The main reason I don't do this is... Take that blog comment form. Yes, it should work without Javascript. However, with Javascript enabled, it shouldn't require a page reload, and could even provide realtime updates of comments other users are posting.
And if it's a proper, gracefully-degrading website, the only way you know about that is to turn Javascript on and test it.
Your argument is irrelevant to the story. Also fairly uninformed:
I don't trust that the iPhone OS is secure enough to allow this.
The iPhone OS is a scaled-down OS X, built on a solid BSD foundation. If you're really going to argue this, then Apple should retain that same tight control over OS X apps, right? Because OS X can't be trusted to keep your Macbook secure?
And that assumes this is correct:
This QA that Apple provides is of great value.
Apple accepts and rejects apps pretty much arbitrarily -- and not just for security reasons. They reject apps that might compete with something they're doing, they reject apps that use an API in a way they don't like, they reject apps that just don't look pretty enough in the right ways. And if you re-submit your rejected app, maybe change a single line of code, there's a fair chance you'll get accepted.
The QA that apple provides is little better than random -- console manufacturers do a much better job, and even they occasionally let through some bug that will wipe a memory card. And even if it was useful, why would it be more useful for a phone than a laptop?
But let's pretend that is a relevant argument. In that case, how would opening up the platform harm you in any way? The App Store would still be the most popular way of distributing apps, and you could still choose to only trust Apple-vetted App Store apps. The fact that the rest of us could just download an app with the built-in Safari wouldn't make you any less secure.
Indeed, this is exactly how Android works. There's an official Android app store, but you're allowed to install apps through whatever channel you like. Other platforms (Windows Mobile) have been open for years (decades?) without significant problems -- to bring this back on topic, Win Mobile being open hasn't brought cell towers down.
Here's what I think: You've got an iPhone, and you're trying to justify it to yourself. Maybe you even have Stockholm Syndrome. But I can't see any sane argument why a manufacturer should prevent me from installing software "for my own good".
Benchmarks are actual observations -- what we in the real world like to refer to as "science".
If you've got a benchmark of a larger application that you'd like to share that shows just how much the JVM sucks, I'm definitely curious. Ruby 1.9 works well for me now, but I'd been considering JRuby as a performance boost. If you can show me it's actually a failure, that would save some time.
You can only "make the legitimate copy of game better than the pirated one" with physical trinkets, the type that come with special editions.
WoW.
It's funny, because if you try and stop piracy with insane DRM (like Steam, Securom, TAGES etc - and yes, I did include a list in brackets purely so I could list Steam)
I wouldn't include Steam in the same list as something that actually breaks Windows in subtle ways like making your optical drive disappear.
people will use it as as an excuse to pirate games
I don't currently pirate many games. I also go out of my way to buy games that I like, that are distributed with a level of DRM I can accept.
The answer is to not pirate games,
That's like saying the answer to violent crime is to not kill people. Great, but doesn't work for everyone -- there will always be piracy.
The problem comes when the pirated copy is actually superior to the legit copy. All DRM schemes do that, in some way. I tolerate Steam because it gives something back, and many of the features I like about Steam require essentially the same thing the DRM does -- that I'm online all the time.
the anti-piracy stuff was created as a response to the piracy,
That doesn't make it a solution. See above analogy -- police states would never have been created if people just didn't kill other people. That doesn't mean a police state is the only solution to the problem of violence.
Seriously. Don't pirate any games at all. Nothing.
Can you provide me a reason why that doesn't appeal to my morality?
I don't pirate games now mostly because I don't have time for them.
Then again, you appeared to equate a game under Steam to that game not having DRM,
Not everything is as it seems -- I tolerate games under Steam. I am under no illusions about Steam's DRM.
so I can see that reality and logic aren't going to be at the forefront of any discussion here.
I remember you! You said you were working on something that accomplishes exactly that, but you were under an NDA at the time. How's it going?
Ran out of funding about the same time the economy imploded. You can see what's left of it at 3mix.com.
Just for the record though, I'm still sceptical that such an endeavour is possible, but I could be wrong.
I think Steam proves that for at least some customers, it's possible to make the legitimate product better. I've got a post somewhere else in this thread that explains why.
I'm not going to read your comment, because you clearly didn't read mine.
