Image playing Homeworld with that fancy all-sensory-input-output device.
Video games do propel technology. But open source propels it further, IMHO.
So what if Bill Gates says no, FOR HIMSELF. But that does NOT mean Microsoft won't persue implant technology patents in the future.
This got me thinking... and what exactly is the prognosis for Open Source implants? Who wants to go first on the test bed? This ain't no operating system... testing could result in deaths and a lot of pain.
But according to a new analysis, this view couldn't be more wrong: far from being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age.
If there really are fewer inventions being adopted, I think it would likely be due to the higher level of technical complexity to develop truly innovative designs these day that would catch someone's attention. Combine that with the signal to noise ratio and fewer inventions are coming to the forefront.
Today I was listening to a radio show, I think it was pre-taped on CBC Radio, but at any rate, the show delved into the differences between advertisements today and fifty years ago, with an emphasis on ads that push the limits of decency. The show's host made a comment that stuck with me about how yesterday's shocking ad is certainly mild in comparison to what's next on the horizon. To me this points at the human condition in that we are less and less impressed with the here-and-now, until someone changes the way we see things altogether and a whole new level is reached, attained, marketed, exploited and drained until it happens again and again.
More and more, he says, progress takes place "under the hood" in the form of abstract computing processes. Huebner's analysis misses this entirely.
I think the advancements that make most sense are not necessarily under the hood, but it would be important to address that aspect. To me, the most important advancements are how people use technology, not the technology itself -- and I would like to think it will always be that way. Maybe I am wrong.
You can invent webpages, but they won't really catch on until they have links in them, decentralizing and killing document hierarchy. You can invent weblogs but they won't really catch on until you have RSS and weblogs with feed readers built in. It's the little things but you need to be able to really understand how people WANT to use things before the level of invention meets demand.
Nothing is new under the Sun, except our use of the materials given.
This is the typical old-boy-network shit. I don't believe Intel is worth fighting for, so I'll be always spend my money on the least of evil, although these days it might be most ethical to use an abacus -- and just give up on the whole lot of them. I don't know how to pluralize abacus. No seriously... I am not very fond of what keeps happening in the tech markets and I place the blame squarely on those who would employ traditional/evil marketing approaches to solve/quash/kill emerging challenges.
You'd think the whole of silicon valley walks around with swords and daggers, getting ready to win initiative.
Aren't stock pictures great? I think they tend to create more news than they really should. It's problematic and yet commonplace at the same time to have strange stock pictures put a spin on a relatively benign story. Just because a zombie dog gets a second chance at life -- does the stock picture have to really be of a dog that looks like it's being provoked by an iron pipe? Only in stories about zombie dogs, I suppose...
Here's the apple: Communist Russia was one of the global super-powers. You are suggesting they got to that status by using a flawed system of government? It's views like yours that START COLD WARS.
The only flaw in Communism is that it can be corrupted and the greedy. But the same can be said about capitalism and democracy.
"Japanese robots on the moon, is this the beginnings of post-colonial cyborg imperialism?"
When NASA was founded in 1958, Japan was really still recovering from Nagasaki and Hirshima, 13 years earlier. It wasn't until August 1967 when the reinforcement construction was completed on A-bomb Dome in Hiroshima.
Keiji Tachikawa's last name is the same as Tachikawa, a town outside of Tokyo, founded on December 1, 1940. Coincidence?
Japan and the US are now poised to build a very important part of human history together. It's quite moving, IMHO.
I guess it just shows you that no matter what happens, no matter what the evil stuff is, there always really is hope... unless the lunar space robots are really a ploy to get back at us? Fear the space robots!
"Actually, if this describes you, and you are creative and business savvy to boot, then you are perfectly suited for starting up your own software business."
I'm a programmer, like many of you. I develop my own Open Source systems and have done so for the past five years. After being shut down by employer after employer for stupid reasons, I finally got smart about it.
My last experience was the clincher. This company will remain anonymous because they are dirty enough to go after me and tie me up in court if they ever found out I was talking about them negatively. They hired me as a full time contract employee to develop a project management system for them and some other projects like an online mapping system. They started me at contracting wages which are a bit higher than full-time-contract wages -- for the reason that I would be paid more frequently and would not have to wait so long between paycheques if I took full-time-contract instead of contract. Like many other fools out there, I took a pay cut and they paid me more frequently -- for a while. I traded my value for job security. DUMB MOVE!!!
