The article points out how the original hardware is susceptible now just based on current technology catching up to 1970's technology:
Until then, the military is still using aging FLTSAT and UFO satellites -- and so are a lot of Brazilians. While the technology on the transponders still dates from the 1970s, radio sets back on Earth have only improved and plummeted in cost -- opening a cheap, efficient and illegal backdoor.
It kind of reminds me of video game consoles. With the advent of computers, it became possible to emulate things like the NES and SNES on your computer as those consoles became outdated and your CPU could easily emulate the chipset in those devices. With the Dreamcast, it seemed like they still hadn't learned their lesson as there was little to no-copy-protection on the media that contained the game. It was only a matter of time before hardware caught up and Dreamcast emulators were available.
Systems like the PS3 and Xbox360 have learned from this but it is arguable that soon (if not already) that will be cracked and emulated. The military should take note of this battle as now that communication with satellites has become cheap, they are facing the same cat and mouse game. So they have two options: either attempt to crush it politically (like Brazil's Operation Satellite) or live with it and prepare mitigation plans.
Some might argue that if you give anyone enough time with something, human curiosity and boredom prevails against the highest standards.
That I wish the game companies and everyone would learn from:
[Beta] seems to be more about marketing the game and hyping it up.
So completely accurate.
Honestly I feel that nowadays the developers get confused and can not find a happy medium between listening to every single testers opinion and listening to nobody. In some beta tests I have felt the community was highly ignored while in other tests I have felt that the developers tried to cater to every single tester. Both are and were recipes for failure.
Beta tests now are glorified demos for the games. It used to be so much different. I really hate what's been done to them, and the only way to be a 'real' tester now is to get into the alpha's or in some rare cases early closed betas.
Backing up the first quote and pointing out what Betas have become.
I wish there were more people submitting bug reports, but that's the way it goes with beta, and weâ(TM)re still finding them regardless. Besides, I need all types [of players]. I need the exploits so we can find them... I need the jerks.
At first I was shocked they would want the scripters and botmakers on so early but I soon understood that you want to catch these serious things as early as possible to fix them because:
By the time beta begins, you've made decision after decision that have compounded on each other. Your assumptions' assumptions' have assumptions about what your game is. The whole product, systems, content, operations, marketing, PR, community ramp, you name it -- is built upon them. Changing core assumptions about the product itself is unlikely to be possible without significant delays, costing progressively more money per month. (Remember, the months toward the end of the dev cycle are the most expensive ones by far.)
Ultimately, you need to believe in your product before you conduct any sort of open beta or release a demo. You can message to players all you want that the game is a "work in progress" and that many things will change before final release, but that wonâ(TM)t stop them from making judgments about the title based on their beta experiences.
I believe that's the fundamental reason behind Blizzard's horrid schedule slippages.
It is disappointing to say, but testing has become a bit of a joke, and I feel that the current crop of recent games are a reflection of that. So many games are being released incomplete (as far as hyped features go) and containing issues that should have been picked up and resolved during the closed beta phase at the latest, but this isn't happening.
It's the classic cash in while you still can mentality that has seen the release of so many unstable games only to have the servers shut off or merged down within a year.
Here's to hoping the gaming industry finds and reads this article... we're in a bad spot right now.
Nearly every location on this list is full of distractions. True, I can multitask while the TV is showing something I've seen or do not care about. Unfortunately, if it's a movie out of my Netflix queue, it greatly hampers my progress.
Some of these places are just plain uncomfortable like public transportation or an airplane.
Your bed?! The place where you sleep? Seriously? Granted there aren't a lot of places to suggest, this list blows. I'd be swimming if I were near a pool.
For me the biggest factor is nice studio quality headphones covering my ears producing low volume music. Maybe it's my favorite non-talk radio station (The Current or Radio K) or maybe it's some classical/jazz/rock album I just picked up. My hands and eyes are busy only with the task at hand. An internet connection will help break the monotony for short periods of time and keep me at full operating power. After that, I like to have hot tea, coffee or water at hand to drink and maybe some raw almonds to munch on. A relaxed position and a bathroom within short distance makes for the optimum coding environment.
Assuming I have no questions about requirements or technology, this is the state I usually like to be in.
He was given 2-3 years to live... at age 21 due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
He contracted pneumonia in 1985 and would never speak naturally again as a result of the surgery to save his life.
When the odds are stacked against you, a "fantastic will to live" can seem pretty insignificant. I'm grateful we've had his presence for this long but these are the facts.
I'm not afraid to show Stephen Hawking we're shocked and mortified that we might lose him. I hope we don't but I'm not one to go through life with a "everything's going to be just fine" attitude masking my true feelings. I followed Robert Jordan's disease in mortified fear and I'll follow Stephen Hawking's progress in mortified fear. I would like him to know how much the world will miss him before it is too late.
I am grateful for all that he has done in stealing knowledge from the unknown and delivering it to mankind. I know my own personal state of understanding owes him a great deal.
Re:Wow. Just Wow.
on
Oracle Buys Sun
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Oracle likes to buy a lot of companies, but they've all been, more or less, niche players in specific markets to fill in the gaps of their own offerings. I can't imagine what "gap" buying Sun will fill, other than something will be certainly be filled.
Application server? Java development environment? Control of the Java language? UI Technology? Hardware?
Everyone seems to be missing the big picture: Oracle's goal is to offer you a fully supported "stack" from database to application server to hardware and everything in between. All the development tools, technologies, languages, etc. So they can lock you in and offer you the full range of support, no handing you off to so and so because it's not a database problem anymore. Would you pay a premium for that? That's how you make money. And now, they have filled a lot of those gaps and have absorbed some great teams to make that dream a reality. Or so they believe. We'll see how this turns out.
Oh, and the restriction mentioned would be to residents, not citizens. A US citizen living abroad would be restricted just like anyone else in their country of residence, while foreigners in the United States would not be.
