Re:Let me be the first critic
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Linux Needs Critics
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Linux needs constructive insightful critics, not crybabies.
Sorry. Did I not suck enough ass before I told you how the real world works, rather than fairytale land?
Windows does not deserve credit for the drivers provided by the hardware manufacturers (HM).
Whether Windows deserves "credit" for this is meaningless. In much the way I wouldn't buy a car that lacks working air conditioning, I sure as hell am not going to stick with (or try for very long) an OS the does not work on my hardware, no matter how much the evangelists/zealots scream "but it's so much better and so much cooler and so much more awesome than what you're using."
But wouldn't you find it a little bit aggrevating as a developer to be trying very hard to get something accomplished when you have someone on the sidelines taunting you and blaming you for their problems?
Funny. I don't "taunt." And I never said I "blame" them for the problems of Linux - I simply said that the problems of Linux need to be addressed in order to meet the stated goals of various portions of the Linux community.
You aren't really bringing alot to the table, right?
Doubly funny - I actually contributed quite a bit passing back my configuration files to try to help make good, "out of the box" definitions for the ATi Remote Wonder in Mythbuntu a reality. Know what I got back? "That's nice, we'll look at it later." Since the video board situation never improved and I eventually just gave up.
It's not our problem, because we don't have your problems, because we made wise buying decisions.
And this is why the real world, and collective individuals like myself, despite trying to be accommodating when you shit-spewing retard monkeys say that your OS is "better", despite offering up a real critique in good faith about what it'll take to get more than a handful of social rejects using Linux, will eventually turn to shit-spewing retard monkeys like you and say SHUT THE FUCK UP because you weren't even paying attention to what we said before you went off on your standard boilerplate diatribe.
The number of users like you--smart/patient enough to be able to install their own operating system, not smart/rational enough to purchase hardware to suit their software rather than the other way around (hardware is a means, not an end)--is really small.
I purchased hardware years ago. Linux wasn't even a factor in the purchase. I made an entirely rational purchase based on price and performance of the hardware I was purchasing, for an existing (and working just fine thank you) software solution.
I am, in other words, smart and rational enough to purchase hardware to suit my software. You just don't like the fact that my choice of software, for which I purchased the hardware, was not the same software you troll for.
And there's the brutal the irony of Linux zealots. I could show this thread of discussion to 100 people who indicate a willingness to try Linux, and the behavior of the linux zealots alone would be enough to turn 99 of them away from it forever.
Next time be smarter in picking your hardware.
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Is it Apple's problem that MacOS does not work at all on your hardware?
If Apple wishes for me to purchase MacOS, then arguably, they need to present me a cogent argument that it is in my best interest to do so.
If I were in the market for a whole box at once (or perhaps a laptop), then Apple might be worth looking into. For my present desktop at a time when I already have a software solution that works, and works well, on my existing hardware? Apple would have to have their OS work on my existing hardware and provide a better user experience.
If you have enough Linux using friends to be constantly told that Linux is superior, it does sound as though desktop Linux is making progress wherever you are!
Nope. I just hang around with a lot of linux nerds. These guys have been "using linux" for 10 years or longer.
It may be best to delay switching till you buy a new PC, and make sure you buy one that has Linux friendly hardware.
Well, this is my DVR, not my main box. My main box is optimized for certain tasks, and sad to say, Linux simply lacks the ability to run the software I want to run under it (especially since I don't feel like fucking around with Wine/Cedega/etc for three weeks just to finally manage to get the apps sorta-kinda running at a 10-15% performance hit and then crow about how I "proved" I didn't need the copy of Windows I already own).
In sheer honesty, by the time I upgrade the DVR, maybe Congress will have finally stopped delaying the Digital switchover;) At that point, I'll have to take stock and see how many of my components are still usable in an upgrade situation, and whether it's worth the cost. We'll see.
I have also found Linux forums to be consistently helpful. You may be told its better to buy different hardware, but you will also be helped as far as possible to use the hardware you have if that is what you want to do.
I would be interested in the names/locations of these "helpful forums" of which you speak. From my past experience they are figments of imagination, much like unicorns, honest politicians, and an Al Gore who can go three words without lying.
If you've ever bought a commodity piece of hardware, or been a student, or bothered to check close-out prices anywhere, you'd realize that the "cost" to users of a copy of XP is almost nothing (common linuxite bitching about PC's coming with a "Micro$oft tax" notwithstanding). You can get a Dell, 19" FP monitor, 4GB RAM, E7300 processor, 250GB HD, Audigy soundcard for ~$600 right now. The "Cost" of having Windows on it? Next to nothing. I've looked around to try to build a similar PC and after the cost of all the components (case, power supply, monitor, keyboard, etc) I'm coming pretty close to that price. Sure, I need to still buy a video board, but so what? $70 gets me an NVidia 9800 or ATi HD4800 series video board out at Newegg. Unless I'm going to try to run Crysis or some shit like that, I don't need more than the single board to run WoW or City of Heroes, and the rest of the PC gaming market's pretty much down the shitter since every dev house out there abandoned it for the Xbox360/PS3/Wii anyways in the last 5 years.
