- Gmail moves the data off of the end-user's computer. Far, far too many Outlook setups (especially in small businesses) store everything locally, with no backup -- one hard drive crash away from all that archived email gone.
You do realize that Google could just shut down the GMail service one day for whatever reason they chose, and you'd have no recourse. If you don't have a backup of your GMail somewhere else you're no better off than the Outlook user.
I really don't understand this mentality where people are scared their computer might crash, but have no fear that they've given up their data to a large company with no service agreement.
The trouble is as a society we let this twisted idea that if you create something you get to decide how it is used, how derivatives of the work are used etc. fester. That kind of restriction is not beneficial either to society or to the vast majority of individuals.
Put more simply people being banned from taking their pic in front of the Hollywood sign for fun and profit may be the way the law works but it's bone headed and as these "rights" are extended to everything in our public environment it's going to get harder and harder to have fun or make money, with disastrous consequences for society including an increase "real" crime.
Honestly, this just sounds like he's torturing the concept of "fair use" until it suits his purposes. If I look cross-eyed at the tax code for long enough, I wonder if I'll find a way to have the government give me millions of dollars.
Only if you're running a major bank or large manufacturing corporation into the ground.
We need to commission studies that look at increases in productivity for the following activities during work time:
1) Games and gaming at work 2) Consumption of alcohol at work 3) Coming to work in casual clothes - the more casual the better - think underwear and curry stained shirt 4) Workplace sex
There, there pet. They're wrong. They're not right. It's their problem. They're the ones that will suffer their fate. Over there, their social groups. Their children. They're the ones that will suffer.
Actually, last I heard the toilet cost in excess of a million bucks. And, you expect NASA to risk their funding should the population at large get wind of NASA dollars being used to directly subsidize playboys in space? There are larger, more important politics involved than you seem willing to acknowledge
Unless the Russian's hogging the toilet, or somehow the Russian's excrement is more damaging, how do you figure that this means the entire cost of the toilet is wasted if the Russian shares it??? Are you trying to troll because if not that has to be one of the weakest most poorly thought out arguments I've ever seen.
Takes at least two to "cooperate"; to which the Russians decided it takes only one and then started complaining about it. Getting raped in jail isn't most people's definition of "cooperation".
When did sharing a toilet on the ISS equal prison rape??? You've lost the plot.
Then is speaks rather poorly of you. I'm not directly involved in any way. Accordingly I'm entitled to openly and bluntly speak my mind. I have no need to tip-toe around the politics here. Since you're unable to make the distinction, it in fact, speaks father poorly of you.
No, it doesn't speak poorly of me. I certainly can make the distinction and I'm very thankful you're not directly involved in any way, and I acknowledge and will even defend your right to state your opinion. However it's also my right to believe that what you are saying is narrow minded, sensationalist and poorly thought out, and that when someone that isn't involved can be so dismissive and speak so directly in opposition of the idea of international cooperation, it does not bode well for the ability of entire nations to cooperate.
Well you should go start a thread labled 'DRM prevented me from playing Battlefield expansion packs' on the EA Battlefield forums, if you seem so determined it was DRM and not the way the EA account system server works to keep online multiplayer stats available.
Please explain to me the distinction you are drawing between your very narrow definition of DRM and "the way the EA account system server works". The bottom line is I was prevented from using the game.
I saw this whole fiasco go on in the forums there and there wasn't really anyone person who said "DRM caused it".
So now I'm suppose to limit myself to use terminology according to a forum I don't frequent? That's absurd.
There is no "digital" software installed that prevents you from playig it; it is their online servers that deal with the associating(DRM?) the expansion with your orginal BF2 for online stats.
If a restriction prevents me from using the game the technicality of why the restriction is in place doesn't matter. It is still DRM.
What? you don't like multiplayer games with stats; gee sorry to burst your bubble but thats the way online PC gaming has been going.
Nice straw man there. I don't care about stats. I have nothing against them. They may well improve the game. I guess I'll never know will I? I was unable to use the game. I certainly do care about being able to use the game I paid for.
