I don't think tiffchow said she expects to get the change she wants and I don't think Sarkeesian is presuming to tell game developers what they can or can't do. In both cases, I think these women are expressing their particular point of view in a responsible way (one by thoughtfully commenting on HN; the other by creating a series of videos analyzing the issue). In other words, they are both "being grown ups" and "dealing with it." The fact that Sarkeesian is being attacked for pointing a spotlight on what she perceives to be misogyny in the industry is both telling and hypocritical.
I am a male gamer who has been playing games for over two decades and even I feel estranged by a majority of the "AAA games" the industry is pumping out these days. My solution is simple: I don't buy them. That said, I admire those that are taking it even further and trying to start an intelligent conversation about how the gaming medium can mature. To try and stop that discussion and, by extension, stunt the growth of such an expressive medium is absurd to me.
Nothing would stop an individual from purchasing a large amount of coffee from the hippie, processing it into pods, and selling those pods through the big chains. Sure, the hippie could refuse to sell you more coffee, but then he is no longer giving "other people the freedom to make [a] choice compatible with their personal beliefs." While I like the initial premise, I just don't think this comparison completely fits.
It fits completely. If you purchase the coffee, you've exchange money for coffee, and expressed rights. The same could be said for GPL'ed code. I can purchase the code with specific rights. MySQL is a prime example of this happening in the software world.
The hippie isn't selling coffee, he's giving it away with terms, but you can clearly lie to the hippie and use the fruits of his labor in a way in which he's specifically asked for them not to be used.
I think your second sentence is the thesis that the metaphor is trying to refute, though. Refusing to give you something under terms that you would like is not removing your freedom any more than any other copyright, it's offering you an option other than growing your own.
Um, the analogy clearly states that the hippie is selling the beans:
A better comparison would be that someone writing free software is like a hippie
who grows his own coffee beans and sells them at the side of the road by his farm
Wow, I remember actually going back to check that and I still got it wrong. Must have been distracted by something shiny. Criticism still applies, though. Part of the cost of buying the coffee is his terms. He's giving you an option that you didn't have before, but if the cost is too high, there's always Starbucks.
Free/open source software is not a gift, even an MIT license does not give you total freedom to do whatever you want.
To make a pure gift of code to the world, you would have to put it in the public domain (and even then there are odd legal issues in some jurisdictions).
First, I agree with a point that others have raised regarding Siri "working" on rooted phones. Sure, it will run, but does it run well? Does it slow the phone down signficantly when in heavy use? Until we know for sure, I'm not going to get worked up about it.
Second, it is very possible that the technical limitation is server-side. Apple has a pretty spotty history with web services and limiting Siri to the iPhone 4S may just be a way to slowly scale the backend.
Third, I think it's pretty absurd to call out Apple's lack of support for old devices. The level of support still available for the 2.5-year-old iPhone 3GS is outstanding compared to other smart phones. Most people who _really_ care about having the newest tech are probably upgrading their phones every two years anyway. And, really, who can blame Apple for wanting to differentiate their products? I don't mind if that is the reason, but I would prefer an honest answer if that is the only reason.
On the iPhone 3GS, it works better than Voice Controls ever did and does not noticeably affect battery or memory use. When running, it's speex encoder uses very little CPU.
Recognition on the iPhone 3GS is not as accurate due to the lack of a noise-cancelling secondary mic, but that's a component the iPhone 4 shares with the iPhone 4S.
That doesn't change the fact that people who bought a 3GS 2.5 years ago are still getting significant updates to the hardware. Really, what better way is there to support a product than continue selling it?
If you want to look at the other options out there, Android is doing a terrible job. A number of Android phones don't even ship with the most recent version of the OS and some never see updates at all. It's getting better, but it's far from great.
But it doesn't -- there are many Android headsets that were obsolete when released (OS-wise) and then never updated. The situation with Android devices (at the high end) is getting better but it's too early to see what the situation will be like in 3 years.
While I tend to agree with everything - we should expect Apple to support the 3GS currently - they're still selling it! How much support will it get 6 months after it's not currently sold anymore?
I agree completely. Is this service farmed out to Mechanical Turk with the supposition that more eye is equal to higher quality? Or do you legitimately have qualified individuals reviewing these submissions?
