That's... Horrid logic. It basically says 'Until it's proven, anything is possible. The more we prove it, the worse off we are.'... No, the more we prove it, the more we know exactly what our rights are, and the less money we spend trying to figure that out. I'd much rather know exactly what the GPL means in a court of law than not if someone was infringing on my rights.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have failed to see how that's a bad thing. If they violate the contract, you sue them under contract law. If that doesn't work, THEN you go after them for the copyrights they broke. Either they are in a contract with you, or they aren't. If the court rules they aren't (because they've broken it) then copyright laws still exist, and both parties must follow them.
I hope he -does- get a hearing. And the next judge puts in a Bar complaint as well. And the next, and the next... Maybe then he'll be forced to stop wasting everyone's time and money. Permanently.
Unfortunately, I think 'public nuisance' is way too strong a term for a video game, unless it includes subliminal messages to kill your parents and each your neighbor's dog. And even then, I think there are probably better terms for the criminal behavior involved.
Halo3 Beautiful Katamari Need For Speed Prostreet Bladestorm Assassin's Creed Beowulf Mass Effect Devil May Cry 4 Heist Lost Odyssey Fallout 3 Alone in the Dark Burnout Paradise Culdept Saga Dark Sector Legendary: The Box GTA4 Lego Indiana Jones Prototype Alan Wake Dynasty Warriors 6...
You can't seriously expect them to accept real-life for the basis of a show about a guy who gets the entire CIA's database downloaded to his brain via an EMAIL, can you? It's supposed to be FUNNY as well as have action, and it succeeds with both. It's just geeky enough (programming your own text game?) to make it. You think doctors don't watch ER and House and think 'OH MY FUCKING GOD'?
And the email is very realistic. How many people do you know that POP their mail and even KNOW there's a option for 'leave the mail on the server'? Of course it's on his hard drive.
Assuming they are done right, a geek as the main character IS a geek show. If it's not done right, there will be so many glaring problems that it'll be nobody's show.
The IT Crowd is hilarious, if you've ever worked tech support for any company, anywhere. Second season has drifted away from the geek jokes, but I have faith they'll come back. Oh, and their first question is -never- 'Are you sure it's plugged in?' That's the second one. The first is always 'Have you tried turning it off and back on again?' If they're going to review the show, they should probably actually watch it, instead of watching clips and pretending to have seen it all.
Chuck is okay, Journeyman looks interesting but probably cliche, Reaper and Pushing Daisies I had -never- heard of, but now want to check out the first ep, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles worries me... Will they REALLY do a good job of this, or will it be worse than the last couple movies? Series are usually worse, and I don't know if I could handle that. Also, Summer as 'genius' bothers me... I still see her as the not-all-there River from Firefly. (Oddly, wikipedia has a picture of her looking normal... I guess the producers didn't want that.)
Actually, I've done the MMO thing and I can't stand it any more. There's no substance.
And I've done the 'epic RPG' thing, too. Even Oblivion. (Which I played around 120 hours... First game to last me that long in -years-.)
I expected more from Bioshock. It doesn't matter that there are other games out there that last longer, when I pay $60 for a game, I expect to get more than 20 hours of fun out of it. At the very least, I expect a very memorable experience. Bioshock was fun, and mildly interesting, but after the part shown in the demo, there's not much else that's new or shocking. That's pretty sad.
He didn't say exclusive, he said strong. The PS3 needs -any- good title at this point. I loved DW Gundam, but that's it so far... It's really sad.
I cancelled my pre-order of Stranglehold because the PS3 demo didn't play as well as the 360 one... The controls felt off, and I'll probably rent the 360 one instead.
Folklore's demo sucked. I was looking forward to it until I played that.
Looking forward to Ratchet & Clank and Bladestorm, though I pre-ordered Bladestorm on the 360 before I had my PS3. Might change that.
The Orange Box... I really only care about Portal, though.
Uncharted looks neat.
So there's plenty of 'strong' titles, just no 'strong' exclusive titles. I'm guessing that's why Sony has decided to push the Bluray player thing harder again. As a player -and- a game machine, it's very nice. As just a game machine, I could get away with just a 360.
BTW, the PS3 is the best media player (DVD, Bluray, streaming) that I've had yet. The original XBox modified with XBMC is the second. Sony finally got that aspect right, and the remote is very nice.
Someone already pointed out that the translation if for the 'GMail UI', so yeah, it's for GMail.