Where have you been in the PC Gaming history? This type of scenario plays out all time with expansion packs and booster packs.
Yes and I've returned a few games I haven't been able to use, or that impose stupid restrictions (like not allowing me to use an emulated CD/DVD ROM). You find this sort of thing acceptable? Have you noticed that PC gaming is dying? Here's one key reason for that. It's too much of a hassle. You spend so much time jumping through hoops so that you're permitted to use the game. On a console there's no such nonsense.
Now if you want to talk about 'real DRM' than we can; such as their limit of installing it on 5 same computers which can easily be fixed by calling them. Although there is no reason to run 5 exact copies at the same time online. You are just confused that because it didn't install right online it must be the DRM when in fact it was 'human error' or just a sloppy login interface of instruction at EA's website when associating it.
For pity sake man. This is real DRM we are talking about. It's just another kind of DRM. It prevented me from using the system. Your argument appears to be that it's just a bug. However since it is a bug to do with software designed to restrict access, it very clearly falls under the blanket of a DRM bug.
SecureROM is another form of 'real DRM'
SecureROM is a very specific type of DRM.
Tying online accounts and serial number which are verified to a game is also a form of DRM.
You're way too hung up on the definition to understand that people just don't care what the technical definition is. If a game has restrictions that make it unusable it's just useless junk no matter how good the content. Label it DRM. Label it account restriction. Label it game stats tracking. Hell label it a purple people eater. It still makes it useless.
It most likely wasn't DRM, but rather you did not assign the right EA account name. Speaking as a long time Battlfield veteran there was a fiasco about this, although I don't remember any posts complaining about DRM.
How is restriction by account name not DRM? Do you understand what DRM means?
A lot of misconception about this went on and it really had nothing to do with DRM, when really it was EA's system of tying the username together....which is DRM.
You should have asked on the EA Battlfield forums and I am sure some nice folks would have helped you with it, the forums are a good place to get a quicker answer than from EA's ticket system of question. You basically have to go into your EA account and assign your other account names with that main one.
No. I should have done no such thing. There should never have been a system that prevented me from using the game I'd paid for. Blaming the end user for not jumping through hoops and consulting online forums is pure garbage - the exact sort of permissive and apologetic attitude that leads to CRAP SOFTWARE and CRAP DRM like this. I shouldn't have to spend hours on it, and I wanted to return the game in time to get a refund instead of jackass excuse. I also haven't bought an EA game since. I did exactly what I should. If they want to fuck with DRM, waste my time and make their software unusable I should not be giving them my hard earned money.
Once again I doubt this problem has anything to do with the DRM system in place, you might have been in a little bit of a rush to assign this problem to DRM. Any decent PC Gaming forum could have probably told you all this, but seeing as this is/. people are quick to tie a programs problem and instantly assign DRM to it.
No. Once again you're in a rush to describe anything that isn't a CD copy protection scheme as being something other than DRM. Let me spell it out for you. DRM = Digital Rights Management. Digital = They used software to do it. Rights = They did not allow me to play the game online. Managment = The act of preventing me. In other words ANY software that is used to control or restrict the use of other software (or of itself) is DRM.
Sorry to hear about your problem and you missed out on one of the best expansion packs for that game, they have those BF2 all in one packages at FRY's for pretty damn cheap now for about $25 you get the mega pack.
I bought the original booster packs. You can bet I'm not going to touch the games again. I own BF2 and Special Ops but I'm not touching the multiplayer DRM infested packs ever again. They can keep them. I'd rather go without games altogether than support that bullshit.
The pricing of Macs is really pretty simple to explain: Apple doesn't make cheap computers. That's "cheap" in the sense of "low price" and in the sense of "low quality". The have a wide range of performance specs available, but none of them are built like crap, which puts a floor on the product pricing. But at just about every level of quality, the price is pretty comparable to equal machines from the competition.
