The crypto engine would create a hash value of the requesting binary and check it against an internal permissions list to verify that the program is the correct program, and it's not been tampered with.
I don't think anyone but the most naive users were surprised at last weeks results, or at this. Even "Average Joe Internet User" knows that, in general, Internet advertisers and their practices are shady.
If you're a christian, you believe that "God" is an asexually-reproducing critter who splits itself into various portions [...]
I'm not Christian, and I find their beliefs silly as well, but this is incorrect. In Christianity, God is omnipresent, not divided amongst all living things. If you're referring to Adam (of the "Adam and Eve" duo), man was created by God, not spawned from him. God is a sexually reproducing creature, as would be indicated by the fact he required a woman to be impregnated by him. The 'how' is the divine mystery of immaculate conception.
If you're going to bash religion, make sure you know about what you're actually bashing...
If I remember that story correctly, it was one dev putting his foot in his mouth, and other devs were forced come out of the woodwork to essentially say "he doesn't speak for the entire Mozilla organization." The jist I got from the story is there's a divide among Mozilla's community about whom is the browser's intended market.
good luck trying to make that abstraction count for anything in the real world.
Just look at any number of deals involving selling marketing data, user data, usage data (the list goes on). It's not an abstract value if there's real world money being passed back and forth in exchange for information. However, don't be surprised when you find out the actual market value for your information somewhere around 25 to 50 cents.
Every six months, we rank our co-workers. Those listed at the bottom by nearly everyone either get canned or take the hint and start looking for employment elsewhere.
That's an excellent way to turn your workplace dynamic into a "Good Ol' Boys" environment, regardless if it's good or bad for the business. It's akin to nepotism, you're just not related.
Source code alone is meaningless if you can't actually *use* it.
Assuming the code provided is exactly what's used, you can use the source code to do your own code audit. You can see where there might be security problems, see if there's any shady stuff going on, etc.
Of course, this usefulness relies on those first 8 words of my comment.
It's also an incredibly blinkered approach that could well backfire.
EA's actually been doing this exact thing for a while now (called "Project $10"). It hasn't backfired on them. I think Sony let EA take the "might backfire" plunge 2 years ago and watched how it played out. EA didn't seem damaged by it, so Sony is adopting it for their first party games now.
And, of course, games have no say short of just not buying a game. Unfortunately, I have no faith that gamers will ever vote with their wallets (as was proven by the paid DLC push/uproar years and years back).
I do have to say that EA did the "Project $10" thing right once. There is no multiplayer on "Alice: Madness Returns." Instead of punishing used game purchasers (via crippling the game), the rewarded new game purchasers by giving the a free copy of the original "American McGee's Alice."
So to fight back against companies who restrict your ability to sell your games used by removing multiplayer, you're going to go exclusively with a service that doesn't let your sell your games at all... that'll show 'em!
I'd say they target pc gamers, and Linux is pretty far behind Windows in that regard. So graphics card manufacturers aren't very interested in marketing to Linux since their primary consumer is using Windows.
I thought the same thing (larger setting than a home entertainment system, eg, sports bars and what not). However, his link points out that it is not a good idea for HDMI cables to run over 15 meters (~49') since the cable is not guaranteed to work beyond that length, even with 'better quality construction and materials' (from the link). So running something over 50' should be using a powered extender instead of a really, really long cable.
It's not simply an RPG game on a Nintendo system, it's a Nintendo-owned franchise. Like the others, it's never seen a game on another system. They even vigorously defended it as their property to the point that they tried to sue a game development studio for mimicking gameplay elements from Fire Emblem.
They're not different games in the same genre, they're quite literally "sequel X" from Nintendo, just like a new Mario or Zelda game.
When was the last time you received spam on PSN or XBL?
Any time a hyped-up popular title comes out - CoD, Killzone, Halo, and even Brink spawned some spam messages from my recent players list. Granted, they don't last long since since you can file a report against them, but claiming it doesn't happen is like claiming the sun won't rise tomorrow.
I file Fire Emblem under the "old school nintendo" category since it's yet-another-updated-version of a Nintendo series, similar to Mario, Zelda, and Metroid.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." - Steven Weinberg
That's the point, though. When a shit spec is received, outsourced developers won't request clarification of the requirements. They'll do exactly what the spec says, regardless of how awkward or incorrect it may seem. Outsourcing is like to telling a robot what to do.
What about them? As far as I know, there is no law restricting the sale of R-rated movies, and the MPAA rating system is strictly voluntary, just like the ESRB. Not to mention that the FTC continues to release their annual report that the ESRB is the best voluntary rating system in terms of its enforcement at the retailer level.
I'm sure it's there along the lines of "we can change these terms at any time without notification" or something similar. I'm 50/50 on testing this in court. If it goes their way, it opens a door no consumer wants to ever see.
I think a better attack against this is any non top-200 site to sue the ever loving hell out of them. It'd be easiest for small local ISPs since it's blatantly anti-competitive practice to block traffic to your competition. Other companies would have to show damages of being blocked by ISPs (simple enough if you sell anything online).
