Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area.
I myself am a good example of this. I live in Australia, and was socially very largely lost until I first began using the Internet in 1994. Since then, I made contact with a number of people from several different countries, and found a far greater degree of acceptance than I had ever received for the most part offline in Australia. If it had not been for meeting my present girlfriend in Melbourne in late 2001, I probably would have at least tried to leave the country by now, although was unsure as to where else to go.
I will admit that I have tended to consider most of my countrymen (at least those that I have known) to be provincial, narrow minded, excessively jocular morons, who also have a tendency to grossly overestimate the country's level of international relevance. To add to the rest of the world's reasons to hold Australia in contempt, the current Howard government is utterly shameless in its' fawning solidarity with the rogue American Bush administration, and because of this, we now have the notorious distinction of being one of the few countries left on the planet whose government is sufficiently facistic to be willing to adopt that stance. In most other countries, not only have the public been vehement in expressing their opposition to the evil of Bush, but their governments have also more commonly listened to their constituents' will.
I live online more or less entirely, and view Australia as merely being the place where my physical body sleeps.
RMS just made himself look bad when he didn't need to...although then again, what else is new?
In one of my last posts on here I talked about how (from what I've seen, anywayz) Red Hat had become profitable...there are a lot of other companies doing what they do, too. Making money with free software is entirely possible...RMS has written about it himself, and even used to do it himself when he was selling Emacs tapes. There's also this, which he could have even mentioned.
It is exasperating...No matter what else he does, the one thing he manages to consistently do is shoot himself in the foot.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
(From the GPL version 2 - Emphasis mine)
What the above means is that no money must be charged for *licensing* a derivative work. In other words, not only must the entire derivative work be placed under the GPL, you can't charge more for the GPL licensed work than you would if you were using another license. Note that the word "distribute" is not mentioned in the above section at all. People *really* need to read this, as I've often said, because it specifically refutes the idea that making money from software using the GPL is prohibited by the license. As that article says, your only obligations are to ensure that a) whichever distribution medium (CD-ROM, ftp site, whatever) that contains binaries must also contain the source code of said binaries, and that b) you don't try and charge for downstream use of the license.
I'll say it again...PLEASE go and read the above link about paid distribution of GPL licensed software.
The second misconception; the linking issue
6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.
(Excerpt from the Lesser GPL - emphasis mine)
For combined derivative works including an LGPL licensed library, it could definitely be argued that this is not a hard application of copyleft, and that those who want it are being given weasel room. The other allowance that the LGPL makes is that an LGPL library can be combined with either a library or an application not under the GPL, and that while the LGPL library itself stays under the LGPL, the resulting combined application does not have to be.
I personally consider the LGPL deeply hypocritical in light of Stallman's previous thorough attempts to discourage use of the BSD license. He also, however, states here that the LGPL is only intended for use with libraries which imitate functions already present in commercial software. Hence, he implicitly concedes here that he is attempting to build a code monopoly in order to enforce increased use of the GPL. He cites appeals to popularity as one reason why people might try and coerce a software author into using the LGPL, when to my mind his own fears of a lack of popularity must surely have been the reasoning behind the LGPL's creation.
Although it is true, as stated above, that there is no prohibition against making money from the distribution of GPL licensed software, the GPL is likely to force those who wish to sell software (and who are accustomed to capitalist economics) to reconsider their strategy. The reason why I say that is because in order to be ultimately successful, a vendor following the capitalist process must usually rely on the creation of exclusivity, or a monopoly. This has also been called the "unique selling position," and what it means is that if you are one of ten different vendors selling a given product, you need to create a unique reason or incentive for a potential customer to buy from you, as opposed to one of the nine other vendors. It was that exact principle which led to the fragmentation of commercial UNIX, as incompatibility was born out of each vendor's desire to create a *unique* product, hence giving a customer incentive to buy from that vendor rather than the others. This principle is also why the recipe of Coca Cola, as another example, has been kept secret. If other companies knew the exac
It is a very common logical fallacy to say that if some followers of a movement are terrorists, then the movement must be evil.
I don't necessarily believe that the movement as a whole could be considered evil. I do, however, feel that at least as a minority, fanaticism can and does exist within any group. The Linux community itself is a very good example of such. Most of the people associated with developing/using Linux are, I suspect, at best genuinely altruistic, and at the least harmless, simply doing their own thing and deriving benefit from the use of Linux in their own way.
However, although individuals of the above type are the majority, there is a minority (personified in Linux's case by Richard Stallman and the FSF) who are at best simply mindless fanatics who don't think for themselves, and who at worst are, like Stallman himself, entirely ego-driven individuals who simply seek the creation of a power base, and in the process cause division, alienate people who could potentially aid in the development/wider adoption of Linux, and do large amounts of other harm.
I would suspect that in the animal liberation movement, a similar scenario exists, in terms of the majority being genuinely compassionate, well-meaning individuals who genuinely do wish to cease the human exploitation of our fellow lifeforms. Then however you have the minority that exist in any group, who see the ends as more important than the means, and who thus do not stop to consider that engaging in acts of human attrocity in order to attempt to prevent acts of animal attrocity is simply hypocritical, aside from anything else.
As I suspect in your own case, the scientist mentioned in this article (and others like him) very often are individuals whose desire is genuinely to move humanity forward. In that sense, both you and they have a common goal. Where the conflict perhaps exists is in the methodology that the scientists sometimes use in order to gain their research, in terms of experimentation on animals.
In response to this scientist's letter of surrender, I would hope that there are some within the animal rights movement who attempt to open a dialogue with him concerning finding a way in which the needs of both groups are satisfied. That is, a way for him to continue his research (which genuinely could be of enormous value, not only to human optometry, but potentially to veterinary science as well) in such a manner that does not cause harm/distress to animals and is not otherwise in conflict with the aims of your movement.
To return to the Linux analogy, Richard Stallman has likewise implied that there can be no compromise between him and the corporate world. My response to that is that eventually there will have to be, as both groups not only have a right to exist, but will undoubtedly continue to. Both groups also have enormous potential to benefit the other, and humanity at large. Peace between them however must come first, and although such peace should not be entirely on the corporate world's terms, Richard Stallman needs to begin to accept that peace should not (and will not) be entirely on his own terms either. There will need to be a willingness to give some ground on both sides.
>RMS and people in the Free Software movement, believe that there is no room for software that takes >away the freedoms of the user. And its important to teach kids in schools just that, so that they >know to respect those freedoms as they grow older as well.
