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3901

DC Gamer Club / Steam Workshop changes to allow monetization

« Last post by wraith808 on April 27, 2015, 09:41 AM »

Valve will allow people to monetize their creations through Steam Workshop.

Details are now on the Steam workshop page: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/


When I first saw this, I thought, "Cool!"  They've had the ability on Skyrim Nexus for a while to pay people, and to have that same ability on Steam seemed like a cool idea.  After trying the modding, I know how much work these people put into this.  It could start a whole renaissance!

But whenever you put the idea of not free into an arena where free existed, people get upset.

Personally, I use Patreon a lot, to support micro projects for people that I think should be supported, and that release things that I use, and I love it.

The one thing that is still very bleh is the amount that they take.  For providing a service that allows delivery, the margins should be 15% on the outside, IMO.

But the idea is very cool and very needed IMO.  The only way to monetize these very useful skills shouldn't be by begging or hoping that you get picked up by a game company.

3902

Living Room / Re: Your Stuff Really Is Breaking Faster Than It Used To

« Last post by wraith808 on April 27, 2015, 09:04 AM »

Its not hyperbole if people are constantly replacing their phones because they have to have the latest fashionable new model even though their current one is still fully functional.

-SeraphimLabs (April 26, 2015, 06:12 PM)

The problem with that statement is that it isn't the devices.  It's the people.  Which isn't what this article was about.  So... hyperbole.

-wraith808 (April 26, 2015, 10:01 PM)

Not if after a generation or two the device was redesigned with a 1-2 year upgrade program in mind. If people aren't going to keep the same device for longer than that, why design the device to last longer? Make it last only as long as the average consumer will use it, and never mind the outliers that keep the same device for years on end they are obviously not the people you should be designing for.

-SeraphimLabs (April 26, 2015, 10:56 PM)

But there is no proof that they are.  As shown by the fact that my iPad 1 is still in excellent condition, and sells for 1/5 the price I bought it for 5 years ago.  There is the consumer use case, but the outliers are very much still there, especially with the upgrade policies as they are and breakage/loss.

3903

Living Room / Re: PayPal about to claim rights in all IP sold/licensed using PayPal for payments

« Last post by wraith808 on April 26, 2015, 10:05 PM »

If they are a hobby, then why do they hawk their wares asking for donations?  It's just codifying the fact that people put significant investment into these things- even if they are a hobby.  And many gamers think that this time should come for free.

Entitlement is the problem here.

That's why I didn't get it.  The first thing I thought was "Cool!  A way for them to monetize their contributions!"  I guess I was in the minority with that thought process.

There is a platform, Patreon.  And a lot of people are doing a lot of cool things because of people that are willing to donate to the little projects that they do on the side.  And I think that's a cool thing.  Which I guess is the reason that I don't see anything wrong with this.  If you don't want to monetize your contributions... then don't.  But that shouldn't stop those that want to.

3904

Living Room / Re: Your Stuff Really Is Breaking Faster Than It Used To

« Last post by wraith808 on April 26, 2015, 10:01 PM »

Its not hyperbole if people are constantly replacing their phones because they have to have the latest fashionable new model even though their current one is still fully functional.

-SeraphimLabs (April 26, 2015, 06:12 PM)

The problem with that statement is that it isn't the devices.  It's the people.  Which isn't what this article was about.  So... hyperbole.

3905

Living Room / Re: PayPal about to claim rights in all IP sold/licensed using PayPal for payments

« Last post by wraith808 on April 26, 2015, 05:41 PM »

there is an uproar over steam?

3906

Living Room / Re: Your Stuff Really Is Breaking Faster Than It Used To

« Last post by wraith808 on April 26, 2015, 05:40 PM »

^ I don't think so much because of the upgrades in functionality.  Before... screen?  What screen?  Now, the screen is the main part of the phone.  Consumes more battery, less resilient.  And that 1-2 year max on a phone is pure hyperbole.  I had a phone for 2 years, then passed it down to my wife for two more and my son is now using it.  I only passed it down and didn't keep it because my wife insisted that I get a new phone instead of her.  Then she passed it down because he didn't need a new phone.

What phone is that?  An iphone 4.

3907

Skrommel's Software / Re: MoveOut: License? I want to extend it

« Last post by wraith808 on April 24, 2015, 10:14 AM »

^ might be worth sending skrommel a PM

-tomos (April 24, 2015, 09:36 AM)

This, as he's the only one that can answer your question.  Bumping isn't going to help in this case.

3908

DC Gamer Club / Anyone in for Lethal League

« Last post by wraith808 on April 23, 2015, 06:36 PM »

I'll be purchasing later tonight or in the morning.  Price will depend on how many of the 4 we get, as I could go with the two if there's only one more interested party...

http://store.steampo...ered.com/app/261180/

3909

General Software Discussion / Re: The problem with text compare tools - similar, in database compare tools

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2015, 01:27 PM »

If you look at my screenshot, I've squished the map bar... but you see the red line connecting the two blocks of text?  That's exactly what that's saying.  And every diff tool that *I've* used does that.

