The criticism should be levelled at the hardware vendors who won't provide open drivers.
You mean those hardware vendors who pay to license other vendors' proprietary technology, and aren't allowed to open source the parts of the code that have been licensed from elsewhere?
Why are we limiting ourselves because of proprietary drivers?
Why are you limiting yourself to open source drivers?
If breathing it could kill you, I don't think it would be legal to use it for kids' balloons.. considering that people sue for the slightest things in the US.
It's strange to call it wiretapping as if the service is letting private info out into the world. As others have pointed out, you might as well call spam filtering wire tapping and be done with it. Nobody sees the private info, and the info is used to improve the end user experience over a generic service.
To me this is like suing your local mall for having those light sensor toilet flushes or light switches. Technically they're measuring light, which may be reflecting off of body parts that you don't want visible in public - but these sensors are only able to tell the light level rather than create/record any kind of visual image.
What do you think about using your search results to serve up targeted ads? You've entered this information willingly into someone else's server. Do you really expect any level of privacy there?
I don't see any a priori reason why it's ok to invade someone's privacy and the privacy of their corespondents in order to make ads displayed to them more "relevant"
It's okay to it, because they agreed to it to get a free service. If people would rather pay for an ad-free service, they are free to do so.
I'd rather see targeted ads, than random ads.
I don't actually see any ads at all, because I use an adblocker.
Half Life, on the other hand, had no story or gameplay. Just you walking around with the same four or five NPC models saying the exact same things over and over, broken up in extremely predictable bursts by uninspired enemies with shitty AI.
The AI in Half-Life is still good even in today's term's I'd say. The aliens weren't particularly bright (though not stupid either.. they sometimes retreated, whereas monsters in most games simply run straight towards you), but the soldiers would signal to each other, take cover, make good use of grenades, etc. The story and Universe that Half-Life and Portal created is still one of the most interesting and compelling that I've seen, and I'd like to see where it all ends up. Though I get the impression that maybe Valve don't even know that, and they have a lot of expectations to live up to.
Personally I still get all of my content legally (generally via rental now, ie LoveFilm and Spotify), but if the industries keep acting the way they are, they kind of get what they deserve.
You can't keep ignoring reality either. I have no idea of the real figures, but the vast majority of my friends watch TV shows and listen to music illegally. It kind of sucks, but it's how people are. Expecting everyone to ignore free sources of entertainment is slightly like expecting everyone to use film cameras when digital is available. Or expecting people to go into a dark room full of strangers just to watch a new movie. If they want to keep making money, they should embrace change, rather than fight it tooth and nail.
I have been tempted to write mobile apps from time to time. When I wrote games and AI stuff as a teenager, I did release the source to both of my "big" projects. I haven't made anything for public use since then. I'm not against open sourcing my stuff, but I have been tempted to write mobile apps to try to develop a little business on the side. It doesn't have much to do with whether it's open source or not, though as a development platform I do find the fact that Android is open source to be an attractive thing. Anyway, I don't think it's either encouraging or discouraging open source. It's maybe discouraging PC development, which probably will also mean less people working on open source desktop projects to an extent.
I see the mobile arena as kind of a replay of the days of shareware games. Those were the days when I was thinking about making games - when even the best games could still basically be made by just one person if they worked hard. Then came AAA games with millions in budget, voice acting, artwork, music, etc, etc. Mobile games/apps are a great chance for lone developers to get some viable exposure again. Seeing as I already have a full time job and other interests in life, I haven't been too bothered about following that particular dream yet.
Well, I just assumed such laws were being broken after reading the summary. However a bit of googling came up with this:
Article 8 â" Right to respect for private and family life 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
You need to stop making being a politician so profitable too. Politics seems to attract power hungry assholes, rather than people who want to run a country well..
That doesn't mean that they should just give up fighting. The data is probably 99.999% junk anyway, but that doesn't mean that we should just roll over and accept governments breaking international laws.
I personally don't mind Unity, I can pretty much work with whatever desktop is installed by default, as I use the apps and not the shell. So long as I can switch easily between apps, who cares.
I minded very much that it had some hard-coded shortcut keys. If I could have configured them, I might have tried sticking with it for more than a week. As it was, I regularly use super-T to open a terminal in Linux - but in Unity it brings up the trashcan..
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The criticism should be levelled at the hardware vendors who won't provide open drivers.
You mean those hardware vendors who pay to license other vendors' proprietary technology, and aren't allowed to open source the parts of the code that have been licensed from elsewhere?
Why are we limiting ourselves because of proprietary drivers?
Why are you limiting yourself to open source drivers?
I can understand an international CT force made up of NATO members, but a private yet government created/sponsored counterterrorism company/agency?
To me that doesn't sound any harder to believe than government sponsored rebel factions/terrorists.
Because fanboys.
You'd think someone in the "95th percentile" of programmers would notice that he implied that 70% of male programmers suck.
Do you always take jokes so seriously? If you're actually trolling though, I agree that you're in the 95th percentile of that fine art at least.
