This is hardly *protection* for the cows, now is it? It's protection for the people who mistreat them. Could we have a headline that doesn't try to editorialize an issue about citizen journalism and animal rights into one about privacy?
What most of the commenters seem to be ignoring is the evidence that the author is doing perfectly well selling his game for $28.
Having played (and paid for) one of them, given it took me dozens of (entertaining) hours to complete, I don't have much of a problem with that price.
I think what the post really boiled down to was:
Expect high ($30 - $60) prices for big commercial titles because they cost millions. Huge development costs divided by lots of customers result in high prices.
Expect low prices ($1 - $10) for indie games in popular genres (puzzle, etc) because there is lots of competition. Low development costs divided by lots of customers result in low prices.
But expect highish ($10 - $30) prices for indie games in niche genres, because there are simply fewer potential customers. Low(ish) development costs divided by few customers must result in highish prices, or you lose money.
Yes, there are free flash games, but point me at a free flash game in the same genre and of the depth of the author's games?
The big problem with touch screen GUIs is what's called Gorilla Arm: your arms can't sustain being stretched out and making small precise movements.
This isn't a problem if the screen is horizontal, but then you get neck strain from looking down all day.
So while touchscreen interfaces may look cool and work well for small devices, their ergonomics are fundamentally broken for any real work.
I agree that the Semantic Web people haven't read their epistemology texts. Here's an interesting article on this topic, explaining how essentially, all this "web-of-meaning" stuff was tried by NLP/AI researchers decades ago, and plain does not work.
The article concludes that a "weak" version of the semantic web may be possible - no clever inference or anything, just a set of data interchange standards. Which is basically the XML / data interchange standards bit of Web 2.0.
But as the blog entry says, even that might not happen due to commercial interests. The obvious (and oh so Slashdot) thing to say at this point is that we need open, not-for-profit data interchange standards - but of course the commercial sites would then refuse to use them. Or if they did, they'd probably try to embrace-and-extend them.
You know, when I skimmed over this I thought "I'm sure this is a repost. Wait... it's a repost saying the exact opposite of what the other post said? Did they miss out a lot of 'not's in the original press release?"
The only real solution: copy-protect the actual audio output from the speakers, say by adding a high-energy ultrasonic screech which instantly obliterates all recording devices within hearing range.
Note that my position on this mainly comes from having been a Mac user for all my life, and having programmed for Mac for several years. I can think of any number of ways of introducing malware into a mac system even if the user is not running as root. Operating systems having an innate resistance to spyware is rather hard, since there's no way of immediately noticing whether a program is doing any spying in addition to its normal operations. Hence, no, I'm not intending this as a provocation. I'm writing this on my very own TiBook!
To be fair, the main reason Macs don't suffer from spyware as much that their market share is too small to make it worthwhile to program malware. It's simply a question of efficiency - writing spyware for Windows will get you more victims. Having written some stuff for Mac, I don't think writing spyware for them would be any harder than for Windows PCs.
Another reason may also be that the shareware market with Macs is in a somewhat better shape - quality standards are higher, and piracy less of a problem. As such, software writers probably don't feel the need to screw over the users.
On speed:
Having used both OS X and Windows, and having read complaints about the sluggishness of OS X before, I think that the issue is not that OS X is sluggish, but simply that it's programmed to be not as snappy. Apple really likes their pretty animations and fade-in-and-outs, and this all means that the system simply takes its time.
This can of course be construed as annoying and wrong, but would likely not change one whit if one were to run OS X on x86.
"If it were, they would surely capitulate instantenously."
You know, writing a phrase like this basically says "Yes, I buy into the anti-French propaganda. Yes, I'm amused by jingoism thinly clothed in humour."
This whole "French surrendering" thing really isn't improving European perceptions of Americans...
"A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom."
Just as a minor, semi-offtopic comment: Um, wasn't that precisely what happened to the Hagia Sofia? You can still see the faint traces of the crosses that were removed when the whole thing was turned into a Mosque. So even if turning churches into mosques wasn't normal practice, it did happen. To quote from a website about the Hagia Sophia:
"On Tuesday, May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered the vanquished city late in the afternoon and rode to Hagia Sophia. He was amazed at its beauty and decided to convert the Cathedral into his imperial mosque."
(Disclaimer: No, I'm not trying to be inflammatory about religion, I'm just making a historical point.)
Just gathering from what they've done, both the boss and the employee should be fired. Just firing the boss would open the door to people spying on one another all the time, but just firing the employee, well, there's your standard business-type hypocrisy.
