To a CEO who is looking at the bottom line and the profit of the business, IT appears as a cost center instead of a revenue center. The CEO has no perception of how IT spending helps the business make more money. Thus, they are often motivated to "do more with less" and cut the IT spending budget. IT managers are also partly to blame because they act like a cost center... spend all your budget or you'll lose budget in the next cycle, just like government does, when it would be far better to demonstrate how spending is not only in the best interests of the company, but it will also help them earn money as well.
IT is not the only department that is misunderstood. For example, Ray Kassar of Atari thought that software programmers were a cost center too, and no different than assembly plant workers. He didn't realize that programmers were vital to how Atari makes money, and thus the best programmers all left Atari and went to start Activision with a business plant o make 3rd party software for Atari.
I think that there is a bit of a distorted perception that there is always a shortage of IT labor, because no matter where you work, no matter how many people are in your staff, you'll believe that your department is understaffed and overworked. Have you ever heard an IT staff say "we have just the right amount of people for just the right amount of work?"
having to decide whether or not to watch Season 3 from my friend's download, or wait for the legitimate dvd. Seriously, making the law abiding fans wait a couple of years between seasons for the dvd's is a long time, no?
I have managed to wait this long, I can wait a few more days. But my fervor for the show has dropped considerably during the lull in releases.
The article says that this is fraud commited by internal access to systems. It does not account for any fraud from access external to the business, i.e. phishing.
An RSA token is a terrible way to handle internal security for anything other than a VPN. Imaging typing in a one time password every single time you lock your computer, access an application, etc. It would drive most people to just leave their computers unlocked all the time and logged in.
to use regular everyday keys for the main keys, and use OLEDS only on the Function keys / keypad and perhaps a row of extra keys?
Of course, that may be a US-centric view of what a keyboard should look like, but I bet that since most of the standard alphanumeric keys don't need to be changed often, it is a waste of OLED functionality. We just want to make our programmable keys prettier.
that people involved in piracy of US copyright overseas may be involved in organized crime, it doesn't seem to match the profile of the people they are suing. If they want to fight organized crime, terrorists, etc, then shouldn't years of effort resulted in at least one lawsuit against a terrorist?
the consumption of gravity? Just imagine the peril if we use our precious resources like gravity on things like lamps, when we have coal to burn.
Will it still be cool to light up your lamp with gravity, when there's no gravity left and people are spinning right off the planet into outerspace? I guess it will eliminate the greenhouse gas issue by allowing the atmosphere to disappear when there's no more gravity left - but unfortunately it will also not allow people to live (the ones that are still on the planet after the other ones spun off into space as noted earlier)
as long as they teach the kids under which conditions copying intellectual property is illegal. A responsible class should point out that it is not illegal to copy or download certain pieces of software, and teach kids where to find software from the Internet without being in violation of license.
However, as we all probably know, Microsoft doesn't intend to anything of the sort. Their only purpose with this campaign is to scare kids into buying Microsoft product, not get a real education on intellectual property, copyright and licenses.
I think that there has been a mass market for games all along, except that the gaming media refused to believe that the market exist. The gaming media writes for a very select audience - the demographic that spends money to get the best gaming hardware, wants games that last longer than 10 hours of total gaming or more than 15 minutes/session. This is the same gaming media that says that it's not about graphics, it's about gameplay, yet will give mediocore scores to anything that doesn't have the most advanced graphics of the time. This is the same gaming media that heavily criticizesgames that come with an easy default settings as being too easy
All the while, there has been a genre of games that this same gaming media chose to ignore, and often ridicule - i.e. often in reference to low cost games such as Deer Hunter, simple adventure games like Myst, compilations and remakes of old games, Flash games, and kids games like the Barbie properties. People who like these types of games had to find them on their own, without any help from the hardcore gaming media.
All the while, Nintendo went blissfully on even though that the gamecube and n64 were largely ignored in the ps2/xbox war. And now, it's somehow become news and a surprise to everyone that there are more people than just the hardcore gamer that loves games too.
While any code can introduce risk for security vulnerabilities and exploits, I think the point is that people would rather have patches for KNOWN security vulnerabilities and potential exploits.
