular basis.
"The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict,"
It was so addictive the person took their own life. Wait... if it's so addictive then why would they kill themselves? Shouldn't they still be playing?
Military Applications... Pulse Laser Cannons/Guns
on
Stopping Light
·
· Score: 1
This technology has been hinted at for years in Science Fiction. You have Laser Guns which hold Laser "shots" in stasis and then release them when you pull a trigger. Rotating through several chambers, you eventually finish your magazine and require a new one... like needing more ammo. So each clip would hold X amount of laser shots.
The inclusion of Quantum Mechanics means that you could store the charge somewhere else. So you have a laser cannon/gun here, with the paired molecules being in another location, with a recharger. The recharger would be massive in order to produce the amount of energy required to produce repeated firing weapons, but the actual statis field appears to have very modest size requirements. Essentially you have a machine reloading laser bursts in a ammunition factory.
Imagine a laser handgun being powered by a nuclear reactor for example, able to release a full load at the pull of a trigger.
Well, boo hoo, why should I care what happens to these unscrupulous box-shifters?
Because at the end of the day, you wont get anything better until there's no monopoly. Obviously it's impossible for the OEM's to do anything but sell crap because there's no room in the market for competition on anything but price. You can't bundle different software, you can't enhance anything on the hardware side that isn't part of the MS plan. In effect you are competting with other OEM's on the same level and MS gets to say who wins and loses because the only thing you look at is price.
Take the yoke off these "unscrupulous box-shifters" and watch them start competting on things other than price... like innovation, service, etc.
Re:Proves strength of Google
on
Google Juice
·
· Score: 2
Lucky you. My name is John Lewis... just try and find me on Google. It's like a needle in a haystack, that includes a major department store in the UK.
That's exactly how I felt the first time I tried to install Unix. I couldn't figure out where to get information and the help feature (man) was incredible annoying. MacOS really is *nix!
"Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection. "T
his is natural selection, in fact it accelerates it. The other eggs effectively "died", while the chosen egg survived. That's natural selection jumping a generation or two.
I try to help them, but like Neo knew, sometimes the best solution is just to kill them as many times as you can.
Actually I find cheating to be boring and obnoxious. It's not really a test of skill or intellect. I prefer to win games by simply being better than my opponents.
No one wins when you cheat, because by cheating you've removed any chance to win.
It's easy enough to hide a window in the background, much like a pop-up ad would. This window would auto update to send information back to the server.
Particularly vicious would be a virus that could harness this power and then redirect en-masse to DOS attack a specific target.
My understand was that you thought Big Blue was making a choice to Psych Out Kasparov. If you don't think that, then this thread is the result of my misunderstanding you.
I agree that I'm simplifying the analogy, but that's because you didn't seem to understand it. Taking if farther in resuction is unnecessary.
For you to say that Big Blue psyched someone out, you have to allow for the choice to be made. In otherwords, at some point in Big Blue's decision tree there has to be the basic question:
"Do I attempt to Psyche Out my opponent?"
I don't think there's anything in Big Blue that does that. I don't think there's a psyche-out meter it's using to measure how Psyched-out it's opponent is.
If there is such a choice being made by Big Blue, then you assertion is correct, Big Blue psyched out Kasporov. But if not, then the actual action was made by the programmers.
Liken this to the mine analogy and you see that the person who *made the decision* to put the mine there is the one responsible. The bomb didn't choose who to explode on.
The point is that, effectively, Big Blue psyched Kasparov out.
What's more accurately said is that the programmers used Big Blue to psyched Kasparov out. I doubt there was a routine in Big Blue called "Psych_out_Kasparov".
Von Neumann Architecture Can't Do It.
on
Arguing A.I.
·
· Score: 2
I don't think you can get AI working on normal Von Neumann Architecture. Sure you could use that architecture to simulate the mahcine that would work, but hoping to find human-like intelligence without using neural networks is, IMO, crazy.
Another requirement would be senses that mimic human senses. I'm amazed that people think you can simulate human-like intelligence without using nearly the exact set of sensory input. Dolphins are clearly intelligent creatures, but we can't talk to them... and I think it has to do with sensory input.
Lastly, you won't be able to program an AI. It has to be grown. Human intelligence takes years of sensory input, filtering, communication, and response analysis to work.
Starting with the right neural network and training it like you would an intelligent child seems the right approach.
You didn't even bother to read the whole thing, did you. If you did, you'd see I make suggestions on how to fix the problem with selling information in a modern society.