They laid me off when I finished my project and their cheques continued to bounce until I finally managed to certify the last one a full two months after I was laid off. My employer knew all along that I would be sacked on completion of my project, so it was intentional.
So how do these companies expect us to handle this? We are going to get smart and we are going to get powerful until we can do as we please. Vocation == Vacation.:-)
So I guess you can say I was left with a bit of an edge after that experience.
We all need job security and that sort of thing for our families, but we also need to create that security ourselves -- nobody is going to do it for us.
My Ace of Spades is to have a project going that is mine alone and fund it through my own employment and extra-curricular activities.
I've switched to full-on entrepreneurial activity with a NEW company.
I am being paid right now to provide solutions to the company I work for and yet the company has signed off that they will not own the solutions but that they will be able to use them in their current state -- FOREVER.
They are okay with this because they can get me a lot cheaper than if they were to actually OWN the systems I build. Exclusivity is expensive and I have told them that if they want to exclusively own my project they will have to come to the table with a very big offer. Huge offer, I said.
What they really wanted was to have solutions to problems and with my troubleshooting experience (10 years), I am able to help them and they are able to help me. Symbiosis!
Are you unemployed or just ready to do something special with your talent? I want to talk to you.
I think the whole thing smacks of a kind of strange Soviet irony that is somehow like Mother Russia's revenge on America. We destroyed their way of life and now they are stealing from our grandparents.
Karma has a strange way of working itself out. Phishing still needs to be stopped and I think the best way to try and stop it is to start building systems that don't add links to emails. Use copy/paste form validation instead. Designing smart systems sometimes means taking the convenience out of it, but no matter what you do, there will always be dumb people who are fooled.
And pr0n technology moves 1 step closer to being the real thing sans the nagging
I think this kind of invention could help couples who are far away from eachother to stay intimate, so on a serious note this might be a really good thing to have for soldiers and their spouses (because many soldiers are women today).
Yes the sex industry would certainly cash in on this in an attempt to cheapen it -- but think of the STD prevention...
"Google has been the darling of the tech world for who knows how long because sometimes they just do the right thing."
Of all the things Google does right, this is one of them. They take the best and brightest -- and the get to know them well. So this year they are getting the value from 400 people working on cool Open Source projects that will benefit the whole world. Google gets props and free advertising for doing this, which is likely quite an endeavor. 400 computers networked... think of the Quake tournies!
Out of this piece of philanthropy (it really is philanthropy when you are paying programmers these days -- we need as much support as we can get!) -- Google will find at least TEN projects they can buy outright WITH the developer who they have ALREADY PAID $4500 to, making the deal SOFTER, turning $4500 into an investment perhaps saving them millions.
In my opinion, Google has really built the first known MONEY FARM known to man. All they have to do is water it and it will grow. Next summer, expect 800 people or more.
I'm doing an Open Source blogging/small business web services system called PHk (soon to be at phk.ca). The company I'm working for is paying me salary just to work on my own system -- because they want to be able to use it when it's done. And that's another success story with Open Source when your vocation is your vacation...
This is predictable news, considering Linus' main machine is a "dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970)". (source) Mac's salvation lies with Open Source for the reason that it goes against what Microsoft stands for. At some point Apple should take a stand and support more open technologies. Linux on the iPod perhaps should be a shipping option! What if computers were 95% OPEN instead of 95% SHUT? Now that's open and shut if you ask me.
Honestly, if Chinese bloggers start using this method ie: "dmeocracy", "fredeom"...etc, are we going to see a NEW method of spam filtering come out of China from on high? Would that be considered action through despotism if it actually happened??
Video-game industry mulls over the future beyond shoot-'em-ups
3d immersive shooters have only really been around since Quake came out, for about a decade. Pretty much anything before Quake wasn't realized fully as games like Doom were missing the x/y/z components (and BSP AND lighting, for that matter).
Quake took the games industry by storm because it was the first true-3d game. Everyone had to eventually crank out their branded version of pretty much the same experience, twisted by the trends as they kept going towards the Counterstrike model of gaming.
Now we are overloaded with video game shelves filled with crap. Why?