This is not true, I believe the only way they determine what country you reside in is your credit card. So as long as your credit card is still linked to your home on U.S. soil, purchase away while abroad and download as you'd like. In the original Geographic Restrictions, they stated this and I would expect it to be the same way since it's the safest way and the way Amazon does it. Quite counter-intuitive as a foreigner could walk into any brick and mortar store and pick up a copy (hopefully in a language they understand) from the U.S. distributor.
Filtering by IP address range would be far easier to subvert than this... unless of course, you're in the fake credit card market and you're in deeper trouble than violating distribution rights at that point.
What makes you think this is a matter of laws and not a stupid restriction placed into their contract by the content rights owners?.
Yes but it's important to remember why these contracts were often in place. I mean, it wasn't that we had to get all of Herman Melville's whaling stories to China so they could enjoy them... it was to ail a very real problem of people taking literature, translating it and selling it in foreign countries with no revenue going to the original artist or publisher. So I believe it was commonplace to accept distribution contracts to--ironically--protect your works from being distributed for free in foreign countries where you would have no chance of prosecuting. But if someone is there with distribution rights, the people posing as you had better watch out!
There are other reasons for these distribution contracts and I'll bet a lot of them are along the lines of "sure we'll take a few thousand from you because no one's going to read this in your area"... have fun with those piracy lawsuits.
I would like to call distribution rights an old or archaic system but frankly that's what's in place and you'd need to point out how it would protect their work from being sold without consent if you dreamed up a new system. I'm sure it varies publisher to publisher but the rights are probably an ongoing contract that would be difficult to change. You have some very real barriers to overcome... like court cases to handle piracy, accurate translations, royalty management, etc. What system do you propose replace distribution rights contracts?
We are legally bound to restrict sale of titles that have these limitations to the allowed countries. If we did not, we would lose the books and nobody would be able to buy them from us. We don't like it any more than you do, believe us when we tell you that. It causes us not only to lose sales, but also to get complaints from customers, and we like to keep our customers happy.
I don't think they're taking a cue from anybody, they're just following distribution laws so they don't lose their license to distribute... and possibly face a lawsuit. Once you get big enough, you become a target. I wouldn't blame eReader or B&N... blame a shitty distribution system.
What I'd like to make clear, though, is that I fully oppose those people who would like to take it a step too far...
Ok, that's fair for you to have an opinion like that. I think right now you just need to take baby steps and get everyone on all sides to agree that the system is broken. While the majority of us are saying that, the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/Lawyers are still in a stubborn mule state. Which is fine because the longer they put off overhauling the system, the longer it hurts them and they lose ground to be seen as a rational actor we can work with to adapt to the changes that this magical internet has brought about.
That said, I will make the prediction for the future of Copyright: It will only get longer. It will only take longer for works to enter public domain and it will only get worse for the majority of the population. This has been true historically (Mickey Mouse Act, Sonny Bono, etc) and it will continue to be true. Where is our voice (public and public domain) represented in this process? The lobbyists run congress unopposed and hilarious lawsuits spring up routinely. It ain't a platform or election issue for the politicians so they don't care.
I'm not saying there is no such thing as intellectual property. I am saying that there are special classes of intellectual property like software and music that the law needs to adapt to. With the advent of the internet, this change must come more now than ever. We're about a full decade late in preparing the law for this wonderful technology.
When will you be able to sing Happy Birthday and White Christmas with your family publicly?
Maybe he should have followed the link of the first reply's signature? From that site:
Myth:
If you buy a Kindle, you are locked into Amazon's Kindle store.
Truth:
There are many sources for books that can be read on the Kindle.
Some Free Sites (Public Domain / Creative Commons)
MobileRead.com (look for.mobi books you can download to your computer or download the MobiGuide
and get your books via Whispernet)
Feedbooks.com (books can be downloaded to your computer or if you download their Kindle Guide
you can get your books via Whispernet - they even have a video on how to use the guide)
Manybooks.net (when you download to your computer, look for Kindle format or Mobipocket)
1001Books (download books to your computer or directly from your Kindle browser)
Some Pay Sites
Fictionwise.com (look for.mobi books but NOT Secure Mobipocket books)
BooksonBoard.com (register your Kindle's PID and you can download any.mobi from their Overdrive servers -
to learn more about this see the Visual Kindle Guide wiki)
Baen.com (great site for Sci-Fi books which offers free as well as low cost books)
So your Kindle is still somewhat useful. I would hope that more competition arises and Amazon removes its Kindle services from its e-book services so as to avoid a nasty inevitable anti-trust suit.
Two experimental tasks in psychology, the two-stage gambling game and the Prisoner's Dilemma game, show that people violate the sure thing principle of decision theory. These paradoxical findings have resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. A quantum probability model, based on a Hilbert space representation and Schrodinger's equation, provides a simple and elegant explanation for this behaviour. The quantum model is compared with an equivalent Markov model and it is shown that the latter is unable to account for violations of the sure thing principle. Accordingly, it is argued that quantum probability provides a better framework for modelling human decision-making.
The human brain is a complex organ. Unfortunately the kind people at the "Royal Society for Articles Only People with Money Can Read" would not allow me to review this research. I would have found this research much more compelling had they reported a much more thorough sample analysis. I'm going to predict that people from different walks of life would respond differently to the Prisoner's Dilemma game. For instance, if you did this on regular citizens with no history of jail time versus convicts serving sentences, I would expect you to have to adapt your model.
Because you encountered some percentage of "wishful thinking" does not necessarily make that a tried and true percentage unless it is true for human beings in different groups that may affect this decision making. If it truly is quantum mechanics at work, I would suspect that you would see the same percentage in convicts vs non-convicts, Russians vs Americans, women vs men, scientists vs priests, orphans vs parented children, etc. For you see, I'm going to make the assumption that people are deciding on wishful thinking based on their history of interacting with other humans.