Another example from Code Compare

3910

General Software Discussion / Re: The problem with text compare tools - similar, in database compare tools

« Last post by wraith808 on April 21, 2015, 11:20 AM »

I haven't chimed in because... I'm not really getting the problem (and the general tone was why I didn't ask before).  Any decent diff program has to be able to know if a block has moved.  Right?

I took david.p's post above, saved it, then took a block of text and moved it.

This is the result:



Is there something obvious and/or simple that I'm missing?  Every diff tool that I know of can sense that sort of difference.

3911

Living Room / Re: Sony's Pirates

« Last post by wraith808 on April 20, 2015, 04:28 AM »

Why did Sony not respond then?

-Tuxman (April 20, 2015, 02:25 AM)

Why should they?  No matter what they say, the narrative is going to go against them, because its what people want to believe, despite facts.

3912

Living Room / Re: Sony's Pirates

« Last post by wraith808 on April 19, 2015, 01:57 PM »

No, the Sony Server Hack DID NOT Reveal that Sony was Pirating eBooks About Hacking

from http://the-digital-r...books-about-hacking/

There is a story going around this week that Sony was pirating a couple books on hacking, but the evidence doesn't support that claim.

The Daily Dot  reported on Friday that they had found two "pirated" ebooks when they were searching Wikileaks' archive of  the files and emails stolen in the Sony hack last year.

That archive has proven to be a treasure trove of insider secrets like the fact that  Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood was and is a puppet of the MPAA, and The Daily Dot would have you believe that the archive also revealed that Sony was a pirate.

Unfortunately, the evidence presented so far doesn't support that claim. I took a few hours this evening to confirm the report, and I reached an entirely different conclusion.

While I can confirm that the ebooks were and are available in the archive, I cannot say with any certainty that they were pirated.

hackingThe books in question, Inside Cyber Warfare and Hacking the Next Generation, were published by O'Reilly Media. As anyone who buys programming books can tell you, O'Reilly sells its books in multiple formats - without DRM.

You can indeed buy these ebooks as PDFs, which means that before we accuse Sony of piracy we first have to make sure that these ebooks were actually pirated and not legally purchased.

Sony did have copies of Inside Cyber Warfare and Hacking the Next Generation on its servers. Both books were posted as PDF and as text files, yes, but certain details suggest that the ebooks might have been legally purchased.

For example, the PDFs look nothing like the versions hosted by Safari Books Online (the text, formatting, and organization is different), nor do they look like they were scanned from the original paper copy.

Instead, the two PDFs look like they were sold as PDFs. What's more, at least one of the supposedly pirated titles looks like the copy I just bought.

For the sake of thoroughness, I went to the O'Reilly website and tried to buy Inside Cyber Warfare and Hacking the Next Generation. I bought Hacking, but passed on Carr's Inside Cyber Warfare because Sony's copy was the first edition, and I could only buy the second edition.

After an hour of eyeballing the two versions of Hacking, I can't find any evidence that would show that Sony's copy was any less legal than my copy. Sony's copy was slightly larger (7MB vs 6.47MB) and had not been modified since it was produced in 2009. My copy had been modified in 2013.

I can't tell you why the file sizes are different ( I don't have access to a comparison tool which would work on PDFs) or exactly how they differ but I don't think that is a critical issue.

What I can report is that there is insufficient evidence to prove that Sony pirated these two ebooks. For all I know someone at Sony legitimately bought its copies before uploading them to its servers.

One could argue that Sony is pirating the ebook simply by hosting a copy of the ebook, but I would remind you that O'Reilly also does corporate sales. There's no way for us to determine, based on the evidence so far, that Sony did not buy the correct license from O'Reilly.

Folks, you are welcome to reach whatever conclusion you like, but I remain unconvinced that Sony pirated these PDFs.

I plan to go dig through the archive tomorrow and look for other pirated ebooks, but at this point I don't know that I will find anything which I will be able to prove was pirated and not acquired legitimately. Stay tuned.

3913

Living Room / Re: TV shows thread

« Last post by wraith808 on April 18, 2015, 06:36 PM »

Oh, ep 4 of Daredevil - the "date night" one - great late show to ending.

-Renegade (April 18, 2015, 10:42 AM)

This show has had some jaw dropping moments... but the end of that one...

3914

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by wraith808 on April 17, 2015, 11:38 AM »

If you add drunk people to fitness quotes, things get hilarious. (more at randommization.com)

3915

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by wraith808 on April 16, 2015, 07:00 PM »

That's one thing that's always befuddled me... people are happy to get back a lot of money.  It's your own money that you gave the government interest free for a year.  My perfect world is when I'm at $0 owed or returned.

-wraith808 (April 16, 2015, 09:44 AM)

There's a couple of very "lateral thinking rational" reasons this could make someone happy.

Let's get the Elephant in the room away first:

Earned Income Credit.

It's the biggest chunk of found-cash anyone's ever gonna get. It's *supposed* to vanish into caring for the kid, but... well ...

