For some games it might be possible to move substantial logic on the server. These may be: 1) games where there are no strict lag requirements (e.g. adventure games, puzzle games like Puzzle Pirates); 2) games where the needed bandwidth for each client is small and the client does some prediction and/or interpolation.
It is true that you have the additional cost of the server (which would need a lot of bandwidth _and_ computational power); but this cost might be more than compensated by the additional income due to less "piracy". (Or it might not.)
Unless the server was required for the gameplay (MMO), I certainly would not buy and play such a game
The server may not be required for gameplay, but it could still be required to produce the game in the first place.
For example, suppose you are planning to create a a niche game, such as an old-style adventure game, which has a small audience of aficionados. You calculate that, if piracy did not exist, there would be enough buyers to justify the production of the game; but with piracy, you won't have enough customers, and therefore you will not produce the game (otherwise you would be working at a loss).
So the technique might make sense even for games which wouldn't really require an internet connection.
Hi there. A method occured to me which might be able to prevent so-called "piracy" without using DRM, and I would be interested in slashotters' opinion about it.
The method would be similar to what some online-rpgs seem to do. The game would require the user to connect to a server in order to play. The game is divided in: a client executable (which runs on the user's computer) and a server executable (which runs on a large-bandwidth computer owned by the software house).
The key point is that part of the logic runs on the server and never gets to the client. The client contains the graphics and some logic, but some important calculations (e.g. player positions) are done by the server, and only the result of those calculations are sent to the client.
It seems to me that such game could not be pirated, unless you crack the server (but how likely is it?) or you are willing to rewrite large parts of the logic. Imagine an adventure game done like this.
Do you think this could work? Are there some games (e.g. rpgs) which already use this technique? Thanks for any opinion.
The FDA exists to test and approve drugs to prevent tragedies such as the thalidomide
In brief, this argument is wrong because it does not take into account that costs and benefits are probabilistic, not known in advance, and there is no way to remove the bad effects without removing the good effects also.
1.
The problem you mention can also be solved without the FDA, by making drug companies bear the cost of any future harm done by their drugs, i.e. by giving them a just punishment. This way you provide a deterrent for the future (and the lost lives can't be brought back anyway). This way, in the future, all companies will know they bear the costs of harm, so it will be in their interest to make enough safety tests. How much is enough? They will release a drug _only_ when its (probabilistic) benefits are bigger then its (probabilistic) costs. Which is _exactly_ what we want: we want a drug released only if its potential benefit outweight its potential harm. That is, if its potential profits outweight its potential cost in damages.
To the contrary, creating a government-run FDA is not a good alternative. The reason is that the government employee has an incentive to always block a drug that could be unsafe, regardless of its potential benefit. He will only take the risks to himself into accout. Put yourself in the position of the government employee: if you approve a drug which turns out to be harmful, you will be responsible. If, on the other hand, you block a drug which could have saved a million lives, who will know? Nobody will punish you. In other words, the individual interest of the FDA employee is divergent from the interests of society as a whole; whereas the interests of the drug company can be made to correspond (provided decision-makers can be justly punished) with the interests of society.
Quoting from David Friedman's "The Machinery of freedom":
At least one doctor associated with the development of cortisone believes it would not now be available if the FDA had at that time enforced as stringent safety standards as it does now. The same has been saidâ"upon how much evidence I do not knowâ"of penicillin. There will doubtless be people who gamble their lives on the use of new and unsafe drugs and lose. Against that we must set the lives of the millions who would be dead today if we had 'played safe' 50 years ago.
(The argument of this chapter received striking support in 1981, when the FDA published a press release confessing to mass murder. That was not, of course, the way in which the release was worded; it was simply an announcement that the FDA had approved the use of timolol, a Î-blocker, to prevent recurrences of heart attacks.
At the time timolol was approved, Î-blockers had been widely used outside the U.S. for over ten years. It was estimated that the use of timolol would save from seven thousand to ten thousand lives a year in the U.S. So the FDA, by forbidding the use of Î-blockers before l981, was responsible for something close to a hundred thousand unnecessary deaths.)
Another problem is that the FDA has _no_ way on knowing if a drug's benefit outweight its side-effects, simply because that depends on the individual. For example, there are currently american citizens who regularly travel to Canada to buy a drug which is illegal in the USA, but is nonetheless essential for their life. Their illness is so serious that side-effects are irrelevant to them. How can anyone tell me if some side effects are worse for me than their benefits? Each individual has a right to decide for himself what is best for himself. Currently, if you have rare illness and some government employee has decided the side effects are "too big", that's just tough luck for you: you have to die. Someone may call this justice, I don't.
As much as the media may want it to be, there is no competition in a market with a Monopoly.
Do you think the pricing of Vista would be the same if MacOSX and Linux did not exist? Do you think Vista would have even been released without their competition?
