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The New York Times today posted a good article about the new French system to stop piracy. This is the same system Steven Soderbergh proposed to congress and what the movie and record industry want in the USA. Hopefully this law will not pass in the USA, the privacy violations alone make me shudder.
I do not know why, but I really want to read Batman 116 from 1958. Lets see there is one of three ways, through finding it in a trade paperback (a collection of several comic books), by buying the issue on the secondary market or if I am really lucky at a store or convention. Oh poo, I am not lucky, the local store in town will not let me and there are no comic book conventions in Austin right now. Double whammy, there is no trade paperback that contains a copy of Batman 116. So on to the last option, to buy a copy from the secondary market. So off to Mile High Comics I go, ah there it is, no too bad it’s out of stock. Off to MyComicShop.com, ah too bad they are out too. Well there always EBay, hey look there it is in Spanish, no I do not want to read Brave and Bold 116, ah there it is two copies. Ah man this urge is going cost me a lot, one is 69.99 with 4 days left and the other copy is over Two hundred dollars. Logging into PayPal, darn it I am broke. Maybe I should not have bought the State Puff Marshmallow Man last week, man was he expensive. Did enjoy eating him and I even crossed streams.
Hold on what’s this you say there is a digital copy available? Hot dog, so how much? Free you say? Bonus, hold on here a moment, isn’t download comics off the Internet illegal. Why yes it is. As Nancy Regan told us say I am just going to have to say NO to your crack, excuse me digital comic book. But darn it, I really want to read Batman 116. So begins the trail down dark path that creates a Pirate.
Wait there is hope, to stop me from turn into one of those evil Pirate. DC Comics could create a way so I can legally buy digital copies of your books; all it takes is a little work. Marvel already lets me, why not you?
We’ve all heard about the new president’s inappropriate joke on the Leno show. Of course, my opinion about this kind of thing remains the same. Though the president was in the wrong and was right to apologize, the response was equally inappropriate. People need to grow a thicker skin about offhand comments. Overreacting to something that wasn’t meant to harm you makes you as guilty as the person you are reacting to.
I think that an absolutely perfect response came from Kolan McConiughey, a Special Olympics bowler. He’s challenged President Obama to a bowl-off. Of course, the president has very little chance of beating a man with five 300 games to his credit.
I can’t think of a more appropriate way to make someone eat their words publicly and without malice. I’d love to see it! The President would be suitably humiliated in public, and you can bet that he’d never make the same mistake. It can all be done without name-calling, and all would be forgiven when it was over.
So, what do you say, Jay? This would be a perfect event for you to televise. I know I would stay up late to watch it!
Hmmm… This Ars Technica article about recent shifts at the USPTO seems to be pointing out a bright spot in the patent landscape. It points out that the USPTO has recently taken a more hostile direction when dealing with software patents.
Software patents have always been a sticky subject. Despite the fact that there are probably a few scattered incidents where patents were awarded to deserving software, the vast majority have done nothing more than enrich patent trolls. IMHO, it’s probably for the best if they are abolished.
How about this for an idea for a patent:
A System for Acquiring Patents for Prior Art.
That way, maybe I could go back and get a little revenge on the patent trolls 
Sometimes, I just don’t understand the academic community. I ran across a story about how Italian academics protested the Pope’s visit to a university based on his view of Galileo’s treatment. The Pope had to cancel the visit.
For the record… I agree that the the church mistreated Galileo, and that there should have been more official church recognition of that fact. However… It’s silly for academics to think that they should silence the pontiff when they believed that the ravings of a lunatic jihadi at Columbia were a “learning experience".
IMHO, the academic community should be ashamed of itself. All of the basic reasons used to protest the the Pope (leader of theocracy, outrageous views) and the reasons used to listen to the jihadist (freedom of speech, diversity of views) could be applied to both cases. At this point, I think that academics should consider the meaning of “intolerance".
Here’s a chuckle…
In the middle of a fiery speech about the evils of capitalism and the virtues of socialism, a Venezuelan minister was tongue tied when confronted by a reporter who pointed out his Gucci shoes and Vuitton tie.
Jeez… and the call ME Shameless!
*Places down Soapbox and jumps on top of it*
Blogger geeks beware! If you have the wrong interests listed on your livejournal account, you might be eligible for deletion without prior warning.
On May 29th, hundreds of livejournal users woke up to find either their personal journals, or community journals they were watching/members of, gone without any sort of warning. Letters sent to these members later claimed that their journals were deleted due to violation of the TOS. Later, more than one member of the LJ abuse team admitted that they were sent lists of journals with certain keywords that needed to be deleted. This was because, according to their legal team, listing certain activities could be seen as the promotion of those activities, and if LJ knew and didn’t respond then they would become legally liable. They were not allowed, however, to admit who came up with these lists. (More below - Cut for length and possibly offensive topics)
A group of CBS affiliates threatened to forgo the broadcast of 9/11 due to decency concerns.
I’m not going to comment on whether the language was indecent. I’ll just assume that it was. What I’m commenting about is the fact that the murder of 3,000 civilians because they didn’t follow someone’s religion is far more indecent than anything that a few firemen could say in a moment of panic. Most “decency” advocates point to the fact that they shouldn’t have to explain to a child what it means when someone says “F*** You". I think that it is far more difficult to explain to a child what 9/11 was about.
Maybe we need to re-think some of our priorities. I’m all for the airing of historical documentaries, especially the ones about such an important event. However, I think that the entire subject is a little too intense to show it in its raw form at a time when young children may be watching. Pushing the airing of the show back till after 10 and putting the show in the Internet would be a start…. Figuring out what is important and how to deal with it in the future is the next step.
OK. Microsoft has publicly promised to “play fair” with other software and software vendors. Please excuse me while I snicker a little.
It sounds like the Beast of Redmond has some lofty goals, but I doubt that they will amount to anything more than lip service. If they really intended to do anything about it, you would be able to go to a major computer disty (like Dell) and order a computer without Windows for LESS that you would pay for one that has it. End of story.
I’m sorry, but Microsoft has a huge amount of bad behavior to overcome before anyone will start believing in their promise of good behavior. There are too many Netscape examples out there to believe what they have to say.
I’m still waiting to find out what the Advantage part of Windows Genuine Advantage is. Is it the Advantage of someone using my system to beta test spyware? If Microsoft has this kind of definition of the word Advantage, Just exactly what is their definition of Fair?
In yet another clueless attempt to look efficient while they enrich Hollywood promoters, The DOJ has released the Task Force on Intellectual Property report. In it they congratulate themselves for suing Grandma’s while allowing the real pirates to thrive. Does anyone honestly believe that any of this is really done with “national security” in mind? If so, wouldn’t they shut down all imports of the pirated stuff from flagrant pirates in foreign countries like China?
As always, I neither condone nor practice IP pirating. Heck… I even joined MSDN to get legal developer copies of all of the software I needed, despite the fact that illegal copies are so easy to obtain. However, it is clear that the root cause of the pirating is the outrageous prices that some companies are still charging. Don’t let the screaming hype fool you… these companies are well aware that their excessive profits are to blame. They just can’t get over their addiction to them.