Because nobody is inventing anything new. They are banking on what sells because the high cost of getting a new game on a shelf to begin with. This isn't the 80's when you could make two red square blocks fight a little jagged octagon shape, and bring home some big bucks doing it. You've gotta put millions into R&D and all that other jazz just to turn a profit. That's where companies like Id Software come in, who spend all their time working on the technology and only a sliver on the story anymore.
They are making it easier for games companies to get in, but you still have to come to the table with a pile of cash before you can launch anything at all. Back to LCD: Shooters.
"We need games with better stories, more interesting and complex characters; games that keep you up at night wrestling with whether you made the right ethical or moral choices," says Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).
I disagree, Doug. I have to make these choices in life -- I play games to escape life. That's what you guys have been doing WRONG this WHOLE TIME. Make a game where I can escape into a terrific story that lets me showcase myself and MY PERSONAL TALENT. I'll pay for THAT game. Not your moral ethics quandaries... they are simply boring to me.
The use of a third-party middle finger is currently patent-pending, and therefore we must notify you that we are unable to accept your patent-infringing useage of this method of expression. Please fill in this form, in triplicate and then we might ignore your request for up to six years, while we stay busy stealing ideas from trusting fools.
"I got a lot of messages saying there was a disconnect between my star rating and my review. Perhaps there was."
Translation: "My job is so easy. You caught me fucking the dog. Heh! Okay, but that doesn't mean I will actually stop fucking the dog."
"Star ratings are the bane of my existence, because I consider them to be relative and yet by their nature, they seem to be absolute."
Translation: "Math is subjective. My job is so fucking easy."
"Star Wars: Episode III" returned to the space opera roots of the original film and succeeded on that level, and for that I wanted to honor it, while regretting that it did not succeed at the levels of intelligence and wit as it did on the levels of craftsmanship and entertainment."
Translation: "The movie really sucked but it was fun to look at, until you tried to understand it. You just heard me say that Star wars is a space opera of robots. If my job was any fucking easier, I would not have to show up to talk about movies. SO stay tuned for Ebert & Whatshisname -- the animated version with a younger, thinner Ebert & a smaller and uglier Whatshisname, with goofy looking ears. Oh my job is so fucking easy, time to eat a taco."
Of course if you post a user's email addy, a spammer is going to find it.
Another step that should be taken, to prevent phishing, is to move to a copy/paste method for VALIDATION. Right now user validation is handled with a clickthrough. This leads to users relying on clickthroughs to get things from your website.
My new cms is currently being forked into two versions:
GS 1.9.9 Beta : rapid content management for small business
GS Blog 0.9.1: rapid content management for bloggers
One of the main new features I've implemented is to have a validation MD5 that you have to copy/paste when you first log onto the system. It's pretty simple if you register.
But dial it back a bit and examine the whole password reminder systems. I'm doing this code, coincedentally, today. A user who forgets their password, is prompted the next time they log-in. It will be the exact same as the registration code, except, you will have to accept the password change with a code, or optionally reject it.
I just think that CMS designers need to examine the whole process and look at the big picture. If you show an email address, a spammer can find it. If you ask your users to clickthrough, the next time they get an email from a phisher, they are going to click it.
Yes, there is a limited level of intelligence to use the internet, but I think we need to be always looking at better methods of implementing CMS design.
Nope, generally it's the percentage of the first round size. So if 1000 people get laid off of from a company of 25,000... the next round will see approx 600 layoffs. And then 240 after that. But that's only if the management is using a formula. Sometimes they just pull the numbers out of their butts (and when they pull the numbers from that lower region, you will see them linked proudly on this website.
How are they going to have the resources to expand if they are laying off staff? Lay off more workers. It's more important for the new expansion areas to show solid numbers than for the home office to be ahead of the game. It's okay if the home office goes into a little decline to get the expansion areas off the ground.
But they will want to really watch everyone left in the company, and layoffs are a great way to send the message that employees had better peform. Sadly, layoffs have the side effect of turning good people into emotionless and unpassionate people.
They'll need those 9 people to babysit the existing operations while others are supporting the new operations.
Realistically, they only need one manager to run things at head office. It's a small company.
In order to afford to get things going, pay for the expenses of having new offices and training new employees (although they likely know who they are hiring anyway because it's OPEN SOURCE -- they already have a list of great employees who would die to work for them)... Ergh. It's going to be pretty easy for them after the first pinch.
