>I work in the far NW corner of Beaverton, in an area that really should be its own town
It is, it's called Hillsboro:).
Ahh...it'd be nice to work in Beaverton again, close to home. Oh well, someday maybe.
This is hardly a new error. Seems like a "good" dev organization would put this on the checklist of things that must pass smoke test and/or must be in unit test.
Temple of Elemental Evil had a save/load issue, bigtime (menu items were wrongly named)
XCom (the original) had this same problem, resetting of difficulty levels.
I don't ever reinstall the OS. If the OS gets crufty, it's time to buy a new computer anyway (that comes with the OS).
This might be marked as funny, but I'm serious!
I'd guess this is a mod (perhaps heavy mod) on top of Stardocks hit from a few years ago called Entrepeneur.
Reading the description, many of the facets are similar. This isn't a knock on the upcoming game in any fashion. In some ways, it's a plus, as the underlying design has been proven.
Lets just say the paycuts were extreme (of course their happiness increase was extreme as well).
Yea, because damn, my life goal is to to make 1/2 what I do now, work twice as many hours, and still have some PHB tell me to ship 3 months before it's ready so he'll make a bonus that's worth 5x my annual salary.
If it weren't for the naivete of youth, the game industry woulkdn't find much of anyone that wanted to work for them.
Most people I know *ARE* in commercial, mass production software. I have a really, really hard time believing that 95% line without some serious hard facts behind it.
Cheapass just "rediscovered" what Microgames did 20 years ago. Ogre/Gev/Wizard/Melee were all famous for originally being microgames in a cheap container, costs like $3-4.
I'm not bashing cheapass, though I generally think the games aren't as good as the old microgames. I'm just pointing out they didn't create the niche.
The paper makes some critical assumptions, one of which is:
all the users use the modified code at time t + 1 and report bugs exclusively on the updated code.This assumes that all the users
update their software at every release.
This is completely bogus. Not every user is going to update immediately. In fact, the larger the company is the less likely this is due to their desire to qualify new software. This means as Open Source gets more popular with big companies, the more bogus this assumption is.
The paper also mentions nothing about QA efforts or beta sites on closed source, which are typically on the "immediately updated" products.
I'm not going to argue whether oss is better/worse than closed, but I heavily doubt this paper proves anything other than if you make lots of assumptions you can prove whatever you want.
Ideas aren't property, but the creation (or discovery) of them is a service. If you consider software development primarily a service then we're still back to the same issue.
Why pay someone for their software development services if Open Source will do it for free? What's your job right now? What impact do you think there'd be if I went to your boss and offered to spend my spare time doing your job for free?
It's perfectly within my rights to volunteer to do things for the world at large. And if I organize 10 like-minded people to do it with me, well, I may just put your whole group out of business.
That's Open Source in a nutshell, groups of volunteers doing what others were paid to do (build a web server, and OS, whatever). Are they perfectly within their rights to do so? Of course. But there's no way around the fact that by providing the service for free companies won't need to hire people to perform the service.
So, when you're doing something for free you've got to seriously think about who you're benefitting and who you're hurting. If you're writing that free OS because you think schools need a no-cost option, great. But you probably want to set up your license agreement so that you're not inadvertantly allowing some huge company to reap far more benefit than those schools ever will.
Red Hat basically sells a service. So does Sun/IBM/HP with their products. I seriously doubt open source created the jobs at Red Hat, it simply moved them from some other company's service sector.
IBM
This is sort of the example that proves the point. IBM gets Linux for free and maintenance to it for free. Oh, they'll employ some engineers to enhance it I'm sure, but not nearly as many as they'd have to if open source wasn't doing the work for them.
Sun
Sort of the same thing.
Companies that are *paying* for work to be done to OSS
Absolutely. But, would they be paying *more* peole if OSS wasn't there to do the job for free?
Basic economics, right? If you've got 4 full time engineers working on product X and then an OSS version of X comes out that mostly meets your needs. What do you do? You fire 3 of those 4 engineers and just keep one for your custom and/or emergency work.
