Yours perhaps, but you're in a minority. The majority complaint here was about the DRM and regular phone home requirement, something that Valve is also now doing.
Music went in the opposite direction and is much more prone to piracy due to the smaller file sizes. Music digital distribution actually rapidly increased in the post music DRM world. Without DRM music distribution actually became even more popular and widespread.
PC game sales and plurality of publishers and quality of games (based on average ratings) is still way down on the pre-Steam era so it seems difficult to make the case that Steam's DRM and digital distribution system has helped the industry. The only section of the industry that really has thrive is the indie world which generally has much less restrictive DRM. Correlation is not causation of course, but there's a bunch of far stronger correlations between lack of DRM and increased health of the industry, and DRM and decreased health of the industry.
Whether other publishers were going that way or not, there was nothing to force Valve to start it all off with Half-Life 2 when they could instead have stood out from the crowd and not had DRM on their product offering it as a mere option to others who wanted to use their platform.
"This speculation is substantiated by your complete lack of objective reasons to forbid it and your wish to do so even then. "
I provided a reason, but it's not my fault you're not educated enough to understand that reason. If you don't understand why these sorts of systems are chaotic, why chaotic systems are unpredictable, and how a chaotic system with the ability to interact with and effect an important area of society could lead to potential harm then that's not my problem - you just need to go and learn a bit more before engaging in the topic. The worst part in this particular case is that there's even precedent, with the most recent prominent example being here:
"Your whole point is that things should be forbidden unless proven useful."
No, my point is that something that can many unforeseen impacts of a possibly massive extent should be better understood before being pushed into the wild.
Presumably though you'd let GM crops and so forth into the wild without a thought, because "What could possibly go wrong, and why forbid it unless we can prove it's going to cause problems?" right?
The very nature of chaotic systems is that they can lead to unforeseen results, the outcomes aren't predictable, and if the outcomes aren't predictable then there's an obvious risk in letting them lose on important areas of society.
It's not a case of forbidden unless proven useful, it's a case of forbidden until proven harmless if there is potential for harm, which is quite different. In fact, this is the whole principal behind drug testing for example to ensure drugs are safe before they're authorised for human consumption rather than simply throwing any old concoction on the market without a care for the side effects. We're not talking about playing monopoly with monopoly money here, we're talking about the real economy.
I think it depends where you live. Personally I prefer Yodel over Royal Mail and it wasn't so long ago I was a big fan of Royal Mail.
Only 2 years ago Royal Mail used to deliver me 1st class mail next day all the time, courier deliveries similarly were always next day and if I missed an RM courier delivery it'd be at my local post office just 2 minutes round the corner. All was good in the world.
Then shit started going downhill. Over the last 18 months I've had "guaranteed" next day deliveries take 5 days only to turn up when I was at work and be taken not to my local post office 2 minutes away but all the way to a depot a 30minute drive away that only opens past lunchtime (when I'm at work) once a week for me to pick up. I could wait another few days and have it brought to my local post office if I pay more even though it was their failure to achieve their "guaranteed" delivery. 1st class mail now consistently takes 2 - 3 days and I've had some mail delayed for 3 weeks because they decided it was oversized and I have to pay them £1 more even though none of it was actually oversized and formal complaints about this went completely unacknowledged and ignored. They never attempt next day re-delivery anymore and mail always without fail every single day now comes through the door folded, sometimes almost completely destroyed.
This isn't a one off incident like you're talking about with the GP, this is sustained consistent decline in service over the last 18 months - 2 years and it's simply an unacceptably low quality of service. In the meantime what do I see the CWU folks doing? Campaigning about laws regarding dogs and so forth - perhaps if they really gave a shit about their future they'd focus on making sure their staff could do their jobs properly whether that's because they've been under-resourced in the last 18 months or because company policy changes have caused the decline in service. They can't now bitch and moan expecting public support when they've spent the last months giving that very public an abysmal level of service. It's a two way street.
Compare and contrast to Yodel and well, Yodel always deliver when they say they will, if I'm out they leave my parcel in a safe place or with the neighbour so I don't have to spend my own time and money collecting it (i.e. defying the point of a fucking delivery service) and I'll simply not ever forget the time where they delivered to me on foot in the middle of a -16c snowstorm because their van got stuck a mile out when Royal Mail hadn't even been seen for over a week.
As I say, I suspect these sorts of things are very regional but for me, I'm actually pleased to see something is going to be delivered by Yodel because I know it's actually going to end up at my house when I expect it to end up at my house, whereas if I see RM well, it could end up at some arbitrary location within a radius of about 30 miles for me to collect at some arbitrary point in the future but that's about all I can now expect.