Slashdot Mirror
Image playing Homeworld with that fancy all-sensory-input-output device.
Video games do propel technology. But open source propels it further, IMHO.
So what if Bill Gates says no, FOR HIMSELF. But that does NOT mean Microsoft won't persue implant technology patents in the future.
This got me thinking... and what exactly is the prognosis for Open Source implants? Who wants to go first on the test bed? This ain't no operating system... testing could result in deaths and a lot of pain.
But according to a new analysis, this view couldn't be more wrong: far from being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age.
If there really are fewer inventions being adopted, I think it would likely be due to the higher level of technical complexity to develop truly innovative designs these day that would catch someone's attention. Combine that with the signal to noise ratio and fewer inventions are coming to the forefront.
Today I was listening to a radio show, I think it was pre-taped on CBC Radio, but at any rate, the show delved into the differences between advertisements today and fifty years ago, with an emphasis on ads that push the limits of decency. The show's host made a comment that stuck with me about how yesterday's shocking ad is certainly mild in comparison to what's next on the horizon. To me this points at the human condition in that we are less and less impressed with the here-and-now, until someone changes the way we see things altogether and a whole new level is reached, attained, marketed, exploited and drained until it happens again and again.
More and more, he says, progress takes place "under the hood" in the form of abstract computing processes. Huebner's analysis misses this entirely.
I think the advancements that make most sense are not necessarily under the hood, but it would be important to address that aspect. To me, the most important advancements are how people use technology, not the technology itself -- and I would like to think it will always be that way. Maybe I am wrong.
You can invent webpages, but they won't really catch on until they have links in them, decentralizing and killing document hierarchy. You can invent weblogs but they won't really catch on until you have RSS and weblogs with feed readers built in. It's the little things but you need to be able to really understand how people WANT to use things before the level of invention meets demand.
Nothing is new under the Sun, except our use of the materials given.
With AJAX you have to do a check on how to instantiate an XMLHTTPRequest object. MS implements it via ActiveX (read: really stupid).
/rhetorical
ActiveX by itself is bad. ActiveX with Ajax would be worse because it would enable spyware writers become more agile.
Why is Microsoft helping spyware writers? Surely they would have known this could be a bad combo... right??
That sounds pretty damning.
This is the typical old-boy-network shit. I don't believe Intel is worth fighting for, so I'll be always spend my money on the least of evil, although these days it might be most ethical to use an abacus -- and just give up on the whole lot of them. I don't know how to pluralize abacus. No seriously... I am not very fond of what keeps happening in the tech markets and I place the blame squarely on those who would employ traditional/evil marketing approaches to solve/quash/kill emerging challenges.
You'd think the whole of silicon valley walks around with swords and daggers, getting ready to win initiative.
This is all very funny and yet it's too true. I was just reading this over at Ars and I was thinking that Utah parents would have to be ... nevermind.
1+1=2, but Infinty+Infinity=Infinity...
Therefore infinity must equal zero and therefore it does not exist and therefore EVERYTHING is quantifiable to sum.
Aren't stock pictures great?
I think they tend to create more news than they really should. It's problematic and yet commonplace at the same time to have strange stock pictures put a spin on a relatively benign story. Just because a zombie dog gets a second chance at life -- does the stock picture have to really be of a dog that looks like it's being provoked by an iron pipe? Only in stories about zombie dogs, I suppose...
Communism did not work. Period.
So I guess you prefer the Absolutist way?
Here's the apple: Communist Russia was one of the global super-powers. You are suggesting they got to that status by using a flawed system of government? It's views like yours that START COLD WARS.
The only flaw in Communism is that it can be corrupted and the greedy. But the same can be said about capitalism and democracy.
"Japanese robots on the moon, is this the beginnings of post-colonial cyborg imperialism?"
When NASA was founded in 1958, Japan was really still recovering from Nagasaki and Hirshima, 13 years earlier. It wasn't until August 1967 when the reinforcement construction was completed on A-bomb Dome in Hiroshima.
Keiji Tachikawa's last name is the same as Tachikawa, a town outside of Tokyo, founded on December 1, 1940. Coincidence?
Japan and the US are now poised to build a very important part of human history together. It's quite moving, IMHO.
I guess it just shows you that no matter what happens, no matter what the evil stuff is, there always really is hope... unless the lunar space robots are really a ploy to get back at us? Fear the space robots!