"So it seems that Windows has a negative price tag as far as Dell is concerned! That's hardy Linux friendly or even consumer friendly. It's downright rotten,"
All major brand-name computers come with a ton of crapware pre-installed. Why do you think they do that? Because they get PAID to put in there. When you eliminate Windows, you also eliminate the extra revenue from pre-installed crapware.
Does this mean Microsoft is loosing money for each laptop sold by Dell?
You criticize the grandparent for expressing skepticism without proof. But the burden of proof should be on the other side. The grandparent could simply have said "what proof do you have that Vista decreases playback quality on unprotected media?"
To the contrary, it is important to keep moral and law strictly separate. What about abortion and other kinds of prohibition (including drugs)? Sometimes prohibiting immoral actions is counterproductive.
This adds to the fact that moral rules are a personal thing, and do not even need evidence to be followed, whereas a legal restriction must be based on evidence.
Nov 27 11:21:05 We're paying for the promise that Microsoft made to our customers not to sue them
Nov 27 11:21:43 Not to sue them for *what*? For problems you don't acknowledge exist?
Signing the deal does not imply acknowledging the problem. Novell may not believe the problem exists, and still acknowledge that some customers do. Therefore it is entirely consistent for Novell to sign a patent deal without thinking that Linux really violates patents.
For competition to hold, it's not at all necessary for competitors to have similar market shares. To convince yourself, just ask yourself if Microsoft could price Vista $3000 per box. Of course not. Why? Because if it did, people would switch to a competitor, because the migration would be cheaper than paying that much.
In order for competition to have its benefic effects (on prices and innovation), all is necessary is that MS be afraid that, should it do some wrong move, it would loose market share to competitors.
Re:The Success of the OS is Predetermined.
on
Why Vista Took So Long
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
1. As a monopoly, they define how much they charge.
That's an exaggeration. Microsoft has at least 3 competitors: Linux, Mac and Pirated Windows (TM), without which the price of Vista would be much higher.
Of course, there's still vendor lock-in, which pushes in the opposite direction (decreasing the power of those competitors and increasing the price of Vista), but competition is far from absent.
If you install the Tab Mix Plus extension you can do that and more. For example you can have the tab-bar take two or more rows when a lot of tabs are open.
Note the extension works for firefox 2, though you have to download it here. The version in the official addons page only supports firefox up to 1.6.
It would be rather odd if somebody managed to release GPL3-licensed software for the X360, Microsoft would suddenly be forced to open up their hardware.
Maybe you are interpreting GPL3 too extremely. I think Microsoft would only need to "open up" the X360 if it released a GPL3 program which runs on X360.
But under GPL 2, there's no guarantee that the hardware provided with the software will allow an improved version to run, which makes an end-run around FSF freedom #1.
But you do have freedom to run the improved version, just not on the same machine. You are free to build a machine which runs the modified software.
Requiring to be able to run the modified software on the same machine would be a restriction on the hardware, not on the software, so it seems a software license is not the right place for it.
I am going to say something unpopular.:-) After all, what's so wrong about owners controlling how their work is used? Today many niche genres aren't produced because they have too few aficionados and, with the so-called "piracy", artists would not be able to cover expenses. So the only products that are published are those which appeal to large audiences. Just imagine how much more niche music, or niche games, would be produced if piracy were impossibile (I am thinking about old-style adventure games and classical music, but I'm sure you can think of many more examples). And I also believe (I know this is still more unpopular) that the Free Software Movement would get a boost also, since people would not be able to use pirated programs anymore.
Okay, so now they placed the close tab button on the active tab itself. I've heard of that being planned. I, however, really don't like that myself. Does anyone know if it's possible to turn off? Because if not, I'm not switching.
Why? If you are just afraid to close tabs by mistake, consider there's a function to reopen closed tabs. You can get a taste of this with the excellent Tab Mix Plus extension.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for your comment Digital_Quartz.
For some games it might be possible to move substantial logic on the server. These may be: 1) games where there are no strict lag requirements (e.g. adventure games, puzzle games like Puzzle Pirates); 2) games where the needed bandwidth for each client is small and the client does some prediction and/or interpolation.
It is true that you have the additional cost of the server (which would need a lot of bandwidth _and_ computational power); but this cost might be more than compensated by the additional income due to less "piracy". (Or it might not.)
The server may not be required for gameplay, but it could still be required to produce the game in the first place.
For example, suppose you are planning to create a a niche game, such as an old-style adventure game, which has a small audience of aficionados. You calculate that, if piracy did not exist, there would be enough buyers to justify the production of the game; but with piracy, you won't have enough customers, and therefore you will not produce the game (otherwise you would be working at a loss).
So the technique might make sense even for games which wouldn't really require an internet connection.
Thank you Rowanyote.
Actually I was serious...
The method would be similar to what some online-rpgs seem to do. The game would require the user to connect to a server in order to play. The game is divided in: a client executable (which runs on the user's computer) and a server executable (which runs on a large-bandwidth computer owned by the software house).