I wont pretend that I think privatisation is magically going to fix anything but you'll have to excuse me if right now I have very little sympathy for the workers, nor do I suspect things can get any worse given that they're already much worse than the service private delivery firms currently give me despite having had more money than a lot of them and a last mile monopoly.
I'm not even some kind of right wing idealist, I'd love nothing more to have Royal Mail back giving me the quality of service it did 5, even 3 years ago but I don't have faith in that happening because the CWU are as much part of the problem as the right wing zealots who want to privatise are. Maybe if they'd spent more time making sure they had the public on side by doing a good job and less time lobbying heavily against dog owners or whatever they wouldn't find themselves in this situation to start with.
I agree Tory privatisation doesn't exactly have a very good track record, but as I say, at this point I could really care less, as the service really can't get much worse where I live so it really makes no odds to people like me.
Those arguments aren't invalid, but they're not particularly relevant to my actual question as to why it's okay for Valve to have a phone home game sharing scheme but not Microsoft.
The issue I have with this is that when people were complaining about Microsoft doing it they weren't making the arguments you just have, they were making arguments about how phoning home and DRM and blocking 2nd hand sales with it all is evil. This is why I'm baffled as to why those arguments have vanished and it now seems to all be okay if Valve is doing it.
As I say I don't disagree with the arguments you made, but they're ultimately separate issues about the broader argument between consoles vs. PCs in general. The issue I have here is with the hypocrisy over DRM schemes - personally I hold the viewpoint that all DRM is bad, because I still remember an era in PC gaming where it simply did not exist (and intriguingly when the PC gaming market for AAA titles was actually healthier). I simply can't see why there was so much uproar about Microsoft's phone home sharing scheme (that was actually more flexible for consumers than this) but not about this one. It does seem to be almost entirely based on a (understandable) dislike of Microsoft rather than any rational debate of the problems of DRM itself, even though the argument was framed as that.
I'm just a little fed up of people crusading against DRM only when it suits because when they suddenly double back on their arguments against DRM if their pet company is involved (be it Valve, Apple, whoever) then it completely undermines the arguments about DRM as it gives companies the excuse they need to keep peddling it even though it's literally of zero benefit to the consumer and is always inherently of detriment to the consumer - because it always uses their resources, and sometimes prevents them using their content legitimately when it fails (as it sometimes does).
"Yet again, the irrational bullshit comes out. Note I said "why anything needs to be done". What makes you think that I wouldn't have considered high "cost" a valid reason?"
Well there's already been a high cost, the financial crisis in large part. As you're defending the status quo it's not unreasonable to assume that you support the status quo regardless of the cost. Or are you simply saying the cost of the financial crisis was an acceptable cost? If so then that was kind of the point of my question - where do you draw the line? When is the cost too high in your opinion?
For what it's worth I appreciate the rest of your response because you've now taken the time to justify your opinion. I wont say I necessarily agree with all of it (but then I don't disagree with all of it either) but that was fundamentally the issue I took with your previous post - you were making short sharp dismissive claims without providing justification for them, so thank you for now providing a bit more depth to your argument, I think you raise some valid points, particularly that some of the biggest issues attributed to HFT actually stem from poor policy elsewhere.
"That is not what he said. What he said is that when all you have to say against something is that it is bad because the rich are making money you have no argument. "
But no one said that. That was speculation on his behalf as to people's distaste for it. You can't say someone has no argument based on a certain opinion if they never actually expressed that opinion.
"The rest of your argument is just a bunch of suppositions without any real data to substantiate."
Actually most of my argument was simply a series of questions posing that exact point back at GP - that you can't make assertions without backing up your claim.
"There is even analysts who defend that HFT have a very positive effect in the economy by adding liquidity to the market."
Right and there are others that claim that opposite. That's exactly the point. I was posing counter-arguments to his assertions which he seemed to be implying were fact without making any effort to back up his claim, merely dismiss everyone elses based on things they hadn't even said.
You were doing it wrong. If I've learn anything from Call of Duty it's that when you're manning the machine gun you just keep your finger down on the trigger and the branch would've just been blown to pieces. It all works okay because as everyone knows you get infinite ammo when you just use the machine gun.
"Why? No one has explained why anything needs to be done at all. It's all "rich people are making money therefore we need to screw it up for them"."
So your view is that people should be able to make money no matter what the cost and that making money is the single key thing that should come above all else?
How far are you willing to back that argument? At one extreme, if a military commander manages to pull of a bloody coup in the US and seizes the money of all the bankers and uses his new found power to retroactively making everything he did legal then is that okay?
