leechers on p2p do exactly what the ones on irc do - they don't share their files. They shutdown the program or move each file as the download completes...
Today's gamers are tomorrow's game developers, and I think this is something that wasn't as true ten years ago.
With the recent increased popularity in both video games and software development, making mod-able games isn't so much a new innovation, but really just a logical step forward. Game developers can safely assume that at least a couple hundred of their players will be talented programmers, and from those a collection will be willing to work on things like mods. The benefits of this possibility are fairly obvious (look at other posts), and really the only cost is the need to organize your code into an SDK, which is probably benefits your codebase considerably if you are thinking about this from the start.
Someone else mentioned this, but not only will you possible generate new games that will add to the value of your game, but the programmers who worked on these project are probably just the type you want working in your company, allowing you to basically hand-pick a few new programmers for your company from the vast pool of modders working on your game. I'm almost certain that Valve Software (Half-Life) hired a few guys from some mods, and I think they even keep the Counter-Strike developers on payroll just so they will continue their work.
All this of course applies to artists and such as well.
Admittedly I'm from the more technical branch of society, but I think many people my age just convert over to exclusively using mp3s they didn't pay for for their music needs. I won't claim that I know exactly why people like me do this, but I think it centers around three reasons, and I certainly don't think these reasons would motivate everyone.
reason one: I don't have to pay. Personally I think paying 20 bucks for a cd is a total rip-off in my current financial condition, and I'd just rather not pay if I don't have to. Hopefully in a few years if I ever buy music, this reason won't even cross my mind. But...I really don't think this is the reason I don't buy cds...I would probably just listen to the radio if I didn't have my computer...what do I care...
reason two: Convenience. I think this is a big winner for mp3's. I'm confortable with my computer and I enjoy trying out new software. I feel like everything should be do-able with a computer. When I listened to mp3s for the first time, more than six years ago, it just seemed like the most natural way to listen to music. Why would I ever want to actually go somewhere and buy a bulky cd if I could just get it more conveniently packaged without ever leaving my desk? The few cds I've been given are just coasters now...its far too much effort to slip them into my machine when I can download them with a few mouseclicks and keystrokes. Plus, its more fun when you see what mixes are out there for the songs you like when you search for them.
reason three: Collecting. People rarely bring this up in discussions of digital piracy, but I think its a major motivation driving some people. I just like collecting stuff on my computer. I feel like I'm wasting space or something when my hard drive isn't full. I know it seems silly, but when you have a few minutes, downloading some songs or movies is just a great way to pass the time (after I read/. of course). I'm not as crazy on this as some people I know - some people just collect and collect, with some strange dream of actually getting the entire history of recordings on their machine. Some people have over 50gb of music alone, but they never listen to even half of it. Somehow just having it available makes them feel better. I guess I get in a collecting mood sometimes, and thats it.
Why do I think its ok? I don't claim my reason is legitimate and legally justifiable or something, but I think its a good point at least.
CDs are a total pain in the ass and I've thought so since I first used a computer with decent speakers and a hard drive. I don't feel bad not buying them because I think they are a horrible horrible things that should have never survived as long as they have. What kind of stone age are we living in where we have to carry this kind of crap around? I would never buy a cd just because I think they are grossly out of date and I can't stand worrying about losing them or moving them or worrying about people stealing them or something. If I had a little more money, I'd be perfectly happy paying 20-50 bucks a month so I could stick headphones into my cellphone or pda and listen to any music I wanted to, and frankly the technology is there and I'm really annoyed I have to be guilt tripped about downloading mp3s just because the mega-rich music industry has no motivation to innovate with their comfortable oligopoly. What a bunch of rich pricks!
How long would it take to put in a little cgi/ssi/asp/pl/anything that would simply redirect all traffic that doesn't have the Referer: tag with the correct value. Sure not every browser does this, but there are workarounds for that too.
These people should have simply hired a single engineer who knew a little about web applications and then they wouldn't have to waste all that time and money in court.
I've worked on both ends (dev and test), at M$ and other places, and I've come to one conclusion (I'm sure its not the only correct one).
Developers must test their code.
With a test team backing you up, it becomes too easy to change something, run it once (if at all), and then push it into the next build so the test team can catch your errors. I've found that as a tester, a huge proportion of bugs are simply features implemented where the developer just forgot something stupid. I end up wasting 5 minutes writing a report, my manager assigns the bug back to a developer (hopefully the one who made the mistake but not always), and the developer comes back to the code a week later, spending 20 minutes just trying to figure what s/he wrote a week back.
My point: this wastes 30 minutes of people's time for every little stupid mistake. Pressure your developers to really give a thorough test to the code they write before the check it in, especially if you have a test team, because you just end up wasting more people's time.
I took a class in college where we learned how do this, with the last assignment ending with implementing a processor with 12 or so instructions.
