Ah, but we're not talking MMOs, here. Barring the illegal servers that suck like no tomorrow, you can't pirate MMOs. So this doesn't affect them.
We're talking about games like Half Life, Final Fantasy, Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, etc. These games don't have much that could be provided by 'services'.
Well, it's a Cybershot camera phone, so Sony brings a little more than the market to the table on this one. (Good thing, too, cuz the last sonyericsson phone I had was garbage.)
Are you serious? Of course we exist. $450 cell phones like the Sony k800 wouldn't exist without people like us. (I just bought one... SO can't wait for it to arrive.)
It's new enough that there aren't many user reviews, and yet I just bought one on the specs. Because I -must- have it. It's new, it's neat, and it's MINE!
It's the same with OS features. I switched to Linux for the features, not more than 6 months ago. I still keep WinXP for some of my recalcitrant games, but KDE is my desktop now. (Yay Kubuntu!) What features? The KIO Slaves, like Fish. That thing's awesome. And 1 killer app: Yakuake. Best. Console. EVAR.
Oh, I admit that I much prefer to have a physical copy as well. But that is do-able, also. For instance, the games sold by http://www.introversion.co.uk/ are downloadable (well, the Linux ones) and the real version is shipped to you at the same time. This is murder on retailers, though.
Because there's a physical component to the release process. They can't press the CDs/DVDs fast enough to beat the copy stolen from the pressing plant onto the internet.
The obvious alternative is something like Steam, where they provide a download of the game. It's quite a bit harder to beat that.
Someone else mentioned after-sale services... Most games that I play, I don't WANT further services from the company other than bugfixes. I don't even plan to play them again and I certainly don't want to have to play more money if I do. I'd much rather put that same money towards a new, fresh game.
I'm probably going ot get modded troll, too, but oh well.
I can't speak for the academic stuff, but there's a grandchild of your post that does it well enough, I think.
As for the GPL/LGPL... I definitely agree. Free software licenses should be about freedom. GPL -forces- you to GPL your code, too, and that limits my freedom.
I was reading the summary right up until I read the part that states the free version requires your app/game/whatever to be GPL. I know that's just standard GPL stuff, but it's not acceptable to me. If I want to give my hard work to the community, I should be able to do it under any terms I wish.
You obviously haven't met many users. EVERYTHING needs a support channel when you let just anyone use it. Simple things like 'it won't let me go to a site' become nightmares for the lower 30% or so of users. They just cannot deal with the way computers work.
These are the same people that call Dell to complain their foot pedal doesn't work or their coffee holder broke. Most computer users could never conceive of having such an issue.
And even if firefox was perfect and read their minds, they'd invent issues that need support.
On the other hand, I think it's MUCH easier for Dell to support Firefox than IE. Some of its bugs and glitches are truly horrendous. In IE 5, it was possible to mess up your security settings so badly that you had to have an expert technician work for quite some time to fix it (and pull files from another computer to do it) or format the system. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get Firefox into that state.;)
After so many sports analogies (none of which I understood, thank the heavens) I think you can be forgiven. The summary clearly wasn't aimed at us, so misunderstandings should be expected.
No need to feel dirty, my geeky friend. Go on your way with a clear conscience.
Some of those would be really great to have attended. In particular:
Remote Pair Programming and Test-driven Development Using Open Source Advanced File System Hiding and Detection Hacking Malware: Offense Is the New Defense
The first of those almost seems not to belong with all the others, though... Just plain programming with no hacking slant? Amazing.
Yes, but the parent also said that paper trading is worthless, and that's blatantly incorrect. Just as with schooling, the hardest lessons can't be learned there, but it can give you the basics and prevent some serious disasters.
I never argued with the emotional side of it. I totally understand that.
A DVD is designed never to be copied. If they need to make a new DVD, they copy from a master. Never from a protected DVD.
The only way to copy a DVD is to circumvent the protection, key or no key. There has never been, and never will be, any software or hardware that is allowed to copy a protected DVD. If they allow even 1 instance of such software, all their lawsuits go from 'violating the DMCA' to 'software theft.' They can't have that.
As for distributing... They are providing a service, yes. But the customer walks in with 1 copy and walks out with 2. If nothing was distributed, then that's magic. That's completely another debate, though. I never mentioned distributing.
First, they aren't saying 'certain DVDs'... As in 'only the DVDs we've paid for the rights to this'.
Second, the law doesn't allow circumvention exception for specific reasons. Even if the copyright holder says it's okay to copy the movie, you still cannot legally break the encryption. They'd have to be provided masters without encryption for this to be legal.
I have to totally disagree about paper trading. Telling someone not to paper trade because you won't get the emotions of real trading... That's like telling an athlete not to bother practicing because you only get the real feel of the game in a live game.
There are valuable lessons to be learned risk-free. They won't hit home as hard, and you won't learn as much, but you can learn some of the most basic (and harmful) mistakes without losing the shirt off your back.
There will come a point where paper trading is worthless to someone with experience, but for someone that doesn't even know how to learn the trade, it can be invaluable.
Your post is short and won't get the attention it deserves.
