I agree that there's no ethical excuse for pirating something, but that doesn't matter. Reality is that people DO pirate and will continue to do so forever. If they do magically manage to eliminate piracy, they are going to see their sales/income drop. (Unless they start to give away the content so that it's impossible to pirate it effectively, but I'm not really worried that will happen.)
Game!? Hah! Throw together a 'quiz' and you'll have them signing up in droves. It's ridiculous.
As for as 'over the course of a weekend', I can attest to that. I managed to get Zend Framework to authenticate with Facebook and write the basic structure of a game in a weekend, while I was watching tv, playing games, reading both english and japanese, and I'm pretty sure I went out to see a movie, too. It's ridiculously easy to write something for Facebook.
The smarmy answer is that you get out of Mensa what you put into it. For some reason, people think it's a brain trust of some kind where you can go put in an idea and good things automatically come of it.
It's not.
It's a social group. Most people just enjoy the company of others who think like they do, whether online or at one of the frequent gatherings in different cities. It's just like any other 'club', really.
That's not to say you can't submit an idea to a Mensa forum and get back feedback. Everyone will gladly tear it apart for you. And if it's a good idea, you might even get some constructive feedback. But heaven help the idea if it's a bad one.;)
Your problem isn't how you view your ability, it's with your workplace. Get out. Find somewhere that appreciates the abilities of their employees instead of fears them.
I work in a company that does value my contributions. It's very rewarding to not only get to see my improvements happen, but to get acknowledged for having improved the company and/or my immediate work environment.
1 caveat: It wasn't this way from day 1. I had to earn my right to improve the company. The new guy will never be able to walk in and start changing things, even if only because they don't know -why- things run like that. I fought tooth and nail for my first year and a half and had to win against managers that had been here for years that could only see immediate benefits and not long-term.
Do all of my ideas get implemented now? No. Absolutely not. But they are all given a fair shake at least.
My mistake, it's no longer open source. It is still free, though, and your demands don't mean jack.
And what gives them the right to do whatever they want is that it's THEIR PROTOCOL. You are perfectly free to invent your own, more efficient protocol. And if it really -is- better, people -will- switch to it. Why? Because people are impatient and want their files as quickly as they can get them.
As for 'maximally inefficient', it is anything but. Most clients implement algorithms to determine the fastest way to get the data. That will usually mean that staying within your own country is best since that will get you the best speeds. That's actually pretty close to what you're looking for, anyhow, isn't it?
Now, even if BT, Inc implemented a protocol that chose in-country peers first, the majority of the clients out there are going to futz around with it until they get the best speed again. The new protocol isn't going to do jack.
It's possible, in theory, for all the current wiretaps to be completely legal, but be compromised by information that would have to be made public to have a court trial over past (possibly illegal) wiretaps.
Not that I necessarily think the current ones are all legal, though.
Actually, we don't have 'just scumbags' to pick from unless you only consider the candidates from the 2 biggest political parties.
I voted this past Presidential election and I didn't go Democrat or Republican. Some will say that my vote meant nothing, but then, that's what you're already saying about ALL votes.
If you're serious about what you said, in the next election you will ignore the party affiliations and vote for the candidate most capable of getting this country back to being 'The Land of the Free'. It's a heck of a lot smarter than not voting at all.
THEIR arrogance is astounding? How about yours? They are working FOR FREE. You are merely complaining. Get your hands dirty and start doing some work yourself.
You can suggest things all you want, but once you start insulting someone for their free work, you've crossed a line. Nobody is forced to use their client. There are dozens of decent clients and probably hundreds of open source ones.
As for their choices, they will work on what's more important to them, I'm sure. Since they don't need this 'local' feature, they haven't got much incentive to actually work on it.
I recently re-read the series. Well, that's not accurate. I read 1-3, then half of 4 before switching to a series of summaries online. The summaries quit at 8, so I skim-read 9-11. (Reading when it was entertaining, skimming when it wasn't.)