I'm also noticing a disturbing trend in "quantum mechanics" being spewed whenever we don't understand something. I caution you that people in the future might look back on this and laugh that such crude research could in any way conclude that quantum mechanics is at work. It's almost as if we assume we understand other possible explanation so it must be the one we don't understand very well. We don't understand photosynthesis --> must be quantum mechanics! We don't understand the human mind --> must be quantum mechanics! etc. Am I saying quantum mechanics has nothing to do with these things? No. I'm just saying I have seen no conclusive proof.
Meanwhile Linux users everywhere are scratching their heads.
No, no we are not. We're used to this shit from Ballmer and Co. Surprised that they turned their sites on Apple with it?
No, I've bitched about this before and I'm sick of hearing about "hidden costs" that you don't pay when you install Linux or OSX or whatever but that you pay later. Or the cost to train to a new OS being a "hidden" cost because Microsoft starts these reports with the assumption that everyone already knows Windows XP.
I'm not scratching my head, I'm sick of it. And I hope that this finally causes people to realize that you can only assume the price of what you initially pay for software because they all have flaws and problems down the line. It's a futile exercise to try to itemize that in a cost list because--surprise surprise--you're often subjective and biased when you do it!
Microsoft conveniently ignores these "comprehensive" reports when they ask you to upgrade to Vista despite all the retraining and migration problems you will have.
TW Scam Artist: So this is how it works. See this graph here? Stats are showing that 80% of your users lie in monthly usage between 1GB and 100GBs of usage and they're paying about $45 as it is. So we reward the ten percent below 1GB with 1/3 their normal cost and we hit the 80% in bell curve here with 66% increase in price. TW CEO: And the 10% above 100GB per month? TW Scam Artist: Fuck 'em. We don't even want their business and what they're doing is probably illegal as it is. We hit them with one crippling monthly payment and they leave. There will be splash back but nothing our mitigation team can't handle. TW CEO: I see. How on earth are we going to market a 66% increase to 80% of our users? TW Scam Artist: We aren't. We're going to cherry pick stats. That's 1,000 songs downloaded from iTunes. Do you download 1,000 songs a month? No. That's 1,000,000 webpages and we point out that that isn't humanly possible to do in a month. We gotta be careful and skirt some of the obvious stuff like if you stream netflix, youtube, vimeo or any video site just a few hours and you're already in the $75 range. Avoid that. And avoid questions on people who download DVDs or even large updates to popular software like Warcraft and Windows. TW CEO: So we just unleash this on them? TW Scam Artist: No, we do a trial run and expect bad feedback. Then we say "oh gosh, some people didn't like it, so we're doubling the lower limit to 2GB!" and that loses us like 1% of the bell curve but we don't care. The people feel like they're vindicated blah blah blah they don't even realize or sign anything when this goes into effect. After that bullshit trial run, we are free to unleash it because it looks like we've done our homework and compromised our profits in the interest of the consumer. TW CEO: Why are we doing this, are we having network and hardware problems? TW Scam Artist: No, are you stupid? That shit gets better daily. Oh, did I hurt your feelings? I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was employed by a bunch of dumbass hippies waiting to roll over whenever an opportunity of epic proportions gets dropped in their lap. TW CEO: My apologies, here's your sack of money.
Well, there's a list of online backup services on Wikipedia that's probably only half of what's available so if you feel you are lacking options and would like to help your friend out, you can do a thorough comparison matrix containing his priorities and rate each of them. You might be able to find viable options in the list of file hosting services as they use encryption.
As a lawyer with recognition in NJ, NY, CA, and DC, are there any rules and regulations you know of regarding such online storage he must comply with?
Ahahahahaha, you are asking Slashdot for advice on legal rules and standards to assist a lawyer?
Look, you're probably going above and beyond what a normal lawyer did back in the day: throw a piece of paper in a filing cabinet in his office. Subject to fire and theft, sure, but I doubt the law has changed enough to make that illegal. CoreVault looks good, you can also visit each of the state bar association pages you listed and find things like NY State Bar Association offering a discount at VENYU for offsite data storage which is probably as close as you'll get to an endorsement. Have you thought about calling each state bar association office and asking them what they use/recommend?
Wow! First McAfee found out through objective research that spam ruins the environment and now Symantec has an unbiased report showing malicious activity is on the rise!
I can not wait for Richard Stallman's report on commercial closed source software costing a record high price in 2008. I mean assuming he comes to that conclusion, of course.
I would just like to point out that the URL for that PDF report indicates it is stored in a directory named 'mktginfo.' I wonder what that stands for... "Mortal Kombat: The Game Info" perhaps?
I found this part of the review especially helpful:
The invoice for this baby is pretty small compared to your normal MS Exchange Server, it's only 1. But that's not in dollars, that's in first born children. So I'm going to throw out a few strategies for coping with this.
Just squeeze one out with your wife/prostitute to get it out of the way. ProTip: don't waste money on shots or clothing, a transport blanket will do. Usually you you can convince your wife that the first one is like a test run anyway.
Order one of those adopted kids from some other country. Throw some cheap makeup on them to match your ethnicity, pick up some false documents and practice watering up your eyes for when you have to push the kid across a long empty room to Steve Ballmer waiting with a pair of handcuffs. They'll be slightly better off indentured to Microsoft than whatever country they came from anyway.
Shaft them and never have kids. This is probably the option that will come naturally to most software folks. Get a vasectomy, abstain, do whatever it takes. There's no clause against this in the licensing agreement I read--yet.
So, like pretending you're a college student, starving African or university staff to get cheap editions of Exchange 2007, there are ways to acquired 2010 at a relatively low cost and I hope this helps you cope with the extreme cost of owning Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 for your enterprise business.
Sure the costs don't stop there, you need to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 to use it and there are a few more things you'll need to upgrade if you want to keep the same functionality you have now... but that's just the unspoken rule.
Imagine if every inbox were protected by a state-of-the-art spam filter. We could save about 75% of the spam energy used today â" 25 TWh per year; that's like taking 2.3 million cars off the road.