There is at least one license which some of us feel actually accord users greater freedom than the GPL, yet Stallman doesn't advocate it...if anything, he's In the same way as Stallman himself does, you've actually said here that the only type of freedom anyone should have is the "freedom" to adhere to the FSF's perspectives.
Stallman is a divisive troll, and so tend to be those who follow him. The thing about people like you that is actually even worse is that at least Stallman can claim that he came up with his ideas on his own...you're merely parroting his ideas, without using your own brain. I've noticed, however, that on here at least Stallman's clone army is gradually shrinking, and may yet disappear entirely...there is hope.
And before you rhetorically accuse me of it, no, I don't entirely agree with ESR's call for completely selling out, either...but Raymond stands at one extreme, and Stallman on the other. Neither are attractive from my own perspective.
...that ESR's *how* potentially makes sense. What I'm not sure I understand is his *why*.
When he says that, "'Linux believers will have to reach out beyond self-absorbed geeks who learns Klingon and attends science fiction conventions in his spare time,'" the next question that needs to be asked is, why do they have to do that?
Something I think ESR doesn't understand is...Most Linux people that I've seen really don't want mainstream types using Linux, and by the same token, mainstream types by definition generally don't want to get within 50 km of Linux. There is a vast, and I tend to believe unbridgeable chasm between the two groups, and for the most part, both groups each tend to view the other as being beneath contempt. In order for said chasm to be crossed, two things would have to happen: On the geek side, RMS and the FSF in general would need to be rendered no more than an unfortunate memory, and on the mainstream side, Joe Six-Pack would need to suddenly and mysteriously experience an IQ boost of around 70 points. As anyone who reads this can probably guess, tragically, neither of those scenarios are likely to manifest any time soon.
Another thing I don't think ESR understands is that anything that *does* manage to break through to a genuinely mainstream audience won't actually *be* Linux in any recognisable sense any more. Those of us who remember that far back would have seen that with Red Hat. Red Hat claimed to put Linux on the map, but binary rpms *weren't* Linux as it existed before then.
Mainstream UNIX is, always has been, and always will be a contradiction in terms, specifically because UNIX was created *by* people of genius, *for* people of (or close to) genius. It was designed with the assumption that the person using it a) posessed a high degree of base intelligence, and b) was extremely willing to put said intelligence to active use. The mainstream, by definition, are a group within which neither of those assumptions are true. "Brand X" (lowest common denominator) UNIX would no longer be UNIX at all, precisely because the entire intent behind making anything "brand x" is to make said thing as simplistic and as undemanding of intelligence as possible.
So, to my question. Linux being "on the desktop," seems to be something a lot of people want. What I want to ask said people is whether or not they've really thought the implications of that through. I very strongly suspect that they have not.
Linus should have thrown down the gauntlet with Stallman a long time ago, IMHO. As I've been saying for a couple of years now, Stallman is an albatross around Linux's neck that is in urgent need of removal.
Both Stallman and his cult need to be rendered entirely irrelevant. There was a time when he actually *did* contribute...but that time has long passed. These days all he does is cause division and start needless arguments...and said arguments are usually about how much of the spotlight he should be able to hog. As anyone who has been paying attention knows, adulation and control are all Stallman really cares about. That more than perhaps anything else is what bothers me about him...he tries to make out that he is motivated by elevated ideals, when it's been obvious all along that he's simply a megalomaniacal, base narcissist.
There's nothing elevated or noble about that at all...it's deeply ugly.
I tend to believe that Linux has got to the point where "the mainstream" have *heard* of it, but still not necessarily to the point where they're actually *using* it. I also don't believe that being truly mainstream would be good for Linux, however I don't advocate RMS' brand of cultic insularity, either.
The stuff about 64 bit architecture is wacky, IMHO. Vista could cause problems for the adoption of Linux, but that won't necessarily have anything to do with 64 bit architecture. Something tells me that Eric has possibly been spending too much time with his corporate friends lately, and forgotten about what the real world are doing, if he thinks *everyone* has gone 64 bit.
Although I'm not running Linux right now, (I've just had to do a large re-install) when I do I don't give a damn about whether drivers are binary or not, and neither does anyone else with a brain, as far as I'm concerned. Most of us primarily care about being able to use our hardware. I'll agree with anyone who says that hardware specs should be published so that OSS drivers can be written, but unfortunately that isn't how capitalism (or at least contemporary capitalism) works, and hardware manufacturers generally adhere to capitalist economics.
If by being locked out of "the desktop" for 30 years, Eric means a scenario where casual computer laypeople can use Linux to the same degree they can Windows, then I think he needs to change "30 years" to "never", at least other than specialised applications. Last I saw, Linux at its' core was still command line oriented, systems like Ubuntu notwithstanding. I don't consider that a bad thing...but it isn't a characteristic that lends Linux to being used by novices.
Whoever wrote this article has obviously never used Usenet before. If they had, they'd know that was the original home of net vigilantism. If you got someone angry with you there, getting cancel requests sent out after your original post was a *best* case scenario. Worse things involved massive cases of libel, people publicising contact information, (such as phone numbers/snailmail addresses) people issuing death threats, and in the very worst scenarios, people attempting to actually carry said death threats out.
It's not so true now...but years ago, a person had to be very careful what they said online. You'd never know what unhinged lunatic might see your words, take them personally, and then decide to do something about them.
...would be to ask why people think he ever had it in the first place.
Apple have always been one of my primary pet hates where computers are concerned. I had to contend with their machines during both primary and secondary school. There was nothing particularly dislikable about the IIe for it's time...in terms of the BASIC language it came with it was reminiscent of the C64 I had at home. However, the Mac Classic's interface was strange, undiscoverable, and generally annoying. I can also remember it being particularly unstable...the bomb icon was a regular companion.
My uncle also had a Mac Classic, and I used to occasionally play games on it when I went to his house...that was after he got rid of his earlier C64, and I can remember thinking that using the C64 had been an infinitely more desirable experience, both in terms of the games, and the general interface. The selection of games for the Mac was severely limited, they were generally in monochrome, and I had to navigate the horrible UI first in order to get to them.
Then in 1994, after having used an Amiga for four years, I was faced with the choice of either buying a Mac or a 486. After researching the subject somewhat and discovering that a) I hardly knew of anyone who was selling Macs, that b) the hardware was twice the price, and c) I'd be paying double the money for a much smaller software base, (as well as the interface which I had grown to so passionately despise) there wasn't really any contest. I've been PC based ever since, and haven't looked back.
