Are you saying it would be better if they did mind? Are you outraged that they are satisfied with their government? There's a cultural divide, and with the constant hyperbole fed through the news lately without adequate input from the people who actually live there (nor even from those from China who are living/studying/working in the west!), I think it's about time that it would be healthy for us to spend some time asking ourselves the big questions. The fact is, their perspectives on personal rights and individuality are nothing new - they are ages old and they are of the opinion that it has served them reasonably well. You're missing the point entirely. Generally speaking, the only governments with near 100% approval ratings are those who's populations are afraid to voice their dissent or displeasure - similar to dictators and despots who win "elections" with 100% of the vote.
There are some things for which there is no justifiable moral equivalence. Among the most fundamental of these tenants is the right of self-determinism. No one deserves to be a slave. Not to another person, and certainly not to a government.
I question your assumption. Different cultures have different priorities. In the West, "freedom" is held as the highest ideal. However, other cultures hold "harmony" as the highest ideal. There are going to be times where these two ideals are mutually exclusive. Hence the different expectations and norms worldwide. I somewhat suspect it's the Chinese *government* that values harmony over freedom. Come to think of it, most governments do.
Unfortunately, it's not like we could ever really find out. I suspect a Chinese government-approved poll would find ~98% of Chinese citizens are "extremely satisfied with their government". Or, on a related note, it turns out that Chinese citizens don't really mind the government censoring the Internet.
The thing is and someone else commented on this further up is that developing on Linux is pretty similar to developing with Microsoft's solutions.
Both have point and click build your own GUI programs. It's just that you use windows at home, work, etc so you build your programs to only work on that OS.
It's exactly the same as the Internet Explorer only websites from the 90s.
You seem very familiar with Microsoft's solutions but have you ever truly looked at other solutions? I think not otherwise you would have structured your comment differently. I tried to avoid direct comparisons with Linux products, because, as I indicated, I know much more about Windows / console development than Linux. I'm not entirely surprised to hear Linux has some great point-and-click solutions. I was actually rebutting the common disdain some developers have for these high-level development tools, not trying to indicate that Microsoft is the only one providing them.
When you say "solutions", are you talking about OS or development tools? With regards to OS, then no, I'm mostly familiar with Windows. As far as development tools, I've used products from Borland, Watcom, Microsoft, and SN Systems. Professionally, though, the game industry is currently dominated by Microsoft's tools. Every single game company I've worked at (five) have used Visual Studio.
It may sound strange, but most developers I know (including myself) are fans of Linux as a general principle. I've been hankering to install Linux on one of my old dev boxes and work on some freeware games. Maybe I'll actually make this happen in the near future. It might be fun to start another side project.
I'll have to take your word on Google. I've never seen their campus.
Actually, my current workplace uses medium-sized open-air offices that house small teams of developers (we call them "pods"). While each team is isolated, we can easily talk to each other. This was a deliberate choice by the company founders (who sit right there with us - private offices are reserved for people who have to talk on the phone a lot) to maximize communication within teams.
I was a bit apprehensive initially, and it takes a bit of getting used to (headphones are helpful when you want to stay focused), but I have to say, I love being able to turn around and say "hey guys, I need some advice on how to solve this problem..." Because my team works with the same technology as I do, it becomes very easy and convenient to collaborate and share knowledge.
It sounds weird, but I'm not sure I'd want to move back to a private office. I'm not sure this would work for every company, but it seems to work well for us.
which ATM I am still able to post without fear of getting my door kicked in (I hope),YMMV Not unless you live in a Texas compound with a wacky religious leader, at least.
There are some egregious examples of our (US) government overstepping their bounds, of course, but by and large, this sort of worry is not a current concern for most first-world citizens. But all you have to do is look to a country like China, where *real* political censorship and oppression occurs, and you then see how easily things can go astray.
Are people in China inherently more susceptible to authoritarian regimes, or somehow less capable of existing in a democracy than other peoples? Do they desire freedom less than we do? I suspect not, but I fear too many people simply assume that it could never happen to us. I'm not talking about some tin-foil hat government conspiracy, but a slow and gradual erosion of our rights - a slowly boiling pot to the frog, as it were.
I'm always astounded at those individuals who, while at the same time espousing fear of government censorship, are all too eager to cede so much power to the government in various guises: social programs, education, health care, financial control, and taxation. Power inevitably tends to corrupt, yet people are so easily deluded into thinking "yes, but we'll use that power to make our world better!" All the good intentions in the world won't prevent a powerful government from becoming at best bloated, inefficient, and uncaring, and at worst, tyrannical.