I just named companies I know. Pick any company in any country paying developers to create software. Now, a bunch of open source folks create that software for free. See all the previously paid developers now unemployed.
we will need less loggers and more architects
I just don't buy the "wood" analogy. You've got the architects and the "loggers" as you put it. Open source just replaces the loggers with free labor. You don't suddenly create more architect jobs, you just lose the logger jobs to the free labor.
Pick any product, any field. If you have a large group of people suddenly start doing the work for free, it's going to seriously diminish the livelihood of those that are doing it for a living. The fact that people are doing it for free doesn't magically create other jobs.
Software is going, once again, to become a product of science...
I'd love to see software become a product of science. I have no qualms with source being visible to whoever buys the software. My concerns are more about the "free as in beer" nature of open source projects.
Essentially, with open source you have people donating resources (time, systems being used) for free. They are directly competing with people selling those same resources to make a living. I'm all in favor of donation, but typically you want to donate to those that can't otherwise afford whatever it is. In the case of Open Source though, much of the donating is being made to large governments and "for-profit" businesses, and it's hardly the case that they can't afford it.
Now, I'm not arguing against Open Source, I'm just concerned that the people reaping the bulk of the benefits aren't those that should be (eg. corporations/governments vs. non-profit companies).
Maybe it's just me since Slashdot loves open source, but when I read about whole nations switching to open source I think about all the IBM, HP, Sun, and even Microsoft developers out of work. I mean, why pay engineers to work when you can get open source people to do it for free?
Except for completely custom software, are we going to reach the point where open source makes paid software development obsolete? As if the economy isn't bad enough...
Well, it was basically a soap opera:). But yea, the thing I remember most was that the women were gorgeous in those V body suits. I don't really remember much else actually. Too many other sci-fi things all blend in my brain to be sure what was V and what wasn't.
Ok, we need to know how to write, but I just don't think writing neatly is as critical a skill as it once was.
I suspect hand writing is going to pretty much dissapear eventually. Between text messaging, IM, etc, there just isn't much need. Not many people write actual letters anymore, it's all email. Prescriptions are slowly being written on computer. Most every school requires papers to be types or even laser printed. And this list goes on.
When was the last time you wrote more than a paragraph by hand?
I played the original on OS2 so I'm biased, but this is one of the best 4X games I've ever played. You can win militarily, you can go tech, you can win an interesting cultural victory. It also doesn't have the "critical mass" problem many 4x games do where you know you'll win, or have no chance, once you reach a certain critical mass. The other AI's either help you or join against you, heavily based on their evil/good sympathies.
I've come back from a bad position when other "saintly" AI players came to may aid during a war. I've also lost from a position where I was waaay ahead technologically, but fairly suddenly 3 AI's banded together and whacked me with some coordination. A big surprise after the largely uncoordinated moves from other 4X games. In MOO being at war with 3 different races meant fighting 3 individual foes. In GalCiv it's more like fighting an alliance of foes. They trade techs, and ships, for their mutual good.
Anyway, it's not a graphics-lovefest, though it's not bad graphically, but it does have great gameplay.
>computer game-based training has a place.
I definitely agree. Perhaps we need to distinguish training versus education? I see computers as being most useful in training, especially technical training where you're learning a skill.
I don't see them being as useful in teaching a concept. Perhaps in reinforcing it though. I remember a "game" in high school that let you get a little computer guy drunk and try to drive home. We had fun getting so wasted he could drive, but not pass out, and see if he crashed. We'd already learned the concept, but the game actually did a decent job of instilling how long detox took, increased odds of accidents, etc.
A good chunk of going to primary school is learning how to behave socially. Learning ramifications for social action/inaction. One can argue this is true all through schooling, even in college, as people mature they need both other students to interact with and teachers to help guide those behaviors.
This is, excluding a few "health" type classes, all done along side the normal learning that goes on.
If you replace many teachers with machines, and students are in an e-learning environment where they don't interact with other students (or interaction is limited) then I'd guess you're going to lose an important part of what people actually learn as they go through the school system.
