Have you see the bullshit our government has been doing to our country (and others) over the past 7 years? If you don't think we're in a national emergency, you haven't been paying attention.
The argument that a business person has to work to maximize shareholder value is a common one - but it's not a good one. That business person is still a person, and still has to deal with personal ethics and values in their decisions. The fact that you have shareholders who want you to maximize the amount of money you make does not give you a free pass on doing immoral or unethical things. You are still responsible for your actions, and if you sell your soul for shareholder value you've still sold your soul.
For the sake of argument, lets say a more obviously unethical thing was legal - say, killing people who stole from you and claiming their assets. The RIAA could go around murdering the people that they are currently suing and taking their stuff, thus increasing their revenue and maximizing shareholder value.
Since the heads of the music labels have a requirement to maximize shareholder value, would you argue that they would be totally correct in murdering people? It's clearly a moral wrong, even if it isn't a legal one.
Maybe... just maybe... they can remember that they AREN'T just cogs in the machine - they ARE the machine. And they can say No.
California decides the "culture" of most of the rest of America.
You can see this illustrated clearly in how the rest of the country fell in line behind California's political picks, their average cultural values (Watch out for those wild and crazy heartland states and their wacky gay marriages), the way no one illegally downloads songs or movies (california says not to in front of most of their movie exports these days)
I'd keep typing, but I'm in texas and if I don't head east in the next couple minutes I'm going to be crushed by this guy's gigantic ego.
This is almost exactly the situation I was in. Then I realized that the momentary thrill of a new kill isn't worth the unpaid second job I was working. The opportunity cost of all the other things I/didn't/ do because I felt some obligation to people I will probably never talk to again is staggering.
It's a video game, not a job. When it starts being a job, it's a problem.
I used to make that argument, when I played. "Wow, look how many games I don't have to buy or play to fill in my free time" "I would be spending so much more on other stuff if I didn't spend time playing WoW... I'm saving money"
But the opportunity cost of playing wow 100 hours a month is FAR higher than the savings. Imagine what you could accomplish with your real life if you invested 100 hours a month into it. In one month you could broaden your knowledge, learn new skills, or experience many different stories (books, movies, going out and living them). A plethora of experiences instead of running the same instance over and over again, living out the same story over and over again, hoping for a random drop of a fake item that gives you a fake feeling of accomplishment.
It's entirely pointless. That new gear you're going for isn't real. When you eventually stop playing (and eventually you will), you are left with nothing. Zero. It's all fake.
Stop raiding now. Save a few months of your life. I have a long list of things I want to create. Film Scripts, programs, two board games, a couple short stories, etc. I haven't made any of them because I didn't have any free time between work and WoW (though I'm starting to correct that now)
Seriously. Just quit. Spend the $14.99 a month on a good book, or a movie ticket. Do something that focuses on making this life better, as opposed to just making it less immediate.
This is very true. I played in a small raiding guild. When I quit, I had been playing that character for 9 months. I had 7/8 tier 2 gear. For about 2 months prior to quitting, I wasn't even enjoying it. I was showing up because we had a schedule and we had to make it. Systems are in place in major guilds to perpetuate that (DKP/Loot Priority/etc). So I was spending 20-30 hours a week playing a game I was bored of.
Now I've quit. But I still read all the WoW news, I read my guild's website and forums regularly, and I still have the account. I even consider if I'm going to play again when the expansion hits. I haven't played for over 2 months, and I'm still thinking about it many times a week.
That alone is probably enough reason to never play it again.
I know. I actually lived in the UK for 5 years, and prefer the "VAT included" method of pricing. That said, my sales tax here is 8.25%, and thats relatively high in comparison to some states. So the VAT there is still 60% higher than the tax I pay here, even if I have to calculate it here on my own.
So yeah, in the UK shop window you know exactly what you are going to pay... around 60% more tax than if it was in the US shop window.;)
Or maybe they think that you should pay the 17.5% VAT your government imposes (Tax is not included in US prices, but traditionally IS included in UK prices). This should have been obvious to you, as the Apple UK store even gives you the prices "ex vat": 637.45, 765.11, 875.74. I did the math at today's rate, and the 875.74 comes out to about $1650usd. Which means that you're paying about $150 in import fees and tarriffs.