It's pretty easy to see with an example like this how well-meaning intentions can go so badly astray. Only foolish reactionaries talk of radical change the government. Such changes will likely never happen, and while I'm sure it feels great to take a principles stand, it affects nothing in the long run. Instead, the true battle is incremental - every new power ceded to the government must be carefully questioned... Will this really make the lives of our citizens better in the long run, or is this just another potential method for a government to oppress and control it's population?
Ok, I guess I'll bite. I'm not a Linux guy - I've messed around with it as a hobby (I've actually been hankering to install Linux on one of my old dev machines and do a bit of freeware game development), but I develop computer games for a living. That means, like most of the industry, I'm using Microsoft platforms and (among some other vendors), their development tools. In general, I've always found Microsoft development tools to be best in class, at least lately. A number of years ago, Borland made the best game dev tools, and then Watcom had its day in the sun.
At work today, we're using XAML / WPF for some of our newest content creation tools, so I've gotten a chance to play with some of Microsft's cutting edge development APIs. Say what you like, but the.NET platform, C#, and WPF are three examples of pretty innovative and solid technologies that I've seen them come out with. We're building some pretty amazing content creation tools for our designers and artists to use, and we're doing things with them that would be extremely difficult to do using most traditional UI APIs.
I'm not going to dismiss Linux as a solid development platform. It's got an solid work history, and it, of course, has the obvious benefits of being free and open source. What a lot of people don't seem to understand, though, is that many people really don't care all that much about those last two points. Software development is big business, and developing on Windows is simply the most practical option right now (again, in my industry: game development. I can't speak for yours). Reasons:
1) Windows is the OS of choice for large-scale game development efforts (both for Windows and console development). Some developers, such as Blizzard, admirably support a variety of platforms. I wish our company did, but there's no real economic incentive to do so. If anyone can successfully make the case, let me know. I'd love to present arguments to our company higher-ups.
2) It's hard to find developers with the expertise to port to Mac and Linux. The current talent pool of game developers is nearly universally trained with Microsoft tools and platforms. While on-the-job training is nearly always required to some degree, any more required training is a disincentive. Yes, it's a chicken-and-egg problem, but it's a problem nonetheless.
3) The development tools from Microsoft are excellent. I've seen some cool open-source stuff, and in fact, we do use those tools as well. What's important to us as a development house is productivity, because our real costs are in labor, not software. If buying a few hundred dollars worth of software will save all our developers a few hours (for instance, the company pays for Visual Assist X plugins for developers), it's worth it.
Say what you like about "point-and-click" developers, but I work on both low-level game engine code all the way up to tools and utilities. The farther down I go in the code, the lower level my style becomes. In my opinion, it's simply smart to use the most appropriate development tools available for the job at hand. When I need to bang out a quick utility to help artists generate a simple XML configuration file, I can create a nice little easy-to-use utility using C# / WPF /.NET in a very short time. When I'm working on a run-time component for our engine, I'm using C++ and optimize for performance. If a "point-and-click" tool is going to improve my productivity and is appropriate for the job I'm doing, then I have no problems with using it.
I have to agree, I've worked at Microsoft twice as a temp programmer. The first time I had a private office, the next I shared an office. Bad place to work? Hardly. And what's really hilarious is those photos are of the Washington State Convention Center, not of the Microsoft campus. BTW, the convention center is really nice too. To hold *conventions* in, that is.
And I can't believe Google was listed because of a "kindergarden" design motif. Holy crap, who gives a flying f***? Smells like a quick throw-together article, with listings designed to draw ire (and thus page hits).
Sorry, when you can't even get basic facts correct, I can't believe much else you say or show either.
Besides that, if you were to actually tell me that you've never paused to consider the political phrasing of your posts to avoid unwanted moderations, I doubt I'd believe you. I suppose I do try to reply in such a way that doesn't unnecessarily insult people or use language that tends to draw ire. But that's part of my personality - I try to do that in person with friends and co-workers, and I don't see any reason why I should behave differently online when posting in a forum.
Unfortunately, at the point where you stop believing what I tell you about myself, we then stop having a meaningful conversation. What were to happen if I simply said "I don't believe that you've been mod-bombed that badly without some sort of provocation"? The conversation then dies or devolves into meaningless debate, because there's nowhere left to go once we can't accept others' viewpoints as sincere and honest.
I'll accept that you had some bad mod-related experiences that I haven't seen myself. But I wish you had given me the same courtesy.
I do not consider a moderation system that encourages group-think to be 'good'. Baa. I think it says more about the individual who does this than anything if they end up posting only what they think will be popular with the 'in' crowd. I simply post my opinion, and let the chips fall where they may. Sure, people are more likely to mod up something they agree with, but I think you're making the same mistake a lot of people make - assuming "Slashdot" as a whole has only one narrow opinion.