Microsoft still is not apologizing for pushing people into unwittingly joining a test program for their beta version of WGA. They have no intention of backing out the anti-piracy tool that was stealthily installed on millions of machines in the guise of a high priority update. The unfinished tool still sends home to Microsoft on a regular basis, and still cannot be removed once installed.
At the same time… Microsoft is saying that they won’t put their Vista beta2 on BitTorrent due to “legal and privacy issues”
So… someone check my logic here. We have a company that installs a piece of software that:
Isn’t this software called Spyware by definition? Since when does spyware have fewer “legal and privacy issues” than BitTorrent?
I think someone at Microsoft needs serious professional help if they believe that WGA and the ludicrous press releases associated with it are even remotely credible. Most users would be much happier if you were honest about what WGA is… a dishonestly veiled attempt to squeeze more money out of a market that you monopolize.
Update:
I ran across this recent Microsoft justification of WGA. I have to say that it made me even angrier. It claims that no info is sent to Microsoft after the initial validation, and claims that their failure to mention the periodic download of a settings file is an “oversight". If it really was an “oversight", then they would make a settings file available that would shut the whole thing off. Better yet, make a removal tool available. Until those are available, I’m afraid that all evidence says that they are liars.
I’ve never used the word “liars” in print before, and it will probably call forth a legion of Redmond lawyers. However, I think that it is justified in this case. Microsoft has broken a major trust. They have installed a piece of software under false pretenses, it is entirely for their own benefit, and they refuse to allow it to be removed. I fail to see any “genuine advantage” at all.
It looks like I’m not the only one expressing an opinion. Check out this post on Groklaw.
It is rare when I take anything serious but after reading this article about the dangers of online poker (registration required), I can no longer be silent. I have simple request don’t play online poker. Not because it is addictive, everything is, but because it’s a pseudo scam.
Here is how the scam works; you player A logs onto a online poker casino and start playing. After about an hour Player B, the poker pro, who is watching your table along with about 100 other tables via a poker monitoring program like Poker Tracker, shows up. At this point you will lose all your money to him. You ask how, since you are the best poker player ever. Simple thanks to Poker Tracker he knows your betting habits and play style. Using this information he will beat you most of the time. But that is cheating you say, yes it is but as long as the online poker casinos allow it he is going to use it. So do your self a favor and don’t play online poker, I am sick of seeing friends ruined by it.
We’ve all seen it. The picture that Microsoft critics use to represent the company’s OS dominance. I’ve laughed at this one for years, but I think it’s becoming a little “old hat". There is a new Borg on the horizon, and it’s name is Google.
Don’t believe me? Well, take a closer look. There are some parallels.
Many people forget that one of the biggest reasons for Microsoft’s meteoric rise was that they turned a blind eye to rampant software copying. Sure, they had a problem with the real pirates, but they were very tolerant of people making copies of DOS and distributing it to their friends and co-workers. This was at a time when the prevailing attitude of computer companies was to wring every possible penny out of every possible user. There were some serious resources expended by most software manufacturers to insure that nobody could ever use their software without paying for it. Microsoft, to their credit, saw this as a bad way to build market share. They turned out to be more right than they ever imagined.
Fast forward a few years, to the mid-nineties, and you’ll see that most home computers are running either an OEM version of Windows, or one bootlegged from work. When Microsoft turns the Windows that everyone is hooked on into an OS, many people order an upgrade for work, then bootleg a copy for home. The addiction gets really bad.
Today, there is almost no air left in the software development business. Microsoft has crushed the life out of most companies, and they are beginning to wring every possible penny from every possible customer. Customer annoyance with this new attitude has led to the rise of the Open Source movement, and opened the door a crack for Microsoft’s greatest fear: Google.
Google is a large company that essentially gives its services away for free to the public (sound familiar?), asking only that you look at it’s ads once in a while. A better, more benevolent way of doing things? For now… but maybe not forever. Remember that, as Microsoft became more and more certain of it’s hegemony, the price for it’s products increased, and they used ever more draconian methods for keeping out the non-paying rabble.
Another parallel is that the software industry is beginning to get squeezed by Google’s benevolence. As long as they continue to provide nearly every conceivable online service for free, how much room is there for anyone else? Why would any company bother to spend the development dollars to provide a free (or ad supported) online service?
OK… it’s a little bit of an exaggeration to say that Google is as dangerous as Microsoft, but it is the direction that they are heading. Recent days have seen the meteoric rise of Google, and the slow decline of Microsoft. You can call me crazy if you want, but I’m a little worried that we may be trading one beast for another.
It looks like Google will be required to turn over a small amount of data in order to help the government in a child pornography case. The American public should be annoyed at both sides of this dispute. They should be annoyed at the Bush administration for forcing the data out of Google, and they should be annoyed at Google for giving in to the Chinese government, but not the US government.
On the one hand, the feds are trying to crack into the privacy policies of Google… not to mention the other web companies out there. Obviously, nobody wants to see a child pornographer go free. However, if we start giving in to big brother now, where will it stop?
On the other hand, we have a big company that gives in to a government that threatens to cut off it’s market, but squeals loudly for it’s consumers when there is no danger that taking a stand will lose them business. It’s nice of them to think of their consumers, but their altruism is in question. I don’t see “courage of convictions” here, just commerce.
Ok. I’ve seen this story stating that half of all returns are due to complexity at least 5 times in the last 2 days. I’m not going to disagree with it at all. I’m going to explain it.
Because Geeks are the people with the best mental focus in the world, they end up designing nearly all of the high-tech gadgets. Add in the fact that most Geeks are somewhat socially isolated, you end up with Geeks designing things for the only people they understand… other Geeks.
The aforementioned study gives another hint about the basis of the problem. Joe average will typically spend 20 minutes trying to get something to work before giving up and taking it back. Geeks never give up.
I can’t remember a single instance of a Geek giving up on any kind of gadget and returning it. That would be something that he or she would not consider unless forced to at gunpoint. Even then, he/she would pick it back up if the threat of death were removed. The only thing close to giving up you will ever see from a geek is “putting it on the back burner” until he or she is no longer busy. The fact that it is given a priority a little lower than learning to limbo or having both eyebrows removed is another story altogether.
So… In a nutshell… High-tech gadgets are designed by people with nearly infinite attention spans for others just like themselves. These gadgets are then sold to people with attention spans geared more toward the length of a sitcom. Do I need to go any further?
Well.. close enough. A recent GOP CD proclaiming the evils of gay marraige also collects data from those who view it. I don’t mind if it is used as a polling mechanism, as long as it is clear that it is forwarding data, it tells me what data gets forwarded, and it is secure. This CD seems to do none of the above.
I see it as a bad omen of what is in store for the American public in the near future. If political parties start insinuating themselves into our privacy using technological means, they should be punished with a resounding defeat in the following election. I hope the DNC and GOP both heed the warning.
I think we should all let those political turkeys know that we don’t want them spying on us for their own juvenile power grabs. Remember that we are dealing with partisans who believe that the ends always justify the means. We must make it clear that whoever engages in this kind of behavior will ultimately cause the death of his precious political party.
