"Just like the legal community is pretty much still using WordPerfect."
I was surprised myself to discover that this is actually not true. Some lawyers still prefer it, but in most large firms they pretty much use MS Word across the board.
(IHWWALOLF = I have worked with a lot of large firms.)
It sounded to me as though he was trying to make a general evaluation of the interface, not recommend it to you specifically. That's why it matters what most people will think about the interface.
He wasn't saying there is anything wrong with being a "techie", just that it isn't a good thing when only techies can understand an interface. Because, *gasp* most people aren't techies.
I would imagine that virtually everyone here is a techie, including the GP so, don't worry, you're among friends.:)
"Right now, the software industry is failing in that aspect completely."
Well yeah, if we accept your back-of-the-napkin figures. But if the demand is less than 2x greater at $25, then they are right to leave it at $50. (Accepting, of course, your two-price idealization). All we're seeing is a disagreement between Valve and the rest of the PC games world over the true price elasticity of games.
The games industry is stupid in a lot of ways, but I think we have to trust that they do know how to manipulate us so as to extract the maximum profit.
Umm...that depends on where you are asked to serve. I served on a jury last year because the judge there made it very difficult to be excluded. We had a blind person and a woman who was 8 months pregnant in our jury as well.
Of course, you can always get excluded by blatantly lying in open court during voir dire by saying you are inherently biased against one of the parties, or something like that. but it's not the smart people who do that, just the unscrupulous ones.
Whoa hold on there. I was in agreement with everything you said up until "This is all as opposed to socialism in which the government controls all of the means of exchange and production."
I believe the word you were looking for is "communism" not "socialism". Socialism is, on many formulations (it is quite a vague term) compatible with a market economy.
Care to make it interesting? I'll bet you a loaf of bread that, one year from now, no one will have starved. (Because of the current economic crisis, that is.)
But the same it true of patenting a physical machine. You do not patent a specific physical implementation of a mechanical process. Rather, you process a process or method itself. (note, for example, the importance of the language "method for" in a patent application)
Surely you can see the similarities between the abstract processes covered by patents on (e.g.) physical machines and the algorithms covered by software patents. The difference, it seems to me, is just one of implementation. One is implemented through the construction of a machine made of nuts and bolts, the other is implemented through the construction of a machine made of bits stored in silicon.
So, given these similarities, I think that the burden falls on the opponent of software patents to show why they are different. And, I take it, you'll want to say that this difference is that an algorithm is a mathematical object (to use some convenient Platonist language) while a mechanical process if some other sort of abstract thing. So, the obvious question, and one I don't think I've heard anyone answer, is: Why does this difference matter? Why shouldn't one be able to patent the Sieve of Erathostenes (or some other paradigmatic mathematical algorithm)?
Slashdot Mirror
"Just like the legal community is pretty much still using WordPerfect."
I was surprised myself to discover that this is actually not true. Some lawyers still prefer it, but in most large firms they pretty much use MS Word across the board.
(IHWWALOLF = I have worked with a lot of large firms.)
Hotbot ftw!
Or, perhaps scientists are aware of this effect, have quantified it, and thus can control for it in their studies.
Nah. Inconceivable.
What!? Who!?
Yes. Thank you.
"DO NOT WANT!"
As a 26-year-old, let me be the first to say:
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
You really should Yahoo Answers more.
[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080929081340AAlgb21]
[Citation Needed]
It sounded to me as though he was trying to make a general evaluation of the interface, not recommend it to you specifically. That's why it matters what most people will think about the interface.
Wow. A bit hypersensitive maybe?
He wasn't saying there is anything wrong with being a "techie", just that it isn't a good thing when only techies can understand an interface. Because, *gasp* most people aren't techies.
I would imagine that virtually everyone here is a techie, including the GP so, don't worry, you're among friends. :)
Other than that, yes, I'm with you.
LOL. Understandable; and besides, let's face it, "correlation is not causation" is usually a safe default response around here. :)
I see your point, but how is this an example of confusing correlation with causation?
"Unless the MCP goes bankrupt"
Give em time...
I would think so.
But it certainly does influence the probability!
(Or, rather, our assessment of the probability. Philosophy of statistics is an interesting thing...)
"Right now, the software industry is failing in that aspect completely."
Well yeah, if we accept your back-of-the-napkin figures. But if the demand is less than 2x greater at $25, then they are right to leave it at $50. (Accepting, of course, your two-price idealization). All we're seeing is a disagreement between Valve and the rest of the PC games world over the true price elasticity of games.
The games industry is stupid in a lot of ways, but I think we have to trust that they do know how to manipulate us so as to extract the maximum profit.
Umm...that depends on where you are asked to serve. I served on a jury last year because the judge there made it very difficult to be excluded. We had a blind person and a woman who was 8 months pregnant in our jury as well.
Of course, you can always get excluded by blatantly lying in open court during voir dire by saying you are inherently biased against one of the parties, or something like that. but it's not the smart people who do that, just the unscrupulous ones.
Nope. I'm not. I looked it up and everything. :)
"Socialism" is a broad term which can apply to both "light" forms like social democracy or "heavy" forms like Communism.
Whoa hold on there. I was in agreement with everything you said up until "This is all as opposed to socialism in which the government controls all of the means of exchange and production."
I believe the word you were looking for is "communism" not "socialism". Socialism is, on many formulations (it is quite a vague term) compatible with a market economy.
"colonslash"
Thats really quite a gruesome name you have there.
Shhhh. He'll hear you!
Care to make it interesting? I'll bet you a loaf of bread that, one year from now, no one will have starved. (Because of the current economic crisis, that is.)
But the same it true of patenting a physical machine. You do not patent a specific physical implementation of a mechanical process. Rather, you process a process or method itself. (note, for example, the importance of the language "method for" in a patent application)
Surely you can see the similarities between the abstract processes covered by patents on (e.g.) physical machines and the algorithms covered by software patents. The difference, it seems to me, is just one of implementation. One is implemented through the construction of a machine made of nuts and bolts, the other is implemented through the construction of a machine made of bits stored in silicon.
So, given these similarities, I think that the burden falls on the opponent of software patents to show why they are different. And, I take it, you'll want to say that this difference is that an algorithm is a mathematical object (to use some convenient Platonist language) while a mechanical process if some other sort of abstract thing. So, the obvious question, and one I don't think I've heard anyone answer, is: Why does this difference matter? Why shouldn't one be able to patent the Sieve of Erathostenes (or some other paradigmatic mathematical algorithm)?
It sounds like you have a problem with vague/overbroad patents, not software patents per-se. If so, than you and I have no disagreement.
This is why I asked. So far I have gotten two different responses neither of which, I contend, hold up to scrutiny at all.
I think that, like so many other soundbites "software is math" just doesn't easily survive its own explication.