How often have you seen two posts, side by side, in complete disagreement with each other, and both marked +5 insightful. That, to me, is the mark of a good moderation system. That, and all the obvious trolls (spouting racial epithets, obvious flaming, etc) are quickly modded to oblivion.
Only somebody that is firmly planted on the side of public opinion would think this. I'm a conservative Republican, I think global warming is likely caused by an increase in solar activity, I'm religious, and I actually prefer using and programming for Windows operating systems. Please don't tell me you think I'm a "typical" slashdotter.
Please note, I didn't say it was perfect. Obviously you occasionally get bad moderations (yes, it's happened to me). I simply stated it was the best I had seen. Maybe you know of a better user-moderation system in use somewhere?
It's relatively rare, but just this evening while meta-moderating I saw a "-1 Troll" moderation of a post that made some pro-Microsoft points, even though it was a well thought-out and informative post. It couldn't possibly be considered a troll by most reasonable people. Normally I don't meta-moderate counter to the original moderation unless it's pretty blatant, and this certainly was.
I meta-moderate whenever Slashdot indicates I can. In general, I'd guess I see one of these every 20-30 moderations (that's a rough estimate - I haven't kept track exactly), so I think it tends to balance out the vast majority of the time. That still doesn't mean it doesn't happen. In general, it's much more likely to occur with a post espousing a minority opinion here on Slashdot. i.e. pro-Microsoft, anti-OSS, political conservative / republican, religious, don't-believe-in-global-warming, think-Linux-sucks, etc, etc...
Smaller forums (at least in my experience) typically don't need heavy moderation. And for newer, larger forums, it seems like a good moderation system will quickly determine who are the long-term positive contributors and who just likes to stir things up. It's all speculation on my part, of course, but I don't see how things wouldn't shake themselves out pretty quickly. Obviously, the first moderators would simply be chosen at random. But it seems like the system would eventually reach a reasonable equilibrium.
You have to love that it's "environmentalists" that are bringing lawsuits against owners of these turbines? What does someone like me do, who considers himself to be an environmentalist at heart, but doesn't buy into the insanity of the modern environmental movement?
Now, we're racing into new, unproven technologies that are pushed by these same people. Let's all buy florescent bulbs for our homes! Awesome... what happens to all that mercury when we have to get rid of them? We're converting corn into fuel instead of using it to feed the world's population. Rising price of corn-related products have been in the news lately. Why don't we have nuclear power? It's affordable, and aside from the waste (which is not insignificant - I'm not an idiot) is 100% pollution free. Some of our truly cleanest energy is from hydro-electric power. Some of these "environmentalists" are seriously proposing breaching dams, again in the name of "environmentalism".
Are these smart ideas? It just doesn't seem like it from where I stand. And what's absolutely best is that our nation's political and economic elite (a la Cape Cod) are complete hypocrites, espousing green technology while blocking wind turbines where *they* can see them.
The pillar that the turbine is mounted to doesn't take up that much room. I imagine a company would pay a farmer to give them a small chunk (probably 0.01 acres) of land for a turbine. If low-altitude (0-500ft~) sky were prime real-estate then we'd have problems, but luckily no one really wants to build anything there. Because, it's not like low-flying planes have to criss-cross all over those farmers' fields to apply various pesticides and herbicides or anything.
I'm not saying that it's a bad idea necessarily (this sort of thing should definitely be explored and encouraged), but nothing is ever as simple as it seems when that mental light bulb first turns on.
Oddly, this guy has a point. Most reasonably popular unmoderated forums quickly degrade into meaningless flames, trolls, and drivel. All it takes is a few bad apples to turn the rest of the barrel rotten, as the saying goes. Funny enough, I think Slashdot has the most effective and elegant user-moderation system I've seen. Sure, it's not 100% perfect, but more times than not, the random trolls and other crap are already modded out of my viewing range by the time I get to an article.
Most people associate bad Internet behavior with anonymity. That's true to some extent - obviously people are much less civil when dealing remotely and dispassionately with other people. Put a random Internet troll in a biker bar, and I guarantee you he'll be *much* more polite to his fellow patrons. But Slashdot has proven that you don't need to lose anonymity to create an effective flame and troll filter. Let your most trusted users do it.
I'm always surprised that more sites don't copy this system. Or maybe someone has, and I just haven't heard of it?
Your assumption that the specs will stay the same and the price will drop, rather than the price staying the same and the specs increasing, is highly questionable. How do you figure? Do you remember when it was a big deal when PCs dropped under $1000? Yes, specs will continue to go up, but I'd say that computer prices seem to be on a steady decline - at least when you look at what's available on the low end.
I recall it specifically since I was working on Deer Hunter in '97, which was specifically targeted at those mid to low-end machines. For a good chuckle, look at the min specs required for that game.