The key point is that part of the logic runs on the server and never gets to the client. The client contains the graphics and some logic, but some important calculations (e.g. player positions) are done by the server, and only the result of those calculations are sent to the client.
It seems to me that such game could not be pirated, unless you crack the server (but how likely is it?) or you are willing to rewrite large parts of the logic. Imagine an adventure game done like this.
Do you think this could work? Are there some games (e.g. rpgs) which already use this technique? Thanks for any opinion.
In brief, this argument is wrong because it does not take into account that costs and benefits are probabilistic, not known in advance, and there is no way to remove the bad effects without removing the good effects also.
1. The problem you mention can also be solved without the FDA, by making drug companies bear the cost of any future harm done by their drugs, i.e. by giving them a just punishment. This way you provide a deterrent for the future (and the lost lives can't be brought back anyway). This way, in the future, all companies will know they bear the costs of harm, so it will be in their interest to make enough safety tests. How much is enough? They will release a drug _only_ when its (probabilistic) benefits are bigger then its (probabilistic) costs. Which is _exactly_ what we want: we want a drug released only if its potential benefit outweight its potential harm. That is, if its potential profits outweight its potential cost in damages.
To the contrary, creating a government-run FDA is not a good alternative. The reason is that the government employee has an incentive to always block a drug that could be unsafe, regardless of its potential benefit. He will only take the risks to himself into accout. Put yourself in the position of the government employee: if you approve a drug which turns out to be harmful, you will be responsible. If, on the other hand, you block a drug which could have saved a million lives, who will know? Nobody will punish you. In other words, the individual interest of the FDA employee is divergent from the interests of society as a whole; whereas the interests of the drug company can be made to correspond (provided decision-makers can be justly punished) with the interests of society.
Quoting from David Friedman's "The Machinery of freedom":
Another problem is that the FDA has _no_ way on knowing if a drug's benefit outweight its side-effects, simply because that depends on the individual. For example, there are currently american citizens who regularly travel to Canada to buy a drug which is illegal in the USA, but is nonetheless essential for their life. Their illness is so serious that side-effects are irrelevant to them. How can anyone tell me if some side effects are worse for me than their benefits? Each individual has a right to decide for himself what is best for himself. Currently, if you have rare illness and some government employee has decided the side effects are "too big", that's just tough luck for you: you have to die. Someone may call this justice, I don't.
People intereste
Do you think the pricing of Vista would be the same if MacOSX and Linux did not exist? Do you think Vista would have even been released without their competition?
Does this mean Microsoft is loosing money for each laptop sold by Dell?
How could two licenses ever be "mutually exclusive"?
What an incredibly unfair thing to say. The consumer can always choose not to buy.
You criticize the grandparent for expressing skepticism without proof. But the burden of proof should be on the other side. The grandparent could simply have said "what proof do you have that Vista decreases playback quality on unprotected media?"
To the contrary, it is important to keep moral and law strictly separate. What about abortion and other kinds of prohibition (including drugs)? Sometimes prohibiting immoral actions is counterproductive.
This adds to the fact that moral rules are a personal thing, and do not even need evidence to be followed, whereas a legal restriction must be based on evidence.
In order for competition to have its benefic effects (on prices and innovation), all is necessary is that MS be afraid that, should it do some wrong move, it would loose market share to competitors.
Of course, there's still vendor lock-in, which pushes in the opposite direction (decreasing the power of those competitors and increasing the price of Vista), but competition is far from absent.
I'm sure Mark would have no trouble finding more developers if he paid them...
Note the extension works for firefox 2, though you have to download it here. The version in the official addons page only supports firefox up to 1.6.
That is extremely insightful.
But you do have freedom to run the improved version, just not on the same machine. You are free to build a machine which runs the modified software.
Requiring to be able to run the modified software on the same machine would be a restriction on the hardware, not on the software, so it seems a software license is not the right place for it.
I am going to say something unpopular. :-) After all, what's so wrong about owners controlling how their work is used? Today many niche genres aren't produced because they have too few aficionados and, with the so-called "piracy", artists would not be able to cover expenses. So the only products that are published are those which appeal to large audiences. Just imagine how much more niche music, or niche games, would be produced if piracy were impossibile (I am thinking about old-style adventure games and classical music, but I'm sure you can think of many more examples). And I also believe (I know this is still more unpopular) that the Free Software Movement would get a boost also, since people would not be able to use pirated programs anymore.
OTOH this is rare and, when it happens you can undo the closing via the new trashcan feature.
Could this technique also be used to enlarge one's penis?
Why? If you are just afraid to close tabs by mistake, consider there's a function to reopen closed tabs. You can get a taste of this with the excellent Tab Mix Plus extension.
You make one mistake: > even Joe six pack will at some point realize That's the mistake.