Where exactly do you draw the line as to what is and isn't okay in terms of the ability to make money regardless of the side effects or do you feel there are no limits and the ability to make money is the single most important pinnacle of human achievement and attainment?
The problem with your argument is that most people would argue the line is drawn at the point where such money making schemes cause a crash and require a tax payer bailout because at that point it's no longer simply a case of free market economics and survival of the fittest, it's an artificially supported industry and free market libertarianism has already long gone out the window. Had things been left to free market economics the companies doing the current trading would've had to declare bankruptcy and would not now even exist.
HFT has a real impact on world economies and often unpredictably so. The more enlightened argument is that it's probably not smart to create such unpredictable chaotic systems and give them a direct feed into national and global economies where consequences range from some average Joe losing his job and house, all the way through to wider economic strife creating heightened conditions for things like riots and war where real actual lives are lost.
To turn the argument around, why do you think this sort of system should've been allowed in the first place? What do you consider to be the benefits?
"And why is that considered a good thing? I think we need more chatter and computer predation."
What makes you say this? Is there some evidence that this would increase market stability or something or were you just disagreeing with the GP for the classic online purpose of protecting your digital manhood by refusing to cede a single point without any consideration as to whether your disagreement has any merit, or in fact any meaning? I think you need to expand on this point and explain why you think increase chatter and predation is a good thing rather than just say you support it with no explanation.
"They can't see what you do on a market before you actually do something on the market."
That's the whole point of predictive algorithms used in the financial sector, they're designed to do exactly that - predict with a high degree of accuracy what manual traders are going to do based on nanosecond by nanosecond evaluation of the market and trends (something no human can do that fast), and then beat them to the punch.
I don't think that makes sense. Until Steam DRM came along I was perfectly able to share PC games. It's only a step forward if you ignore the fact that Steam DRM was a massive step backwards in the first place so effectively you're saying Valve is now taking one step forward after previously having taken PC gaming 2 steps back whereas Microsoft was taking 1 step back after having always been one step forward.
My Quake CD was shared with most people I know (and I think every one of them went on to buy their own copy in the end) precisely because it had no DRM. The same goes for all my games from the 90s and early 00s. The first game to really put a stop to this was HL2 with it's online activation and forced Steam tie-in.
To be fair both Sergey and Larry as well as also Bill Gates (who was still in charge of MS in the 90s) all have a genuine passion for education.
As geeks they share the perception that many other geeks do, that education is the cure to many of the world's ills such as discrimination, poverty, and overpopulation. They're not robots and like you and I they have political opinions and thoughts on the best solution to certain problems.
It's not surprising therefore that all of them would have such a focus on education which feeds through into their company's actions and products because they believe it's a solution to some of the world's greatest political and social problems.
Contrary to popular belief, corporate leaders are capable of doing things for a reason other than profit optimisation. This doesn't mean that they wont also try and monetise said actions but the reason for entering the market in the first place could well be primarily simply the fact that they genuinely believe that education matters.
I work in financial services but contrary to the view of financial services companies caused by the action of the banks some of us firms are actually quite responsible and I get charity days (where I get paid to spend a few work days instead doing charity work for a charity of my choice) each year and we do lots of charity fundraising events simply because our CEO recognises that our company has the spare capacity financially to also give something back whilst still making a profit elsewhere.
Yeah and guess what genius? The shareholders with majority voting control in Google are the same two geeks that founded it and that have a passion for causes like education:
In Google's case, the shareholders that get to decide how the company works aren't some mystical unknown investment company that controls the company from the shadows but the very two people that founded it.
I think this highlights the problem with the "rockstar" label though, no one knows what it actually means.
If we're going by the definition that rockstar developer are brilliant at coding but arseholes to work with then I think that's a myth. The only people I've ever met to fit this version of the rockstar label have simply been all talk. They talk the talk and they're effective at making dumb people believe they're incredibly amazing and talented but when it came to they were mediocre at best. Everyone I've met who believes they're incredible talented and a step above the rest really isn't, they've just convinced themselves and people worse than them that they are.
If we're going by the definition that a rockstar developer is simply a good developer as you've defined them then I agree they're worth having around and are genuinely talented.
By rockstar I've mostly encountered the former definition though and I think in that case no, you never need them. You just need developers covered by the latter definition.