Recent stories about a Radio Shack CEO resigning when he got caught falsifying his resume have caused me considerable irritation. The guy is a liar and a cheat, but I have to wonder how hard he was pushed into the whole thing. I can see how common practices in the tech industry should be held partially responsible for this kind of behavior. Though there is no excuse for lying on a resume, I think that tech recruiters are at least partially to blame as well.
How can anyone judge this guy unless put in the same situation? How many times did he submit a real resume before giving up and following someone’s advice? Just how hard was he pushed into this?
Before going off on a tangent about how he should have done all of the stuff that he claimed to, you should realize that there are a lot of stories out there about people who truly wish they could have led perfect lives, but were unable. If you limit your talent pool to those who have never made a mistake, taken a bad risk, or otherwise explored the world, you will have a really paltry list of prospects.
Unfortunately for many of us, the “minimum standard” is extremely rigid. Nobody will ever actually read your resume if it is missing one or more search terms. Unless your resume is fully buzzword compliant, you won’t make it past the HR secretary serving as an entrance filter. Maybe the solution would be to stop using irrelevant minimum standards and replace them with something a little more meaningful.
If you take a look at my resume, most of you will see someone who has done a whole lot of different things at various levels. Unfortunately, the only thing a recruiter sees is “Ummm… I don’t see a diploma". Many would contend that 17 years of experience should make up for 4 years of education. They would be wrong.
So… Given that I know I can do the job, and that others know I can do the job, what am I to do about that roadblock? Well, I have been told by more than one recruiter that if I fabricated a college career and put it on my resume, they would then be able to put my name in for a job. I have been told by others that I should buy one of those mail-order degrees online and use that to fill the space. Nobody will ever check.
I can’t bring myself to do either, and I have been punished for that honesty.
Along comes a Radio Shack CEO who gets caught with a puffed-up resume. If he hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t have gotten hired. Instead, he was rewarded with a CEO position. Ask yourself this question: given his choices, would you have been able to maintain your integrity? I know that I would because I have faced that choice. I suspect that I am probably in the minority.
Microsoft has released its list of six Windows Vista products at last. I’m wondering what the price will be and whether they will have package licensing deals. So far, I haven’t seen anything. It’s a shame, too. It will cause me to delay my upgrade plans.
Microsoft, as you will recall, sold their souls when they required remote activation of a legally purchased product. They have made it so difficult to upgrade that many hobbyists like myself are getting deeper and deeper into Linux, and getting better and better at living without Windows. My prediction: when a few more games are available for Linux (you can already play some of the great ones like Quake 4 and CoD2), many like myself will forego Windows in favor of something we can afford.
In a major turnabout, the US Congress actually did something that the American people can agree with. The US House of Representatives spoke out against Internet censorship in an effort to chastise four large companies about their recent deals with the Chinese government.
Though it was a refreshing change from the usual partisan bickering about who said what about who, they still have a long way to go before they can be expected to actually accomplish anything that the people want. We’re all waiting patiently for the day when Congress can do something useful, but it probably won’t happen in our lifetime. But still… baby steps are good.
Well, half of the inevitable has happened. US companies have started to filter traffic to China, bowing to the totalitarian regime’s wishes. Of course, Google, Microsoft, and all of the other web companies have their “justification” that censorship is a necessary evil. Unfortunately for them, I think it will bite them in the end (pun intended) when the other half of the inevitable happens.
Eventually, the filtering will become a moot point. The growing affluence of the Chinese people will increase the size of this task exponentially as more and more people get connected. In addition, the people will become increasingly curious about the forbidden fruits that are being held from them, and will seek ways around the filters. Once that point is reached, the whole scheme will get overwhelmed.
In the end, when the censorship has collapsed, the Internet companies will have a hard time convincing us that limiting free speech was a good idea, no matter what it meant to their bottom line. Free speech is something that free people hold dear… especially bloggers.
It looks like Google has decided not to hand search records to the Bush administration. This action comes after some of the other big search engines (MSN, Yahoo! and AOL) gave in to the g-men and turned over unspecified search records.
I’m not one of the tin-foil hat crowd, but I think that there is something a bit nefarious about demanding search records. If, as promised, there is no personal information included in these records, exactly what information can be gained from them that can’t be found in other places? Usually, I’m a little suspicious of the actions of a big company, but this time I think Google is in the right.
Research In Motion tried to halt the upcoming injunction against blackberry by claiming public safety problems, but there hasn’t been any ruling yet. It looks like patent troll NTP will end up getting some sort of settlement from RIM, despite the fact that the USPTO may throw out the patents at the heart of the case. (and patent lawyers wonder why everyone equates them with toilet bowl scrapings)
Someday, the USPTO will come to it’s senses about what kind of damage the current IP laws are causing. When that day comes, I’ll ride my unicorn home, where I’ll use my bug-free version of Windows to play Duke Nukem Forever.
It warmed my heart today to see an article about King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp recording sounds for Windows Vista. Is this a signal that Windows Vista will be geared toward a more adult crowd? It would be a welcome change from the targeting of XP (which I have been known to refer to as BarneyOS). Hopefully, they’ll get rid of that annoying little mongrel that slows down searches too!
It looks like the USPTO is trying to do something about the indefensible mess that our patent system has turned into by requesting help from the OSS community.
Though I wish them all of the luck in the world, this initiative seems like it is doomed to failure.
First of all, you have an entire industry composed primarily of lawyers and other useless types who have made a fortune off of suing legitimate software efforts. These people won’t go away quietly. You can bet that they have already figured out how to use this to their advantage.
Second: What software guy is going to be able to sift through the mounds of legalese that compose a patent application to figure out whether there is anything like prior art? If you have ever had to read a patent application, you know what I mean. If you haven’t… try it some day.
Third: none of this will solve the real problem. Patents were originally an attempt to foster the advance of technology by giving the inventor and his backers a way to recoup development costs. Instead, they have morphed into weapons used to bludgeon any little guy with a new idea. The current advance of technology means that we can no longer continue to drag this IP anchor if we expect to keep up with foreign competition.
In what has become a tech industry joke, it looks like the yearly rumor about Dell and AMD is starting again. Some day, this may actually become true… but the “deal” has fallen through so many times that I would discard the fact quickly when thinking about the price of a stock. This seems to happen every time that Dell wants to re-negotiate prices with Intel… and it seems to work VERY well. It’s just a shame for Stephen Shankland that he was the one to fall for it this time. It would have been fine if he had mentioned all of the previous rumors.
This is the second C-NET article in as many days that contains a major rookie error. Yesterday, Joris Evers made a howling error by agreeing that the recent WMF bug was “a new breed of bug", then pointing out that it was similar to the problems with MS Office files in the past. Apparently, everyone has forgotten all of the DCOM and ActiveX bugs, Outlook exploits, image file exploits from the past, etc. Many of these were caused by features that include the ability to run code in “unintended ways".
What the heck is happening at C-NET? Sloppy. Sloppy. Sloppy.
I thought CNET was supposed to be a “high tech” news outlet. So why are they warning about a practice that has been used for years?
In a recent post News.com.com brought up the evil specter of companies using blogosphere “shills” to promote their own products and pan the competitors. Anyone who has read more than 1 blog in the past few years knows that this has become common practice. Between the sweetheart advertising deals and the direct purchase of blog space, this whole concept has been done to death. The only problem I see with the whole thing is that CNET is just catching on. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide what that implies.