I think that to talk about Apple's role in gaming, it might be useful to abstract some of the concepts that stemmed from Apple's popularity and ubiquity.
It wasn't just "video games" that made Apple great - it was the creation of "Home computer games", i.e. games that couldn't be played on the standalone devices or early consoles of the time.
For example:
Educational games emerged as a subgenre as part of the deals Apple did to make computers available to school.
RPGs were available before, but they flourished on the Apple II with Wizardry, Ultima, Bard's Tale, Might & Magic.
I think that it could be arguable that Real-Time Strategy games owe a debt of gratitutde to Rescue Raiders.
Graphical adventures can trace their roots to Sierra's early efforts such as Wizard & the Princess.
There were a whole group of poly-bagged games that pre-dated the boxed software that isn't as widely documented. I sometimes wish I could play Artillery on the Apple II again if I only spent some time trying to get the emulators and Dos 3.3 disks working.
Piracy on Apple II was rampant, but I think that was largely because that piracy was one of the areas where learning about how hardware & software interact created a generation of computer engineers. A 7th grader learning about how filesystems work and how software controls a disk drive? Common place when the kid was motivated to copy a game. I don't want to make a moral claim that it's right, but you can't deny how many engineers of my generation have a similar story.
Info on disk protection was widely available - getting Hardcore Computist magazine every month was a real treat, learning new things about how hardware & software worked. You didn't get a crack to download - you had to dig into the disk editors yourself and learn why machine code edits made the game playable. Great fun from the old days.
1) Dreamcast was legitimately ahead of its time - you can compare Tony Hawk/Dead or Alive on Dreamcast vs Playstation and see a world of difference.
2) The games were ahead of its time - many of the XBOX-generation games were largely ports of Dreamcast original games, including Metropolis Street Racer, among others.
3) No mod chip required for home brew - probably one of the easiest ways to enjoy console emulation on the home tv. The only downside is learning how to burn the roms to the CD. I'm not sure though, but it seemed like the CDs caused the drive to fail early though.
4) Features - built-in networking for online gaming, with some degree success in Phantasy Star. VMU minigames/screen and Rumble controller (which is just starting to arrive in next gen platforms as in the PSP->PS3 plugin). The VMU could communicate to users when there was player-private information without having to broadcast it on the screen and show other players, plus it could also do standalone play.
5) Games - Skies of Arcadia is still probably my favorite RPG ever - more fun in tone and atmosphere than many of the Final Fantasy's. Soul Caliber - extremely deep game play but deceptively simple to get started. It is unfortunate though that there weren't more games, which is a major downside
6) No Region lock - unlike most consoles, Dreamcast didn't burp when you played games from Japan.
1) TV shows are broadcasted frequently in the US, so no need for DVD recording devices
2) Tivo is a recording device that is popular in the US
It seems to me that the "broadcasted frequently" isn't a valid reason for why DVD recording devices aren't popular, because there are recording devices that are popular.
"Red Hat should be doing $5 billion, not $500 million." - OK, sounds like he wants to grow the top line, which is an expansion of revenue. So how's he going to do it?
"It's a question of operational excellence and on focusing on its core businesses" - whoops, looks like his corporate speak backing statement is talking about cutting costs, not top line growth. You can make a company more profitable with these tasks, but it doesn't outline how you're going to make more money.
but the reality is that if you're not responsible for something important, even mission critical, then you just let someone paint a layoff target on your back. that's the political reality of many companies. It's easier to fight to keep what you have than it is to expect that someone will give you something good to manage after you give up control over what you have right now.
Virtualization is actually a poor example of the cross functional integration in many companies, since it's squabbling within the IT department. Try implementing an ERP system (with IT, Finance, and Sales fighting over ownership).
First the title is in the hands of a "new" company, but competent remains yet to be seen.
Second, in order to clarify your use of the word "original" game. . the first "game" was the pen & paper game. the first "original" videogame was the SNES version. The genesis version is a second videogame unrelated to the SNES version.
And I liked the SNES version quite a bit. Haven't played the Genesis version.