Apple isn't screwing you. Your government is taxing the shit out of you. Deal with it, or change it.
The dialog and characters in Firefly and Serenity are pretty damn far from Hollywood. The trailer is cut that way because it's a trailer, and wants to depict a typical fun sci-fi action popcorn movie, so more people will see it. You know, marketing.
Watch a few episodes of the show. Then add a much darker plot line, insanely higher levels of space action, and some incredible character twists.
Also, this is NOTHING like Matrix, Star Wars, or Star Trek. It has more in common with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, or maybe even something like the Bourne Identity.
I've heard that the executive that championed Firefly at FOX was ousted in a political battle right before the show started to air. Since it would look pretty bad to have fired the guy who helped create one of your smash new shows, Fox moved it around and basically killed it.
Course, that's pretty much total hear-say and I haven't looked anything up to verify it. But it does sound a lot like fox, and makes sense in a sad and tragic way.
Right. Only this is a window manager for Haiku, an open source BeOS replacement. It has absolutely nothing to do with Linux.
Also, withouth drop shadows != ugly. Some of the ones you list, while possibly not ugly, certainly dont win awards for looks. Haiku doesn't either, but it's pleasing enough that it's theme and colors have been cloned in most skinnable things that i've seen.
Not quite. I was a fan back in the day. Ran BeOS while at university (dual boot as needed) and enjoyed it. Now I run mac, windows, and am working on linux from scratch with a ubuntu base. I haven't run BeOS in years, and don't have a box that boots it.
I played with BeOS in 99. Admittedly not extensively. But I did give the free edition a whirl. Sure there was cool stuff there to see, but your assumption that I never actually used it is pretty arrogant, don't you think?
You gave the free edition a whirl, and think this qualifies you to judge it's interface? Like all good interfaces, it isn't the eye candy that makes it. It's the subtle details you find as you live in it day in and day out. It's the cascading move/copy menus in the context of every file. It's the way the mouse interfaces with the widgets. Things you don't get from giving the "free" version a whirl. It's the same reason the OS X interface looks and feels better than a themed windows or linux interface that looks the same - the details and movement.
I was rooting for Be back in the day, too. I thought the BeBox was one amazingly cool little machine. And if the management at Be hadn't been so borish, they might have been bought out by Apple in the end. Too bad they didn't take the deal that was offered them at the time.
This discussion isn't about the company. It's about the value of the BeOS window manager, in it's open source form. More specifically, about whether it's newsworthy.
The whole point is, both in my dissing Haiku and in the Be fanboy's dream world, we're always talking in hypotheticals. What if things turned out differently, etc. Or, to quote you "One day... there will be a fully open source BeOS. That's when it gets really interesting."
The value of this post is that it ISNT a hypothetical. This is working code. It's not some dreamworld. Thats why it's newsworthy.
"The real value of this post is showing how far the haiku project has come" What you left out was "...in recreating a 5 year old OS in a world where desktop technology has come a long long way in the meantime."
I don't think desktop technology has come that far. Again, spotlight and windows searching are the big buzzwords these days. BeOS already has it, and does it better. Sure, the display aspects (opengl shadows, etc) are better.
Again, where are the Expose/Kompose features? You sneer at drop shadows, but they're more than just eye candy. They help the user determine which windows are on top of which others.
Drop shadows provide visual indication. So does the fact that window borders are yellow on the active window, and the entire unactive window is grayed out. There aren't drop shadows in XP by default, and the vast majority of the world manages to figure out what window is what just fine. Sure, drop shadows have a slight benefit to an already established method. But their main benefit is eye candy. Of course, on the mac where there often arent window borders to utilize, i suppose they have more of an effect.
Things like this really do great on my nerves. People really should wake up and smell reality. Even if Zeta/Haiku turns into a usable OS, where's the support? Software? Will my obscure PCI cards work? I'd only ever play with Haiku on a spare box made of odds and ends anyway. Precisely the sort of things that won't be supported. Sadly, isn't it?
Well, there are accellerated 3d nvidia drivers written, a ton of sound drivers in place, etc. Bebits.com can get you to most of them. I'm sure there will be holes, and they will be filled. Linux/BSD/Whatever have the same driver issues. They solved them. The code is out there. So will Haiku.