"Actually, if this describes you, and you are creative and business savvy to boot, then you are perfectly suited for starting up your own software business."
:-)
I'm a programmer, like many of you. I develop my own Open Source systems and have done so for the past five years. After being shut down by employer after employer for stupid reasons, I finally got smart about it.
My last experience was the clincher. This company will remain anonymous because they are dirty enough to go after me and tie me up in court if they ever found out I was talking about them negatively. They hired me as a full time contract employee to develop a project management system for them and some other projects like an online mapping system. They started me at contracting wages which are a bit higher than full-time-contract wages -- for the reason that I would be paid more frequently and would not have to wait so long between paycheques if I took full-time-contract instead of contract. Like many other fools out there, I took a pay cut and they paid me more frequently -- for a while. I traded my value for job security. DUMB MOVE!!!
They laid me off when I finished my project and their cheques continued to bounce until I finally managed to certify the last one a full two months after I was laid off. My employer knew all along that I would be sacked on completion of my project, so it was intentional.
So how do these companies expect us to handle this? We are going to get smart and we are going to get powerful until we can do as we please. Vocation == Vacation.
So I guess you can say I was left with a bit of an edge after that experience.
We all need job security and that sort of thing for our families, but we also need to create that security ourselves -- nobody is going to do it for us.
My Ace of Spades is to have a project going that is mine alone and fund it through my own employment and extra-curricular activities.
I've switched to full-on entrepreneurial activity with a NEW company.
I am being paid right now to provide solutions to the company I work for and yet the company has signed off that they will not own the solutions but that they will be able to use them in their current state -- FOREVER.
They are okay with this because they can get me a lot cheaper than if they were to actually OWN the systems I build. Exclusivity is expensive and I have told them that if they want to exclusively own my project they will have to come to the table with a very big offer. Huge offer, I said.
What they really wanted was to have solutions to problems and with my troubleshooting experience (10 years), I am able to help them and they are able to help me. Symbiosis!
Are you unemployed or just ready to do something special with your talent? I want to talk to you.
I think the whole thing smacks of a kind of strange Soviet irony that is somehow like Mother Russia's revenge on America. We destroyed their way of life and now they are stealing from our grandparents.
Karma has a strange way of working itself out. Phishing still needs to be stopped and I think the best way to try and stop it is to start building systems that don't add links to emails. Use copy/paste form validation instead. Designing smart systems sometimes means taking the convenience out of it, but no matter what you do, there will always be dumb people who are fooled.
And pr0n technology moves 1 step closer to being the real thing sans the nagging
I think this kind of invention could help couples who are far away from eachother to stay intimate, so on a serious note this might be a really good thing to have for soldiers and their spouses (because many soldiers are women today).
Yes the sex industry would certainly cash in on this in an attempt to cheapen it -- but think of the STD prevention...
"Google has been the darling of the tech world for who knows how long because sometimes they just do the right thing."
Of all the things Google does right, this is one of them. They take the best and brightest -- and the get to know them well. So this year they are getting the value from 400 people working on cool Open Source projects that will benefit the whole world. Google gets props and free advertising for doing this, which is likely quite an endeavor. 400 computers networked... think of the Quake tournies!
Out of this piece of philanthropy (it really is philanthropy when you are paying programmers these days -- we need as much support as we can get!) -- Google will find at least TEN projects they can buy outright WITH the developer who they have ALREADY PAID $4500 to, making the deal SOFTER, turning $4500 into an investment perhaps saving them millions.
In my opinion, Google has really built the first known MONEY FARM known to man. All they have to do is water it and it will grow. Next summer, expect 800 people or more.
I'm doing an Open Source blogging/small business web services system called PHk (soon to be at phk.ca). The company I'm working for is paying me salary just to work on my own system -- because they want to be able to use it when it's done. And that's another success story with Open Source when your vocation is your vacation...
Anyone here working at Google this summer?
This is predictable news, considering Linus' main machine is a "dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970)". (source) Mac's salvation lies with Open Source for the reason that it goes against what Microsoft stands for. At some point Apple should take a stand and support more open technologies. Linux on the iPod perhaps should be a shipping option! What if computers were 95% OPEN instead of 95% SHUT? Now that's open and shut if you ask me.