You can justify not paying for games because you don't have the money to pay for games?
I do not currently pirate games.
I also don't pay for games.
I don't currently play games.
Now go back and read, unless you're really going to make the argument that the game companies somehow deserve my money even if I'm not using their product at all.
I don't either, but I know enough about social networks to understand that much -- Facebook is popular now because it was enough better than Myspace that people were willing to give it a try, but now it's popular mostly because everyone's using it.
I found out that if I can find the gcfs of a game on some torrent, it will download faster that with steam ("Servers are too busy to handle your request")
I can honestly say I've never seen that.
Actually, WGA might find your version of Windows not "genuine" just because. It has happened before.
True enough. Hasn't happened to me. And it's useful to be able to (in theory) call Microsoft, rather than rely on my solution, which would be: re-image from the closest image, and then try to figure out what caused the problem, and start actually deciding which updates to install and which not to install.
As it is, I can just blindly install anything "critical" and I'm good.
Next is going to windowsupdate and disabling WGA and IE8 updates, since I would still have to go there to disable IE8
I'd install IE8 anyway -- I'm a web developer.
For single player games this is desirable.
The question is whether that's worth more than the ability to re-download painlessly. Again, YMMV, but I can't always find a torrent, especially of older stuff.
But see, contrast any of these to, say, SecuROM vs a pirated copy. In that case, you'd have to crack it anyway, just for safety.
They think they are! That's the whole point of DRM... Make it so the pirate copy isn't as good as the legal one.
No, that's focusing on the wrong side of the equation. Focus on making the legit copy better, not on making the pirate copy worse.
There's no way to make the legal copy better than the pirate one, other than the fact that it's legal and you don't feel bad about it.
Not true.
Even MMOs eventually get server emulators.
Yes, they do. And you know what?
The various WoW emulated servers are much worse than the legit ones. Quests are constantly screwed up, every update breaks something, it's difficult to even get a copy, at which point you still have to compile from source...
The legit WoW servers are where all your friends are. That network effect alone is what keeps people on Facebook, for example. When Frozen Throne came out, the legit servers had it, and the pirate servers very likely broke. It also means you can actually call Blizzard for support, vote with your dollars, etc. There's the Armory page...
I mean, I could go on.
It doesn't even have to go that far -- take Steam. A legit copy of a game means I can walk up to any PC, download the steam client, type my password, and download the game. I can install it on as many PCs as I want that way. I get to be part of the community -- I can IM people I play with through the "friends" network, and we can invite each other to join a given server via an IM. And I get achievements.
A pirate copy means I can more easily play offline. That's it.
Now, granted, some people will take the better offline play every time -- for example, anyone in the military, where Internet access is scarce and tightly controlled. But to me, that's actually a reasonable trade -- I would much rather have a legit copy than not.
Even Windows is this way. Legit copy of windows means I can keep doing Windows Updates for as long as they exist, without having to worry about something breaking. Cracked Windows means I have to be careful that some upgrade doesn't invalidate my copy, alert Microsoft, etc. Add up the amount of time wasted by a pirate copy of Windows, multiply by your hourly rate, and compare to the price of a legit copy. Cracked copies are getting pretty good, but for me, it's still a no-brainer to stay legit.
It's impossible to make a legit one unambiguously better for everyone, but it absolutely is possible to make the legit copy better for enough people that you make a profit.
As a software developer, if given the choice between having no one see my software at all, and having people use it for free, I'd go with free every time.
I would much rather be paid, but when I can't be paid, I develop FOSS stuff. It's why FOSS exists at all.
Again: The choice is not between me paying for the game, and me playing for free. The choice is between me playing for free, and me not playing at all. Either way, they get no money, but if I play it, at least the game is seen and appreciated.
When I was employed, I had plenty of money to afford games, and I was willing and ready to spend it. I wrote this journal entry describing that situation:
If Mirror's Edge comes, say, as a Steam game -- not like Bioshock, but actually just a Steam game, with no additional protection -- I'd buy it in a heartbeat. On opening day. Make it DRM-free, and I'll consider preordering. If it comes with anywhere near the level of DRM you're currently requiring for Spore, even this "relaxed" version, I will head over to the nearest torrent site and download a copy. I have plenty of money to spend, yes, but not plenty of time to waste proving that I own something.