This is purely anecdotal, but I've seen pages rise and fall in rankings simply by including Google Analytics on a site. I had a site ranking normally, someone goofed and removed the analytics code, and the pages mysteriously dropped off in rankings. The omission was caught, put back in, and the pages mysteriously returned to their previous ranking.
What if the guy was across the street. What if he was on a 2-way radio instead of Facebook. What if we referred to him as a "spotter" instead of a "commenter"? Again, still not as black and white, but I'd say intent plays a huge roll in the legality of the situation. He was directly communicating with the hostage taker and trying to help him stay one step ahead of the police. I'd say that falls squarely under aiding and abetting.
That was the point - people without the money to pay for those things have the government step in and offer assistance.
As for the problem with tort law, we're currently at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Nobody is suggesting we remove the ability for people to pursue malpractice. Right now, however, we permit the most frivolous of frivolous lawsuits without repercussion. Have you ever wondered why Illinois, despite having some of the more decent medical schools in the country (Loyola, UIC), have to fly people to other states for brain injuries? No doctor here is willing to accept the enormous liability and insurance that comes with practicing in Illinois because the costs are so steep as a result of that malpractice tort law. So, on top of having doctors leaving the state because of how screwed up the tort law is, emergency patients have the joy of paying for a helicopter ride to another state to simply get treated.
So we definitely need some tort reform. However, I don't think lawyers, especially the ones who made part of their fortune pursuing those malpractice claims, are the ones that will do it. Just like nobody would want the insurance companies to do it since, as you stated, they have a vested interest in it (just the exact opposite of the lawyers).
Think of food, housing, clothes, everything you need to live. Don't you have to pay for those?
Actually, we have plenty of programs to provide those as well if you cannot afford them.
Food? Food Stamps and WIC vouchers
Housing? Section 8 is specifically designed to assist low income housing. There's also those stimulus housing tax credits they offered when people couldn't afford their mortgages anymore (some had to pay back, some did not).
Clothes? Plenty of clothing drives for that (more apparent in regions with harsher winters). Government either pitches in by sponsoring, or offering organizations that run them tax breaks.
You could also argue that welfare money could go towards any of those as well.
However, your comments on tort reform are dead on. As a resident of Illinois (one of the worse states for medical malpractice insurance), I completely agree that the first step toward fixing any healthcare system in our country is malpractice tort reform. I feel that an acquaintance of mine put it best: "You expect a bunch of lawyers to fix tort law to make it harder to sue? Ha!"
The crypto engine would create a hash value of the requesting binary and check it against an internal permissions list to verify that the program is the correct program, and it's not been tampered with.
I don't think anyone but the most naive users were surprised at last weeks results, or at this. Even "Average Joe Internet User" knows that, in general, Internet advertisers and their practices are shady.
This is what happens when a marketing company takes viral marketing a bit too literal.
If you're a christian, you believe that "God" is an asexually-reproducing critter who splits itself into various portions [...]
I'm not Christian, and I find their beliefs silly as well, but this is incorrect. In Christianity, God is omnipresent, not divided amongst all living things. If you're referring to Adam (of the "Adam and Eve" duo), man was created by God, not spawned from him. God is a sexually reproducing creature, as would be indicated by the fact he required a woman to be impregnated by him. The 'how' is the divine mystery of immaculate conception.
If you're going to bash religion, make sure you know about what you're actually bashing...
If I remember that story correctly, it was one dev putting his foot in his mouth, and other devs were forced come out of the woodwork to essentially say "he doesn't speak for the entire Mozilla organization." The jist I got from the story is there's a divide among Mozilla's community about whom is the browser's intended market.
good luck trying to make that abstraction count for anything in the real world.
Just look at any number of deals involving selling marketing data, user data, usage data (the list goes on). It's not an abstract value if there's real world money being passed back and forth in exchange for information. However, don't be surprised when you find out the actual market value for your information somewhere around 25 to 50 cents.
Every six months, we rank our co-workers. Those listed at the bottom by nearly everyone either get canned or take the hint and start looking for employment elsewhere.
That's an excellent way to turn your workplace dynamic into a "Good Ol' Boys" environment, regardless if it's good or bad for the business. It's akin to nepotism, you're just not related.
Source code alone is meaningless if you can't actually *use* it.
Assuming the code provided is exactly what's used, you can use the source code to do your own code audit. You can see where there might be security problems, see if there's any shady stuff going on, etc.
Of course, this usefulness relies on those first 8 words of my comment.
It's also an incredibly blinkered approach that could well backfire.
EA's actually been doing this exact thing for a while now (called "Project $10"). It hasn't backfired on them. I think Sony let EA take the "might backfire" plunge 2 years ago and watched how it played out. EA didn't seem damaged by it, so Sony is adopting it for their first party games now. And, of course, games have no say short of just not buying a game. Unfortunately, I have no faith that gamers will ever vote with their wallets (as was proven by the paid DLC push/uproar years and years back).
I do have to say that EA did the "Project $10" thing right once. There is no multiplayer on "Alice: Madness Returns." Instead of punishing used game purchasers (via crippling the game), the rewarded new game purchasers by giving the a free copy of the original "American McGee's Alice."
