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Comment Re:Wow, they trained you good! (Score 1) 507

Physical goods are not the same as digital media, or ideas and concepts. Different rules of supply and demand apply to them, because in the abstract world scarcity is only artificially imposed by keeping secrets. The law of karma is far more important here, because you rely on your clients being honorable. If you screw enough people over, someone who has your content will get pissed at you and start offering it for free. And others who might have been willing to pay a reasonable price, will now get it for free.

This is not good, or bad. It is the nature of this economy. Play nice, offer something of value, and listen to your target audience, and you can be profitable. Be greedy and try to control everything and people will laugh at you as they distribute your precious "secret" to everyone who wants it.

Comment Re:Thank you, Captain Obvious! (Score 2, Interesting) 256

I've never read a user interface design article or book that I found insightful. Bickerydyke is right, this article completely glosses over the actual evolution of our current icons and how they changed people's expectations to what they are today. Instead, he poses some contrived gradient scale of reality -> cartoon and posits this as the only relevant factor.

Who writes these things? All the "UI experts" I've seen seem to take their field in isolation of everything else, which completely defeats the purpose of UI planning. The overall concept is pretty simple, you have to figure out a way to connect the abstract model of your software with something tangible for the user. This requires deep understanding of what problem the software is trying to solve, and the user's prior experience and expectations. You can't get around that by applying some magic formula to arrive at the "perfect" UI. Take your one size fits all t-shirts and get the hell out.

Comment Re:Linux Port (Score 1) 34

The developer, Splash Damage, seems willing to do a Linux port if the publisher, Bethesda, gives them the green light.

What they fail to mention is that developers are almost always willing to do linux ports if the publisher gives them the green light (translation: foots the bill). And that publishers rarely do pay for it. Erm, give the green light.

Ah I see. So what they're really looking for is green paper.

Censorship

FTC Says Virtual Worlds Bad For Minors 355

eldavojohn writes "A new report from the FTC is claiming minors have access to explicit content via online virtual worlds such as those found in online games. The report makes five recommendations to keep little Johnny away from the harms of Barrens chat: Use more effective age-screening mechanisms to prevent children from registering in adult virtual worlds; Use or enhance age-segregation techniques to make sure that people interact only with others in their age group; Re-examine language filters to ensure that they detect and eliminate messages that violate rules of behavior in virtual worlds; Provide more guidance to community enforcers in virtual worlds so they are better able to review and rate virtual world content, report potential underage users, and report any users who appear to be violating rules of behavior; and Employ a staff of specially trained moderators who are equipped to take swift action against rule violations."

Comment Re:Modern-Day Galileo (Score 2, Insightful) 1747

Any "scientist" who works to "shut up" the opposition, has ceased to be a scientist and has turned into a political creature. Science is not about manipulation but about free and open discussions based upon the merits of the arguments.

Yes, the scientific way to silence an idiot is to ask him lots of hard questions, and let him keep the floor as long as he's able. When he can't answer those questions to the audience's satisfaction, then it's time to deliver your own answers. For those of you who feel that this is cruel and/or wrong, do you not feel a moral obligation to prevent a speaker from misguiding his audience? There's nothing discriminatory about asking questions. If the speaker has the answer, then he can educate the audience. If he can't then someone else will step in to take up the slack.

Google

The Noisy and Prolonged Death of Journalism 388

The war of words between the old and the new media is heating up some more. Eric Schmidt has an op-ed in Rupert Murdoch's WSJ (ironic, that) explaining to newspapers how Google wants to, and is trying to, help them. Kara Swisher's BoomTown column translates and deconstructs Schmidt's argument, hilariously. A few days back, the Washington Post's Michael Gerson became the latest journo to bemoan the death of journalism at the hands of the Internet; and investigative blogger Radley Balko quickly called B.S. on Gerson's claim that (all?) bloggers simply steal from (all?) hard-working, honest, ethical print journalists.
Open Source

Is Linux Documentation Lacking? 769

eldavojohn writes "A number of blog posts are surfacing that are calling out the helpful open source community on their documentation. No, not the documentation for the highly skilled technical people, but the documentation from beginner to apprentice. A two-part series by Carla Schroeder lists bad documentation as 'Linux Bug #1' and advises users to use Google as the documentation. We've discussed before some of open source's documentation being out of date. Is it really as bad as these blogs paint it? Has it come down to using Google before a man page?"

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