Now, understand, I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I was pretty much their ideal customer -- young, male, computer enthusiast, I love games, and I had money to spend on them. If they're losing me as a customer, it raises the question: Just where do they think they're going to get customers?
As it is, I'm unemployed, so I don't have that money -- nor do I really have much time to game, when it could be spent looking for a job. As you say:
You can live without a game.
You also made a good point without realizing it:
Piracy is the competition
Any company that actually realizes that piracy is their competition has taken the first step towards fighting it. If you treat piracy as this evil, criminal act, and try to stop it with force, you will get nowhere. Instead, you can stop it by making the legitimate copy a better product than the pirated one.
Now, to address your other points:
They could be selling it for $1.00 and still they would pirate it. Probably coming up with some excuse that it is so cheap that it should be free anyways.
If this were true, don't you think the same would happen to Amazon MP3 and the iTunes store? Yes, people pirate, but those stores are still wildly successful.
In fact, that's probably the point.
High piracy rates show that there is demand for the game
They show that there's demand for the game at zero dollars. They don't show that any single person who pirated the game would've been willing to pay for it, if piracy wasn't an option.
As I said, I'm currently unemployed. My choice now is to either not play games, or to pirate games. I mostly choose to not play games, but the effect on the developer is the same -- they don't get my money.
And I'd think they would rather have me pirate the game than not play at all.
Someone who's accessing a DRAC or an iLO should be able to disable it.
But 99.9% of the people who would be getting this warning are not getting it because they're connecting to some hardware that uses a self-signed certificate, they're getting it because someone was too cheap to pay the $20/year it costs to get a certificate, or because they're actually experiencing a MITM attack.
I think the larger concern with wildcards is that you're then going to have each server either behind one massive load balancer, or it'll have a copy of a cert that's valid for all the others.
What would make much more sense is if we could get a certificate authority that's valid for only subdomains of a given domain. In other words, actually follow the way DNS works. I want foo.bar.mydomain.com to be encrypted, but I don't want to have to buy a separate certificate for it (as it might be dynamically created anyway), and I especially don't want to give foo.bar.mydomain.com the ability to authenticate itself as www.mydomain.com.
A company which is running their own CA for internal use should have the means to install that CA on each workstation -- thus, no warning, and as a bonus, no possibility of MITMs inside their network.
Looks exactly like the SellABand model, but for games.
Actually, I think it makes more sense for games than for music. Studio time may be expensive -- for that matter, so is making a living -- but compare that to the cost of feeding a team of programmers for a year.
Waiting to be modded down by people who know more about music than I do. (No sarcasm there -- this is just armchair speculation. Move along.)
They could be stifling innovation and promoting innovation at the same time. And indeed, this is what they're doing -- at the same time as they innovate with interesting things like, say, GrandCentral, they also discourage innovation in many ways, like blocking competing phones from synchronizing with iTunes.
Requiring approval for the App Store could be called many things, but it's not innovative, nor does it promote innovation.
It brings to mind Sony, who managed to produce a DVD DRM scheme which produced discs designed to be playable in DVD players, but not computers -- and it managed to not be playable in many of Sony's own DVD players.
Well, svn is also quite complex. Compare a git merge with an svn merge.
I suppose I should say, easier to use, once you know how. The learning curve might be sharper. On the other hand, it's much easier to set up a Git server than an SVN server -- ssh access is all you need.
I don't have a stick up my ass about God, Allah, Jesus, Jehovah, Buddah, Vishnu, or any other deity... none of them offend me. And as long as I'm free to practice my life without being required to go through the motions of worship, I don't require my neighbors to keep practice their religion in private.
It is worth taking a stand, because that right is under attack -- subtly, here, in "faith-based" programs taking your tax dollars and putting them towards the worship of somebody's invisible friend -- and overtly, in this actual censorship in Ireland, and in the push for "intelligent design" in schools.
For that matter, there's already the issue of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. This was added in the 1930's or so. I was Jewish when I was in grade school, but I'd certainly feel very uncomfortable today if I was asked to make that pledge -- I really see no reason it needs to be there.
If you really want to "live and let live", even if you were a theist, you should see the point, here. Private schools can pledge whatever they want, but public schools should not require this daily worship of a deity.