It looks like Song BMG has settled quickly in its disastrous DRM attempts. I can’t say that I’m terribly impressed by the settlement. Many of us who buy CD’s do so in order to avoid all of the digital artifacts in compressed music. IMHO, the cash deal is the better of the two.
I really hope that SonyBMG learned a hard lesson from this. As I’ve stated before, DRM just isn’t worth the risk of alienating consumers. Somehow, I doubt that a simple lesson like this will convince a corporate yes-man when put up against someone promising incredible returns on their DRM investment. It will probably take a few more hits to their bottom line.
Unfortunately, there is an entire industry growing up around the fallacy that you can increase profits just by adding draconian restrictions to your product. Eventually, this will be exposed for the scam that it is, but I fear that consumers will have to endure a few years of idiotic assertions from DRM scammers before the corporate world gets a clue.
Street Fighter: Alpha Generations
One of the newest movies of the Street Fighter series, Alpha Generations follows its predecessors in terms of content: violence, violence, and an abundance of testosterone. Definitely not my genre of choice – and this movie didn’t change my mind otherwise. Let’s just say that any anime that has as much grunting and moaning as it has dialogue does not pass my litmus test – I do not want to shell out $20+ for a DVD of nothing but males sounding like they have The World’s Largest case of constipation.
Now let’s get to the breakdown, shall we:
Menu: (4/5) Rather simplistic as far as menus go, but it serves its purpose quite nicely. The special features section is rather skimpy (only two features) and in the sound menu it’s hard to tell if you actually managed to change what you wanted (in my case, language) – there are no markers denoting either current or default selections. Definitely wasn’t designed user friendly. Kudos to the designers for not including any of those annoying, flashy animations that most American movie companies tend to include.
Plot: (1/5) Ever heard of PWP – Plot, What Plot? Maybe it makes sense to those who have actually followed the Street Fighter series – one of which I am not – but both the plot itself, and its execution, leave a lot to be desired. The basic premise is this: Guy kills master. Guy kills fellow student. Student of fellow student, a.k.a the Protagonist, debates revenge but after getting kicked around (literally) decides it isn’t worth it. Guy fights Protagonist. During fight, Protagonist suddenly has The Hero’s Epiphany. Protagonist defeats overpowered Guy. Guy has The Villain’s Epiphany, transforms from bloodthirsty villain to not-quite-so-bloodthirsty villain with a new goal in life, beat the Protagonist (wasn’t he doing that already?).
To top things off, the classic rehashed plot is executed rather poorly, demonstrating, once again, that CAPCOM is about as capable of suspense as they are capable of filling in plot-holes. For the record, suspense means I’m slightly confused but intrigued and waiting for more. What it does not mean, however, is that I’m sitting back, scratching my head in confusion, and hoping to God that it would all make sense later – something CAPCOM doesn’t quite understand. If you find yourself thoroughly lost within the first five minutes, don’t worry, they’re simply flashbacks that are pivotal to the entire plot – they’ll make sense later.
Of course, given that the director, Ikuo Kuwana, was an animator in Neon Genesis Evangelion, the confusing beginning might have a second explanation. Despite such, the confusion with Eva was done with style – its quite a feat to reproduce, a bar that the staff of this movie couldn’t quite reach.
Music: (3/5) The music was actually not that bad. There were a few places where I was listening to the music and ignoring the movie – not quite sure if that’s more telling of the music or plot. However, a few good pieces does not an OST make – if it’s ever brought over to the US, I doubt I’ll buy it.
Characters: (1/5) Cliches ring true – the best fighter in the entire movie is a perverted old man. He’s also the best character there, too – everyone else died too soon, came in too late, or were rather weak in characterization to begin with. It’s rather hard to make the audience feel a lot toward the characters in a movie, but it was rather obvious that CAPCOM was relying less on good characterization, and more on the affection viewers might have acquired through the rest of the Street Fighter series. Either that, or they tried making them interesting and flopped spectacularly – I’m not sure which is worse, enthusiasm without talent or talent without caring.
Ending: (2/5) The best part about the ending was the elation that it was all over. No, seriously. The ending fell just about as flat as the rest of the series. I have to cut them some slack, though – Alpha Generations is the prequel to Street Fighter Alpha, and its always harder to write a movie when the ending has already been predetermined.
Subtitles: (2/5)Which came first – the subtitle or the dialogue? The most logical answer would be neither, they would come together. The wonderful timers of SF:AG didn’t necessarily agree with this philosophy, but neither could they agree on the right answer between eachother. So, obviously, they had a very long and involved turf war, including deadly ammunition such as nerf darts and rubber bands. The losses suffered by the post-it notes became so great that the two sides decided to hold a truce: for 80% of the movie, the dialogue and subtitles would appear together and the other 20% of screentime was split in half, with either the dialogue or subtitles coming before the other.
But, seriously, the lack of thoroughness appalls me. One quick run-through of the movie would have caught the timing mistakes,
Total: (13/30 –or– 2.17/5) All in all, Street Fighter: Alpha Generations made me ponder the wisdom of accepting a job without knowing the exact details. A lover of anime I am, but even I have my own personal preference. I would recommend this movie to those who are already fans of Street Fighter, and to those who are big fans of action/adventure and fighting anime, such as Dragon Ball Z. I wouldn’t, however, recommend this anime to lovers of other genres, like comedy, or those that feel characterization and plot are essential.
But, as I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of fighting-based anime. If you feel you must see it for yourself, go right ahead. However, I would strongly caution renting it or watching the copy of someone else to avoid investing both time and money into this movie. Trust me, you’ll probably thank me later.
After reading the latest news about Sony/BMG’s latest DRM debacle with MediaMax 5, I’m left wondering whether anyone at Sony/BMG has an IQ above 50. I don’t say that lightly… I believe it is a valid question. But before I go any deeper into the question of executive intelligence, lets present a few facts, some of which the whole world seems to be missing.
Fact 1: DRM isn’t designed to stop pirates
Most people define a pirate as someone who steals the music and makes copies of it for public consumption. If you are that determined to steal the music, there is a low cost way to do so… it is called a patch cord. That’s right, just buy a $5 cable that plugs into the line out of one sound card, then attach it to the line in of another sound card. Voila… a near-perfect copy, no matter what your DRM software tries to do. If you are a sophisticated, high volume pirate, you might even spend a few $k to provide a copy that is an improvement over the original. For those of you with a single computer… don’t fret. Many sound cards will allow you to patch the line-in and line-out jacks and use them at the same time.
Fact 2: DRM isn’t designed to help “starving artists” as the music industry states
The only artists who ever make any money at all from record sales are the ones who are already mega-rich. Those who are still trying to ‘make it’ seem more likely to get a statement telling them how much they owe the record company. Don’t believe it? Check out www.janisian.com.
Fact 3: DRM companies already know that their software is ineffective
A few years ago, I was involved in some Internet radio work. Part of my job involved adding tags to music that would be used to trigger events. While asking a not-to-be-mentioned DRM company about some of their watermarking techniques, I threw in a question about how they protect their music from the simple patch cord copy. After several non-answers that were essentially just restatements of their sales brochure, one of their execs told me that their software was meant to keep honest people honest. A few years later, when a company named Sunncomm actually tried to sue the guy who told everyone to disable the autorun feature by holding the shift key, their knowledge of how bad their software was became obvious.