The one thing I think I came away with is that you can built just about anything with FPGA's, whether you mean CPU's, or just controllers for large LED's, garage door openers, mp3 players or whatever...
There is a huge gap to fill in terms of geeks designing neat household or hobby chips that just do something that you need to implement in hardware (or firmware i guess). These devices don't need to be as fast as Intel or something, but there can certainly do something Intel's never done. I've always wondered why there aren't more open source projects built on this idea...any know? Anyone know where to look for these projects?
I guess a reality to recognize is that miniaturization (sp?) and faster processors with more features will eventually drive almost everything into the software arena (arguably already happened), so you might as well just write your cool device in and run it on your Linux iPaq or whatever replaces it...
Of course, I'm far from being an expert in this arena so this is just amatuer speculation...
I really think people are missing a whole aspect here - this product is another thing - an affordable and legal tracking device. Anyone could attach this anywhere on your car, or sneak it into any transport vehicle or large storage unit to track that item wherever it goes on the planet. A criminal with any know-how or guidance could attach this to your car to know exactly when you are on your way home from work, or anything.
These kinds of devices are normally illegal aren't they? I don't see how the fact that its packaged as a watch makes it different. All I see is a cheap way that people can track eachother's movements in a variety of circumstances.
I think its a real shame you're not allowed to do what you wanna do. I'm amazed at how many comments you got here from people giving advice...
So here's mine:
Do whatever the hell you wanna do, tell all these people who say you should do whatever to f*** off, and when you are older, if you find yourself looking back and regretting your actions, just take responsibility and remember that you made your decisions and no one else made em for you. I think its such a shame how the older people get, the more they think they can tell other people what to do because of the life they've had. The fact is they are living their own lives and the only person who can tell you what to do is you.
(so all you fogies leave us younger people alone!)
I'm not as young as wish I was, but any mistakes I made as a teenager were MY mistakes, not some 'experienced' person's advice, and I'm grateful that I had the piece of mind to do what I wanted to do.
I don't see why this comment is relavent. The guy OBVIOUSLY must be damn good, otherwise why would he be getting recognized as a major contributor. I'm sure they weren't considering his age when judging his contributions. I don't think anybody is pressing for the fact that he is amazing because he's done x years of so-and-so. The fact is, regardless of his past experience and his age, he is being just as or more valuable then all those other contributors who may have been coding for 50 years for all you know.
Seems like this should spure a rise in the hacked TiVo market...I've seen it done. You can get free Tivo and DirectTV for life with a little technical know-how and some extra components. Copy-protection going right out the window with DirectTV/TiVo comin in for free...
Seems like my thumb would fall off in a week if I had to turn a wheel for every character I typed. Does this input method have any advantages other than it being one-handed?
I'm a teaching assistant for Harvard University's intro CS course. We have our own custom made software we've used for many years successfully, comparing every students code to every piece of code ever handed in for that assignment. The program identifies code that is similar so people can look and see if people have cheated.
Very few people are allowed to use the program (i'm not), but everyone who uses it comes back absolutly astounded at how difficult it is to fool. I guess changing your variable names won't save you here...
The program run for my class, interestingly enough, apparently gets more people thrown out for cheating every semester than every other class at the college, put together. People, for some reason, don't take its existence seriously...year after year after year...
to be fully available on Morpheus and Kazaa just like everything else...its not like there is nobody out there with a hot stereo hooked up to their machine...give me a break.
Hell, it will proabably increase demand on p2p networks, so become EVEN MORE available once someone rips a single decent copy...
f
why won't the record company just compete instead of restrict...
Yeah at Microsoft they all run around with iPaq's with 802.11 (1X even!)...direct their powerpoint presentations remotely and e-mail and voice-mail or whatever...
Pretty nifty till you leave the building...what they need is either bluetooth on both iPaq and your cell, or a cellphone inside the iPaq instead of 802.11...
> These measures only hurt legitimate customers
they don't just hurt them, they discourage them.
Anybody who ever plays music on their computer(mp3 or cd) will just be thinking "Gosh, I dunno whats happening to these new cds, but why should I buy something that might not work? Oh whatever, I'll just download the mp3 cause its not worth the trouble"
The more protected media formats, the more frustrated customers who simply give up on buying anything. Why do they keep digging themselves into a deeper and deeper grave?
Slashdot Mirror
leechers on p2p do exactly what the ones on irc do - they don't share their files. They shutdown the program or move each file as the download completes...
Today's gamers are tomorrow's game developers, and I think this is something that wasn't as true ten years ago.
With the recent increased popularity in both video games and software development, making mod-able games isn't so much a new innovation, but really just a logical step forward. Game developers can safely assume that at least a couple hundred of their players will be talented programmers, and from those a collection will be willing to work on things like mods. The benefits of this possibility are fairly obvious (look at other posts), and really the only cost is the need to organize your code into an SDK, which is probably benefits your codebase considerably if you are thinking about this from the start.