I suspect this relatively new evangelical movement in the US is only a direct counterbalance to zealous atheism. If one goes away, so will the other.
Unlikely. You don't need atheists for some Muslims to hate Christians, and vice versa. Atheism wasn't needed for the Crusades, or for the Inquisition. And as many theists repeatedly prove, even if they need an atheist, they don't need a real one -- a strawman atheist works well enough.
In fact, here's something to think about: Atheists are the least trusted minority in America. That's right, people think less of us than they do of homosexuals -- not that there's anything wrong with homosexuals, but it's worth thinking about. And, whatever you believe, does that seem right?
So don't expect me to join your petty tug-o-war. It's pointless, and needlessly divisive.
Doesn't have to be. There's no particular reason atheists can't work with the saner theists. Not all Christians want the Ten Commandments on public property -- and note, "public" as in "government-owned", I don't really care what you put on your lawn.
And by the way, what you've described isn't agnosticism, it's atheism. Unless you actually believe in a particular religion, you're an atheist, even if you're "not sure". Being "agnostic" would mean that you don't believe that anything can ever be known about the existence of a god -- but you could be an agnostic theist, or an agnostic atheist.
The "atheist" label is usually misrepresented as being a belief that there are no gods -- that would be antitheism, not atheism.
There is more evidence that the scientific method works, and that I am sane and capable of applying science, logic, and reason, than that a deity exists.
And "disbelieve an existence in God" is still cutting it pretty close -- we simply withhold belief until there is evidence.
Slashdot Mirror
The main reason I don't do this is... Take that blog comment form. Yes, it should work without Javascript. However, with Javascript enabled, it shouldn't require a page reload, and could even provide realtime updates of comments other users are posting.
And if it's a proper, gracefully-degrading website, the only way you know about that is to turn Javascript on and test it.
horse piss, skunk, moldy bread and vaginal yeast infection
I'm suddenly tempted to start a beer company with precisely these flavors, if it doesn't exist already.
Your argument is irrelevant to the story. Also fairly uninformed:
I don't trust that the iPhone OS is secure enough to allow this.
The iPhone OS is a scaled-down OS X, built on a solid BSD foundation. If you're really going to argue this, then Apple should retain that same tight control over OS X apps, right? Because OS X can't be trusted to keep your Macbook secure?
And that assumes this is correct:
This QA that Apple provides is of great value.
Apple accepts and rejects apps pretty much arbitrarily -- and not just for security reasons. They reject apps that might compete with something they're doing, they reject apps that use an API in a way they don't like, they reject apps that just don't look pretty enough in the right ways. And if you re-submit your rejected app, maybe change a single line of code, there's a fair chance you'll get accepted.
The QA that apple provides is little better than random -- console manufacturers do a much better job, and even they occasionally let through some bug that will wipe a memory card. And even if it was useful, why would it be more useful for a phone than a laptop?
But let's pretend that is a relevant argument. In that case, how would opening up the platform harm you in any way? The App Store would still be the most popular way of distributing apps, and you could still choose to only trust Apple-vetted App Store apps. The fact that the rest of us could just download an app with the built-in Safari wouldn't make you any less secure.
Indeed, this is exactly how Android works. There's an official Android app store, but you're allowed to install apps through whatever channel you like. Other platforms (Windows Mobile) have been open for years (decades?) without significant problems -- to bring this back on topic, Win Mobile being open hasn't brought cell towers down.
Here's what I think: You've got an iPhone, and you're trying to justify it to yourself. Maybe you even have Stockholm Syndrome. But I can't see any sane argument why a manufacturer should prevent me from installing software "for my own good".
Heh, fair enough.
Mostly, I don't play games. I am currently playing an MMO, which isn't pirated.
That makes less than no sense -- JRuby is certainly capable of using Java threads as Ruby threads.
Benchmarks are actual observations -- what we in the real world like to refer to as "science".
If you've got a benchmark of a larger application that you'd like to share that shows just how much the JVM sucks, I'm definitely curious. Ruby 1.9 works well for me now, but I'd been considering JRuby as a performance boost. If you can show me it's actually a failure, that would save some time.
Alright, I lied. Let's play...
You can only "make the legitimate copy of game better than the pirated one" with physical trinkets, the type that come with special editions.
