Put these folks on voting machines - it's way more important to protect the sanctity of democracy than to point out exploitable browsers.
I get the economics of it, but this is what insurance is for. Software companies care about security, but at some point this becomes more about mental masturbation - cracking will always occur. Why not create some incentive to put the desire to crack on important systems rather than worry about jo-shmoes machine getting compromised.
Somebody at some point should really rally an army to go around and destroy every compressor and compressor plugin on this stupid planet.
I got nothing against compressing for effect, but the abuse it suffers in the mastering process is heinous. It is hilarious to hear the 'quiet' part of a song be just as loud as the 'loud' part. It's like somebody whispering to you at the top of their lungs.
Such a human answer to seeing its own shit - we should make more shit to clean up that shit!
I'll take NASA's word over yours. And besides, dont you realize how silly it sounds to say, "We might have to take some precautions with launch timing," and the solution involves launching something?
Unless you're more keen on the details than I am, I would be willing to give the benifit of the doubt that publishing one's work was, and to whatever degree, still remains, an opportunity of circumstance. Maybe there was a reason he didn't publishing unrelated to his desire to do so.
You probably shouldn't care, because you don't. But some people do care, and some people work in fields where they *have* to care (well, more likely, they *like* caring about stuff like this which is why they work in UI and OS GUI development, either in programming or design fields.)
Honestly, why should I care whether Windows, Mac, KDE, Gnome or whoever else copies anything from whoever?
The article asked "is it a copy (ie, is it very similar)?" not "did MS copy Apple?" Those are two very different questions, and the only reason you might care is because you're interested in learning about the difference in how MS and Apple has historically treated the applications vs window GUI question.
If you already knew, then of course, don't be interested. If you didn't, then maybe you might be interested (but only if it was a personal or professional interest of yours.) I always find it weird to hear people say, "Why should I care?" Maybe the more important question is, "Can anyone actually convince me to care?" If the answer is no, then it's probably not worth commenting.
There isn't a single programmer or UI designer out there that is worried about dudes on websites saying that they Xeroxed something. Nobody can hold down a job if they're primary motivation is to avoid being told that they copied something that has been accepted in the market place.
When will *some* Americans get their head out of their asses and understand that every country in the world has a mix of races and cultures? (Extend this for yourself to different sicknesses and needs.)
This is dragged out for every single, "Hey, lets change this" argument in the US. Inevitably, somebody goes, "Well, America is so darn unique in its problems." It is not.
Yet slashdot every day is covered in postings complaining that companies look for short term gain even if something else might be cheaper in the long run (usually in the form of employs rightly questioning their employers decision making.) Surely this mindset can't exist in government institutions as well?;)
The answer you seek is incredibly simple: if it costs more now, there is resistance. This applies to you up to the largest multinationals.
Article is pretty bang on. Adaptive AI is tough to do, as is balancing being a tunable-level of smart and being beatable. One thing I have not seen enough of in games is AI agents communicating with each other about intentions. More often it is simple a matter of saying, "I'm in this area, so don't try and go here." I've yet to really feel in a game that the enemies are working together. I saw a very nice presentation on Halo 3 high level AI at GDC 08 that kind of nailed some of these problems with a pretty simple solution - there should be some top level AI manager that handles requests from AI agents on what to do next when a high level goal becomes useless to attempt to achieve. Left4Dead sort of deals with this, not by talking to agents that are still alive, but by deciding when to introduce new agents, but the Halo 3 approach to me seemed very elegant. It was higher level AI than the article was talking about, but in effect it was a similar setup: AI achieves something, and says, "What's next?" Since the AI manager would know the state of the other enemies in its unit, it could decide that you might as well not start firing at the player since the two others were doing that. Maybe some other game vets could clue me in, but I havn't seen too many games like that where a module is advising the AI based on balancing attack/protect/advance ratios during gameplay./framework/tools programmer//not AI programmer
Let's be clear. They won't pay for it because story telling is not the main conceit of video games. I agree that a well written game can really enhance it, and in some cases, make it or break it if the game play isn't there, but games are games. You need competent writing, not brilliant writing, because the immersion is derived from the gameplay (for the most part, of course. Adventure games rely more heavily on good writing, blah blah blah.) See music in porn for an example of this dynamic. You need music. You don't need *great* music.
