You have 10 years to cash in on your ideas. You want to screw the whole world over in a fit of selfish "VIEW ME AS THE ARTIST I AM!" tantrum, enjoy your 10 years, but the government should not support you after a decade of your decadence.
The number of people who earn enough money through their patents to be considered decadent is quite small. Patents are supposed to protect people like you, who come up with a great idea, from companies like Microsoft who can steal it and cost-lead your product until you go out of business.
Also, you're living in some sort of fantasy land where you think that all projects can go from early prototypes to final polish release in 10 years. I've worked on projects where the earliest (patented protected) prototype is more than 10 years old, and it's worth hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars and your argument is (apparently) "tough shit you should have sold it sooner!"
The real problem with patency isn't that it protects the inventors monopoly. It's that it's possible to patent practically anything, including ideas. Patency should protect the method of creation, not a concept.
Is it just me or isn't that very impressive? If global power consumption continues growing at 7% p/a then in just 50 years we'll the wind power that we're talking about here will be almost tapped out.
Everything that is in a program is stored in memory. Some bits of information must be allocated and stored for a long time. One common error is that programmers forget to free that memory when they no longer need it. The outcome of this is called a memory leak. Garbage collection is basically a process where the demigods of java inspect every group of memory that it can find and checks to see if anything needs it. If nothing is looking at that block of memory it frees that memory for other purposes.
The bonus for programmers is that it simplifies the use of memory dramatically. However, it does this at the cost of speed because some part of Java is going through and checking this memory. A common response is "why don't programmers just clean up there own memory?", well we would, but it's just not that easy to catch all of the memory. Almost all applications that you use today use an event model (e.g. you click the mouse and it fires a mouse event), so it's hard to understand when who what part of the program is responsible for freeing memory. Even worse, many applications have multiple processes running simultaneously with each process responsible for different aspects of the program.
The previous 2 governments have been shedding public services like they've been going out of style. I mean, they already sold of 48% of the National Telecommunications company and gave them all of their landlines, it's entirely unlikely that they want to do that again.
Additionally, you're forgetting how expensive it is to plant that much cable and how quickly usage will increase to fill that space.
New games have to deliver polished, bug-free code, and it has to be fun to play.
Excluding the fact that there is no production code that is entirely bug free:
It's simply not realistic to expect a game with the complexity of a MMO to be entirely bug free.
Especially when you consider many bugs simply won't appear until you get exceptionally heavy loads, or
might only happen, infrequently, to 1:500 users.
Besides, using this logic, nobody would have played WoW on release. I mean, WoW was anything but a
perfect gaming experience on release. We don't expect perfection in anything else, why do we expect it
for gaming?
I'm not saying that games shouldn't worry about producing quality products. What I'm saying is that
the metric for quality isn't simply "bug free", "deep content", it's "Is this game entertaining for the
vast majority of people".
Additionally, what you're forgetting is that Software Development that is as complicated as MMO
construction isn't like Civil Engineering. It's not like building a bridge, where all of the engineering
and interaction requirements are known. Instead, every new MMO solves new engineering and interaction
problems and as such, has to attract early adopters and then bridge the gap to get long term users.
Unlike a bridge, we don't build MMOs for known use cases, our MMOs evolve based on what appears to be
the long term users. Because of this, we can't design a totally finished product and expect it to
succeed. If we did, we'd keep producing re-skinned WoW, just like Hollywood re-skins the same shit action
movie over and over.
Again, I'm not saying that MMOs can produce garbage and expect us to buy it. What I am saying is that
we can't be unrealistic in our expectations if we want stuff that is new and interesting.
Our Universe is one possibility made by the starting conditions that effected us in our big bang. Other Universes have different possibilities due to different starting conditions in their big bang. Additionally, our universe is limited by what we perceive.
Additionally, just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it is a fantasy.
I am sure most people who really understand what is needed for usability couldn't code "Hello World!" in BASIC.
That's rapidly becoming untrue. Many Computer Science students have majors in UCD related fields while still remaining (comparatively) competent programmers. In my case (and I'm not unique from my degree), my majors are in Interaction Design and Mobile Computing.
I now work on a pure Information Architecture team, and 2/3s of the team have some sort of programming exposure.
