Could be that's what's going on with The Witcher 2. It's made by CDProjekt RED, a pretty small and new developer. The Witcher was their first game, and although at some point there was talk about a console version, but although the PC version sold quite well, the console version never came. The Witcher 2 is their second game, was considered the most anticipated RPG of 2011 and is selling like wildfire. Shortly after release, the announcement for the console version came.
I don't know whether it was MS/Nintendo/Sony that shot down the console version of the first game, or that CDPR decided it was too much work to rewrite the game for console, and decided to just design their second game for console from the ground up. Whatever it was, it clearly worked out for them.
I've got mixed feelings about it, though. I wish them all the success they deserve, but on the other hand, I prefer a game that takes full advantage of the PC and mouse+keyboard. I'd rather see a Mac and Linux port than a console port.
Commandment 1: Don't port console games to the PC.
This is not enough. Even a game that is released purely for PC can still smell of consolization. The Witcher 2 really is a truly great, great game. And it was originally released only for PC (the console version was recently announced for November or thereabouts). But the interface tells you they're already prepared for console. Yes, it uses the mouse to click on stuff where it needs to (except in the game itself, where mouse controls the camera), but there are a lot of places where the interface is unnecessarily limited.
The temperature rise due to the greenhouse effect is known and consistent. The temperature drop due to a possible lack of solar activity is at this moment pure speculation. The smart thing to do s to continue reducing the harm we do, and if it turns out that in a couple of years the drop in solar activity gives us more leeway, well, that's great. Using up all that leeway now, before we even know if we'll get it, would be stupid and destructive.
What I mean is that money makes more money. The rich automatically getting richer while the poor automatically get poorer. Interest and rent taking. I'd love to stop that because of its inherent unfairness, but I have serious doubts about whether it's possible to start new businesses without a financial incentive to invest.
And interesting idea I've seen with other alternative currencies is negative interest. It reduces inflation while at the same time reducing hoarding and stimulating the economy. But it does require central control.
People do not factor into their purchase of a loaf of bread what its future value will be,
But they do when deciding to fund a bakery.
Look, I'm as much disgusted by rampant capitalism as the next guy, and I'd love to find a way around needing investments to start a business, but I just don't think this is going to work.
Personally I think the value of gold is every bit as silly as the value of Bitcoins, but there is a very big difference: gold has been valuable for billions of people and for thousands of years. It's pretty likely that it'll still have some value in the future. Bitcoins are recent, and only has value to a handful of users. Who knows which way it'll go? Its value is rising dramatically now, but it could easily plummet into worthlessness in a few years. What good is your cryptographic hash then?
Another difference is that the scarcity of gold is guaranteed because it's a physical element, and a rare one at that. You can't make more gold easily. You can easily create more cryptographic hashes. The only thing that keeps Bitcoins scarce is agreement by the network. If the network is co-opted, who knows what Bitcoins will be worth?
Of course currencies can be replaced. Not so long ago lots of countries replaced their currencies with the Euro. But that happened not because of a handful of early adopters, but because governments put their weight behind it. The EU gets its value from the European economy, which is pretty big.
And that is exactly why an economy with deflation will never blossom. Nobody will invest. Everybody will keep sitting on their money. If people have the option of spending that currency or an inflating currency, they'll spend the inflating currency, and that economy will blossom. The deflating currency will only act as an investment currency, but will rarely actually be used.
It may be good for you, but it's bad for the economy, because that will never really take off.
Do you ever regret not having had access to some economic expertise when you set this up, in order to prevent deflation, and possibly even create a working Bitcoin economy? Or has your initial investment already paid off so much that you have no regrets whatsoever?
This referendum was more a vote on Berlusconi than anything else, and it showed that he is done for good, he is not supported by the people anymore.
I won't believe he's gone until I see a corpse. He managed to come back several times before. I don't know what made Italians vote for him in the first place, so I don't trust them to really vote him out of office for good until they actually do so.
Funny but they have not abandoned nuclear power. They are pretending they have to make themselves feel good. They import no less than 16% of their electricity from France. They have just move the responsibility for the reactors to another nation. As Italy needs more power they will import more from France and use even more nuclear power outside of their own control and regulation.