I think it's much more likely that the market will continue to grow in both direction. There will always be those who want the fastest and best at the upper end of the market, but it will likely also expand downward to fill additional niches.
It seems like when you're dealing with price points of one to several hundred dollars, this is a big deal for free software, specifically Linux. When you're talking about adding anywhere from 25% to 100% of the cost of the computer just for the operating system, it paints things in a different light. That, and you'd have to put an older (soon to be non-supported) version of Windows (XP) on the thing. I can't see these running Vista anytime in the near future.
Should be interesting to see how this impacts the OS playing field...
Oil and gold are limited-quantity, physical, valuable units. Each barrel of oil or ounce of gold is physically removed from the ground, processed, and shipped. While bulk processing helps to defray the cost per unit, there is no way that one unit could sell the same for a thousand units.
With software, the bulk of the expense is a one-time development cost, with some ongoing support costs. These costs do not change no matter now many units of software are installed, since they can be duplicated infinitely at near zero cost. As such, yes, software is pretty much priced "arbitrarily". Note that I don't think free software is necessarily the answer to everything (I write commercial video games for a living), but I think we need to be honest about what's going on.
The primary point of a business endeavor is to maximize the profits of your products. Increase the price, and you reduce sales while increasing profit per unit. Reduce price, and you lower your margin, but increase sales. Do you recall how movies (in VHS tape format, mind you) use to cost $75 to $100 a pop? The movie companies likely viewed their movies as a valuable commodity, and set their initial prices accordingly. Some genius eventually figured they could sell thousands of times as many units by drastically cutting the prices. Video games are pretty much priced the same way. The current $50-60 price tag reflects a reasonable balance between the enormous cost of creating games versus the large number of players expected to purchase them.
So, what exactly does the price indicate? It's simply the local maximum of the profit curve (which is why I put "arbitrary" in quotes). This is why competition is so important to any industry. If there is no competition, than people are willing to purchase the items at a much higher price point, simply because there is no alternative. The fact that there are three major competitors in the console game industry, as well as PC gaming. And, given that nearly all game sell for the same price, this pretty much means one of two things: either there is massive collusion and price fixing going on, or the price point has settled in on a reasonable market value for games. I'll let you pick which one you feel is more likely based on your tinfoil-hat rating.
But this system absolutely relies on competition. Without competition, there's no reasonable market pressure to lower prices. The lack of serious competition in the OS and business software world is problematic. To date, Microsoft has been smart enough to avoid exploiting their position to the point of creating a serious competitor... They just exploit it enough to rake in enormous profits, but not enough to drive most business away. But I wonder how long they'll be able to avoid the temptation?
The Xbox architecture was never designed to support anything other than DVD's? Nonsense, it was built with extensibility in mind, just like any other console. The fact that there was an HD-DVD add-on proves that. An integrated Blu-Ray (or even an add-on) won't be any harder for them.
What *is* true is that games can't take advantage of the storage space, because you have to build games with the lowest-powered SKU out in the market - that is, DVD drives. Technically speaking, I suppose they could make both Blu-Ray OR DVD versions of games (where DVD versions ship with multiple disks), but I'd wager heavily against that ever happening.
And, it's also true that the 360 is one of the most flawed pieces of major consumer electronics in recent history. I don't think it's quite as big a deal as most people think, though, since MS is replacing them for free. Most of my friends, while annoyed at the lost of gaming time, simply get a replacement console from MS and keep playing.
Here's partly why I think the Xbox is still going to be ok... A large number of my friends and co-workers have both a 360 and a PS3. Even so, most of us will still pick up a 360 version of a game given a choice. The games are pretty much equivalent, but the 360's online experience is so much better, and people like adding to their GamerScore*.
* Whoever thought this up at MS should get a promotion. It's one of the simplest yet most brilliant things MS has ever done.
There's local and state taxes on everything you purchase. There's an insane amount of tax on gasoline. Property taxes also rank pretty high up here. All in all, you do end up spending a sizeable chunk of your income on taxes. On average, Americans work until April 23 to pay off all government taxes. The rest of the year's earnings are yours.
Here's a snippet:
In 2008, Americans will work 74 days to afford their federal taxes and 39 more days to pay state and local taxes. Meanwhile, buying food requires 35 days of work, clothing 13 days, and housing 60 days. Other major categories are health and medical care (50 days), transportation (29 days), and recreation (21 days). I'm all for paying my fair share. I just happen to think a fair share is somewhat less than what we currently pay. And lucky me, I'm in the second-highest-paying state (Washington). Oh well, at least we're still better off than California.
Oh, and as for our military... I think the rate is around 20%, and that's during wartime. Frankly, military expenditures is one of the few things specifically authorized by our Constitution. But yes, I think we probably spend too much on them as well.