Sure, you can point to this or that piece of software that's available, but what's missing is choice. It's not enough for me that Mozilla might exist for a platform, I want Opera, and a KHTML-based browser. Call me picky or ev
Spoken like someone who has never actually used BeOS's interface. Good Show.
Anyone who HAS used the interface would realize its incredibly internally consistent, it is faster than just about anything out there at the moment, and that many of it's features are just now starting to be replicated by its competitors (i.e. I was using "spotlight" in 1999 on a BeBox.)
Sure, it doesn't have the drop shadows (yet). But I have yet to see a drop shadow help me work faster. And this UI doesn't need an accelerated video card to work.
The real value of this post is showing how far the haiku project has come. This is a concrete demonstration of core technologies being replaced in an end-user recognizable manner. This isn't a prefs panel, or a terminal based booting kernel screenshot. It's something BeOS users (and former-users) can see and realize that the haiku project isn't a pipe dream... it is happening, and it is working. One day (in the hopefully near future) there will be a fully open source BeOS. Thats when it gets really interesting.
Re:You must stick to the path!
on
Guild Wars Launches
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Its as annoying as hell, but as a game developer, I can see why they would do that.
Because they aren't good enough to make an engine that doesn't allow people to fall through the geometry (or their map makers can't effectively limit the range of movement naturally)?
Because they are lazy and would rather put a huge artificial barrier in the players way than implement a better system?
I can't think of a single reason that doesn't come back to them taking the easy way out. Not exactly a good message to send when you want people to be impressed by the quality of your game.
This doesn't seem like flamebait to me, and I don't think parent is wrong.
Royalties are generally ongoing payment made each time something is used. For example, the musician getting their (theoretical) cut of each album sold, or royalties on the usage of a song in a film.
Royalty-Free generally means that you don't have to pay for each copy shipped.. i.e. a printer manufacturer doesn't have to pay microsoft each time.
If you buy a royalty-free sound from sounddogs or wherever, you have to pay for the sound... but then you are free to use it in your mix as long as you dont distribute it on its own, without paying them more.
Nothing about Royalty-Free indicates that there wont be a high cost of entry - a licensing cost. Microsoft will probably waive that cost to most of the key players, but i doubt they would for FOSS.
It's just another attempt by microsoft to take over/replace an open format. Hopefully it's as weak as it looks.
You're looking for a file containing the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (sic?)
In any case, in spot light you type "superca" and the list refines itself enough that you see it and start working with it.
If it waited for you to hit enter, how far would you type? Would "superca" be enough? Maybe you would type "supercalifra" to be safe. Maybe, if you were like most users, you would think you needed to type the whole word out... then you spell it wrong (like i probably did above) and it doesn't find anything.
Live search minimizes your typing. It's the same reason for type-ahead find in firefox. It just works better.
Re:Weren't they aware of this during implementatio
on
VLC & European Patents
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I got Lumines the other day... I bought the PSP totally on impulse. I bought it at Wal-Mart simply because Wal-Mart will accept just about anything as a return for any reason. So if i determine it sucks, I'll just take it back.
Lumines is really addictive. You start playing, and then the game ends and the clock says like 15 minutes have passed... and you barely realize it. It's a nice game.
All in all, its a REALLY slick system. Wipeout Pure is also really really good. I think when they start putting out firmware updates (which you can get just by picking something on the menu when in wifi range) the thing can explode.
Based on all this chatter, i'm expecting it to be a slowburn build... but i think long term it will succeed. It's too good looking and has too many games inbound to fly under everyone's radar for long.
I hope I will be able to continue my career in the game industry
Dude. Your career to this point depended on them trusting you enough to give you free, early access to games you could write about. You spent your time undermining that trust and the industry by distributing those games to the world as warez. It pissed the gaming industry off so bad they are prosecuting you and sending you to JAIL.
You have no career in the game industry. You probably have no career in journalism. Considering how many job applications ask if you've ever committed a felony, you may have no career at a fast food restaurant.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you see the bullshit our government has been doing to our country (and others) over the past 7 years? If you don't think we're in a national emergency, you haven't been paying attention.