WoW.
It's funny, because if you try and stop piracy with insane DRM (like Steam, Securom, TAGES etc - and yes, I did include a list in brackets purely so I could list Steam)
I wouldn't include Steam in the same list as something that actually breaks Windows in subtle ways like making your optical drive disappear.
people will use it as as an excuse to pirate games
I don't currently pirate many games. I also go out of my way to buy games that I like, that are distributed with a level of DRM I can accept.
The answer is to not pirate games,
That's like saying the answer to violent crime is to not kill people. Great, but doesn't work for everyone -- there will always be piracy.
The problem comes when the pirated copy is actually superior to the legit copy. All DRM schemes do that, in some way. I tolerate Steam because it gives something back, and many of the features I like about Steam require essentially the same thing the DRM does -- that I'm online all the time.
the anti-piracy stuff was created as a response to the piracy,
That doesn't make it a solution. See above analogy -- police states would never have been created if people just didn't kill other people. That doesn't mean a police state is the only solution to the problem of violence.
Seriously. Don't pirate any games at all. Nothing.
Can you provide me a reason why that doesn't appeal to my morality?
I don't pirate games now mostly because I don't have time for them.
Then again, you appeared to equate a game under Steam to that game not having DRM,
Not everything is as it seems -- I tolerate games under Steam. I am under no illusions about Steam's DRM.
so I can see that reality and logic aren't going to be at the forefront of any discussion here.
Does your reality and logic extend to ad-hominem?
I remember you! You said you were working on something that accomplishes exactly that, but you were under an NDA at the time. How's it going?
Ran out of funding about the same time the economy imploded. You can see what's left of it at 3mix.com.
Just for the record though, I'm still sceptical that such an endeavour is possible, but I could be wrong.
I think Steam proves that for at least some customers, it's possible to make the legitimate product better. I've got a post somewhere else in this thread that explains why.
I'm not going to read your comment, because you clearly didn't read mine.
You can justify not paying for games because you don't have the money to pay for games?
I do not currently pirate games.
I also don't pay for games.
I don't currently play games.
Now go back and read, unless you're really going to make the argument that the game companies somehow deserve my money even if I'm not using their product at all.
Don't use it, don't know.
I don't either, but I know enough about social networks to understand that much -- Facebook is popular now because it was enough better than Myspace that people were willing to give it a try, but now it's popular mostly because everyone's using it.
I found out that if I can find the gcfs of a game on some torrent, it will download faster that with steam ("Servers are too busy to handle your request")
I can honestly say I've never seen that.
Actually, WGA might find your version of Windows not "genuine" just because. It has happened before.
True enough. Hasn't happened to me. And it's useful to be able to (in theory) call Microsoft, rather than rely on my solution, which would be: re-image from the closest image, and then try to figure out what caused the problem, and start actually deciding which updates to install and which not to install.
As it is, I can just blindly install anything "critical" and I'm good.
Next is going to windowsupdate and disabling WGA and IE8 updates, since I would still have to go there to disable IE8
I'd install IE8 anyway -- I'm a web developer.
For single player games this is desirable.
The question is whether that's worth more than the ability to re-download painlessly. Again, YMMV, but I can't always find a torrent, especially of older stuff.
But see, contrast any of these to, say, SecuROM vs a pirated copy. In that case, you'd have to crack it anyway, just for safety.
They think they are! That's the whole point of DRM... Make it so the pirate copy isn't as good as the legal one.
No, that's focusing on the wrong side of the equation. Focus on making the legit copy better, not on making the pirate copy worse.
There's no way to make the legal copy better than the pirate one, other than the fact that it's legal and you don't feel bad about it.
Not true.
Even MMOs eventually get server emulators.
Yes, they do. And you know what?
The various WoW emulated servers are much worse than the legit ones. Quests are constantly screwed up, every update breaks something, it's difficult to even get a copy, at which point you still have to compile from source...
The legit WoW servers are where all your friends are. That network effect alone is what keeps people on Facebook, for example. When Frozen Throne came out, the legit servers had it, and the pirate servers very likely broke. It also means you can actually call Blizzard for support, vote with your dollars, etc. There's the Armory page...
I mean, I could go on.