Slashdot Mirror
>I work in the far NW corner of Beaverton, in an area that really should be its own town It is, it's called Hillsboro :).
Ahh...it'd be nice to work in Beaverton again, close to home. Oh well, someday maybe.
Temple of Elemental Evil had a save/load issue, bigtime (menu items were wrongly named)
XCom (the original) had this same problem, resetting of difficulty levels.
I don't ever reinstall the OS. If the OS gets crufty, it's time to buy a new computer anyway (that comes with the OS). This might be marked as funny, but I'm serious!
Work
Movies
Kid's baseball/scouts/school events
Dinner
Boardgames at a friends
Costco
It's a pleasant night when I don't have to go somewhere.
I'd guess this is a mod (perhaps heavy mod) on top of Stardocks hit from a few years ago called Entrepeneur. Reading the description, many of the facets are similar. This isn't a knock on the upcoming game in any fashion. In some ways, it's a plus, as the underlying design has been proven.
Yea, because damn, my life goal is to to make 1/2 what I do now, work twice as many hours, and still have some PHB tell me to ship 3 months before it's ready so he'll make a bonus that's worth 5x my annual salary.
If it weren't for the naivete of youth, the game industry woulkdn't find much of anyone that wanted to work for them.
Yea, but are they going to have a room where you open the door and are confronted with:
99 Berserkers
99 Berserkers
99 Berserkers
99 Berserkers
Ah...that was my favorite door, experience up the wazoo.
blah..blah..blah..something about journalism... Took more then 3 minutes to read, I have to get back to playing Doom and watching MTV.
Yea...until you get a system that's into S&M.
Most people I know *ARE* in commercial, mass production software. I have a really, really hard time believing that 95% line without some serious hard facts behind it.
I'm not bashing cheapass, though I generally think the games aren't as good as the old microgames. I'm just pointing out they didn't create the niche.
all the users use the modified code at time t + 1 and report bugs exclusively on the updated code.This assumes that all the users update their software at every release.
This is completely bogus. Not every user is going to update immediately. In fact, the larger the company is the less likely this is due to their desire to qualify new software. This means as Open Source gets more popular with big companies, the more bogus this assumption is.
The paper also mentions nothing about QA efforts or beta sites on closed source, which are typically on the "immediately updated" products.
I'm not going to argue whether oss is better/worse than closed, but I heavily doubt this paper proves anything other than if you make lots of assumptions you can prove whatever you want.
I'm pretty sure Robert L. Forward had one of these in his book as well (I think he also had space elevators in other books).
Whoever decided this constituted a reasonable distincation was definitely high on something and full of something else...
The replace laborers get a job at the company making the robot :).
Why pay someone for their software development services if Open Source will do it for free? What's your job right now? What impact do you think there'd be if I went to your boss and offered to spend my spare time doing your job for free?
It's perfectly within my rights to volunteer to do things for the world at large. And if I organize 10 like-minded people to do it with me, well, I may just put your whole group out of business.
That's Open Source in a nutshell, groups of volunteers doing what others were paid to do (build a web server, and OS, whatever). Are they perfectly within their rights to do so? Of course. But there's no way around the fact that by providing the service for free companies won't need to hire people to perform the service.
So, when you're doing something for free you've got to seriously think about who you're benefitting and who you're hurting. If you're writing that free OS because you think schools need a no-cost option, great. But you probably want to set up your license agreement so that you're not inadvertantly allowing some huge company to reap far more benefit than those schools ever will.
Red Hat
Red Hat basically sells a service. So does Sun/IBM/HP with their products. I seriously doubt open source created the jobs at Red Hat, it simply moved them from some other company's service sector.
IBM
This is sort of the example that proves the point. IBM gets Linux for free and maintenance to it for free. Oh, they'll employ some engineers to enhance it I'm sure, but not nearly as many as they'd have to if open source wasn't doing the work for them.
Sun
Sort of the same thing.
Companies that are *paying* for work to be done to OSS
Absolutely. But, would they be paying *more* peole if OSS wasn't there to do the job for free?