I was amazed at how much I had forgotten... But I was even more amazed at how much was packed into book 1 compared to Books 4-11. I think they could easily have compressed 4-11 into 3 books, and maybe 2.
Jordan said those books 'wrote themselves' and it's pretty obvious the difference between him writing the book and the book writing itself.
"Casual gamers"? Are you kidding? Hardcore gamers want it, too. I wasn't going to bother getting a DSi because it didn't offer anything over the DS for me. Now that it's got a larger screen, I'm probably going to import it. (I'm learning Japanese, too, so the import is so I can get the Japanese DSi games. The downloadable ones, at the very least, are locked to the region.)
For an OS that has been touted as 'Open Source', that's a ridiculous assumption. Both the assumption that created the speculation, and the assumption that it would mean the SDK wasn't going to be released.
Programmers can't write apps for it if the SDK isn't released, and the OS would be crap if it didn't have the ability to add third-party apps to it.
Also, have you seen Google Voice's attempted transcripts of voicemails? Things that I think are pretty clear come out in very, very odd ways.
Not that Google is the best at everything, but they usually do quite a bit better than average. I find it hard to believe someone has managed to best them at both of these technologies and their first attempt to market it is an iPhone app.
"This puts to bed concerns about Google not releasing the SDK" - There should be a warning on this link: Warning, text does not refer to linked information.
Seriously. The 'concerns' were that Google hadn't released it -yet-, not that they weren't going to release it. There is only a month until some of the new devices come out with SDK 2.0 and devs were concerned they wouldn't have enough time to fix any bugs in their apps. Since other SDKs have come out -way- ahead of time, I'm sure Google was doing their best here and just had some issues.
I agree with Rand's philosophy to a point, but it has -nothing- to do with why IT is like it is.
IT is staffed mainly by people who love doing the job. That means that when it comes to taking a little crap to keep your job, you take it because you love the actual job. More and more get piled on until it's the standard way to do things in the industry.
On the other hand, Atlas Shrugged was all about getting the respect and recompensation that you deserve for your hard work. It's pretty exactly the opposite of what is happening in the IT industry. If we were using that book as a guide, we'd all be quitting and finding a job elsewhere... You know, kind of like TFS is asking about.
"Any driver involved in an accident while their car was moving should immediately have their license suspended and car impounded until cause can be determined."
So under your proposed law, if someone hits you and the cop isn't sure, you lose your license until he is. And if he makes a mistake and finds you to be at fault, you lose your license?
No, that's far too extreme. You've gone beyond simple safety precautions and up into revenge.
I don't think there's less unique content. I think there's -more- non-unique content. You're just having trouble finding the unique content because you're traveling in the well-known circles. I still find plenty of things that only return a few results in Google that are actually for what I want.
And the fact that things are repeated isn't bad, either. The other day I wanted to know how to thicken honey. I buy 'spreadable' honey at the store, but I prefer the taste of some other more earthy honeys and want them spreadable. Turns out it's called 'whipped honey' by most people and you actually don't -add- anything to it. Because there are a dozen or so sites about it, 1 of them actually managed to hit enough that my keywords found it. If there had been only 1 site, I probably would still be wondering a year from now.
Am I the only one that names a really low price when people do this? It's not a thrift shop, it's a car dealership. I always feel insulted when people do this.
On the other hand, at a thrift shop, yard sale, or flea market, I feel obligated to haggle. And if they don't give at all, I generally don't buy.
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I agree that there's no ethical excuse for pirating something, but that doesn't matter. Reality is that people DO pirate and will continue to do so forever. If they do magically manage to eliminate piracy, they are going to see their sales/income drop. (Unless they start to give away the content so that it's impossible to pirate it effectively, but I'm not really worried that will happen.)
Game!? Hah! Throw together a 'quiz' and you'll have them signing up in droves. It's ridiculous.