But what nobody's proven is that there are any significant differences. 'New Version' might mean it's using a newer AJAX library, or has different colors. I don't care about color changes, but I care about functionality changes. Especially since I convinced the company I work for to use them for mail, and I use the web interface exclusively. If it takes a turn for the worse, I'll end up going back to Thunderbird or the new Eudora or something.
I couldn't find any numbers, but I did find some interesting information. GSM is the world-wide standard, with about 3/4 of the mobile phone users being on GSM. CDMA is mostly a US thing apparently.
Also, Verizon recently chose GSM for their new '4g' stuff.
This is an odd move by any account, and nobody really knows what it means yet, but it doesn't look good for CDMA right now.
So while you may be correct about the US counts (and that's what the GP was talking about), by worldwide counts, GSM makes more sense for Apple to use.
Then Bioshock should have bothered to make the game have some replay value. I beat it in less than 20 hours ($3/hour, for those that are counting!) and started a new game to play again. I think realized I had done -everything- I cared to do the first time. There was nothing left except playing Pokemon with audio clips and plasmids. (Collect them all!) 'Non-linear' my ass.
Again, used games sales do help developers, but only indirectly. They keep the market alive and gamers interested. If I couldn't get games, I'd have found something else to do instead, and they've have lost a customer for life. For the same $60 a game costs, I could buy some rollerblades and have a -lot- more than 20 hours of fun. (Actually, that suddenly sounds like a good idea.) Or for the price of my 3 consoles, I could have a really nice pool table. (No room for it, though.) There's plenty else to do, and killing your market is not a good idea.
Gee, maybe they wouldn't push used game sales so hard if they could make enough money on new games to stay in business.
Besides, it's like the old piracy debate: If they couldn't get it free, they'd buy it! -- Yeah, sure they would. If they couldn't get it used, they'd pay full price? How are they supposed to get the extra money that the didn't get from selling games back and the extra cost for the full game? People that can afford new games buy new games. Those who can't buy used games.
But let's look at another aspect: When are used games sold? Launch day? Nope. Next week? Only if the game's absolute shit. Next month? Nope. Months later. After interest has already died down, used copies are available.
And what about old games that are out of print? Game stores have plenty of those, and their availability helps drive console sales.
Far from hurting game sales, used game sales help it instead. Get all the facts before going on a rampage against the store of the week.
That's funny, I'm the most proactive developer this company has ever had, and I've been thanked for it more than once, including during reviews for raises. I'm the one with bias? You assumed a great many things about me without knowing anything about me.
Your problem is not that you're female, you even said it yourself: It's how you go about fixing things. Maybe if you did what you boss wants, instead of what you want, you'd be more appreciated. People do work in different ways, and if you can't work the way your boss wants you too, you aren't doing the job he wants. It doesn't matter how 'efficient' you are, or how much you do. If your boss isn't happy, he isn't happy! If you want raises and recognition, keep the boss happy.
If you can't work like they want, you can't do the job they want. You've made the mistake of thinking your job is something other than the company does. It's not. Forget all that crap that was on the paper you signed. Forget whatever they told you on the first day, forget whatever they told you in school. Your job is to make your boss, and the company, happy. Until you understand that you will continue to be underpaid and 'underappreciated'.
If you can find an office that only cares about getting the job done, and not how... Go there. You'll be a hell of a lot happier. But those places are few and far between, and if you DO find one, pray that there's no management changes.
This is the real world. People pay for what they want, not what you want to give them. It doesn't matter that it's better for them, or that you can save them a ton of money. If you don't give them what they want, they won't be happy. Feel free to give them more, but do it in the way they want.
I'm not saying you're not good at what you do, but this is -exactly- what I hear from people (both genders) that aren't good at their jobs. 'They don't appreciate how good I am.'... Yeah, because they're NOT.
The best results are not found by being overly shy or overly forward. There's a middle ground that has to be found and stayed in. You really think people don't call your friend a bitch behind her back? Your really think a guy doing the same doesn't get called an asshole? Maybe the asshole gets it said to his face, but that's because guys are trained not to hit girls, and calling someone names to their face is a great start for a fistfight. You'd best be prepared to swing if you do it.
I'm a shy person, too. I get the respect I deserve by fixing things nobody else is able to. I just sit there quietly and do my job. When I've got a solution, I do it or speak up so someone else can. You'll never hear me say 'X didn't set Y up properly, so it broke.' Instead, you'll get 'Y wasn't working, and I fixed it. It should be okay now.' There's a huge difference between explaining the problem and assigning blame.