As for the original guy's question, getting into the industry as a writer either comes by being a successful writer in another medium, or getting into the industry and working from within (maybe through level design or production management.)
Disclosure: programmer in the industry. Some games have really nailed good writing (I'm looking at you, Myst, Mass Effect, many adventure games) but ultimately, its only a piece of the puzzle, and the barriers to creating a successful financial game are so high, filling the ranks with good writers is not very high on the risk management scale of employability.
Don't worry, it's not just Europe. It is the mortal fear of taxation that keeps some Americans from voting democrat, despite the fact that spending has never been a particularly partisan sin in the last few decades, while Republicans only have to pay lip-service to taxation. Man, you want a better country? Snip the nads off some rich people - I've been told that only being to earn a few hundred million as opposed to a few hundred million and a few dozen more causes somebody to go from genius entrepreneur business man to pizza worker, but what they don't get is that it's a balance. Wealth has been redistributed since the incarnation of America, and we're certainly not at historical peaks right now of said redistribution.
Americans gotta learn to get off that soapbox. Redistribution is not a bad thing, and in fact, it works in the same way that copyright works - it must be limited, it must be constantly reviewed, and looking at the issue as if redistribution is bad or copyright for eternity is good is the root of all evil. If power corrupts absolutely, than mandated sacrifice is required.
Cheap ass light car gets X MPG. Heavier but ultimately more practical car gets Y MPG. More expensive hybrid gets Z MPG, but its lower than Y, but higher than X.
But most people don't buy the cheap ass light car, because it's not practical. You pretty much need to stuff energy efficiency down most people's throats. It's not a market issue - its a luxury issue. You may be able to afford bottled water, but you're a huge drain on society if you decide you cant put up with the marginal difference between tap water and bottled water.
As a subset to this learn to anticipate design changes - if you think there is any chance they will ask for something different down the road, the time to build in the flexibility is NOW when writing new code. Code with future changes in mind - it often costs very little more to build in the futureproofing for changes in strategies.
it seems silly to complain about the guys at Intel and AMD when nobody has the skilled labour pool in your customer base to take advantage of asynch state machines.
have 1.5 CPUs and manage it so almost runs like 2 full CPUs
define CPU, please, I'm curious how you add 1 to 0.5 and end up with something higher than 1.5?
Don't worry, it will all come down to shooting everything that moves anyhow.
in a way I agree with you
and in another way, I think you're being hypercritical
even the best 'storytelling games' involves really poor writing and really poor story telling
why place this demand on game developers?
if you want a good story, read a book be sensitive to games - they can't attract the talent for story telling because ultimately, if your good at writing stories, you wouldn't be working in the industry
It's irresponsible on the part of slashdot, plain and simple. Honestly, thats just abusing the power of passing along information, treating subjects they claim to be important as no more important to review as a fun game of broken telephone.
Okay now that that's out the way, what think you? It seems nutty that the parties involved have resolved their differences, and she's suing until you consider:
FTA: "The city went further, the lawsuit claims, launching a criminal investigation of Reisinger for linking to the department on one of her sites."
What were the charges, what were the purported the basis's for it, and what is the evidence? I get the idea that she's had to put up with some seriously threatening shit, just for what she wrote but I don't get how linking to government websites has anything to do with it. Clearly, by the city backing down, it doesn't, so if you're a journalist going to report on it, do some real work and tell me what they brought against her criminally, not that they initially wrote her legalese in an initial attempt to scare her.
Re:Presentation versus inside guts
on
Tech Vs. Business?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Without proper knowledge of the extent of the technical problem, they will often tell a potential client that a required feature will takes days/weeks when the developer has already told them it's more like weeks/months.
