So after reading the article, the source seems to be Peter Galli's blog:
"The Community Promise is an excellent vehicle and, in this situation, ensures the best balance of interoperability and flexibility for developers," Scott Guthrie, the Corporate Vice President for the.Net Developer Platform, told me July 6.
Ok, I certainly hope he received more than just that before he began proclaiming to the world that Microsoft is doing such a thing.
The optimist in me is excited. The skeptical in me is dubious, confused and does not trust blogs. It's not listed on Microsoft's list of products under the Community Promise so I'm going to refrain from breaking out the champagne until all the facts are finalized.
Anyone else got a better source for this than a loosely affiliated blog that bills itself as "Communication from the Open Source Community at Microsoft" ?
It's a wet dream of the copyright owners that one day the police with fight a war on their behalf.
Oh, you haven't seen the list of projected wars have you? It's going to be known as "The War on Consumers" and it's down the list somewhere past "The War on Drugs" and "The War on Terror" but I'm pretty sure it's before "The War on Air." I think Gore has already declared victory on that last one though, I don't know I zone out a lot when politicians talk about wars on abstract things.
A smug teen who's downloading files from 'Pirates Palace' and 'Tune Weasel' finds his world turned upside down when automatic weapons-toting government agents break down the door and take his Mom away in handcuffs. The teen finds himself in a prison jumpsuit forced to tattoo shirtless adult inmates who eventually turn on him
Huh, that's funny. Last I checked you normally don't get jail time for copyright infringement. Search warrants? For your computer maybe. Serving papers for a court date? Sure. Arrested on the spot? Don't think so. Jail time? Not to my knowledge. The only legal consequence the SIIA lists on their site are "significant fines for copyright infringement." Unless the kid was uploading unreleased Guns N' Roses tracks or orchestrating the huge operation of The Pirate Bay I don't think he'll be doing time.
Maybe they should do a little more research before they imply that you will end up in a gulag tattooing cartoon characters on convicts?
Don't get me wrong, I'd be fine with the kid (assuming he's 18+) getting a letter in the mail saying he has to appear in court and then a slow five year montage ending with him settling out of court and not being able to go to college or only attending a community college. That'd be pretty realistic. I still don't agree with it but that's how it works these days. Who knows? Maybe the over emphasized results will backfire on them and the general populace will see how unrealistic the charges are for copyright violation? I mean, that's not going to change until a politician looks bad taking a sack of money in campaign contributions... or realizes that it bothers his constituents that lives are being ruined over something that maybe isn't so serious that a person should be financially hobbled for the rest of their life or next seven years from bankruptcy or whatever results. Huge fines are enough to stop me from copyright violations but lets face it, you're not going to jail if you do it. You're not a hardened criminal with a rap sheet serving time next to murderers if you're convicted of file sharing. You're most likely going to settle out of court and be financially stunted.
Let's assume that's 20 songs per case on unrelated albums. According to section 504.c.1 each work can cost the defendent between $750 and $30,000. And if the first trial was any indication, $30,000 per song is actually the low end once you've gotten past lawyer fees. Ok so by the letter of the law the RIAA is looking to get anywhere from $450 million to $18 billion. I hope to god that Nesson stops upsetting the court and sets some better precedent than the first case. I don't care if he wants to post courtroom audio. That's a great idea and I appreciate where his heart is but that's not what this is about! I do care that he works to either reduce these unrealistic damage amounts or redefine copyright violation. So far he's just been really good at upsetting people--and not the right people!
Be warned fellow citizens, in my lifetime I have seen market after market reach the endstate of an American capitalism: protected stagnation.
There's only one solution: kill eldavojohn to save the economy!
I like the way you think.
You're a shark, I like sharks. You're hired... or bought out... or men show up at your door and break your legs and urinate on your servers. It doesn't matter, it's all roughly equivalent to me. So long as the investors know the threat has been neutralized and taken care of; everybody that was in power stays in power and at the end of the day that's all they care about.
What's that? You're declining our offer? You're going to write a letter to your senator about anti-competition this and anti-trust that? Good, he and I have been running out of petitions and complaints to wipe our asses with when we play golf every Sunday after mass.
It's easy to drop the blame on MBAs. And being a software developer I don't think much of them. I would urge you to refrain from placing all the blame on them... it would be similar to saying "Isn't it software developers fault that copyright law is violated at large today?" Listen to this recent This American Life episode on the situation that was created by rating agencies. By the way, the first two parts of that are amazing and I feel more informed just listening to those three episodes than I do listening to any news outlet.
Your blame would be more appropriately placed on the rating agencies like Standard and Poors or Moody's and Fitch. There's probably a few MBAs working there. Or maybe the people who were playing those rating agencies off each other to get their securities rated higher? Or maybe the people who knew these securities were not AAA but bought them anyways and treated them as such (and that was a worldwide problem). It was an entire environment that created a problem for the world economy.
