Why is it OK for everyone to expect programmers to work for free, but not graphic artists? Programming is tedious, hard work, that few people are able to do at all, and even fewer are able to do well. Expecting to be paid for performing work that other people find useful is the rule, not the exception.
I've worked for an artist who had an idea and wrote for him programs to do things that he couldn't do for himself. I get a pay check, he gets the fame. That's how it works. If I wanted to turn the relationship around it would be him that got the paycheck and me that got the fame.
All of this presumes the project is successful. More often it fails. So the guy who gets the paycheck is smart. The one that "works for free" is the one taking the risk on the vision, his payday may never come... or he may become wealthy because he held out. That's the breaks.
The programmer is more likely to be the guy with a novel idea for software so what you see is more likely to be the programmer taking the risk. That's all. I've seen artists take risks too... and fail miserably. The fact is that the ideas that artists have usually don't require much in the way of novel software.
You are right. But the iPhone is still technically superior. That will change in time. In the long run the majority of software developers will belong to the Android camp and its descendants unless iPhone changes strategy drastically.
However, you have to wonder if Apple cares about that. Their strategy appears to be to seek "premium" brand status. That means the relative scarcity would be seen as exclusivity.
Oh, I think you're right on about it being a piece of political fiction. Dune was a good one for that too. Actually, Regan quotes from the 1983 make me wonder if the Watchmen came from his quote about humanity unified against an alien threat.
If you look the 1983 sentiments that launched the Regan era "Star Wars" program exists before Watchmen. It was about then that Regan makes comments about Earth being unified against an alien threat... and those same sentiments are present in the Bush administration. So really, the authors are reflecting a "plot" already found in the real world.
The "Watchmen" is in part a commentary on the fact it is so very screwed up that the "alien threat" strategy actually works as well as it does. But, I wouldn't read any conspiracy theories into anything. That would be silly. These are common tactics of state building at least as old as the Pharaohs.
Re:I think you jumped the gun a little.
on
Watchmen Watched
·
· Score: 1
The cinematography and choice of music was spot on...
And the worst was the shitty arrangement of "Hallelujah" during the sex-in-the-sky scene.
That whole scene was pretty dumb. There's a much better arrangement of "Hallelujah" to use in one of the Shrek movies. And... why that song there?
Other than that I thought the cliched choices were actually appropriate for a movie set in 1985.
Re:I think you jumped the gun a little.
on
Watchmen Watched
·
· Score: 1
Just out of curiosity have you ever read "Atlas Shrugged"... I think you would like it.
You know, I was going to say that the pacing was all over the place. I felt like I was watching two movies. That's because we go from a sleuth movie pacing to an action movie pacing and back to a sleuth movie just when you think that's all done with... then back to an action movie.
Switching between the Rorschach character to the Dr. Manhattan character as the narrator and back again was a little continuity busting. But, it was forgivable. Dr. Manhattan could not serve as a narrator for the whole movie since his point of view is too alien.
If there's a fan out there that doesn't like this movie then I'd bet the movie version they would like would be a "Reading Rainbow" version which just panned over the comic book as the actors read their lines.
It was a very good super-hero movie. Too much sex and violence for the kiddies. If you cut all the sex and the violence there would still be a good core story but it would not have the emotional impact. Honestly, sex and violence are core themes of the story. It is a story about the baser nature of humanity and what that means. Cutting it down too much would ruin the effect.
The intent of the test is to see if you have learned the information. If you can take the test without learning the information then you can cheat. If you use a technique to subvert the purpose of the test then you are cheating.
If you can pass a test merely by memorizing material then it is a test of little value. If you can merely vomit material you have memorized up on to the test to pass it then isn't that testing something that in the real world I could use research material and aides to find out the answer for anyhow? Isn't the ability to take a question and formulate a research strategy to find the answers valuable by itself? Why should that be cheating? The ability to effectively research material is not a trivial skill.
More importantly the ability to synthesize what you have learned and find new answers is far more important. If your teacher was creating a test that forced you to think about what you knew and what you had researched and then add them together to create new knowledge then this test would not be something that you could effectively cheat on. If the test answers were paragraph form and needed to be in your own words this would cheating easy to spot.
Unfortunately, creating tests that look for synthesis of knowledge are hard to create and hard to grade. This represents too much work for teachers who are paid little and over-worked. So most teachers look for the lazy path.
The majority of teachers today are forced to use the lazy path of multiple choice tests. The reason is that the reward for choosing the hard path and the reward for actually teaching the students in unquantifiable ways are... well... unmeasured. The lazy teacher gets the same pay and respect as the hard working teacher. This means that the hard working teacher is demotivated and might even have problems in their career.