Wing Commander (I think it was III) simulated intoxication by reversing the control axes of your joystick at randomly timed intervals. You had the option to drink or not drink while you were on-duty, and you had to play the next mission with the appropriate consequences.
The game I work on (fantasty online game) has a drunk visual effect when you drink too much ale. The effect is only cosmetic, though.
Detroit and Japan never said it was impossible to build these sorts of cars. They just said it was impossible to build these cars for 250k. Seriously, there's no secret conspiracy between Detroit and Japan and the oil companies. If Ford or GM or Toyota could invent a car that ran on air (ala Ayn Rand's Gault-mobile), then, they would invent. Every motor company has researched just about every sort of way you can put people from point A to point B in a car... Chrysler has worked on gas turbine engines... Japan has gone crazy with turbo and superchargers and Mazda has the rotary engine, and GM tried diesel once and even once upon a time Ford actually looked at putting a small nuclear reactor in a car. It just turns out that, that hydrogen carbon bond is a pretty good way of storing chemical energy, and the most efficient way of carrying those bonds is in something like, well, a gasoline. Sheesh, no crazy conspiracies? No secret back-room deals of quashed super-technologies? You're no fun all all, with your common sense and logic...
Having been a programmer on both types of games (single-player console games and PC MMOs), there's a HUGE difference between developing MMOs and regular single-player games. I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying that basically any task is automatically many times harder to program when you're dealing with a massively networked environment. It's just not that easy to translate single-player game development experience into a full featured MMO. There are huge architectural issues you have to think of when doing so that are not obvious to the lay-person (or often to the average developer).
Besides, MMOs are the cash cows of the foundering PC gaming market. Console game (likely the vast bulk of their sales) are still rock solid with largely single-player experiences. Why turn a well-known quantity into a huge risk, both design-wise and technologically?
It's not completely improbably that we both know folks targeted by these guys. Apparently, this is standard operating procedure for them. They've gone after a LOT of people, enough that my friends were actually warned by other vendors at last year's GenCon that they'd be getting a letter from these guys' lawyer.
Slashdot Mirror
There are some things for which there is no justifiable moral equivalence. Among the most fundamental of these tenants is the right of self-determinism. No one deserves to be a slave. Not to another person, and certainly not to a government.
Unfortunately, it's not like we could ever really find out. I suspect a Chinese government-approved poll would find ~98% of Chinese citizens are "extremely satisfied with their government". Or, on a related note, it turns out that Chinese citizens don't really mind the government censoring the Internet.
Both have point and click build your own GUI programs. It's just that you use windows at home, work, etc so you build your programs to only work on that OS.
It's exactly the same as the Internet Explorer only websites from the 90s.
You seem very familiar with Microsoft's solutions but have you ever truly looked at other solutions? I think not otherwise you would have structured your comment differently. I tried to avoid direct comparisons with Linux products, because, as I indicated, I know much more about Windows / console development than Linux. I'm not entirely surprised to hear Linux has some great point-and-click solutions. I was actually rebutting the common disdain some developers have for these high-level development tools, not trying to indicate that Microsoft is the only one providing them.
When you say "solutions", are you talking about OS or development tools? With regards to OS, then no, I'm mostly familiar with Windows. As far as development tools, I've used products from Borland, Watcom, Microsoft, and SN Systems. Professionally, though, the game industry is currently dominated by Microsoft's tools. Every single game company I've worked at (five) have used Visual Studio.
It may sound strange, but most developers I know (including myself) are fans of Linux as a general principle. I've been hankering to install Linux on one of my old dev boxes and work on some freeware games. Maybe I'll actually make this happen in the near future. It might be fun to start another side project.
I'll have to take your word on Google. I've never seen their campus.
Actually, my current workplace uses medium-sized open-air offices that house small teams of developers (we call them "pods"). While each team is isolated, we can easily talk to each other. This was a deliberate choice by the company founders (who sit right there with us - private offices are reserved for people who have to talk on the phone a lot) to maximize communication within teams.
I was a bit apprehensive initially, and it takes a bit of getting used to (headphones are helpful when you want to stay focused), but I have to say, I love being able to turn around and say "hey guys, I need some advice on how to solve this problem..." Because my team works with the same technology as I do, it becomes very easy and convenient to collaborate and share knowledge.
It sounds weird, but I'm not sure I'd want to move back to a private office. I'm not sure this would work for every company, but it seems to work well for us.
There are some egregious examples of our (US) government overstepping their bounds, of course, but by and large, this sort of worry is not a current concern for most first-world citizens. But all you have to do is look to a country like China, where *real* political censorship and oppression occurs, and you then see how easily things can go astray.
