.. A liberal sprinkling of convenient, hypothetical dark-skinned worthies appear: Congolese fisherwomen, graphic designers in Botswana, etc... are all obediently summoned to demonstrate the progressive properties of Google phones jacked into the informational supply chain of the Western empire. " You know, that's pretty patronizing and dismissive of all these groups, just for starters. Those are real people with real needs, dignity, culture, volition, goals etc of their own - not props.
Exactly why Assange is unhappy that they are brought up. Do you think those groups were actually involved in the book or asked about their needs? Assange's criticism is yours - they are props.
Does anyone compile their own Windows? If you don't compile it then the source code that you see is just for show.
Hm, I am curious if orgs like the NSA do compile the source and compare their binary to the official one, they wouldn't have a licence to distribute if the binaries differed, but if they were identical that seems pretty safe. If you're serious about security you compile and distribute your own version of the software yourself.
The argument that the customers can force companies to abandon exploitative business practices only holds if there is enough competition in the market and there are not enough victims to make it worthwhile. WoW, Farmville and other games that rely on addiction-based gameplay with either monthly fees or microtransactions have demonstrated that there are people willing to purposely design their game to exploit the vulnerabilities of their players for profit and the industry is holding them up as examples of real success, not expoitation.
To hold the players responsible to make change is similar to holding other victims of abuse and exploitation responsible for the actions of the abusers. Certainly as a whole we need to reject abusive business practices, but the expectation of individual game players should be that the games are designed to provide enjoyment, free from exploitation. Imagine if other forms of entertainment that were designed to make you pay more for them while you experienced them. There is nothing wrong with paying game creators to create more content, but an industry that designs its products to extract profit regardless of the cost to its customers is going to develop a terrible reputation and invite a backlash against it along with regulation. The gaming industry is foolish to not castigate those that try to profit from anything other than making great games that respect their customers.
The problem is that in any system, regardless of the incentives for actions that benefit everyone, the psychopaths will always look for other ways to gain only for themselves. Two things will happen: they will find an exploit or they will misunderstand how to gain the most from the working system and instead gain less but harm others.
I thnk we'll need to come to grips with psychopathy and other mental conditions in the same way we've done for physical disabilities. We want to provide access to the good things in life, but we don't want people with disabilities to put others in danger. The example in the article of no blind pilots is quite apt. No psychopathic leaders seems sensible, the trouble being the measuring of the psychopathy.
Why such a low reinvestment? Is that for external developers only? I would total up support costs, etc compare to licence fees and then reinvest 80% of the "savings", especially if it was 70% internal reinvestment (paid staff) and 10% external developers. Save yourself some money, but if you want to future effeciency and capabilities invest as much as you can.
I recommend against WYSIWYG editors and instead work with tools that provide "live reload", refreshing your page in the browser without hitting the refresh button. Google for it but there are plugins and and bunch of projects on github for various editors and frameworks.
That is a strange quote from Jobs, who is known for successfully giving us what he wants. "What we want" isn't always what is good for us, which isn't depressing, but simply our genetic/cultural legacy. Culture is our tool to deal with much of that legacy. The goal for a truly profitable business is to find, multiply and distribute the stuff that we want that makes us all richer, and by enriching those around you they will enrich your life. If you exploit others around you you may temporarily gain personally but a poorer culture will never deliver the riches that a rich one can, even to the wealthiest amongst them. That is why designing and making things that you want, that make you richer for having it in you life, is a good bet to make others richer as well.
The media "conspiracy" certainly isn't the one imagined, but it is seems common for "smart" executives think that other people are stupid and thus present them with material that makes them stupid. This has a lot of synergy with getting people to worship idols, buy things they don't need, and making other stupid decisions that are profitable for the executive. This synergy can be mistaken for conspiracy, but it is just a detection of a poorly designed/functioning market.
Markets with too little competition and too large competitors (i.e. plagued by dictatorships, risk aversion, bureaucracy, NIH, status quo, etc) are problems. In a healthier market those "smart" executives would have enough competition to wipe them out or displace them to the role of parasites preying on the most vulnerable.
Exactly. The only sane way to resolve conflicts like this is to let the users choose (and provide smart defaults).
By "smart" I mean something that doesn't disadvantage any of the choices.... off the top of my head, an interface something like the Humble Bundle, perhaps equal or random distribution of money to start and randomize the order of choices. Then record (anonymously) the choices of anyone who adjusts the defaults and start setting the defaults according to general community preference once enough samples are taken. That can be gamed, but it seems like too much work for *way* too little gain.:)
Access to source isn't necessarily a red herring, although you are right the bigger issue is trust. But source opens up markets for trust.