Which is a pretty smart decision, you'll have to admit. France is far more capable of handling nuclear power responsibly than Italy ever would. And who knows what the mafia would do with all that fissionable material?
Wall switches are already being eliminated by LEDs. Some LED lights have so many features (dimming, colours), that you need a remote to control them anyway.
So if would have been okay if Macs, Sparc Stations or Amiga's had similar restrictions? It would be okay if Ford or Toyota restricted what kind of tires or gas you can use in their cars?
Exactly. Imagine if they banned non-Microsoft software from Windows, if Apple banned the use of non-Apple software on the Mac, if Sun had banned the use of non-Sun software on Solaris, or if Ford banned the use of non-Ford approved tires or gasoline in their cars.
Competition should be normal, and not subject to the platform creator's approval.
They do have a monopoly on selling apps for the iPhone platform, though.
I was under the impression that these kind of combined sales ("koppelverkoop" in Dutch) are illegal in the EU. But I'm no lawyer, so it's probably different enough to be legal. Still, I wouldn't mind a law that required all platforms to be open.
It's the best definition of "the cloud" that I've come across so far. Otherwise, what kind of meaning does that word have, beyond "something on the internet"?
I suspect you have an assumption that any application that utilizes "the cloud" is a thin client app. iTunes is by no means a lightweight application, even on Windows. Anything and everything that uses "the cloud" needs to be written for a platform, even if said platform is "the cloud" itself.
In what world is iTunes "the cloud"? If this iCloud is something that can only be accessed through iTunes, then I don't see what's so cloudy about it. That would mean any client-server system is "the cloud". It's be meaningless.
But anyone can do that. At least, if it's open enough to not be completely useless.
You're missing the OP's point. The cloud APIs are the easy part, wether it be REST or SOAP or whatever technology being used. What the application will do with the information it sends/receives can be dependent on the platform. Openness has nothing to do with this part of the problem.
Yes it does. If the API is open, then anyone can use it, and any platform not supported by Apple will be supported by someone else. If there's anything interesting they can do with this iCloud, that is.
I think you are really confused here. We're talking about "the cloud", which means some service somewhere on the net. What OS it runs on is irrelevant to me, what OS I run is irrelevant to it. All that matters is the API to make use of it. If it really is cloud, then it does not depend on any specific OS in any way.
Though your post gives me the impression that it has nothing to do with the cloud at all, and iCloud is merely a very misleading name, chosen in order to sound hip (which could be the case, I admit). Java, Perl,.Net, that's all desktop stuff. Or server side stuff. In any case, if it really is something cloudy, then not of that is relevant.
What kind of OS do you need to use Google? To use Gmail or Google Maps? What OS do you need in order to be able to tweet, or use Facebook? To put something on Amazon's cloud servers? It doesn't matter. That's the entire point. Think more Google Maps and less Google Earth.
If you pay them more than 48,000 euro a year, it's not very hard. If you pay them less, then you have to prove that there are no natives capable of doing to same work, and that's going to be pretty hard.
Please don't take this as being rude, but... are you a software developer? Doing what you ask isn't easy at all - it requires a ton of work. And then to on top of that support not only multiple operating systems, but really old versions of said operating systems is a huge, huge chunk of work.
No it isn't. The point is not to support any operating systems, but to support an API.
I don't think anybody said that the whole point of "the cloud" is to be independent of specific desktop software - that's something you added.
It's the best definition of "the cloud" that I've come across so far. Otherwise, what kind of meaning does that word have, beyond "something on the internet"?
Your question about an open API is beside the point - some bit of software running on the user's computer has to call the APIs, and that bit of software has to be written for the operating system it's running on,
But anyone can do that. At least, if it's open enough to not be completely useless.
Slashdot Mirror
Could be that's what's going on with The Witcher 2. It's made by CDProjekt RED, a pretty small and new developer. The Witcher was their first game, and although at some point there was talk about a console version, but although the PC version sold quite well, the console version never came. The Witcher 2 is their second game, was considered the most anticipated RPG of 2011 and is selling like wildfire. Shortly after release, the announcement for the console version came.