I think there's an inherent reason why the former definition of a developer whose incredible but awkward to work with is a complete and utter myth and that's that in my experience those who are genuinely really good, the best at what they do, are this way because they're capable of introspection, they're capable of looking at themselves, spotting areas for improvement and improving on them and that's how they just get ever better and better. Rockstars in the former sense simply couldn't do this because they already believe they're perfect, and that's why I think the former definition above of a rockstar is a myth.
Chances are if you've hired someone who is an arsehole but believes and makes you believe they're incredible then they've pulled the wool right over your eyes and you've paid over the odds for a mediocre developer with a shit attitude. What people recruiting should be looking for are the people you describe - those who don't need to shout out about their brilliance but just are brilliant.
Perhaps the term "Rockstar" should be reserved for the blagger wannabes, and for the genuinely great developers you mention who aren't arseholes we need a better term, like "Maestro"?
"I also think you picked a rather ironic day to make that statement, the anniversary of an attack that killed 3,000 people and did $100,000,000,000 damage to the US economy."
I think this proves his point. Those figures look awful, but the subsequent decision to go to war in response to those figures resulted in 3x more dead Americans and 10x more cost to the US economy.
The point being that even the worst terrorist attack in US history is really small fry compared to the amount of lives lost and money burnt by other decisions.
Just out of interest, why is it good when Valve does this sort of thing with Steam but it was ultimate internet uproar when Microsoft proposed the exact same thing for the XBox One before having to backtrack?
This requires the exact same phoning home that Microsoft originally planned to implement and they were offering this exact same feature as a result of that.
Is there a particular reason as to why it's suddenly now okay other than the fact Valve seems to get a free pass when it introduces ever more intrusive DRM?
The real irony of this particular prize and nomination is that it's named after a Russian that wanted to flee to the West to escape the oppression in Russia, and this nomination is for someone who had to flee oppression in the West by escaping to Russia.
Jobs said no such thing. In fact, his quotes are even more damning when contrasted to the release of the iPad mini:
"The reason we [won't] make a 7-inch tablet isn't because we don't want to hit that price point, it's because we think the screen is too small to express the software,"
and then:
"There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps."
Don't try and re-write history just because it paints an inconvenient view of your pet company/deity. If you're going to post a sarcastic comment about "Slashdot" not understanding something then you could at very least make sure you're not outright making shit up yourself to start with.
I've honestly no idea, it's not something I'd heard about until this article. I'm just pointing out that if it is the case (which given the recent revelations doesn't sound impossible) then there is a valid reason to be concerned and to even outright reject it.
I think at this point with the shockwaves the NSA revelations have caused a lot of soul searching is going on as to what we really can and can't trust, and if we can't 100% trust something because for example Intel keeps the code/implementation under lock and key then wouldn't it be better to er on the side of caution and switch to something guaranteed to be free of possible compromise?
I'd imagine the fact Carl is a fucking dick that no one wanted ruining the opportunity to fix Dell for the sake of a quick buck played a fairly large part in that.
Even if not it completely defeats his own point. If we have a cryptography breakthrough such that the NSA has to approach individual citizens with secret orders to access each and every one of their GMail accounts then this has two effects:
1) It pisses average citizens off and makes it an election issue to the point you'll get civil disobedience as everyone starts defying their orders and talking about them.
2) It limits the ability of NSA agents to actually spend time using any of the data anyway because they're all tied up visiting people's houses getting them to sign secret orders.
That's why people claiming technology is irrelevant are wrong and simply don't get it, technology is still the vessel by which you can enact political movement on the issue. You wont just be able to magic up political movement by itself like some people seem to believe, you have to keep fighting and push the likes of the NSA to become so intrusive in their actions, or their operations become so prohibitively expensive that people do begin to care and you do that by making the technology less trivial and more inconvenient to defeat.
The point isn't about inventing some magical technology that can defeat the NSA, the point is to make the NSA's blanket spying program ever more difficult and ever more cost and time prohibitive to perform by using better technology.
You said yourself your solution was impossible to implement in practice because the vast majority of the electorate continue to buy in to the two party system.
So go on then, tell us your incredible plan to "educate" the majority of the US electorate to vote the incumbent two parties out.
Much smarter people than you have considered this problem and failed to solve it.
You know there's nothing about Slashdot's posting system that inhibits you from enlightening us with your oh so knowledgeable non-technical solutions to the problem right?
So what you're saying to cut a long story short is that you have no idea what the solution is but you'll tell everyone else they don't have one either anyway?
Slashdot Mirror
Yours perhaps, but you're in a minority. The majority complaint here was about the DRM and regular phone home requirement, something that Valve is also now doing.
What makes you think that?