Are people in China inherently more susceptible to authoritarian regimes, or somehow less capable of existing in a democracy than other peoples? Do they desire freedom less than we do? I suspect not, but I fear too many people simply assume that it could never happen to us. I'm not talking about some tin-foil hat government conspiracy, but a slow and gradual erosion of our rights - a slowly boiling pot to the frog, as it were.
I'm always astounded at those individuals who, while at the same time espousing fear of government censorship, are all too eager to cede so much power to the government in various guises: social programs, education, health care, financial control, and taxation. Power inevitably tends to corrupt, yet people are so easily deluded into thinking "yes, but we'll use that power to make our world better!" All the good intentions in the world won't prevent a powerful government from becoming at best bloated, inefficient, and uncaring, and at worst, tyrannical.
It's pretty easy to see with an example like this how well-meaning intentions can go so badly astray. Only foolish reactionaries talk of radical change the government. Such changes will likely never happen, and while I'm sure it feels great to take a principles stand, it affects nothing in the long run. Instead, the true battle is incremental - every new power ceded to the government must be carefully questioned... Will this really make the lives of our citizens better in the long run, or is this just another potential method for a government to oppress and control it's population?
Ok, I guess I'll bite. I'm not a Linux guy - I've messed around with it as a hobby (I've actually been hankering to install Linux on one of my old dev machines and do a bit of freeware game development), but I develop computer games for a living. That means, like most of the industry, I'm using Microsoft platforms and (among some other vendors), their development tools. In general, I've always found Microsoft development tools to be best in class, at least lately. A number of years ago, Borland made the best game dev tools, and then Watcom had its day in the sun.
.NET platform, C#, and WPF are three examples of pretty innovative and solid technologies that I've seen them come out with. We're building some pretty amazing content creation tools for our designers and artists to use, and we're doing things with them that would be extremely difficult to do using most traditional UI APIs.
.NET in a very short time. When I'm working on a run-time component for our engine, I'm using C++ and optimize for performance. If a "point-and-click" tool is going to improve my productivity and is appropriate for the job I'm doing, then I have no problems with using it.
At work today, we're using XAML / WPF for some of our newest content creation tools, so I've gotten a chance to play with some of Microsft's cutting edge development APIs. Say what you like, but the
I'm not going to dismiss Linux as a solid development platform. It's got an solid work history, and it, of course, has the obvious benefits of being free and open source. What a lot of people don't seem to understand, though, is that many people really don't care all that much about those last two points. Software development is big business, and developing on Windows is simply the most practical option right now (again, in my industry: game development. I can't speak for yours). Reasons:
1) Windows is the OS of choice for large-scale game development efforts (both for Windows and console development). Some developers, such as Blizzard, admirably support a variety of platforms. I wish our company did, but there's no real economic incentive to do so. If anyone can successfully make the case, let me know. I'd love to present arguments to our company higher-ups.
2) It's hard to find developers with the expertise to port to Mac and Linux. The current talent pool of game developers is nearly universally trained with Microsoft tools and platforms. While on-the-job training is nearly always required to some degree, any more required training is a disincentive. Yes, it's a chicken-and-egg problem, but it's a problem nonetheless.
3) The development tools from Microsoft are excellent. I've seen some cool open-source stuff, and in fact, we do use those tools as well. What's important to us as a development house is productivity, because our real costs are in labor, not software. If buying a few hundred dollars worth of software will save all our developers a few hours (for instance, the company pays for Visual Assist X plugins for developers), it's worth it.
Say what you like about "point-and-click" developers, but I work on both low-level game engine code all the way up to tools and utilities. The farther down I go in the code, the lower level my style becomes. In my opinion, it's simply smart to use the most appropriate development tools available for the job at hand. When I need to bang out a quick utility to help artists generate a simple XML configuration file, I can create a nice little easy-to-use utility using C# / WPF /
I have to agree, I've worked at Microsoft twice as a temp programmer. The first time I had a private office, the next I shared an office. Bad place to work? Hardly. And what's really hilarious is those photos are of the Washington State Convention Center, not of the Microsoft campus. BTW, the convention center is really nice too. To hold *conventions* in, that is.
And I can't believe Google was listed because of a "kindergarden" design motif. Holy crap, who gives a flying f***? Smells like a quick throw-together article, with listings designed to draw ire (and thus page hits).
Sorry, when you can't even get basic facts correct, I can't believe much else you say or show either.
Unfortunately, at the point where you stop believing what I tell you about myself, we then stop having a meaningful conversation. What were to happen if I simply said "I don't believe that you've been mod-bombed that badly without some sort of provocation"? The conversation then dies or devolves into meaningless debate, because there's nowhere left to go once we can't accept others' viewpoints as sincere and honest.
I'll accept that you had some bad mod-related experiences that I haven't seen myself. But I wish you had given me the same courtesy.