As for as 'over the course of a weekend', I can attest to that. I managed to get Zend Framework to authenticate with Facebook and write the basic structure of a game in a weekend, while I was watching tv, playing games, reading both english and japanese, and I'm pretty sure I went out to see a movie, too. It's ridiculously easy to write something for Facebook.
The smarmy answer is that you get out of Mensa what you put into it. For some reason, people think it's a brain trust of some kind where you can go put in an idea and good things automatically come of it.
It's not.
It's a social group. Most people just enjoy the company of others who think like they do, whether online or at one of the frequent gatherings in different cities. It's just like any other 'club', really.
That's not to say you can't submit an idea to a Mensa forum and get back feedback. Everyone will gladly tear it apart for you. And if it's a good idea, you might even get some constructive feedback. But heaven help the idea if it's a bad one. ;)
Disclaimer: I'm a lifetime member of Mensa.
Your problem isn't how you view your ability, it's with your workplace. Get out. Find somewhere that appreciates the abilities of their employees instead of fears them.
I work in a company that does value my contributions. It's very rewarding to not only get to see my improvements happen, but to get acknowledged for having improved the company and/or my immediate work environment.
1 caveat: It wasn't this way from day 1. I had to earn my right to improve the company. The new guy will never be able to walk in and start changing things, even if only because they don't know -why- things run like that. I fought tooth and nail for my first year and a half and had to win against managers that had been here for years that could only see immediate benefits and not long-term.
Do all of my ideas get implemented now? No. Absolutely not. But they are all given a fair shake at least.
Yes. If you're not doing anything unethical, post it.
And of course, the other scenario:
Spring: Sign this NDA!
BN: (Yes or no, doesn't matter)
Spring: *Shows work*
BN: Ah, yeah. We've already done all of this. It's useless to us.
We may never know what really happened.
My mistake, it's no longer open source. It is still free, though, and your demands don't mean jack.
And what gives them the right to do whatever they want is that it's THEIR PROTOCOL. You are perfectly free to invent your own, more efficient protocol. And if it really -is- better, people -will- switch to it. Why? Because people are impatient and want their files as quickly as they can get them.
As for 'maximally inefficient', it is anything but. Most clients implement algorithms to determine the fastest way to get the data. That will usually mean that staying within your own country is best since that will get you the best speeds. That's actually pretty close to what you're looking for, anyhow, isn't it?
Now, even if BT, Inc implemented a protocol that chose in-country peers first, the majority of the clients out there are going to futz around with it until they get the best speed again. The new protocol isn't going to do jack.
Didn't bother to actually read my post before you started on your rant, did you?
It's possible, in theory, for all the current wiretaps to be completely legal, but be compromised by information that would have to be made public to have a court trial over past (possibly illegal) wiretaps.
Not that I necessarily think the current ones are all legal, though.
Actually, we don't have 'just scumbags' to pick from unless you only consider the candidates from the 2 biggest political parties.
I voted this past Presidential election and I didn't go Democrat or Republican. Some will say that my vote meant nothing, but then, that's what you're already saying about ALL votes.
If you're serious about what you said, in the next election you will ignore the party affiliations and vote for the candidate most capable of getting this country back to being 'The Land of the Free'. It's a heck of a lot smarter than not voting at all.
THEIR arrogance is astounding? How about yours? They are working FOR FREE. You are merely complaining. Get your hands dirty and start doing some work yourself.
You can suggest things all you want, but once you start insulting someone for their free work, you've crossed a line. Nobody is forced to use their client. There are dozens of decent clients and probably hundreds of open source ones.
As for their choices, they will work on what's more important to them, I'm sure. Since they don't need this 'local' feature, they haven't got much incentive to actually work on it.
I recently re-read the series. Well, that's not accurate. I read 1-3, then half of 4 before switching to a series of summaries online. The summaries quit at 8, so I skim-read 9-11. (Reading when it was entertaining, skimming when it wasn't.)