Someone else mentioned this, but not only will you possible generate new games that will add to the value of your game, but the programmers who worked on these project are probably just the type you want working in your company, allowing you to basically hand-pick a few new programmers for your company from the vast pool of modders working on your game. I'm almost certain that Valve Software (Half-Life) hired a few guys from some mods, and I think they even keep the Counter-Strike developers on payroll just so they will continue their work.
All this of course applies to artists and such as well.
You really should read more about GNU if you think that...
I'm 21 years old, and I don't buy music...ever.
/. of course). I'm not as crazy on this as some people I know - some people just collect and collect, with some strange dream of actually getting the entire history of recordings on their machine. Some people have over 50gb of music alone, but they never listen to even half of it. Somehow just having it available makes them feel better. I guess I get in a collecting mood sometimes, and thats it.
Admittedly I'm from the more technical branch of society, but I think many people my age just convert over to exclusively using mp3s they didn't pay for for their music needs. I won't claim that I know exactly why people like me do this, but I think it centers around three reasons, and I certainly don't think these reasons would motivate everyone.
reason one: I don't have to pay. Personally I think paying 20 bucks for a cd is a total rip-off in my current financial condition, and I'd just rather not pay if I don't have to. Hopefully in a few years if I ever buy music, this reason won't even cross my mind. But...I really don't think this is the reason I don't buy cds...I would probably just listen to the radio if I didn't have my computer...what do I care...
reason two: Convenience. I think this is a big winner for mp3's. I'm confortable with my computer and I enjoy trying out new software. I feel like everything should be do-able with a computer. When I listened to mp3s for the first time, more than six years ago, it just seemed like the most natural way to listen to music. Why would I ever want to actually go somewhere and buy a bulky cd if I could just get it more conveniently packaged without ever leaving my desk? The few cds I've been given are just coasters now...its far too much effort to slip them into my machine when I can download them with a few mouseclicks and keystrokes. Plus, its more fun when you see what mixes are out there for the songs you like when you search for them.
reason three: Collecting. People rarely bring this up in discussions of digital piracy, but I think its a major motivation driving some people. I just like collecting stuff on my computer. I feel like I'm wasting space or something when my hard drive isn't full. I know it seems silly, but when you have a few minutes, downloading some songs or movies is just a great way to pass the time (after I read
Why do I think its ok? I don't claim my reason is legitimate and legally justifiable or something, but I think its a good point at least.
CDs are a total pain in the ass and I've thought so since I first used a computer with decent speakers and a hard drive. I don't feel bad not buying them because I think they are a horrible horrible things that should have never survived as long as they have. What kind of stone age are we living in where we have to carry this kind of crap around? I would never buy a cd just because I think they are grossly out of date and I can't stand worrying about losing them or moving them or worrying about people stealing them or something. If I had a little more money, I'd be perfectly happy paying 20-50 bucks a month so I could stick headphones into my cellphone or pda and listen to any music I wanted to, and frankly the technology is there and I'm really annoyed I have to be guilt tripped about downloading mp3s just because the mega-rich music industry has no motivation to innovate with their comfortable oligopoly. What a bunch of rich pricks!
More bright computer ideas from the courts...
How long would it take to put in a little cgi/ssi/asp/pl/anything that would simply redirect all traffic that doesn't have the Referer: tag with the correct value. Sure not every browser does this, but there are workarounds for that too.
These people should have simply hired a single engineer who knew a little about web applications and then they wouldn't have to waste all that time and money in court.
laws like this are frankly rediculious...
I've worked on both ends (dev and test), at M$ and other places, and I've come to one conclusion (I'm sure its not the only correct one).
Developers must test their code.
With a test team backing you up, it becomes too easy to change something, run it once (if at all), and then push it into the next build so the test team can catch your errors. I've found that as a tester, a huge proportion of bugs are simply features implemented where the developer just forgot something stupid. I end up wasting 5 minutes writing a report, my manager assigns the bug back to a developer (hopefully the one who made the mistake but not always), and the developer comes back to the code a week later, spending 20 minutes just trying to figure what s/he wrote a week back.
My point: this wastes 30 minutes of people's time for every little stupid mistake. Pressure your developers to really give a thorough test to the code they write before the check it in, especially if you have a test team, because you just end up wasting more people's time.
There is no reason why this has to be true. There are software solutions to this that work fine.
Where are they? They are coming...and they will be here. Just wait and see.
I took a class in college where we learned how do this, with the last assignment ending with implementing a processor with 12 or so instructions.
The one thing I think I came away with is that you can built just about anything with FPGA's, whether you mean CPU's, or just controllers for large LED's, garage door openers, mp3 players or whatever...