Two approaches:
Document, document, document. You have what you said in email, and get the sales guy to turn up documents to whoever wants to scapegoat you. I mean, in that case, its so easy. You said it would take X, you told him, he said to the client Y. If the client is upset, you should have a recourse. If you don't, you're in the wrong job. Too many engineers try and make this an issue between them and the sales guy. I don't know where you work, but if I was on the phone with the client, I would feel very comfortable telling him or her directly that you told the sales department X, and they told him Y. Clients arn't nearly as rigid as some techies believe. As long as they have something to take to THEIR boss, then you should be fine (well, pass it by your manager first, of course, but if they don't wanna hear it, it's better to have a client who is sympathetic to you than nobody at all.) Clients really just wanna hear the straight shit because it helps them make better business decisions. If that doesn't involve your company because your sales department outright distorts the truth, well..
You know what clients love? They fucking love to hear from the guys actually DOING the shit, not selling the shit. Sometimes that's a bit of a chip you can play. A few times I've been stright up with the client on the phone with my manager on the call, and it's not like he's going to contradict the people doing the work in front of the client. If they're an asshole, maybe you might catch flak for it, but I've been in some situations where the client thanks my manager for having an engineer give them the straight dope and it catches managers off guard. If people fault you for being honest or for being straight forward with a client, for the love of god, find something else. The trick many engineers lack is how to be honest and straight forward without being condescending or too apologist with a client. The reality is, that guy on the other end of the phone has the same job as you have - pass along time or cost estimates that don't end up being patently false.
I would really hope that if you call salespeople who do this often on it more than a few times, your management will resolve it by correcting their behavior or not retaining his or her employment contract.
That's basically it. Under promise, over deliver. It's not like people in sales or marketing or any line of work don't realize the value of this approach because it tends to be more honest, realistic, and promote better planning and risk avoidance than selling everything as a 'if everything goes perfectly'. Everyone does it, and does it in the right situations where you can take advantage of some breathing room rather than the situations where you're just burning time you don't have.
I've found most of the friction between the business end and technology end is culture based and team based. If you promote the idea that you're all on the same team, well, people won't be so quick to try and pass the buck to you because you are the one holding the olive branch.
The reality is that if you're working in a company that makes money, then everyone should generally be happy. I'm a programmer, but I find a *lot* of engineers have a martyr complex because they somehow believe that without engineers, there wouldn't be a product to sell. That's true, but without at least some proficient business staff, you won't sell anything. It's when individual departments start to get the Jesus complex that things get bad, and if the company is healthy and profitable in the meantime, then what's the point of everyone being upset?
You're all in the same boat, and everybody should just try and be as honest as possible and make concessions and be open to being wrong as the situation dictates. Bitching and moaning if you have a good sense of humour is great, but don't let people who can't frame it with levity spoil everyone's mood. I find that being a good example can reach across departments.
Plus, there is one unfair reality to all this which you just have to except unless you plan on being senior.. marketing/sales will always be on the end of the revenue pipe closest to the client signing the cheque. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but while its understandable that use programmers can feel resentful towards the more social side of the business, that's life. Nothing bothers me more than hearing engineers complain how easy it seems to be to work in sales or marketing and rake in the salary or the swag or the nights out with clients. If that's the case, well then you need to take a long hard look at why you're working in the industry you're working in.
I'm pretty sure you can hold this argument in a mirror and apply it to unhappy sales folks who resent IT. Until any of us can run a company all by ourselves and do 20000 man hours every 24 hours, lets just get a long and make good products that make money!
I think the point is, what is the fucking point of putting somebody in jail if they had every opportunity to rape you, and didn't?
What exactly are we rehabilitating here? If it's a desire to watch some TV in your living room while you're not home, years in jail seems a little excessive to a tax payer like me.
If somebody did that to my place or my parents', I don't think I'd feel so violated as to think I'd feel safer if this one guy was locked up for 5 years.
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. In this situation, he could have only stole from the poor, but stole from nobody and told the rich that stealing from them was feasible if somebody else wanted to be a true anti-Robin Hood.
It's a shame people think most hacking involves breaking down hex codes. I've had my debit card number and pin stolen twice from the nearby grocery store, and I'd love nothing more than for somebody to do it again who would actually tell them how it was done and how to prevent it in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
What's cheaper - remote access or rubber gloves?
How long ago was that?
Weather in Seattle ridiculous? Are you sure you don't mean boring as fuck?
Who the hell cares about Windows, Macs, Linux?