The biggest problem for building more effective UIs in Open Source Software is actually four fold: 1) The people who initiated the project didn't think about how people should interact with the product during design. 2) Many people who are in OSS projects are unsupportive of usability suggestions. 3) It's very difficult to do both effective UI design while also solving technical problems. 4) Dramatic UI changes are often a HUGE chunk of work that often requires vast amounts of specific understanding of what's happening in the program.
While I was very good at programming, I didn't want to develop crap business applications all day as I didn't want to go insane, so I moved into Analysis. Specifically, I do User Experience Analysis, but a lot of CompSci people move into Business Analysis, Requirements Analysis, Process Analysis and so on.
By that shitty argument they should have released it in 2d because that's how the first two were done.
Doom III sucked because it didn't use any of the lessons learned by industry in story driven games since their last shitty effort in Quake II. Instead they improved the graphics to insane levels, and pumped it out.
Transient forms don't necessarily have to hang around for millions of years. Once you get an adaptation that works it can quickly become another total form.
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
Having to loot the remains of a fallen soldier is a plausible storyline mechanic. At least compared to "there's some neatly stacked ammo in some random corner".
I've interviewed kids who haven't even finished University and you can tell that they are going to be fantastic. Kids with amazing observational skills, aware of small differences and really eager to learn how to do things right. They are the people that get gigs straight out of uni and have the world open to them.
Unfortunately, most of the people on the job market are deadshits.
I wrote my Thesis in Word, and when I included code in my appendix it got to around 400 pages. I've also read hundreds of bodies of work in the same scale and never really had a problem.
Then again, many people have computers that crash and do weird things for no apparent reason, and I generally don't.
Slashdot Mirror
If we make up some numbers, and insist on the network paying for itself immediately then it doesn't look financially impressive. WOW I'M SHOCKED!
With the 1.1.3 patch included just a new sexy engine.
Especially those of us who got outleveled by their friends.
You have 10 years to cash in on your ideas. You want to screw the whole world over in a fit of selfish "VIEW ME AS THE ARTIST I AM!" tantrum, enjoy your 10 years, but the government should not support you after a decade of your decadence.
The number of people who earn enough money through their patents to be considered decadent is quite small. Patents are supposed to protect people like you, who come up with a great idea, from companies like Microsoft who can steal it and cost-lead your product until you go out of business.
Also, you're living in some sort of fantasy land where you think that all projects can go from early prototypes to final polish release in 10 years. I've worked on projects where the earliest (patented protected) prototype is more than 10 years old, and it's worth hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars and your argument is (apparently) "tough shit you should have sold it sooner!"
The real problem with patency isn't that it protects the inventors monopoly. It's that it's possible to patent practically anything, including ideas. Patency should protect the method of creation, not a concept.
Is it just me or isn't that very impressive? If global power consumption continues growing at 7% p/a then in just 50 years we'll the wind power that we're talking about here will be almost tapped out.
Everything that is in a program is stored in memory. Some bits of information must be allocated and stored for a long time. One common error is that programmers forget to free that memory when they no longer need it. The outcome of this is called a memory leak. Garbage collection is basically a process where the demigods of java inspect every group of memory that it can find and checks to see if anything needs it. If nothing is looking at that block of memory it frees that memory for other purposes.
The bonus for programmers is that it simplifies the use of memory dramatically. However, it does this at the cost of speed because some part of Java is going through and checking this memory. A common response is "why don't programmers just clean up there own memory?", well we would, but it's just not that easy to catch all of the memory. Almost all applications that you use today use an event model (e.g. you click the mouse and it fires a mouse event), so it's hard to understand when who what part of the program is responsible for freeing memory. Even worse, many applications have multiple processes running simultaneously with each process responsible for different aspects of the program.
Computer Science is larger than understanding how computers work. How about understanding how people work with computers?
What does it matter you bigoted, hateful bastards?
1. We need salary caps that ensures politicians are earning no more than the average man they represent
Who in their right mind wants to get a job that pays no more than the average wage?
as a nation
The previous 2 governments have been shedding public services like they've been going out of style. I mean, they already sold of 48% of the National Telecommunications company and gave them all of their landlines, it's entirely unlikely that they want to do that again.