If I had any single request for Steve Jobs myself, it would simply be that he accept his irrelevance (other than perhaps in terms of the IPod) and give up. I'm aware that the Mac (and particularly OSX) is going to have its' cult of true believers, but other than that, I don't feel it's an exaggeration to say that nobody cares about Apple on the desktop. Linux gets a *lot* more airtime in my experience...and it deserves to.
So Steve, please...take the money you've already earned, and ride off into the sunset.
Whether or not it's going to happen to the entire planet, the idea that for the last couple of years America in particular has been headed for a total repetition of Nazi Germany is a forgone conclusion so utterly obvious that it barely even warrants mention.
Yes, martial law is going to be declared at some point. Yes, hundreds of thousands of you are going to be herded like sheep into concentration camps that are even now being built around the country.
And yes, the unholy triumvirate of George W Bush, Tony Blair, and John Howard is currently the single greatest threat to the proverbial life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness that currently exists on this planet.
And for those of you still oblivious enough to be in the, "it could never happen here," camp, all I can say is, wait 18 months.
IMHO there are only really two spaces within PC gaming in general where people could have trouble competing with WoW:-
a) The MMORPG space. This is a given, and there isn't really a whole lot other people in this space can do about it, IMHO. WoW is the single most mature implementation of the MMORPG genre that I've ever seen, and that possibly includes the offline RPG space as well. Blizzard have learned from the mistakes of UO in particular, and have created something which has taken the RPG out of the autistic/various other underground subcultures and genuinely into the mainstream. You don't need to be the stereotypical unemployed, socially/neurologically handicapped virgin (who have traditionally been the MMORPG's target audience) in order to appreciate WoW. This is finally an RPG which entirely normal people can find accessible.
b) The FPS space. This is a possibly even more difficult lock which Blizzard have established for the rest of the market to overcome. For probably a decade after Doom, PC gaming was almost exclusively about the first person shooter. The Sims was perhaps the first large scale title to reverse that trend somewhat, but it is still very prominent.
Having played capture the flag in the Warsong Gulch battleground, I find it virtually impossible to believe that Blizzard have not realised the historical importance of the FPS market, and intentionally tried (and very largely succeeded) to lure probably 80%-90% of the traditional FPS audience into a genre which, before WoW, said audience would not have dreamed of going anywhere near.
The real challenge that WoW presents to the rest of the industry IMHO is in its' versatility. WoW represents a large number of different types of games in one package. On the pure Diablo-like side, there is both an extremely flexible questing system, and instancing. For people more inclined to it, there is also an auction house which can actually provide a mini-game in itself, in that you can study trends and play the market in a similar way to real-world markets. Then there are the professions, as well as another mini-game associated with the fishing skill. On top of that, you have the roleplaying aspect, in which players can develop backstories and dramatic elements of their characters, and integrate that with the political situations which exist between the various nations in the overall backstory.
On the PvP side, you not only have Battlegrounds such as the aforementioned Warsong Gulch, but player-run scenarios where various settlements held by each faction will need to defend themselves against assaults by the opposing faction. The Battlegrounds are themselves another demonstration of Blizzard's brilliance in being able to avoid the kind of end-game boredom experienced in such games as Ultima Online, in the sense that they mark a point where the game transforms from a more traditional RPG into a limited, but large-scale clone of Unreal Tournament. This last element is what has allowed Blizzard to steal the FPS market.
So...what can the rest of the industry do? My own thoughts would be to move away from the elements Blizzard are already delivering...and as usual, it seems to be Will Wright who is leading the charge in that area. Spore promises to be about as different from anything within WoW as you can imagine, although in a lot of ways, is arguably going to be Wright's magnum opus, in that it will really incorporate all of the elements which up until now he has been putting into seperate games. (Sim Earth, Sim City, the Sims, etc)
I've said before what I believe the real problem with the gaming industry is...it's not WoW. It's the managerial staff of companies such as Electronic Arts, who quite aside from being open to innovation, are actually enormously averse to it. The one thing companies like EA want more than anything else are generic staple games which they can sell and rely on economically in the same manner as cereal boxes, year in and year out. We're talking about the sort of people I've described before as l
>The world needs a human population of around a million people - no more.
I don't believe it needs to be that small, (I also actually believe that if it were that small, we'd border on being endangered; there have been disease epidemics that have wiped out larger numbers) but I do believe the population would benefit enormously from losing around 66%-70% of its' current size...or around four-five billion globally.
This would still radically reduce our pollution output, and have other hugely positive sociological effects as well...the main one being that people would actually start to value each other again. It would also mean however that the population would have a comfortable degree of resilience in case of disease or other environmental disasters. I don't want to see humanity become entirely extinct; quite the opposite.
In terms of how we'll get there however, I tend to suspect that the next decade or so could well provide that solution for us. A limited, regional nuclear exchange in the Middle East (which still remains possible) would greatly reduce the population in that part of the world, and if the frequency of natural disasters of the last five years continues to hold, that will also help...especially if said natural disasters include a large scale alteration of the global map, which some people are predicting.
My own answer to Mr Hawking's question is that I believe the next 10-15 years are going to be very rough, but that at least a few of us will get through them...and that those few will be then able to establish a society the likes of which even a man of his intellect would perhaps find difficult to envision accurately.
"Any religion that cannot survive a collision with the truth is not worth many regrets."
Catholicism is an irredeemable, bogus system that has historically been explicitly and specifically dedicated to the promotion of human subjugation and misery, and the prevention of human development at any cost. Hawking's motives are the diametric opposite of these things...so it makes sense that Ratzinger would dislike what he is doing.
I read this site fairly regularly, as well as this one. I'm not really sure why I do...the entertainment factor mostly.
The thing that I often find truly painful when reading such sites however are the moronic adult children who somehow think they're going to change the world purely by submitting a story to a blog, so that their fellow adolescents can then bitch, whine, and post self-congratulatory leftist screeds in response. Another thing these same imbeciles do is insist on continuing in the delusion that the American system of government is still functional.
I'd be willing to bet good money that the "blogosphere" (even that word contains an overestimation of importance) by itself has done exactly jack shit when it has come to changing the actions of any government or corporation anywhere. How exactly is it *meant* to change anything by simply (completely on its' own) expressing your opinion?
I'm now going to probably cause people to label me a hypocrite here when I admit that I have a blog, which yes, I even update once every four months or so. The difference however is that I have no illusions whatsoever about it; I realise that my blog is completely devoid of any genuine relevance or importance...and so is everyone else's.
The government should have no say in what happens to the Internet, but big business shouldn't either.