Basic economics, right? If you've got 4 full time engineers working on product X and then an OSS version of X comes out that mostly meets your needs. What do you do? You fire 3 of those 4 engineers and just keep one for your custom and/or emergency work.
I just named companies I know. Pick any company in any country paying developers to create software. Now, a bunch of open source folks create that software for free. See all the previously paid developers now unemployed.
we will need less loggers and more architects
I just don't buy the "wood" analogy. You've got the architects and the "loggers" as you put it. Open source just replaces the loggers with free labor. You don't suddenly create more architect jobs, you just lose the logger jobs to the free labor.
Pick any product, any field. If you have a large group of people suddenly start doing the work for free, it's going to seriously diminish the livelihood of those that are doing it for a living. The fact that people are doing it for free doesn't magically create other jobs.
Software is going, once again, to become a product of science...
I'd love to see software become a product of science. I have no qualms with source being visible to whoever buys the software. My concerns are more about the "free as in beer" nature of open source projects.
Essentially, with open source you have people donating resources (time, systems being used) for free. They are directly competing with people selling those same resources to make a living. I'm all in favor of donation, but typically you want to donate to those that can't otherwise afford whatever it is. In the case of Open Source though, much of the donating is being made to large governments and "for-profit" businesses, and it's hardly the case that they can't afford it.
Now, I'm not arguing against Open Source, I'm just concerned that the people reaping the bulk of the benefits aren't those that should be (eg. corporations/governments vs. non-profit companies).
Except for completely custom software, are we going to reach the point where open source makes paid software development obsolete? As if the economy isn't bad enough...
Well, it was basically a soap opera :). But yea, the thing I remember most was that the women were gorgeous in those V body suits. I don't really remember much else actually. Too many other sci-fi things all blend in my brain to be sure what was V and what wasn't.
Ok, we need to know how to write, but I just don't think writing neatly is as critical a skill as it once was. I suspect hand writing is going to pretty much dissapear eventually. Between text messaging, IM, etc, there just isn't much need. Not many people write actual letters anymore, it's all email. Prescriptions are slowly being written on computer. Most every school requires papers to be types or even laser printed. And this list goes on. When was the last time you wrote more than a paragraph by hand?
Sheesh, next thing you know they'll start spouting nonsense like "burning the midnight oil leads to more bugs."
I played the original on OS2 so I'm biased, but this is one of the best 4X games I've ever played. You can win militarily, you can go tech, you can win an interesting cultural victory. It also doesn't have the "critical mass" problem many 4x games do where you know you'll win, or have no chance, once you reach a certain critical mass. The other AI's either help you or join against you, heavily based on their evil/good sympathies. I've come back from a bad position when other "saintly" AI players came to may aid during a war. I've also lost from a position where I was waaay ahead technologically, but fairly suddenly 3 AI's banded together and whacked me with some coordination. A big surprise after the largely uncoordinated moves from other 4X games. In MOO being at war with 3 different races meant fighting 3 individual foes. In GalCiv it's more like fighting an alliance of foes. They trade techs, and ships, for their mutual good. Anyway, it's not a graphics-lovefest, though it's not bad graphically, but it does have great gameplay.
I don't see them being as useful in teaching a concept. Perhaps in reinforcing it though. I remember a "game" in high school that let you get a little computer guy drunk and try to drive home. We had fun getting so wasted he could drive, but not pass out, and see if he crashed. We'd already learned the concept, but the game actually did a decent job of instilling how long detox took, increased odds of accidents, etc.
A good chunk of going to primary school is learning how to behave socially. Learning ramifications for social action/inaction. One can argue this is true all through schooling, even in college, as people mature they need both other students to interact with and teachers to help guide those behaviors. This is, excluding a few "health" type classes, all done along side the normal learning that goes on. If you replace many teachers with machines, and students are in an e-learning environment where they don't interact with other students (or interaction is limited) then I'd guess you're going to lose an important part of what people actually learn as they go through the school system.