I'm not fan of Cuban but I don't think he was a part of any link in this chain of failure.
... will raise a bunch of money, give it away for free, build scale and charge less to reach the audience...
And my competitors can undercut me?!
This is madness! I demand protection against people trying to steal my customers with a better service/product and lower prices! Oh well, thank god I'm too big of a player for the government to let me go under.
Be warned fellow citizens, in my lifetime I have seen market after market reach the endstate of an American capitalism: protected stagnation.
Really? Am I the only person that found it interesting that Lucene, the only non C/C++ implementation, gave some pretty impressive stats? I mean, it's written in Java and although it has a slower index time its search time, index size and relevancy are impressive.
I may have to poke around in the Lucene code after work tonight to figure out what kind of strange majick those Apache developers employ. Hopefully I'll walk away with some extra spells in my bag.
including a level of encryption that is so high it would take the NSA days to decrypt it
Keep in mind that encryption, right now, can be strong enough to take millions of years to decrypt.
You, sir, are correct. Although, I must inquire that if you're making several thousand transactions a week and you're writing software to whereby the transaction frequency matters to you (probably down to the millisecond) do you have the time to waste in encrypting/decrypting this? I would imagine that while it would take millions of years to decrypt it would also take several seconds to encrypt. That's time they don't have.
Also, if you are doing transaction with foreign institutions or exchanges then you may incur the wrath of exporting a weapon and putting national security at risk by deploying your software overseas. I know that sounds stupid for me to say. But you see, ever since Phil Zimmerman's arrest and subsequent release (and even more subsequent celebration), people have been wary of crossing that line.
It seems unlikely to me that any single person, or even small group of people, would have the capability to remove all copies of this code, binary and source, from the company's information infrastructure.
Ah, the double edged sword of secrecy. Keep the location of your secrets solitary so that you don't have to keep track of multiple copies. With every new location it is stored, the odds of corporate espionage double. Had they ascribed to keep it in one place, this would be all too possible. And let's face it, if you're shelling out $400k to one or two developers, you do checks on them and make sure they can handle the keys to the palace.
Is it possible that they have suspended use of this code because they fear that someone analyzing it could profit from the trades it would have made?
I had not thought of this, although I believe these transactions would be done on secure networks with insane encryption. Again, if you're shelling out $400k to a developer, you're probably laying fiber straight to the NYSE's servers from yours or at least including a level of encryption that is so high it would take the NSA days to decrypt it -- rendering the data worthless as it's public by then.
Still if they don't understand how it works, I could see them doing that. I could not, however, see them sacrificing a week's worth of trading for these fears without first researching them. Do you know how much money and customers that would cost them?
Even more interesting is in the second article that notifies us that Goldman Sachs has been removed from the NYSE 15 Most Active Members Firms Weekly Report. GS had been #1 the week before and now they're not even on it. These fifteen firms alone represent about 98% of all trades with the NYSE. So what happened?
The author mentions some things but gives no clear motivation for GS hiding their stats. I would speculate that if one of your developers copied your code and uploaded it to a server discretely, you could have that in your logs and not notice it for days or weeks. But if he then did something to your system to ensure his new employer's ownership of that code you wuold notice that pretty damn fast I imagine. Sergey Aleynikov sounds like a brilliant coder but maybe he's not so smart on legal issues, is it possible he completely hobbled GS to please his new employer? Are they keeping their transaction report hush hush so investers don't worry? Was Sergey Aleynikov thinking he could sell the code and the rights to the code? After all, if he could remove all copies of the code from GS how could they take people to court over the code without a local copy to prove ownership?
If GS remained #1, they would have left themselves on the list. I presume that something else related to this has gone wrong with their operation, the news just hasn't broke yet.
No way on Earth I would work hard writing or creating something to have it passed around the Internet for free.
That is fair and I'm certain you are voicing a very popular opinion among editors, artists, writers, etc. As O'Reilly mentions, though, Apple seems to have balanced this both with music (MP3s are pretty "open" to play on anything). I think what the article means by "open" is that it would be nice to be able to read this through multiple devices and not just the kindle. Your username starts with DRM and, although insanely flawed, there are ways to implement it so that numerous devices and programs can use it. Yes, I realize that a skilled developer could write a simple application with the sole intent of converting DRM files to plain text but I'm pretty sure those who want to are doing that already.
Once the Internet community stops...
Let's just step back and look at the facts. Don't make any assumptions about what I'm trying to convince you.
The internet is a thriving marketplace for the dissemination of digital media and is undeniably what the consumer wants.
People take things without paying all the time. It might be a hardcover of your book, it might be the right to read your book. It's always been part of capitalism (I think the industry calls it "shrink" and places like Best Buy or Barnes and Noble just expect it).
If you fail to put your books online you stand to not only reduce your market but also your exposure.