In short, there are already many ways to write games that run on Windows, Mac and Linux simultaneously. Qt is one. SDL is another.
Having yet another framework to program with doesn't change the fact that testing and quality control on multiple operating systems is a -nightmare-.
Devs don't ignore linux/mac because they lack a framework, they ignore it because their employers have told them it doesn't make monetary sense. Adding the cost of a game framework onto that cost won't help it any.
That's actually not what the article says. It says that 80% of 'malware' slips by Norton Anti-Virus. That is viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, etc. Last I checked, Norton Anti-Virus didn't check for adware or spyware, just viruses and trojans.
Notice in the article they only talk about anti-spyware in that people should have it and don't. They don't say they tested it.
Norton and McAfee's AV have been jokes for years. But malware isn't why.
The point here is that they had already reported it to the developers of the products affected. Announcing it to the world only allowed them to get their jollies. It didn't make any computers any safer. It did, however, give valuable insight for hackers that had not yet got around to exploiting that issue.
I don't deny that it is likely others had already figured this out. I do not deny that 'security through obscurity' gives a very false sense of security. I'm only saying this:
If I have a hidden safe in my house and I look rich, people will think that maybe I have something valuable in my house and someone will probably try for it eventually. But if I post a notice that that my hidden safe in my house has a vulnerability, thieves that would never have considered my house as a target will now, and those who already considered it a target will want to act quickly. And if I told that that the vulnerability showed up only under certain circumstances, and named those circumstances, they are even more likely to find the problem before I get my security company to fix it.
Tell everyone my safe HAD a vulnerability, but it's fixed... That gets the same good attention and none of the bad.
In short: They spoke too early. They should have waited until the devs had a chance to patch the flaw. If the devs hadn't fixed it in a reasonable amount of time, then it's time to go public and make sure they have a reason to fix it. That time hadn't come.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but we're not talking MMOs, here. Barring the illegal servers that suck like no tomorrow, you can't pirate MMOs. So this doesn't affect them.
We're talking about games like Half Life, Final Fantasy, Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, etc. These games don't have much that could be provided by 'services'.
Well, it's a Cybershot camera phone, so Sony brings a little more than the market to the table on this one. (Good thing, too, cuz the last sonyericsson phone I had was garbage.)
Are you serious? Of course we exist. $450 cell phones like the Sony k800 wouldn't exist without people like us. (I just bought one ... SO can't wait for it to arrive.)
It's new enough that there aren't many user reviews, and yet I just bought one on the specs. Because I -must- have it. It's new, it's neat, and it's MINE!
It's the same with OS features. I switched to Linux for the features, not more than 6 months ago. I still keep WinXP for some of my recalcitrant games, but KDE is my desktop now. (Yay Kubuntu!) What features? The KIO Slaves, like Fish. That thing's awesome. And 1 killer app: Yakuake. Best. Console. EVAR.
So yeah, we exist.
Oh, I admit that I much prefer to have a physical copy as well. But that is do-able, also. For instance, the games sold by http://www.introversion.co.uk/ are downloadable (well, the Linux ones) and the real version is shipped to you at the same time. This is murder on retailers, though.
Are you actually serious? It's just got menus and some streamed videos. All of that has been done before.
Amen brother.
Isn't that what he said?
Because there's a physical component to the release process. They can't press the CDs/DVDs fast enough to beat the copy stolen from the pressing plant onto the internet.
The obvious alternative is something like Steam, where they provide a download of the game. It's quite a bit harder to beat that.
Someone else mentioned after-sale services... Most games that I play, I don't WANT further services from the company other than bugfixes. I don't even plan to play them again and I certainly don't want to have to play more money if I do. I'd much rather put that same money towards a new, fresh game.
I'm probably going ot get modded troll, too, but oh well.
I can't speak for the academic stuff, but there's a grandchild of your post that does it well enough, I think.
As for the GPL/LGPL... I definitely agree. Free software licenses should be about freedom. GPL -forces- you to GPL your code, too, and that limits my freedom.
I was reading the summary right up until I read the part that states the free version requires your app/game/whatever to be GPL. I know that's just standard GPL stuff, but it's not acceptable to me. If I want to give my hard work to the community, I should be able to do it under any terms I wish.
You obviously haven't met many users. EVERYTHING needs a support channel when you let just anyone use it. Simple things like 'it won't let me go to a site' become nightmares for the lower 30% or so of users. They just cannot deal with the way computers work.
;)
These are the same people that call Dell to complain their foot pedal doesn't work or their coffee holder broke. Most computer users could never conceive of having such an issue.
And even if firefox was perfect and read their minds, they'd invent issues that need support.
On the other hand, I think it's MUCH easier for Dell to support Firefox than IE. Some of its bugs and glitches are truly horrendous. In IE 5, it was possible to mess up your security settings so badly that you had to have an expert technician work for quite some time to fix it (and pull files from another computer to do it) or format the system. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get Firefox into that state.
After so many sports analogies (none of which I understood, thank the heavens) I think you can be forgiven. The summary clearly wasn't aimed at us, so misunderstandings should be expected.