Commercialism has been nothing but a plague to the Internet...the only thing it has done is allow that segment of the population that are likely to render the rest of us extinct to discover one more thing to screw up, in their suicidal quest for the increased bottom line. Now, to top it off, we're having to rely on the utterly corrupt, craven, senile geriatrics of the American legislative branch to prevent their fellow parasitic vermin from destroying the net completely. Why do I not feel more optimistic?
The Internet was initially developed by infinitely more redeemable human beings than anyone in either the American government or corporate world. The future of something that has been developed by those who are self-aware should not be decided by those who are not. As much as the Internet means to me, it pains me to see its' future being decided by groups which I fervently wish did not exist in the first place.
For those unutterably wretched human beings whose lives also revolve entirely and exclusively around money, the rest of us are waiting patiently for you to grow up and recover from your sickness. Your addiction is in need of rapid treatment...if it is not treated soon, you may well end up destroying the rest of us along with you.
...why 3D interfaces haven't been widely used yet.
a) We still don't really have the ability to do them properly. Yes, there are a lot of research projects centred around it, (there have been since at least the 70s) and yes, we're getting better, but we're still not there yet...and my money says we're not going to be there for a good while yet.
b) Partially because of a), we don't really have any data yet that *needs* a 3D interface. Most of what we've got still centres largely around text, and text for the most part is very 2D.
c) Part of the whole reason for using a computer is to make information easier to access than it would be in a conventional, three dimensional filing cabinet. When you start using three dimensional metaphors, unless you build a *very* large space, you start running into the old physical problems of clutter, lack of space, and difficulty finding things. One of the biggest advantages of text is that with it, you can zero in on precisely the data you do want, without being bothered by any data that you don't.
Hence, due to the above three reasons, I'm not expecting a genuinely useful, utilitarian 3D interface to appear any time terribly soon. We'll continue to have such things as Tactile and Croquet, but I feel very comfortable in predicting that they will remain exactly what they are now: Novelty research projects, largely devoid of genuine relevance or truly useful application.
Croquet's developers might think it's the best thing since sliced bread, but I can promise them that any single thing that you can do using Croquet, you can do a lot more quickly and easily using more conventional, two dimensional applications. Like many other such things, it is sadly a solution to a problem which doesn't exist. We don't use 3D because, apart from anything else, we simply don't need it...and given that, it's a heck of a lot easier not to.
I agree that DRM is a potential menace for a number of different forms of data, (music, software, and others) and I think it will ultimately be beaten by people making their opposition known to it on an individual basis.
RMS is right to protest some things, but don't wait for him alone to save you...This is something which is in nobody's best interests, and is also going to take a truly collective fight to bring down. I might have issues with the behaviour of Stallman and his followers regarding some issues, but there are others where differences need to be put aside.
1) Invent much faster form of propulsion than that currently commonly in use, which also does not involve oil/fossil fuel.
2) Design spacecraft that has some reasonable assurance of not randomly exploding in midair.
3) Do not adhere purely to the advice/perspectives/belief systems of "mainstream" scientists when attempting to solve the above, as solutions to above problems do exist, but mainstream scientists have vested interests in making sure you don't find them, because if you start using said solutions, the rest of us here on Earth will too, and then the oil companies will lose.
4) Do not attempt to go beyond Earth orbit again until 1, 2, and 3 have been followed.
The last console I owned was a CBS Colecovision. Before you begin laughing, my younger brothers have owned every other console since the SNES, while we were living in the same house.
I would have bought a SNES myself if I had been moving out at the time; I'm not prepared however to say that I'd put money down for any other console that's been produced that I've seen. I know there have been a number of rants written about how the SNES was the holy grail of consoles; I agree with them.
A few other reasons though:-
1. Versatility.(This is the main point) A console plays games. A PC plays games, surfs the net, does LAN stuff, plays multimedia, and does office work. (Printing, spreadsheets, etc) I can also run different operating systems as well as just Windows. To me, advocating the purchase of a PS2 to someone who already has a 2 Ghz+ PC is like suggesting they buy a pushbike when they already own an aircraft carrier.;-)
2. Cost. I can spend around $400 AUD for a used xbox, and presumably close to twice that for the new 360. Or if I've already got a PC, I can spend the same amount (or marginally even less) on a high-end graphics card for said PC that will be *much* more powerful than the one I'd get inside a console, which I can then also use for other applications (like say, 3D graphic editing) as well.
3. Horrible TV resolution. Although yes, I'm hearing that HD-TV will rectify that problem.
The single refutation to these that I've heard before is that you can't get the same range of games with a PC. If you care about that and have the money, then for you that might justify getting a console...but for me, personally, it doesn't. I have WoW, War3, GTA: San Andreas, the Sims 2, Simcity 4, UT2004, and XCom, and they're already far more than I've got time to play.
Granted, the above is only part of the equation. It is also true I believe that the gaming industry has relied way too much on teenage male sociopathy to sell games, and said practice has now come back to haunt them. The other problem is when the only companies that are apparently able to survive are staffed with amoral, soulless bean counters who insist purely on uninspired sequels, and to whom the phrase "artistic integrity" is entirely unheard of. (EA, I'm talking to you. Valve have also sold their souls in this direction, IMHO)
The demoniac bean counters have to go, the stuff that provides grist for the mills of the Jack Thompsons of the world has to go, and the truly creative people (the Will Wrights, Richard Garriots, and Peter Molyneuxs) need to be put firmly back in charge. Unfortunately however, I'm not sufficiently naive to believe that that's going to happen. The aforementioned demoniac bean counters currently rule the roost, and for them, things are going just fine, thank you very much...and in their minds, as long as they keep making billions of dollars, the rest of us can go screw ourselves.
...would be to ask why someone would want to use the nvidia drivers for Linux in the first place. In most cases that would mean playing games.
I am as much an advocate of Linux being used in some areas as anyone else, but gaming quite simply is NOT one of said areas. To me, being one of the two or so percent of people who use Linux as their sole OS could be the only sane reason for doing so. Otherwise, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For starters, the games that do work for Linux generally only do after a large investment of pain and suffering, and for another thing, 3D on Linux means OpenGL exclusively, which, to put it mildly, sucks. Also...before you say it, none of the native Linux games I've seen count; and nethack certainly doesn't. In this scenario I'm referring to games played by people who live above ground.;-)
Linux is really awesome for some things, but gaming ain't one of them.
Slashdot Mirror
Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area.
I myself am a good example of this. I live in Australia, and was socially very largely lost until I first began using the Internet in 1994. Since then, I made contact with a number of people from several different countries, and found a far greater degree of acceptance than I had ever received for the most part offline in Australia. If it had not been for meeting my present girlfriend in Melbourne in late 2001, I probably would have at least tried to leave the country by now, although was unsure as to where else to go.