Fortunately, the problem of this alcohol being abused for drinking purposes already has a solution: Adding minute quantities of very strong, very unpleasant flavouring. If you buy cleaning alcohol, this is precisely what's been done to it.
At least this is true in Switzerland, I cannot be vouch for other countries. It strikes me as a good solution in any case.
London Ambulance Service...
on
Can Software Kill?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I believe no discussion of deadly software disasters is complete without mentioning the London Ambulance Service Disaster of '92.
Basically, bad project management and other gaffes lead to the Londom Ambulance Service using a computerised dispatch system which was not up to the job. It promptly crashed, and quite a few people died as a result.
This is interesting in the light of speculation about life-forms living on the surface of suns. (As described, for example, in David Brin'sSundiver.)
Considering that a the surface of a sun itself consists of plasma, it's not improbable that spheres like in the experiment get formed there all the time. The question is whether there is any way those spheres could attain a more complex form of internal organisation, or if they remain stuck at that basic level.
Though I haven't followed the entire thing close enough to be sure, I do seem to recall that the "fines" imposed by the RIAA are a bit arbitrary. And actually I don't think they are what one would properly call fines. They're lawsuit settlements. A fine, on the other hand, is something the state gives you because you've been naughty. If you are given a speeding fine it's not to compensate the state for the damage you did to the road, but a punishment for you breaking the law.
Actually, I think it would make sense to make fines proportional to income. A fine ought to deter everybody the same, but a $500 fine is surely a greater deterrent to somebody living on social security than somebody who makes $200k a year.
(Hereby I conclude this episode of tangential leftism. Good night.)
What has happened in China over the last 20 years, for example, is astounding in terms of the numbers of people lifted out of abject poverty.
While that is true, you might want to look at this article, which states that there aren't enough resources to go around for China to grow as wealthy as the "first world".
Also, I think it's less of a problem that there is globalisation but who is profiting from it. Globalisation means the establishment of large structures such as the World Bank (or also in a way the EU). And right now those structures are not very democratic, so the more power they have, the less power the people have. If they become democratic in nature, then yay for globalisation.
Slashdot Mirror
This is hardly *protection* for the cows, now is it? It's protection for the people who mistreat them. Could we have a headline that doesn't try to editorialize an issue about citizen journalism and animal rights into one about privacy?
What most of the commenters seem to be ignoring is the evidence that the author is doing perfectly well selling his game for $28.
Having played (and paid for) one of them, given it took me dozens of (entertaining) hours to complete, I don't have much of a problem with that price.
I think what the post really boiled down to was:
Expect high ($30 - $60) prices for big commercial titles because they cost millions. Huge development costs divided by lots of customers result in high prices.
Expect low prices ($1 - $10) for indie games in popular genres (puzzle, etc) because there is lots of competition. Low development costs divided by lots of customers result in low prices.
But expect highish ($10 - $30) prices for indie games in niche genres, because there are simply fewer potential customers. Low(ish) development costs divided by few customers must result in highish prices, or you lose money.
Yes, there are free flash games, but point me at a free flash game in the same genre and of the depth of the author's games?
The big problem with touch screen GUIs is what's called Gorilla Arm: your arms can't sustain being stretched out and making small precise movements. This isn't a problem if the screen is horizontal, but then you get neck strain from looking down all day. So while touchscreen interfaces may look cool and work well for small devices, their ergonomics are fundamentally broken for any real work.
I agree that the Semantic Web people haven't read their epistemology texts. Here's an interesting article on this topic, explaining how essentially, all this "web-of-meaning" stuff was tried by NLP/AI researchers decades ago, and plain does not work.
The article concludes that a "weak" version of the semantic web may be possible - no clever inference or anything, just a set of data interchange standards. Which is basically the XML / data interchange standards bit of Web 2.0.
But as the blog entry says, even that might not happen due to commercial interests. The obvious (and oh so Slashdot) thing to say at this point is that we need open, not-for-profit data interchange standards - but of course the commercial sites would then refuse to use them. Or if they did, they'd probably try to embrace-and-extend them.
You know, when I skimmed over this I thought "I'm sure this is a repost. Wait... it's a repost saying the exact opposite of what the other post said? Did they miss out a lot of 'not's in the original press release?"
I need more sleep.
The only real solution: copy-protect the actual audio output from the speakers, say by adding a high-energy ultrasonic screech which instantly obliterates all recording devices within hearing range.