My God! That is fantastic! If only we had the option to purchase a "state-of-the-art spam filter!" Wait, I know! McAfee, the people who sponsored and paid for this research, have SpamKiller! It's perfect.
Although I can't access the PDF (download hangs), could you please direct me to the part of the 'research' where you analyze the amount of energy used to perform complex computational functions on tokens from e-mails against a database. And prove that this is less than the energy wasted flipping though e-mails and deleting spam? I mean, the network usage is going to be the same so... that would have to be some pretty impressive and efficient Bayesian filtering with an amazing database technology to drop below viewing and deleting e-mails.
And maybe you could factor in the cost and subscription to said state-of-the-art spam filter?
What? You didn't include that analysis in your research? It sounds like a very crucial part of convincing me to acquire a state-of-the-art spam filter. You missed that part?
Anyone who values their privacy should applaud this move by Amazon.
Thank you for telling me how to think. I believe we are approaching this from the wrong end (why start with websites?).
The article hints at two other points I would encourage Brits who care to be vocal about:
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: We expect more sites to block Webwise in the near future and also ISPs to drop plans to snoop on web users.
Write your ISPs. Threaten to change ISPs even if you're not able to. Let them know how this makes you feel.
The European Commission has described the technology as an "interception" of user data and wants UK law to reflect more explicitly the need for consent from users in order for the service to be implemented.
As always, contact your parliamentary representative and also EU representative and let them know how you feel about this.
These would be much more effective options than asking each website that exists to request Phorm not scan their site.
Judge: Would the prosecution give its opening statements in this case? Prosecutor: Ladies & gentlemen of the jury, I have every intent to prove to you today that the defendant is not only guilty but that the warrant application that granted us the right to acquire evidence practically wrote itself! Now, I am going to outline the warning signs that were evident in the days leading up to this case. I want you to close your eyes for a second and imagine your warm and fuzzy graphical (that's geek speak for 'good') user interface of Windows XP--that all you good Christian patriots use. Ah, the field of green with a blue screen and your well known icons and start menu where everybody knows your name and system tray with your favorite purple gorilla and application bar... and uh--who's that over there?--it's Clippy! *pauses until he sees smiles cross the juries faces* Prosecutor: Now, imagine that all that is taken away and you're left with the cold dark nothingness of space--like before God created the earth. The heavens and stars aren't even there. It's nothing! And there, blinking unendingly, with no remorse or care for anything good is an intimidating cursor after some letters and symbols that no American could decipher. And as you type things like "I want to order shoes on Amazon" it responds only with the cold harsh words of the devil telling you that ordering shoes on Amazon is not a valid command. And Clippy? Clippy is dead. *takes a drink of water and smiles smugly as the jury begins to scowl* Prosecutor: And this is what the defendant used to send that e-mail. This... this evil operating system is what hackers use. Maybe those hackers are the same ones that stole your credit card information? Maybe this operating system can only be understood by the criminally insane? I know I can't use it. It would be like me trying to read a book in German. You know who else spoke German? Hitler. Prosecutor: So you see, this warrant was basically granted from keystroke one after we found out that the defendant was using Linux--an operating system that encourages you to use a file sharing software to install it. The warrant is valid, I'm just asking you what else might have been done with Linux and its evil knowledge installed on that college student's head and computer. Your honor, I rest my case.
Yes, I'm being pompous, condescending and arrogant.
I believe the word you were looking for there is "subjective."
Got a problem with it?
Not really. As long as you don't try to push your ideas on me and demand YouTube focus on your personal priorities and tastes in video, everything is fine and I encourage you to express your opinion.
"Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence."
Let me be the first to say "I told you so."
The researchers found some very useful information though--like the fact that a man getting kicked in the testicles is just as funny or maybe even more funny in grainy home video than in high definition. After performing principal component analysis on several testicle injury clips rated across thousands of users, they found--surprisingly--that the most important variables are (1) how wide the victim's eyes opened upon impact, (2) how loud of a scream the victim emitted upon impact and (3) how long the victim lay motionless on the ground after initial agony.
I might be able to see the bandwidth costing a million dollars a day but could someone explain how Credit Suisse and comScore came up with these numbers?
Unemployed? Seriously, expand your skill set and learn the backend and basic services so you can start to call yourself a full fledged "web developer."
House wives with spare time between cooking and putting the kids to bed make geocities pages with HTML. My advice is to not rely on something like that for your livelihood.
I watched a few of these videos and I'm going to admit that it's very tough to push an operating system in less than a minute. So that leaves you in the very department you don't want to be in--marketing.
I will congratulate Linux and the winning contestant on achieving what Apple did and Microsoft tried to. And that is simplify Linux down to an idea easy to grasp with no actual numbers or ideas surrounding it. Like the Mac ads, it's just "cool" to be a Mac. I like that they imply that to be Linux is to enjoy freedom but it's no more convincing to me than the Mac ads. I'm a Linux fanatic but I'm realistic.
I don't think Linux needs this kind of advertising. I would prefer the software to speak for itself--warts and all. I hope all the participants had fun and I also hope that this doesn't make an easy target for anti-Linux folks. The winning ad sidesteps some of Linux's difficult aspects (usability, third party support, etc.) and promotes its trump card. Linux is freedom.
There seems to be this invisible pressure to create something that is highly 'intuitive' and incorporates the highest level of innovation that we have ever seen.
Well, this is certainly the first time I've heard someone complain about innovation and change in gaming.
The picture of the... blogger? looks pretty young on this article. I wonder if he recalls playing 2D sidescroller after 2D sidescroller? Or if he realizes that a lot of games come out based on the same engine and it really bores me when I realize that I'm just playing a re-textured version of Doom 3 (or whatever the first game was that used that engine).
On the other hand there are series that feel the need to completely revamp a game that played perfectly fine before...
Then play the first game over and over. There are some people that prefer to play something different. Yes, at some point you should draw the line but there are so many games out there you should just read the reviews or rent it and avoid it.
Given enough competition, innovation is a very good thing regardless.