I don't know whether it was MS/Nintendo/Sony that shot down the console version of the first game, or that CDPR decided it was too much work to rewrite the game for console, and decided to just design their second game for console from the ground up. Whatever it was, it clearly worked out for them.
I've got mixed feelings about it, though. I wish them all the success they deserve, but on the other hand, I prefer a game that takes full advantage of the PC and mouse+keyboard. I'd rather see a Mac and Linux port than a console port.
The economy isn't about you. It's about everybody.
Commandment 1: Don't port console games to the PC.
This is not enough. Even a game that is released purely for PC can still smell of consolization. The Witcher 2 really is a truly great, great game. And it was originally released only for PC (the console version was recently announced for November or thereabouts). But the interface tells you they're already prepared for console. Yes, it uses the mouse to click on stuff where it needs to (except in the game itself, where mouse controls the camera), but there are a lot of places where the interface is unnecessarily limited.
The temperature rise due to the greenhouse effect is known and consistent. The temperature drop due to a possible lack of solar activity is at this moment pure speculation. The smart thing to do s to continue reducing the harm we do, and if it turns out that in a couple of years the drop in solar activity gives us more leeway, well, that's great. Using up all that leeway now, before we even know if we'll get it, would be stupid and destructive.
From what I hear, Canada is heading in the wrong direction too.
What I mean is that money makes more money. The rich automatically getting richer while the poor automatically get poorer. Interest and rent taking. I'd love to stop that because of its inherent unfairness, but I have serious doubts about whether it's possible to start new businesses without a financial incentive to invest.
And interesting idea I've seen with other alternative currencies is negative interest. It reduces inflation while at the same time reducing hoarding and stimulating the economy. But it does require central control.
People do not factor into their purchase of a loaf of bread what its future value will be,
But they do when deciding to fund a bakery.
Look, I'm as much disgusted by rampant capitalism as the next guy, and I'd love to find a way around needing investments to start a business, but I just don't think this is going to work.
Personally I think the value of gold is every bit as silly as the value of Bitcoins, but there is a very big difference: gold has been valuable for billions of people and for thousands of years. It's pretty likely that it'll still have some value in the future. Bitcoins are recent, and only has value to a handful of users. Who knows which way it'll go? Its value is rising dramatically now, but it could easily plummet into worthlessness in a few years. What good is your cryptographic hash then?
Another difference is that the scarcity of gold is guaranteed because it's a physical element, and a rare one at that. You can't make more gold easily. You can easily create more cryptographic hashes. The only thing that keeps Bitcoins scarce is agreement by the network. If the network is co-opted, who knows what Bitcoins will be worth?
Of course currencies can be replaced. Not so long ago lots of countries replaced their currencies with the Euro. But that happened not because of a handful of early adopters, but because governments put their weight behind it. The EU gets its value from the European economy, which is pretty big.
And that is exactly why an economy with deflation will never blossom. Nobody will invest. Everybody will keep sitting on their money. If people have the option of spending that currency or an inflating currency, they'll spend the inflating currency, and that economy will blossom. The deflating currency will only act as an investment currency, but will rarely actually be used.
It may be good for you, but it's bad for the economy, because that will never really take off.
Here's my question:
Do you ever regret not having had access to some economic expertise when you set this up, in order to prevent deflation, and possibly even create a working Bitcoin economy? Or has your initial investment already paid off so much that you have no regrets whatsoever?
They have some real value backing it. Bitcoin doesn't.
This referendum was more a vote on Berlusconi than anything else, and it showed that he is done for good, he is not supported by the people anymore.
I won't believe he's gone until I see a corpse. He managed to come back several times before. I don't know what made Italians vote for him in the first place, so I don't trust them to really vote him out of office for good until they actually do so.
It's even worse. In the US, 2 wolves, a sheep, a chicken and a rabbit would still manage to elect a wolf to decide what's for dinner.
Funny but they have not abandoned nuclear power. They are pretending they have to make themselves feel good. They import no less than 16% of their electricity from France. They have just move the responsibility for the reactors to another nation. As Italy needs more power they will import more from France and use even more nuclear power outside of their own control and regulation.
