"... U.S. exchanges, most prominently the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, employ several competing official market makers in a security. These market makers are required to maintain two-sided markets during exchange hours and are obligated to buy and sell at their displayed bids and offers."
Basically, these market makers have to buy, even when everyone else is selling.
A few months ago, I started using one of the subscription music services and I love it. I pay about $10/month and I have access to a HUGE library of music. For me, this is a much better solution than (a) paying nearly $20 for a CD that I *might* still like a few years from now and (b) *stealing* music via the p2p networks.
So many people here are comparing Joost to YouTube.
They're not the same. They're not *meant* to be the same.
Joost is about high-quality (video and audio) content. Stuff that I can watch on my 70" HDTV with Bose surround sound. Not stuff to be played through my crappy laptop speakers.
Do you all honestly think that the guys behind both Kazaa and Skype *don't* know what they're doing?
I don't understand why so many people here are opposed to this type of law.
Is it really that much different than restrictions on selling alcohol or pornography to young people?
And for those who will say that the industry is self-regulating (ala the ESRB): the recent situation w/GTA would seem to indicate that self-regulation isn't enough.
Also, for those who say that the bill is too vague in its definition of "violence," I think the following definition (excerpted from the bill) is pretty clear:
(d) (1) "Violent video game" means a video game in which the range
of options available to a player includes killing, maiming,
dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if
those acts are depicted in the game in a manner that does either of
the following:
Enables the player to virtually inflict serious injury upon
images of human beings or characters with substantially human
characteristics in a manner which is especially heinous, cruel, or
depraved in that it involves torture or serious physical abuse to the
victim."
Personally, as a game developer and as a (very involved) parent of three young children, I support this bill which will punish anyone who rents/sells inappropriate material to my children.
Software has become *very* mainstream. Not all software users are as sophisticated as readers/contributors here at/. are.
When these users go into a store (K-mart, CompUSA, Fry's, etc.) and buy a product off the shelf, they expect (quite reasonably) that that product will perform the functions that it is supposed to perform. In their minds, software is just like a t-shirt or a bowling ball or a bag of bread: it's supposed to work the way it promises to work. If it doesn't, then *someone* is supposed to be held accountable. I think that you all would agree that it would be quite unreasonable to buy a t-shirt, and before you even get to try it on, you have to sign a waiver saying that you will NOT hold the manufacturer liable if the shirt doesn't function properly.
Software is interesting because we have to give up that right (holding someone accountable) before we get to use it.
That just seems plain wrong.
And for those that argue "If you're getting the software for free, then you can't expect that kind of product guarantee," well, I have to say, if you're hoping that free software will someday be as popular as commercial software, then that argument is going to have to go away.
In some cases, particularly when the Internet Explorer browser is involved, the testing process "becomes a significant undertaking," Toulouse said. "It's not easy to test an IE update. There are six or seven supported versions and then we're dealing with all the different languages. Our commitment is to protect all customers in all languages on all supported products at the same time, so it becomes a huge undertaking."
"This is exactly why it can take a long time to ship an IE patch. We're dealing with about 440 different updates that have to be tested.
Hmmm, so Microsoft is so big that in order to fix a problem, they have a huge number of things to check...
Am I supposed to feel bad for them? Sorry, I don't. Their software runs on ~ 95% of all desktop computers. They have a war chest in the tens of billions of dollars. Their president has a net worth close to $50,000,000,000.00.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to pay, say, 10,000 people $100,000 / year to work on all of the fixes/patches and the testing. That would come out to only $1,000,000,000 per year. I think they can afford that.
Imagine warehouses and warehouses filled with people/hackers searching for the problems, finding them, and then testing the solutions.
Now, I know that realistically you can't just throw thousands of people at a set of coding problems and expect to get a thousand-fold efficiency increase...I'm just trying to illustrate the point that Microsoft can easily afford to bring to bear a humungous amount of resources to these problems.
The way the guy was talking in the article, he makes it sound like "oh, poor me...my team and I have to test (gasp) 440 different updates."
For an ordinary company, that would indeed represent a very daunting task. But Microsoft is *the* giant. It *should* be able to handle the consequences of its successes.