I will admit that I have tended to consider most of my countrymen (at least those that I have known) to be provincial, narrow minded, excessively jocular morons, who also have a tendency to grossly overestimate the country's level of international relevance. To add to the rest of the world's reasons to hold Australia in contempt, the current Howard government is utterly shameless in its' fawning solidarity with the rogue American Bush administration, and because of this, we now have the notorious distinction of being one of the few countries left on the planet whose government is sufficiently facistic to be willing to adopt that stance. In most other countries, not only have the public been vehement in expressing their opposition to the evil of Bush, but their governments have also more commonly listened to their constituents' will.
I live online more or less entirely, and view Australia as merely being the place where my physical body sleeps.
RMS just made himself look bad when he didn't need to...although then again, what else is new?
In one of my last posts on here I talked about how (from what I've seen, anywayz) Red Hat had become profitable...there are a lot of other companies doing what they do, too. Making money with free software is entirely possible...RMS has written about it himself, and even used to do it himself when he was selling Emacs tapes. There's also this, which he could have even mentioned.
It is exasperating...No matter what else he does, the one thing he manages to consistently do is shoot himself in the foot.
The first misconception; the money issue
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
(From the GPL version 2 - Emphasis mine)
What the above means is that no money must be charged for *licensing* a derivative work. In other words, not only must the entire derivative work be placed under the GPL, you can't charge more for the GPL licensed work than you would if you were using another license. Note that the word "distribute" is not mentioned in the above section at all. People *really* need to read this, as I've often said, because it specifically refutes the idea that making money from software using the GPL is prohibited by the license. As that article says, your only obligations are to ensure that a) whichever distribution medium (CD-ROM, ftp site, whatever) that contains binaries must also contain the source code of said binaries, and that b) you don't try and charge for downstream use of the license.
I'll say it again...PLEASE go and read the above link about paid distribution of GPL licensed software.
The second misconception; the linking issue
6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a "work that uses the Library" with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms permit modification of the work for the customer's own use and reverse engineering for debugging such modifications.
(Excerpt from the Lesser GPL - emphasis mine)
For combined derivative works including an LGPL licensed library, it could definitely be argued that this is not a hard application of copyleft, and that those who want it are being given weasel room. The other allowance that the LGPL makes is that an LGPL library can be combined with either a library or an application not under the GPL, and that while the LGPL library itself stays under the LGPL, the resulting combined application does not have to be.
I personally consider the LGPL deeply hypocritical in light of Stallman's previous thorough attempts to discourage use of the BSD license. He also, however, states here that the LGPL is only intended for use with libraries which imitate functions already present in commercial software. Hence, he implicitly concedes here that he is attempting to build a code monopoly in order to enforce increased use of the GPL. He cites appeals to popularity as one reason why people might try and coerce a software author into using the LGPL, when to my mind his own fears of a lack of popularity must surely have been the reasoning behind the LGPL's creation.
Although it is true, as stated above, that there is no prohibition against making money from the distribution of GPL licensed software, the GPL is likely to force those who wish to sell software (and who are accustomed to capitalist economics) to reconsider their strategy. The reason why I say that is because in order to be ultimately successful, a vendor following the capitalist process must usually rely on the creation of exclusivity, or a monopoly. This has also been called the "unique selling position," and what it means is that if you are one of ten different vendors selling a given product, you need to create a unique reason or incentive for a potential customer to buy from you, as opposed to one of the nine other vendors. It was that exact principle which led to the fragmentation of commercial UNIX, as incompatibility was born out of each vendor's desire to create a *unique* product, hence giving a customer incentive to buy from that vendor rather than the others. This principle is also why the recipe of Coca Cola, as another example, has been kept secret. If other companies knew the exac
It is a very common logical fallacy to say that if some followers of a movement are terrorists, then the movement must be evil.
I don't necessarily believe that the movement as a whole could be considered evil. I do, however, feel that at least as a minority, fanaticism can and does exist within any group. The Linux community itself is a very good example of such. Most of the people associated with developing/using Linux are, I suspect, at best genuinely altruistic, and at the least harmless, simply doing their own thing and deriving benefit from the use of Linux in their own way.
However, although individuals of the above type are the majority, there is a minority (personified in Linux's case by Richard Stallman and the FSF) who are at best simply mindless fanatics who don't think for themselves, and who at worst are, like Stallman himself, entirely ego-driven individuals who simply seek the creation of a power base, and in the process cause division, alienate people who could potentially aid in the development/wider adoption of Linux, and do large amounts of other harm.
I would suspect that in the animal liberation movement, a similar scenario exists, in terms of the majority being genuinely compassionate, well-meaning individuals who genuinely do wish to cease the human exploitation of our fellow lifeforms. Then however you have the minority that exist in any group, who see the ends as more important than the means, and who thus do not stop to consider that engaging in acts of human attrocity in order to attempt to prevent acts of animal attrocity is simply hypocritical, aside from anything else.
As I suspect in your own case, the scientist mentioned in this article (and others like him) very often are individuals whose desire is genuinely to move humanity forward. In that sense, both you and they have a common goal. Where the conflict perhaps exists is in the methodology that the scientists sometimes use in order to gain their research, in terms of experimentation on animals.
In response to this scientist's letter of surrender, I would hope that there are some within the animal rights movement who attempt to open a dialogue with him concerning finding a way in which the needs of both groups are satisfied. That is, a way for him to continue his research (which genuinely could be of enormous value, not only to human optometry, but potentially to veterinary science as well) in such a manner that does not cause harm/distress to animals and is not otherwise in conflict with the aims of your movement.
To return to the Linux analogy, Richard Stallman has likewise implied that there can be no compromise between him and the corporate world. My response to that is that eventually there will have to be, as both groups not only have a right to exist, but will undoubtedly continue to. Both groups also have enormous potential to benefit the other, and humanity at large. Peace between them however must come first, and although such peace should not be entirely on the corporate world's terms, Richard Stallman needs to begin to accept that peace should not (and will not) be entirely on his own terms either. There will need to be a willingness to give some ground on both sides.
>RMS and people in the Free Software movement, believe that there is no room for software that takes >away the freedoms of the user. And its important to teach kids in schools just that, so that they >know to respect those freedoms as they grow older as well.
There is at least one license which some of us feel actually accord users greater freedom than the GPL, yet Stallman doesn't advocate it...if anything, he's In the same way as Stallman himself does, you've actually said here that the only type of freedom anyone should have is the "freedom" to adhere to the FSF's perspectives.