Music went in the opposite direction and is much more prone to piracy due to the smaller file sizes. Music digital distribution actually rapidly increased in the post music DRM world. Without DRM music distribution actually became even more popular and widespread.
PC game sales and plurality of publishers and quality of games (based on average ratings) is still way down on the pre-Steam era so it seems difficult to make the case that Steam's DRM and digital distribution system has helped the industry. The only section of the industry that really has thrive is the indie world which generally has much less restrictive DRM. Correlation is not causation of course, but there's a bunch of far stronger correlations between lack of DRM and increased health of the industry, and DRM and decreased health of the industry.
Whether other publishers were going that way or not, there was nothing to force Valve to start it all off with Half-Life 2 when they could instead have stood out from the crowd and not had DRM on their product offering it as a mere option to others who wanted to use their platform.
"This speculation is substantiated by your complete lack of objective reasons to forbid it and your wish to do so even then. "
I provided a reason, but it's not my fault you're not educated enough to understand that reason. If you don't understand why these sorts of systems are chaotic, why chaotic systems are unpredictable, and how a chaotic system with the ability to interact with and effect an important area of society could lead to potential harm then that's not my problem - you just need to go and learn a bit more before engaging in the topic. The worst part in this particular case is that there's even precedent, with the most recent prominent example being here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Flash_Crash
"Your whole point is that things should be forbidden unless proven useful."
No, my point is that something that can many unforeseen impacts of a possibly massive extent should be better understood before being pushed into the wild.
Presumably though you'd let GM crops and so forth into the wild without a thought, because "What could possibly go wrong, and why forbid it unless we can prove it's going to cause problems?" right?
The very nature of chaotic systems is that they can lead to unforeseen results, the outcomes aren't predictable, and if the outcomes aren't predictable then there's an obvious risk in letting them lose on important areas of society.
It's not a case of forbidden unless proven useful, it's a case of forbidden until proven harmless if there is potential for harm, which is quite different. In fact, this is the whole principal behind drug testing for example to ensure drugs are safe before they're authorised for human consumption rather than simply throwing any old concoction on the market without a care for the side effects. We're not talking about playing monopoly with monopoly money here, we're talking about the real economy.
I think it depends where you live. Personally I prefer Yodel over Royal Mail and it wasn't so long ago I was a big fan of Royal Mail.
Only 2 years ago Royal Mail used to deliver me 1st class mail next day all the time, courier deliveries similarly were always next day and if I missed an RM courier delivery it'd be at my local post office just 2 minutes round the corner. All was good in the world.
Then shit started going downhill. Over the last 18 months I've had "guaranteed" next day deliveries take 5 days only to turn up when I was at work and be taken not to my local post office 2 minutes away but all the way to a depot a 30minute drive away that only opens past lunchtime (when I'm at work) once a week for me to pick up. I could wait another few days and have it brought to my local post office if I pay more even though it was their failure to achieve their "guaranteed" delivery. 1st class mail now consistently takes 2 - 3 days and I've had some mail delayed for 3 weeks because they decided it was oversized and I have to pay them £1 more even though none of it was actually oversized and formal complaints about this went completely unacknowledged and ignored. They never attempt next day re-delivery anymore and mail always without fail every single day now comes through the door folded, sometimes almost completely destroyed.
This isn't a one off incident like you're talking about with the GP, this is sustained consistent decline in service over the last 18 months - 2 years and it's simply an unacceptably low quality of service. In the meantime what do I see the CWU folks doing? Campaigning about laws regarding dogs and so forth - perhaps if they really gave a shit about their future they'd focus on making sure their staff could do their jobs properly whether that's because they've been under-resourced in the last 18 months or because company policy changes have caused the decline in service. They can't now bitch and moan expecting public support when they've spent the last months giving that very public an abysmal level of service. It's a two way street.
Compare and contrast to Yodel and well, Yodel always deliver when they say they will, if I'm out they leave my parcel in a safe place or with the neighbour so I don't have to spend my own time and money collecting it (i.e. defying the point of a fucking delivery service) and I'll simply not ever forget the time where they delivered to me on foot in the middle of a -16c snowstorm because their van got stuck a mile out when Royal Mail hadn't even been seen for over a week.
As I say, I suspect these sorts of things are very regional but for me, I'm actually pleased to see something is going to be delivered by Yodel because I know it's actually going to end up at my house when I expect it to end up at my house, whereas if I see RM well, it could end up at some arbitrary location within a radius of about 30 miles for me to collect at some arbitrary point in the future but that's about all I can now expect.
