These games need much fewer resources to write, in the same way that writing a novel takes fewer resources than making a movie. Movies haven't made novels obsolete.
What puzzles me about the continuing development of these games is not so much that it is happening, but the apparently archaic implementation techniques that are still in use. Whenever I see these things advertised I'm pointed to files in obscure formats and apparently need to install some kind of interpreter to run them.
I can't be bothered, actually. If it was playable directly in the browser, I may have given it a go. Surely that would be easily done for a text game given a bit of support on the web server side.
I hope software patents stay around for a while, in the USA that is, simply for the fine job they are doing in discrediting the entire concept of patents. A few more years of this madness and it will be ripe for abolition.
If in his own head it was an attempt to damage the government, or start a civil war, rather than to terrorise the population, then I wouldn't consider it an act of terrorism.
But I don't mean to lead into a tedius discussion about the definition of terrorism. There are numerous definitions, apparently.
The US has bombed non-military government buildings in its campaigns.
Attacking government facilities is an act of war, not terrorism. Otherwise the US government itself would be a terrorist organisation, for attacking the governments of Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.
The usual work-around for legal problems in a particular country is to host the project somewhere else. This could involve moving the servers and any associated legal framework.
An alternative for something as modular as Firefox would be to move the "illegal" functionality into a separate module which could be hosted elsewhere. Of course this inconveniences users because the initial Firefox installation, at least in the US, would no longer support the functionality.
Is Windows really 100x less efficient than Linux? This seems unlikely to me. The cost of Windows licences is no consideration to them, and they can adapt it if required.
Microsoft can certainly throw away money for a long time, if they think they can win in the end. Is the xbox profitable yet, and has it competed successfully against Sony and Nintendo?
I have the impression they don't just want rack space to install their own equipment when the court order is granted. They want the universities to supply the equipment, presumably it would be a system where the FBI or whoever can control the system remotely, whenever they want, although in theory only after obtaining a court order, and such a system would presumably select the packets according to configured filters and return them to their site somewhere on the Internet.
It seems to be gradually converging towards the kind of system used by "Big Brother" in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Taken to its extreme, your own computer would be capable of reporting everything you do and the contents of any of your files to the "authorities" whenever they feel like listening in.
Governments and charities already spend billions on medical research. If the patent system was abolished, I suspect that they could easily fund any additional research that private companies would hypothetically no longer carry out, using the savings that they would obtain from cheaper drugs (since they also spend a lot on drugs).
I assume all the paper you get from a bank would be easily forged, so doesn't really help you prove anything.
What bothers me is that all of the security is for the bank's purposes. There's nothing that would help me prove that my money was ever in the bank in the first place, if it suddenly "disappeared" from their records one day.
What about that Chinese embassy that they bombed in Belgrade, if I remember correctly because they had used an outdated map? Perhaps Google maps would actually have be an improvement?
NO, they should have confiscated all the maps. Then the bombers could never have planned the attack, since they wouldn't have known about the transfer point between the mainline rail and the tube.
Perhaps he was intending to shoot the virii, as they slipped under the door or came down the chimney. I think you'd need extra ammo, since they are small and hard to hit, but very numerous.
I don't know if you can avoid it like this. You have to come out sooner or later, and the flu will still be out there waiting.
Epidemics only stop when everybody has been infected or perhaps vaccinated, so that they are either resistant or dead.
But look at the bright side, if the mortality rate is high, and you survive, there may be plenty of cheap real estate available afterwards, and it will be good for the environment (except for birds, and other susceptible species).
As long as scientific advances are still made, it doesn't matter much whether the research takes place in the United States or in other countries such as India and China.
Scientists are basically the same throughout the world. They are the original creaters of culture based on shared interest instead of nationalism.
Science will tend to follow production, product development, and engineering, and the shift away from the USA is already decades old.
Disclaimer: I don't live in the US, which is why it's no big deal to me, although it was nice to have the results available in English.
It's quite a ridiculous situation really. Humanity discovers that its use of fossil fuels has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to increased greenhouse effect and melting ice caps.
Its response? Get up there as fast as possible to exploit the newly accessible fossil fuel resources.
I don't think boredom is such an issue. None of the things you mention are intrinsically boring. In fact nothing is intrinsically boring, it's all in the mind of the person doing it.
There are other perceptual issues that may be more important.