Even if you bought a beige-box years ago and were given a "proprietary" install CD with some stupid motherboard-tying app or something, it's still easy enough to handcraft a compatible retail CD (all you have to do is replace the "retail" version's setupp.ini file with the one from yours, barely different from building a "slipstream" drivers-inclusion cd) that'll accept your license code and let you reinstall should you build a new box and scavenge the still-usable parts (soundcard, DVD drive, case, etc) from your old one.
Again: "Free" is relative. If you already have a legitimate license of Windows, it's "free" for you to use, which is to say it requires no additional expenditure on your part to keep using it.
Re:Let me be the first critic
on
Linux Needs Critics
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Wow. Thank you for proving my point so well with your vitriolic, hate-spewing post.
The stated goal - at least from a large portion of the linux community - is to see as many people using Linux as possible. Even as "volunteers" and "freeloaders", it is to Linux's advantage to try to reach this goal. The more market share that Linux has, the more support that they should see from software and hardware developers in the form of things like more open sourcing of drivers, better relationships with vendors (perhaps convincing companies to ship computers with Linux rather than Windows for example), and in terms of companies being willing to produce Linux-centric versions of their game (or in the case of MMO's, their game client). In other words, if Linux gets to a critical mass, then problems like "hey, Video Board X doesn't work in Distro Y Funkey Monkey" will be much easier to address.
Functionally, however, this is a "chicken and the egg" issue. At its current market share, and given the way many so-called "linux advocates" behave towards companies that don't do exactly what they want at the drop of a hat, I can understand why there are companies out there not handing out their design documents and driver source code. Linux zealots have burned a lot of bridges, made a lot of enemies, and generally made asses of themselves at just the wrong time during many points in Linux's history.
Again: whether this is what you, personally, have done may have bearing on whether it is "your fault." The fact remains that whose "fault" it is, in terms of support and in terms of making Linux friendly enough to get that coveted "critical mass" of market share where the various companies all start having to play along or else risk losing sales, is completely irrelevant.
Linux, IF you want it to reach that "critical mass" market share point, needs to reach a certain bar of compatibility. This doesn't mean that it needs to be compatible with everything known to mankind, but it DOES mean that you need to support, say, the major product lines of the "big three" video board market share holders (NVidia, ATi, Intel), the "big three" styles of audio card (built-in AC'97, Realtek, Creative), and so on. And these need to work without users having to go hunt down some obscure repository, post to 5 messageboard forums, and then follow instructions written like "well obviously you have to bleep fraggle this and sudo command toggle bashznz that and then it'll work, what kind of a lame n00b are you if you don't understand that."
Re:Nope, it's the putative new users problem
on
Linux Needs Critics
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· Score: 3, Insightful
*SIGH.*
There are three possible reactions to finding out that a piece of hardware doesn't work with an OS (that you are trying to convince other people to use):
#1 - Write the drivers yourself (doable if you're a code-monkey, not doable for the majority of people, even the majority of Linux users). #2 - Convince the company that made the product to write the drivers. #3 - Run around screaming about how much the company "sucks", and what an "idiot" anyone who bought the hardware (using another OS where the support is present) is for buying hardware that isn't supported under an OS they probably had no intention of running.
Most Linux guys tend to go with #3. Unfortunately, the reality is that #3 not only does nothing to help get new users into your platform, but actually causes them to turn away from it on the basis that "those guys are fucking nuts."
Re:Let me be the first critic
on
Linux Needs Critics
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Being serious for a moment, a large part of the problem with Linux - at least in the "getting more people to adopt it" sense (chicken and egg) - is the fact that Linux developers/proponents tend to be unable to understand that while something is "not their fault", it is still their problem.
For example: I have a DVR box that I put together a few years back. It uses an ATi All-In-Wonder capture board. A "clean rebuild" of the box, including all the recording software and OS (it uses WinXP), takes ~3 hours.
I am consistently told by Linux-using friends that I should "absolutely be using Linux instead", that all Linux software is inherently superior, etc. Yet when trying to install any of the various Linux/MythTV flavors, I've consistently found all sorts of problems. The ATi Remote Wonder doesn't work well for most of them. The recording software either doesn't work at all, or is "spotty at best." Video playback quality is lower.
When I've asked about this on Linux help boards, the response is always the same (and I'm sure I'll get a bunch of raving loons attacking me here for saying so as well): "well it's your fault for having an ATi board you should go spend $$$$$$ on a hauppauge and a nvidia board and buy this and buy that because that's what my box uses and anyways the ati drivers suck because ati sucks."