I wont pretend that I think privatisation is magically going to fix anything but you'll have to excuse me if right now I have very little sympathy for the workers, nor do I suspect things can get any worse given that they're already much worse than the service private delivery firms currently give me despite having had more money than a lot of them and a last mile monopoly.
I'm not even some kind of right wing idealist, I'd love nothing more to have Royal Mail back giving me the quality of service it did 5, even 3 years ago but I don't have faith in that happening because the CWU are as much part of the problem as the right wing zealots who want to privatise are. Maybe if they'd spent more time making sure they had the public on side by doing a good job and less time lobbying heavily against dog owners or whatever they wouldn't find themselves in this situation to start with.
I agree Tory privatisation doesn't exactly have a very good track record, but as I say, at this point I could really care less, as the service really can't get much worse where I live so it really makes no odds to people like me.
Those arguments aren't invalid, but they're not particularly relevant to my actual question as to why it's okay for Valve to have a phone home game sharing scheme but not Microsoft.
The issue I have with this is that when people were complaining about Microsoft doing it they weren't making the arguments you just have, they were making arguments about how phoning home and DRM and blocking 2nd hand sales with it all is evil. This is why I'm baffled as to why those arguments have vanished and it now seems to all be okay if Valve is doing it.
As I say I don't disagree with the arguments you made, but they're ultimately separate issues about the broader argument between consoles vs. PCs in general. The issue I have here is with the hypocrisy over DRM schemes - personally I hold the viewpoint that all DRM is bad, because I still remember an era in PC gaming where it simply did not exist (and intriguingly when the PC gaming market for AAA titles was actually healthier). I simply can't see why there was so much uproar about Microsoft's phone home sharing scheme (that was actually more flexible for consumers than this) but not about this one. It does seem to be almost entirely based on a (understandable) dislike of Microsoft rather than any rational debate of the problems of DRM itself, even though the argument was framed as that.
I'm just a little fed up of people crusading against DRM only when it suits because when they suddenly double back on their arguments against DRM if their pet company is involved (be it Valve, Apple, whoever) then it completely undermines the arguments about DRM as it gives companies the excuse they need to keep peddling it even though it's literally of zero benefit to the consumer and is always inherently of detriment to the consumer - because it always uses their resources, and sometimes prevents them using their content legitimately when it fails (as it sometimes does).
"Yet again, the irrational bullshit comes out. Note I said "why anything needs to be done". What makes you think that I wouldn't have considered high "cost" a valid reason?"
Well there's already been a high cost, the financial crisis in large part. As you're defending the status quo it's not unreasonable to assume that you support the status quo regardless of the cost. Or are you simply saying the cost of the financial crisis was an acceptable cost? If so then that was kind of the point of my question - where do you draw the line? When is the cost too high in your opinion?
For what it's worth I appreciate the rest of your response because you've now taken the time to justify your opinion. I wont say I necessarily agree with all of it (but then I don't disagree with all of it either) but that was fundamentally the issue I took with your previous post - you were making short sharp dismissive claims without providing justification for them, so thank you for now providing a bit more depth to your argument, I think you raise some valid points, particularly that some of the biggest issues attributed to HFT actually stem from poor policy elsewhere.
"That is not what he said. What he said is that when all you have to say against something is that it is bad because the rich are making money you have no argument. "
But no one said that. That was speculation on his behalf as to people's distaste for it. You can't say someone has no argument based on a certain opinion if they never actually expressed that opinion.
"The rest of your argument is just a bunch of suppositions without any real data to substantiate."
Actually most of my argument was simply a series of questions posing that exact point back at GP - that you can't make assertions without backing up your claim.
"There is even analysts who defend that HFT have a very positive effect in the economy by adding liquidity to the market."
Right and there are others that claim that opposite. That's exactly the point. I was posing counter-arguments to his assertions which he seemed to be implying were fact without making any effort to back up his claim, merely dismiss everyone elses based on things they hadn't even said.
You were doing it wrong. If I've learn anything from Call of Duty it's that when you're manning the machine gun you just keep your finger down on the trigger and the branch would've just been blown to pieces. It all works okay because as everyone knows you get infinite ammo when you just use the machine gun.
"Why? No one has explained why anything needs to be done at all. It's all "rich people are making money therefore we need to screw it up for them"."
So your view is that people should be able to make money no matter what the cost and that making money is the single key thing that should come above all else?
How far are you willing to back that argument? At one extreme, if a military commander manages to pull of a bloody coup in the US and seizes the money of all the bankers and uses his new found power to retroactively making everything he did legal then is that okay?
Where exactly do you draw the line as to what is and isn't okay in terms of the ability to make money regardless of the side effects or do you feel there are no limits and the ability to make money is the single most important pinnacle of human achievement and attainment?