Put these folks on voting machines - it's way more important to protect the sanctity of democracy than to point out exploitable browsers.
I get the economics of it, but this is what insurance is for. Software companies care about security, but at some point this becomes more about mental masturbation - cracking will always occur. Why not create some incentive to put the desire to crack on important systems rather than worry about jo-shmoes machine getting compromised.
Somebody at some point should really rally an army to go around and destroy every compressor and compressor plugin on this stupid planet.
I got nothing against compressing for effect, but the abuse it suffers in the mastering process is heinous. It is hilarious to hear the 'quiet' part of a song be just as loud as the 'loud' part. It's like somebody whispering to you at the top of their lungs.
chances that a law firm can't pay massive bandwidth fees for a few days: zero
Such a human answer to seeing its own shit - we should make more shit to clean up that shit!
I'll take NASA's word over yours. And besides, dont you realize how silly it sounds to say, "We might have to take some precautions with launch timing," and the solution involves launching something?
Unless you're more keen on the details than I am, I would be willing to give the benifit of the doubt that publishing one's work was, and to whatever degree, still remains, an opportunity of circumstance. Maybe there was a reason he didn't publishing unrelated to his desire to do so.
You probably shouldn't care, because you don't. But some people do care, and some people work in fields where they *have* to care (well, more likely, they *like* caring about stuff like this which is why they work in UI and OS GUI development, either in programming or design fields.)
Honestly, why should I care whether Windows, Mac, KDE, Gnome or whoever else copies anything from whoever?
The article asked "is it a copy (ie, is it very similar)?" not "did MS copy Apple?" Those are two very different questions, and the only reason you might care is because you're interested in learning about the difference in how MS and Apple has historically treated the applications vs window GUI question.
If you already knew, then of course, don't be interested. If you didn't, then maybe you might be interested (but only if it was a personal or professional interest of yours.) I always find it weird to hear people say, "Why should I care?" Maybe the more important question is, "Can anyone actually convince me to care?" If the answer is no, then it's probably not worth commenting.
There isn't a single programmer or UI designer out there that is worried about dudes on websites saying that they Xeroxed something. Nobody can hold down a job if they're primary motivation is to avoid being told that they copied something that has been accepted in the market place.
When will *some* Americans get their head out of their asses and understand that every country in the world has a mix of races and cultures? (Extend this for yourself to different sicknesses and needs.)
This is dragged out for every single, "Hey, lets change this" argument in the US. Inevitably, somebody goes, "Well, America is so darn unique in its problems." It is not.
Yet slashdot every day is covered in postings complaining that companies look for short term gain even if something else might be cheaper in the long run (usually in the form of employs rightly questioning their employers decision making.) Surely this mindset can't exist in government institutions as well? ;)
The answer you seek is incredibly simple: if it costs more now, there is resistance. This applies to you up to the largest multinationals.
And here I only wanna clock Blue Tooth users in the head. I guess that's the low hanging fruit.
Article is pretty bang on. Adaptive AI is tough to do, as is balancing being a tunable-level of smart and being beatable. One thing I have not seen enough of in games is AI agents communicating with each other about intentions. More often it is simple a matter of saying, "I'm in this area, so don't try and go here." I've yet to really feel in a game that the enemies are working together. I saw a very nice presentation on Halo 3 high level AI at GDC 08 that kind of nailed some of these problems with a pretty simple solution - there should be some top level AI manager that handles requests from AI agents on what to do next when a high level goal becomes useless to attempt to achieve. Left4Dead sort of deals with this, not by talking to agents that are still alive, but by deciding when to introduce new agents, but the Halo 3 approach to me seemed very elegant. It was higher level AI than the article was talking about, but in effect it was a similar setup: AI achieves something, and says, "What's next?" Since the AI manager would know the state of the other enemies in its unit, it could decide that you might as well not start firing at the player since the two others were doing that. Maybe some other game vets could clue me in, but I havn't seen too many games like that where a module is advising the AI based on balancing attack/protect/advance ratios during gameplay. /framework/tools programmer //not AI programmer
Let's be clear. They won't pay for it because story telling is not the main conceit of video games. I agree that a well written game can really enhance it, and in some cases, make it or break it if the game play isn't there, but games are games. You need competent writing, not brilliant writing, because the immersion is derived from the gameplay (for the most part, of course. Adventure games rely more heavily on good writing, blah blah blah.) See music in porn for an example of this dynamic. You need music. You don't need *great* music.