The argument that a business person has to work to maximize shareholder value is a common one - but it's not a good one. That business person is still a person, and still has to deal with personal ethics and values in their decisions. The fact that you have shareholders who want you to maximize the amount of money you make does not give you a free pass on doing immoral or unethical things. You are still responsible for your actions, and if you sell your soul for shareholder value you've still sold your soul.
For the sake of argument, lets say a more obviously unethical thing was legal - say, killing people who stole from you and claiming their assets. The RIAA could go around murdering the people that they are currently suing and taking their stuff, thus increasing their revenue and maximizing shareholder value.
Since the heads of the music labels have a requirement to maximize shareholder value, would you argue that they would be totally correct in murdering people? It's clearly a moral wrong, even if it isn't a legal one.
Maybe... just maybe... they can remember that they AREN'T just cogs in the machine - they ARE the machine. And they can say No.
California decides the "culture" of most of the rest of America.
You can see this illustrated clearly in how the rest of the country fell in line behind California's political picks, their average cultural values (Watch out for those wild and crazy heartland states and their wacky gay marriages), the way no one illegally downloads songs or movies (california says not to in front of most of their movie exports these days)
I'd keep typing, but I'm in texas and if I don't head east in the next couple minutes I'm going to be crushed by this guy's gigantic ego.
It would be bad.
This is almost exactly the situation I was in. Then I realized that the momentary thrill of a new kill isn't worth the unpaid second job I was working. The opportunity cost of all the other things I /didn't/ do because I felt some obligation to people I will probably never talk to again is staggering.
It's a video game, not a job. When it starts being a job, it's a problem.
"WoW is more economical"
I used to make that argument, when I played. "Wow, look how many games I don't have to buy or play to fill in my free time" "I would be spending so much more on other stuff if I didn't spend time playing WoW... I'm saving money"
But the opportunity cost of playing wow 100 hours a month is FAR higher than the savings. Imagine what you could accomplish with your real life if you invested 100 hours a month into it. In one month you could broaden your knowledge, learn new skills, or experience many different stories (books, movies, going out and living them). A plethora of experiences instead of running the same instance over and over again, living out the same story over and over again, hoping for a random drop of a fake item that gives you a fake feeling of accomplishment.
It's entirely pointless. That new gear you're going for isn't real. When you eventually stop playing (and eventually you will), you are left with nothing. Zero. It's all fake.
Stop raiding now. Save a few months of your life. I have a long list of things I want to create. Film Scripts, programs, two board games, a couple short stories, etc. I haven't made any of them because I didn't have any free time between work and WoW (though I'm starting to correct that now)
Seriously. Just quit. Spend the $14.99 a month on a good book, or a movie ticket. Do something that focuses on making this life better, as opposed to just making it less immediate.
This is very true. I played in a small raiding guild. When I quit, I had been playing that character for 9 months. I had 7/8 tier 2 gear. For about 2 months prior to quitting, I wasn't even enjoying it. I was showing up because we had a schedule and we had to make it. Systems are in place in major guilds to perpetuate that (DKP/Loot Priority/etc). So I was spending 20-30 hours a week playing a game I was bored of.
Now I've quit. But I still read all the WoW news, I read my guild's website and forums regularly, and I still have the account. I even consider if I'm going to play again when the expansion hits. I haven't played for over 2 months, and I'm still thinking about it many times a week.
That alone is probably enough reason to never play it again.
I know. I actually lived in the UK for 5 years, and prefer the "VAT included" method of pricing. That said, my sales tax here is 8.25%, and thats relatively high in comparison to some states. So the VAT there is still 60% higher than the tax I pay here, even if I have to calculate it here on my own.
;)
So yeah, in the UK shop window you know exactly what you are going to pay... around 60% more tax than if it was in the US shop window.
Or maybe they think that you should pay the 17.5% VAT your government imposes (Tax is not included in US prices, but traditionally IS included in UK prices). This should have been obvious to you, as the Apple UK store even gives you the prices "ex vat": 637.45, 765.11, 875.74. I did the math at today's rate, and the 875.74 comes out to about $1650usd. Which means that you're paying about $150 in import fees and tarriffs.
Apple isn't screwing you. Your government is taxing the shit out of you. Deal with it, or change it.