Quality: who wants to work on something if they think it will be 2nd rate?
Recognition: who wants to work on some little project that nobody else uses, or even knows exists? Who wants to contribute to a monster like OpenOffice, Mozilla or X11 and be recognised only by one line of 500 in an obscure credits file somewhere, that nobody ever reads?
But ultimately, it there is no reward, financial or otherwise, people will tend not to be motivated to do anything.
Slashdot Mirror
What puzzles me about the continuing development of these games is not so much that it is happening, but the apparently archaic implementation techniques that are still in use. Whenever I see these things advertised I'm pointed to files in obscure formats and apparently need to install some kind of interpreter to run them.
I can't be bothered, actually. If it was playable directly in the browser, I may have given it a go. Surely that would be easily done for a text game given a bit of support on the web server side.
I hope software patents stay around for a while, in the USA that is, simply for the fine job they are doing in discrediting the entire concept of patents. A few more years of this madness and it will be ripe for abolition.
But I don't mean to lead into a tedius discussion about the definition of terrorism. There are numerous definitions, apparently.
The US has bombed non-military government buildings in its campaigns.
Perhaps that's how they intend to implement it: a FBI VPN-enabled computer attached to each student machine.
Attacking government facilities is an act of war, not terrorism. Otherwise the US government itself would be a terrorist organisation, for attacking the governments of Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.
An alternative for something as modular as Firefox would be to move the "illegal" functionality into a separate module which could be hosted elsewhere. Of course this inconveniences users because the initial Firefox installation, at least in the US, would no longer support the functionality.
You do realise that James Bond is a fictional character?
Is Windows really 100x less efficient than Linux? This seems unlikely to me. The cost of Windows licences is no consideration to them, and they can adapt it if required.
Microsoft can certainly throw away money for a long time, if they think they can win in the end. Is the xbox profitable yet, and has it competed successfully against Sony and Nintendo?
It seems to be gradually converging towards the kind of system used by "Big Brother" in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Taken to its extreme, your own computer would be capable of reporting everything you do and the contents of any of your files to the "authorities" whenever they feel like listening in.
Governments and charities already spend billions on medical research. If the patent system was abolished, I suspect that they could easily fund any additional research that private companies would hypothetically no longer carry out, using the savings that they would obtain from cheaper drugs (since they also spend a lot on drugs).
No probemo?! Read this.
Great, and what will you send to catch the cat?
No, but how long would it live, and how many bird eggs etc. would it eat in the meantime?
What bothers me is that all of the security is for the bank's purposes. There's nothing that would help me prove that my money was ever in the bank in the first place, if it suddenly "disappeared" from their records one day.
Furthermore, there could be interesting spin-offs in AI and robotics. These could be a lot more useful than any man-in-space technology.
Wouldn't that be a copyright violation?
What about that Chinese embassy that they bombed in Belgrade, if I remember correctly because they had used an outdated map? Perhaps Google maps would actually have be an improvement?
NO, they should have confiscated all the maps. Then the bombers could never have planned the attack, since they wouldn't have known about the transfer point between the mainline rail and the tube.
It's a rare example of a nerdish story of interest to the general population.
Perhaps he was intending to shoot the virii, as they slipped under the door or came down the chimney. I think you'd need extra ammo, since they are small and hard to hit, but very numerous.
Epidemics only stop when everybody has been infected or perhaps vaccinated, so that they are either resistant or dead.
But look at the bright side, if the mortality rate is high, and you survive, there may be plenty of cheap real estate available afterwards, and it will be good for the environment (except for birds, and other susceptible species).
Scientists are basically the same throughout the world. They are the original creaters of culture based on shared interest instead of nationalism.
Science will tend to follow production, product development, and engineering, and the shift away from the USA is already decades old.
Disclaimer: I don't live in the US, which is why it's no big deal to me, although it was nice to have the results available in English.
Its response? Get up there as fast as possible to exploit the newly accessible fossil fuel resources.
There are other perceptual issues that may be more important.
Quality: who wants to work on something if they think it will be 2nd rate?
Recognition: who wants to work on some little project that nobody else uses, or even knows exists? Who wants to contribute to a monster like OpenOffice, Mozilla or X11 and be recognised only by one line of 500 in an obscure credits file somewhere, that nobody ever reads?
But ultimately, it there is no reward, financial or otherwise, people will tend not to be motivated to do anything.