I'll only say that this has not been my experience at all with Apple. At my last job some years ago now, we got an Emac to test browser compatibility. The motherboard died after 2 weeks. My wife and I have owned iPods. Hers gets less use and is okay. Mine's been nothing but trouble. She doesn't know or care about new restrictions in iTunes but they've been a complete thorn in my side. In the 80s my Apple IIe was quite solid though I feel sorry for my poor parents who agreed to pay a small fortunte that they'd have spent a couple of months earning money for. Almost as soon as I'd bought the thing Apple shut down software distribution via department stores meaning we had to mail order or drive hours to get software. (They also brought out Mac right when we'd bought).
Every time I've ever had anything to do with Apple in the last 25 years the quality proposition hasn't held up and I've regretted it. EVERY time.
what's the difference then, with a 1960s Apollo-derived capsule, then?
People didn't down tools and stop developing Unix in the late 1960s. They did do so with Apollo capsules. That is the difference. No one under retirement age has any experience with any of it.
Should US tax dollars really be used to allow for billionaires to play around in space? No. The simple fact is, it is VERY expensive to repair/replace anything in space and Russia is increasing the wear on various components by bringing additional people aboard who provide no benefit what-so-ever.
So you've spent in the 2 or 3 digit BILLIONs on something designed to foster international cooperation, and you're worried about a few tens or hundreds of thousands for some extra wear and tear on a toilet? Yeah that makes sense! Do you also invite people over for a party then get annoyed when they unexpectedly use your toilet? Or ask for a glass of water instead of the beer you budgeted for??
If Russia wants their complaint to be heard, all they have to do is start being reasonable and responsible. Until such time, they can STFU and burden their own resources. If they don't like it, they can start acting responsibly.
Yeah comments like this don't exactly fill me with hope for the future when it comes to understanding and international cooperation. Even more so when those comments are modded up!
I have had to return two of the Battlefield expansion packs because I could not activate them even after spending several hours on the problem. No matter what I did the online part of the process did not work and I was denied access. These expansion packs were online only so I effectively couldn't use the software at all. Fortunately I bought from a gaming shop that does take returns on games that do not work. I wrote to EA, asked for help. Then again to revoke whatever I'd registered. No reply of course. One day these greedy fools will realize that they're shooting themselves in the foot with DRM. Sure some piracy will be curtailed in some circumstances. So will some legitimate use. In the long run they lose out because the game becomes hard to use and not worth the effort.
The issue is not radio versus personally owned copy. The PRS appears to be claiming that this is a public performance (see that PRS stands for Performing Rights Society). In which case it doesn't matter how the music is acquired, only that the way she is playing it in a way that she is not licensed for.
Buy a sound system that plays MP3 and get creative commons licensed works. Does the PRS have authority over CC works in Britain too? If not the only other issue may be that she'll have trouble finding classical works with a CC license but she should still be able to find soothing music and stick it to the PRS.
The reason these games cost a mint is that game developers work with the frameworks from hell. I'm convinced this can't just be explained by incompetence. In the end I believe the dev tools, and not just in the games industry, are made difficult to use so that people can keep charging a mint for their labour. After all it takes a genius to understand this stuff.
What we need is gaming frameworks that let you focus on the artwork etc. Core development of stuff like physics shouldn't be redone again and again with increasingly complicated frameworks that don't interoperate. Provide a simple to use physics engine. Likewise for 3D rendering. Likewise for audio. The challenge is to do this yet allow enough flexibility to create varied games that don't all look and feel exactly the same. Unfortunately I've only seen a handful of frameworks that meet these kinds of requirements and they are old and tend to compromise too much on the flexibility so focus on the "anyone can write a game" newbie market.
Then there's the tools for the artwork. Anyone not in the industry tried to use a 3D modeller lately, and import their model into a game? It shouldn't take weeks to create a simple model. What's even more ridiculous is that you have to do stuff like unwrap the texture and paint that separately (I understand the latest versions of Photoshop allow you to paint directly on some of the common 3d models but I don't have much experience with this and it shouldn't be a new expensive feature).