Consider if you put in half the work of your coworkers yet get the same reward. If you do that then you have time for "extras" (like committees) which make you look good to your superiors. In short: modern teachers are rewarded for being lazy and that means they don't have to learn their subjects, stay current, or push for excellence. It is easier to watch rules and mindlessly enforce them.
It's a sad state of affairs.
In short: your teacher (who is wrong both legally and intrinsically) is protecting against something something akin to mp3 file sharing but even older. The idea that you can stop the flow of information was outdated with the printing press. The idea of sharing information is what the school system itself is based on. It's called learning because the information is copied from one generation to the next... which if we were to follow the logical progression of the philosophy your teacher is enforcing.... then generational learning is a form of cheating.
If copying information into my brain and into my own library of information (which I view as extensions of my brain) is cheating then intend to cheat in life as much as possible.
Keep a very detailed diary of everything you work on. Names, dates, places, everything. Then if you are really paranoid, place the diary in an escrow service.
If at any point someone claims to have invented something and you know it's yours, you have everything there to prove it.
OOooh, I like that so much. Paranoid yet still allows you to collaborate with people. Yes. You could do this in a way that guarantees the logs were legit and proved you as the source of ideas. Brilliant. I'm stealing this idea right now!
One tweak: what if I use a twitter stream or similar to document ideas, meetings, and so on?
I share your journey except I have not made it to getting patents yet. I have developed a philosophy: the idea has its own life.
This means that I do try to protect good ideas up to a point but ultimately the idea has only come to me. Other people may just as easily have the same idea come to them. One of us will execute the idea first and one of us will execute it best. Sometimes that is the same person. Most of the time these are different people.
It also means that I, in part, have a duty to the idea and if I can not serve it properly then I shouldn't be surprised if it abandons me. It also means that if the idea can't serve me where I am now then I should abandon it. So in a way the idea, the execution and I are all separate... and we are courting each other.
I know I'm writing to geeks but really, these ideas are like girlfriends you don't own them. You hope you meet a good one at the right time and place. You hope the idea favors you and you can't force it. It's very much like dating.
The fundamental difference in attitude is one of plenty and one of scarcity. If you think there are only so many good ideas and you have to horde yours then you'll live paranoid. If you think that there are plenty of opportunities and plenty of good ideas then you will gladly move between them. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
This doesn't mean being stupid and broadcasting every thought in your head. But, it also means that you recognize that the fact that if _you_ thought of it... someone else already did. And, if you thought of it and no one has done it... ask why not? Maybe there is a good reason that idea isn't a million-dollar winner. (Maybe there is a reason that girl is single?)
You can find great research from the past using this attitude I call "courting ideas". I had worked out Fractal Encoding for example only to find out it was already patented. Am I upset? No. Just not the right idea, time, and place. Now that I know it exists I can study what about it worked, what sucked, and if the reasons behind why it failed/worked are any different today. Hey, maybe Fractal Encoding is the next big thing... oops... there goes a million dollars (not really, it's patented by someone else remember).
Now. I have not actually tested this "plentiful world" idea yet. I am still very very early in my career. I'll let you know how it goes. I know the "horde the knowledge" idea wasn't working for me so I'm trying something different. Good luck with your own experiments!
The TLA and ETLA are proud American traditions. There isn't an American field of study that isn't chock-a-block with them today. Not to mention that every US company tends to invent their own...
TLA: Three Letter Acronym ETLA: Extended TLA
And just so you don't think I'm making this tidbit of American culture up: TLA origin... personally I hate TLA but it's a solid American meme now. Many engineering and marketing types work in TLA without ever realizing it. It's practically instinctive.
Early on I had to make use of resources like http://www.acronymfinder.com/ to make sense of virtually any engineering conversation.
The problems we have with UI is that humans are adapted to dealing with actual reality and actual physical objects. Anytime we work with virtual objects we're doing something inherently unnatural and against our instincts.
Great example: texting with your thumbs. The problem is the device must be suspended somehow for your finger tips to get at the keyboard. Our solution? Make a platform out of your hands using your eight fingers that naturally form a platform and push the buttons with your thumbs which are naturally free in that position. That is a crappy solution since your thumbs aren't the most dexterous and nimble of your fingers.
Most of the UI we have today is horribly wrong and based on practical device related concerns that were a huge problem 100 years ago but, frankly, are still problems today but should be surmountable with modern technology. I'm afraid movies aren't the best sources for what we *should* be doing with our technology. OTOH: Movies are great sources for inspiration to fix things.
