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Comment: Re:How long does he think those books will last? (Score 1) 669

by MadeInUSA (#36497914) Attached to: The End of Paper Books

And how long do you expect the digital copies to last? If most of these books were available as freely copiable files, there would be some hope that enough copies would survive in digital media. But what about DRMed copies? Do you think that the few servers actually storing the books in plaintext would survive longer than physical books? That's the point of TFA.

Comment: Re:Monkey Island (Score 1) 480

by MadeInUSA (#36357640) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Adventure Game To Start With?

I agree - Monkey Island doesn't support Multiplayer but you can try to solve the puzzles together, which are difficult but hilarious. It's really the best choice for this age, and like a Pixar movie, it has jokes for all ages, understood differently by all ages (think Shrek).

If you are looking for something with more action without much of a plot (considering that you mentioned Diablo), you might also want to try Nintendo's Super Metroid. It's very action oriented but it has some great puzzles and it will challenge her motor skills as much as her intellect. There is a great review for the game here : http://blitzky.com/2011/05/30/super-metroid/.

Comment: Oh don't worry (Score 2) 370

by MadeInUSA (#36207678) Attached to: Why You Shouldn't Panic Over Mac Malware

Don't worry, huh? There are more Androids than Apple computers out there... While I believe some people store pretty important information on their phones and "pads", I tend to think that malware in a deskptop is a much more serious threat to people - maybe because most people store their most personal and sensitive information in desktops?

Comment: Re:capitalism fail (Score 1) 295

by MadeInUSA (#36207580) Attached to: IBM Now Officially Worth More Than Microsoft

and this is why the current implementation of capitalism is fatally flawed, it is founded on fraud, deception, and innuendo. facebook is valued at $50 billion dollars even though it makes very little money and will wither and die just like every other hit social network when something else comes out.

Wow, and this was modded "Insightful"? Capitalism is flawed because it allows people to try to anticipate the future? The reason facebook is worth 50bn is because there is a large number of people (or a small number of people with large means and beliefs) that think that it either produces lots of good and services (not the case) or WILL produce lots of goods and services (it does produce services and looks like it will produce more in the future).

Capitalism is also about trying to anticipate the future and allocating resources to more productive venues or potentially more productive venues. 30 years ago, many people would also doubt that MS would amount to anything - and, for good and for bad, it produced the infrastructure that allowed hundreds of millions, if not more than a billion, people to be productive with computers. And today, not many people think that MS will keep producing more and more products that will be useful to people so its valuation reflects that.

People can frequently wrong, so it's possible that facebook will amount to nothing. But giving the opportunity for people to invest on businesses they believe on is what is right with capitalism.

Comment: Amazon tried it (Score 1) 374

by MadeInUSA (#36151264) Attached to: Valve's Newell: One-Price-For-Everyone Business Model 'Broken'

10 years ago Amazon tried providing differentiated pricing for different customers under the same premise: they would charge based on what the customer is willing to pay. It was a catastrophe. Angry customers would complain that their loyalty was being punished by higher prices.

Unfortunately, this happens to be one of those ideas that look good on paper but are bad in practice. A much better system than paying $60 for each game is basically letting the free market decide - this is the current model Amazon and other retailers employ. They have sophisticated algorithms to ensure maximum profits for the retailers and take in consideration the desires and moods of the masses. You might think that these algorithms would ensure "maximum rip offs", but at the end it creates the generally "fair" prices that many popular internet retailers charge.

Comment: Maybe there is another reason (Score 2) 298

by MadeInUSA (#36132058) Attached to: Western Washington Univ. Considers Cutting Computer Science
I read lots of comments here saying how software companies only want outsource everything and how CS is doomed based on the decision of one minor university in Washington State. You are wrong. I work as a manager in a major software company and frequently participate in interviewing and hiring decisions for jobs with 6-figure salaries. There is still a HUGE demand for good software people - HUGE. Even in the depths of the recession, we had a hard time finding good, qualified people. Then you might say - I know 100s of unemployed IT/Software professionals, what are you talking about? The problem is that high technology doesn't require some average guy from some average washington state university. Computers are complicated beasts. Writing good software is HARD. Most of the people who come in for an interview tank it very badly - they simply don't get it. So without going much ahead in why most people in this profession aren't qualified and won't ever be qualified for a high end software job, it's possible that simply this university doesn't have a good CS department and didn't have a future as a competitive college in a field with such high requirements - we did have some very good interviewing runs at major american universities, where americans and people from other countries were hired. It really doesn't make a difference if the university is american, indian, chinese or brazilian. When good people are rare, you need to look for people everywhere. But relatively speaking, we still find the majority of good people in the United States. Or it's just that the dean is an idiot and it says nothing about the future of the CS field - he could be making a bad business decision and that's all there is to say about TFA.