-Everyone- in IT has to prove themselves. Women think they are being treated different and they aren't. They start with the same onus everyone else does. It's what you do from there that matters. If you get emotional about it, you'll make a huge scene and get yelled at. If you quietly do your job (or loudly do it, for that matter) and do a good job, you'll get the respect you deserve. It's that simple. I've been at this company for 2 years and they are still learning what I'm capable of. Simply holding out a resume doesn't mean anyone believes a single word on it. You have to prove the knowledge.
I feel the same. I tend to lose interest in a game when they lock me into a static environment, or I've been everywhere.
I want plot, too, but not 'boy meets girl' crap that's been done a billion times. Since 'every possible story has already been told' (a mangled quote from a great philosopher whose name I forget now) and I read a -lot-, I don't expect to find much worthwhile in the plot of any new video game, or most movies and books.
I think this is the key, more than the 'no lame sequels' bit. If you don't allow your people to take creative risks, they can't produce anything truly new, which means any sequels will indeed be the same game with new graphics.
Nintendo takes a lot of them, too... Turning SMB into a 3D game... Then turning it into a 2D/3D hybrid RPG... Link went from a side scroller to a 3/4 overhead RPG to a fully 3d realistic-looking RPG... They've split just about every game off into side-games like Dr Mario and Yoshi's Cookie... They're masters of this.
It's also possible to fail utterly while taking the risks, of course. The other half of the secret of their success is strict quality control. You let your people take risks, but you let them know with no uncertainty if they fail one of them. And you don't ship the product until it's good.
I can't argue with 'efficient people want it to go fast', but anyone asking for the visual effects, especially knowing the cost, don't really care about fast. They are efficient to begin with, and the slowdown probably won't change enough to matter.
I've done the 'speed is better' thing myself. I installed Beryl and all that razzmatazz but ended up removing it because it was slower (special effects take time, even with no pauses or stutters) and because it crashed too often. (Every couple hours.) It was neat, it just wasn't useful.
The company I work for's main application doesn't work correctly with Vista. We only know that because client/tester told us so. We have -no- internal Vista machines and no plans to upgrade or support it yet. To be fair, our only XP machines are for compatibility and testing purposes. We're mostly OSX and I've got the only remaining Linux desktop.
But that's not why I was replying... It's this:
"When I explain to them that the 0.25 second "pauses" for all the flashiness (which can be disabled, of course) add up to a 1/2 hour a day in lost productivity, they don't care"
A happy worker is a productive worker. If you save that 1/2 hour a day and the employee is constantly wishing for the fancy interface they -know-they could have, you are probably losing productivity, not gaining.
Your last line answered it: Hardcore fans and academics.
While I love to read, I have very little interest in HOW a book is written. I mean, I kind of care, but not enough to sift through tons of notes and try to recreate his thought process on a book that took him months or years to write. I simply don't have enough time to care.
On the other hand, if I were looking at writing my first book, I'd be sorely tempted to take a look at the process a master used, and see what could help me along.
And if I lived and breathed his books, I'd cherish the ability to get deeper into his thinking.
I just like a good story, though, not the author or anything else involved.
Indeed. Who believes anything Sony says now? Or any other manufacturer or developer, even. We've been told so many lies in the last 3 months that I can't count them all. Sony is STILL lying about why they didn't have rumble in the sixaxis.
The article says that some say that day is already here. I agree.
Try to do -anything- on the web without having to deal with Firefox, Apache, PHP, etc, etc... Good freaking luck. Even Safari uses open source components, so there goes all compatibility with Mac as well. (Meaning you can't test it on Mac, because then you'd be dealing with open source.)
Now, try to have a successful business without the internet. Sure, it's possible on a small scale, but I can't name a single business I deal with that doesn't have at least a 'contact us' page on the internet with a phone number.
And that doesn't even get into interacting with other companies that happily use open source in their daily functioning.
Because they watched me take the picture of the box, held in my hand, with the backdrop being an open shelf (no locks) and the floor.
The other answer is: Trust your damned customers. If I was a thief I surely wouldn't be openly holding a camera and taking pictures. Especially in range of one of their cameras. Instead of preventing a theft, they prevented a sale and lost a customer. I guarantee that move cost them more than letting a thief take pictures of their security.
Slashdot Mirror
That's... Horrid logic. It basically says 'Until it's proven, anything is possible. The more we prove it, the worse off we are.' ... No, the more we prove it, the more we know exactly what our rights are, and the less money we spend trying to figure that out. I'd much rather know exactly what the GPL means in a court of law than not if someone was infringing on my rights.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have failed to see how that's a bad thing. If they violate the contract, you sue them under contract law. If that doesn't work, THEN you go after them for the copyrights they broke. Either they are in a contract with you, or they aren't. If the court rules they aren't (because they've broken it) then copyright laws still exist, and both parties must follow them.