So to fight back against companies who restrict your ability to sell your games used by removing multiplayer, you're going to go exclusively with a service that doesn't let your sell your games at all... that'll show 'em!
You'd be surprised what you can do with some creative Laparoscopic surgery.
the geek demographic like a graphics card
I'd say they target pc gamers, and Linux is pretty far behind Windows in that regard. So graphics card manufacturers aren't very interested in marketing to Linux since their primary consumer is using Windows.
I thought the same thing (larger setting than a home entertainment system, eg, sports bars and what not). However, his link points out that it is not a good idea for HDMI cables to run over 15 meters (~49') since the cable is not guaranteed to work beyond that length, even with 'better quality construction and materials' (from the link). So running something over 50' should be using a powered extender instead of a really, really long cable.
It's not simply an RPG game on a Nintendo system, it's a Nintendo-owned franchise. Like the others, it's never seen a game on another system. They even vigorously defended it as their property to the point that they tried to sue a game development studio for mimicking gameplay elements from Fire Emblem.
They're not different games in the same genre, they're quite literally "sequel X" from Nintendo, just like a new Mario or Zelda game.
When was the last time you received spam on PSN or XBL?
Any time a hyped-up popular title comes out - CoD, Killzone, Halo, and even Brink spawned some spam messages from my recent players list. Granted, they don't last long since since you can file a report against them, but claiming it doesn't happen is like claiming the sun won't rise tomorrow.
I file Fire Emblem under the "old school nintendo" category since it's yet-another-updated-version of a Nintendo series, similar to Mario, Zelda, and Metroid.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." - Steven Weinberg
That's the point, though. When a shit spec is received, outsourced developers won't request clarification of the requirements. They'll do exactly what the spec says, regardless of how awkward or incorrect it may seem. Outsourcing is like to telling a robot what to do.
The do Dead Rising pretty damn well. However, beyond that, you're pretty much right.
What about Rated R movies?
What about them? As far as I know, there is no law restricting the sale of R-rated movies, and the MPAA rating system is strictly voluntary, just like the ESRB. Not to mention that the FTC continues to release their annual report that the ESRB is the best voluntary rating system in terms of its enforcement at the retailer level.
I'm sure it's there along the lines of "we can change these terms at any time without notification" or something similar. I'm 50/50 on testing this in court. If it goes their way, it opens a door no consumer wants to ever see.
I think a better attack against this is any non top-200 site to sue the ever loving hell out of them. It'd be easiest for small local ISPs since it's blatantly anti-competitive practice to block traffic to your competition. Other companies would have to show damages of being blocked by ISPs (simple enough if you sell anything online).
This is purely anecdotal, but I've seen pages rise and fall in rankings simply by including Google Analytics on a site. I had a site ranking normally, someone goofed and removed the analytics code, and the pages mysteriously dropped off in rankings. The omission was caught, put back in, and the pages mysteriously returned to their previous ranking.
What if the guy was across the street. What if he was on a 2-way radio instead of Facebook. What if we referred to him as a "spotter" instead of a "commenter"? Again, still not as black and white, but I'd say intent plays a huge roll in the legality of the situation. He was directly communicating with the hostage taker and trying to help him stay one step ahead of the police. I'd say that falls squarely under aiding and abetting.
That was the point - people without the money to pay for those things have the government step in and offer assistance.
As for the problem with tort law, we're currently at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Nobody is suggesting we remove the ability for people to pursue malpractice. Right now, however, we permit the most frivolous of frivolous lawsuits without repercussion. Have you ever wondered why Illinois, despite having some of the more decent medical schools in the country (Loyola, UIC), have to fly people to other states for brain injuries? No doctor here is willing to accept the enormous liability and insurance that comes with practicing in Illinois because the costs are so steep as a result of that malpractice tort law. So, on top of having doctors leaving the state because of how screwed up the tort law is, emergency patients have the joy of paying for a helicopter ride to another state to simply get treated.
So we definitely need some tort reform. However, I don't think lawyers, especially the ones who made part of their fortune pursuing those malpractice claims, are the ones that will do it. Just like nobody would want the insurance companies to do it since, as you stated, they have a vested interest in it (just the exact opposite of the lawyers).
Think of food, housing, clothes, everything you need to live. Don't you have to pay for those?
Actually, we have plenty of programs to provide those as well if you cannot afford them.
Food? Food Stamps and WIC vouchers
Housing? Section 8 is specifically designed to assist low income housing. There's also those stimulus housing tax credits they offered when people couldn't afford their mortgages anymore (some had to pay back, some did not).
Clothes? Plenty of clothing drives for that (more apparent in regions with harsher winters). Government either pitches in by sponsoring, or offering organizations that run them tax breaks.
You could also argue that welfare money could go towards any of those as well.
However, your comments on tort reform are dead on. As a resident of Illinois (one of the worse states for medical malpractice insurance), I completely agree that the first step toward fixing any healthcare system in our country is malpractice tort reform. I feel that an acquaintance of mine put it best: "You expect a bunch of lawyers to fix tort law to make it harder to sue? Ha!"