EA had to outbid 4 other game companies to keep *themselves* from being shut out in the cold.
So don't blame EA for this. Blame the NFL.
EA was just doing what it had to do to survive in the football game market.
I wish more/.ers would RTFA before making comments.
"Personal responsibility and accountability is perhaps the most important thing that people can teach their kids. However, it seems that popular culture is increasing making it appear that people are rewarded for lying, cheating, killing, bribery, getting something for no effort, etc. Take Enron, WorldCom, the current Republican administration, reality television, nationalized health care proposals, Grand Theft Auto (to be on topic, of course), public schools, the Earned Income Credit, short-term cash loans, pre-approved credit, six-year car loans, no-money-down mortgages, rent subsidies, many organized religions and labor unions, student loans, professional sports, soft drink commercials, and so forth."
Didn't you forget to add: getting free music and movies from the internet? It's not just the big entities that are corrupting the individual...the individual is more than happy to ingest the corruption as long as it suits his/her appetite. In fact, it doesn't take a Big Evil Faceless Entity(TM) to provide the corrupting device. Individuals now have the power to put that corruption into the hands of millions of people worldwide ( e.g. Shawn Fanning and Napster ).
"Corporations and government need to become more modest and come back to realizing that they exist because of and for the People, not the other way around."
I have to disagree. Corporations do not "exist because of and for the People". They exist to make as much money as they possibly can...especially public companies ( I belive that the executives and board members of a public company can actually go to jail if they do something that interferes with the maximization of their shareholders investments ). The only way to influence the corporations is through their pocketbooks, not by appealing to their sense of human decency and morality. And the two best ways to hit them in the pocketbook ( that I can think of offhand ) are to (a) stop buying their product, or (b) sue them. And that's exaclty why the victim's families (in this case) are right in suing the game maker. Hooray for them! Hopefully, this will make the game makers think about their gameplot and whether someone might really die as a result of some bit of the gameplay.
Just my opinion.:)
(btw, I've been programming for 21 years...10 years of game development...so I'm not a game-basher...just someone who would like to see the creators of games think a little bit more about what they're offering to the public).
Slashdot Mirror
See "market maker" at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_maker):
"... U.S. exchanges, most prominently the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, employ several competing official market makers in a security. These market makers are required to maintain two-sided markets during exchange hours and are obligated to buy and sell at their displayed bids and offers."
Basically, these market makers have to buy, even when everyone else is selling.
A few months ago, I started using one of the subscription music services and I love it. I pay about $10/month and I have access to a HUGE library of music. For me, this is a much better solution than (a) paying nearly $20 for a CD that I *might* still like a few years from now and (b) *stealing* music via the p2p networks.
So many people here are comparing Joost to YouTube. They're not the same. They're not *meant* to be the same. Joost is about high-quality (video and audio) content. Stuff that I can watch on my 70" HDTV with Bose surround sound. Not stuff to be played through my crappy laptop speakers. Do you all honestly think that the guys behind both Kazaa and Skype *don't* know what they're doing?
Notice on DeWolfe's resume: he used to work at XDrive, which was a free online storage site.
...honestly.
I don't understand why so many people here are opposed to this type of law.
Is it really that much different than restrictions on selling alcohol or pornography to young people?
And for those who will say that the industry is self-regulating (ala the ESRB): the recent situation w/GTA would seem to indicate that self-regulation isn't enough.
Also, for those who say that the bill is too vague in its definition of "violence," I think the following definition (excerpted from the bill) is pretty clear:
(d) (1) "Violent video game" means a video game in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted in the game in a manner that does either of the following:
Enables the player to virtually inflict serious injury upon images of human beings or characters with substantially human characteristics in a manner which is especially heinous, cruel, or depraved in that it involves torture or serious physical abuse to the victim."
Personally, as a game developer and as a (very involved) parent of three young children, I support this bill which will punish anyone who rents/sells inappropriate material to my children.