Our biggest problem in front of us is all the success we've had with these arcane devices and technologies.
Well friend. That truly sucks then. You could force me to give the app away but please let me transact for a tiered subscription service or something. Hey, I understand Steve Jobs needs to buy turtle necks but I need pay for my AT&T bill...
But I would think that if you really can't expect to sell an iPhone app for more than $5 a pop you would try and find other ways to get people to spend money via the app and get some kind of kick back that way.
Except you can't. Apple doesn't let you do micro transactions, nor paid updates. The only money you can get from people is those who buy your app, and those who buy your next app. Nothing more.
I am not an iPhone developer...yet. I am a Linux developer but I have just picked up the iPhone SDK and I fully intend on writing a few free apps. I fully expect my apps to be total garbage next to yours. Honestly. I'll be spending a few nights and weekends on banging something out and you've spent full time on something. Naturally my work will pale.
But I would think that if you really can't expect to sell an iPhone app for more than $5 a pop you would try and find other ways to get people to spend money via the app and get some kind of kick back that way. I'm not sure what that would be... but I'm sure there's something that would be fair and simple that people would shell out an extra buck or two here and there for via your app. I guess it depends on what that something is...
Somehow, those terrible, terrible, innovation killing people who give software away have failed to destroy large, complex applications on the PC, I strongly doubt that they are managing that here.
Basically, this goes back to the old saw about how we get developers paid for their work. The answer might not be in charging for the end application if you can't jack the price up beyond a certain level. You may have to go for other funding sources like advertising, subscriptions, service tiers, and sale of enhancements and support. If you can't sell an iPhone app for $5k... you'll just have to figure out how to get the other $4,999 from some place else.
Of course, I'll admit that's easier said than done.
Slashdot Mirror
They will now be called SeaEnnBeeSea
Why is it OK for everyone to expect programmers to work for free, but not graphic artists? Programming is tedious, hard work, that few people are able to do at all, and even fewer are able to do well. Expecting to be paid for performing work that other people find useful is the rule, not the exception.
I've worked for an artist who had an idea and wrote for him programs to do things that he couldn't do for himself. I get a pay check, he gets the fame. That's how it works. If I wanted to turn the relationship around it would be him that got the paycheck and me that got the fame.
All of this presumes the project is successful. More often it fails. So the guy who gets the paycheck is smart. The one that "works for free" is the one taking the risk on the vision, his payday may never come... or he may become wealthy because he held out. That's the breaks.
The programmer is more likely to be the guy with a novel idea for software so what you see is more likely to be the programmer taking the risk. That's all. I've seen artists take risks too... and fail miserably. The fact is that the ideas that artists have usually don't require much in the way of novel software.
The real problem I see is that he lost among the clutter.
In other words if you are thinking about starting iPhone development now you are almost certainly too late.
The original article is slashdotted. Here's a cached copy.
Thanks. It's a 403 error someone may have been forced to pull the article. That could be either due to load or being too frank.
You are right. But the iPhone is still technically superior. That will change in time. In the long run the majority of software developers will belong to the Android camp and its descendants unless iPhone changes strategy drastically.
However, you have to wonder if Apple cares about that. Their strategy appears to be to seek "premium" brand status. That means the relative scarcity would be seen as exclusivity.
Oh, I think you're right on about it being a piece of political fiction. Dune was a good one for that too. Actually, Regan quotes from the 1983 make me wonder if the Watchmen came from his quote about humanity unified against an alien threat.
If you look the 1983 sentiments that launched the Regan era "Star Wars" program exists before Watchmen. It was about then that Regan makes comments about Earth being unified against an alien threat... and those same sentiments are present in the Bush administration. So really, the authors are reflecting a "plot" already found in the real world.
The "Watchmen" is in part a commentary on the fact it is so very screwed up that the "alien threat" strategy actually works as well as it does. But, I wouldn't read any conspiracy theories into anything. That would be silly. These are common tactics of state building at least as old as the Pharaohs.
The cinematography and choice of music was spot on...
And the worst was the shitty arrangement of "Hallelujah" during the sex-in-the-sky scene.
That whole scene was pretty dumb. There's a much better arrangement of "Hallelujah" to use in one of the Shrek movies. And... why that song there?
Other than that I thought the cliched choices were actually appropriate for a movie set in 1985.
Just out of curiosity have you ever read "Atlas Shrugged" ... I think you would like it.
You know, I was going to say that the pacing was all over the place. I felt like I was watching two movies. That's because we go from a sleuth movie pacing to an action movie pacing and back to a sleuth movie just when you think that's all done with... then back to an action movie.