It doesn't even have to go that far -- take Steam. A legit copy of a game means I can walk up to any PC, download the steam client, type my password, and download the game. I can install it on as many PCs as I want that way. I get to be part of the community -- I can IM people I play with through the "friends" network, and we can invite each other to join a given server via an IM. And I get achievements.
A pirate copy means I can more easily play offline. That's it.
Now, granted, some people will take the better offline play every time -- for example, anyone in the military, where Internet access is scarce and tightly controlled. But to me, that's actually a reasonable trade -- I would much rather have a legit copy than not.
Even Windows is this way. Legit copy of windows means I can keep doing Windows Updates for as long as they exist, without having to worry about something breaking. Cracked Windows means I have to be careful that some upgrade doesn't invalidate my copy, alert Microsoft, etc. Add up the amount of time wasted by a pirate copy of Windows, multiply by your hourly rate, and compare to the price of a legit copy. Cracked copies are getting pretty good, but for me, it's still a no-brainer to stay legit.
It's impossible to make a legit one unambiguously better for everyone, but it absolutely is possible to make the legit copy better for enough people that you make a profit.
Missing the point.
As a software developer, if given the choice between having no one see my software at all, and having people use it for free, I'd go with free every time.
I would much rather be paid, but when I can't be paid, I develop FOSS stuff. It's why FOSS exists at all.
Again: The choice is not between me paying for the game, and me playing for free. The choice is between me playing for free, and me not playing at all. Either way, they get no money, but if I play it, at least the game is seen and appreciated.
When I was employed, I had plenty of money to afford games, and I was willing and ready to spend it. I wrote this journal entry describing that situation:
If Mirror's Edge comes, say, as a Steam game -- not like Bioshock, but actually just a Steam game, with no additional protection -- I'd buy it in a heartbeat. On opening day. Make it DRM-free, and I'll consider preordering.
If it comes with anywhere near the level of DRM you're currently requiring for Spore, even this "relaxed" version, I will head over to the nearest torrent site and download a copy. I have plenty of money to spend, yes, but not plenty of time to waste proving that I own something.
Now, understand, I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I was pretty much their ideal customer -- young, male, computer enthusiast, I love games, and I had money to spend on them. If they're losing me as a customer, it raises the question: Just where do they think they're going to get customers?
As it is, I'm unemployed, so I don't have that money -- nor do I really have much time to game, when it could be spent looking for a job. As you say:
You can live without a game.
You also made a good point without realizing it:
Piracy is the competition
Any company that actually realizes that piracy is their competition has taken the first step towards fighting it. If you treat piracy as this evil, criminal act, and try to stop it with force, you will get nowhere. Instead, you can stop it by making the legitimate copy a better product than the pirated one.
Now, to address your other points:
They could be selling it for $1.00 and still they would pirate it. Probably coming up with some excuse that it is so cheap that it should be free anyways.
If this were true, don't you think the same would happen to Amazon MP3 and the iTunes store? Yes, people pirate, but those stores are still wildly successful.
In fact, that's probably the point.
High piracy rates show that there is demand for the game
They show that there's demand for the game at zero dollars. They don't show that any single person who pirated the game would've been willing to pay for it, if piracy wasn't an option.
As I said, I'm currently unemployed. My choice now is to either not play games, or to pirate games. I mostly choose to not play games, but the effect on the developer is the same -- they don't get my money.
And I'd think they would rather have me pirate the game than not play at all.
Someone who's accessing a DRAC or an iLO should be able to disable it.
But 99.9% of the people who would be getting this warning are not getting it because they're connecting to some hardware that uses a self-signed certificate, they're getting it because someone was too cheap to pay the $20/year it costs to get a certificate, or because they're actually experiencing a MITM attack.
Let's see...
Yes, there is a verification process. It's not much of one, but it's certainly better than "Just trust me, even though I'm too cheap to buy a cert."
And how would you simplify it to users?
Regarding your sig: If you're being sarcastic, I really can't tell.
I think the larger concern with wildcards is that you're then going to have each server either behind one massive load balancer, or it'll have a copy of a cert that's valid for all the others.
What would make much more sense is if we could get a certificate authority that's valid for only subdomains of a given domain. In other words, actually follow the way DNS works. I want foo.bar.mydomain.com to be encrypted, but I don't want to have to buy a separate certificate for it (as it might be dynamically created anyway), and I especially don't want to give foo.bar.mydomain.com the ability to authenticate itself as www.mydomain.com.