But back to "regular savings" refunds. People can sometimes really have trouble making themselves save, and fairly well known cases are when the initial self-savings accounts began so strong for New Years resolutions and even into Easter ... begin to get chipped at for summer! But if it's stuck into withholdings, it's a lot harder for them to get at.

Then the final reason. ... if you have an abusive household situation, if your savings are jammed into withholdings, the abusive half of the family unit can't bully you as easily into giving them up!

 

-TaoPhoenix (April 16, 2015, 05:16 PM)

Or the very obvious reason... that most people don't realize/think of it.  Occam's razor says that's the more likely reason in most cases.

3916

DC Website Help and Extras / Has something changed with the unread posts link?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 16, 2015, 09:52 AM »

It used to be that when I used unread posts, it excluded those posts that I was the last poster in.  Now it doesn't, so in order to clean up the list, I have to either manually mark it as read, or go back into the thread in order to read my post.  Not a big deal, but still annoying  Was that intentional?

3917

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by wraith808 on April 16, 2015, 09:44 AM »

Nope, didn't have to open my wallet for him. In fact, we got back more than twice as much as we did last year.

-app103 (April 16, 2015, 12:46 AM)

That's one thing that's always befuddled me... people are happy to get back a lot of money.  It's your own money that you gave the government interest free for a year.  My perfect world is when I'm at $0 owed or returned.

3918

General Software Discussion / Re: pound symbol

« Last post by wraith808 on April 15, 2015, 12:26 PM »

>> Or, change to the "United States - international" map, and press altgr+shift+4.

this sounds a good solution, is it a setting in Windows 8.1?
and what you mean by altgr?

-kalos (April 15, 2015, 12:23 PM)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key

3919

Living Room / Re: TV shows thread

« Last post by wraith808 on April 15, 2015, 10:22 AM »

Been watching Daredevil on Netflix.  Best superhero tv show I've seen.  If you have Netflix, try it.  All of the episodes are up at the same time.  I'm through 8 out of 13, and wish there were more.

-wraith808 (April 15, 2015, 08:28 AM)

Really?

I skipped watching it as I've found too many of the comic book shows/movies are just... not for me. I used to love comics, but the shows & movies have turned me off entirely.

But you and I share quite a few similar tastes... I'll give it a shot when I have a chance. Another friend introduced me to a few shows that I'd dismissed as "probably really stupid" and they turned out to be darn good.

-Renegade (April 15, 2015, 09:56 AM)

Daredevil is a lot about the effects of the larger world-shattering decisions on the little guy.  And there are no good/bad right/wrong dichotomies enforced by the writing.  At least, so far.  And the characterizations of most characters are really good, as is the actual cinematography.  In the second episode there is almost an honest to goodness one-shot that is utterly incredible.  Some people say they cheated in a couple of places... I don't know that from Adam.  But I do know that you don't see that level of quality on TV often.

3920

Living Room / Re: TV shows thread

« Last post by wraith808 on April 15, 2015, 08:28 AM »

Been watching Daredevil on Netflix.  Best superhero tv show I've seen.  If you have Netflix, try it.  All of the episodes are up at the same time.  I'm through 8 out of 13, and wish there were more.

3921

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you know a free HTML editor with real time preview in adjacent pane?

« Last post by wraith808 on April 14, 2015, 02:08 PM »

Wow firace, that is a cool find

Amazing.

-David.P (April 14, 2015, 12:39 PM)

Agreed!  Very cool find!

3922

General Software Discussion / Re: Solved: Visual Studio Toolbox Blues

« Last post by wraith808 on April 14, 2015, 09:56 AM »

There is a built in progress bar, unless I'm not understanding you.  I don't think most people use the toolbox with the advent of xaml and wpf.  Just type in the tags for the control in question in the editor.  I've not used the toolbox in a long time.

3923

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by wraith808 on April 12, 2015, 05:00 PM »

Based on the angle of the walls at what appears to be the entrance to the stairs, I'd say the cat is going up.

-Stoic Joker (April 12, 2015, 04:37 PM)

You say up, I say down.

3924

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by wraith808 on April 10, 2015, 01:20 PM »

I read lately about the name Hitler being used for a child in the States, I think it might even have been the middle name for a girl - but cant find it now - not worth finding really...

-tomos (April 08, 2015, 03:31 PM)

If you're talking about the same story I'm thinking about, it was a boy, and his name was "Adolf Hitler [Surname]" and the part that made it notable or newsworthy (as I recall) was that Child Protective Services threatened to take him away from his parents. But I can't remember the details of why or what eventually happened.

But none of this is really on topic for this thread. :-D

-Deozaan (April 10, 2015, 12:25 PM)

But since you mention it... http://abcnews.go.co...d=6648877&page=1

3925

Html and CSS School / Re: HTML editor for beginners

« Last post by wraith808 on April 08, 2015, 02:47 PM »

I think that will vary by the consumer.  A baseline text editor will be good for some, and is what I learned in.  You can add on code completion, templates, etc.  But those are just conveniences.