Cav's Place

Though this time it’s presented as a proper book, the structure still has something of a short story feel to it, jumping to certain largely self-contained scenes and playing them out. They’re connected and it creates a story from them, but it’s not quite right and there’s still little actual world building, despite the author giving the impression that he really knows what he’s going for.
That said, it does manage to touch upon a fair number of important issues and contains brilliant moments. Often said moments show up in dialogues, which certainly seem to be the preferred means of presenting the action and usually do it wonderfully, with added witticisms that make it an even better read.

Rating: 4/5

The problems I recently mentioned were caused by a faulty BitDefender update reminded me of a debate that, while definitely being tackled plenty of times by plenty of people ever since patches and updates became such a frequent occurrence, never reached a conclusion. I’m referring to whether updates, particularly those that fix existing problems, should be written and released as soon as possible, accepting the risk of them breaking something else, or time should be taken to thoroughly test them, forcing users to wait for a solution to their current problems for days, weeks or, in case of particularly complex issues, perhaps even months longer than they’d have had to otherwise. In addition, what should be done for software that relies on immediate updates in order to perform properly, and by this I mean, for example, antivirus or accounting software?
Yes, I’m going to start from the assumption that such updates will unfortunately be necessary, both to respond to recent developments and to fix the ever-increasing number of bugs that seem to be a given at launch. Of course, it’d be preferrable to thoroughly test software during development and not release it in such a state, but the complexity requirements, the number of possible configurations, the deadlines, budgets and price targets tend to conspire against this ideal. For relatively expensive but not overly complex software developed by sufficiently large independent teams which can afford to take all the time they need before launch, bugs would be inexcusable, but that’s rarely the case, so you have to take all these factors into account when determining what flaws can be tolerated at launch and which trade-offs would be preferrable in this battle between complexity, speed, cost and reliability.

Personally, I’d sacrifice speed before anything else, at least when it comes to the launch date, and possibly also to adding post-launch enhancements. This quite clearly can’t apply to patching security vulnerabilities or critical flaws that make the product unusable for some or all of its intended users, or to things such as, to stick to the above-mentioned examples, definitions updates for antivirus software or the updates required by accounting software in order to keep up with the latest legislative changes, but when it comes to the original launch and for adding any enhancements that aren’t absolutely necessary, it’s certainly better do it later, but well, instead of on time, but poorly. If the developer needs to delay the release in order to thoroughly test the software and fix any issues noticed during such tests, they should be allowed to do so instead of forcing them to release a product that will, in effect, end up being tested directly on the users.
Past this, it starts being extremely difficult to choose… Which means that it can’t be an “one size fits all” situation. No developer, publisher or regulatory body should make a decision regarding these other trade-offs and force everyone to accept it, but instead they should offer choices, allowing users to pick what they’re most comfortable with. In terms of complexity and cost, that definitely means making different versions available, at different prices and perhaps also with different release dates, possibly making the particularly complex software modular, allowing users to select which components they mean to use and only pay for those and not the others. And in terms of speed and reliability, it most notably means clearly specifying which releases, including patches, are thoroughly tested and which are not and allowing people to choose exactly what they want to install and when, according to what’s more important for them. In addition, when it comes to insufficiently tested security updates, the vulnerabilities they fix should be clearly specified, along with any other actions the users who prefer to wait for a more reliable patch may take to protect themselves for the time being.

Of course, this will take us right back to the matter of choice and the fact that so many users aren’t fit to use a computer, much less to be trusted to make such choices on their own, which currently leads us down this rotten path of dumbing everything down as much as possible, kicking aside any needs or desires expressed by anyone who actually knows what they want. However, even leaving aside the fact that those who’d actually deserve to be offered the proper tools for what they want to do shouldn’t suffer because of those who should get to learning before actually doing anything, what seems to be missed is that just these clueless users are the ones least likely to know the first thing about dealing with such issues when they pop up, as they invariably do, and then they’ll swarm the support staff with confusing and often violent complaints because they don’t know any better, which makes it even more difficult to isolate and ultimately fix the actual problem.
The point is that, after first making sure that developers and publishers don’t promise what they don’t know they can deliver and then, after setting achievable public goals, that they thoroughly test the software and only release it when it’s actually done and, for lack of a better term, safe to use, the users should be offered the necessary information and the right to make choices, including bad ones. Make default settings only install critical updates and thoroughly tested non-critical ones, to reduce the number of potential issues to a minimum, but also tell people exactly what each update does and how thoroughly tested it is and allow them to select precisely what they want to install. On top of this, while there should of course be some default settings that ensure the program’s functionality in most common situations and the settings that are particularly tricky to handle correctly may perhaps be hidden by default, users should easily be able to unlock as much as possible in order to tailor the experience and functionality as they deem fit and, in case of problems, also to apply or perhaps even devise workarounds before thoroughly tested patches become available.

Other than those who think they’re far smarter than they really are and would start tweaking and using experimental features despite having no clue what they’re doing, who should be ignored anyway, I really don’t see how such an approach could cause problems for anyone. It will allow developers to still create complex software and offer new features even after launch while also taking advantage of the skills of their more knowledgeable users, who may point out things they might have otherwise missed, but at the same time it’ll also allow users both the freedom of choice the PC was until not so long ago known for and the option of aiming for the highest possible reliability by easily protecting themselves from potentially harmful updates.