Stallman is a divisive troll, and so tend to be those who follow him. The thing about people like you that is actually even worse is that at least Stallman can claim that he came up with his ideas on his own...you're merely parroting his ideas, without using your own brain. I've noticed, however, that on here at least Stallman's clone army is gradually shrinking, and may yet disappear entirely...there is hope.
And before you rhetorically accuse me of it, no, I don't entirely agree with ESR's call for completely selling out, either...but Raymond stands at one extreme, and Stallman on the other. Neither are attractive from my own perspective.
"ESR is a traitor and should be excommunicated for this"
;-)
I don't think ESR is Catholic.
He means the Church of the Gnu.
Don't tell me you're feeling ashamed of yourself! ;-)
tlhIngan maH!
...that ESR's *how* potentially makes sense. What I'm not sure I understand is his *why*.
When he says that, "'Linux believers will have to reach out beyond self-absorbed geeks who learns Klingon and attends science fiction conventions in his spare time,'" the next question that needs to be asked is, why do they have to do that?
Something I think ESR doesn't understand is...Most Linux people that I've seen really don't want mainstream types using Linux, and by the same token, mainstream types by definition generally don't want to get within 50 km of Linux. There is a vast, and I tend to believe unbridgeable chasm between the two groups, and for the most part, both groups each tend to view the other as being beneath contempt. In order for said chasm to be crossed, two things would have to happen: On the geek side, RMS and the FSF in general would need to be rendered no more than an unfortunate memory, and on the mainstream side, Joe Six-Pack would need to suddenly and mysteriously experience an IQ boost of around 70 points. As anyone who reads this can probably guess, tragically, neither of those scenarios are likely to manifest any time soon.
Another thing I don't think ESR understands is that anything that *does* manage to break through to a genuinely mainstream audience won't actually *be* Linux in any recognisable sense any more. Those of us who remember that far back would have seen that with Red Hat. Red Hat claimed to put Linux on the map, but binary rpms *weren't* Linux as it existed before then.
Mainstream UNIX is, always has been, and always will be a contradiction in terms, specifically because UNIX was created *by* people of genius, *for* people of (or close to) genius. It was designed with the assumption that the person using it a) posessed a high degree of base intelligence, and b) was extremely willing to put said intelligence to active use. The mainstream, by definition, are a group within which neither of those assumptions are true. "Brand X" (lowest common denominator) UNIX would no longer be UNIX at all, precisely because the entire intent behind making anything "brand x" is to make said thing as simplistic and as undemanding of intelligence as possible.
So, to my question. Linux being "on the desktop," seems to be something a lot of people want. What I want to ask said people is whether or not they've really thought the implications of that through. I very strongly suspect that they have not.
The world still desperately needs you.
Linus should have thrown down the gauntlet with Stallman a long time ago, IMHO. As I've been saying for a couple of years now, Stallman is an albatross around Linux's neck that is in urgent need of removal.
Both Stallman and his cult need to be rendered entirely irrelevant. There was a time when he actually *did* contribute...but that time has long passed. These days all he does is cause division and start needless arguments...and said arguments are usually about how much of the spotlight he should be able to hog. As anyone who has been paying attention knows, adulation and control are all Stallman really cares about. That more than perhaps anything else is what bothers me about him...he tries to make out that he is motivated by elevated ideals, when it's been obvious all along that he's simply a megalomaniacal, base narcissist.
There's nothing elevated or noble about that at all...it's deeply ugly.
...and wrong on others, IMHO.
I tend to believe that Linux has got to the point where "the mainstream" have *heard* of it, but still not necessarily to the point where they're actually *using* it. I also don't believe that being truly mainstream would be good for Linux, however I don't advocate RMS' brand of cultic insularity, either.
The stuff about 64 bit architecture is wacky, IMHO. Vista could cause problems for the adoption of Linux, but that won't necessarily have anything to do with 64 bit architecture. Something tells me that Eric has possibly been spending too much time with his corporate friends lately, and forgotten about what the real world are doing, if he thinks *everyone* has gone 64 bit.
Although I'm not running Linux right now, (I've just had to do a large re-install) when I do I don't give a damn about whether drivers are binary or not, and neither does anyone else with a brain, as far as I'm concerned. Most of us primarily care about being able to use our hardware. I'll agree with anyone who says that hardware specs should be published so that OSS drivers can be written, but unfortunately that isn't how capitalism (or at least contemporary capitalism) works, and hardware manufacturers generally adhere to capitalist economics.
If by being locked out of "the desktop" for 30 years, Eric means a scenario where casual computer laypeople can use Linux to the same degree they can Windows, then I think he needs to change "30 years" to "never", at least other than specialised applications. Last I saw, Linux at its' core was still command line oriented, systems like Ubuntu notwithstanding. I don't consider that a bad thing...but it isn't a characteristic that lends Linux to being used by novices.
Whoever wrote this article has obviously never used Usenet before. If they had, they'd know that was the original home of net vigilantism. If you got someone angry with you there, getting cancel requests sent out after your original post was a *best* case scenario. Worse things involved massive cases of libel, people publicising contact information, (such as phone numbers/snailmail addresses) people issuing death threats, and in the very worst scenarios, people attempting to actually carry said death threats out.
It's not so true now...but years ago, a person had to be very careful what they said online. You'd never know what unhinged lunatic might see your words, take them personally, and then decide to do something about them.
...would be to ask why people think he ever had it in the first place.
Apple have always been one of my primary pet hates where computers are concerned. I had to contend with their machines during both primary and secondary school. There was nothing particularly dislikable about the IIe for it's time...in terms of the BASIC language it came with it was reminiscent of the C64 I had at home. However, the Mac Classic's interface was strange, undiscoverable, and generally annoying. I can also remember it being particularly unstable...the bomb icon was a regular companion.
My uncle also had a Mac Classic, and I used to occasionally play games on it when I went to his house...that was after he got rid of his earlier C64, and I can remember thinking that using the C64 had been an infinitely more desirable experience, both in terms of the games, and the general interface. The selection of games for the Mac was severely limited, they were generally in monochrome, and I had to navigate the horrible UI first in order to get to them.
Then in 1994, after having used an Amiga for four years, I was faced with the choice of either buying a Mac or a 486. After researching the subject somewhat and discovering that a) I hardly knew of anyone who was selling Macs, that b) the hardware was twice the price, and c) I'd be paying double the money for a much smaller software base, (as well as the interface which I had grown to so passionately despise) there wasn't really any contest. I've been PC based ever since, and haven't looked back.