Honestly, if Chinese bloggers start using this method ie: "dmeocracy", "fredeom"...etc, are we going to see a NEW method of spam filtering come out of China from on high? Would that be considered action through despotism if it actually happened??
Well technically you are right, but Doom lacked full BSP implementation -- it still had a lot of 2d "drapes".
But that was a nice try.
3d immersive shooters have only really been around since Quake came out, for about a decade. Pretty much anything before Quake wasn't realized fully as games like Doom were missing the x/y/z components (and BSP AND lighting, for that matter).
Quake took the games industry by storm because it was the first true-3d game. Everyone had to eventually crank out their branded version of pretty much the same experience, twisted by the trends as they kept going towards the Counterstrike model of gaming.
Now we are overloaded with video game shelves filled with crap. Why?
Because nobody is inventing anything new. They are banking on what sells because the high cost of getting a new game on a shelf to begin with. This isn't the 80's when you could make two red square blocks fight a little jagged octagon shape, and bring home some big bucks doing it. You've gotta put millions into R&D and all that other jazz just to turn a profit. That's where companies like Id Software come in, who spend all their time working on the technology and only a sliver on the story anymore.
They are making it easier for games companies to get in, but you still have to come to the table with a pile of cash before you can launch anything at all. Back to LCD: Shooters.
I disagree, Doug. I have to make these choices in life -- I play games to escape life. That's what you guys have been doing WRONG this WHOLE TIME. Make a game where I can escape into a terrific story that lets me showcase myself and MY PERSONAL TALENT. I'll pay for THAT game. Not your moral ethics quandaries... they are simply boring to me.
Aha, not a troll then so much as a genuine idiot. I wonder if he could afford some swamp land.
I'm still standing here, you know.
Microsoft sees spyware as an opportunity for profit.
Of course if you post a user's email addy, a spammer is going to find it.
Another step that should be taken, to prevent phishing, is to move to a copy/paste method for VALIDATION. Right now user validation is handled with a clickthrough. This leads to users relying on clickthroughs to get things from your website.
My new cms is currently being forked into two versions:
- GS 1.9.9 Beta : rapid content management for small business
- GS Blog 0.9.1: rapid content management for bloggers
One of the main new features I've implemented is to have a validation MD5 that you have to copy/paste when you first log onto the system. It's pretty simple if you register.But dial it back a bit and examine the whole password reminder systems. I'm doing this code, coincedentally, today. A user who forgets their password, is prompted the next time they log-in. It will be the exact same as the registration code, except, you will have to accept the password change with a code, or optionally reject it.
I just think that CMS designers need to examine the whole process and look at the big picture. If you show an email address, a spammer can find it. If you ask your users to clickthrough, the next time they get an email from a phisher, they are going to click it.
Yes, there is a limited level of intelligence to use the internet, but I think we need to be always looking at better methods of implementing CMS design.
You could meet the chairman of Microsoft, but you'll have to profess a passion for Windows first.
How many of us will pretend to love windows just to get a chance to relive some fond memories?
Microsoft is looking for true stories about people using Windows computers to pursue a passion or hobby.
So now they have to bribe Windows users for positive reviews, eh? Seems about right.
It's where Sum 41 is from.
I thought you meant % of the remainder:
Nope, generally it's the percentage of the first round size. So if 1000 people get laid off of from a company of 25,000... the next round will see approx 600 layoffs. And then 240 after that. But that's only if the management is using a formula. Sometimes they just pull the numbers out of their butts (and when they pull the numbers from that lower region, you will see them linked proudly on this website.
How are they going to have the resources to expand if they are laying off staff?
Lay off more workers. It's more important for the new expansion areas to show solid numbers than for the home office to be ahead of the game. It's okay if the home office goes into a little decline to get the expansion areas off the ground.
But they will want to really watch everyone left in the company, and layoffs are a great way to send the message that employees had better peform. Sadly, layoffs have the side effect of turning good people into emotionless and unpassionate people.
They'll need those 9 people to babysit the existing operations while others are supporting the new operations.
Realistically, they only need one manager to run things at head office. It's a small company.
In order to afford to get things going, pay for the expenses of having new offices and training new employees (although they likely know who they are hiring anyway because it's OPEN SOURCE -- they already have a list of great employees who would die to work for them)... Ergh. It's going to be pretty easy for them after the first pinch.