Big games are dying. That doesn't mean they all have to turn to crap. Take a look at some of the "amateur" content out there that's been made with the existing toolset and I'd say you've got good incentive to create easier frameworks and better tools.
It isn't that hard. I have submitted quite a few pictures to Wikipedia, and have learned a bit along the way.
Don't you see the problem right there? Submitting a picture is a simple thing. It shouldn't involve much learning. It should be a no brainer. Reserve your time and effort learning for something worth learning, not some esoteric interface.
I don't have any idea what the politics behind all this is, nor do I have enough interest to look it up, but it seems to me that if a company pays $1B for code, then it forks left and right and they're left with nothing but yet another version, that's not going to exactly be a good advertisement for investing in open source. While this outcome is much better than a closed source application being killed off, it still would have been much better if differences could have been worked out and Sun had something for their money.
First thing I thought was "So you're calling me an idiot if I haven't heard of or don't agree with this Rand dude. Way to make your review sound impartial". I don't much like being told how to think either. I stopped reading too. Who knows. It might be an interesting book, but I've just been put off it.
If you don't think that talking with a millionaire software developer on an orbiting space station using a home-built radio transmitter is cool, you're probably reading the wrong website.
Also if you do think it's cool, you're STILL probably reading the wrong website. Slashdot ain't what it use to be.
Just face facts. You're reading the wrong website, and your mother smells like sausage, and your dog wants to bite you, and your girlfriend is just using you for the money.
Slashdot Mirror
- Gmail moves the data off of the end-user's computer. Far, far too many Outlook setups (especially in small businesses) store everything locally, with no backup -- one hard drive crash away from all that archived email gone.
You do realize that Google could just shut down the GMail service one day for whatever reason they chose, and you'd have no recourse. If you don't have a backup of your GMail somewhere else you're no better off than the Outlook user.
I really don't understand this mentality where people are scared their computer might crash, but have no fear that they've given up their data to a large company with no service agreement.
Even more importantly, do not EVER let anybody in your company or government upgrade to a newer version of Office
How do you propose I stop them? Write to my local politician? Hahahaha
Slashdotters sometimes have an extremely inflated view of their influence over others.
The trouble is as a society we let this twisted idea that if you create something you get to decide how it is used, how derivatives of the work are used etc. fester. That kind of restriction is not beneficial either to society or to the vast majority of individuals.
Put more simply people being banned from taking their pic in front of the Hollywood sign for fun and profit may be the way the law works but it's bone headed and as these "rights" are extended to everything in our public environment it's going to get harder and harder to have fun or make money, with disastrous consequences for society including an increase "real" crime.
Honestly, this just sounds like he's torturing the concept of "fair use" until it suits his purposes. If I look cross-eyed at the tax code for long enough, I wonder if I'll find a way to have the government give me millions of dollars.
Only if you're running a major bank or large manufacturing corporation into the ground.
We need to commission studies that look at increases in productivity for the following activities during work time:
1) Games and gaming at work
2) Consumption of alcohol at work
3) Coming to work in casual clothes - the more casual the better - think underwear and curry stained shirt
4) Workplace sex
I hate to ruin it for you, but he dies in the end.
Since when did we start referring to freedom in the western world as 'He'?
Oh and check out the nude pictures of Hanson, unfortunately it's only funny because it's happening to someone I don't like.
Whether it was Hanson or a Hanson look alike I almost lost my lunch a few times.
Because every year I get a regular reminder of why subscribing to Slashdot would be a waste of money.
I get that every time I post something that is worthwhile and it gets modded into oblivion by some fanboy with a 'tude.
There, there pet. They're wrong. They're not right. It's their problem. They're the ones that will suffer their fate. Over there, their social groups. Their children. They're the ones that will suffer.