If you/someone you trust had access to the source of all the software on your phone/device you could use trusted services that compare your phone's software (binaries) to a trusted compile. (Trusted binaries could be provided by proprietary software creators, but I'd rather not trust the software creators and have it independently compiled by a company whose business is security/trust.) Transparency and source are the first steps towards building a functional trust market where you have real choices of businesses that offer services that increase the trust you have of your devices. Extending trust to your network is certainly problematic, but I would hope eventually network providers would have their networks independently audited by security/trust companies, but that would require enough demand (and potentially redundant networks so that you could choose to only use those that you deemed secure enough).
People haven't really groked that the physical things in their life that run software may actually be controlled by someone else. That is a pretty foreign concept, but I'm hoping that once it really sinks in we'll see some real businesses that specialize in keeping your software working for you (not just anti-virus). At that point free software will have an insurmountable advantage over proprietary.
The wrong lesson. The lesson I would take away is "we have a problem where we can't innovate because our retooling costs are out of control; we better change our manufacturing so that we can continue to innovate."
This entire fan vs artist argument makes no bloody sense. How is an artist not a spectator and fan of their own work? If fans are the true owners then so too are the artists. I suppose I can see an argument where no individual (artist or fan) is an owner of something that has is perceived to be collectively owned, but that is a far older debate.:)
From a free software perspective, the only problem here is when Lucas stops others from "forking" his work or tries to prevent people from distributing their favourite version (his own first version included). Everyone, including Lucas, should be free to do whatever they want with Starwars.
The argument that he must provide a digital copy of the original film is an interesting one. I'd say that anyone should be able to pay to have it digitized, but he certainly doesn't need to provide one - unless he restricts access to the "source" film.
It is entirely possible for bribery to occur in an illegal way (and there are many scandals like that) but the legal influencing of politicians is limited. This does seem to help, and the goal is not perfection, just improvement.
What I don't understand is how they managed to learn to use a fax machine in the first place.:)
I nearly went insane when I went through this recently with a number of professionals who routinely handle confidential documents: electronic doc -> print -> sign -> scan (to lossy jpg no less) -> email -> print -> sign -> scan (to lossy jpg) -> repeat until all is illegible.:|
Whatever cultural demon has prevented strong encrypted emails, etc must be purged for great justice.
What if I make a game that shows how games like Warcraft and Farmville exploit people's weaknesses for profit? Or a game that rewards you for getting your friends to stop playing any of that genre of game.
Remember, what Alex Peake and a lot of the Gamification people are talking about are games that have an awareness that bringing the player out of the game environment and into other environments is part of the goal of the game. You are specifically encouraged to stop playing (temporarily) and get involved in other things. Likely Peake would want an AI that recognized that the player was growing too dependent on it and would create challenges to build an interest and attachment to other things and people.
The disgusting zombification (learned dependence, ignorance, apathy and misinformation) inherent in the mediums and products of those that seek to exploit others is not really present in the mediums and work with free software-like philosophy. That is why free software is so important. I personally would be very reluctant to have my child interact heavily with any AI that wasn't completely free software. Give me 30 minutes and I think I could convince most any parent of the same.
Agreed, this is a tragic mistake of an experiment.
What they were looking to test can't be found in a prisoner/guard role-playing session. Considering that none of the guards or inmates had any actual experience in a jail (and the guards had no training before starting the experiment) they were basing all of their role-playing of their roles on entertainment... by definition full of conflict and drama. Like reality television, those involved quickly started competing for attention, fending off boredom and simply pushing the bounds of "the game".
There is another possibility: that bitcoins could become a very big thing; that right now might be some of the critical challenges/successes and other news sources are missing the story. The existence of a decentralized electronic currency that works well and is accepted as payment in as many places as a credit card would drastically change the world economy. Bitcoin may fail and disappear, but even in that case it is worth watching so we can learn from its failures.
In any case, many of my other news sources are talking bitcoin, so it certainly isn't just slashdot.
If I was a Dad I would be playing Sleep is Death by Jason Rohrer with my kids: http://sleepisdeath.net/
Pay what you can, full source code, two player storytelling game. First Dad gets to make the world come alive, then the real fun begins as the kids learn to be the storyteller.
You can start with "Am I being charged with something officer?"
But when he says, "I'll charge you for jaywalking." Or some other obviously false but your-word-versus-his charge, then you have the next level of problem to deal with.