No need to feel dirty, my geeky friend. Go on your way with a clear conscience.
Yes, I realize that. I guess I should have been more transparent about my distaste for them assuming the entire world knew and worshipped him.
Sooo... Who is Warren Ellis and why should I bow at his comic-hosting feet?
Seriously, wtf?
Some of those would be really great to have attended. In particular:
Remote Pair Programming and Test-driven Development Using Open Source
Advanced File System Hiding and Detection
Hacking Malware: Offense Is the New Defense
The first of those almost seems not to belong with all the others, though... Just plain programming with no hacking slant? Amazing.
Yes, but the parent also said that paper trading is worthless, and that's blatantly incorrect. Just as with schooling, the hardest lessons can't be learned there, but it can give you the basics and prevent some serious disasters.
I never argued with the emotional side of it. I totally understand that.
A DVD is designed never to be copied. If they need to make a new DVD, they copy from a master. Never from a protected DVD.
The only way to copy a DVD is to circumvent the protection, key or no key. There has never been, and never will be, any software or hardware that is allowed to copy a protected DVD. If they allow even 1 instance of such software, all their lawsuits go from 'violating the DMCA' to 'software theft.' They can't have that.
As for distributing... They are providing a service, yes. But the customer walks in with 1 copy and walks out with 2. If nothing was distributed, then that's magic. That's completely another debate, though. I never mentioned distributing.
There's 2 reasons that is wrong.
... As in 'only the DVDs we've paid for the rights to this'.
First, they aren't saying 'certain DVDs'
Second, the law doesn't allow circumvention exception for specific reasons. Even if the copyright holder says it's okay to copy the movie, you still cannot legally break the encryption. They'd have to be provided masters without encryption for this to be legal.
http://www.tuxers.net/dmca/dmca-guide.html
Subparagraph (a)(1)(A) forbids circumvention of "a technological measure that effectively controls access to [copyrighted works]."
Since they are circumventing the DVD's copy protection... Tada.
So, the perpetrators of the current web2.0 bubble has little in common with the dot-com bubble?
Let's see...
Fly-by-night operations... check.
Crazed Investors... check.
Funny naming conventions... check.
Non-standard work-places... check.
Failure-to-profit... check.
Oh yeah, SO VERY LITTLE in common.
Well, let's see what they don't have in common...
Different clothes.
Different year.
Umm... Yeah, that's it.
I have to totally disagree about paper trading. Telling someone not to paper trade because you won't get the emotions of real trading... That's like telling an athlete not to bother practicing because you only get the real feel of the game in a live game.
There are valuable lessons to be learned risk-free. They won't hit home as hard, and you won't learn as much, but you can learn some of the most basic (and harmful) mistakes without losing the shirt off your back.
There will come a point where paper trading is worthless to someone with experience, but for someone that doesn't even know how to learn the trade, it can be invaluable.
You know what? You just prevented the sale of a $450 laser printer. I was seriously considering a new HP, but with that crap, no way.
I'm not even a 'privacy fanatic.' But some things just plain go too far. Especially if they don't tell you up front about them.
Your post is short and won't get the attention it deserves.
In short, there are already many ways to write games that run on Windows, Mac and Linux simultaneously. Qt is one. SDL is another.
Having yet another framework to program with doesn't change the fact that testing and quality control on multiple operating systems is a -nightmare-.
Devs don't ignore linux/mac because they lack a framework, they ignore it because their employers have told them it doesn't make monetary sense. Adding the cost of a game framework onto that cost won't help it any.
That's actually not what the article says. It says that 80% of 'malware' slips by Norton Anti-Virus. That is viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, etc. Last I checked, Norton Anti-Virus didn't check for adware or spyware, just viruses and trojans.
Notice in the article they only talk about anti-spyware in that people should have it and don't. They don't say they tested it.
Norton and McAfee's AV have been jokes for years. But malware isn't why.
The point here is that they had already reported it to the developers of the products affected. Announcing it to the world only allowed them to get their jollies. It didn't make any computers any safer. It did, however, give valuable insight for hackers that had not yet got around to exploiting that issue.
I don't deny that it is likely others had already figured this out. I do not deny that 'security through obscurity' gives a very false sense of security. I'm only saying this:
If I have a hidden safe in my house and I look rich, people will think that maybe I have something valuable in my house and someone will probably try for it eventually. But if I post a notice that that my hidden safe in my house has a vulnerability, thieves that would never have considered my house as a target will now, and those who already considered it a target will want to act quickly. And if I told that that the vulnerability showed up only under certain circumstances, and named those circumstances, they are even more likely to find the problem before I get my security company to fix it.
Tell everyone my safe HAD a vulnerability, but it's fixed... That gets the same good attention and none of the bad.
In short: They spoke too early. They should have waited until the devs had a chance to patch the flaw. If the devs hadn't fixed it in a reasonable amount of time, then it's time to go public and make sure they have a reason to fix it. That time hadn't come.
Hah, I'm scared that you are right. He probably DOES do more fact-checking and reporting of reality than they do. So sad.