You are totally wrong.
The dialog and characters in Firefly and Serenity are pretty damn far from Hollywood. The trailer is cut that way because it's a trailer, and wants to depict a typical fun sci-fi action popcorn movie, so more people will see it. You know, marketing.
Watch a few episodes of the show. Then add a much darker plot line, insanely higher levels of space action, and some incredible character twists.
Also, this is NOTHING like Matrix, Star Wars, or Star Trek. It has more in common with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, or maybe even something like the Bourne Identity.
I've heard that the executive that championed Firefly at FOX was ousted in a political battle right before the show started to air. Since it would look pretty bad to have fired the guy who helped create one of your smash new shows, Fox moved it around and basically killed it.
Course, that's pretty much total hear-say and I haven't looked anything up to verify it. But it does sound a lot like fox, and makes sense in a sad and tragic way.
Wait... are we still talking about China here?
Right. Only this is a window manager for Haiku, an open source BeOS replacement. It has absolutely nothing to do with Linux.
Also, withouth drop shadows != ugly. Some of the ones you list, while possibly not ugly, certainly dont win awards for looks. Haiku doesn't either, but it's pleasing enough that it's theme and colors have been cloned in most skinnable things that i've seen.
Spoken like a true fanboy.
... there will be a fully open source BeOS. That's when it gets really interesting."
Not quite. I was a fan back in the day. Ran BeOS while at university (dual boot as needed) and enjoyed it. Now I run mac, windows, and am working on linux from scratch with a ubuntu base. I haven't run BeOS in years, and don't have a box that boots it.
I played with BeOS in 99. Admittedly not extensively. But I did give the free edition a whirl. Sure there was cool stuff there to see, but your assumption that I never actually used it is pretty arrogant, don't you think?
You gave the free edition a whirl, and think this qualifies you to judge it's interface? Like all good interfaces, it isn't the eye candy that makes it. It's the subtle details you find as you live in it day in and day out. It's the cascading move/copy menus in the context of every file. It's the way the mouse interfaces with the widgets. Things you don't get from giving the "free" version a whirl. It's the same reason the OS X interface looks and feels better than a themed windows or linux interface that looks the same - the details and movement.
I was rooting for Be back in the day, too. I thought the BeBox was one amazingly cool little machine. And if the management at Be hadn't been so borish, they might have been bought out by Apple in the end. Too bad they didn't take the deal that was offered them at the time.
This discussion isn't about the company. It's about the value of the BeOS window manager, in it's open source form. More specifically, about whether it's newsworthy.
The whole point is, both in my dissing Haiku and in the Be fanboy's dream world, we're always talking in hypotheticals. What if things turned out differently, etc. Or, to quote you "One day
The value of this post is that it ISNT a hypothetical. This is working code. It's not some dreamworld. Thats why it's newsworthy.
"The real value of this post is showing how far the haiku project has come" What you left out was "...in recreating a 5 year old OS in a world where desktop technology has come a long long way in the meantime."
I don't think desktop technology has come that far. Again, spotlight and windows searching are the big buzzwords these days. BeOS already has it, and does it better. Sure, the display aspects (opengl shadows, etc) are better.
Again, where are the Expose/Kompose features? You sneer at drop shadows, but they're more than just eye candy. They help the user determine which windows are on top of which others.
Drop shadows provide visual indication. So does the fact that window borders are yellow on the active window, and the entire unactive window is grayed out. There aren't drop shadows in XP by default, and the vast majority of the world manages to figure out what window is what just fine. Sure, drop shadows have a slight benefit to an already established method. But their main benefit is eye candy. Of course, on the mac where there often arent window borders to utilize, i suppose they have more of an effect.
Things like this really do great on my nerves. People really should wake up and smell reality. Even if Zeta/Haiku turns into a usable OS, where's the support? Software? Will my obscure PCI cards work? I'd only ever play with Haiku on a spare box made of odds and ends anyway. Precisely the sort of things that won't be supported. Sadly, isn't it?
Well, there are accellerated 3d nvidia drivers written, a ton of sound drivers in place, etc. Bebits.com can get you to most of them. I'm sure there will be holes, and they will be filled. Linux/BSD/Whatever have the same driver issues. They solved them. The code is out there. So will Haiku.