I agree. A turk-based proofreading system might not be a bad idea- a few layers of suggestion verification and you could get a pretty good first-pass proofreading out of it. However, the lack of transparency makes this more than a little shady.
I'd love to request a copy, but the District of Columbia is not an option in the state field. I know we're not technically a state, but we're still people!
I actually have this problem more often than I should. It is especially painful when I'm trying to pay for a product. Tip to all web developers: Make sure DC is an option in your signup/order forms.
I think one of my favorite approaches is reaching out to the individuals pirating the software. Post a comment on the page explaining that you are the developer of the program. Explain why you made the application and that, if people download and enjoy it, you would appreciate them supporting future development by purchasing the application through the AppStore.
You really can't stop people from pirating your application, but you might be able to convert a few would-be pirates just by reaching out to them with your story. It's easy to steal a piece of software from a nameless entity, but it's much harder when there is a human element involved.
Going into "legal mode" rarely solves these problems because it just puts people on the defensive (and this is coming from a lawyer).
If it weren't for Apple's pricing restrictions, I would love to see a free version of Instapaper that is "unlocked" to a full-featured version if the linked account is a paid subscriber. (For those that don't know, Instapaper also utilizes a subscription model: http://www.instapaper.com/subscription)
I happily pay the quarterly subscription fee and would love a full-featured application to go along with it. That said, I no longer own an iOS device.
This is a really exciting announcement! Education is probably the most important factor in maintaining long-term competitiveness and the American system is in desperate need of improvement. That said, the hurdles in this area are overwhelming. To name a few:
-Layer upon layer of bureaucracy (states, counties, districts, individual school administrators)
-Teachers that are reluctant to adopt new technology
-Students that are difficult to motivate
I have a ton of respect for anyone even trying to take on this challenge.
I'll add another one: academia who teach education seem to have an almost visceral reaction to any suggestion of for-profit educational product development. There's this almost dogmatic principal that anything related to education should be done not-for-profit. I speak from experience... I have an idea for an educational game (software) and I haven't had any luck getting the time of day.
OTOH, there are a lot of for-profit educational ventures, and they all seem really skeevy to me -- places like Kaplan or Phoenix University, for instance, or frankly a lot of educational software.
Perhaps a pro-market explanation is that the bureaucracy itself undermines the market, creating a market that is not truly driven by stated goals (education) but other factors. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's possible. The difficulty of procurement might in part mean that heavy up-front marketing costs dominate, and once you've made a sale it's both fairly large and neither increases nor decreases based on the quality of the product -- poor products tend to be maintained based on the commitment of the administration even when in practice they don't end up being useful.
It would be interesting if teachers were allocated money to purchase products themselves. While it seems somewhat chaotic, and challenging with student turnover (which is generally very high in the US in particular), it seems like the only way to actually have a market driven by real experience and taste rather than politics or theory.
I suggest you watch "Waiting for Superman" where they address the problems teachers face with being given merit based pay, which they could reinvest in product purchase.
A quick solution for this is to create a localized version of craigslist specific to teachers where they can request donations of items/funds for specific projects.
I tried to implement this many years back with a focus on computer donations, but the school administration shot it down because they feared the increase cost of their incompetent IT staff supporting multiple hardware formats, despite them often being nearly new technology.
I did have teachers in Highschool who were able to build amazing labs based on applying for grants. Unfortunately these grants were not widely known about among teachers and they had no knowledge on how to write a good grant request. My HS physics lab actually exceeded the quality of the lab I used at university (UT at Austin). I was able to skip every literally single class, with exceptions of tests, and ended with a final score in the top 5% of the class.
The pro-market explanation in the case of University of Phoenix et al is that a lot of people want a degree to have the degree, rather than learn. Maybe they get a bump at work for having a master's.
So the market's working. Hence the term, "paper mills". It's much cheaper to sell people a degree than to teach them stuff.
I am a male gamer who has been playing games for over two decades and even I feel estranged by a majority of the "AAA games" the industry is pumping out these days. My solution is simple: I don't buy them. That said, I admire those that are taking it even further and trying to start an intelligent conversation about how the gaming medium can mature. To try and stop that discussion and, by extension, stunt the growth of such an expressive medium is absurd to me.