If I had any single request for Steve Jobs myself, it would simply be that he accept his irrelevance (other than perhaps in terms of the IPod) and give up. I'm aware that the Mac (and particularly OSX) is going to have its' cult of true believers, but other than that, I don't feel it's an exaggeration to say that nobody cares about Apple on the desktop. Linux gets a *lot* more airtime in my experience...and it deserves to.
So Steve, please...take the money you've already earned, and ride off into the sunset.
Whether or not it's going to happen to the entire planet, the idea that for the last couple of years America in particular has been headed for a total repetition of Nazi Germany is a forgone conclusion so utterly obvious that it barely even warrants mention.
Yes, martial law is going to be declared at some point. Yes, hundreds of thousands of you are going to be herded like sheep into concentration camps that are even now being built around the country.
And yes, the unholy triumvirate of George W Bush, Tony Blair, and John Howard is currently the single greatest threat to the proverbial life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness that currently exists on this planet.
And for those of you still oblivious enough to be in the, "it could never happen here," camp, all I can say is, wait 18 months.
IMHO there are only really two spaces within PC gaming in general where people could have trouble competing with WoW:-
a) The MMORPG space. This is a given, and there isn't really a whole lot other people in this space can do about it, IMHO. WoW is the single most mature implementation of the MMORPG genre that I've ever seen, and that possibly includes the offline RPG space as well. Blizzard have learned from the mistakes of UO in particular, and have created something which has taken the RPG out of the autistic/various other underground subcultures and genuinely into the mainstream. You don't need to be the stereotypical unemployed, socially/neurologically handicapped virgin (who have traditionally been the MMORPG's target audience) in order to appreciate WoW. This is finally an RPG which entirely normal people can find accessible.
b) The FPS space. This is a possibly even more difficult lock which Blizzard have established for the rest of the market to overcome. For probably a decade after Doom, PC gaming was almost exclusively about the first person shooter. The Sims was perhaps the first large scale title to reverse that trend somewhat, but it is still very prominent.
Having played capture the flag in the Warsong Gulch battleground, I find it virtually impossible to believe that Blizzard have not realised the historical importance of the FPS market, and intentionally tried (and very largely succeeded) to lure probably 80%-90% of the traditional FPS audience into a genre which, before WoW, said audience would not have dreamed of going anywhere near.
The real challenge that WoW presents to the rest of the industry IMHO is in its' versatility. WoW represents a large number of different types of games in one package. On the pure Diablo-like side, there is both an extremely flexible questing system, and instancing. For people more inclined to it, there is also an auction house which can actually provide a mini-game in itself, in that you can study trends and play the market in a similar way to real-world markets. Then there are the professions, as well as another mini-game associated with the fishing skill. On top of that, you have the roleplaying aspect, in which players can develop backstories and dramatic elements of their characters, and integrate that with the political situations which exist between the various nations in the overall backstory.
On the PvP side, you not only have Battlegrounds such as the aforementioned Warsong Gulch, but player-run scenarios where various settlements held by each faction will need to defend themselves against assaults by the opposing faction. The Battlegrounds are themselves another demonstration of Blizzard's brilliance in being able to avoid the kind of end-game boredom experienced in such games as Ultima Online, in the sense that they mark a point where the game transforms from a more traditional RPG into a limited, but large-scale clone of Unreal Tournament. This last element is what has allowed Blizzard to steal the FPS market.
So...what can the rest of the industry do? My own thoughts would be to move away from the elements Blizzard are already delivering...and as usual, it seems to be Will Wright who is leading the charge in that area. Spore promises to be about as different from anything within WoW as you can imagine, although in a lot of ways, is arguably going to be Wright's magnum opus, in that it will really incorporate all of the elements which up until now he has been putting into seperate games. (Sim Earth, Sim City, the Sims, etc)
I've said before what I believe the real problem with the gaming industry is...it's not WoW. It's the managerial staff of companies such as Electronic Arts, who quite aside from being open to innovation, are actually enormously averse to it. The one thing companies like EA want more than anything else are generic staple games which they can sell and rely on economically in the same manner as cereal boxes, year in and year out. We're talking about the sort of people I've described before as l
>The world needs a human population of around a million people - no more.
I don't believe it needs to be that small, (I also actually believe that if it were that small, we'd border on being endangered; there have been disease epidemics that have wiped out larger numbers) but I do believe the population would benefit enormously from losing around 66%-70% of its' current size...or around four-five billion globally.
This would still radically reduce our pollution output, and have other hugely positive sociological effects as well...the main one being that people would actually start to value each other again. It would also mean however that the population would have a comfortable degree of resilience in case of disease or other environmental disasters. I don't want to see humanity become entirely extinct; quite the opposite.
In terms of how we'll get there however, I tend to suspect that the next decade or so could well provide that solution for us. A limited, regional nuclear exchange in the Middle East (which still remains possible) would greatly reduce the population in that part of the world, and if the frequency of natural disasters of the last five years continues to hold, that will also help...especially if said natural disasters include a large scale alteration of the global map, which some people are predicting.
My own answer to Mr Hawking's question is that I believe the next 10-15 years are going to be very rough, but that at least a few of us will get through them...and that those few will be then able to establish a society the likes of which even a man of his intellect would perhaps find difficult to envision accurately.
"Any religion that cannot survive a collision with the truth is not worth many regrets."
Catholicism is an irredeemable, bogus system that has historically been explicitly and specifically dedicated to the promotion of human subjugation and misery, and the prevention of human development at any cost. Hawking's motives are the diametric opposite of these things...so it makes sense that Ratzinger would dislike what he is doing.
I read this site fairly regularly, as well as this one. I'm not really sure why I do...the entertainment factor mostly.
The thing that I often find truly painful when reading such sites however are the moronic adult children who somehow think they're going to change the world purely by submitting a story to a blog, so that their fellow adolescents can then bitch, whine, and post self-congratulatory leftist screeds in response. Another thing these same imbeciles do is insist on continuing in the delusion that the American system of government is still functional.
I'd be willing to bet good money that the "blogosphere" (even that word contains an overestimation of importance) by itself has done exactly jack shit when it has come to changing the actions of any government or corporation anywhere. How exactly is it *meant* to change anything by simply (completely on its' own) expressing your opinion?
I'm now going to probably cause people to label me a hypocrite here when I admit that I have a blog, which yes, I even update once every four months or so. The difference however is that I have no illusions whatsoever about it; I realise that my blog is completely devoid of any genuine relevance or importance...and so is everyone else's.
The government should have no say in what happens to the Internet, but big business shouldn't either.