I don't want to steal your book. But if I want your book, I sure the hell would prefer paying 2/3 the cost of the hardcover and having it instantly in front of me. And, I would be making far more purchases. I may not be the general populace but I think that's a pretty safe rule. The music industry is enjoying iTunes, you would enjoy it more since no one wants only Chapter 23 of your novel.
With or without DRM/closed standards, people are stealing your work. Do you really think that making the standard in which they are saved/read/transmitted an "open standard" is going to increase your losses that much?
I don't know what your numbers look like but I would speculate that the increased sales from people walking around with iPhones and Palm Pres and mobile devices would outweigh that. I agree there will be people trading these files online. But you can't stop that now. Do you not agree that you, as a writer, would benefit from this move? O'Reilly seems to think so and he seems to think it's great for Amazon too... being one of the largest tech book publishers and author himself, I'm going to side with him. Especially since everyone at work talks about how awesome the Safari book service is (two coworkers are toying around with full subscriptions).
I wish I could tell you that you have full control over this but the facts indicate that you really just have the power to delay the inevitable.
Michael Bay would do with it: "In this $300 million, three-and-a-half hour spectacle, loud and expensive computer simulations of large boulders crashing into one another...
Asteroids crashing into each other... possibly causing BAYSPLOSIONS!?
P.S. I feel a little guilty re-using the same thing from last week but you know what they say--fight fire with fire!
The problem is the key ingredient - acetaminophen - can easily damage or destroy a patient's liver if more than 2000 mg are used per day.
Disclaimer: Not a doctor or med student but my three sisters are nurses/researchers.
My older sister warned me when I started college that if I was going to drink I should avoid acetaminophen at all costs. Luckily, I don't get headaches or have had a need for a painkiller in a very long time and I think it's been about six years since I've taken them. If you are a heavy drinker, avoid acetaminophen as your liver's already dealing with the alcohol and crap in the American diet and doesn't appreciate it. My sister told me that people who use acetaminophen during hangovers may be putting themselves at a much higher risk for liver diseases. I'm a little concerned these have been out for this long when there's safer alternatives. I'm sure the companies that stand to profit have tons of tricks up their sleeves yet.
Disclaimer: I am a developer though I don't work nor have I ever worked for a game company. In my free time, I enjoy reading The Game Programming Wiki.
What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study?
Hmmmm, I'm not sure this is going to be a fruitful discussion. It's not too clear to me what kind of game development interests you most. The truth is that games have been written in many languages and developers often scoff at any guideline to restrict them from writing a game in -- say Java -- when there are more efficient languages. Assuming you want to get into console games and/or PC games, I would suggest starting out with simple authoring tools and just tinker with them. Download GameKit and get it building on your development machine. Then set weekly goals for yourself to modify the Space Invaders game by changing graphics, sound, maybe even mechanics. Once you've done that and are bored, move on to another kit/sdk.
You see, I doubt the importance is that you know how C++ or Lua works... they are both great languages for different tasks. It's more important that if you want to be a graphics engine guy you understand how major APIs are laid out to implement tiles and shaders and renderers... Go here to start thinking aobut what aspect of the game interests you most.
What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept?
This is a topic I could drone on for hours about. Enjoy life, man. They'll take you with a 2 year tech degree or less if you're built for coding. But don't do that. Enjoy the college expereince, go to a four year liberal arts college. Explore math, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, music, etc. I took enough music theory to major in music but I didn't. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?
You should really concentrate on one of three types of games: web, console, PC. While the last two are related, the idea of catering to hardware probably has an effect on games. Is a PC developer going to care about Sony's Emotion engine while a console guy might live and breathe it. Honestly, fool around with Allegro, SDL and OpenGL if you're looking to do serious game coding.
You've got a long difficult road ahead if you're going down this path. You're going to have your heart broken by Blizzard and end up over worked and underpaid at EA. Game programming seems to find you, you can only prepare yourself for it. Read John Carmack's story in Masters of Doom or just wait for the upcoming movie about it.
I've also heard -- and I can't verify this -- that it helps to have a notebook full of sketches, stories, game mechanics, ideas you've had in relation to games. You keep this and bring it to an interview. You pass the technical aspects and then you let them know that you really want this and that you are also creative and not just technical.
Recently I submitted a story that's probably not going to be published that claims:
Space.com brings word of a team using new evidence is suggesting that the mysterious 1908 event in Tunguska was a comet despite a team two years ago arguing it was an asteroid. The comet theory does explain the odd phenomenon of the night skies being lit up for several nights following the event all across Europe--about 3,000 miles away. Researchers believe this points to a comet because when the space shuttles launched today pass through the atmosphere they cause or improve the formation of noctilucent clouds. These clouds are so high up (55 miles) they are only made of ice particles and they are only visible at night which gives researchers reason to draw the conclusion that the 300 metric tons of water vapor that the shuttle pumps into the Earth's thermosphere must likely indicate that the thing that hit was loaded with water or ice. This would make it a comet and not an asteroid. This--of course--raises new upper-atmosphere physics problems for the Tunguska event but explains the strange phenomenon over the skies of the world following it. You may remember analysis of Lake Cheko last year in an effort to better understand what happened.