I don't have any good advice for that one, but I do know at that point I'd feel extremely unsafe.
You're pro-open source, so that makes you a "good guy"? I like chocolate, you like vanilla, ergo, I am good, you are bad.
Does being pro-freedom make you a good guy? Does believing that everyone should have free access make you a good guy? Does helping your others make you a good guy?
Free software ideology isn't about the end product, it isn't chocolate versus vanilla, it is about process and access: how do we choose what gets made, how do we make it, who gets to make it and who gets access to what has been made?
A lot of what's turned out to be incredibly influential work wasn't liked at that time, much of it was outright banned for being offensive to portions of the population.
No funding or business model changes this basic resistance to change. Corporate marketing seeks to control what is acceptable for it's own gain, but I'd guess that much of previous work that was banned or "offensive" ran into similar problems (under different guises of power): people who wield influence and power using it against others. Distributed patronage would be a huge win for the freedom for people choose what things get made.
Not to mention that in many cases you don't know what a work is going to look like until after it's finished.
Neither do any other investors, but still they invest in the very products you use every day. Strange but true.
Your arguments only make sense if you accept the mythology of the corporate culture. If free software culture has shown us anything, it has demonstrated that we can build digital goods that are competitive to every other known form of production, with the benefit of real freedom for everyone, not just those currently free/wealthy enough to make it and/or own what has been made.
We've essentially solved the distribution problem (for digital goods). Now we can apply similar solutions to figuring out who decides what gets made and who gets to make it.
1) Fox News makes its viewers less informed. (What headline said, which is impossible.)
Hrm. Suppose that the amount of useful information presented on Fox News was less than other news shows or presented in a way that fewer people could understand. Signal to noise and all that. It doesn't technically "make" you less informed, but you receive less information per time spent. That makes me curious about the amount of commercial breaks in news shows.
Slashdot Mirror
.. A liberal sprinkling of convenient, hypothetical dark-skinned worthies appear: Congolese fisherwomen, graphic designers in Botswana, etc... are all obediently summoned to demonstrate the progressive properties of Google phones jacked into the informational supply chain of the Western empire. " You know, that's pretty patronizing and dismissive of all these groups, just for starters. Those are real people with real needs, dignity, culture, volition, goals etc of their own - not props.
Exactly why Assange is unhappy that they are brought up. Do you think those groups were actually involved in the book or asked about their needs? Assange's criticism is yours - they are props.
Does anyone compile their own Windows? If you don't compile it then the source code that you see is just for show.
Hm, I am curious if orgs like the NSA do compile the source and compare their binary to the official one, they wouldn't have a licence to distribute if the binaries differed, but if they were identical that seems pretty safe. If you're serious about security you compile and distribute your own version of the software yourself.
The argument that the customers can force companies to abandon exploitative business practices only holds if there is enough competition in the market and there are not enough victims to make it worthwhile. WoW, Farmville and other games that rely on addiction-based gameplay with either monthly fees or microtransactions have demonstrated that there are people willing to purposely design their game to exploit the vulnerabilities of their players for profit and the industry is holding them up as examples of real success, not expoitation.
To hold the players responsible to make change is similar to holding other victims of abuse and exploitation responsible for the actions of the abusers. Certainly as a whole we need to reject abusive business practices, but the expectation of individual game players should be that the games are designed to provide enjoyment, free from exploitation. Imagine if other forms of entertainment that were designed to make you pay more for them while you experienced them. There is nothing wrong with paying game creators to create more content, but an industry that designs its products to extract profit regardless of the cost to its customers is going to develop a terrible reputation and invite a backlash against it along with regulation. The gaming industry is foolish to not castigate those that try to profit from anything other than making great games that respect their customers.
Checkout adtrap:
http://www.getadtrap.com/
You missed the kickstarter for it, but I think still available for pre-order?
Management requires empathy for others and an ability to be responsible to others, thus a psychopath cannot do the job.
The problem is that in any system, regardless of the incentives for actions that benefit everyone, the psychopaths will always look for other ways to gain only for themselves. Two things will happen: they will find an exploit or they will misunderstand how to gain the most from the working system and instead gain less but harm others.
I thnk we'll need to come to grips with psychopathy and other mental conditions in the same way we've done for physical disabilities. We want to provide access to the good things in life, but we don't want people with disabilities to put others in danger. The example in the article of no blind pilots is quite apt. No psychopathic leaders seems sensible, the trouble being the measuring of the psychopathy.