The problem is that the newest ideas put into games are either gimmicky, terrible in execution, or blatantly ripping off another title.
What you are complaining about does not sound like "innovation" but merely something that annoys you. How is it innovative to do any of those things? It sounds more like you're just upset about some franchise being ruined for a title or two so you needed to vent. This isn't "pointless innovation," it's copycatting.
Slashdot Mirror
Until then, the military is still using aging FLTSAT and UFO satellites -- and so are a lot of Brazilians. While the technology on the transponders still dates from the 1970s, radio sets back on Earth have only improved and plummeted in cost -- opening a cheap, efficient and illegal backdoor.
It kind of reminds me of video game consoles. With the advent of computers, it became possible to emulate things like the NES and SNES on your computer as those consoles became outdated and your CPU could easily emulate the chipset in those devices. With the Dreamcast, it seemed like they still hadn't learned their lesson as there was little to no-copy-protection on the media that contained the game. It was only a matter of time before hardware caught up and Dreamcast emulators were available.
Systems like the PS3 and Xbox360 have learned from this but it is arguable that soon (if not already) that will be cracked and emulated. The military should take note of this battle as now that communication with satellites has become cheap, they are facing the same cat and mouse game. So they have two options: either attempt to crush it politically (like Brazil's Operation Satellite) or live with it and prepare mitigation plans.
Some might argue that if you give anyone enough time with something, human curiosity and boredom prevails against the highest standards.
[Beta] seems to be more about marketing the game and hyping it up.
So completely accurate.
Honestly I feel that nowadays the developers get confused and can not find a happy medium between listening to every single testers opinion and listening to nobody. In some beta tests I have felt the community was highly ignored while in other tests I have felt that the developers tried to cater to every single tester. Both are and were recipes for failure.
Beta tests now are glorified demos for the games. It used to be so much different. I really hate what's been done to them, and the only way to be a 'real' tester now is to get into the alpha's or in some rare cases early closed betas.
Backing up the first quote and pointing out what Betas have become.
I wish there were more people submitting bug reports, but that's the way it goes with beta, and weâ(TM)re still finding them regardless. Besides, I need all types [of players]. I need the exploits so we can find them ... I need the jerks.
At first I was shocked they would want the scripters and botmakers on so early but I soon understood that you want to catch these serious things as early as possible to fix them because:
By the time beta begins, you've made decision after decision that have compounded on each other. Your assumptions' assumptions' have assumptions about what your game is. The whole product, systems, content, operations, marketing, PR, community ramp, you name it -- is built upon them. Changing core assumptions about the product itself is unlikely to be possible without significant delays, costing progressively more money per month. (Remember, the months toward the end of the dev cycle are the most expensive ones by far.)
Ultimately, you need to believe in your product before you conduct any sort of open beta or release a demo. You can message to players all you want that the game is a "work in progress" and that many things will change before final release, but that wonâ(TM)t stop them from making judgments about the title based on their beta experiences.
I believe that's the fundamental reason behind Blizzard's horrid schedule slippages.
It is disappointing to say, but testing has become a bit of a joke, and I feel that the current crop of recent games are a reflection of that. So many games are being released incomplete (as far as hyped features go) and containing issues that should have been picked up and resolved during the closed beta phase at the latest, but this isn't happening.
It's the classic cash in while you still can mentality that has seen the release of so many unstable games only to have the servers shut off or merged down within a year.
... we're in a bad spot right now.
Here's to hoping the gaming industry finds and reads this article
Nearly every location on this list is full of distractions. True, I can multitask while the TV is showing something I've seen or do not care about. Unfortunately, if it's a movie out of my Netflix queue, it greatly hampers my progress.
Some of these places are just plain uncomfortable like public transportation or an airplane.
Your bed?! The place where you sleep? Seriously? Granted there aren't a lot of places to suggest, this list blows. I'd be swimming if I were near a pool.
For me the biggest factor is nice studio quality headphones covering my ears producing low volume music. Maybe it's my favorite non-talk radio station (The Current or Radio K) or maybe it's some classical/jazz/rock album I just picked up. My hands and eyes are busy only with the task at hand. An internet connection will help break the monotony for short periods of time and keep me at full operating power. After that, I like to have hot tea, coffee or water at hand to drink and maybe some raw almonds to munch on. A relaxed position and a bathroom within short distance makes for the optimum coding environment.
Assuming I have no questions about requirements or technology, this is the state I usually like to be in.
He was given 2-3 years to live ... at age 21 due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
He contracted pneumonia in 1985 and would never speak naturally again as a result of the surgery to save his life.
When the odds are stacked against you, a "fantastic will to live" can seem pretty insignificant. I'm grateful we've had his presence for this long but these are the facts.
I'm not afraid to show Stephen Hawking we're shocked and mortified that we might lose him. I hope we don't but I'm not one to go through life with a "everything's going to be just fine" attitude masking my true feelings. I followed Robert Jordan's disease in mortified fear and I'll follow Stephen Hawking's progress in mortified fear. I would like him to know how much the world will miss him before it is too late.
I am grateful for all that he has done in stealing knowledge from the unknown and delivering it to mankind. I know my own personal state of understanding owes him a great deal.
Oracle likes to buy a lot of companies, but they've all been, more or less, niche players in specific markets to fill in the gaps of their own offerings. I can't imagine what "gap" buying Sun will fill, other than something will be certainly be filled.
Application server? Java development environment? Control of the Java language? UI Technology? Hardware?
Everyone seems to be missing the big picture: Oracle's goal is to offer you a fully supported "stack" from database to application server to hardware and everything in between. All the development tools, technologies, languages, etc. So they can lock you in and offer you the full range of support, no handing you off to so and so because it's not a database problem anymore. Would you pay a premium for that? That's how you make money. And now, they have filled a lot of those gaps and have absorbed some great teams to make that dream a reality. Or so they believe. We'll see how this turns out.