Well, if every comet that hit earth dropped off a little bit of water--even in the form of noctilucent clouds... it'd take a while but is it really so far fetch to think that ultimately all our water and atmosphere are extra-terrestrial? Probably unlikely but over a long enough time, who knows?
I, in a civil tongue, point out that the poster who capitalize SCORES was incorrect if he was trying to say very few people care about this. I get moderated Troll.
Earlier today, someone corrects me on a technicality and gets moderated informative (because I was incorrect). You, being a typical foul mouthed internet denizen, call me an "arsehole" and "dick." Which results in you getting moderated insightful. What did you add to the conversation? Nothing. Pretty much the model for not insightful if you ask me.
You know, I'm only an asshole if the guy didn't know what "scores" meant and if he didn't he shouldn't use the damned word.
So I better call you an "asshole dick" if I want to get moderated insightful and not a troll? Which causes me yet again to wonder why I bother wasting my time on this site.
Is it really necessary to write a 200+ page book on how to write 140-character "microblog" posts?
Agreed. After reading the preview, it's basically a tutorial on Twitter. From the link to the preview I found these general sections:
1. Get Started
2. Listen In
3. Hold Great Conversations
4. Share Information and Ideas
5. Reveal Yourself
6. Twitter for Business: Special Considerations and Ideas
I'm sorry this looks like a "how to use Twitter" book that could, at best, be a social networking book. What is O'Reilly doing publishing this book?
The review tends to center on formatting and typesetting. Great. If I want to know how to publish a guide on using my site, I understand this book sets the bar.
But how does it get a 9 out of 10? Did the reviewer walk away a better Twitterer? What need is there to buy this book if you could just save the time and money by diving in or reading other Twitter posts?
World of Warcraft is a great example of a game that has evolved beyond anyone's imagination since their Day 1 and will continue to do so to better the player experience for as long as players support the title.
I find it odd that a comparison is being drawn between a stateful monthly payment role playing game and a stateless (allegedly subscription-less) real time strategy game. I definitely see how World of Warcraft is enriched by the spider webbed interaction of thousands of players on a server. However, I fail to see how Starcraft II would benefit from this if you've got a single digit cap on number of players in any given instance of the game.
And can we give up on the piracy concerns? It's just getting embarrassing.
Also, if you're going to force everyone to use Battle.net, I hope you have improved its quality since I was last one it several years ago.
Unfortunately, these reports are usually richer in vivid metaphor -- with fears of 'digital Pearl Harbors' and 'cyber-Katrinas' -- than in factual foundation. So why is there so much concern about 'cyber-terrorism?'
Because no one fully understands it. And not understanding something can easily lead to fear. And those standing to make money off that fear (journalists, contractors, agencies) are unashamed to exploit it.
I'm a computer scientist and I don't even understand or know about every potential vulnerability. It's simply too complex... and that's easy to turn into fear when you're talking to the people who are in charge of protecting us from threats. And the potential mitigation techniques are another endless myriad of complex software/hardware. All I can say is that it is highly unlikely that a Live Free or Die Hard 'fire-sale' scenario will happen. I can't in good conscious tell you it's impossible. I can tell you that the probability of it happening within a year would most certainly be dealt with in multi-digit negative powers of ten. Then there's the possibility of lesser attacks which are highly probable but I feel that the cost-risk ratio is all messed up. Again, I believe this is due to ignorance.
You get into a weird sort of emperors-new-clothes kind of situation when the only people who understand your problems are also the ones trying to sell you a solution. And they're just not being openly honest nor realistic with you.
... one of your new schemes renders all our existing players obsolete too.
As someone who's still using DVDs, I see this from a slightly different angle. In my brain I'm thinking about the future and how difficult it's going to be for device manufacturers to support this format "consisting of a unique program for every Blu-Ray master." I mean, while the fight was HD DVD vs Blu-Ray, I was looking forward to "movie players" in the future being able to play anything under the sun and since the disc is standardized in size you'd be able to have players be backward compatible for multiple technologies... maybe even leave open possibilities for up-converting old discs.
But after reading this story, I'm sure all this new anti-anti-anti-theft encryption technology requires you buy a license to use the per master programs and that these programs require a ton of chipset/memory on the device to decrypt these things. By the time you've foot the bill for the hardware and IP licenses on the technology, the universal player isn't going to be worth it.
It currently may spell annoyance/lawsuit but I predict the future techies will look back and frown upon what was done when future generations are left to be curators of digital media and wacky encryption schemes.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Community Promise is an excellent vehicle and, in this situation, ensures the best balance of interoperability and flexibility for developers," Scott Guthrie, the Corporate Vice President for the .Net Developer Platform, told me July 6.