Additionally, you're forgetting how expensive it is to plant that much cable and how quickly usage will increase to fill that space.
New games have to deliver polished, bug-free code, and it has to be fun to play.
Excluding the fact that there is no production code that is entirely bug free:
It's simply not realistic to expect a game with the complexity of a MMO to be entirely bug free. Especially when you consider many bugs simply won't appear until you get exceptionally heavy loads, or might only happen, infrequently, to 1:500 users.
Besides, using this logic, nobody would have played WoW on release. I mean, WoW was anything but a perfect gaming experience on release. We don't expect perfection in anything else, why do we expect it for gaming?
I'm not saying that games shouldn't worry about producing quality products. What I'm saying is that the metric for quality isn't simply "bug free", "deep content", it's "Is this game entertaining for the vast majority of people".
Additionally, what you're forgetting is that Software Development that is as complicated as MMO construction isn't like Civil Engineering. It's not like building a bridge, where all of the engineering and interaction requirements are known. Instead, every new MMO solves new engineering and interaction problems and as such, has to attract early adopters and then bridge the gap to get long term users.
Unlike a bridge, we don't build MMOs for known use cases, our MMOs evolve based on what appears to be the long term users. Because of this, we can't design a totally finished product and expect it to succeed. If we did, we'd keep producing re-skinned WoW, just like Hollywood re-skins the same shit action movie over and over.
Again, I'm not saying that MMOs can produce garbage and expect us to buy it. What I am saying is that we can't be unrealistic in our expectations if we want stuff that is new and interesting.
Our Universe is one possibility made by the starting conditions that effected us in our big bang. Other Universes have different possibilities due to different starting conditions in their big bang. Additionally, our universe is limited by what we perceive.
Additionally, just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it is a fantasy.
The screenshots are beautiful. The description sounds lovely.
Aesthetics and marketing are not User Centred Design, but a lot of people think it is.
I am sure most people who really understand what is needed for usability couldn't code "Hello World!" in BASIC.
That's rapidly becoming untrue. Many Computer Science students have majors in UCD related fields while still remaining (comparatively) competent programmers. In my case (and I'm not unique from my degree), my majors are in Interaction Design and Mobile Computing.
I now work on a pure Information Architecture team, and 2/3s of the team have some sort of programming exposure.
The biggest problem for building more effective UIs in Open Source Software is actually four fold: 1) The people who initiated the project didn't think about how people should interact with the product during design. 2) Many people who are in OSS projects are unsupportive of usability suggestions. 3) It's very difficult to do both effective UI design while also solving technical problems. 4) Dramatic UI changes are often a HUGE chunk of work that often requires vast amounts of specific understanding of what's happening in the program.
And the unwashed would somehow do something else if they migrated to *nix?
Do you have any evidence of that? Every time I install various *nix distros I find they take about as much time as Windows.
While I was very good at programming, I didn't want to develop crap business applications all day as I didn't want to go insane, so I moved into Analysis. Specifically, I do User Experience Analysis, but a lot of CompSci people move into Business Analysis, Requirements Analysis, Process Analysis and so on.
By that shitty argument they should have released it in 2d because that's how the first two were done.
Doom III sucked because it didn't use any of the lessons learned by industry in story driven games since their last shitty effort in Quake II. Instead they improved the graphics to insane levels, and pumped it out.
Transient forms don't necessarily have to hang around for millions of years. Once you get an adaptation that works it can quickly become another total form. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
Mom?
Having to loot the remains of a fallen soldier is a plausible storyline mechanic. At least compared to "there's some neatly stacked ammo in some random corner".
That's right, because there is no other debugging tools on windows other than visual studio.
... what?
Wait
If you want to sample music for free, use the radio.
I've interviewed kids who haven't even finished University and you can tell that they are going to be fantastic. Kids with amazing observational skills, aware of small differences and really eager to learn how to do things right. They are the people that get gigs straight out of uni and have the world open to them.
Unfortunately, most of the people on the job market are deadshits.
I wrote my Thesis in Word, and when I included code in my appendix it got to around 400 pages. I've also read hundreds of bodies of work in the same scale and never really had a problem.
Then again, many people have computers that crash and do weird things for no apparent reason, and I generally don't.