Why such a low reinvestment? Is that for external developers only? I would total up support costs, etc compare to licence fees and then reinvest 80% of the "savings", especially if it was 70% internal reinvestment (paid staff) and 10% external developers. Save yourself some money, but if you want to future effeciency and capabilities invest as much as you can.
I recommend against WYSIWYG editors and instead work with tools that provide "live reload", refreshing your page in the browser without hitting the refresh button. Google for it but there are plugins and and bunch of projects on github for various editors and frameworks.
For editors, my personal choice is Sublime: http://www.sublimetext.com/ But Redcar http://redcareditor.com/ was a runner up and I used to use Eclipse.
That is a strange quote from Jobs, who is known for successfully giving us what he wants. "What we want" isn't always what is good for us, which isn't depressing, but simply our genetic/cultural legacy. Culture is our tool to deal with much of that legacy. The goal for a truly profitable business is to find, multiply and distribute the stuff that we want that makes us all richer, and by enriching those around you they will enrich your life. If you exploit others around you you may temporarily gain personally but a poorer culture will never deliver the riches that a rich one can, even to the wealthiest amongst them. That is why designing and making things that you want, that make you richer for having it in you life, is a good bet to make others richer as well.
The media "conspiracy" certainly isn't the one imagined, but it is seems common for "smart" executives think that other people are stupid and thus present them with material that makes them stupid. This has a lot of synergy with getting people to worship idols, buy things they don't need, and making other stupid decisions that are profitable for the executive. This synergy can be mistaken for conspiracy, but it is just a detection of a poorly designed/functioning market.
Markets with too little competition and too large competitors (i.e. plagued by dictatorships, risk aversion, bureaucracy, NIH, status quo, etc) are problems. In a healthier market those "smart" executives would have enough competition to wipe them out or displace them to the role of parasites preying on the most vulnerable.
Exactly. The only sane way to resolve conflicts like this is to let the users choose (and provide smart defaults).
By "smart" I mean something that doesn't disadvantage any of the choices.... off the top of my head, an interface something like the Humble Bundle, perhaps equal or random distribution of money to start and randomize the order of choices. Then record (anonymously) the choices of anyone who adjusts the defaults and start setting the defaults according to general community preference once enough samples are taken. That can be gamed, but it seems like too much work for *way* too little gain. :)
Access to source isn't necessarily a red herring, although you are right the bigger issue is trust. But source opens up markets for trust.
If you/someone you trust had access to the source of all the software on your phone/device you could use trusted services that compare your phone's software (binaries) to a trusted compile. (Trusted binaries could be provided by proprietary software creators, but I'd rather not trust the software creators and have it independently compiled by a company whose business is security/trust.) Transparency and source are the first steps towards building a functional trust market where you have real choices of businesses that offer services that increase the trust you have of your devices. Extending trust to your network is certainly problematic, but I would hope eventually network providers would have their networks independently audited by security/trust companies, but that would require enough demand (and potentially redundant networks so that you could choose to only use those that you deemed secure enough).
People haven't really groked that the physical things in their life that run software may actually be controlled by someone else. That is a pretty foreign concept, but I'm hoping that once it really sinks in we'll see some real businesses that specialize in keeping your software working for you (not just anti-virus). At that point free software will have an insurmountable advantage over proprietary.
"That was a really interesting lesson for me."
The wrong lesson. The lesson I would take away is "we have a problem where we can't innovate because our retooling costs are out of control; we better change our manufacturing so that we can continue to innovate."
This entire fan vs artist argument makes no bloody sense. How is an artist not a spectator and fan of their own work? If fans are the true owners then so too are the artists. I suppose I can see an argument where no individual (artist or fan) is an owner of something that has is perceived to be collectively owned, but that is a far older debate. :)
From a free software perspective, the only problem here is when Lucas stops others from "forking" his work or tries to prevent people from distributing their favourite version (his own first version included). Everyone, including Lucas, should be free to do whatever they want with Starwars.
The argument that he must provide a digital copy of the original film is an interesting one. I'd say that anyone should be able to pay to have it digitized, but he certainly doesn't need to provide one - unless he restricts access to the "source" film.
In Canada only personal contributions to politicians are allowed and they are capped at a very low amount (approx $2200). http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=pol&document=index&dir=lim&lang=e
It is entirely possible for bribery to occur in an illegal way (and there are many scandals like that) but the legal influencing of politicians is limited. This does seem to help, and the goal is not perfection, just improvement.