In a Capitalist based system, people work and that work is sold for profit
to the marketplace. Profit is maximized by several factors but basically
there are four factors that increase profit:
Need
Supply
Value
Demand
This system works well for material items. I cut down a tree, the wood
can be sold for a profit. My work adds value to the wood. If there is a
glut of wood in the market, the profit will be low. I can add more value
to the wood by making it into a chair. This could increase my profit
because the same wood will sell for more as a chair than as raw material.
I can further increase the value of the chair if no one else is making the
style of chair and it becomes popular. Since I'm the only one making
these chairs, the demand far outways the supply.
The model breaks down for non-material items, because demand can never
outweight supply.
When someone sells software, they are actually selling information. The
information is the series of bits that make up the software. There's
nothing new about selling information, but the way to profit from
information in the past was to tie it to something material. Newspapers,
books, and paintings are material items that hold information and being
tied to a material item allows normal market economics to work.
Information can escape the confines of it's containers. After reading a
newspaper, have I stolen from the paper by recounting a story I read to
someone else?
Removing the need for material components proves problematic. You've
altered the requirements for profit. With an unending Supply, you have to
rely on the other three requirements. You can see this dynamic at work
with Microsoft. By manipulating the file formats and controlling the OS,
they have forced Need on the market. They add Value by adding features
and increase Demand with marketing. But they never lack for supply.
Pirates circumvent attempts to control supply. They take the information
created by others, remove any locks and allow the information to be
transported easily. With supply flooding the market, demand is removed
and hence profits are reduced.
Software writer's attempts to artificially control supply are doomed to
failure. With massive networking any single individual can remove the
locks and allow the entire network to use the information they create.
(Using enough eyes, any software lock is trivial.) We are trying to apply
commodity rules to what is essentially a new kind of service.
It's in your best interest as a software writer to have the widest
possible audience. Because there are no limits on supply, you information
will spread quickly. In a networked system, the more people who use a
piece of information, the more value it has. The question is how to
profit from this audience.
Still with me? Good, because here's the payoff.
Exclusivity, serialization, and patronage.
Everyone in a shared audience benefits from the audience as a whole. The
more people who have information, the more essential the information
appears. This communal effect is particularly strong for software.
However, individuals in the audience want to remain individuals.
Exclusivity is giving particular information to individuals in the
audience. In a game, you might allow people to create individual avatars.
Exclusivity works by using an individuals desire to remain an individual.
They don't want to give away something that makes them unique, special or
identifies them individually.
Serialization is leveraging peoples desire to be up to date. Television
broadcasts work on this principal. By introducing new content to an
audience in a timely fashion, they keep the audience paying (through their
attention). It's possible to record television and watch it without
paying (by not watching the commercials), but millions of people continue
to pay by watching the broadcast "as it happens." Serializing content in
software creates a dynamic that produces profit.
Lastly, you can use Patronage to increase profits. When you allow patrons
to feel involved in creating information, you profit from their desire to
affect the results. How many of you would pay to adjust which bugs were
worked on first for your favorite software? How many of you would pay for
putting your RFE at the top of the list? A system that allowed the
audience to focus the services of the software writer by bidding that time
up would bring in unmined profit. Imagine how this could change Open
Source. It would instantly make it profitable.
Most software writers shoot themselves in the foot right from the start by
forcing a barrier between their information and their audience. By making
people pay for software, they remove all incentive for the audience to
become involved beyond that point. Imagine if every person who had
pirated an Ambrosia game had actually been part of the Ambrosia community.
Imagine the profit.
...the movie, so highly altered from Nash's real story...
A life is made up of years that could never be represented in either a book or a movie. A life is an order higher in content. The fault of the movie, as with so many things, is what was left out, but such ommisions are made in the book as well. To understand all of Nash's story would require living his life.
Faulting the movie altering Nash's life is ignoring the requirements of the medium. Things were selectively removed to tell a single story.
More can always be told, but would the movie be better for including these details or would it cloud the central story. Brevity shouldn't be confused with inaccuracy.
I was trying to say that it's as likely that it's from violent video games as it is a social or economic reason. In reality it's a combination of reasons.
Obviously the gang members are violent because they play games about violence. It's highly unlikely that gang members might be violent because of social/economic reasons.
Clearly if we take away the violent games, gang members will have more free time for doing the activities that gang members are known for. Namely attacking other gang members and acts of violence.
Gang members don't need games to have a reason to attacking each other. They can use any excuse handy.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that a word you think sounds "cool" does not give you license to go out and try to change the English language. Sheesh.
Actually it does. English is a living language and usage dictates the meanings of words. A dictionary is not the guide to how words are spelled and what they mean, it is rather a reflection of usage.
From Ambrose Bierce:
"DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. "
In case it get's S'dotted.
...