Commercialism has been nothing but a plague to the Internet...the only thing it has done is allow that segment of the population that are likely to render the rest of us extinct to discover one more thing to screw up, in their suicidal quest for the increased bottom line. Now, to top it off, we're having to rely on the utterly corrupt, craven, senile geriatrics of the American legislative branch to prevent their fellow parasitic vermin from destroying the net completely. Why do I not feel more optimistic?
The Internet was initially developed by infinitely more redeemable human beings than anyone in either the American government or corporate world. The future of something that has been developed by those who are self-aware should not be decided by those who are not. As much as the Internet means to me, it pains me to see its' future being decided by groups which I fervently wish did not exist in the first place.
For those unutterably wretched human beings whose lives also revolve entirely and exclusively around money, the rest of us are waiting patiently for you to grow up and recover from your sickness. Your addiction is in need of rapid treatment...if it is not treated soon, you may well end up destroying the rest of us along with you.
...why 3D interfaces haven't been widely used yet.
a) We still don't really have the ability to do them properly. Yes, there are a lot of research projects centred around it, (there have been since at least the 70s) and yes, we're getting better, but we're still not there yet...and my money says we're not going to be there for a good while yet.
b) Partially because of a), we don't really have any data yet that *needs* a 3D interface. Most of what we've got still centres largely around text, and text for the most part is very 2D.
c) Part of the whole reason for using a computer is to make information easier to access than it would be in a conventional, three dimensional filing cabinet. When you start using three dimensional metaphors, unless you build a *very* large space, you start running into the old physical problems of clutter, lack of space, and difficulty finding things. One of the biggest advantages of text is that with it, you can zero in on precisely the data you do want, without being bothered by any data that you don't.
Hence, due to the above three reasons, I'm not expecting a genuinely useful, utilitarian 3D interface to appear any time terribly soon. We'll continue to have such things as Tactile and Croquet, but I feel very comfortable in predicting that they will remain exactly what they are now: Novelty research projects, largely devoid of genuine relevance or truly useful application.
Croquet's developers might think it's the best thing since sliced bread, but I can promise them that any single thing that you can do using Croquet, you can do a lot more quickly and easily using more conventional, two dimensional applications. Like many other such things, it is sadly a solution to a problem which doesn't exist. We don't use 3D because, apart from anything else, we simply don't need it...and given that, it's a heck of a lot easier not to.
I agree that DRM is a potential menace for a number of different forms of data, (music, software, and others) and I think it will ultimately be beaten by people making their opposition known to it on an individual basis.
RMS is right to protest some things, but don't wait for him alone to save you...This is something which is in nobody's best interests, and is also going to take a truly collective fight to bring down. I might have issues with the behaviour of Stallman and his followers regarding some issues, but there are others where differences need to be put aside.
1) Invent much faster form of propulsion than that currently commonly in use, which also does not involve oil/fossil fuel.
2) Design spacecraft that has some reasonable assurance of not randomly exploding in midair.
3) Do not adhere purely to the advice/perspectives/belief systems of "mainstream" scientists when attempting to solve the above, as solutions to above problems do exist, but mainstream scientists have vested interests in making sure you don't find them, because if you start using said solutions, the rest of us here on Earth will too, and then the oil companies will lose.
4) Do not attempt to go beyond Earth orbit again until 1, 2, and 3 have been followed.
I can just see that headline...
Slashdot Reader Claims Microsoft are "Fuckheads." - Steve Ballmer Requested For Comment.
The last console I owned was a CBS Colecovision. Before you begin laughing, my younger brothers have owned every other console since the SNES, while we were living in the same house.
;-)
I would have bought a SNES myself if I had been moving out at the time; I'm not prepared however to say that I'd put money down for any other console that's been produced that I've seen. I know there have been a number of rants written about how the SNES was the holy grail of consoles; I agree with them.
A few other reasons though:-
1. Versatility.(This is the main point) A console plays games. A PC plays games, surfs the net, does LAN stuff, plays multimedia, and does office work. (Printing, spreadsheets, etc) I can also run different operating systems as well as just Windows.
To me, advocating the purchase of a PS2 to someone who already has a 2 Ghz+ PC is like suggesting they buy a pushbike when they already own an aircraft carrier.
2. Cost. I can spend around $400 AUD for a used xbox, and presumably close to twice that for the new 360. Or if I've already got a PC, I can spend the same amount (or marginally even less) on a high-end graphics card for said PC that will be *much* more powerful than the one I'd get inside a console, which I can then also use for other applications (like say, 3D graphic editing) as well.
3. Horrible TV resolution. Although yes, I'm hearing that HD-TV will rectify that problem.
The single refutation to these that I've heard before is that you can't get the same range of games with a PC. If you care about that and have the money, then for you that might justify getting a console...but for me, personally, it doesn't. I have WoW, War3, GTA: San Andreas, the Sims 2, Simcity 4, UT2004, and XCom, and they're already far more than I've got time to play.
Granted, the above is only part of the equation. It is also true I believe that the gaming industry has relied way too much on teenage male sociopathy to sell games, and said practice has now come back to haunt them. The other problem is when the only companies that are apparently able to survive are staffed with amoral, soulless bean counters who insist purely on uninspired sequels, and to whom the phrase "artistic integrity" is entirely unheard of. (EA, I'm talking to you. Valve have also sold their souls in this direction, IMHO)
The demoniac bean counters have to go, the stuff that provides grist for the mills of the Jack Thompsons of the world has to go, and the truly creative people (the Will Wrights, Richard Garriots, and Peter Molyneuxs) need to be put firmly back in charge. Unfortunately however, I'm not sufficiently naive to believe that that's going to happen. The aforementioned demoniac bean counters currently rule the roost, and for them, things are going just fine, thank you very much...and in their minds, as long as they keep making billions of dollars, the rest of us can go screw ourselves.
...would be to ask why someone would want to use the nvidia drivers for Linux in the first place. In most cases that would mean playing games.
;-)
I am as much an advocate of Linux being used in some areas as anyone else, but gaming quite simply is NOT one of said areas. To me, being one of the two or so percent of people who use Linux as their sole OS could be the only sane reason for doing so. Otherwise, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For starters, the games that do work for Linux generally only do after a large investment of pain and suffering, and for another thing, 3D on Linux means OpenGL exclusively, which, to put it mildly, sucks. Also...before you say it, none of the native Linux games I've seen count; and nethack certainly doesn't. In this scenario I'm referring to games played by people who live above ground.
Linux is really awesome for some things, but gaming ain't one of them.