"The Problem Pit" by Fred Pohl. I forget how it ended... mass extinction? Incest? Everyone goes home happy?

A couple (>10) years back I was at Denis' Place for Games over on Belmont in Chicago. Found a wallet on the floor. Walked outside to find a cop, tried to hand him the wallet.

Cop: "Is there any money in it?"
Me: "No, I didn't check" *looks inside, finds 20 bucks*
Cop: "Keep the money, give me the wallet."
Me: *uncomprehending look*
Cop: "If I take this to the precinct, the money will be gone in minutes. You might as well get a reward".
Me: *looks suspiciously at the cop*
Cop: "Here, take it. Get out of here."
Me: Goes back in to play Mortal Kombat 2.

True story.

Is this "service pack 1" mentioned in the summary compatible with my XP installation?

If not, I'll wait for service pack 2 before installing sp1. It's just common sense.

Is it weird that I think this is a good thing for app developers? Along with some apps on the various app stores, I have an online store (PayPal, barf) that I use for selling video plug-ins. Since it's "my" store, I get all customer information every time there's a purchase. As a result, whenever I have updates or new products I like to be able to send out an email to all my customers with a promo code and a quick "Thanks for buying from me in the past, as a reward here's a discount code for some new stuff!"

I get a lot of new sales that way.

With these app stores, I don't have a lot of info about my customer other than the poorly managed review process, and in the case of Apple, the remarkably shitty "sales manager" window.

I like knowing who my customers are, it helps me be a better vendor. Of course, I'm not an evil email harvester or spambot.

If you're writing progress bars, I feel bad for you son.

I've got 99... wait, 45... wait... 85 problems and being trolled ain't one.

Mod this Anonymous Coward up. Niche markets are great for little side projects-- they tend to have a userbase that is starved for choice, so they are more inclined to spend money... and when you're talking software, a niche market can be comprised of hundreds of thousands of people.

AV covers more than lighting systems for home entertainment, it can involve visuals for nightclubs, cool DMX interfaces, etc. This industry has some nice perks (rock and roll, hookers and blow), and when you get into stadium-sized projects the money can be pretty breathtaking as well .

As a side note, what's the OP's problem with making 20 bucks? Do more advertising, expand your user base by 10000, and you've done quite well.

I read it in a game blog somewhere... it must be true!

My impression was that the prototype/proof-of-concept was built in flash, with (as you suggested) the native-code versions built later. I, of course, could be completely mistaken in which case I'm sure someone will correct me, preferably with an anecdotal car-analogy.

Flash compiles to Android and iOS without any problems-- beyond the hassle of dealing with the App store and developer certs of course.

Angry Birds was originally written in Flash. So was Canabault-- which you may not have heard of, but every "running" game out there owes a debt to. There's tons of iOS apps built in Flash.

I'd be perfectly happy to see flash off the browser and used for what it's best at-- desktop or mobile applications.

Before I get flamed for suggesting that Flash is an appropriate dev tool for mobile, keep in mind that a crappy app with a lame UI and tons of memory leaks is not the fault of the platform-- it's the fault of the programmer. JAVA, I'm looking at you here, with a degree of sympathy.

Some of us look forward to the inevitable shitstorm and think this kind of excitement is just... great!

Obligitory Animal House

They're more than welcome to check out my hometown (arkham, massachusets) or see where I went to school (Miskatonic U), or where I went to high school (sunnydale high).

Good point. The great thing about socializing in RL is the chance to be exposed to difference. That's one of the benefits of going away to college.

I wonder what this flattening/homogenization of socializing will do to the way people socialize in the long term, especially with kids now that are growing up with social media being the default method of interacting.

A free hotel room in exchange for watching a presentation is a good deal-- one where the terms are visible to both parties in advance.

An online service with dubious value with a murky TOS that nobody reads is not a good deal. What were people expecting? "I'll host all your pictures, provide all the sharing infrastructure, maintenance, platform upgrades and everything else FOR FREE, FOREVER?" Even if that was in the original TOS (there seems to be some debate about that) there's no reason Instawhatsit can't change their minds later on. "Pray I don't alter it further...."

Look, I agree that it's a crappy bait-and-switch, takes advantage of people's desire to socialize, and is generally kind of a dick move.

But we shouldn't act surprised, or be butt-hurt, when a "social media" company decides to monetize its free service... because we know what's going to happen. In a year, the kids are going to be all "Insta-what?" and the guys in suits are going to be looking at the ghost town that was their user base wondering what happened.

As far as I'm concerned, that's the cycle of (online) life... and that circle remains unbroken, by and by, oh lord... that circle remains unbroken.

What nitwit modded you insightful?

Look, I pay money for a hotel room-- that fee goes to an expected level of security. I pay nothing for Instagram's services-- no expectation of security, or of any service at all. Is instagram an online storage business? No. Therefore, the pictures you upload are not there for you to store-- they're for Instagram to use however they want... your pictures are free, as in beer.

Point of fact, since no one is paying you for your pictures, they are literally worth nothing.

Link to an XKCD in case you're still confused as to what storage, business, and free is.