Fact 4: DRM software providers have a TERRIBLE track record
In the past, DRM has been easily defeated by holding down the shift key, changing Windows settings, drawing on the CD with a fine-line marker, and by running Linux. This doesn’t even include the patch cord method. Meanwhile, DRM has been responsible for security holes and seriously irritating customers. It seems that the only competent part of the DRM community is the marketing staff.
So… if DRM software does nothing except raise the barrier to illegal copies by the cost of a patch cable, just exactly who is it stopping? Would it be those nasty pirates who can’t afford the $5 entry fee? Sounds like the real target is the law abiding citizen who wants to archive his collection, not the pirate.
Now back to the original question. Assuming that all of the above is true (not much of an assumption, you can prove the first two very easily… the last two should be fairly obvious), what entertainment executive in his/her right mind would choose DRM? It won’t stop pirates, and it will only irritate the average customer. About the only explanation I can think of is that someone fell for the DRM company’s hype.
Just to be clear… I don’t condone the theft of music. I don’t frequent P2P sites, I don’t download music, and I loathe the real “pirates". However, I do like to make additional copies of legally purchased Cd’s for my car and for work. I have several computers that I use for playback while I am working, and I resent any big company’s assertion that it is OK for them to create security holes in my system to install software that has no chance of actually accomplishing it’s goal. Shame on you music industry… you are biting the hand that feeds you.
Actually, I doubt it. They will get away lightly, they will apologize profusely, but they will try again in a few months.
Sony/BMG’s recent DRM-by-enema campaign has to meet with more than just a “OK, we forgive you” from the consumers. This was something that can be considered borderline criminal activity, and we shouldn’t let them get away with a simple “oops, my bad” reaction. If they don’t feel it in their bottom line, they will just try it again.
I think this whole thing was more than just a really, really bad idea. It smells like something that runs a lot deeper. It almost looks like this was an experiment by a big, anal-retentive corporation to see how much control they can exercise over their consumers. If this really wasn’t part of a big plan to see how far they could push us, then why did it take several days for them to apologize? Why did they take the attitude that they were in the right? What made them think that their rights were more important than everyone else’s?
I know how I’ll be responding… I won’t buy anything with the words ‘Sony’ or ‘BMG’ on them for at least a year. It will hurt a little, since I tend to buy a lot of CD’s, but I feel like I have to do it. I invite everyone to join me in this, though I doubt that many will.
Many people will look back on this and think that the recall was apology enough. Some wackos will actually believe that Sony was right. But I think the real reason that most people will ignore the problem is that they just don’t care.
… and you better believe that Sony/BMG will try again. Soon.
Unless you have been living in a cardboard box for the last few weeks, you have probably heard about the debates raging at the UN technology summit in Tunisia. It was billed as a chance for nations to get together and discuss strategies for spreading the Internet to developing countries. It has become everything but that.
How can you take a conference about freedom of speech seriously when it is being held in a country with an abysmal record in that area? I’m really not sure how much of the info coming out of the conference can be trusted when the host country is harassing foreign journalists and controlling the local ones.
The main topic has shifted, naturally, to the UN’s desire to take control of the Internet from ICANN. Yeah… that makes sense. Lets take it away from a non-profit organization run by people with a strong leaning toward free speech, and hand it over to an organization whose membership is more than half dictatorships and oppressive regimes. It wouldn’t be long before the UN would make all speech completely free… as long as it is anti-American or anti-Israeli.
The Internet is a wonderful mechanism for disseminating information that we cannot allow to fall into the hands of the ridiculous UN bureaucracy. Once it does, it won’t become a tool that is more accessible to developing countries as the UN promises. It will become nothing more than a tool used to oppress people. If you need evidence of the UN’s inability to do anything useful, just look at the bizarre and useless oil-for-food program.
… but it’s still extortion, in my opinion. The MPAA now says that Grandpa can pay a $4000 tribute in installments. I say it’s still a crime to sue someone who you can’t prove did you any harm.
Instead of finding a reasonable way around this problem, the MPAA’s lawyers have resorted to a legalized form of extortion that should irritate even the most capitalist of Americans. Where do they get off suing a guy because somebody in his house downloaded a movie? I’ve never downloaded a movie myself, but it’s beginning to look like a good option. I’m getting annoyed by the fact that a portion of every one of the DVD’s that I purchase legally is going to a new form of organized crime.
According to gameindustry.biz, everybody’s favorite game banning hypocrite Jack Thompson won’t put his money where his mouth is.
So… Lets’s get this straight… You promise to donate money to charity simply because you think that your rivals will not stand up to your challenge… Then, when you are proven wrong, you hold out on the charity and claim that your challenge was “satire". Could this be the “morals” that you seem to speak of so freely?
I, for one, find it very appropriate for the world to consider everything else you have said and written to be the same brand of “satire". If you want anyone to take you seriously from now on, you will pay up and apologize for your stupidity.
UPDATE:
And it keeps getting better… Jack’s response is to have Penny Arcade’s donation declared as harassment. That’s really nice. It wasn’t enough to stiff a charity by failing to keep a promise… lets get someone else in trouble for covering the failure. I really hope the Christian right and Hillary Clinton, Thompson’s only friends so far, renounce his antics quickly.
Just for those who missed it, here is a link to a posting of Jack Thompson’s Modest Proposal. Technically, there was a little bit more to it than just creating a GTA mod. However, anyone who reads it will have to admit that it doesn’t look much like satire. It looks more like “stupidity used to expose irony” than the opposite.
It looks like China has launched their second manned space flight. The fact that much of the equipment was purchased in Moscow means that this wasn’t much of a scientific feat. The extreme paranoia that surrounds Chinese technical advancement tends to take a lot away from any political points that the government may want to gain from it. Even so, it was a major event.
The main thing that the Chinese government showed here was that they have the willpower to undertake a large challenge. The people of the US and Russia should see this as a serious indictment of their own ability to advance in the current world order. They should, but they won’t, and of the 2 countries, Russia has the far better excuse.
We all know why Russia has trouble sending out Cosmonauts. They have fallen on hard times in recent years, and they simply don’t have the cash. It is really hard to maintain any kind of cash flow or scientific program when your economy and government are going through frequent upheavals. The fact that so much of the Chinese technology was purchased from Russia should be your first clue about the scientific programs of both countries.
The US, on the other hand, has absolutely no excuse. We have the finances, we have the talent, and we have the capability. Our problem is a complete lack of will in all levels of government. Our congressmen would rather spend their time trying to justify the fact that their local college should get a multi-billion dollar grant to study the sex life of rodents as part of an urban development bill. Instead of actually trying to get things done, our government officials spend their time soliciting donations for libraries that they can draw a salary from when they “retire” from government “service".
Something for those of you who don’t care: Do you really believe the extremely aggressive and hyper-paranoid Chines government when they say that they don’t believe in space-based weapons? When they drop the pretense and decide to launch their orbiting nuke platform, will we be able to stop them?