... it was one of the selling points for me. Then the
Thinking of buying plants from Pet Warehouse? Don't.
Actually the plants I received were average to maybe a bit below
average, but they'll pull through in my tank. What is crappy is their
service! And they're maybe even a bit dishonest.
Way back in the beginning of April (April 10th to be exact) I was
seduced by the huge list of plants for sale on their web site. I
ordered 4 types of plants, all quite common. Though it states on their
web site that they directly import their plants, I didn't realize that
they'd import the plants you ordered *after* you placed your order! Or
at least that's the way it seemed
I received my order today, May 15th. It only took them 4.5 weeks. And
this is after 6 phone calls. Twice they promised they'd be shipped on
a certain date, then nada. And dealing with them on the phone is,
well, let's just say they stick to their pat answers and work very
hard at getting you off the phone as quickly as possible. My 6th call
was last week, and when they realized I was calling about a plant
order they proclaimed "They will be shipped on Monday". Click. And I
didn't even give them my name or order number! Maybe *all* orders
finally went out on Monday?
There was never a "sorry for the delay" or any sign whatsoever that I
was the valued customer and they were the business providing a product
that I was paying for.
Though I found all of this very annoying, it wasn't what annoyed me
the most. On my order confirmation I was quoted a shipping price of
$7.50. Nice
order arrived complete with an invoice stating that shipping was
$18.50! When I called them today to straighten this out, they
informed me that the original quote was wrong and that I was stuck
with the $18.50. Again, no "sorry for the mixup" or any indication
that they would fix the problem (with the web site and order
confirmation system).
Another hassle - their shipments *require* a signature. I quote their
email notice telling me the plants had been shipped: "You must be home
to sign for it. We guarantee live arrival if the order is accepted on
the first delivery attempt." Yikes. This was the first I knew of this
policy. So I actually had to take a half day off work in order to be
there to receive the order! These plants are getting *very* expensive.
The whole organization has the feel of someone who started yesterday
out of your neighbors garage. It even sounds that way when you talk to
them on the phone.
Maybe I expect too much?
Though I have a few gripes about Arizona Aquatics as well, they're
light years ahead of this outfit as far as service.
As always, your mileage may vary.
dan
--
"It means that you can see what the program does. So if you are concerned it might have a back door, you can check what it really does. And you can study it to learn how you do those jobs. You can study it to see precisely what it does."
Yes, it might be free to have, but no one at my job knows Linux or anything else about free software, therefore we'd have to hire a consultant at perhaps $80.00 an hour to analyze the code and solve the problem.
This is major $ compared to the price of licenses. Sometimes the "free software" argument is grasping at straws, since there is cost to maintaing software, no matter whose software it is.
But you need to compare that to the software that Microsoft gives you. Are you telling me that you have authorized developers on site? If you don't you can't even open the code.
More to the point, since open software is looked at by literally thousands of people, you don't need to hire anyone... it's already been looked at and the information is available online, again for free.
What Richard is saying is that Free Software allows you to know what the code does, exactly what it does, and perhaps change it. What Microsoft is saying is that proprietary software is fine and you don't need to know how it works and you certainly shouldn't try to change it, and only use it in a particular manner that benefits MS.
Take the car analogy. What if every Ford care came with a user license that said you couldn't change anything on the car... and you could only have it repaired at an authorized dealer. No oil changes, no wiperblades, no air filters, nothing. Well obviously they wouldn't sell well, because everyone would buy something else. Now imagine that Ford is the only company that can make cars that work on the highways. Ah... taste the monopoly.
It would be interesting for Sony to counter sue for the diaries of both the child and the mother in order to defend their case. If the mother wishes to sue on the grounds that it was Sony's fault, the counter suit should attempt to prove that it was hers for neglect. She clearly should already know what level/class/guild her child was associating with. My guess is she didn't or she would have plenty of people online to talk to about her child.
At the end of the day, parents don't want any blame on themselves.
Years ago, it was Rock 'n' Roll. Then it was Dungeons and Dragons (anyone remember the Tom Hanks movie Mazes and Monsters?) Now it's computer games. The simple fact of the matter is that certain forms of entertainment tend to appeal to certain types of people, and that for some people...
Statistical analysis of this have always shown that people who play D&D are less likely to commit suicide than the average public.
The only reason these types of games get associated is because the public image of the players has consistently been that of the outsider/geeky/skinny runt. The facts are actually quite different. You can find the results on Wizards of the Coast. I play D&D and I'm 33 years old with a wife. I enjoy playing for the same reason people like to play poker. I get a chance to be with my friends on a regular basis.
My point is, don't believe the hype.