Oh, and the restriction mentioned would be to residents, not citizens. A US citizen living abroad would be restricted just like anyone else in their country of residence, while foreigners in the United States would not be.
This is not true, I believe the only way they determine what country you reside in is your credit card. So as long as your credit card is still linked to your home on U.S. soil, purchase away while abroad and download as you'd like. In the original Geographic Restrictions, they stated this and I would expect it to be the same way since it's the safest way and the way Amazon does it. Quite counter-intuitive as a foreigner could walk into any brick and mortar store and pick up a copy (hopefully in a language they understand) from the U.S. distributor.
... unless of course, you're in the fake credit card market and you're in deeper trouble than violating distribution rights at that point.
Filtering by IP address range would be far easier to subvert than this
What makes you think this is a matter of laws and not a stupid restriction placed into their contract by the content rights owners?.
Yes but it's important to remember why these contracts were often in place. I mean, it wasn't that we had to get all of Herman Melville's whaling stories to China so they could enjoy them ... it was to ail a very real problem of people taking literature, translating it and selling it in foreign countries with no revenue going to the original artist or publisher. So I believe it was commonplace to accept distribution contracts to--ironically--protect your works from being distributed for free in foreign countries where you would have no chance of prosecuting. But if someone is there with distribution rights, the people posing as you had better watch out!
... have fun with those piracy lawsuits.
... like court cases to handle piracy, accurate translations, royalty management, etc. What system do you propose replace distribution rights contracts?
There are other reasons for these distribution contracts and I'll bet a lot of them are along the lines of "sure we'll take a few thousand from you because no one's going to read this in your area"
I would like to call distribution rights an old or archaic system but frankly that's what's in place and you'd need to point out how it would protect their work from being sold without consent if you dreamed up a new system. I'm sure it varies publisher to publisher but the rights are probably an ongoing contract that would be difficult to change. You have some very real barriers to overcome
(Right now, the link that should display these new geographic restrictions returns an error message that says the page is being updated.)
Well, they still have their (what I assume to be their old) Geographic Restrictions page here up and it says:
We are legally bound to restrict sale of titles that have these limitations to the allowed countries. If we did not, we would lose the books and nobody would be able to buy them from us. We don't like it any more than you do, believe us when we tell you that. It causes us not only to lose sales, but also to get complaints from customers, and we like to keep our customers happy.
I don't think they're taking a cue from anybody, they're just following distribution laws so they don't lose their license to distribute ... and possibly face a lawsuit. Once you get big enough, you become a target. I wouldn't blame eReader or B&N ... blame a shitty distribution system.
What I'd like to make clear, though, is that I fully oppose those people who would like to take it a step too far ...
Ok, that's fair for you to have an opinion like that. I think right now you just need to take baby steps and get everyone on all sides to agree that the system is broken. While the majority of us are saying that, the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/Lawyers are still in a stubborn mule state. Which is fine because the longer they put off overhauling the system, the longer it hurts them and they lose ground to be seen as a rational actor we can work with to adapt to the changes that this magical internet has brought about.
That said, I will make the prediction for the future of Copyright: It will only get longer. It will only take longer for works to enter public domain and it will only get worse for the majority of the population. This has been true historically (Mickey Mouse Act, Sonny Bono, etc) and it will continue to be true. Where is our voice (public and public domain) represented in this process? The lobbyists run congress unopposed and hilarious lawsuits spring up routinely. It ain't a platform or election issue for the politicians so they don't care.
I'm not saying there is no such thing as intellectual property. I am saying that there are special classes of intellectual property like software and music that the law needs to adapt to. With the advent of the internet, this change must come more now than ever. We're about a full decade late in preparing the law for this wonderful technology.
When will you be able to sing Happy Birthday and White Christmas with your family publicly?
Myth:
If you buy a Kindle, you are locked into Amazon's Kindle store.
Truth:
There are many sources for books that can be read on the Kindle.
Some Free Sites (Public Domain / Creative Commons)
MobileRead.com (look for .mobi books you can download to your computer or download the MobiGuide
and get your books via Whispernet)
Feedbooks.com (books can be downloaded to your computer or if you download their Kindle Guide
you can get your books via Whispernet - they even have a video on how to use the guide)
Manybooks.net (when you download to your computer, look for Kindle format or Mobipocket)
1001Books (download books to your computer or directly from your Kindle browser)
Some Pay Sites
Fictionwise.com (look for .mobi books but NOT Secure Mobipocket books)
BooksonBoard.com (register your Kindle's PID and you can download any .mobi from their Overdrive servers -
to learn more about this see the Visual Kindle Guide wiki)
Baen.com (great site for Sci-Fi books which offers free as well as low cost books)
So your Kindle is still somewhat useful. I would hope that more competition arises and Amazon removes its Kindle services from its e-book services so as to avoid a nasty inevitable anti-trust suit.
Two experimental tasks in psychology, the two-stage gambling game and the Prisoner's Dilemma game, show that people violate the sure thing principle of decision theory. These paradoxical findings have resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. A quantum probability model, based on a Hilbert space representation and Schrodinger's equation, provides a simple and elegant explanation for this behaviour. The quantum model is compared with an equivalent Markov model and it is shown that the latter is unable to account for violations of the sure thing principle. Accordingly, it is argued that quantum probability provides a better framework for modelling human decision-making.
The human brain is a complex organ. Unfortunately the kind people at the "Royal Society for Articles Only People with Money Can Read" would not allow me to review this research. I would have found this research much more compelling had they reported a much more thorough sample analysis. I'm going to predict that people from different walks of life would respond differently to the Prisoner's Dilemma game. For instance, if you did this on regular citizens with no history of jail time versus convicts serving sentences, I would expect you to have to adapt your model.
Because you encountered some percentage of "wishful thinking" does not necessarily make that a tried and true percentage unless it is true for human beings in different groups that may affect this decision making. If it truly is quantum mechanics at work, I would suspect that you would see the same percentage in convicts vs non-convicts, Russians vs Americans, women vs men, scientists vs priests, orphans vs parented children, etc. For you see, I'm going to make the assumption that people are deciding on wishful thinking based on their history of interacting with other humans.