Role Playing ------------ whether it's obvious or not, the whole computer gaming model for player vs enemy combat is still largely the same as the dungeons & dragons model. The controls may vary from game to game, but it's largely choose the weapon, roll the dice, and survive the encounter by having more hit points left than your enemy does. Before this was implemented in videogames, you had the one-shot kill gameplay of space invaders or the hunt the wumpus "you're dead" text adventures.
Side Scrolling Screens
I'm not enough of a historian to say what game came up with it first, but the exploration possibilities of side-scrolling created really big worlds to explore.
Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer is screaming "Itsatrap!" as window repairman comes by yet again to fix the damage as another chair sails through the window.
IT is not the only department that is misunderstood. For example, Ray Kassar of Atari thought that software programmers were a cost center too, and no different than assembly plant workers. He didn't realize that programmers were vital to how Atari makes money, and thus the best programmers all left Atari and went to start Activision with a business plant o make 3rd party software for Atari.
I think that there is a bit of a distorted perception that there is always a shortage of IT labor, because no matter where you work, no matter how many people are in your staff, you'll believe that your department is understaffed and overworked. Have you ever heard an IT staff say "we have just the right amount of people for just the right amount of work?"
I understand that the Galactic Empire ordered a batch of this technology in order to protect against stolen blueprints.
having to decide whether or not to watch Season 3 from my friend's download, or wait for the legitimate dvd. Seriously, making the law abiding fans wait a couple of years between seasons for the dvd's is a long time, no?
I have managed to wait this long, I can wait a few more days. But my fervor for the show has dropped considerably during the lull in releases.
An RSA token is a terrible way to handle internal security for anything other than a VPN. Imaging typing in a one time password every single time you lock your computer, access an application, etc. It would drive most people to just leave their computers unlocked all the time and logged in.
Of course, that may be a US-centric view of what a keyboard should look like, but I bet that since most of the standard alphanumeric keys don't need to be changed often, it is a waste of OLED functionality. We just want to make our programmable keys prettier.
that people involved in piracy of US copyright overseas may be involved in organized crime, it doesn't seem to match the profile of the people they are suing. If they want to fight organized crime, terrorists, etc, then shouldn't years of effort resulted in at least one lawsuit against a terrorist?
Will it still be cool to light up your lamp with gravity, when there's no gravity left and people are spinning right off the planet into outerspace? I guess it will eliminate the greenhouse gas issue by allowing the atmosphere to disappear when there's no more gravity left - but unfortunately it will also not allow people to live (the ones that are still on the planet after the other ones spun off into space as noted earlier)
as long as they teach the kids under which conditions copying intellectual property is illegal. A responsible class should point out that it is not illegal to copy or download certain pieces of software, and teach kids where to find software from the Internet without being in violation of license.
However, as we all probably know, Microsoft doesn't intend to anything of the sort. Their only purpose with this campaign is to scare kids into buying Microsoft product, not get a real education on intellectual property, copyright and licenses.
All the while, there has been a genre of games that this same gaming media chose to ignore, and often ridicule - i.e. often in reference to low cost games such as Deer Hunter, simple adventure games like Myst, compilations and remakes of old games, Flash games, and kids games like the Barbie properties. People who like these types of games had to find them on their own, without any help from the hardcore gaming media.
All the while, Nintendo went blissfully on even though that the gamecube and n64 were largely ignored in the ps2/xbox war. And now, it's somehow become news and a surprise to everyone that there are more people than just the hardcore gamer that loves games too.
that if he didn't name the file system ReiserFS, then would as many people be paying attention to this particular trial?
While any code can introduce risk for security vulnerabilities and exploits, I think the point is that people would rather have patches for KNOWN security vulnerabilities and potential exploits.
I think that to talk about Apple's role in gaming, it might be useful to abstract some of the concepts that stemmed from Apple's popularity and ubiquity.
It wasn't just "video games" that made Apple great - it was the creation of "Home computer games", i.e. games that couldn't be played on the standalone devices or early consoles of the time.
For example:
Educational games emerged as a subgenre as part of the deals Apple did to make computers available to school.
RPGs were available before, but they flourished on the Apple II with Wizardry, Ultima, Bard's Tale, Might & Magic.
I think that it could be arguable that Real-Time Strategy games owe a debt of gratitutde to Rescue Raiders.
Graphical adventures can trace their roots to Sierra's early efforts such as Wizard & the Princess.