Actually, last I heard the toilet cost in excess of a million bucks. And, you expect NASA to risk their funding should the population at large get wind of NASA dollars being used to directly subsidize playboys in space? There are larger, more important politics involved than you seem willing to acknowledge
Unless the Russian's hogging the toilet, or somehow the Russian's excrement is more damaging, how do you figure that this means the entire cost of the toilet is wasted if the Russian shares it??? Are you trying to troll because if not that has to be one of the weakest most poorly thought out arguments I've ever seen.
Takes at least two to "cooperate"; to which the Russians decided it takes only one and then started complaining about it. Getting raped in jail isn't most people's definition of "cooperation".
When did sharing a toilet on the ISS equal prison rape??? You've lost the plot.
Then is speaks rather poorly of you. I'm not directly involved in any way. Accordingly I'm entitled to openly and bluntly speak my mind. I have no need to tip-toe around the politics here. Since you're unable to make the distinction, it in fact, speaks father poorly of you.
No, it doesn't speak poorly of me. I certainly can make the distinction and I'm very thankful you're not directly involved in any way, and I acknowledge and will even defend your right to state your opinion. However it's also my right to believe that what you are saying is narrow minded, sensationalist and poorly thought out, and that when someone that isn't involved can be so dismissive and speak so directly in opposition of the idea of international cooperation, it does not bode well for the ability of entire nations to cooperate.
Well you should go start a thread labled 'DRM prevented me from playing Battlefield expansion packs' on the EA Battlefield forums, if you seem so determined it was DRM and not the way the EA account system server works to keep online multiplayer stats available.
Please explain to me the distinction you are drawing between your very narrow definition of DRM and "the way the EA account system server works". The bottom line is I was prevented from using the game.
I saw this whole fiasco go on in the forums there and there wasn't really anyone person who said "DRM caused it".
So now I'm suppose to limit myself to use terminology according to a forum I don't frequent? That's absurd.
There is no "digital" software installed that prevents you from playig it; it is their online servers that deal with the associating(DRM?) the expansion with your orginal BF2 for online stats.
If a restriction prevents me from using the game the technicality of why the restriction is in place doesn't matter. It is still DRM.
What? you don't like multiplayer games with stats; gee sorry to burst your bubble but thats the way online PC gaming has been going.
Nice straw man there. I don't care about stats. I have nothing against them. They may well improve the game. I guess I'll never know will I? I was unable to use the game. I certainly do care about being able to use the game I paid for.
Where have you been in the PC Gaming history? This type of scenario plays out all time with expansion packs and booster packs.
Yes and I've returned a few games I haven't been able to use, or that impose stupid restrictions (like not allowing me to use an emulated CD/DVD ROM). You find this sort of thing acceptable? Have you noticed that PC gaming is dying? Here's one key reason for that. It's too much of a hassle. You spend so much time jumping through hoops so that you're permitted to use the game. On a console there's no such nonsense.
Now if you want to talk about 'real DRM' than we can; such as their limit of installing it on 5 same computers which can easily be fixed by calling them. Although there is no reason to run 5 exact copies at the same time online.
You are just confused that because it didn't install right online it must be the DRM when in fact it was 'human error' or just a sloppy login interface of instruction at EA's website when associating it.
For pity sake man. This is real DRM we are talking about. It's just another kind of DRM. It prevented me from using the system. Your argument appears to be that it's just a bug. However since it is a bug to do with software designed to restrict access, it very clearly falls under the blanket of a DRM bug.
SecureROM is another form of 'real DRM'
SecureROM is a very specific type of DRM.
Tying online accounts and serial number which are verified to a game is also a form of DRM.
You're way too hung up on the definition to understand that people just don't care what the technical definition is. If a game has restrictions that make it unusable it's just useless junk no matter how good the content. Label it DRM. Label it account restriction. Label it game stats tracking. Hell label it a purple people eater. It still makes it useless.
It most likely wasn't DRM, but rather you did not assign the right EA account name. Speaking as a long time Battlfield veteran there was a fiasco about this, although I don't remember any posts complaining about DRM.
How is restriction by account name not DRM? Do you understand what DRM means?
A lot of misconception about this went on and it really had nothing to do with DRM, when really it was EA's system of tying the username together. ...which is DRM.