"The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict,"
It was so addictive the person took their own life. Wait... if it's so addictive then why would they kill themselves? Shouldn't they still be playing?
This technology has been hinted at for years in Science Fiction. You have Laser Guns which hold Laser "shots" in stasis and then release them when you pull a trigger. Rotating through several chambers, you eventually finish your magazine and require a new one... like needing more ammo. So each clip would hold X amount of laser shots.
The inclusion of Quantum Mechanics means that you could store the charge somewhere else. So you have a laser cannon/gun here, with the paired molecules being in another location, with a recharger. The recharger would be massive in order to produce the amount of energy required to produce repeated firing weapons, but the actual statis field appears to have very modest size requirements. Essentially you have a machine reloading laser bursts in a ammunition factory.
Imagine a laser handgun being powered by a nuclear reactor for example, able to release a full load at the pull of a trigger.
I want one for my wife! God knows where she ends up and it's a bear trying to tack her down. Now if only it worked internationally.
Well, boo hoo, why should I care what happens to these unscrupulous box-shifters?
Because at the end of the day, you wont get anything better until there's no monopoly. Obviously it's impossible for the OEM's to do anything but sell crap because there's no room in the market for competition on anything but price. You can't bundle different software, you can't enhance anything on the hardware side that isn't part of the MS plan. In effect you are competting with other OEM's on the same level and MS gets to say who wins and loses because the only thing you look at is price.
Take the yoke off these "unscrupulous box-shifters" and watch them start competting on things other than price... like innovation, service, etc.
Lucky you. My name is John Lewis... just try and find me on Google. It's like a needle in a haystack, that includes a major department store in the UK.
That's exactly how I felt the first time I tried to install Unix. I couldn't figure out where to get information and the help feature (man) was incredible annoying. MacOS really is *nix!
"Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection. "T
his is natural selection, in fact it accelerates it. The other eggs effectively "died", while the chosen egg survived. That's natural selection jumping a generation or two.
When I have a computer I don't want anymore, I leave it on the sidewalk with a sign that says "FREE".
It's always gone within 24 hours. I can only assume that some techno-geek takes them and uses them for spare parts.
I did the same thing to my comic book collection.
I try to help them, but like Neo knew, sometimes the best solution is just to kill them as many times as you can.
Actually I find cheating to be boring and obnoxious. It's not really a test of skill or intellect. I prefer to win games by simply being better than my opponents.
No one wins when you cheat, because by cheating you've removed any chance to win.
It's easy enough to hide a window in the background, much like a pop-up ad would. This window would auto update to send information back to the server.
Particularly vicious would be a virus that could harness this power and then redirect en-masse to DOS attack a specific target.
This concept is every interesting.
I think we are at the point of arguing semantics.
My understand was that you thought Big Blue was making a choice to Psych Out Kasparov. If you don't think that, then this thread is the result of my misunderstanding you.
I agree that I'm simplifying the analogy, but that's because you didn't seem to understand it. Taking if farther in resuction is unnecessary.
For you to say that Big Blue psyched someone out, you have to allow for the choice to be made. In otherwords, at some point in Big Blue's decision tree there has to be the basic question:
"Do I attempt to Psyche Out my opponent?"
I don't think there's anything in Big Blue that does that. I don't think there's a psyche-out meter it's using to measure how Psyched-out it's opponent is.
If there is such a choice being made by Big Blue, then you assertion is correct, Big Blue psyched out Kasporov. But if not, then the actual action was made by the programmers.
Liken this to the mine analogy and you see that the person who *made the decision* to put the mine there is the one responsible. The bomb didn't choose who to explode on.
If a man sets a clamour mine and later someone trips the switch, would you say the clamour mine is guilty of murder?
The point is that, effectively, Big Blue psyched Kasparov out.
What's more accurately said is that the programmers used Big Blue to psyched Kasparov out. I doubt there was a routine in Big Blue called "Psych_out_Kasparov".
I don't think you can get AI working on normal Von Neumann Architecture. Sure you could use that architecture to simulate the mahcine that would work, but hoping to find human-like intelligence without using neural networks is, IMO, crazy.
Another requirement would be senses that mimic human senses. I'm amazed that people think you can simulate human-like intelligence without using nearly the exact set of sensory input. Dolphins are clearly intelligent creatures, but we can't talk to them... and I think it has to do with sensory input.
Lastly, you won't be able to program an AI. It has to be grown. Human intelligence takes years of sensory input, filtering, communication, and response analysis to work.
Starting with the right neural network and training it like you would an intelligent child seems the right approach.
Your opinion may differ, but that's mine.
Actually I have.
