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Comment Re:I'm Working on Software To Do Just That (Score 1) 259

That's exactly what I was talking about.
Picasa 3 is a very useful image management application, it does face recognition pretty well, but for large image sets it's a PITA to stay focused and put stuff in order. Same goes for pretty much any other media management system out there.
Yes, gamification should really be something to consider, something like image-based Tetris, tag mix-and-match, image-based memory games, etc.

That's exactly why, when I want to listen to music, I usually do that by playing Audiosurf.
It's just feedback, feel free to ignore it, but I just gave you an idea that might help you make a shitload of money. Or not. Your choice :)

Comment Re:I'm Working on Software To Do Just That (Score 1) 259

Your application, although very useful, suffers from the same issue all other similarly-oriented applications do: it's boring.
I appreciate your efforts, but you should really ask yourself: what does my app bring to the market? Why would a potential customer use my application and not one of the very many others that are out there?

Comment Mind Memory (Score 1) 259

About a week ago I was talking to a couple people who had a very interesting startup. They were working on an application which would "gamify" your media collection (images and videos) and let you play a game where you would identify and sort your digital memories.

I don't know where do they sit on this, maybe it was at concept stage, maybe it was more advanced, I didn't ask. But I'll ask and let you know. Sounded like a pretty neat concept, though, and I'd definitely buy such a game which would turn what's otherwise perceived as a chore into something useful and enjoyable.

Comment Re:Read one, write other (Score 1) 567

Agreed.
Also I don't really understand what "PC sales" actually means. Pre-built machines? Doh, obviously those are going to drop, as people become more tech.savvy and build their own (or ask a friend to do it for them). I, for one, never bought a pre-built PC, built my first one in 1996 and upgraded it a lot of times, then built a completely new one in 2001, upgraded it a lot of times as well, then in 2007 built another one from scratch and still upgrading parts of it (the only parts left from back then are the monitor, the PSU and the case).

Right now I have 2 PCs, 2 laptops, 3 smartphones and a tablet in my house. The old PC is 14 years old and still going strong, I'm amazed that the 2x40GB HDDs are still working, and I have no need for upgrading it. My wife uses it for her blogging and lightweight photo editing.

Comment Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score 1) 285

Same here. Ads that escape AdBlock in some clever way or the shit I'm seeing on browsers without AdBlock are a guarantee to never buy that shit or never visit that website.
There's a particular website in my country featuring very aggressive ads, and I specifically blocked that domain on all my machines and all my browsers so that I would never visit it, even by mistake. That's the effect their ads had on me.

Comment Re:Isn't that click fraud? (Score 1) 285

That's the root cause, yes.
Annoying ads caused AdBlock to appear, and AdBlock simply takes a blanket approach and removes ALL ads, annoying or not.
As an user, I am lazy and don't manually enable non-annoying ads, although I wish I would. It's next-to-impossible, though.

I have no problem with ads in general, as long as they behave. But for fuck's sake, don't release ads with SOUND. Listening to grave or lento music while browsing a site only to be blasted by some retarded, badly sounding Jigle Bells tune inviting me to buy Christmas-themed toilet paper is... let's just say it makes me a bit upset.

Comment Re:H1-B debate? (Score 1) 398

One former colleague from the USA is right now pushing things around at a big university there to have me hired (I'm Romanian) there for two reasons:

1. I'm very good at what I'm doing (and he knows it, having worked with me for 4 years);
2. I'm much cheaper than an USA-based worker.

Now, I understand that the influx of qualified offshore people is putting a rather painful downward pressure on USA salaries and I agree it's regretful. However, yelling and kicking and protesting won't help in the long term. You could, as a nation (sum of individuals) seize one of two choices:

a. isolate from foreigners (impose laws that make it very difficult to immigrate) or
b. accept the change.

Both choices have their own set of disadvantages.
Now, the idea of "cheap workers from a foreign country are crap from a skills perspective" is an idiotic generalization which stems mostly from cultural clashes. In a work environment, mixed teams are a retarded idea. Combine that with under-skilled liaisons (people who should carry work instructions or projects across) and culture enforcement (Kumar from Bangalore would never get "Cowboy Hat Friday", nor would Florin from Romania be willing to spend two hours in a meeting discussing the right way to represent African-American heritage in a picture for the latest product whitepaper) and you're in for a shitty work environment where nobody would feel comfortable being in.

One example I actually lived (generic names are put in for obvious reasons):

John from USA works in a remote support team and hits retirement age. The company decides to offshore his position and hires Pradeep from Hyderabad. Pradeep brings an impressive resume and is quite skilled at resolving his customer's issues. But Pradeep has a bit of MTI (Mother Tongue Influence) and his new customers and team mates aren't used to talking to anyone with a foreign accent. At the same time, the company is unsatisfied with the way the Indian team (supporting Indian customers) is abiding to the work instructions provided, so they send Jack, who's an accomplished, skilled support team manager, to India to "put things in order".
Three months later, it's becoming quite clear that both Pradeep and Jack have failed achieving their assigned goals. Pradeep is miserable at work, customers complain about him being "dense" and unintelligible and his team loathes him. Jack can't understand why his team doesn't like him, can't seem to get his orders across properly and hasn't managed to have them respect the corporate rules.

Lessons learned (in theory, practice sucks and we all know it):
Don't mix teams. Don't outsource the wrong jobs. Don't impose your culture over others.

Comment Re:Support the developers! (Score 5, Interesting) 91

Exactly what happened to me when I tried installing Sacred on my PC years after it was released. I had bought the original CDs and errors galore. Turns out the DRM was unable to work on the newer OSs, so I had to slam a crack in it. After mentioning that on their official forums, a moderator there sent me a PM saying "yes, we know about the issue, no, we can't help you but yes, we're okay with you using the crack as long as you bought the original game".

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