I hope he -does- get a hearing. And the next judge puts in a Bar complaint as well. And the next, and the next... Maybe then he'll be forced to stop wasting everyone's time and money. Permanently.
Unfortunately, I think 'public nuisance' is way too strong a term for a video game, unless it includes subliminal messages to kill your parents and each your neighbor's dog. And even then, I think there are probably better terms for the criminal behavior involved.
http://xbox360.ign.com/index/release.html
...
Apparently...
Halo3
Beautiful Katamari
Need For Speed Prostreet
Bladestorm
Assassin's Creed
Beowulf
Mass Effect
Devil May Cry 4
Heist
Lost Odyssey
Fallout 3
Alone in the Dark
Burnout Paradise
Culdept Saga
Dark Sector
Legendary: The Box
GTA4
Lego Indiana Jones
Prototype
Alan Wake
Dynasty Warriors 6
Oh, I give up. There's a lot, okay?
You can't seriously expect them to accept real-life for the basis of a show about a guy who gets the entire CIA's database downloaded to his brain via an EMAIL, can you? It's supposed to be FUNNY as well as have action, and it succeeds with both. It's just geeky enough (programming your own text game?) to make it. You think doctors don't watch ER and House and think 'OH MY FUCKING GOD'?
And the email is very realistic. How many people do you know that POP their mail and even KNOW there's a option for 'leave the mail on the server'? Of course it's on his hard drive.
Assuming they are done right, a geek as the main character IS a geek show. If it's not done right, there will be so many glaring problems that it'll be nobody's show.
The IT Crowd is hilarious, if you've ever worked tech support for any company, anywhere. Second season has drifted away from the geek jokes, but I have faith they'll come back. Oh, and their first question is -never- 'Are you sure it's plugged in?' That's the second one. The first is always 'Have you tried turning it off and back on again?' If they're going to review the show, they should probably actually watch it, instead of watching clips and pretending to have seen it all.
Chuck is okay, Journeyman looks interesting but probably cliche, Reaper and Pushing Daisies I had -never- heard of, but now want to check out the first ep, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles worries me... Will they REALLY do a good job of this, or will it be worse than the last couple movies? Series are usually worse, and I don't know if I could handle that. Also, Summer as 'genius' bothers me... I still see her as the not-all-there River from Firefly. (Oddly, wikipedia has a picture of her looking normal... I guess the producers didn't want that.)
Actually, I've done the MMO thing and I can't stand it any more. There's no substance.
And I've done the 'epic RPG' thing, too. Even Oblivion. (Which I played around 120 hours... First game to last me that long in -years-.)
I expected more from Bioshock. It doesn't matter that there are other games out there that last longer, when I pay $60 for a game, I expect to get more than 20 hours of fun out of it. At the very least, I expect a very memorable experience. Bioshock was fun, and mildly interesting, but after the part shown in the demo, there's not much else that's new or shocking. That's pretty sad.
He didn't say exclusive, he said strong. The PS3 needs -any- good title at this point. I loved DW Gundam, but that's it so far... It's really sad.
I cancelled my pre-order of Stranglehold because the PS3 demo didn't play as well as the 360 one... The controls felt off, and I'll probably rent the 360 one instead.
Folklore's demo sucked. I was looking forward to it until I played that.
Looking forward to Ratchet & Clank and Bladestorm, though I pre-ordered Bladestorm on the 360 before I had my PS3. Might change that.
The Orange Box... I really only care about Portal, though.
Uncharted looks neat.
So there's plenty of 'strong' titles, just no 'strong' exclusive titles. I'm guessing that's why Sony has decided to push the Bluray player thing harder again. As a player -and- a game machine, it's very nice. As just a game machine, I could get away with just a 360.
BTW, the PS3 is the best media player (DVD, Bluray, streaming) that I've had yet. The original XBox modified with XBMC is the second. Sony finally got that aspect right, and the remote is very nice.
Someone already pointed out that the translation if for the 'GMail UI', so yeah, it's for GMail.
But what nobody's proven is that there are any significant differences. 'New Version' might mean it's using a newer AJAX library, or has different colors. I don't care about color changes, but I care about functionality changes. Especially since I convinced the company I work for to use them for mail, and I use the web interface exclusively. If it takes a turn for the worse, I'll end up going back to Thunderbird or the new Eudora or something.