Ok, I certainly hope he received more than just that before he began proclaiming to the world that Microsoft is doing such a thing.
The optimist in me is excited. The skeptical in me is dubious, confused and does not trust blogs. It's not listed on Microsoft's list of products under the Community Promise so I'm going to refrain from breaking out the champagne until all the facts are finalized.
Anyone else got a better source for this than a loosely affiliated blog that bills itself as "Communication from the Open Source Community at Microsoft" ?
It's a wet dream of the copyright owners that one day the police with fight a war on their behalf.
Oh, you haven't seen the list of projected wars have you? It's going to be known as "The War on Consumers" and it's down the list somewhere past "The War on Drugs" and "The War on Terror" but I'm pretty sure it's before "The War on Air." I think Gore has already declared victory on that last one though, I don't know I zone out a lot when politicians talk about wars on abstract things.
A smug teen who's downloading files from 'Pirates Palace' and 'Tune Weasel' finds his world turned upside down when automatic weapons-toting government agents break down the door and take his Mom away in handcuffs. The teen finds himself in a prison jumpsuit forced to tattoo shirtless adult inmates who eventually turn on him
Huh, that's funny. Last I checked you normally don't get jail time for copyright infringement. Search warrants? For your computer maybe. Serving papers for a court date? Sure. Arrested on the spot? Don't think so. Jail time? Not to my knowledge. The only legal consequence the SIIA lists on their site are "significant fines for copyright infringement." Unless the kid was uploading unreleased Guns N' Roses tracks or orchestrating the huge operation of The Pirate Bay I don't think he'll be doing time.
... or realizes that it bothers his constituents that lives are being ruined over something that maybe isn't so serious that a person should be financially hobbled for the rest of their life or next seven years from bankruptcy or whatever results. Huge fines are enough to stop me from copyright violations but lets face it, you're not going to jail if you do it. You're not a hardened criminal with a rap sheet serving time next to murderers if you're convicted of file sharing. You're most likely going to settle out of court and be financially stunted.
Maybe they should do a little more research before they imply that you will end up in a gulag tattooing cartoon characters on convicts?
Don't get me wrong, I'd be fine with the kid (assuming he's 18+) getting a letter in the mail saying he has to appear in court and then a slow five year montage ending with him settling out of court and not being able to go to college or only attending a community college. That'd be pretty realistic. I still don't agree with it but that's how it works these days. Who knows? Maybe the over emphasized results will backfire on them and the general populace will see how unrealistic the charges are for copyright violation? I mean, that's not going to change until a politician looks bad taking a sack of money in campaign contributions
second of about 30,000 cases
Let's assume that's 20 songs per case on unrelated albums. According to section 504.c.1 each work can cost the defendent between $750 and $30,000. And if the first trial was any indication, $30,000 per song is actually the low end once you've gotten past lawyer fees. Ok so by the letter of the law the RIAA is looking to get anywhere from $450 million to $18 billion. I hope to god that Nesson stops upsetting the court and sets some better precedent than the first case. I don't care if he wants to post courtroom audio. That's a great idea and I appreciate where his heart is but that's not what this is about! I do care that he works to either reduce these unrealistic damage amounts or redefine copyright violation. So far he's just been really good at upsetting people--and not the right people!
Be warned fellow citizens, in my lifetime I have seen market after market reach the endstate of an American capitalism: protected stagnation.
There's only one solution: kill eldavojohn to save the economy!
I like the way you think.
... or bought out ... or men show up at your door and break your legs and urinate on your servers. It doesn't matter, it's all roughly equivalent to me. So long as the investors know the threat has been neutralized and taken care of; everybody that was in power stays in power and at the end of the day that's all they care about.
You're a shark, I like sharks. You're hired
What's that? You're declining our offer? You're going to write a letter to your senator about anti-competition this and anti-trust that? Good, he and I have been running out of petitions and complaints to wipe our asses with when we play golf every Sunday after mass.
Aren't these the guys who ruined the economy?
It's easy to drop the blame on MBAs. And being a software developer I don't think much of them. I would urge you to refrain from placing all the blame on them ... it would be similar to saying "Isn't it software developers fault that copyright law is violated at large today?" Listen to this recent This American Life episode on the situation that was created by rating agencies. By the way, the first two parts of that are amazing and I feel more informed just listening to those three episodes than I do listening to any news outlet.
Your blame would be more appropriately placed on the rating agencies like Standard and Poors or Moody's and Fitch. There's probably a few MBAs working there. Or maybe the people who were playing those rating agencies off each other to get their securities rated higher? Or maybe the people who knew these securities were not AAA but bought them anyways and treated them as such (and that was a worldwide problem). It was an entire environment that created a problem for the world economy.
I'm not fan of Cuban but I don't think he was a part of any link in this chain of failure.
Someone out there with a better idea ...