You should have asked on the EA Battlfield forums and I am sure some nice folks would have helped you with it, the forums are a good place to get a quicker answer than from EA's ticket system of question. You basically have to go into your EA account and assign your other account names with that main one.
No. I should have done no such thing. There should never have been a system that prevented me from using the game I'd paid for. Blaming the end user for not jumping through hoops and consulting online forums is pure garbage - the exact sort of permissive and apologetic attitude that leads to CRAP SOFTWARE and CRAP DRM like this. I shouldn't have to spend hours on it, and I wanted to return the game in time to get a refund instead of jackass excuse. I also haven't bought an EA game since. I did exactly what I should. If they want to fuck with DRM, waste my time and make their software unusable I should not be giving them my hard earned money.
Once again I doubt this problem has anything to do with the DRM system in place, you might have been in a little bit of a rush to assign this problem to DRM. Any decent PC Gaming forum could have probably told you all this, but seeing as this is /. people are quick to tie a programs problem and instantly assign DRM to it.
No. Once again you're in a rush to describe anything that isn't a CD copy protection scheme as being something other than DRM. Let me spell it out for you. DRM = Digital Rights Management. Digital = They used software to do it. Rights = They did not allow me to play the game online. Managment = The act of preventing me. In other words ANY software that is used to control or restrict the use of other software (or of itself) is DRM.
Sorry to hear about your problem and you missed out on one of the best expansion packs for that game, they have those BF2 all in one packages at FRY's for pretty damn cheap now for about $25 you get the mega pack.
I bought the original booster packs. You can bet I'm not going to touch the games again. I own BF2 and Special Ops but I'm not touching the multiplayer DRM infested packs ever again. They can keep them. I'd rather go without games altogether than support that bullshit.
The pricing of Macs is really pretty simple to explain: Apple doesn't make cheap computers. That's "cheap" in the sense of "low price" and in the sense of "low quality". The have a wide range of performance specs available, but none of them are built like crap, which puts a floor on the product pricing. But at just about every level of quality, the price is pretty comparable to equal machines from the competition.
I'll only say that this has not been my experience at all with Apple. At my last job some years ago now, we got an Emac to test browser compatibility. The motherboard died after 2 weeks. My wife and I have owned iPods. Hers gets less use and is okay. Mine's been nothing but trouble. She doesn't know or care about new restrictions in iTunes but they've been a complete thorn in my side. In the 80s my Apple IIe was quite solid though I feel sorry for my poor parents who agreed to pay a small fortunte that they'd have spent a couple of months earning money for. Almost as soon as I'd bought the thing Apple shut down software distribution via department stores meaning we had to mail order or drive hours to get software. (They also brought out Mac right when we'd bought).
Every time I've ever had anything to do with Apple in the last 25 years the quality proposition hasn't held up and I've regretted it. EVERY time.
what's the difference then, with a 1960s Apollo-derived capsule, then?
People didn't down tools and stop developing Unix in the late 1960s. They did do so with Apollo capsules. That is the difference. No one under retirement age has any experience with any of it.
Should US tax dollars really be used to allow for billionaires to play around in space? No. The simple fact is, it is VERY expensive to repair/replace anything in space and Russia is increasing the wear on various components by bringing additional people aboard who provide no benefit what-so-ever.
So you've spent in the 2 or 3 digit BILLIONs on something designed to foster international cooperation, and you're worried about a few tens or hundreds of thousands for some extra wear and tear on a toilet? Yeah that makes sense! Do you also invite people over for a party then get annoyed when they unexpectedly use your toilet? Or ask for a glass of water instead of the beer you budgeted for??
If Russia wants their complaint to be heard, all they have to do is start being reasonable and responsible. Until such time, they can STFU and burden their own resources. If they don't like it, they can start acting responsibly.
Yeah comments like this don't exactly fill me with hope for the future when it comes to understanding and international cooperation. Even more so when those comments are modded up!