How often have you seen two posts, side by side, in complete disagreement with each other, and both marked +5 insightful. That, to me, is the mark of a good moderation system. That, and all the obvious trolls (spouting racial epithets, obvious flaming, etc) are quickly modded to oblivion.
Please note, I didn't say it was perfect. Obviously you occasionally get bad moderations (yes, it's happened to me). I simply stated it was the best I had seen. Maybe you know of a better user-moderation system in use somewhere?
It's relatively rare, but just this evening while meta-moderating I saw a "-1 Troll" moderation of a post that made some pro-Microsoft points, even though it was a well thought-out and informative post. It couldn't possibly be considered a troll by most reasonable people. Normally I don't meta-moderate counter to the original moderation unless it's pretty blatant, and this certainly was.
I meta-moderate whenever Slashdot indicates I can. In general, I'd guess I see one of these every 20-30 moderations (that's a rough estimate - I haven't kept track exactly), so I think it tends to balance out the vast majority of the time. That still doesn't mean it doesn't happen. In general, it's much more likely to occur with a post espousing a minority opinion here on Slashdot. i.e. pro-Microsoft, anti-OSS, political conservative / republican, religious, don't-believe-in-global-warming, think-Linux-sucks, etc, etc...
Smaller forums (at least in my experience) typically don't need heavy moderation. And for newer, larger forums, it seems like a good moderation system will quickly determine who are the long-term positive contributors and who just likes to stir things up. It's all speculation on my part, of course, but I don't see how things wouldn't shake themselves out pretty quickly. Obviously, the first moderators would simply be chosen at random. But it seems like the system would eventually reach a reasonable equilibrium.
You have to love that it's "environmentalists" that are bringing lawsuits against owners of these turbines? What does someone like me do, who considers himself to be an environmentalist at heart, but doesn't buy into the insanity of the modern environmental movement?
Now, we're racing into new, unproven technologies that are pushed by these same people. Let's all buy florescent bulbs for our homes! Awesome... what happens to all that mercury when we have to get rid of them? We're converting corn into fuel instead of using it to feed the world's population. Rising price of corn-related products have been in the news lately. Why don't we have nuclear power? It's affordable, and aside from the waste (which is not insignificant - I'm not an idiot) is 100% pollution free. Some of our truly cleanest energy is from hydro-electric power. Some of these "environmentalists" are seriously proposing breaching dams, again in the name of "environmentalism".
Are these smart ideas? It just doesn't seem like it from where I stand. And what's absolutely best is that our nation's political and economic elite (a la Cape Cod) are complete hypocrites, espousing green technology while blocking wind turbines where *they* can see them.
I'm not saying that it's a bad idea necessarily (this sort of thing should definitely be explored and encouraged), but nothing is ever as simple as it seems when that mental light bulb first turns on.
Oddly, this guy has a point. Most reasonably popular unmoderated forums quickly degrade into meaningless flames, trolls, and drivel. All it takes is a few bad apples to turn the rest of the barrel rotten, as the saying goes. Funny enough, I think Slashdot has the most effective and elegant user-moderation system I've seen. Sure, it's not 100% perfect, but more times than not, the random trolls and other crap are already modded out of my viewing range by the time I get to an article.
Most people associate bad Internet behavior with anonymity. That's true to some extent - obviously people are much less civil when dealing remotely and dispassionately with other people. Put a random Internet troll in a biker bar, and I guarantee you he'll be *much* more polite to his fellow patrons. But Slashdot has proven that you don't need to lose anonymity to create an effective flame and troll filter. Let your most trusted users do it.
I'm always surprised that more sites don't copy this system. Or maybe someone has, and I just haven't heard of it?
I recall it specifically since I was working on Deer Hunter in '97, which was specifically targeted at those mid to low-end machines. For a good chuckle, look at the min specs required for that game. I think it's much more likely that the market will continue to grow in both direction. There will always be those who want the fastest and best at the upper end of the market, but it will likely also expand downward to fill additional niches.
It seems like when you're dealing with price points of one to several hundred dollars, this is a big deal for free software, specifically Linux. When you're talking about adding anywhere from 25% to 100% of the cost of the computer just for the operating system, it paints things in a different light. That, and you'd have to put an older (soon to be non-supported) version of Windows (XP) on the thing. I can't see these running Vista anytime in the near future.
Should be interesting to see how this impacts the OS playing field...
Oil and gold are limited-quantity, physical, valuable units. Each barrel of oil or ounce of gold is physically removed from the ground, processed, and shipped. While bulk processing helps to defray the cost per unit, there is no way that one unit could sell the same for a thousand units.
With software, the bulk of the expense is a one-time development cost, with some ongoing support costs. These costs do not change no matter now many units of software are installed, since they can be duplicated infinitely at near zero cost. As such, yes, software is pretty much priced "arbitrarily". Note that I don't think free software is necessarily the answer to everything (I write commercial video games for a living), but I think we need to be honest about what's going on.