I'm also noticing a disturbing trend in "quantum mechanics" being spewed whenever we don't understand something. I caution you that people in the future might look back on this and laugh that such crude research could in any way conclude that quantum mechanics is at work. It's almost as if we assume we understand other possible explanation so it must be the one we don't understand very well. We don't understand photosynthesis --> must be quantum mechanics! We don't understand the human mind --> must be quantum mechanics! etc. Am I saying quantum mechanics has nothing to do with these things? No. I'm just saying I have seen no conclusive proof.
Meanwhile Linux users everywhere are scratching their heads.
No, no we are not. We're used to this shit from Ballmer and Co. Surprised that they turned their sites on Apple with it?
No, I've bitched about this before and I'm sick of hearing about "hidden costs" that you don't pay when you install Linux or OSX or whatever but that you pay later. Or the cost to train to a new OS being a "hidden" cost because Microsoft starts these reports with the assumption that everyone already knows Windows XP.
I'm not scratching my head, I'm sick of it. And I hope that this finally causes people to realize that you can only assume the price of what you initially pay for software because they all have flaws and problems down the line. It's a futile exercise to try to itemize that in a cost list because--surprise surprise--you're often subjective and biased when you do it!
Microsoft conveniently ignores these "comprehensive" reports when they ask you to upgrade to Vista despite all the retraining and migration problems you will have.
TW Scam Artist: So this is how it works. See this graph here? Stats are showing that 80% of your users lie in monthly usage between 1GB and 100GBs of usage and they're paying about $45 as it is. So we reward the ten percent below 1GB with 1/3 their normal cost and we hit the 80% in bell curve here with 66% increase in price.
TW CEO: And the 10% above 100GB per month?
TW Scam Artist: Fuck 'em. We don't even want their business and what they're doing is probably illegal as it is. We hit them with one crippling monthly payment and they leave. There will be splash back but nothing our mitigation team can't handle.
TW CEO: I see. How on earth are we going to market a 66% increase to 80% of our users?
TW Scam Artist: We aren't. We're going to cherry pick stats. That's 1,000 songs downloaded from iTunes. Do you download 1,000 songs a month? No. That's 1,000,000 webpages and we point out that that isn't humanly possible to do in a month. We gotta be careful and skirt some of the obvious stuff like if you stream netflix, youtube, vimeo or any video site just a few hours and you're already in the $75 range. Avoid that. And avoid questions on people who download DVDs or even large updates to popular software like Warcraft and Windows.
TW CEO: So we just unleash this on them?
TW Scam Artist: No, we do a trial run and expect bad feedback. Then we say "oh gosh, some people didn't like it, so we're doubling the lower limit to 2GB!" and that loses us like 1% of the bell curve but we don't care. The people feel like they're vindicated blah blah blah they don't even realize or sign anything when this goes into effect. After that bullshit trial run, we are free to unleash it because it looks like we've done our homework and compromised our profits in the interest of the consumer.
TW CEO: Why are we doing this, are we having network and hardware problems?
TW Scam Artist: No, are you stupid? That shit gets better daily. Oh, did I hurt your feelings? I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was employed by a bunch of dumbass hippies waiting to roll over whenever an opportunity of epic proportions gets dropped in their lap.
TW CEO: My apologies, here's your sack of money.
As a lawyer with recognition in NJ, NY, CA, and DC, are there any rules and regulations you know of regarding such online storage he must comply with?
Ahahahahaha, you are asking Slashdot for advice on legal rules and standards to assist a lawyer?
Look, you're probably going above and beyond what a normal lawyer did back in the day: throw a piece of paper in a filing cabinet in his office. Subject to fire and theft, sure, but I doubt the law has changed enough to make that illegal. CoreVault looks good, you can also visit each of the state bar association pages you listed and find things like NY State Bar Association offering a discount at VENYU for offsite data storage which is probably as close as you'll get to an endorsement. Have you thought about calling each state bar association office and asking them what they use/recommend?
Wow! First McAfee found out through objective research that spam ruins the environment and now Symantec has an unbiased report showing malicious activity is on the rise!
... "Mortal Kombat: The Game Info" perhaps?
I can not wait for Richard Stallman's report on commercial closed source software costing a record high price in 2008. I mean assuming he comes to that conclusion, of course.
I would just like to point out that the URL for that PDF report indicates it is stored in a directory named 'mktginfo.' I wonder what that stands for
The invoice for this baby is pretty small compared to your normal MS Exchange Server, it's only 1. But that's not in dollars, that's in first born children. So I'm going to throw out a few strategies for coping with this.
So, like pretending you're a college student, starving African or university staff to get cheap editions of Exchange 2007, there are ways to acquired 2010 at a relatively low cost and I hope this helps you cope with the extreme cost of owning Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 for your enterprise business.
... but that's just the unspoken rule.
Sure the costs don't stop there, you need to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 to use it and there are a few more things you'll need to upgrade if you want to keep the same functionality you have now
Imagine if every inbox were protected by a state-of-the-art spam filter. We could save about 75% of the spam energy used today â" 25 TWh per year; that's like taking 2.3 million cars off the road.
My God! That is fantastic! If only we had the option to purchase a "state-of-the-art spam filter!" Wait, I know! McAfee, the people who sponsored and paid for this research, have SpamKiller! It's perfect.
... that would have to be some pretty impressive and efficient Bayesian filtering with an amazing database technology to drop below viewing and deleting e-mails.
Although I can't access the PDF (download hangs), could you please direct me to the part of the 'research' where you analyze the amount of energy used to perform complex computational functions on tokens from e-mails against a database. And prove that this is less than the energy wasted flipping though e-mails and deleting spam? I mean, the network usage is going to be the same so
And maybe you could factor in the cost and subscription to said state-of-the-art spam filter?