Software has become *very* mainstream. Not all software users are as sophisticated as readers/contributors here at
When these users go into a store (K-mart, CompUSA, Fry's, etc.) and buy a product off the shelf, they expect (quite reasonably) that that product will perform the functions that it is supposed to perform. In their minds, software is just like a t-shirt or a bowling ball or a bag of bread: it's supposed to work the way it promises to work. If it doesn't, then *someone* is supposed to be held accountable. I think that you all would agree that it would be quite unreasonable to buy a t-shirt, and before you even get to try it on, you have to sign a waiver saying that you will NOT hold the manufacturer liable if the shirt doesn't function properly.
Software is interesting because we have to give up that right (holding someone accountable) before we get to use it.
That just seems plain wrong.
And for those that argue "If you're getting the software for free, then you can't expect that kind of product guarantee," well, I have to say, if you're hoping that free software will someday be as popular as commercial software, then that argument is going to have to go away.
From the article:
"This is exactly why it can take a long time to ship an IE patch. We're dealing with about 440 different updates that have to be tested.
Hmmm, so Microsoft is so big that in order to fix a problem, they have a huge number of things to check...
Am I supposed to feel bad for them? Sorry, I don't. Their software runs on ~ 95% of all desktop computers. They have a war chest in the tens of billions of dollars. Their president has a net worth close to $50,000,000,000.00.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to pay, say, 10,000 people $100,000 / year to work on all of the fixes/patches and the testing. That would come out to only $1,000,000,000 per year. I think they can afford that.
Imagine warehouses and warehouses filled with people/hackers searching for the problems, finding them, and then testing the solutions.
Now, I know that realistically you can't just throw thousands of people at a set of coding problems and expect to get a thousand-fold efficiency increase...I'm just trying to illustrate the point that Microsoft can easily afford to bring to bear a humungous amount of resources to these problems.
The way the guy was talking in the article, he makes it sound like "oh, poor me...my team and I have to test (gasp) 440 different updates."
For an ordinary company, that would indeed represent a very daunting task. But Microsoft is *the* giant. It *should* be able to handle the consequences of its successes.
If not, then they're really...dumb.
EA had to outbid 4 other game companies to keep *themselves* from being shut out in the cold. So don't blame EA for this. Blame the NFL. EA was just doing what it had to do to survive in the football game market.
/.ers would RTFA before making comments.
I wish more
"Personal responsibility and accountability is perhaps the most important thing that people can teach their kids. However, it seems that popular culture is increasing making it appear that people are rewarded for lying, cheating, killing, bribery, getting something for no effort, etc. Take Enron, WorldCom, the current Republican administration, reality television, nationalized health care proposals, Grand Theft Auto (to be on topic, of course), public schools, the Earned Income Credit, short-term cash loans, pre-approved credit, six-year car loans, no-money-down mortgages, rent subsidies, many organized religions and labor unions, student loans, professional sports, soft drink commercials, and so forth."
Didn't you forget to add: getting free music and movies from the internet? It's not just the big entities that are corrupting the individual...the individual is more than happy to ingest the corruption as long as it suits his/her appetite.
In fact, it doesn't take a Big Evil Faceless Entity(TM) to provide the corrupting device. Individuals now have the power to put that corruption into the hands of millions of people worldwide ( e.g. Shawn Fanning and Napster ).
"Corporations and government need to become more modest and come back to realizing that they exist because of and for the People, not the other way around."
I have to disagree. Corporations do not "exist because of and for the People". They exist to make as much money as they possibly can...especially public companies ( I belive that the executives and board members of a public company can actually go to jail if they do something that interferes with the maximization of their shareholders investments ).
The only way to influence the corporations is through their pocketbooks, not by appealing to their sense of human decency and morality.
And the two best ways to hit them in the pocketbook ( that I can think of offhand ) are to (a) stop buying their product, or (b) sue them. And that's exaclty why the victim's families (in this case) are right in suing the game maker. Hooray for them! Hopefully, this will make the game makers think about their gameplot and whether someone might really die as a result of some bit of the gameplay.
Just my opinion.
(btw, I've been programming for 21 years...10 years of game development...so I'm not a game-basher...just someone who would like to see the creators of games think a little bit more about what they're offering to the public).