The problem with your argument is that most people would argue the line is drawn at the point where such money making schemes cause a crash and require a tax payer bailout because at that point it's no longer simply a case of free market economics and survival of the fittest, it's an artificially supported industry and free market libertarianism has already long gone out the window. Had things been left to free market economics the companies doing the current trading would've had to declare bankruptcy and would not now even exist.
HFT has a real impact on world economies and often unpredictably so. The more enlightened argument is that it's probably not smart to create such unpredictable chaotic systems and give them a direct feed into national and global economies where consequences range from some average Joe losing his job and house, all the way through to wider economic strife creating heightened conditions for things like riots and war where real actual lives are lost.
To turn the argument around, why do you think this sort of system should've been allowed in the first place? What do you consider to be the benefits?
"And why is that considered a good thing? I think we need more chatter and computer predation."
What makes you say this? Is there some evidence that this would increase market stability or something or were you just disagreeing with the GP for the classic online purpose of protecting your digital manhood by refusing to cede a single point without any consideration as to whether your disagreement has any merit, or in fact any meaning? I think you need to expand on this point and explain why you think increase chatter and predation is a good thing rather than just say you support it with no explanation.
"They can't see what you do on a market before you actually do something on the market."
That's the whole point of predictive algorithms used in the financial sector, they're designed to do exactly that - predict with a high degree of accuracy what manual traders are going to do based on nanosecond by nanosecond evaluation of the market and trends (something no human can do that fast), and then beat them to the punch.
I don't think that makes sense. Until Steam DRM came along I was perfectly able to share PC games. It's only a step forward if you ignore the fact that Steam DRM was a massive step backwards in the first place so effectively you're saying Valve is now taking one step forward after previously having taken PC gaming 2 steps back whereas Microsoft was taking 1 step back after having always been one step forward.
My Quake CD was shared with most people I know (and I think every one of them went on to buy their own copy in the end) precisely because it had no DRM. The same goes for all my games from the 90s and early 00s. The first game to really put a stop to this was HL2 with it's online activation and forced Steam tie-in.
To be fair both Sergey and Larry as well as also Bill Gates (who was still in charge of MS in the 90s) all have a genuine passion for education.
As geeks they share the perception that many other geeks do, that education is the cure to many of the world's ills such as discrimination, poverty, and overpopulation. They're not robots and like you and I they have political opinions and thoughts on the best solution to certain problems.
It's not surprising therefore that all of them would have such a focus on education which feeds through into their company's actions and products because they believe it's a solution to some of the world's greatest political and social problems.
Contrary to popular belief, corporate leaders are capable of doing things for a reason other than profit optimisation. This doesn't mean that they wont also try and monetise said actions but the reason for entering the market in the first place could well be primarily simply the fact that they genuinely believe that education matters.
I work in financial services but contrary to the view of financial services companies caused by the action of the banks some of us firms are actually quite responsible and I get charity days (where I get paid to spend a few work days instead doing charity work for a charity of my choice) each year and we do lots of charity fundraising events simply because our CEO recognises that our company has the spare capacity financially to also give something back whilst still making a profit elsewhere.
Yeah and guess what genius? The shareholders with majority voting control in Google are the same two geeks that founded it and that have a passion for causes like education:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2129234/Google-stock-split-founders-Larry-Page-Sergey-Brin-lifetime-control.html
In Google's case, the shareholders that get to decide how the company works aren't some mystical unknown investment company that controls the company from the shadows but the very two people that founded it.
I think this highlights the problem with the "rockstar" label though, no one knows what it actually means.
If we're going by the definition that rockstar developer are brilliant at coding but arseholes to work with then I think that's a myth. The only people I've ever met to fit this version of the rockstar label have simply been all talk. They talk the talk and they're effective at making dumb people believe they're incredibly amazing and talented but when it came to they were mediocre at best. Everyone I've met who believes they're incredible talented and a step above the rest really isn't, they've just convinced themselves and people worse than them that they are.
If we're going by the definition that a rockstar developer is simply a good developer as you've defined them then I agree they're worth having around and are genuinely talented.
By rockstar I've mostly encountered the former definition though and I think in that case no, you never need them. You just need developers covered by the latter definition.
I think there's an inherent reason why the former definition of a developer whose incredible but awkward to work with is a complete and utter myth and that's that in my experience those who are genuinely really good, the best at what they do, are this way because they're capable of introspection, they're capable of looking at themselves, spotting areas for improvement and improving on them and that's how they just get ever better and better. Rockstars in the former sense simply couldn't do this because they already believe they're perfect, and that's why I think the former definition above of a rockstar is a myth.