Switching between the Rorschach character to the Dr. Manhattan character as the narrator and back again was a little continuity busting. But, it was forgivable. Dr. Manhattan could not serve as a narrator for the whole movie since his point of view is too alien.
If there's a fan out there that doesn't like this movie then I'd bet the movie version they would like would be a "Reading Rainbow" version which just panned over the comic book as the actors read their lines.
It was a very good super-hero movie. Too much sex and violence for the kiddies. If you cut all the sex and the violence there would still be a good core story but it would not have the emotional impact. Honestly, sex and violence are core themes of the story. It is a story about the baser nature of humanity and what that means. Cutting it down too much would ruin the effect.
Was it maybe a feedback loop of that very thing that caused the slashdotting?
I think the switch was trying to get first post.
In Soviet Russia ...
1. Meme Very Tired. No Longer Wired.
2. 'Soviet Russia' ceased to exist last century.
3. Profit!!!
I for one welcome our previous-century-meme based overlords.
The intent of the test is to see if you have learned the information. If you can take the test without learning the information then you can cheat. If you use a technique to subvert the purpose of the test then you are cheating.
If you can pass a test merely by memorizing material then it is a test of little value. If you can merely vomit material you have memorized up on to the test to pass it then isn't that testing something that in the real world I could use research material and aides to find out the answer for anyhow? Isn't the ability to take a question and formulate a research strategy to find the answers valuable by itself? Why should that be cheating? The ability to effectively research material is not a trivial skill.
More importantly the ability to synthesize what you have learned and find new answers is far more important. If your teacher was creating a test that forced you to think about what you knew and what you had researched and then add them together to create new knowledge then this test would not be something that you could effectively cheat on. If the test answers were paragraph form and needed to be in your own words this would cheating easy to spot.
Unfortunately, creating tests that look for synthesis of knowledge are hard to create and hard to grade. This represents too much work for teachers who are paid little and over-worked. So most teachers look for the lazy path.
The majority of teachers today are forced to use the lazy path of multiple choice tests. The reason is that the reward for choosing the hard path and the reward for actually teaching the students in unquantifiable ways are ... well ... unmeasured. The lazy teacher gets the same pay and respect as the hard working teacher. This means that the hard working teacher is demotivated and might even have problems in their career.
Consider if you put in half the work of your coworkers yet get the same reward. If you do that then you have time for "extras" (like committees) which make you look good to your superiors. In short: modern teachers are rewarded for being lazy and that means they don't have to learn their subjects, stay current, or push for excellence. It is easier to watch rules and mindlessly enforce them.
It's a sad state of affairs.
In short: your teacher (who is wrong both legally and intrinsically) is protecting against something something akin to mp3 file sharing but even older. The idea that you can stop the flow of information was outdated with the printing press. The idea of sharing information is what the school system itself is based on. It's called learning because the information is copied from one generation to the next... which if we were to follow the logical progression of the philosophy your teacher is enforcing.... then generational learning is a form of cheating.
If copying information into my brain and into my own library of information (which I view as extensions of my brain) is cheating then intend to cheat in life as much as possible.
+1 insightful from me.
The more businesses that can sustain themselves through Linux the better. Here's to the next $30M in growth guys!
Keep a very detailed diary of everything you work on. Names, dates, places, everything. Then if you are really paranoid, place the diary in an escrow service.
If at any point someone claims to have invented something and you know it's yours, you have everything there to prove it.
OOooh, I like that so much. Paranoid yet still allows you to collaborate with people. Yes. You could do this in a way that guarantees the logs were legit and proved you as the source of ideas. Brilliant. I'm stealing this idea right now!
One tweak: what if I use a twitter stream or similar to document ideas, meetings, and so on?
I share your journey except I have not made it to getting patents yet. I have developed a philosophy: the idea has its own life.
This means that I do try to protect good ideas up to a point but ultimately the idea has only come to me. Other people may just as easily have the same idea come to them. One of us will execute the idea first and one of us will execute it best. Sometimes that is the same person. Most of the time these are different people.
It also means that I, in part, have a duty to the idea and if I can not serve it properly then I shouldn't be surprised if it abandons me. It also means that if the idea can't serve me where I am now then I should abandon it. So in a way the idea, the execution and I are all separate ... and we are courting each other.
I know I'm writing to geeks but really, these ideas are like girlfriends you don't own them. You hope you meet a good one at the right time and place. You hope the idea favors you and you can't force it. It's very much like dating.