What I don't understand is how they managed to learn to use a fax machine in the first place. :)
I nearly went insane when I went through this recently with a number of professionals who routinely handle confidential documents: electronic doc -> print -> sign -> scan (to lossy jpg no less) -> email -> print -> sign -> scan (to lossy jpg) -> repeat until all is illegible. :|
Whatever cultural demon has prevented strong encrypted emails, etc must be purged for great justice.
What if I make a game that shows how games like Warcraft and Farmville exploit people's weaknesses for profit? Or a game that rewards you for getting your friends to stop playing any of that genre of game.
Remember, what Alex Peake and a lot of the Gamification people are talking about are games that have an awareness that bringing the player out of the game environment and into other environments is part of the goal of the game. You are specifically encouraged to stop playing (temporarily) and get involved in other things. Likely Peake would want an AI that recognized that the player was growing too dependent on it and would create challenges to build an interest and attachment to other things and people.
The disgusting zombification (learned dependence, ignorance, apathy and misinformation) inherent in the mediums and products of those that seek to exploit others is not really present in the mediums and work with free software-like philosophy. That is why free software is so important. I personally would be very reluctant to have my child interact heavily with any AI that wasn't completely free software. Give me 30 minutes and I think I could convince most any parent of the same.
Agreed, this is a tragic mistake of an experiment.
What they were looking to test can't be found in a prisoner/guard role-playing session. Considering that none of the guards or inmates had any actual experience in a jail (and the guards had no training before starting the experiment) they were basing all of their role-playing of their roles on entertainment... by definition full of conflict and drama. Like reality television, those involved quickly started competing for attention, fending off boredom and simply pushing the bounds of "the game".
There is another possibility: that bitcoins could become a very big thing; that right now might be some of the critical challenges/successes and other news sources are missing the story. The existence of a decentralized electronic currency that works well and is accepted as payment in as many places as a credit card would drastically change the world economy. Bitcoin may fail and disappear, but even in that case it is worth watching so we can learn from its failures.
In any case, many of my other news sources are talking bitcoin, so it certainly isn't just slashdot.
If I was a Dad I would be playing Sleep is Death by Jason Rohrer with my kids: http://sleepisdeath.net/
Pay what you can, full source code, two player storytelling game. First Dad gets to make the world come alive, then the real fun begins as the kids learn to be the storyteller.
I believe you can middle click the application icon to open another instance.
Canonical already does usability testing and according to Shuttleworth they have the most usability/design testing of any free software project.
Check http://design.canonical.com/category/usability/ for details.
You need to be more savvy than that.
You can start with "Am I being charged with something officer?"
But when he says, "I'll charge you for jaywalking." Or some other obviously false but your-word-versus-his charge, then you have the next level of problem to deal with.
I don't have any good advice for that one, but I do know at that point I'd feel extremely unsafe.
You're pro-open source, so that makes you a "good guy"? I like chocolate, you like vanilla, ergo, I am good, you are bad.
Does being pro-freedom make you a good guy? Does believing that everyone should have free access make you a good guy? Does helping your others make you a good guy?
Free software ideology isn't about the end product, it isn't chocolate versus vanilla, it is about process and access: how do we choose what gets made, how do we make it, who gets to make it and who gets access to what has been made?
A lot of what's turned out to be incredibly influential work wasn't liked at that time, much of it was outright banned for being offensive to portions of the population.
No funding or business model changes this basic resistance to change. Corporate marketing seeks to control what is acceptable for it's own gain, but I'd guess that much of previous work that was banned or "offensive" ran into similar problems (under different guises of power): people who wield influence and power using it against others. Distributed patronage would be a huge win for the freedom for people choose what things get made.
Not to mention that in many cases you don't know what a work is going to look like until after it's finished.
Neither do any other investors, but still they invest in the very products you use every day. Strange but true.
Your arguments only make sense if you accept the mythology of the corporate culture. If free software culture has shown us anything, it has demonstrated that we can build digital goods that are competitive to every other known form of production, with the benefit of real freedom for everyone, not just those currently free/wealthy enough to make it and/or own what has been made.
We've essentially solved the distribution problem (for digital goods). Now we can apply similar solutions to figuring out who decides what gets made and who gets to make it.
1) Fox News makes its viewers less informed. (What headline said, which is impossible.)
Hrm. Suppose that the amount of useful information presented on Fox News was less than other news shows or presented in a way that fewer people could understand. Signal to noise and all that. It doesn't technically "make" you less informed, but you receive less information per time spent. That makes me curious about the amount of commercial breaks in news shows.