For the next few years, we are OK… However… It will take us 5 to 10 years to accelerate our program back up to speed. Where will the Chinese be then? It took us less than 10 years to go from first manned flight to moon landing. How long do you think it will take the Chinese when they can buy most of that technology from Russia?
So there you have it folks. Paranoid and misguided though they are, the Chinese government has the will to safely launch men into space. The US, on the other hand, spends it’s time making sure that the thermal foam sprayed on the Space Shuttle is good for the environment.
It isn’t all that often that a dispute between tech companies makes national news, but that’s just what is beginning to happen with the AMD vs. Intel lawsuit. Analysts are starting tolook closely at Intel’s business practices and wonder if they are illegal, and if not, whether they should be.
I don’t know if AMD will be able to prove illegal activity, but they have certainly proved that there are too many easy ways around the anti-trust laws in this country. Can it be that MS and Intel will re-create the business environment of the industrial revolution? I certainly hope not.
Intel is starting to defend itself against AMD’s abuse of monopoly charges. They appear to be using the “discounts for good customers” type of defense that we heard from Microsoft in the late 90’s. If that’s all they have to say on the matter, then I believe they are in deep trouble.
Rewarding big customers is fine, right up until you become a monopoly. When you reach the point where you effectively have control of the market, you lose the right to do so. If you need an example of what can happen when monopolies have the ability to fix prices, just open a history book to the chapters about the industrial revolution. John D. Rockefeller taught us a lesson on why we can’t allow a single company to control the prices in a market. Oh… By the way… He managed to control the oil market with a 90% share. That’s exactly the same number that Intel has right now.
The argument that AMD brought this on themselves by not investing in fab plants is just as ludicrous. How exactly was AMD supposed to pay for these supposed plants if they were kept to a limit of 10% of the market by the business practices of their competitor?
In the end, we need to re-learn the lessons that were so severely beaten into our heads at the beginning of the twentieth century. The biggest of these lessons is that any market controlled by a single entity is no longer a free market. If the market is not free, then all consumers suffer.
If I may, I would like to publicly thank one of your members, Cleake, for sharing his knowledge and helping me with some questions on Game boy games.
I am a mom that knows enough about computers to go bye and work with them, but zero about games.
I was navigating the Internet looking for an answer on pirate Taiwanese games, so I could answer a question on the games I am trying to sell, when I found your website. I thought I should venture to write and perhaps I may get an answer from these group of people that know so much about the world of computers.
Mr. Cleake gave me not only the answer I needed to be honest when selling my games but an array of explanations to very unusual things written in the boxes of these Japanese Version games. Now, everything makes so much sense, for a while I thought I was breaking the law by owning such games. As I told him, I have learned more about this subject in 3 days that in all my life and for once I feel I know more about a subject in game boy games (pirate copies) than my kids. Thanks again for having these website. Regular people like me may not understand most of what you guys/girls are saying in your website but it is very reassuring to know that you guys are willing to help us. Thanks Mr. Cleake again.
Ari
I’m really not sure what to make of this… but the non-profit Mozilla foundation has spawned off a corporate stepchild. It isn’t without precedent… Apache and Cygnus are similar concepts… I’m just worried that a big, public switch from an Open Source ideology to a corporate mentality will result in further mass defections to the dark side.
Just to be clear… nobody in the Open Source community has suggested that the “Open” adjective be removed, but I fear that it is coming. As these folks get more and more profitable, and thus more and more accountable to stockholders, the concept of exclusivity will get more and more attractive.
If you need any examples of this type of thing happening, just take a look at Microsoft. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, it was common knowledge that Microsoft would “never, never, ever copy protect their software". Though that is, very strictly speaking, still true, is it really true in practice? The original concept was that joe everyuser would take home a corporate copy of the software, install it on his machine and get addicted. It’s not a new strategy. It has been used by drug dealers for ages. The strategy worked… only too well. Now most corporations are so addicted to Windows that they can never break free.
Linux, Mozilla, Apache and other OSS packages were created by a dedicated community that had the high ideal of providing a publicly owned code base that everyone could build on. It would be terrible if big money started exercising control over something like that. It would be even worse if we found out that we were just fooled by a different kind of drug dealer.
Once again, Microsoft is tightening restrictions on the use of it’s software in yet another “anti-piracy” drive. I still have a problem with Microsoft’s requirement that I buy a new copy of Windows every time I upgrade my machine beyond a certain point. It’s about like telling me that I have to get a new monitor every time I upgrade my motherboard, or additional copies of a CD if I want to play it in my car.
I don’t practice or condone piracy, but someone has gotta stop these people. The root cause of piracy is Microsoft’s inability to find a reasonable way to regulate the distribution of their software. I don’t have an answer for their problem, but I know that accusing people of theft because they upgrade their equipment often is a really bad option.
Unlike many OSS advocates, I don’t have a big problem with Microsoft’s software products. I don’t even have a problem with them making a profit on it. What I have a BIG problem with is the arrogance that they display with their licensing arrangements and predatory business practices. With Windows XP, they convinced us that it was OK for them to keep an enormous database that tracked every machine that runs Windows. Now we see that they will be using it against us.
Every time Microsoft shows a slowdown in growth, they tighten the stranglehold on their own customers. This time it’s only free upgrades that are denied to those who are “unclean". It’s only a small step beyond the Big Brother inspired database that came out with XP, but I shudder to think what’s next.
OK.. I’m an admitted Open Source lover. This site runs on Linux, and I promote Firefox via the big Icon at the top of the page. I only use Windows when I’m playing games, or when my job dictates that I must. Having said all of that, I’m beginning to wonder if we aren’t seeing a little bit of unfairness in the way the online press treats the Open Source debate.
Last night I got an email from SpreadFirefox.com indicating that they had been hacked, and that any information I had given them may have been accessed. I hadn’t used any of my normal passwords on the site, so I wasn’t worried. Just for the record: I’d like to thank them for the warning. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Mea Culpa from someone who was hacked.
Here’s where I thought that things were getting strange: I looked through the RSS feeds for all of my tech-oriented sites, and found only a brief mention of the incident at TheRegister.com. If this had been a break-in at one of Microsoft’s sites, it would have been front page news! People would have jumped up on their soapboxes declaring that this was just another example of Microsoft’s inept security, and that Microsoft can’t keep their own servers secure, how can they keep yours secure, and blah blah blah. When the same thing happens with the (arguably) largest Open Source browser distributor, there is mostly silence.
I think that the Open Source community should hold itself to the same standard that they hold Microsoft to. I’m not saying that they should start screaming and waving their hands at the SpreadFirefox break-in, they should be a lot kinder when the same thing happens to Microsoft. We should all tone down the shouting and try to come up with a way for both sides to contribute. Shouting and waving your arms doesn’t accomplish anything except to increase the tension in the debate.
Update:
While I was writing this, someone apparently posted something to /. It seems to me that there should have been something at least 12 hours earlier.
Well, somebody has destroyed everything that it means to be a geek. According to this Reuters story, The White Collar Slacker’s Handbook is full of high-tech secrets for fooling your boss into thinking that you are working. Now that the secrets are out, everyone will know how to spot the signs of a slacking Geek! It seems as though a lot of Geeks are going to have to learn how to work for a living all over again. Then again… Is the average boss smart enough to understand any of these tactics? Maybe not.