Note that my position on this mainly comes from having been a Mac user for all my life, and having programmed for Mac for several years. I can think of any number of ways of introducing malware into a mac system even if the user is not running as root.
Operating systems having an innate resistance to spyware is rather hard, since there's no way of immediately noticing whether a program is doing any spying in addition to its normal operations.
Hence, no, I'm not intending this as a provocation. I'm writing this on my very own TiBook!
To be fair, the main reason Macs don't suffer from spyware as much that their market share is too small to make it worthwhile to program malware. It's simply a question of efficiency - writing spyware for Windows will get you more victims. Having written some stuff for Mac, I don't think writing spyware for them would be any harder than for Windows PCs.
Another reason may also be that the shareware market with Macs is in a somewhat better shape - quality standards are higher, and piracy less of a problem. As such, software writers probably don't feel the need to screw over the users.
On speed: Having used both OS X and Windows, and having read complaints about the sluggishness of OS X before, I think that the issue is not that OS X is sluggish, but simply that it's programmed to be not as snappy. Apple really likes their pretty animations and fade-in-and-outs, and this all means that the system simply takes its time. This can of course be construed as annoying and wrong, but would likely not change one whit if one were to run OS X on x86.
"If it were, they would surely capitulate instantenously."
You know, writing a phrase like this basically says "Yes, I buy into the anti-French propaganda. Yes, I'm amused by jingoism thinly clothed in humour."
This whole "French surrendering" thing really isn't improving European perceptions of Americans...
"A game called Age of Empires 2 offended the Saudi Arabian authorities because it showed victorious Muslim armies turning churches into mosques. The game was withdrawn from sale in the kingdom."
Just as a minor, semi-offtopic comment: Um, wasn't that precisely what happened to the Hagia Sofia? You can still see the faint traces of the crosses that were removed when the whole thing was turned into a Mosque. So even if turning churches into mosques wasn't normal practice, it did happen. To quote from a website about the Hagia Sophia:
"On Tuesday, May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered the vanquished city late in the afternoon and rode to Hagia Sophia. He was amazed at its beauty and decided to convert the Cathedral into his imperial mosque."
(Disclaimer: No, I'm not trying to be inflammatory about religion, I'm just making a historical point.)
Just gathering from what they've done, both the boss and the employee should be fired. Just firing the boss would open the door to people spying on one another all the time, but just firing the employee, well, there's your standard business-type hypocrisy.
Fortunately, the problem of this alcohol being abused for drinking purposes already has a solution: Adding minute quantities of very strong, very unpleasant flavouring. If you buy cleaning alcohol, this is precisely what's been done to it. At least this is true in Switzerland, I cannot be vouch for other countries. It strikes me as a good solution in any case.
I believe no discussion of deadly software disasters is complete without mentioning the London Ambulance Service Disaster of '92. Basically, bad project management and other gaffes lead to the Londom Ambulance Service using a computerised dispatch system which was not up to the job. It promptly crashed, and quite a few people died as a result.
This is interesting in the light of speculation about life-forms living on the surface of suns. (As described, for example, in David Brin's Sundiver.)
Considering that a the surface of a sun itself consists of plasma, it's not improbable that spheres like in the experiment get formed there all the time. The question is whether there is any way those spheres could attain a more complex form of internal organisation, or if they remain stuck at that basic level.
Though I haven't followed the entire thing close enough to be sure, I do seem to recall that the "fines" imposed by the RIAA are a bit arbitrary.
And actually I don't think they are what one would properly call fines. They're lawsuit settlements. A fine, on the other hand, is something the state gives you because you've been naughty. If you are given a speeding fine it's not to compensate the state for the damage you did to the road, but a punishment for you breaking the law.
Actually, I think it would make sense to make fines proportional to income. A fine ought to deter everybody the same, but a $500 fine is surely a greater deterrent to somebody living on social security than somebody who makes $200k a year. (Hereby I conclude this episode of tangential leftism. Good night.)
What has happened in China over the last 20 years, for example, is astounding in terms of the numbers of people lifted out of abject poverty.
While that is true, you might want to look at this article, which states that there aren't enough resources to go around for China to grow as wealthy as the "first world".
Also, I think it's less of a problem that there is globalisation but who is profiting from it. Globalisation means the establishment of large structures such as the World Bank (or also in a way the EU). And right now those structures are not very democratic, so the more power they have, the less power the people have. If they become democratic in nature, then yay for globalisation.