As for the original guy's question, getting into the industry as a writer either comes by being a successful writer in another medium, or getting into the industry and working from within (maybe through level design or production management.)
Disclosure: programmer in the industry. Some games have really nailed good writing (I'm looking at you, Myst, Mass Effect, many adventure games) but ultimately, its only a piece of the puzzle, and the barriers to creating a successful financial game are so high, filling the ranks with good writers is not very high on the risk management scale of employability.
Don't worry, it's not just Europe. It is the mortal fear of taxation that keeps some Americans from voting democrat, despite the fact that spending has never been a particularly partisan sin in the last few decades, while Republicans only have to pay lip-service to taxation. Man, you want a better country? Snip the nads off some rich people - I've been told that only being to earn a few hundred million as opposed to a few hundred million and a few dozen more causes somebody to go from genius entrepreneur business man to pizza worker, but what they don't get is that it's a balance. Wealth has been redistributed since the incarnation of America, and we're certainly not at historical peaks right now of said redistribution.
Americans gotta learn to get off that soapbox. Redistribution is not a bad thing, and in fact, it works in the same way that copyright works - it must be limited, it must be constantly reviewed, and looking at the issue as if redistribution is bad or copyright for eternity is good is the root of all evil. If power corrupts absolutely, than mandated sacrifice is required.
It's not that complicated:
Cheap ass light car gets X MPG. Heavier but ultimately more practical car gets Y MPG. More expensive hybrid gets Z MPG, but its lower than Y, but higher than X.
But most people don't buy the cheap ass light car, because it's not practical. You pretty much need to stuff energy efficiency down most people's throats. It's not a market issue - its a luxury issue. You may be able to afford bottled water, but you're a huge drain on society if you decide you cant put up with the marginal difference between tap water and bottled water.
As a subset to this learn to anticipate design changes - if you think there is any chance they will ask for something different down the road, the time to build in the flexibility is NOW when writing new code. Code with future changes in mind - it often costs very little more to build in the futureproofing for changes in strategies.
more parallelism = more difficult programming
it seems silly to complain about the guys at Intel and AMD when nobody has the skilled labour pool in your customer base to take advantage of asynch state machines.
have 1.5 CPUs and manage it so almost runs like 2 full CPUs
define CPU, please, I'm curious how you add 1 to 0.5 and end up with something higher than 1.5?
Don't worry, it will all come down to shooting everything that moves anyhow.
in a way I agree with you
and in another way, I think you're being hypercritical
even the best 'storytelling games' involves really poor writing and really poor story telling
why place this demand on game developers?
if you want a good story, read a book
be sensitive to games - they can't attract the talent for story telling because ultimately, if your good at writing stories, you wouldn't be working in the industry
Thanks for the extra info! :)
He'll still be used to invoke the same points tho as it serves. :)
It's irresponsible on the part of slashdot, plain and simple. Honestly, thats just abusing the power of passing along information, treating subjects they claim to be important as no more important to review as a fun game of broken telephone.
Okay now that that's out the way, what think you? It seems nutty that the parties involved have resolved their differences, and she's suing until you consider:
FTA: "The city went further, the lawsuit claims, launching a criminal investigation of Reisinger for linking to the department on one of her sites."
What were the charges, what were the purported the basis's for it, and what is the evidence? I get the idea that she's had to put up with some seriously threatening shit, just for what she wrote but I don't get how linking to government websites has anything to do with it. Clearly, by the city backing down, it doesn't, so if you're a journalist going to report on it, do some real work and tell me what they brought against her criminally, not that they initially wrote her legalese in an initial attempt to scare her.
Without proper knowledge of the extent of the technical problem, they will often tell a potential client that a required feature will takes days/weeks when the developer has already told them it's more like weeks/months.