A company which is running their own CA for internal use should have the means to install that CA on each workstation -- thus, no warning, and as a bonus, no possibility of MITMs inside their network.
Hopefully, this will help Firefox users realize what those warnings actually mean.
The reason they don't work is precisely because the old behavior allowed people to easily misinterpret just how serious a certificate warning is.
It costs twenty fucking dollars to buy a certificate for a year.
If you can't afford that, then yes, I have serious concerns about the legitimacy of your site.
That was my point. When I say "SSH access is all you need", I mean I can create a remote repository with:
git push foo@somewhere:/path/to/repository
All that's needed is SSH access. With SVN, I believe you're going to need to setup some sort of backend database.
Looks exactly like the SellABand model, but for games.
Actually, I think it makes more sense for games than for music. Studio time may be expensive -- for that matter, so is making a living -- but compare that to the cost of feeding a team of programmers for a year.
Waiting to be modded down by people who know more about music than I do. (No sarcasm there -- this is just armchair speculation. Move along.)
They could be stifling innovation and promoting innovation at the same time. And indeed, this is what they're doing -- at the same time as they innovate with interesting things like, say, GrandCentral, they also discourage innovation in many ways, like blocking competing phones from synchronizing with iTunes.
Requiring approval for the App Store could be called many things, but it's not innovative, nor does it promote innovation.
It brings to mind Sony, who managed to produce a DVD DRM scheme which produced discs designed to be playable in DVD players, but not computers -- and it managed to not be playable in many of Sony's own DVD players.
Well, svn is also quite complex. Compare a git merge with an svn merge.
I suppose I should say, easier to use, once you know how. The learning curve might be sharper. On the other hand, it's much easier to set up a Git server than an SVN server -- ssh access is all you need.
I don't have a stick up my ass about God, Allah, Jesus, Jehovah, Buddah, Vishnu, or any other deity... none of them offend me. And as long as I'm free to practice my life without being required to go through the motions of worship, I don't require my neighbors to keep practice their religion in private.
It is worth taking a stand, because that right is under attack -- subtly, here, in "faith-based" programs taking your tax dollars and putting them towards the worship of somebody's invisible friend -- and overtly, in this actual censorship in Ireland, and in the push for "intelligent design" in schools.
For that matter, there's already the issue of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. This was added in the 1930's or so. I was Jewish when I was in grade school, but I'd certainly feel very uncomfortable today if I was asked to make that pledge -- I really see no reason it needs to be there.
If you really want to "live and let live", even if you were a theist, you should see the point, here. Private schools can pledge whatever they want, but public schools should not require this daily worship of a deity.
I suspect this relatively new evangelical movement in the US is only a direct counterbalance to zealous atheism. If one goes away, so will the other.
Unlikely. You don't need atheists for some Muslims to hate Christians, and vice versa. Atheism wasn't needed for the Crusades, or for the Inquisition. And as many theists repeatedly prove, even if they need an atheist, they don't need a real one -- a strawman atheist works well enough.
In fact, here's something to think about: Atheists are the least trusted minority in America. That's right, people think less of us than they do of homosexuals -- not that there's anything wrong with homosexuals, but it's worth thinking about. And, whatever you believe, does that seem right?
So don't expect me to join your petty tug-o-war. It's pointless, and needlessly divisive.
Doesn't have to be. There's no particular reason atheists can't work with the saner theists. Not all Christians want the Ten Commandments on public property -- and note, "public" as in "government-owned", I don't really care what you put on your lawn.
And by the way, what you've described isn't agnosticism, it's atheism. Unless you actually believe in a particular religion, you're an atheist, even if you're "not sure". Being "agnostic" would mean that you don't believe that anything can ever be known about the existence of a god -- but you could be an agnostic theist, or an agnostic atheist.
The "atheist" label is usually misrepresented as being a belief that there are no gods -- that would be antitheism, not atheism.
There is more evidence that the scientific method works, and that I am sane and capable of applying science, logic, and reason, than that a deity exists.
And "disbelieve an existence in God" is still cutting it pretty close -- we simply withhold belief until there is evidence.