Comment: Awful but how about parenting? (Score 1) 916

by MadeInUSA (#36061504) Attached to: Evolution Battle Brews In Texas
This isnt' a good development for sure - why not teach that the world was not only designed, but designed by an elephant-head god or some other mythical figure incompatible with the western traditional? But well, our children are being taught that the world could have been created by a god with a white, caucasian son resembling us. Now, most here can see at least the potential absurdity of that - so why don't you teach that to your f*** children? Why does everybody assume that our destiny is to be indocrinated by the state school and we, citizens, can't educate our children or even the child of others through artistic and cultural production? Educate your child! Go spread the world of science. Write a blog, Recommend others to read Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World. But stop bitching about Texas - I was raised in full catholic traditional but it took only my mom (who's catholic) showing me Carl Sagan videos in the 80s as an educational option for me to think and abandon religion. This is part of a line of thought that believes that state school is the ultimate medium for education. Kids hate school and most times don't give a damn about what's being taught there. It's the example that we set to our children and to our peers in society that matters the most. While that I'd prefer that Texas took a more objective view of this subject, our children can still learn evolution - in spite of the Texas school board.

Comment: I love Linux, but... (Score 1) 648

by MadeInUSA (#35727172) Attached to: Bashing MS 'Like Kicking a Puppy,' Says Jim Zemlin
This kind of grandiose and untrue statement just makes "Linux People" look weird and niche. Linux achieved a lot and will still achieve a lot more in the future, but there is no way Linux has beaten MS - not for end users, not in enterprises and not in mindshare. The (unfortunate) reality outside of ./ is that few people know Linux and everybody knows Microsoft - and most of these people actually USE Microsoft products. And again, why should we really care about this? The market is much more competitive than it was years ago. There are other huge companies growing and possibly displacing Microsoft, like Google and Apple. While MS is still a formidable company and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future, what about Apple products (a more valuable company than MS in market cap and as commercial and proprietary as they come)? Does Linux should try to beat that too? No, I say, Linux should strive to be the best it can be, focus on users and stop worrying about some nonsense ideological battle against big companies that provide useful products that many people actually love.

Comment: Re:Lucky for you... (Score 1) 373

by MadeInUSA (#35716006) Attached to: Google Fights Back Against Android Fragmentation

Lucky for you, Google's model for maximizing profit depends on a free and open internet based on freely implemented standards. And they do that so they can keep making a bundle providing the best internet search tool around (with the least obtrusive advertising model). That means Google makes money by making Android exactly what you want it to be. A pretty good deal all around. No wonder nobody's screaming that they're against software freedom - they're not.

Nobody? RTFA! This post is exactly about how Google is beginning to restrict software freedom.

Comment: Re:Well they have a point (Score 1) 373

by MadeInUSA (#35710914) Attached to: Google Fights Back Against Android Fragmentation
Do they have a point? Google's point is no different than Microsoft's, Oracle's, Apple's etc point when they want to protect their technologies to maximize profit. I don't think profit maximization is evil, but let's be clear here: if any other, older company was doing the same, bullets would fly from people screaming that company X, Y and Z are against software freedom. I think Google is doing the right thing for its shareholders, but the goal was NEVER software freedom: google is a profit making being. Adopting free software was part of the profit making strategy, and making the platform more closed now that it enjoys a substantial market share is just the obvious consequence of that.

Comment: Re:Not even 15 minutes of fame... (Score 1) 141

by MadeInUSA (#35679378) Attached to: 50% of Tweets Consumed Come From<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.05% of Users

So when only few but possibly really interested people are following your posts compared with thousands not really interested but still following some small starlet that is sad - why? One more thing as a side note really: there are of course quite some that are obsessed with starlet sex life too but I guarantee you that you do not want to be followed by those. So here we are - comparing mob against few friends.

Yeah, this is a good point. It always seemed to me that twitter got popular becuase people wanted to be startlets and be followed by the mob. Not that everybody who uses twitter wants that, but I think the possibility of being a star appeals to lots of people. I think there are other services that are probably better if all you want is to be followed by close friends.

Comment: If it works against MS, why not for MS? (Score 1) 205

by MadeInUSA (#35678800) Attached to: Microsoft Files EU Competition Complaint Against Google
In the past, MS was constantly harassed by competitors and governments, which added significantly to its cost in maintaining things like Windows versions without Windows Media Player and search engine choice dialogs. If competitors are doing things that are similar to what MS did in the past and got punished for, why wouldn't MS want to make sure they got punished too? Isn't it fair that if MS is subject to these costs, its competitors get also hit by then? Ultimately, it would be great if governments didn't micromanage the technology market and innovative companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft were allowed to create products that satisfy their customers without congressional hearings. But it isn't fair if only MS pays while everybody else does whatever they want.

Comment: Not even 15 minutes of fame... (Score 3, Insightful) 141

by MadeInUSA (#35676310) Attached to: 50% of Tweets Consumed Come From<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.05% of Users
Twitter was originally conceived as a way for everyone to voice their thoughts and provide visibility to others into their lives. After this, my only conclusion is that NO, technology by itself won't make everybody famous and followed. Things happen in the twitterverse just as they happen in the real world, that is, most people disappear in their irrelevance while a few get followed and admired by everybody. Sad but true, you're lucky if you even get your 15 minutes of fame...
