I don't know anything about Epic Games, but as a huge fan of Bandcamp, this feels like a bit of a drag.
There's something about Bandcamp that seems exactly right. It's an open, fair and creative way to discover and publish music, that is really distinct from the rest of the music business.
I'm struggling to see how that fits into a gigantic video game company. If it has to pull in so much money that it "moves the needle" at Epic at all, I don't see how it can remain anything close to what it is today.
Every time a small successful tech company gets swallowed by a behemoth, I feel sad. Bandcamp was one of the good ones. If Panic ever gets bought, I'll straight up cry.
An ecosystem thrives by having a variety of organisms of different species and sizes interacting. The tech business ecosystem increasingly looks more like a giant pasture of uniform grass being grazed by half a dozen aging tumorous cows.
For what it's worth, Panic appears to be one of those smaller indie developers similar to say Bare Bones Software or the Omni Group. I think those are sustainable non-startup software shops that can exist and persist on their own.
Many companies can exist and persist on their own until a behemoth decides they shouldn't.
It's not about "can this business get enough users to be profitable?" it's about "will some huge corporation decide to put them out of business because the cost to do so is a rounding error for them?"
At any point in time, Apple could decide to ship a nice FTP client with macOS, add web language support to XCode and Panic is dust.
Creators of Unreal Engine, one of the two de facto 3rd party game engines in the industry, created way back in the 90's. You very likely played some game or 6 that was made using it. Also the developers of several games themselves like Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Infinity Blade, and Bulletstorm.
But I guess more recently people would call them "The creators of Fortnite", that free to play battle royale that usurped PUBG as "the face" of the genre. They also have a PC game store that is relatively recent and under some ire from consumers for reasons that'd take a whole essay to fully explain.
As a middleman between games and developers, the reasons to purchase a music vendor is numerous. Time will tell what they do with it, but most of their previous aquisitions are hands-off.
Thank you. Ok, I guess have heard of them then. I played Unreal! And I've heard many mentions of the Unreal engine.
> but most of their previous aquisitions are hands-off
Thanks.
Given the immediate negative reactions that people have to this news (see the countless "what is a bandcamp alternative?" posts going around right now), I wonder how it will impact one of Bandcamp's most important assets: their Daily blog. From what I can tell, the blog posts are largely written by independent music journalists. The topics are all over the place (in a good way), and they are fun, personal ways to discover music. Will we see some of these core writers leave (on their own volition)? Likewise, will the direction of what is highlighted in these posts shift to align with other Epic assets?
On the technical end, there are plenty of legitimate complaints about Bandcamp's app. I would imagine Epic = more resources for the app, for better or for worse.
My negative reaction is related to Epic's microtransaction (aka gambling, often aimed at children) and DRM use as well as being 40% owned by Tencent so your puchases now will help fund genocide.
The original story was that Fortnite had lootboxes for a few years (in that time where most of the industry was trying it out after Valve and Blizzard saw success). Fortnite is where the "lootboxes are gambling" debates really hit the high gear.
sometime in 2019 that random aspect was removed, however. To my knowledge, there is still a rotating shop of skins to purchase with premium currency. But you know what you are getting now. It's not too much different from how free MOBA's monetize their games with a bunch of cosmetic skins.
Thanks, I'm glad they aren't doing the random aspect now. Microtransactions are still a horrible way to design games but at least it is something if you know what you are getting. However, even if gambling isn't exactly the right word for the current situation there do still seem to be more recent stories about kids running up quite a bill on Fortnite. They still seem to be trying to get kids to spend as much money as possible. A quick search finds that this came up in Epic vs. Apple:
I mean, mine too. I’m very disappointed and worried about this. I’m less worried about the possible tech changes than I am about supporting a crappy company that I hate.
If you think of Epic not as a videogame company but as any other multi-billion dollar company that exists to "Maximize return for our investors by any means necessary," It makes sense. Take a company that is making money and has a large user-base, then "increase profits" (usually to the detriment of everyone involved except the company).
That makes no sense. If Russia had an effective way to conduct its business without SWIFT in the event of sanctions, it would also have a way to conduct its business outside of SWIFT any time it has something to hide.
To follow your analogy, if they had a separate office in a separate building that they could use in the event that they get kicked out of the bugged office, they would already be using it whenever they wanted additional privacy.
The only way SWIFT actually forces Russia to be visible is if it's their only option, so no visibility can be lost if they're cut off.
Think of SWIFT like the internet. You can build your own new internet, but you also need everyone else to connect to it as well. If a Russian oligarch wants to transfer money to a Swiss bank to buy a new boat, they'd need to convince that Swiss bank to be part of the new network as well.