The primary point of a business endeavor is to maximize the profits of your products. Increase the price, and you reduce sales while increasing profit per unit. Reduce price, and you lower your margin, but increase sales. Do you recall how movies (in VHS tape format, mind you) use to cost $75 to $100 a pop? The movie companies likely viewed their movies as a valuable commodity, and set their initial prices accordingly. Some genius eventually figured they could sell thousands of times as many units by drastically cutting the prices. Video games are pretty much priced the same way. The current $50-60 price tag reflects a reasonable balance between the enormous cost of creating games versus the large number of players expected to purchase them.
So, what exactly does the price indicate? It's simply the local maximum of the profit curve (which is why I put "arbitrary" in quotes). This is why competition is so important to any industry. If there is no competition, than people are willing to purchase the items at a much higher price point, simply because there is no alternative. The fact that there are three major competitors in the console game industry, as well as PC gaming. And, given that nearly all game sell for the same price, this pretty much means one of two things: either there is massive collusion and price fixing going on, or the price point has settled in on a reasonable market value for games. I'll let you pick which one you feel is more likely based on your tinfoil-hat rating.
But this system absolutely relies on competition. Without competition, there's no reasonable market pressure to lower prices. The lack of serious competition in the OS and business software world is problematic. To date, Microsoft has been smart enough to avoid exploiting their position to the point of creating a serious competitor... They just exploit it enough to rake in enormous profits, but not enough to drive most business away. But I wonder how long they'll be able to avoid the temptation?
The Xbox architecture was never designed to support anything other than DVD's? Nonsense, it was built with extensibility in mind, just like any other console. The fact that there was an HD-DVD add-on proves that. An integrated Blu-Ray (or even an add-on) won't be any harder for them.
What *is* true is that games can't take advantage of the storage space, because you have to build games with the lowest-powered SKU out in the market - that is, DVD drives. Technically speaking, I suppose they could make both Blu-Ray OR DVD versions of games (where DVD versions ship with multiple disks), but I'd wager heavily against that ever happening.
And, it's also true that the 360 is one of the most flawed pieces of major consumer electronics in recent history. I don't think it's quite as big a deal as most people think, though, since MS is replacing them for free. Most of my friends, while annoyed at the lost of gaming time, simply get a replacement console from MS and keep playing.
Here's partly why I think the Xbox is still going to be ok... A large number of my friends and co-workers have both a 360 and a PS3. Even so, most of us will still pick up a 360 version of a game given a choice. The games are pretty much equivalent, but the 360's online experience is so much better, and people like adding to their GamerScore*.
* Whoever thought this up at MS should get a promotion. It's one of the simplest yet most brilliant things MS has ever done.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/
Here's a snippet: In 2008, Americans will work 74 days to afford their federal taxes and 39 more days to pay state and local taxes. Meanwhile, buying food requires 35 days of work, clothing 13 days, and housing 60 days. Other major categories are health and medical care (50 days), transportation (29 days), and recreation (21 days). I'm all for paying my fair share. I just happen to think a fair share is somewhat less than what we currently pay. And lucky me, I'm in the second-highest-paying state (Washington). Oh well, at least we're still better off than California.
Oh, and as for our military... I think the rate is around 20%, and that's during wartime. Frankly, military expenditures is one of the few things specifically authorized by our Constitution. But yes, I think we probably spend too much on them as well.
Wing Commander (I think it was III) simulated intoxication by reversing the control axes of your joystick at randomly timed intervals. You had the option to drink or not drink while you were on-duty, and you had to play the next mission with the appropriate consequences.
The game I work on (fantasty online game) has a drunk visual effect when you drink too much ale. The effect is only cosmetic, though.
I have no idea how GTA's works.
Having been a programmer on both types of games (single-player console games and PC MMOs), there's a HUGE difference between developing MMOs and regular single-player games. I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying that basically any task is automatically many times harder to program when you're dealing with a massively networked environment. It's just not that easy to translate single-player game development experience into a full featured MMO. There are huge architectural issues you have to think of when doing so that are not obvious to the lay-person (or often to the average developer).
Besides, MMOs are the cash cows of the foundering PC gaming market. Console game (likely the vast bulk of their sales) are still rock solid with largely single-player experiences. Why turn a well-known quantity into a huge risk, both design-wise and technologically?
Yep, I'm sure we're talking about the same folks.
It's not completely improbably that we both know folks targeted by these guys. Apparently, this is standard operating procedure for them. They've gone after a LOT of people, enough that my friends were actually warned by other vendors at last year's GenCon that they'd be getting a letter from these guys' lawyer.