I couldn't find any numbers, but I did find some interesting information. GSM is the world-wide standard, with about 3/4 of the mobile phone users being on GSM. CDMA is mostly a US thing apparently.
Also, Verizon recently chose GSM for their new '4g' stuff.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2007/09/21/verizon-adopts-gsm-standard-for-4g-network-cdma-limelight-fading/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/21/verizon-dumps-cdma-for-gsm-based-lte-in-4g-networks/
This is an odd move by any account, and nobody really knows what it means yet, but it doesn't look good for CDMA right now.
So while you may be correct about the US counts (and that's what the GP was talking about), by worldwide counts, GSM makes more sense for Apple to use.
Then Bioshock should have bothered to make the game have some replay value. I beat it in less than 20 hours ($3/hour, for those that are counting!) and started a new game to play again. I think realized I had done -everything- I cared to do the first time. There was nothing left except playing Pokemon with audio clips and plasmids. (Collect them all!) 'Non-linear' my ass.
Again, used games sales do help developers, but only indirectly. They keep the market alive and gamers interested. If I couldn't get games, I'd have found something else to do instead, and they've have lost a customer for life. For the same $60 a game costs, I could buy some rollerblades and have a -lot- more than 20 hours of fun. (Actually, that suddenly sounds like a good idea.) Or for the price of my 3 consoles, I could have a really nice pool table. (No room for it, though.) There's plenty else to do, and killing your market is not a good idea.
Gee, maybe they wouldn't push used game sales so hard if they could make enough money on new games to stay in business.
Besides, it's like the old piracy debate: If they couldn't get it free, they'd buy it! -- Yeah, sure they would. If they couldn't get it used, they'd pay full price? How are they supposed to get the extra money that the didn't get from selling games back and the extra cost for the full game? People that can afford new games buy new games. Those who can't buy used games.
But let's look at another aspect: When are used games sold? Launch day? Nope. Next week? Only if the game's absolute shit. Next month? Nope. Months later. After interest has already died down, used copies are available.
And what about old games that are out of print? Game stores have plenty of those, and their availability helps drive console sales.
Far from hurting game sales, used game sales help it instead. Get all the facts before going on a rampage against the store of the week.
That's funny, I'm the most proactive developer this company has ever had, and I've been thanked for it more than once, including during reviews for raises. I'm the one with bias? You assumed a great many things about me without knowing anything about me.
Your problem is not that you're female, you even said it yourself: It's how you go about fixing things. Maybe if you did what you boss wants, instead of what you want, you'd be more appreciated. People do work in different ways, and if you can't work the way your boss wants you too, you aren't doing the job he wants. It doesn't matter how 'efficient' you are, or how much you do. If your boss isn't happy, he isn't happy! If you want raises and recognition, keep the boss happy.
If you can't work like they want, you can't do the job they want. You've made the mistake of thinking your job is something other than the company does. It's not. Forget all that crap that was on the paper you signed. Forget whatever they told you on the first day, forget whatever they told you in school. Your job is to make your boss, and the company, happy. Until you understand that you will continue to be underpaid and 'underappreciated'.
If you can find an office that only cares about getting the job done, and not how... Go there. You'll be a hell of a lot happier. But those places are few and far between, and if you DO find one, pray that there's no management changes.
This is the real world. People pay for what they want, not what you want to give them. It doesn't matter that it's better for them, or that you can save them a ton of money. If you don't give them what they want, they won't be happy. Feel free to give them more, but do it in the way they want.
I'm not saying you're not good at what you do, but this is -exactly- what I hear from people (both genders) that aren't good at their jobs. 'They don't appreciate how good I am.' ... Yeah, because they're NOT.
The best results are not found by being overly shy or overly forward. There's a middle ground that has to be found and stayed in. You really think people don't call your friend a bitch behind her back? Your really think a guy doing the same doesn't get called an asshole? Maybe the asshole gets it said to his face, but that's because guys are trained not to hit girls, and calling someone names to their face is a great start for a fistfight. You'd best be prepared to swing if you do it.
I'm a shy person, too. I get the respect I deserve by fixing things nobody else is able to. I just sit there quietly and do my job. When I've got a solution, I do it or speak up so someone else can. You'll never hear me say 'X didn't set Y up properly, so it broke.' Instead, you'll get 'Y wasn't working, and I fixed it. It should be okay now.' There's a huge difference between explaining the problem and assigning blame.