You didn't even bother to read the whole thing, did you. If you did, you'd see I make suggestions on how to fix the problem with selling information in a modern society.
Capitalism, Profit, Materials and Ideas.
In a Capitalist based system, people work and that work is sold for profit
to the marketplace. Profit is maximized by several factors but basically
there are four factors that increase profit:
Need
Supply
Value
Demand
This system works well for material items. I cut down a tree, the wood
can be sold for a profit. My work adds value to the wood. If there is a
glut of wood in the market, the profit will be low. I can add more value
to the wood by making it into a chair. This could increase my profit
because the same wood will sell for more as a chair than as raw material.
I can further increase the value of the chair if no one else is making the
style of chair and it becomes popular. Since I'm the only one making
these chairs, the demand far outways the supply.
The model breaks down for non-material items, because demand can never
outweight supply.
When someone sells software, they are actually selling information. The
information is the series of bits that make up the software. There's
nothing new about selling information, but the way to profit from
information in the past was to tie it to something material. Newspapers,
books, and paintings are material items that hold information and being
tied to a material item allows normal market economics to work.
Information can escape the confines of it's containers. After reading a
newspaper, have I stolen from the paper by recounting a story I read to
someone else?
Removing the need for material components proves problematic. You've
altered the requirements for profit. With an unending Supply, you have to
rely on the other three requirements. You can see this dynamic at work
with Microsoft. By manipulating the file formats and controlling the OS,
they have forced Need on the market. They add Value by adding features
and increase Demand with marketing. But they never lack for supply.
Pirates circumvent attempts to control supply. They take the information
created by others, remove any locks and allow the information to be
transported easily. With supply flooding the market, demand is removed
and hence profits are reduced.
Software writer's attempts to artificially control supply are doomed to
failure. With massive networking any single individual can remove the
locks and allow the entire network to use the information they create.
(Using enough eyes, any software lock is trivial.) We are trying to apply
commodity rules to what is essentially a new kind of service.
It's in your best interest as a software writer to have the widest
possible audience. Because there are no limits on supply, you information
will spread quickly. In a networked system, the more people who use a
piece of information, the more value it has. The question is how to
profit from this audience.
Still with me? Good, because here's the payoff.
Exclusivity, serialization, and patronage.
Everyone in a shared audience benefits from the audience as a whole. The
more people who have information, the more essential the information
appears. This communal effect is particularly strong for software.
However, individuals in the audience want to remain individuals.
Exclusivity is giving particular information to individuals in the
audience. In a game, you might allow people to create individual avatars.
Exclusivity works by using an individuals desire to remain an individual.
They don't want to give away something that makes them unique, special or
identifies them individually.
Serialization is leveraging peoples desire to be up to date. Television
broadcasts work on this principal. By introducing new content to an
audience in a timely fashion, they keep the audience paying (through their
attention). It's possible to record television and watch it without
paying (by not watching the commercials), but millions of people continue
to pay by watching the broadcast "as it happens." Serializing content in
software creates a dynamic that produces profit.
Lastly, you can use Patronage to increase profits. When you allow patrons
to feel involved in creating information, you profit from their desire to
affect the results. How many of you would pay to adjust which bugs were
worked on first for your favorite software? How many of you would pay for
putting your RFE at the top of the list? A system that allowed the
audience to focus the services of the software writer by bidding that time
up would bring in unmined profit. Imagine how this could change Open
Source. It would instantly make it profitable.
Most software writers shoot themselves in the foot right from the start by
forcing a barrier between their information and their audience. By making
people pay for software, they remove all incentive for the audience to
become involved beyond that point. Imagine if every person who had
pirated an Ambrosia game had actually been part of the Ambrosia community.
Imagine the profit.
...the movie, so highly altered from Nash's real story...
A life is made up of years that could never be represented in either a book or a movie. A life is an order higher in content. The fault of the movie, as with so many things, is what was left out, but such ommisions are made in the book as well. To understand all of Nash's story would require living his life.
Faulting the movie altering Nash's life is ignoring the requirements of the medium. Things were selectively removed to tell a single story.
More can always be told, but would the movie be better for including these details or would it cloud the central story. Brevity shouldn't be confused with inaccuracy.
Sorry, I think I went overboard on the sarcasm.
I was trying to say that it's as likely that it's from violent video games as it is a social or economic reason. In reality it's a combination of reasons.
Obviously the gang members are violent because they play games about violence. It's highly unlikely that gang members might be violent because of social/economic reasons.
Clearly if we take away the violent games, gang members will have more free time for doing the activities that gang members are known for. Namely attacking other gang members and acts of violence.
Gang members don't need games to have a reason to attacking each other. They can use any excuse handy.