I was amazed at how much I had forgotten... But I was even more amazed at how much was packed into book 1 compared to Books 4-11. I think they could easily have compressed 4-11 into 3 books, and maybe 2.
Jordan said those books 'wrote themselves' and it's pretty obvious the difference between him writing the book and the book writing itself.
Right. Because reading a book for enjoyment is nothing. You should read them for 'culture' or some other highfalutin crap.
If someone enjoys Bradbury more than Vonnegut, then they do. It's that simple. They are free to say so, even.
I actually like Vonnegut, but that isn't the point. I read different books for different reasons.
That was my first idea when I heard the numbers! I somehow doubt it'll work out, but it's an interesting thought.
"Casual gamers"? Are you kidding? Hardcore gamers want it, too. I wasn't going to bother getting a DSi because it didn't offer anything over the DS for me. Now that it's got a larger screen, I'm probably going to import it. (I'm learning Japanese, too, so the import is so I can get the Japanese DSi games. The downloadable ones, at the very least, are locked to the region.)
For an OS that has been touted as 'Open Source', that's a ridiculous assumption. Both the assumption that created the speculation, and the assumption that it would mean the SDK wasn't going to be released.
Programmers can't write apps for it if the SDK isn't released, and the OS would be crap if it didn't have the ability to add third-party apps to it.
Also, have you seen Google Voice's attempted transcripts of voicemails? Things that I think are pretty clear come out in very, very odd ways.
Not that Google is the best at everything, but they usually do quite a bit better than average. I find it hard to believe someone has managed to best them at both of these technologies and their first attempt to market it is an iPhone app.
"This puts to bed concerns about Google not releasing the SDK" - There should be a warning on this link: Warning, text does not refer to linked information.
Seriously. The 'concerns' were that Google hadn't released it -yet-, not that they weren't going to release it. There is only a month until some of the new devices come out with SDK 2.0 and devs were concerned they wouldn't have enough time to fix any bugs in their apps. Since other SDKs have come out -way- ahead of time, I'm sure Google was doing their best here and just had some issues.
I agree with Rand's philosophy to a point, but it has -nothing- to do with why IT is like it is.
IT is staffed mainly by people who love doing the job. That means that when it comes to taking a little crap to keep your job, you take it because you love the actual job. More and more get piled on until it's the standard way to do things in the industry.
On the other hand, Atlas Shrugged was all about getting the respect and recompensation that you deserve for your hard work. It's pretty exactly the opposite of what is happening in the IT industry. If we were using that book as a guide, we'd all be quitting and finding a job elsewhere... You know, kind of like TFS is asking about.
"Any driver involved in an accident while their car was moving should immediately have their license suspended and car impounded until cause can be determined."
So under your proposed law, if someone hits you and the cop isn't sure, you lose your license until he is. And if he makes a mistake and finds you to be at fault, you lose your license?
No, that's far too extreme. You've gone beyond simple safety precautions and up into revenge.
I don't think there's less unique content. I think there's -more- non-unique content. You're just having trouble finding the unique content because you're traveling in the well-known circles. I still find plenty of things that only return a few results in Google that are actually for what I want.
And the fact that things are repeated isn't bad, either. The other day I wanted to know how to thicken honey. I buy 'spreadable' honey at the store, but I prefer the taste of some other more earthy honeys and want them spreadable. Turns out it's called 'whipped honey' by most people and you actually don't -add- anything to it. Because there are a dozen or so sites about it, 1 of them actually managed to hit enough that my keywords found it. If there had been only 1 site, I probably would still be wondering a year from now.
Go ahead and ask it of everyone under their own politics, regardless of their political leanings. Then enjoy talking to nobody.
Am I the only one that names a really low price when people do this? It's not a thrift shop, it's a car dealership. I always feel insulted when people do this.
On the other hand, at a thrift shop, yard sale, or flea market, I feel obligated to haggle. And if they don't give at all, I generally don't buy.
The flu vaccine can cause the flu. A wanted poster cannot rob a house.
Get off my ... Google search!