Now for something completely different

The External World from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Building Watson

I for one welcome our computers overlords...

The Take

Documentary about a factory in Argentina taken over by its workers shortly after the sharp economic downturn. It's 90 minutes long. I think a bottom up approach is what is needed for fix the illness of our civilization. The question is whether we are mature yet to realize it or not. 

The Take from raph on Vimeo.

The selfish act of software patenting

I want to talk about a subject that Ignacio Castaño wrote in his blog about the responsibility of a programmer in patents. I belief software programmers specially game programmers should reject the parent system. The patent system is design for corporation to make money, however programmers as a hold rarely see much of that benefit and do much hurt to its peers. Why?

Well the premise here is that Patents are base on original work and relay on god like inventiveness to come up with something that is truly original. Well that does not seem to match with reality at all. Evolution of ideas and technology even nature as a hold is base on the continues refinements of ideas. Some of the ideas come from other areas like machinery, some of the ideas come from the natural progression of old ones. Patents cut this natural evolutionary process and force people to change evolutionary branches just because someone patented the idea. This not only slow down programmers but also makes our field to be related with law. Who the hells want to think about that? is not hard enough to deal with the programming already? Why we must waste our time trying to walk around a mine field?

It is just irresponsible for programmers to patent their ideas. This should be an unwritten law for the game industry specially for programmers. Having a name in a patent should be looked by peers as a disgrace and a selfish act. Yes it serves you in the short run but you end up hurting the rest of us. This is our time and we are here to share ideas with each other to help the next generation do and have better things than us. Patenting is a selfish act that rarely gives any benefit to the patentee and give allot of pain to the rest of us. Been the first should be paid back with recognition not with law enforcement.

A better world does not just happen it must be made.

Creating a Blog

Well this is the start of my blog. Although and very confuse of what a blog is... in the age of twitter, facebook, personal websites, etc. I guess is like a twitter but with an specific subject and longer stuff to write... Is a blog a personal thing or it is mainly for the public? I thinking that is both. Why not to put staff in the blog that later is easy to find. Perhaps a way to organize your own information and sharing it with the rest. Because who knows who could use it. Well here it is my blog, which I will try to keep it some what personal and somewhat technical.