You mean I have to compete against innovation?!
... will raise a bunch of money, give it away for free, build scale and charge less to reach the audience ...
And my competitors can undercut me?!
This is madness! I demand protection against people trying to steal my customers with a better service/product and lower prices! Oh well, thank god I'm too big of a player for the government to let me go under.
Be warned fellow citizens, in my lifetime I have seen market after market reach the endstate of an American capitalism: protected stagnation.
Nothing else to say, really
Really? Am I the only person that found it interesting that Lucene, the only non C/C++ implementation, gave some pretty impressive stats? I mean, it's written in Java and although it has a slower index time its search time, index size and relevancy are impressive.
I may have to poke around in the Lucene code after work tonight to figure out what kind of strange majick those Apache developers employ. Hopefully I'll walk away with some extra spells in my bag.
Keep in mind that encryption, right now, can be strong enough to take millions of years to decrypt.
You, sir, are correct. Although, I must inquire that if you're making several thousand transactions a week and you're writing software to whereby the transaction frequency matters to you (probably down to the millisecond) do you have the time to waste in encrypting/decrypting this? I would imagine that while it would take millions of years to decrypt it would also take several seconds to encrypt. That's time they don't have.
Also, if you are doing transaction with foreign institutions or exchanges then you may incur the wrath of exporting a weapon and putting national security at risk by deploying your software overseas. I know that sounds stupid for me to say. But you see, ever since Phil Zimmerman's arrest and subsequent release (and even more subsequent celebration), people have been wary of crossing that line.
It seems unlikely to me that any single person, or even small group of people, would have the capability to remove all copies of this code, binary and source, from the company's information infrastructure.
Ah, the double edged sword of secrecy. Keep the location of your secrets solitary so that you don't have to keep track of multiple copies. With every new location it is stored, the odds of corporate espionage double. Had they ascribed to keep it in one place, this would be all too possible. And let's face it, if you're shelling out $400k to one or two developers, you do checks on them and make sure they can handle the keys to the palace.
Is it possible that they have suspended use of this code because they fear that someone analyzing it could profit from the trades it would have made?
I had not thought of this, although I believe these transactions would be done on secure networks with insane encryption. Again, if you're shelling out $400k to a developer, you're probably laying fiber straight to the NYSE's servers from yours or at least including a level of encryption that is so high it would take the NSA days to decrypt it -- rendering the data worthless as it's public by then.
Still if they don't understand how it works, I could see them doing that. I could not, however, see them sacrificing a week's worth of trading for these fears without first researching them. Do you know how much money and customers that would cost them?
Even more interesting is in the second article that notifies us that Goldman Sachs has been removed from the NYSE 15 Most Active Members Firms Weekly Report. GS had been #1 the week before and now they're not even on it. These fifteen firms alone represent about 98% of all trades with the NYSE. So what happened?
The author mentions some things but gives no clear motivation for GS hiding their stats. I would speculate that if one of your developers copied your code and uploaded it to a server discretely, you could have that in your logs and not notice it for days or weeks. But if he then did something to your system to ensure his new employer's ownership of that code you wuold notice that pretty damn fast I imagine. Sergey Aleynikov sounds like a brilliant coder but maybe he's not so smart on legal issues, is it possible he completely hobbled GS to please his new employer? Are they keeping their transaction report hush hush so investers don't worry? Was Sergey Aleynikov thinking he could sell the code and the rights to the code? After all, if he could remove all copies of the code from GS how could they take people to court over the code without a local copy to prove ownership?
If GS remained #1, they would have left themselves on the list. I presume that something else related to this has gone wrong with their operation, the news just hasn't broke yet.
No way on Earth I would work hard writing or creating something to have it passed around the Internet for free.
That is fair and I'm certain you are voicing a very popular opinion among editors, artists, writers, etc. As O'Reilly mentions, though, Apple seems to have balanced this both with music (MP3s are pretty "open" to play on anything). I think what the article means by "open" is that it would be nice to be able to read this through multiple devices and not just the kindle. Your username starts with DRM and, although insanely flawed, there are ways to implement it so that numerous devices and programs can use it. Yes, I realize that a skilled developer could write a simple application with the sole intent of converting DRM files to plain text but I'm pretty sure those who want to are doing that already.
Once the Internet community stops ...
Let's just step back and look at the facts. Don't make any assumptions about what I'm trying to convince you.
I don't want to steal your book. But if I want your book, I sure the hell would prefer paying 2/3 the cost of the hardcover and having it instantly in front of me. And, I would be making far more purchases. I may not be the general populace but I think that's a pretty safe rule. The music industry is enjoying iTunes, you would enjoy it more since no one wants only Chapter 23 of your novel.
... being one of the largest tech book publishers and author himself, I'm going to side with him. Especially since everyone at work talks about how awesome the Safari book service is (two coworkers are toying around with full subscriptions).