There were a whole group of poly-bagged games that pre-dated the boxed software that isn't as widely documented. I sometimes wish I could play Artillery on the Apple II again if I only spent some time trying to get the emulators and Dos 3.3 disks working.
Piracy on Apple II was rampant, but I think that was largely because that piracy was one of the areas where learning about how hardware & software interact created a generation of computer engineers. A 7th grader learning about how filesystems work and how software controls a disk drive? Common place when the kid was motivated to copy a game. I don't want to make a moral claim that it's right, but you can't deny how many engineers of my generation have a similar story.
Info on disk protection was widely available - getting Hardcore Computist magazine every month was a real treat, learning new things about how hardware & software worked. You didn't get a crack to download - you had to dig into the disk editors yourself and learn why machine code edits made the game playable. Great fun from the old days.
1) Dreamcast was legitimately ahead of its time - you can compare Tony Hawk/Dead or Alive on Dreamcast vs Playstation and see a world of difference. 2) The games were ahead of its time - many of the XBOX-generation games were largely ports of Dreamcast original games, including Metropolis Street Racer, among others. 3) No mod chip required for home brew - probably one of the easiest ways to enjoy console emulation on the home tv. The only downside is learning how to burn the roms to the CD. I'm not sure though, but it seemed like the CDs caused the drive to fail early though. 4) Features - built-in networking for online gaming, with some degree success in Phantasy Star. VMU minigames/screen and Rumble controller (which is just starting to arrive in next gen platforms as in the PSP->PS3 plugin). The VMU could communicate to users when there was player-private information without having to broadcast it on the screen and show other players, plus it could also do standalone play. 5) Games - Skies of Arcadia is still probably my favorite RPG ever - more fun in tone and atmosphere than many of the Final Fantasy's. Soul Caliber - extremely deep game play but deceptively simple to get started. It is unfortunate though that there weren't more games, which is a major downside 6) No Region lock - unlike most consoles, Dreamcast didn't burp when you played games from Japan.
1) TV shows are broadcasted frequently in the US, so no need for DVD recording devices
2) Tivo is a recording device that is popular in the US
It seems to me that the "broadcasted frequently" isn't a valid reason for why DVD recording devices aren't popular, because there are recording devices that are popular.
that he wants an answer in 7 days. There's no way that your $emerge leadership package will compile and install by then.
"It's a question of operational excellence and on focusing on its core businesses" - whoops, looks like his corporate speak backing statement is talking about cutting costs, not top line growth. You can make a company more profitable with these tasks, but it doesn't outline how you're going to make more money.
but the reality is that if you're not responsible for something important, even mission critical, then you just let someone paint a layoff target on your back. that's the political reality of many companies. It's easier to fight to keep what you have than it is to expect that someone will give you something good to manage after you give up control over what you have right now. Virtualization is actually a poor example of the cross functional integration in many companies, since it's squabbling within the IT department. Try implementing an ERP system (with IT, Finance, and Sales fighting over ownership).
on whether the candidate supports PS3 or XBOX360? Or BluRay vs HDDVD? Or KDE vs GNOME?
Silverlight
First the title is in the hands of a "new" company, but competent remains yet to be seen.
Second, in order to clarify your use of the word "original" game. . the first "game" was the pen & paper game. the first "original" videogame was the SNES version. The genesis version is a second videogame unrelated to the SNES version.
And I liked the SNES version quite a bit. Haven't played the Genesis version.
That it will miss the all-important Christmas Shopping season! Just think of all those disappointed kids who wanted KDE4 from Santa.
For those of us that aren't in the game dev industry, what does it mean when he says "everybody was forced to share tech"?
Role Playing
------------
whether it's obvious or not, the whole computer gaming model for player vs enemy combat is still largely the same as the dungeons & dragons model. The controls may vary from game to game, but it's largely choose the weapon, roll the dice, and survive the encounter by having more hit points left than your enemy does. Before this was implemented in videogames, you had the one-shot kill gameplay of space invaders or the hunt the wumpus "you're dead" text adventures.
Side Scrolling Screens
I'm not enough of a historian to say what game came up with it first, but the exploration possibilities of side-scrolling created really big worlds to explore.