I generally stay away from short stories, not to mention fairy tales, and this is essentially a collection of short stories that are at least in part inspired by well-known fairy tales. That said, while I can’t give it a higher rating, I must stress that it has some great moments and overall it proved to be a pretty good read, even though I wished for one coherent story and a much better and more detailed description of the world in which the action takes place.
Do have to wonder how did it take somebody such a long time to make a game inspired by this, because it’s excellent material for that. The author lists the ingredients for potions and their effects, places and conditions where some of them grow, all sorts of monster types and the abilities of some of them, the Signs used by witchers, their more unusual physical abilities… The scope is narrow, but the amount of detail offered within the confines of said scope is significantly beyond what could be expected from this format.

Rating: 3/5

As of yesterday, I can finally say that I’m more or less back to normal as far as the computer’s concerned. There are still a few programs left to install and some settings that I have to look over again, but I’ll get around to those when I’ll need them, which should be over the next few days. What I won’t be installing at all are the games I don’t see myself getting back to in the next few months, namely Gothic II and Neverwinter Nights, plus of course Gothic 3, which I hadn’t even started, wanting to finish the second one first, if that will ever happen. Morrowind and Battle for Wesnoth aren’t installed yet either, as right now I’m sticking to Fate of the World and Baldur’s Gate, but I don’t rule out another attempt to get back to one or both of those when I’ll either finish one or, far more likely, get stuck in both of these.
It took me quite some time to get here because I kept changing my mind about installing Windows again on the repaired HDD last week, eventually starting it but then changing my mind again and formatting the partition. That left an invalid boot entry which was actually set as the default one, so I installed EasyBCD to get rid of it, but that made me unable to boot at all. A quick repair from the installation disk fixed the problem and everything seemed normal, but on Monday, when I finally started installing it again after the work on the window was done and I could move everything back in place, I found that, probably due to the changes made by EasyBCD, it didn’t see any drives anymore if I booted off the DVD. Over an hour of trying to work it out, another repair and a cleaning and repartitioning of the disk with diskpart, which I used for the first time, later, it finally worked and by the time I went to bed that night I finally had it installed and fully updated and had also managed to add the few programs that I needed right away.
Tuesday I took it easy, only installing a couple more programs and otherwise catching up on what I hadn’t done the day before, then yesterday I triple checked that I had moved everything back to the repaired HDD, used diskpart on the backup one too and actually managed to regain access to the 19 Gb that I previously couldn’t create a partition in normally, copied everything back on it afterwards, set up the daily backup script once again and installed a few more things, including the two games I mentioned above. And today I noticed that I had missed something when I edited the backup script, somehow missing it when I tested it yesterday as well, but now that I also took care of that, I should be good to go. Now let’s see how long this HDD will last…

While I’m writing, I guess I could also mention that I started reading The Last Wish. Didn’t exactly mean to, but I just picked it up on Sunday and I’ll probably finish it later today. Despite it being essentially a collection of short stories which are at least in part inspired by well-known fairy tales, so something I’d normally stay well away from, it has great moments and is actually a pretty good read overall, so I’ll be moving on to Blood of Elves next…

The “Copyright Alert System”, otherwise known as the “six strikes” policy, is about to be launched by media companies and ISPs operating in the United States. That’s not exactly news and certainly no surprise, as the ISPs from there are more than happy to spy on their customers and take action as commanded by the media and software giants voluntarily, without the government or international bodies needing to get seriously involved and push them into it, as it may be the case elsewhere. It is interesting, however, that even they readily admit that “hardcore pirates” may easily avoid detection and either way certainly won’t be stopped by such measures, claiming that the main goal is to “educate the public”… Educate the public by spewing propaganda and then throttling or even blocking access for those with the “audacity” to seek some means of enjoyment or entertainment in these harsh times, in ways that cause no harm and no real, verifiable, loss to anyone.

As the EFF article points out, the problems with the approach are numerous and definitely worth a closer look, yet what troubles me far more is the very idea behind this campaign and the fact that it can so easily get the backing it needs. I mean, it obviously doesn’t follow the usual rules set for legal action, it’s definitely not transparent, there’s a clear conflict of interest, the details are sketchy and allow the system to be used for even more nefarious purposes, and the proper checks and balances are not and are unlikely to ever be implemented, but the bigger problem is that it’s a measure aimed at preserving a terribly outdated status quo which harms the tremendous majority of the population, including many content creators, for nothing but the financial benefit of a select few individuals.
What we should be doing is looking for ways to get past this business model and past the entire copyright system, not enforcing it even more. Of course, the final goal for the entire economic system has to be a resource-based model, at which point electronic copies will certainly have to be seen as what they actually are, namely a resource that is, for practical purposes, limitless and therefore freely available to all in any quantity desired, but until then, if we are to focus solely on the matter at hand, we can also strive for systems like my suggestion for a Content Creators’ Association, and even before that we have crowdfunding and donationware, which are existing concepts that need to be promoted and developed more, as well as law proposals which would legalize the personal, non-commercial use and sharing of content, as long as credit is given to the original authors. As first steps, for the first few years, we could even start separating what may be used, copied and shared without fear of prosecution according to what other means of earning money are available to the creators of said content, and likely also according to how much time passed since the original release.

The bottom line is that there are things to do and ways to do them, none of which have anything to do with such campaigns and the measures, coercive or otherwise, associated with them. The corporations and interest groups that support such actions are gaining momentum, but that only means that we need to find ways to push back even harder against the tide.