I have had to return two of the Battlefield expansion packs because I could not activate them even after spending several hours on the problem. No matter what I did the online part of the process did not work and I was denied access. These expansion packs were online only so I effectively couldn't use the software at all. Fortunately I bought from a gaming shop that does take returns on games that do not work. I wrote to EA, asked for help. Then again to revoke whatever I'd registered. No reply of course. One day these greedy fools will realize that they're shooting themselves in the foot with DRM. Sure some piracy will be curtailed in some circumstances. So will some legitimate use. In the long run they lose out because the game becomes hard to use and not worth the effort.
The issue is not radio versus personally owned copy. The PRS appears to be claiming that this is a public performance (see that PRS stands for Performing Rights Society). In which case it doesn't matter how the music is acquired, only that the way she is playing it in a way that she is not licensed for.
Buy a sound system that plays MP3 and get creative commons licensed works. Does the PRS have authority over CC works in Britain too? If not the only other issue may be that she'll have trouble finding classical works with a CC license but she should still be able to find soothing music and stick it to the PRS.
The reason these games cost a mint is that game developers work with the frameworks from hell. I'm convinced this can't just be explained by incompetence. In the end I believe the dev tools, and not just in the games industry, are made difficult to use so that people can keep charging a mint for their labour. After all it takes a genius to understand this stuff.
What we need is gaming frameworks that let you focus on the artwork etc. Core development of stuff like physics shouldn't be redone again and again with increasingly complicated frameworks that don't interoperate. Provide a simple to use physics engine. Likewise for 3D rendering. Likewise for audio. The challenge is to do this yet allow enough flexibility to create varied games that don't all look and feel exactly the same. Unfortunately I've only seen a handful of frameworks that meet these kinds of requirements and they are old and tend to compromise too much on the flexibility so focus on the "anyone can write a game" newbie market.
Then there's the tools for the artwork. Anyone not in the industry tried to use a 3D modeller lately, and import their model into a game? It shouldn't take weeks to create a simple model. What's even more ridiculous is that you have to do stuff like unwrap the texture and paint that separately (I understand the latest versions of Photoshop allow you to paint directly on some of the common 3d models but I don't have much experience with this and it shouldn't be a new expensive feature).
Big games are dying. That doesn't mean they all have to turn to crap. Take a look at some of the "amateur" content out there that's been made with the existing toolset and I'd say you've got good incentive to create easier frameworks and better tools.
I've gone for the human parse instead of the compiler. Think of it as shorthand, not C code.
It isn't that hard. I have submitted quite a few pictures to Wikipedia, and have learned a bit along the way.
Don't you see the problem right there? Submitting a picture is a simple thing. It shouldn't involve much learning. It should be a no brainer. Reserve your time and effort learning for something worth learning, not some esoteric interface.
What did Sun buy exactly? Sales and support?
A bridge!
Hello Mr Sun CEO, I have a bridge here to sell you! Best deal you'll ever make. Pinky swear.
I don't have any idea what the politics behind all this is, nor do I have enough interest to look it up, but it seems to me that if a company pays $1B for code, then it forks left and right and they're left with nothing but yet another version, that's not going to exactly be a good advertisement for investing in open source. While this outcome is much better than a closed source application being killed off, it still would have been much better if differences could have been worked out and Sun had something for their money.
Shouldn't that be TomTom settles with MicrosoftMicrosoft???
Mod parent up further!
First thing I thought was "So you're calling me an idiot if I haven't heard of or don't agree with this Rand dude. Way to make your review sound impartial". I don't much like being told how to think either. I stopped reading too. Who knows. It might be an interesting book, but I've just been put off it.
If you don't think that talking with a millionaire software developer on an orbiting space station using a home-built radio transmitter is cool, you're probably reading the wrong website.
Also if you do think it's cool, you're STILL probably reading the wrong website. Slashdot ain't what it use to be.
Just face facts. You're reading the wrong website, and your mother smells like sausage, and your dog wants to bite you, and your girlfriend is just using you for the money.