Chances are if you've hired someone who is an arsehole but believes and makes you believe they're incredible then they've pulled the wool right over your eyes and you've paid over the odds for a mediocre developer with a shit attitude. What people recruiting should be looking for are the people you describe - those who don't need to shout out about their brilliance but just are brilliant.
Perhaps the term "Rockstar" should be reserved for the blagger wannabes, and for the genuinely great developers you mention who aren't arseholes we need a better term, like "Maestro"?
"I also think you picked a rather ironic day to make that statement, the anniversary of an attack that killed 3,000 people and did $100,000,000,000 damage to the US economy."
I think this proves his point. Those figures look awful, but the subsequent decision to go to war in response to those figures resulted in 3x more dead Americans and 10x more cost to the US economy.
The point being that even the worst terrorist attack in US history is really small fry compared to the amount of lives lost and money burnt by other decisions.
Just out of interest, why is it good when Valve does this sort of thing with Steam but it was ultimate internet uproar when Microsoft proposed the exact same thing for the XBox One before having to backtrack?
This requires the exact same phoning home that Microsoft originally planned to implement and they were offering this exact same feature as a result of that.
Is there a particular reason as to why it's suddenly now okay other than the fact Valve seems to get a free pass when it introduces ever more intrusive DRM?
The real irony of this particular prize and nomination is that it's named after a Russian that wanted to flee to the West to escape the oppression in Russia, and this nomination is for someone who had to flee oppression in the West by escaping to Russia.
How times change.
Jobs said no such thing. In fact, his quotes are even more damning when contrasted to the release of the iPad mini:
"The reason we [won't] make a 7-inch tablet isn't because we don't want to hit that price point, it's because we think the screen is too small to express the software,"
and then:
"There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps."
From an original news article at the time:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/apples-ipad-2-wont-be-a-s_n_767882.html
Don't try and re-write history just because it paints an inconvenient view of your pet company/deity. If you're going to post a sarcastic comment about "Slashdot" not understanding something then you could at very least make sure you're not outright making shit up yourself to start with.
That's kind of the point. They can fix up the company by lessening the focus on that. Kind of exactly like IBM did to grow back up as it has now.
I've honestly no idea, it's not something I'd heard about until this article. I'm just pointing out that if it is the case (which given the recent revelations doesn't sound impossible) then there is a valid reason to be concerned and to even outright reject it.
I think at this point with the shockwaves the NSA revelations have caused a lot of soul searching is going on as to what we really can and can't trust, and if we can't 100% trust something because for example Intel keeps the code/implementation under lock and key then wouldn't it be better to er on the side of caution and switch to something guaranteed to be free of possible compromise?
I think that's the point. The NSA doesn't need to be totally useless, it just needs it to be useless enough for them to trivially crack.
I'd imagine the fact Carl is a fucking dick that no one wanted ruining the opportunity to fix Dell for the sake of a quick buck played a fairly large part in that.
Even if not it completely defeats his own point. If we have a cryptography breakthrough such that the NSA has to approach individual citizens with secret orders to access each and every one of their GMail accounts then this has two effects:
1) It pisses average citizens off and makes it an election issue to the point you'll get civil disobedience as everyone starts defying their orders and talking about them.
2) It limits the ability of NSA agents to actually spend time using any of the data anyway because they're all tied up visiting people's houses getting them to sign secret orders.
That's why people claiming technology is irrelevant are wrong and simply don't get it, technology is still the vessel by which you can enact political movement on the issue. You wont just be able to magic up political movement by itself like some people seem to believe, you have to keep fighting and push the likes of the NSA to become so intrusive in their actions, or their operations become so prohibitively expensive that people do begin to care and you do that by making the technology less trivial and more inconvenient to defeat.
The point isn't about inventing some magical technology that can defeat the NSA, the point is to make the NSA's blanket spying program ever more difficult and ever more cost and time prohibitive to perform by using better technology.
You said yourself your solution was impossible to implement in practice because the vast majority of the electorate continue to buy in to the two party system.
So go on then, tell us your incredible plan to "educate" the majority of the US electorate to vote the incumbent two parties out.
Much smarter people than you have considered this problem and failed to solve it.
Stop living in fantasy land.
You know there's nothing about Slashdot's posting system that inhibits you from enlightening us with your oh so knowledgeable non-technical solutions to the problem right?
So what you're saying to cut a long story short is that you have no idea what the solution is but you'll tell everyone else they don't have one either anyway?
How helpful.