… it could very well be. Earlier today, I stumbled across a theregister.com reference to a message about Dell’s customer support forums shutting down. When I followed the link myself, I saw something that said “The Message you are trying to access has been deleted. Please update your bookmarks". It also appears as though the forums are back up.
Normally, I would have expected to either see an apology by Dell about the confusion, or the original message that theregister.com saw. Instead I saw something that made me suspicious about both sides of the debate.
One thing I can say about Dell’s customer service… It’s about as bad as you can get. My own horror story involves a laptop that was waiting on an “unobtainable part", then was said to be lost, after which Dell questioned whether I had actually sent them a laptop. 3 months later, my laptop arrived… completely unannounced. All of my complaints were either met by the very same form letter (8 times), or an incomprehensible reply in broken English. I haven’t bought anything from them since.
According to Reuters, the creator of the Sasser worm got off with a suspended sentence in a German court. I guess the German courts don’t mind encouraging this kind of behavior in their teenagers. The punishment should be much more of a deterrent than a simple “I feel your pain". In my book, being a nerd with poor social skills is no excuse for causing millions of dollars worth of damage, even if you are only 17. Heck… most of the people I know fit that profile, including ME. None of them have ever committed a crime worse than downloading a movie.
So… To recap… A 17 year old kid intentionally created and refined a virus that is credited with more damage than any other. In the view of the court in his mother country, he was too young and too much of an a**hole to be held to the standards of law. Therefore, he is free to go back to his status of hero among his group of twisted anti-social virus-writing fans. No punishment is given, no reparations for any of his victims, and no real guarantee that he won’t do it again. Nice deterrent.
In a move that the US government should follow, The European Parlaiment voted down a proposed patent law that would standardize patents across Europe. It looks like the main sticking point involved the patenting of software.
Now if only we could get Congress to be a little more sane about the issue. The one-click shopping patent is atrocious, along with patents for methods of tying shoes. If we were to restrict patents to applied science and keep them out of the business space, we wouldn’t have people arguing that a background color was a business method, and therefore, deserving of a patent.
Intellectual property laws in this country were originally intended to allow the inventor/artist to take advantage of his own genius and allow him to earn back his development costs. Laws that were intended to encourage the little guy to strike out on his own have been twisted into something that protects big markets for the first big guy to win a lawsuit. The USPTO is long overdue for a major overhaul. Unfortunately, it won’t happen in the near future. As long as big companies are providing our lawmakers with their largest source of income, we’ll be stuck with the current situation. After all, what “honest” politician will tear up his own meal ticket?
I was doing my usual browse of the news feeds, trying to find a cute story or two to make a smartass remark about, when I stumbled upon a gem about Internet addiction in China. Go ahead… read the article, and see if you agree with my take on it.
Back so soon? OK… did you notice how there was lots of talk about Internet addiction, but the only actual obsessions mentioned were video games, with a brief nod to chat rooms? Did you also notice the mention of a dubious clear liquid meant to re-balance the brain? C’mon guys, you gotta be able to do better than that. If this clear liquid is such wonderful stuff, why don’t you tell us all about it so that the entire world could benefit from the brain-saving elixir? Why not also mention that the Chinese government is so deathly afraid of the information freedom of the Internet that they will do anything to discredit it? Didn’t the phrase “eroding public morality” tip you off?
I’m certain that there are people obsessed with video games. In fact, I’ve known a few… and I’ve even been there a couple of times myself (Civilization, Starcraft), although not at the level of these kids. You’ve got to remember that obsessions of this magnitude are not themselves diseases, but symptoms of a deeper problem that won’t be cured simply by denying the afflicted of their craving. I’m disappointed that I found something that is such obvious Chinese government propaganda coming out of AP.
More and more large companies are using the Internet equivalent of vermin to spread their message. It’s an alarming trend that is a bad omen for those of us who spend a great deal of time online. The cost of this type of behavior just keeps on going up, as the spyware vendors make their annoying wares more difficult to remove from a PC.
Personally, I think that the most appropriate way to handle this kind of thing is to fine those who create AND those who use this type of advertising. Make the fine approximately the same dollar figure as the projected cost for a consulting company to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, there are too many lawyers in the world for such a practical remedy to be legal.
Until the lawyers and politicians come to there senses, the best course of action is to boycott anyone you see mentioned in a spyware ad. Period. Minimum: 1 year. Google into spyware? go with Yahoo. Yahoo into spyware? go with MSN. Since we know all of these guys have been implicated, how about Alta Vista? Just remember that there are always alternatives.
The real solution is to shortchange those who will sell their integrity for a few bucks, and the best way to do that is to make a major dent in the wallets of the cowards who pay them. Boycotting is only the first step in an effective anti-spyware campaign. Step two, which is something that is caused by the boycott, is to sell off stock in companies who advertise via spyware. Make the spyware campaign a net loss to the suits and they will pull their money out within nanoseconds. If the money goes away, the spyware goes away.
…And for pete’s sake NEVER click-through on a spyware ad.
One last thing… Don’t take “plausible deniability” as an excuse. If a major company tries to tell you that they are unaware of their involvement in spyware because they don’t track every dollar they spend on advertising… call them liars, or extremely bad businessmen. An advertising campaign that doesn’t track Return On Investment is something that just shouldn’t happen. I would make sure that I sold off any stock I had in a company with a management that stupid.
In the end, the government isn’t going to help. Politicians and lawyers will make speeches and arguments, they’ll pat each other on the back and tell you to vote for them, but the spyware won’t go away. This situation calls for a real people’s revolt, and I’m hoping one starts soon. Only by speaking with our wallets will we be able to kill this scourge off.
It seems that the debate over paid inclusion on search engines is beginning to heat up again. The problem never fully went away. It was just masked by the dot-bomb explosion and the browser wars of the late 90’s.
For those uninitiated or too young to remember the days when Netscape was ubiquitous, paid inclusion is pretty much what it sounds like. Web sites pay a fee to be included at the top of the results page for certain keywords regardless of rank. In the old days, this kind of thing was done regularly and without any indication of which sites had paid the fee. As net surfers ended up with search results that were less and less relevant to their queries, they began to complain.
Nowadays, Google has added the “sponsored links” sections at the top and right-hand side of the results. Like most people, I have no problem with this as long as they are clearly marked. The complaint is that Google has been marking these less and less clearly lately.
We’ll keep an eye on this debate here at ShamelessGeeks and let you know of any further developments.
Rumor has it that Apple will use the Pentium M for it’s Macintosh line. As of this moment, it is only speculation, but it is the only speculation that makes sense. If Apple remains true to their nature, they will go with the only current Intel chip that can hold a candle to AMD. If they try to jump on the MHz bandwagon, they will find that it is broken down.
Despite the obvious controversy incitement attempt, here is an article on how Windows is increasing it’s enterprise market share. Windows is pulling ahead slightly as companies continue to invest more in their infrastructure. However, the conclusion that Windows is “wiping the floor” with Linux is FUD of the highest order, and isn’t based on any facts mentioned in the article. It sounds a lot like the idiots who said that Linux would make Windows extinct by the end of the decade. I guess poor reporters have to generate controversy somehow.