Which is a pretty smart decision, you'll have to admit. France is far more capable of handling nuclear power responsibly than Italy ever would. And who knows what the mafia would do with all that fissionable material?
Also: less earthquakes in France.
So how's that working out for you in practice?
Wall switches are already being eliminated by LEDs. Some LED lights have so many features (dimming, colours), that you need a remote to control them anyway.
So if would have been okay if Macs, Sparc Stations or Amiga's had similar restrictions? It would be okay if Ford or Toyota restricted what kind of tires or gas you can use in their cars?
Exactly. Imagine if they banned non-Microsoft software from Windows, if Apple banned the use of non-Apple software on the Mac, if Sun had banned the use of non-Sun software on Solaris, or if Ford banned the use of non-Ford approved tires or gasoline in their cars.
Competition should be normal, and not subject to the platform creator's approval.
Cydia doesn't have equal access to the platform. Apple does try to use their control over the platform to dominate the app market.
Frozen Synapse
Looks interesting. Is there a demo? It's not quite clear to me what the gameplay is supposed to be like.
They do have a monopoly on selling apps for the iPhone platform, though.
I was under the impression that these kind of combined sales ("koppelverkoop" in Dutch) are illegal in the EU. But I'm no lawyer, so it's probably different enough to be legal. Still, I wouldn't mind a law that required all platforms to be open.
It's the best definition of "the cloud" that I've come across so far. Otherwise, what kind of meaning does that word have, beyond "something on the internet"?
I suspect you have an assumption that any application that utilizes "the cloud" is a thin client app. iTunes is by no means a lightweight application, even on Windows. Anything and everything that uses "the cloud" needs to be written for a platform, even if said platform is "the cloud" itself.
In what world is iTunes "the cloud"? If this iCloud is something that can only be accessed through iTunes, then I don't see what's so cloudy about it. That would mean any client-server system is "the cloud". It's be meaningless.
But anyone can do that. At least, if it's open enough to not be completely useless.
You're missing the OP's point. The cloud APIs are the easy part, wether it be REST or SOAP or whatever technology being used. What the application will do with the information it sends/receives can be dependent on the platform. Openness has nothing to do with this part of the problem.
Yes it does. If the API is open, then anyone can use it, and any platform not supported by Apple will be supported by someone else. If there's anything interesting they can do with this iCloud, that is.
I think you are really confused here. We're talking about "the cloud", which means some service somewhere on the net. What OS it runs on is irrelevant to me, what OS I run is irrelevant to it. All that matters is the API to make use of it. If it really is cloud, then it does not depend on any specific OS in any way.
Though your post gives me the impression that it has nothing to do with the cloud at all, and iCloud is merely a very misleading name, chosen in order to sound hip (which could be the case, I admit). Java, Perl, .Net, that's all desktop stuff. Or server side stuff. In any case, if it really is something cloudy, then not of that is relevant.
What kind of OS do you need to use Google? To use Gmail or Google Maps? What OS do you need in order to be able to tweet, or use Facebook? To put something on Amazon's cloud servers? It doesn't matter. That's the entire point. Think more Google Maps and less Google Earth.
If you pay them more than 48,000 euro a year, it's not very hard. If you pay them less, then you have to prove that there are no natives capable of doing to same work, and that's going to be pretty hard.
Please don't take this as being rude, but... are you a software developer? Doing what you ask isn't easy at all - it requires a ton of work. And then to on top of that support not only multiple operating systems, but really old versions of said operating systems is a huge, huge chunk of work.
No it isn't. The point is not to support any operating systems, but to support an API.
I don't think anybody said that the whole point of "the cloud" is to be independent of specific desktop software - that's something you added.
It's the best definition of "the cloud" that I've come across so far. Otherwise, what kind of meaning does that word have, beyond "something on the internet"?
Your question about an open API is beside the point - some bit of software running on the user's computer has to call the APIs, and that bit of software has to be written for the operating system it's running on,
But anyone can do that. At least, if it's open enough to not be completely useless.