With or without DRM/closed standards, people are stealing your work. Do you really think that making the standard in which they are saved/read/transmitted an "open standard" is going to increase your losses that much?
I don't know what your numbers look like but I would speculate that the increased sales from people walking around with iPhones and Palm Pres and mobile devices would outweigh that. I agree there will be people trading these files online. But you can't stop that now. Do you not agree that you, as a writer, would benefit from this move? O'Reilly seems to think so and he seems to think it's great for Amazon too
I wish I could tell you that you have full control over this but the facts indicate that you really just have the power to delay the inevitable.
heck - even Pitfall or Pac Man would be better
Uh oh, now you've done it. Here's the preview for Pac Man. Although, personally I liked minesweeper more.
Michael Bay would do with it: "In this $300 million, three-and-a-half hour spectacle, loud and expensive computer simulations of large boulders crashing into one another ...
Asteroids crashing into each other ... possibly causing BAYSPLOSIONS!?
P.S. I feel a little guilty re-using the same thing from last week but you know what they say--fight fire with fire!
The problem is the key ingredient - acetaminophen - can easily damage or destroy a patient's liver if more than 2000 mg are used per day.
Disclaimer: Not a doctor or med student but my three sisters are nurses/researchers.
My older sister warned me when I started college that if I was going to drink I should avoid acetaminophen at all costs. Luckily, I don't get headaches or have had a need for a painkiller in a very long time and I think it's been about six years since I've taken them. If you are a heavy drinker, avoid acetaminophen as your liver's already dealing with the alcohol and crap in the American diet and doesn't appreciate it. My sister told me that people who use acetaminophen during hangovers may be putting themselves at a much higher risk for liver diseases. I'm a little concerned these have been out for this long when there's safer alternatives. I'm sure the companies that stand to profit have tons of tricks up their sleeves yet.
an unconditional three-year guarantee
Will it blend?
What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study?
Hmmmm, I'm not sure this is going to be a fruitful discussion. It's not too clear to me what kind of game development interests you most. The truth is that games have been written in many languages and developers often scoff at any guideline to restrict them from writing a game in -- say Java -- when there are more efficient languages. Assuming you want to get into console games and/or PC games, I would suggest starting out with simple authoring tools and just tinker with them. Download GameKit and get it building on your development machine. Then set weekly goals for yourself to modify the Space Invaders game by changing graphics, sound, maybe even mechanics. Once you've done that and are bored, move on to another kit/sdk.
... they are both great languages for different tasks. It's more important that if you want to be a graphics engine guy you understand how major APIs are laid out to implement tiles and shaders and renderers ... Go here to start thinking aobut what aspect of the game interests you most.
You see, I doubt the importance is that you know how C++ or Lua works
What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept?
This is a topic I could drone on for hours about. Enjoy life, man. They'll take you with a 2 year tech degree or less if you're built for coding. But don't do that. Enjoy the college expereince, go to a four year liberal arts college. Explore math, physics, chemistry, biology, literature, music, etc. I took enough music theory to major in music but I didn't. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?
You should really concentrate on one of three types of games: web, console, PC. While the last two are related, the idea of catering to hardware probably has an effect on games. Is a PC developer going to care about Sony's Emotion engine while a console guy might live and breathe it. Honestly, fool around with Allegro, SDL and OpenGL if you're looking to do serious game coding.
You've got a long difficult road ahead if you're going down this path. You're going to have your heart broken by Blizzard and end up over worked and underpaid at EA. Game programming seems to find you, you can only prepare yourself for it. Read John Carmack's story in Masters of Doom or just wait for the upcoming movie about it.
I've also heard -- and I can't verify this -- that it helps to have a notebook full of sketches, stories, game mechanics, ideas you've had in relation to games. You keep this and bring it to an interview. You pass the technical aspects and then you let them know that you really want this and that you are also creative and not just technical.
Don't forget to have fun and good luck!
i'd like to thank Steve Ballmer for making himself available for this important breakthrough.
Steve says, "show yourself, human!"
Space.com brings word of a team using new evidence is suggesting that the mysterious 1908 event in Tunguska was a comet despite a team two years ago arguing it was an asteroid. The comet theory does explain the odd phenomenon of the night skies being lit up for several nights following the event all across Europe--about 3,000 miles away. Researchers believe this points to a comet because when the space shuttles launched today pass through the atmosphere they cause or improve the formation of noctilucent clouds. These clouds are so high up (55 miles) they are only made of ice particles and they are only visible at night which gives researchers reason to draw the conclusion that the 300 metric tons of water vapor that the shuttle pumps into the Earth's thermosphere must likely indicate that the thing that hit was loaded with water or ice. This would make it a comet and not an asteroid. This--of course--raises new upper-atmosphere physics problems for the Tunguska event but explains the strange phenomenon over the skies of the world following it. You may remember analysis of Lake Cheko last year in an effort to better understand what happened.