What? You didn't include that analysis in your research? It sounds like a very crucial part of convincing me to acquire a state-of-the-art spam filter. You missed that part?
You don't say.
Anyone who values their privacy should applaud this move by Amazon.
Thank you for telling me how to think. I believe we are approaching this from the wrong end (why start with websites?).
The article hints at two other points I would encourage Brits who care to be vocal about:
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: We expect more sites to block Webwise in the near future and also ISPs to drop plans to snoop on web users.
Write your ISPs. Threaten to change ISPs even if you're not able to. Let them know how this makes you feel.
The European Commission has described the technology as an "interception" of user data and wants UK law to reflect more explicitly the need for consent from users in order for the service to be implemented.
As always, contact your parliamentary representative and also EU representative and let them know how you feel about this.
These would be much more effective options than asking each website that exists to request Phorm not scan their site.
Judge: Would the prosecution give its opening statements in this case? ... and uh--who's that over there?--it's Clippy! ... this evil operating system is what hackers use. Maybe those hackers are the same ones that stole your credit card information? Maybe this operating system can only be understood by the criminally insane? I know I can't use it. It would be like me trying to read a book in German. You know who else spoke German? Hitler.
Prosecutor: Ladies & gentlemen of the jury, I have every intent to prove to you today that the defendant is not only guilty but that the warrant application that granted us the right to acquire evidence practically wrote itself! Now, I am going to outline the warning signs that were evident in the days leading up to this case. I want you to close your eyes for a second and imagine your warm and fuzzy graphical (that's geek speak for 'good') user interface of Windows XP--that all you good Christian patriots use. Ah, the field of green with a blue screen and your well known icons and start menu where everybody knows your name and system tray with your favorite purple gorilla and application bar
*pauses until he sees smiles cross the juries faces*
Prosecutor: Now, imagine that all that is taken away and you're left with the cold dark nothingness of space--like before God created the earth. The heavens and stars aren't even there. It's nothing! And there, blinking unendingly, with no remorse or care for anything good is an intimidating cursor after some letters and symbols that no American could decipher. And as you type things like "I want to order shoes on Amazon" it responds only with the cold harsh words of the devil telling you that ordering shoes on Amazon is not a valid command. And Clippy? Clippy is dead.
*takes a drink of water and smiles smugly as the jury begins to scowl*
Prosecutor: And this is what the defendant used to send that e-mail. This
Prosecutor: So you see, this warrant was basically granted from keystroke one after we found out that the defendant was using Linux--an operating system that encourages you to use a file sharing software to install it. The warrant is valid, I'm just asking you what else might have been done with Linux and its evil knowledge installed on that college student's head and computer. Your honor, I rest my case.
Yes, I'm being pompous, condescending and arrogant.
I believe the word you were looking for there is "subjective."
Got a problem with it?
Not really. As long as you don't try to push your ideas on me and demand YouTube focus on your personal priorities and tastes in video, everything is fine and I encourage you to express your opinion.
"Researchers from HP Palo Alto studied videos uploaded to YouTube and found that popularity has little to do with quality or persistence." Let me be the first to say "I told you so."
The researchers found some very useful information though--like the fact that a man getting kicked in the testicles is just as funny or maybe even more funny in grainy home video than in high definition. After performing principal component analysis on several testicle injury clips rated across thousands of users, they found--surprisingly--that the most important variables are (1) how wide the victim's eyes opened upon impact, (2) how loud of a scream the victim emitted upon impact and (3) how long the victim lay motionless on the ground after initial agony.
Content Acquisition - $710,000
Revenue Sharing - $66,000
Administrative Costs - $252,000
I might be able to see the bandwidth costing a million dollars a day but could someone explain how Credit Suisse and comScore came up with these numbers?
Propaganda as Nebulous as Apple's or Microsoft's
Unemployed? Seriously, expand your skill set and learn the backend and basic services so you can start to call yourself a full fledged "web developer."
House wives with spare time between cooking and putting the kids to bed make geocities pages with HTML. My advice is to not rely on something like that for your livelihood.
I watched a few of these videos and I'm going to admit that it's very tough to push an operating system in less than a minute. So that leaves you in the very department you don't want to be in--marketing.
I will congratulate Linux and the winning contestant on achieving what Apple did and Microsoft tried to. And that is simplify Linux down to an idea easy to grasp with no actual numbers or ideas surrounding it. Like the Mac ads, it's just "cool" to be a Mac. I like that they imply that to be Linux is to enjoy freedom but it's no more convincing to me than the Mac ads. I'm a Linux fanatic but I'm realistic.
I don't think Linux needs this kind of advertising. I would prefer the software to speak for itself--warts and all. I hope all the participants had fun and I also hope that this doesn't make an easy target for anti-Linux folks. The winning ad sidesteps some of Linux's difficult aspects (usability, third party support, etc.) and promotes its trump card. Linux is freedom.
There seems to be this invisible pressure to create something that is highly 'intuitive' and incorporates the highest level of innovation that we have ever seen.
Well, this is certainly the first time I've heard someone complain about innovation and change in gaming.
... blogger? looks pretty young on this article. I wonder if he recalls playing 2D sidescroller after 2D sidescroller? Or if he realizes that a lot of games come out based on the same engine and it really bores me when I realize that I'm just playing a re-textured version of Doom 3 (or whatever the first game was that used that engine).
The picture of the
On the other hand there are series that feel the need to completely revamp a game that played perfectly fine before ...
Then play the first game over and over. There are some people that prefer to play something different. Yes, at some point you should draw the line but there are so many games out there you should just read the reviews or rent it and avoid it.
Given enough competition, innovation is a very good thing regardless.
The problem is that the newest ideas put into games are either gimmicky, terrible in execution, or blatantly ripping off another title.
What you are complaining about does not sound like "innovation" but merely something that annoys you. How is it innovative to do any of those things? It sounds more like you're just upset about some franchise being ruined for a title or two so you needed to vent. This isn't "pointless innovation," it's copycatting.