-Everyone- in IT has to prove themselves. Women think they are being treated different and they aren't. They start with the same onus everyone else does. It's what you do from there that matters. If you get emotional about it, you'll make a huge scene and get yelled at. If you quietly do your job (or loudly do it, for that matter) and do a good job, you'll get the respect you deserve. It's that simple. I've been at this company for 2 years and they are still learning what I'm capable of. Simply holding out a resume doesn't mean anyone believes a single word on it. You have to prove the knowledge.
I feel the same. I tend to lose interest in a game when they lock me into a static environment, or I've been everywhere.
I want plot, too, but not 'boy meets girl' crap that's been done a billion times. Since 'every possible story has already been told' (a mangled quote from a great philosopher whose name I forget now) and I read a -lot-, I don't expect to find much worthwhile in the plot of any new video game, or most movies and books.
Hah, yes, you're correct. I didn't actually jump on the Zelda bandwagon until the third game. Game news wasn't as easy to get back then.
I think this is the key, more than the 'no lame sequels' bit. If you don't allow your people to take creative risks, they can't produce anything truly new, which means any sequels will indeed be the same game with new graphics.
Nintendo takes a lot of them, too... Turning SMB into a 3D game... Then turning it into a 2D/3D hybrid RPG... Link went from a side scroller to a 3/4 overhead RPG to a fully 3d realistic-looking RPG... They've split just about every game off into side-games like Dr Mario and Yoshi's Cookie... They're masters of this.
It's also possible to fail utterly while taking the risks, of course. The other half of the secret of their success is strict quality control. You let your people take risks, but you let them know with no uncertainty if they fail one of them. And you don't ship the product until it's good.
I can't argue with 'efficient people want it to go fast', but anyone asking for the visual effects, especially knowing the cost, don't really care about fast. They are efficient to begin with, and the slowdown probably won't change enough to matter.
I've done the 'speed is better' thing myself. I installed Beryl and all that razzmatazz but ended up removing it because it was slower (special effects take time, even with no pauses or stutters) and because it crashed too often. (Every couple hours.) It was neat, it just wasn't useful.
The company I work for's main application doesn't work correctly with Vista. We only know that because client/tester told us so. We have -no- internal Vista machines and no plans to upgrade or support it yet. To be fair, our only XP machines are for compatibility and testing purposes. We're mostly OSX and I've got the only remaining Linux desktop.
But that's not why I was replying... It's this:
"When I explain to them that the 0.25 second "pauses" for all the flashiness (which can be disabled, of course) add up to a 1/2 hour a day in lost productivity, they don't care"
A happy worker is a productive worker. If you save that 1/2 hour a day and the employee is constantly wishing for the fancy interface they -know-they could have, you are probably losing productivity, not gaining.
I don't see any metric there... And you don't work for Verizon... What are you going to blame your mismatched numbers on?
;) The second number is the correct one, of course.
0.02 != 0.227
Your last line answered it: Hardcore fans and academics.
While I love to read, I have very little interest in HOW a book is written. I mean, I kind of care, but not enough to sift through tons of notes and try to recreate his thought process on a book that took him months or years to write. I simply don't have enough time to care.
On the other hand, if I were looking at writing my first book, I'd be sorely tempted to take a look at the process a master used, and see what could help me along.
And if I lived and breathed his books, I'd cherish the ability to get deeper into his thinking.
I just like a good story, though, not the author or anything else involved.
Indeed. Who believes anything Sony says now? Or any other manufacturer or developer, even. We've been told so many lies in the last 3 months that I can't count them all. Sony is STILL lying about why they didn't have rumble in the sixaxis.
The article says that some say that day is already here. I agree.
Try to do -anything- on the web without having to deal with Firefox, Apache, PHP, etc, etc... Good freaking luck. Even Safari uses open source components, so there goes all compatibility with Mac as well. (Meaning you can't test it on Mac, because then you'd be dealing with open source.)
Now, try to have a successful business without the internet. Sure, it's possible on a small scale, but I can't name a single business I deal with that doesn't have at least a 'contact us' page on the internet with a phone number.
And that doesn't even get into interacting with other companies that happily use open source in their daily functioning.
Because they watched me take the picture of the box, held in my hand, with the backdrop being an open shelf (no locks) and the floor.
The other answer is: Trust your damned customers. If I was a thief I surely wouldn't be openly holding a camera and taking pictures. Especially in range of one of their cameras. Instead of preventing a theft, they prevented a sale and lost a customer. I guarantee that move cost them more than letting a thief take pictures of their security.
Fair use.