The fundamental difference in attitude is one of plenty and one of scarcity. If you think there are only so many good ideas and you have to horde yours then you'll live paranoid. If you think that there are plenty of opportunities and plenty of good ideas then you will gladly move between them. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
This doesn't mean being stupid and broadcasting every thought in your head. But, it also means that you recognize that the fact that if _you_ thought of it... someone else already did. And, if you thought of it and no one has done it... ask why not? Maybe there is a good reason that idea isn't a million-dollar winner. (Maybe there is a reason that girl is single?)
You can find great research from the past using this attitude I call "courting ideas". I had worked out Fractal Encoding for example only to find out it was already patented. Am I upset? No. Just not the right idea, time, and place. Now that I know it exists I can study what about it worked, what sucked, and if the reasons behind why it failed/worked are any different today. Hey, maybe Fractal Encoding is the next big thing... oops... there goes a million dollars (not really, it's patented by someone else remember).
Now. I have not actually tested this "plentiful world" idea yet. I am still very very early in my career. I'll let you know how it goes. I know the "horde the knowledge" idea wasn't working for me so I'm trying something different. Good luck with your own experiments!
The TLA and ETLA are proud American traditions. There isn't an American field of study that isn't chock-a-block with them today. Not to mention that every US company tends to invent their own...
TLA: Three Letter Acronym
ETLA: Extended TLA
And just so you don't think I'm making this tidbit of American culture up: TLA origin ... personally I hate TLA but it's a solid American meme now. Many engineering and marketing types work in TLA without ever realizing it. It's practically instinctive.
Early on I had to make use of resources like http://www.acronymfinder.com/ to make sense of virtually any engineering conversation.
Compact Florescent Light/Lamp (CFL)
Light Emitting Diode (LED)
Now Use Wikipedia Buddy (NUWB)
I think 2009 more than any year before will be the year that people make more predictions about what 2009 will be "the year of"
In Soviet Russia the shark jumps /.
~According to this I have dementia.
+1 insightful.
The problems we have with UI is that humans are adapted to dealing with actual reality and actual physical objects. Anytime we work with virtual objects we're doing something inherently unnatural and against our instincts.
Great example: texting with your thumbs. The problem is the device must be suspended somehow for your finger tips to get at the keyboard. Our solution? Make a platform out of your hands using your eight fingers that naturally form a platform and push the buttons with your thumbs which are naturally free in that position. That is a crappy solution since your thumbs aren't the most dexterous and nimble of your fingers.
Most of the UI we have today is horribly wrong and based on practical device related concerns that were a huge problem 100 years ago but, frankly, are still problems today but should be surmountable with modern technology. I'm afraid movies aren't the best sources for what we *should* be doing with our technology. OTOH: Movies are great sources for inspiration to fix things.
Our biggest problem in front of us is all the success we've had with these arcane devices and technologies.
Well friend. That truly sucks then. You could force me to give the app away but please let me transact for a tiered subscription service or something. Hey, I understand Steve Jobs needs to buy turtle necks but I need pay for my AT&T bill...
But I would think that if you really can't expect to sell an iPhone app for more than $5 a pop you would try and find other ways to get people to spend money via the app and get some kind of kick back that way.
Except you can't. Apple doesn't let you do micro transactions, nor paid updates. The only money you can get from people is those who buy your app, and those who buy your next app. Nothing more.
I am not an iPhone developer ...yet. I am a Linux developer but I have just picked up the iPhone SDK and I fully intend on writing a few free apps. I fully expect my apps to be total garbage next to yours. Honestly. I'll be spending a few nights and weekends on banging something out and you've spent full time on something. Naturally my work will pale.
But I would think that if you really can't expect to sell an iPhone app for more than $5 a pop you would try and find other ways to get people to spend money via the app and get some kind of kick back that way. I'm not sure what that would be... but I'm sure there's something that would be fair and simple that people would shell out an extra buck or two here and there for via your app. I guess it depends on what that something is...
Somehow, those terrible, terrible, innovation killing people who give software away have failed to destroy large, complex applications on the PC, I strongly doubt that they are managing that here.
Basically, this goes back to the old saw about how we get developers paid for their work. The answer might not be in charging for the end application if you can't jack the price up beyond a certain level. You may have to go for other funding sources like advertising, subscriptions, service tiers, and sale of enhancements and support. If you can't sell an iPhone app for $5k ... you'll just have to figure out how to get the other $4,999 from some place else.
Of course, I'll admit that's easier said than done.
overpaid developers are the problem and the recession will soon lower the wages and costs for complex apps.
wizzed right on my cornflakes! Come over here and say that real slow sonny. Mr. Knuckles doesn't hear so well.