It could also mean that the 84% was very recent, but now less females are taking up programming, or more are leaving.
We don't give or sell solvents or NO2 to kids to play with :p
You sell them yes, but restaurants don't hand them out to kids to play with.. I hope :p
If breathing it could kill you, I don't think it would be legal to use it for kids' balloons.. considering that people sue for the slightest things in the US.
Because you can still extract the helium from "low grade" sources - it's just not worth it unless you get a good return on the cost of extracting it.
What could be more worthwhile than sounding like a chipmunk for 10 seconds?
Except that it must still be profitable to do it with ASICS or whatever it is they're using these days. Eventually that will be a waste of time too.
It's strange to call it wiretapping as if the service is letting private info out into the world. As others have pointed out, you might as well call spam filtering wire tapping and be done with it. Nobody sees the private info, and the info is used to improve the end user experience over a generic service.
To me this is like suing your local mall for having those light sensor toilet flushes or light switches. Technically they're measuring light, which may be reflecting off of body parts that you don't want visible in public - but these sensors are only able to tell the light level rather than create/record any kind of visual image.
What do you think about using your search results to serve up targeted ads? You've entered this information willingly into someone else's server. Do you really expect any level of privacy there?
I don't see any a priori reason why it's ok to invade someone's privacy and the privacy of their corespondents in order to make ads displayed to them more "relevant"
It's okay to it, because they agreed to it to get a free service. If people would rather pay for an ad-free service, they are free to do so.
I'd rather see targeted ads, than random ads.
I don't actually see any ads at all, because I use an adblocker.
Except that would do SFA unless you change the regional settings too.. :D
Pipe is on the left side on British keyboards :)
If you're touch typing, then p [ ] ; ' # / { } : @ ~ and ?
So quite a lot. Especially if you're programming.
Half Life, on the other hand, had no story or gameplay. Just you walking around with the same four or five NPC models saying the exact same things over and over, broken up in extremely predictable bursts by uninspired enemies with shitty AI.
The AI in Half-Life is still good even in today's term's I'd say. The aliens weren't particularly bright (though not stupid either.. they sometimes retreated, whereas monsters in most games simply run straight towards you), but the soldiers would signal to each other, take cover, make good use of grenades, etc. The story and Universe that Half-Life and Portal created is still one of the most interesting and compelling that I've seen, and I'd like to see where it all ends up. Though I get the impression that maybe Valve don't even know that, and they have a lot of expectations to live up to.
Personally I still get all of my content legally (generally via rental now, ie LoveFilm and Spotify), but if the industries keep acting the way they are, they kind of get what they deserve.
You can't keep ignoring reality either. I have no idea of the real figures, but the vast majority of my friends watch TV shows and listen to music illegally. It kind of sucks, but it's how people are. Expecting everyone to ignore free sources of entertainment is slightly like expecting everyone to use film cameras when digital is available. Or expecting people to go into a dark room full of strangers just to watch a new movie. If they want to keep making money, they should embrace change, rather than fight it tooth and nail.
I have been tempted to write mobile apps from time to time. When I wrote games and AI stuff as a teenager, I did release the source to both of my "big" projects. I haven't made anything for public use since then. I'm not against open sourcing my stuff, but I have been tempted to write mobile apps to try to develop a little business on the side. It doesn't have much to do with whether it's open source or not, though as a development platform I do find the fact that Android is open source to be an attractive thing. Anyway, I don't think it's either encouraging or discouraging open source. It's maybe discouraging PC development, which probably will also mean less people working on open source desktop projects to an extent.
I see the mobile arena as kind of a replay of the days of shareware games. Those were the days when I was thinking about making games - when even the best games could still basically be made by just one person if they worked hard. Then came AAA games with millions in budget, voice acting, artwork, music, etc, etc. Mobile games/apps are a great chance for lone developers to get some viable exposure again. Seeing as I already have a full time job and other interests in life, I haven't been too bothered about following that particular dream yet.
It's not really an incentive or disincentive for anything. I'm not going to use it, but whatever. Paying for everything with cash is pretty silly.
Well, I just assumed such laws were being broken after reading the summary. However a bit of googling came up with this:
Article 8 â" Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights
So the question is whether this collection of data is justifiably "necessary in a democratic society".
You need to stop making being a politician so profitable too. Politics seems to attract power hungry assholes, rather than people who want to run a country well..
That doesn't mean that they should just give up fighting. The data is probably 99.999% junk anyway, but that doesn't mean that we should just roll over and accept governments breaking international laws.
I personally don't mind Unity, I can pretty much work with whatever desktop is installed by default, as I use the apps and not the shell. So long as I can switch easily between apps, who cares.
I minded very much that it had some hard-coded shortcut keys. If I could have configured them, I might have tried sticking with it for more than a week. As it was, I regularly use super-T to open a terminal in Linux - but in Unity it brings up the trashcan..
I do not fear the prompt
This definitely needs to go into a "quote of the day" collection :)