Sure, you can point to this or that piece of software that's available, but what's missing is choice. It's not enough for me that Mozilla might exist for a platform, I want Opera, and a KHTML-based browser. Call me picky or ev
Spoken like someone who has never actually used BeOS's interface. Good Show.
Anyone who HAS used the interface would realize its incredibly internally consistent, it is faster than just about anything out there at the moment, and that many of it's features are just now starting to be replicated by its competitors (i.e. I was using "spotlight" in 1999 on a BeBox.)
Sure, it doesn't have the drop shadows (yet). But I have yet to see a drop shadow help me work faster. And this UI doesn't need an accelerated video card to work.
The real value of this post is showing how far the haiku project has come. This is a concrete demonstration of core technologies being replaced in an end-user recognizable manner. This isn't a prefs panel, or a terminal based booting kernel screenshot. It's something BeOS users (and former-users) can see and realize that the haiku project isn't a pipe dream... it is happening, and it is working. One day (in the hopefully near future) there will be a fully open source BeOS. Thats when it gets really interesting.
Its as annoying as hell, but as a game developer, I can see why they would do that.
Because they aren't good enough to make an engine that doesn't allow people to fall through the geometry (or their map makers can't effectively limit the range of movement naturally)?
Because they are lazy and would rather put a huge artificial barrier in the players way than implement a better system?
I can't think of a single reason that doesn't come back to them taking the easy way out. Not exactly a good message to send when you want people to be impressed by the quality of your game.
This doesn't seem like flamebait to me, and I don't think parent is wrong.
Royalties are generally ongoing payment made each time something is used. For example, the musician getting their (theoretical) cut of each album sold, or royalties on the usage of a song in a film.
Royalty-Free generally means that you don't have to pay for each copy shipped.. i.e. a printer manufacturer doesn't have to pay microsoft each time.
If you buy a royalty-free sound from sounddogs or wherever, you have to pay for the sound... but then you are free to use it in your mix as long as you dont distribute it on its own, without paying them more.
Nothing about Royalty-Free indicates that there wont be a high cost of entry - a licensing cost. Microsoft will probably waive that cost to most of the key players, but i doubt they would for FOSS.
It's just another attempt by microsoft to take over/replace an open format. Hopefully it's as weak as it looks.
You're looking for a file containing the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (sic?)
In any case, in spot light you type "superca" and the list refines itself enough that you see it and start working with it.
If it waited for you to hit enter, how far would you type? Would "superca" be enough? Maybe you would type "supercalifra" to be safe. Maybe, if you were like most users, you would think you needed to type the whole word out... then you spell it wrong (like i probably did above) and it doesn't find anything.
Live search minimizes your typing. It's the same reason for type-ahead find in firefox. It just works better.
Brazil would probably be a good choice.
So much so that Apple sues them for violating Trade Secrets laws.
It is.
That's why I work so damn hard to make the money I need to be able to do that. It's not like $300 is pocket change, but it's manageable.
I got Lumines the other day... I bought the PSP totally on impulse. I bought it at Wal-Mart simply because Wal-Mart will accept just about anything as a return for any reason. So if i determine it sucks, I'll just take it back.
Lumines is really addictive. You start playing, and then the game ends and the clock says like 15 minutes have passed... and you barely realize it. It's a nice game.
All in all, its a REALLY slick system. Wipeout Pure is also really really good. I think when they start putting out firmware updates (which you can get just by picking something on the menu when in wifi range) the thing can explode.
Based on all this chatter, i'm expecting it to be a slowburn build... but i think long term it will succeed. It's too good looking and has too many games inbound to fly under everyone's radar for long.
I hope I will be able to continue my career in the game industry
Dude. Your career to this point depended on them trusting you enough to give you free, early access to games you could write about. You spent your time undermining that trust and the industry by distributing those games to the world as warez. It pissed the gaming industry off so bad they are prosecuting you and sending you to JAIL.
You have no career in the game industry. You probably have no career in journalism. Considering how many job applications ask if you've ever committed a felony, you may have no career at a fast food restaurant.
Let me put it another way: Game Over.
Why having a free software bios is a good idea. Any Questions?