Well, if every comet that hit earth dropped off a little bit of water--even in the form of noctilucent clouds ... it'd take a while but is it really so far fetch to think that ultimately all our water and atmosphere are extra-terrestrial? Probably unlikely but over a long enough time, who knows?
what a pedantic, arsehole reply.
Screw my karma. You sir, are a dick.
I, in a civil tongue, point out that the poster who capitalize SCORES was incorrect if he was trying to say very few people care about this. I get moderated Troll.
Earlier today, someone corrects me on a technicality and gets moderated informative (because I was incorrect). You, being a typical foul mouthed internet denizen, call me an "arsehole" and "dick." Which results in you getting moderated insightful. What did you add to the conversation? Nothing. Pretty much the model for not insightful if you ask me.
You know, I'm only an asshole if the guy didn't know what "scores" meant and if he didn't he shouldn't use the damned word.
So I better call you an "asshole dick" if I want to get moderated insightful and not a troll? Which causes me yet again to wonder why I bother wasting my time on this site.
Boy you sure DECIMATED me.
Personally I don't mind that much, I haven't attended a LAN party is years. However I can definitely see how this will anger SCORES of people.
score: n. Twenty, 20 (number).
'Scores' huh? Well I'd say it's safe to bump up your estimates of angering 40-80 people considering the article said:
So furious that over 7,000 fans have signed a petition to Blizzard to add Lan support.
Is it really necessary to write a 200+ page book on how to write 140-character "microblog" posts?
Agreed. After reading the preview, it's basically a tutorial on Twitter. From the link to the preview I found these general sections:
1. Get Started
2. Listen In
3. Hold Great Conversations
4. Share Information and Ideas
5. Reveal Yourself
6. Twitter for Business: Special Considerations and Ideas
I'm sorry this looks like a "how to use Twitter" book that could, at best, be a social networking book. What is O'Reilly doing publishing this book?
The review tends to center on formatting and typesetting. Great. If I want to know how to publish a guide on using my site, I understand this book sets the bar.
But how does it get a 9 out of 10? Did the reviewer walk away a better Twitterer? What need is there to buy this book if you could just save the time and money by diving in or reading other Twitter posts?
World of Warcraft is a great example of a game that has evolved beyond anyone's imagination since their Day 1 and will continue to do so to better the player experience for as long as players support the title.
I find it odd that a comparison is being drawn between a stateful monthly payment role playing game and a stateless (allegedly subscription-less) real time strategy game. I definitely see how World of Warcraft is enriched by the spider webbed interaction of thousands of players on a server. However, I fail to see how Starcraft II would benefit from this if you've got a single digit cap on number of players in any given instance of the game.
And can we give up on the piracy concerns? It's just getting embarrassing.
Also, if you're going to force everyone to use Battle.net, I hope you have improved its quality since I was last one it several years ago.
Unfortunately, these reports are usually richer in vivid metaphor -- with fears of 'digital Pearl Harbors' and 'cyber-Katrinas' -- than in factual foundation. So why is there so much concern about 'cyber-terrorism?'
Because no one fully understands it. And not understanding something can easily lead to fear. And those standing to make money off that fear (journalists, contractors, agencies) are unashamed to exploit it.
... and that's easy to turn into fear when you're talking to the people who are in charge of protecting us from threats. And the potential mitigation techniques are another endless myriad of complex software/hardware. All I can say is that it is highly unlikely that a Live Free or Die Hard 'fire-sale' scenario will happen. I can't in good conscious tell you it's impossible. I can tell you that the probability of it happening within a year would most certainly be dealt with in multi-digit negative powers of ten. Then there's the possibility of lesser attacks which are highly probable but I feel that the cost-risk ratio is all messed up. Again, I believe this is due to ignorance.
I'm a computer scientist and I don't even understand or know about every potential vulnerability. It's simply too complex
You get into a weird sort of emperors-new-clothes kind of situation when the only people who understand your problems are also the ones trying to sell you a solution. And they're just not being openly honest nor realistic with you.
As someone who's still using DVDs, I see this from a slightly different angle. In my brain I'm thinking about the future and how difficult it's going to be for device manufacturers to support this format "consisting of a unique program for every Blu-Ray master." I mean, while the fight was HD DVD vs Blu-Ray, I was looking forward to "movie players" in the future being able to play anything under the sun and since the disc is standardized in size you'd be able to have players be backward compatible for multiple technologies ... maybe even leave open possibilities for up-converting old discs.
But after reading this story, I'm sure all this new anti-anti-anti-theft encryption technology requires you buy a license to use the per master programs and that these programs require a ton of chipset/memory on the device to decrypt these things. By the time you've foot the bill for the hardware and IP licenses on the technology, the universal player isn't going to be worth it.
It currently may spell annoyance/lawsuit but I predict the future techies will look back and frown upon what was done when future generations are left to be curators of digital media and wacky encryption schemes.