At a practical level, swapping out SWIFT would be like changing the engine in your car. You can do it, but doing so is time consuming and prone to risk. Running more than one at a time just isn't feasible.
>"Running more than one at a time just isn't feasible."
When it comes to money everything is feasible. Banks would use a many systems as needed and will build something on top that will make operations look uniform
>If a Russian oligarch wants to transfer money to a Swiss bank to buy a new boat, they'd need to convince that Swiss bank to be part of the new network as well.
I don't think it's about being actually able to send a message. It's having the transfer of dollars recognized. Say I send $50 million from my account at Sberbank to UBS and then try to transmit from UBS to my boat builder in the Netherlands. That won't work because UBS won't get $50 million added to their balance sheet because other banks don't recognize the Sberbank -> UBS transfer since it's not on SWIFT. To them, UBS will be trying to spend money it doesn't have and the transfers will get rejected.
In short, No SWIFT = No Dollar transfers outside the country.
Absolutely wrong. SWIFT is just a financial messaging system (secure email for banks). Transfers of USD anywhere in the world ultimately require messages to/from US banks. US regulations require that those messages disclose the ultimate payer and payee of every transfer, and US banks must follow US regulations and block transfers that violate US sanctions. US banks are free to use whatever communications channels they choose, but SWIFT is used for 99% of international transfers today. SWIFT has nothing to do with balance sheets and banks recognizing fund transfers.
>. US banks are free to use whatever communications channels they choose
They're free to choose today because they all choose SWIFT. The second they choose a Russian backed system to evade sanctions is the second they lose that privilege.
Given that, I don't see how your post shows mine to be "absolutely wrong". If anything you're supporting my point that "No SWIFT" really means "No dollar transfers".
I disagree. US law and regulations are not tied to any particular messaging system. US banks are required to know their customers, and obey OFAC sanctions lists no matter how they send/receive payment instructions. If Russian banks are sanctioned, then US banks are not allowed to send dollars to or from them no matter how they choose to communicate.
The part of you post that I was primarily objecting to was that bit about this "UBS won't get $50 million added to their balance sheet because other banks don't recognize the Sberbank -> UBS transfer since it's not on SWIFT." That makes no sense. SWIFT is just messages sent between banks, other banks don't know what messages are sent between two other banks.
Because, as far as I can tell, your contribution has been to nitpick a hand wavey explanation. Unless you have an objection to my fundamental point that No SWIFT means No Dollar transfers then I don't see what you're contributing here.
SWIFT is more like an AOL intranet. It only kinda works because America's global military dominance forces everyone to use it. But it's not actually as great as it could be if it was an actual internet that was open and permissionless for all to plug into.
If only we had a monetary network that was open and permissionless...
> ...a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back
In that case the judgment was whether the telemetry was reliable enough to justify launching a retaliatory strike, with all the grave consequences that produces.
An unambiguous order to launch a first strike might not elicit the same kind of hesitation.
The both scenarios, the Russian sub during the Cuba Crisis and the Officer ignoring the early warning system, didn't involve clear orders from the legitimate chain of command to launch. The sub operated under the absence of orders, while the early warning system was a standard operating procedure, and the Officer in charge was involved in the systems development.
In any army of the world I would assume that, especially in the case of nuclear forces, orders to launch are not second guessed. After all, the whole concept of MAD depends on a swift counter attack. If those attack orders wouldn't be carried out fast, in the limited time frame available, something would be wrong.
The US Constitution is applicable to anyone within the jurisdiction of the US, regardless of citizenship or immigration status (including undocumented).
Good. There was something absurd about having to accept id.me's terms-of-service, which involved "deals, discounts, cash back rebates and employment and educational opportunities", to access government services online.
It's strange that it has to be this way though. I just retired my iPhone 6s because the battery didn't last very long anymore. I don't really need anything but text/phone/email so I didn't feel like shelling out for a new iPhone. I got a Moto G Power. It's a good phone, except for all the absolute shit loaded onto it. So much to turn off in so many places.
Specifically, needed to get rid of:
- Google Assistant
- Google Location Services
- Avoid accidentally signing up for Verizon's "cloud" and "digital secure"
- Disallow Verizon's app from collecting location when not using the app
- Disable and de-permission Verizon Cloud, which has tons of permissions even though I never accepted using it
- Turn off Google "location accuracy"
- Turn off personal results for ads
- Turn off tracking for ads in apps which is a separate setting
- Change the default messenger from Verizon's "Message+" to normal messaging to avoid having my messages copied all over the place
- Get confused by some weird "premium" upsell in the Voicemail
- Turn off "monthly driving stats" in google maps which is enabled even though I have location tracking disabled, what the hell even is this?