Two approaches:
Document, document, document. You have what you said in email, and get the sales guy to turn up documents to whoever wants to scapegoat you. I mean, in that case, its so easy. You said it would take X, you told him, he said to the client Y. If the client is upset, you should have a recourse. If you don't, you're in the wrong job. Too many engineers try and make this an issue between them and the sales guy. I don't know where you work, but if I was on the phone with the client, I would feel very comfortable telling him or her directly that you told the sales department X, and they told him Y. Clients arn't nearly as rigid as some techies believe. As long as they have something to take to THEIR boss, then you should be fine (well, pass it by your manager first, of course, but if they don't wanna hear it, it's better to have a client who is sympathetic to you than nobody at all.) Clients really just wanna hear the straight shit because it helps them make better business decisions. If that doesn't involve your company because your sales department outright distorts the truth, well ..
You know what clients love? They fucking love to hear from the guys actually DOING the shit, not selling the shit. Sometimes that's a bit of a chip you can play. A few times I've been stright up with the client on the phone with my manager on the call, and it's not like he's going to contradict the people doing the work in front of the client. If they're an asshole, maybe you might catch flak for it, but I've been in some situations where the client thanks my manager for having an engineer give them the straight dope and it catches managers off guard. If people fault you for being honest or for being straight forward with a client, for the love of god, find something else. The trick many engineers lack is how to be honest and straight forward without being condescending or too apologist with a client. The reality is, that guy on the other end of the phone has the same job as you have - pass along time or cost estimates that don't end up being patently false.
I would really hope that if you call salespeople who do this often on it more than a few times, your management will resolve it by correcting their behavior or not retaining his or her employment contract.
That's basically it. Under promise, over deliver. It's not like people in sales or marketing or any line of work don't realize the value of this approach because it tends to be more honest, realistic, and promote better planning and risk avoidance than selling everything as a 'if everything goes perfectly'. Everyone does it, and does it in the right situations where you can take advantage of some breathing room rather than the situations where you're just burning time you don't have.
I've found most of the friction between the business end and technology end is culture based and team based. If you promote the idea that you're all on the same team, well, people won't be so quick to try and pass the buck to you because you are the one holding the olive branch.
The reality is that if you're working in a company that makes money, then everyone should generally be happy. I'm a programmer, but I find a *lot* of engineers have a martyr complex because they somehow believe that without engineers, there wouldn't be a product to sell. That's true, but without at least some proficient business staff, you won't sell anything. It's when individual departments start to get the Jesus complex that things get bad, and if the company is healthy and profitable in the meantime, then what's the point of everyone being upset?
You're all in the same boat, and everybody should just try and be as honest as possible and make concessions and be open to being wrong as the situation dictates. Bitching and moaning if you have a good sense of humour is great, but don't let people who can't frame it with levity spoil everyone's mood. I find that being a good example can reach across departments.
Plus, there is one unfair reality to all this which you just have to except unless you plan on being senior .. marketing/sales will always be on the end of the revenue pipe closest to the client signing the cheque. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but while its understandable that use programmers can feel resentful towards the more social side of the business, that's life. Nothing bothers me more than hearing engineers complain how easy it seems to be to work in sales or marketing and rake in the salary or the swag or the nights out with clients. If that's the case, well then you need to take a long hard look at why you're working in the industry you're working in.
I'm pretty sure you can hold this argument in a mirror and apply it to unhappy sales folks who resent IT. Until any of us can run a company all by ourselves and do 20000 man hours every 24 hours, lets just get a long and make good products that make money!
I think the point is, what is the fucking point of putting somebody in jail if they had every opportunity to rape you, and didn't?
What exactly are we rehabilitating here? If it's a desire to watch some TV in your living room while you're not home, years in jail seems a little excessive to a tax payer like me.
If somebody did that to my place or my parents', I don't think I'd feel so violated as to think I'd feel safer if this one guy was locked up for 5 years.
Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. In this situation, he could have only stole from the poor, but stole from nobody and told the rich that stealing from them was feasible if somebody else wanted to be a true anti-Robin Hood.
It's a shame people think most hacking involves breaking down hex codes. I've had my debit card number and pin stolen twice from the nearby grocery store, and I'd love nothing more than for somebody to do it again who would actually tell them how it was done and how to prevent it in the future.