There is a huge gap to fill in terms of geeks designing neat household or hobby chips that just do something that you need to implement in hardware (or firmware i guess). These devices don't need to be as fast as Intel or something, but there can certainly do something Intel's never done. I've always wondered why there aren't more open source projects built on this idea...any know? Anyone know where to look for these projects?
I guess a reality to recognize is that miniaturization (sp?) and faster processors with more features will eventually drive almost everything into the software arena (arguably already happened), so you might as well just write your cool device in and run it on your Linux iPaq or whatever replaces it...
Of course, I'm far from being an expert in this arena so this is just amatuer speculation...
yes it was
I really think people are missing a whole aspect here - this product is another thing - an affordable and legal tracking device. Anyone could attach this anywhere on your car, or sneak it into any transport vehicle or large storage unit to track that item wherever it goes on the planet. A criminal with any know-how or guidance could attach this to your car to know exactly when you are on your way home from work, or anything.
These kinds of devices are normally illegal aren't they? I don't see how the fact that its packaged as a watch makes it different. All I see is a cheap way that people can track eachother's movements in a variety of circumstances.
I think its a real shame you're not allowed to do what you wanna do. I'm amazed at how many comments you got here from people giving advice...
So here's mine:
Do whatever the hell you wanna do, tell all these people who say you should do whatever to f*** off, and when you are older, if you find yourself looking back and regretting your actions, just take responsibility and remember that you made your decisions and no one else made em for you. I think its such a shame how the older people get, the more they think they can tell other people what to do because of the life they've had. The fact is they are living their own lives and the only person who can tell you what to do is you.
(so all you fogies leave us younger people alone!)
I'm not as young as wish I was, but any mistakes I made as a teenager were MY mistakes, not some 'experienced' person's advice, and I'm grateful that I had the piece of mind to do what I wanted to do.
I don't see why this comment is relavent. The guy OBVIOUSLY must be damn good, otherwise why would he be getting recognized as a major contributor. I'm sure they weren't considering his age when judging his contributions. I don't think anybody is pressing for the fact that he is amazing because he's done x years of so-and-so. The fact is, regardless of his past experience and his age, he is being just as or more valuable then all those other contributors who may have been coding for 50 years for all you know.
In my defense, I was simply pointing out the inevitable, not condoning the actions of people who participate in these practices.
Seems like this should spure a rise in the hacked TiVo market...I've seen it done. You can get free Tivo and DirectTV for life with a little technical know-how and some extra components. Copy-protection going right out the window with DirectTV/TiVo comin in for free...
higher order functions and closures
word
Seems like my thumb would fall off in a week if I had to turn a wheel for every character I typed. Does this input method have any advantages other than it being one-handed?
this is dead on - microsoft simply hasn't release their army or 'apache 2.0's' yet either...
and of course long is a keyword...
When someone is using code from a guy who took the class five years earlier, computers are the only option here.
I'm a teaching assistant for Harvard University's intro CS course. We have our own custom made software we've used for many years successfully, comparing every students code to every piece of code ever handed in for that assignment. The program identifies code that is similar so people can look and see if people have cheated.
Very few people are allowed to use the program (i'm not), but everyone who uses it comes back absolutly astounded at how difficult it is to fool. I guess changing your variable names won't save you here...
The program run for my class, interestingly enough, apparently gets more people thrown out for cheating every semester than every other class at the college, put together. People, for some reason, don't take its existence seriously...year after year after year...
well my grandmother coded for a living...
to be fully available on Morpheus and Kazaa just like everything else...its not like there is nobody out there with a hot stereo hooked up to their machine...give me a break.
Hell, it will proabably increase demand on p2p networks, so become EVEN MORE available once someone rips a single decent copy...
f
why won't the record company just compete instead of restrict...
Yeah at Microsoft they all run around with iPaq's with 802.11 (1X even!)...direct their powerpoint presentations remotely and e-mail and voice-mail or whatever...
Pretty nifty till you leave the building...what they need is either bluetooth on both iPaq and your cell, or a cellphone inside the iPaq instead of 802.11...
Its probably is on the same scale as normal iPaqs...
Mine lasts about 4-6 hours without the backlight ever on, and that goes down to 2-3 with it and depending if I'm using proc intensive stuff...
Need a lot more if its gonna be a cell phone, though the expansions do come with more batteries...
> These measures only hurt legitimate customers
they don't just hurt them, they discourage them.
Anybody who ever plays music on their computer(mp3 or cd) will just be thinking "Gosh, I dunno whats happening to these new cds, but why should I buy something that might not work? Oh whatever, I'll just download the mp3 cause its not worth the trouble"
The more protected media formats, the more frustrated customers who simply give up on buying anything. Why do they keep digging themselves into a deeper and deeper grave?