The increase in Windows usage seems to be an indicator of two things:
The swing isn’t away from Linux to Windows, it is away from higher-priced Unix systems to Windows. A lot of this is due to the fact that the Unix world has been slow to move away from the world of six-figure server systems that they lived in for years. It’s hard to convince people to spend hundreds of $K on a whizzbang super system when you can get nearly the same functionality from a souped-up high-end PC. Now that Microsoft has improved security, the final argument for large systems is getting weaker by the day. As the justifications for big systems shrink, Windows is the logical choice for many companies.
I ran into this Forbes article about Larry McVoy’s defection from Linus Torvalds, and I have to agree with a lot of what he says. Unfortunately for him, he only has about half of the story.
The point about Open Source not being as lucrative as commercially written software is well taken. If the world were to switch exclusively to an OSS business model, software developers and the companies that employ them would probably have to take enormous pay cuts, causing a mass exodus from the industry. Fortunately, most sane people aren’t really suggesting this. His final point about an eventual balance between OSS and traditional business models tends to say that he isn’t suggesting it either. That’s good, but he is only about halfway there.
His point about OSS folks not being able to make innovative software while making a profit is almost, but not quite correct. It certainly hasn’t happened yet, but that’s mostly because OSS companies haven’t hit their stride yet. They still face huge bills for legal battles and FUD control that could easily wipe out any small company’s IRAD budget. In addition, most of the OSS companies out there either make their profits by creating distributions or selling their expertise to others. Distribution companies have their hands full just incorporating the changes introduced by others. The “expert” companies, which McVoy calls “loss leaders for hardware companies", are the ones who do all of the innovations… becuse that’s what they are paid to do. Interestingly, McVoy gets the “loss leader” part right, but seems to think that it is something to be ashamed of. It’s something that many companies have made a living off of for decades.
The assertion that traditional companies are the only ones who can afford innovation is just a big load of bunk. Who can afford it is irrelevant… who actually does it is important.
Innovation in a stodgy old traditional company can cost several times as much as in a small, reactive company. If you add the fact that innovation is always risky, you will find that the traditional companies are completely uninterested in innovating. Take the example of Microsoft. You are unlikely to find anything truly new that was invented there. All of the so-called innovation was actually acquired from little companies after the viability of the technology was already proven. Big companies don’t invent, they acquire.
In the end, OSS is probably here to stay, but it won’t wipe out the traditional software industry. We’ll end up with some sort of balance, and there will be plenty of innovation to go around. We should listen to McVoy, but we should always remember that he’s is a bit miffed when he projects the amount of money he may have lost by giving his product away. Some of the companies that contribute to OSS will lose out, just like with any risky venture. Consumers, on the other hand, should be grateful to OSS. It’s the only thing keeping the “big boys” honest.
It looks like someone over at TheRegister.com has come up with a justification for suing spyware removal vendors. As we all know, once someone finds a justification for it, the lawyers will start swarming. Luckily, there is no argument that would allow the “stealth” downloading that happens on some sites, only the spyware installed as part of a downloaded program with an honest-to-goodness EULA.
Thanks guys… Big help. Not happy about their lack of foresight in releasing this article, and not happy that they are advocates for the spyware houses. However, it shows ho any lawyer can make anything beneficial look illegal, while making anything shady look pristine.
Here’s a novel idea: stop downloading spyware!. It’s usually pretty obvious which application will load spyware on your machine. If not, then it is information that you will find all over the web. Here’s the first clue: If what the software is doing is something that is illegal, immoral, or shady, there is a good chance that it will have spyware in its payload. People who have no problem justifying one slightly illegal or immoral thing are unlikely to have a problem justifying another. Examples: P2P apps, DVD rippers, and anything downloaded from a porn site are likely to have big spyware.
This is a thorny question that tends to evoke passionate answers. USA Today has a pretty fair analysis about teen blogging, though I think their report missed a few options. I’ve actually allowed one of my teens to blog from my server. It gives her much better control of her own page, as well as someone to turn to with technical questions.
I’m aware that most people don’t have root access to a server. An alternative is to pay for a site on one of the many low-cost website servers out there. The teen will end up with a better web page, giving them access to a much better range of services. The parent will have easy access to the teen’s web site without having to sneak around behind the kid’s back. Everybody wins.
The most important thing is to let your teens know how bad things can get if they give out personal information. I’ve spent quite a few years lecturing my kids on the unspeakable dangers of the internet. I think it’s had the desired effect, but only time will tell.
The man with political bent
makes even the guiltless repent.
From poor men he’ll steal
and make rich men to feel
entitled to every cent!
It looks like those geeks who have gone to the dark side of programming (and I’m not talking about management this time) have a new way to steal your money. Its a form of extortion that has been dubbed “ransomware”. It involves a malware infection that encrypts your files and demands that you pay to have them unlocked.
Actually… this sounds like it could be a hoax to me. It seems unlikely that a criminal genius would actually have you mail him a ransom payment. Of course, I have seen dumber schemes that have hit people up for millions of dollars… but I’m accustomed to seeing them come out of Washington DC.
Found this Reuters article that points out how the gaming industry is losing it’s less skilled customers because games are no longer fun. There is an element of truth in that statement that is hard to ignore.
One of the problems is that the gaming industry has been self-absorbed lately. Only big-time gamers get to rate the games, so only the biggest, baddest, most complicated games get good reviews. A secondary problem seems to be that the game manufacturers exercise too much control over the game reviewers. Reviewers are loathe to pan a big, expensive game for fear that they will be taken off the list of “friendly” reviewers by the manufacturers.
Luckily, you won’t find anything like that on ShamelessGeeks. We don’t make any money, we don’t get any free games, and we don’t appear on the game manufacturers radar scopes. What you get here is honest opinion. We don’t have anything to lose by annoying Sony or MS or anyone else.
Orson Scott Card has a few choice words about the demise of the Star Trek franchise. Card is right about the poor writing and shallow acting, but I think he misses the point completely. Could it be that he’s suffering a bit too much from sci-fi snobbery to see what’s just past the end of his nose? Probably.
Well… here it is… its called: *drumroll* Pulp Sci-Fi. History has always shown that the best selling entertainment is anything bland that allows for an escape. This applies to fiction, comedy, music, writing, and yes, Sci-Fi. Star Trek was immensely popular because it was entertaining, and it slowly lost popularity as it lost it’s entertainment value. Card’s theory that we outgrew Star Trek is only partially true. The franchise could easily have grown with us, but instead, it started to decay.
I tend to gravitate more toward hard sf when I choose a book, but I have no problem with something that has a little bit of a logic problem. I’ll even watch Roland Emmerich films. I was one of those geeks who loved the movie Independence Day even though I winced a little when Jeff Goldblum did his famous impossible upload. So what… It was still fun. It was the Sci-Fi equivalent of a car jumping 500 feet over a canyon and landing on the other side unscathed. Neither event will ever happen, but I wouldn’t be able to turn away from the screen when they happen.
The only response I have for Card is: Loved your books, hate your attitude.
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