And that's just the stuff I remember.
And I still get a nag screen on maps for having web history turned off.
I guess Google wants everybody's data and Verizon wants to sell "premium" things for more money, but I wish there was just one button to shut all this shit off. There should be a "good Android" option that costs less than an iPhone for people that would pay a little more money for less garbage.
As others have said, replacing battery is fairly straightforward for 6s, I did it a couple times on mine until replacing a few months back. Look for the higher capacity batteries, I had luck with Amazon. Will take you probably 30 mins to switch out.
Alternatively - I just upgraded to an iPhone SE which seems like essentially the same phone as 6s but a little faster/smoother. Fits my minimalist needs which sound similar to yours. Dealing with the Android crapware sounds a lot less fun to me.
> There should be a "good Android" option that costs less than an iPhone for people that would pay a little more money for less garbage.
There is, actually: Android One. E.g. Nokia makes phones that have minimal crapware preinstalled.
You will still have to deal with Google's own crap... like the retarded Assistant that just won't fucking die. Even with absolutely every setting in every google settings page in every google app explicitly disabling the Assistant, if you dare speak words resembling "ok google" it will still "helpfully" pop up asking if you'd like to enable it. And sometimes spontaneously. While you're typing, hoping you'll fat-finger "yes please".
I just tried saying "OK google" to my phone and it did not summon the assistant. (Hooray!)
I have the generic "Google" app disabled, which I think is the thing that listens on the microphone for that. I don't really know what else it does, so I'm not sure what else is unavailable once it's disabled. I don't expect I'll be missing much though.
Nokia is never an option, because they do not open the bootloader on any phone. Worse, in the beginning they lied they would, to get people to buy their crap.
Also, don't be blinded by their brand, that brand is actually chinese HMD now, with the chinese attitude to running random closed binaries on your phone. So if you go down that route, better get a properly supported phone, like from OnePlus.
The iPhone doesn't even let you turn off its version of Google Location Services (unless you don't want to get your location at all), so after that one-time setup, you ended up with a better phone.
You cannot get your location on iOS without also sending your location to Apple. As far as I know, iOS is the only platform that has this deficiency. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708157
After-hours on-call is a thing that needs to be destroyed. A company that is sufficiently large that the CEO doesn't get woken up for emergencies needs to have shifts in other timezones to handle them. I don't know why people put up with it.
In fact, since there's no way you can prove that you haven't used deniable encryption, you'll probably be in a really bad place anyway.
That creates an interesting game theory situation though, where nobody has any incentive to disclose anything, since it wouldn't change the outcome anyway, which ends up negating the whole point of torture: the victim needs to believe that the tormentor will stop if they disclose the truth.
(Unfortunately, the real world isn't a game theory problem…).
This is the game theory that the Rubberhose file system (co-invented by one Julian Assange) is based on.[0] It's a pity the blog post didn't link to that article, and only linked to the one about rubber-hose cryptanalysis, since this prior art does seem to overlap significantly with the scheme that the post is proposing, as does the Owner-Free Filesystem[1].
Anyway, you're right that the real world isn't a game theory problem, but I do think that if someone is faced with being tortured for information, they should at least attempt to ask the torturer "How do I know that you will stop when I give you the information?". Or, perhaps less incriminatingly, "I don't have that information, and it doesn't matter because you'll keep torturing me regardless".
You may not be able to convince the torturer to give up on the torture (much less convince them to let you go free), but you might at least be able to convince yourself that there is no point talking or trying to come up with a lie. Having said that, it's also instructive to look at the example of Marcus McDilda who was tortured by the Japanese for information about atomic bombs, about which he knew nothing.[2] His lies may have saved not just his own life, but millions more.
You can prove you haven't used deniable encryption. Encrypted data looks random. As long as your disks and files don't contain unexplainable random sections, there must be no encrypted data there. Steganography might have been used to hide the encrypted data in otherwise meaningful data, but that is a separate concern.
That's not strictly true, you can format a drive to contain all zeroes. That can then be demonstrated easily via a hex editor looking at the drive. Truecrypt volumes will always look like random scrambled data (like if you formatted your drive with a "secure erase" method).
Allthough this presumes that the guy with the wrench takes the time to check out your disk in a hex editor and that he finds the statement that you directly zero everything you delete to prepare for exactly this scenario not at all suspicious. Doesn't sound like a great plan to me.
There's something about Bandcamp that seems exactly right. It's an open, fair and creative way to discover and publish music, that is really distinct from the rest of the music business.
I'm struggling to see how that fits into a gigantic video game company. If it has to pull in so much money that it "moves the needle" at Epic at all, I don't see how it can remain anything close to what it is today.