> The consumer version of the Rift should be out in about a year.
Yeah, and will I be able to buy one and use it without Facebook keeping a permanent record of everything I do with it (tied to my real name of course)? Will it refuse to work unless it's online? I was really looking forward to the Oculus, but man ... if there is an alternative that doesn't have FB integration, I think I'll buy that instead.
Sadly, the license of the library used to talk to the Oculus Rift (libOVR) is also under very restrictive terms - you can't use it with competing systems, can't distribute it in part, and lose the license if your users have health or safety issues with your product.
With the source code available, it's hard to make a clean-room reverse engineered version of the hardware communication layer and shaders.
I haven't actually seen the source code, so maybe me and someone with a DK2 could do it by sniffing USB packets.
At the other end of the spectrum, there's Subliminal[1], which relies on Apple's UIAutomation underneath, which in turn relies on the application's accessibility information as-is, rather than hijacking it. Building up tests using either UIAutomation or something that sits on top of it like Subliminal will actually help you improve your app's accessibility at the same time.
This. One of the common stories in accessibility circles is "curb cuts", the ramps from streets to sidewalks that allow disabled people easier access than a stepped curb. They have utility for non-disabled persons towing roller luggage, pushing strollers, pulling hand-carts, etc. While they were put in place due to accessibility concerns, they benefit everyone.
Accessibility facilities that enable UI automation are the "curb cuts" of software.
Wasn't aware of this but not surprised. My original comment was going to be to the part of "taking them out of craigslist" since people trying to use craigslist have to sift through their ads clogging up stuff.
Google gets grief over being "evil" because they publicly claimed not to be, and got a lot of popularity and goodwill in the marketplace as a result. When people get "riled up" about Google, they are threatening to take away that popularity and goodwill, that's all. It's not the same thing.
Also, what makes you think we don't already have "massive legislation to cover every facet of our lives"? Have you ever heard of the book "Three Felonies a Day"?
The smaller ISPs are just following Comcast's example: "You mean we can charge multiple times for the same data without doing any extra work? Sign us up!" All last-mile ISPs will eventually realize they can hold everyone hostage, so long as there is no significant competition.
Small ISPs also like this because they typically are very heavy on paid, private internet and don't do much peering due to having small, localized networks. They stand to gain, proportionally, the most since they can charge the people the were previously paying for access.
Much of the common violence and atrocities of the past when portrayed in movies and other forms of entertainment are shocking and far removed from the every day experience. See the most recent US Academy Award "Best Picture" winner for an example.
> Much of the common violence and atrocities of the past when portrayed in movies and other forms of entertainment
To be fair, they are never portrayed in a very realistic way. Or at least not in a way in which you care about the characters dying on screen.
As to the claim of "less violence", let's rather say "violence in number is decreasing", but there are still very violent AND cruel acts being carried as we speak in many parts of the world. And let's not forget there are still many places as well where people are enslaved - the fact that these behaviors are resilient does not say lots of good things about humanity.
> To be fair, they are never portrayed in a very realistic way. Or at least not in a way in which you care about the characters dying on screen.
I'm not sure I agree. Usually they are not, but perhaps you might re-watch Saving Private Ryan. It's not the only gory war movie, but it does a remarkable job of showcasing horrific things we humans do to each other. The knife fight scene is especially disturbing.
"The Tudors" also had some pretty cruel punishments, though often it's not carried off on-screen. Even when the people being tortured are not protagonists, it's hard not to empathize in the "oh god that's just not right" way.
You make a good point though about there still being terrible things going on in other parts of the globe.
There are many reasons to believe that predator/prey dynamics will never be turned into lovey-dovey halcyon days. Something in nature underelies the drive and instinct to prey on the weak--it's not a human issue. Its also prevalent in cannabalistic primates, and more obviously in every (true) carnivore. The cat playing with the mouse, the great white shark tossing a seal, the aligator and the serpent. There are many deeper relationships that are not simple "mis-understandings"--the food chain doesn't work that way. The architecture of Nature's species--nutrition and health-- is logically at odds with the entire scenario. Would the parasite and the host ever have a "healthy" relationship?
It's true that only autotrophs have the luxury of a guilt-free existence.
But if and when our deeper existential problems have been solved, we can imagine constructing robotic simulacra to give those predators satisfying prey to chase.
A deeper quandary might end up being: once we have done it for ourselves, are we obliged to cure death for other creatures, too?
Lets see how peaceful humans are after we've finished burning through the available fossil fuels. It's relatively easy to be peaceful while you have copious wealth.
HN has pretty much always been a creepy echo chamber where more or less all posts toe the line of "whatever startups do must be right, so don't question or criticize".
Bingo. The Oculus and WhatsApp deals have added up to billions "spent" via mostly stock instead of cash. This is almost certainly due to insistence from the Facebook execs themselves, who clearly are expecting the price of their stock to fall in the long term and are attempting to extract some value from it while the price is still high.
http://studentaffairsfeature.com/ten-counterproductive-behav...