Now, I recognize that ATi hasn't been as "forthcoming" with driver source / documentation as some other companies. This is where the Linux folks can say it's "not my fault." The reality, though, is that it is a barrier to entry, and therefore it is their problem.
The other problem is that the Linux world lacks consistency. The same command structure, driver package, installation routine often has to be "tweaked" to work - if it works at all - on any given random distribution or even between versions of the same distribution.
Now of course, merely by saying something like this in the open, it's a good chance I'll be branded a Linux heretic. Maybe even a slew of nasty downmods will come my way. After all, criticisms like these are part of the whole "not in front of the goyim" mentality of Linux users whenever there are non-Linux users about.
Wait, it's not DRM... because it's Steam... but without Steam... it won't run. Or without your specific keycode, login, etc PLUS a Steam installation, it won't run.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. DRM by any other name is still just a big STEAMing turd.
No kidding. The first game was cool and inventive; the second was rehashed dreck, devoid of meaningful plot and saddled with far too many little "add-on" mechanics that served only to detract from the gameplay experience.
Remember, game designers: more complicated != more fun. In fact, it's usually the opposite.
You clearly fail to understand how "light bulbs" really work. They should really be called Darksuckers. See, what they do is you turn them on, and they suck all the dark out of the immediate area. Once the dark is sucked out, you can see in the area. The more powerful they are, the more Dark they can suck.
Of course, they can't STORE the Dark that they suck in. It has to come out somewhere. That's why the clouds coming out of power plants are usually black - they're chock-full of all the Dark that's been transmitted back down the lines to the power plant. If the clouds are coming up white, then there's not much Dark in them, which means it's probably daytime and more people are keeping their Darksuckers turned off.
It's the same thing as your air conditioner unit, which is just a giant Heatsucker unit that sucks heat out of your home and dumps it back outside...
Easiest ways to tell if you have a cheesily/half-baked AI programmer:
- The camera pans down and the enemies are standing there doing nothing over your corpse, because when you died you ceased to be a "player object" - The enemies are still dodging and weaving around, trying to evade your nonexistent fire, while shooting your corpse full of holes.
Now, what I love instead are when the enemies have a "gloat" pose, or else a melee attack and are physically hacking you to bits. Face it, if the enemy is acting like they don't know you're dead (or suddenly vanished when you "died") something is wrong.
It's mandatory here. I pay about $1000 (one thousand) a year for my insurance. That includes an optional $2M coverage against under-insured motorists. That also includes a "new car replacement" policy so I get enough money to buy a new car of the same brand if it gets totaled.
Down here, "uninsured/underinsured" coverage is almost as mandatory as liability coverage. Every agent will tell you you need UIM. Everyone with half a brain will tell you the same.
Why? Because 1/3 of the cars on our roads are uninsured, illegal aliens who don't give a shit if they get into an accident. So they fucked your car up and injured you? Good luck finding them to sue - they gave the cop a fake name and address along with their fake Mexishitty license plate and faked ID. Cops don't dare arrest them; that takes up too much paperwork and if they get too many of them in jail at once, a visit from LULAC/La Raza/MEChA and all the racist garbage that comes with it.
Rates here for UIM are 10x what they would be if we enforced our border laws. Remember that the next time you pay your auto insurance bill.
In other words: by not treating them as a single intersection, you cause accidents. These intersections CONSTANTLY have people drag-racing off the green, expecting the "other end" to turn green with the right timing for them to get through. Not just that, you're then talking T-bone accidents with the T-boning car doing 40+ mph easily.
A few miles north, Scott St and I-45, is the 6th most dangerous intersection in the US.
You add up Houston traffic, dumbshit idiots crossing the road on foot without paying attention, gang crime from Houston's Third Ward (aka racist drug gang turf) all in one intersection and add a badly timed light and far-too-short freeway onramp to the mix.
Worse yet: - You try to stop for the light. - You don't make it. - Some asshat rear-ends you, pushing you into the intersection - Some OTHER asshat floors the pedal and t-bones your already rear-ended car.
Now the intersection's REALLY clogged.
I watched this happen a couple years back. Shortened yellow light, guy with bad brakes... so he tries to stop, and he's halfway into the intersection. Next thing he knows, one of the two drag racing motherfuckers coming through the intersection from the other side slams into him (this was one of the "freeway underpass" sections with plenty of room to get moving before an eastbound car would hit a northbound car, and some genius apparently tried to "synchronize" the lights so that the eastbound green lit up while northbound still had a yellow). With a longer yellow light, he'd have had the time to realize he wasn't making it and instead hit the gas, but he decided to stop where he was instead. I have to think the fact that it was a redlight-camera intersection had something to do with that.
The intersection in question, in case you are interested or want to claim I'm 'lying' about this, is I-45 at Almeda-Genoa in Houston TX.
Then the greedy-ass city council wanted more revenue, so they shortened the yellow-light timing. They now have yellow-light times that are around 2 seconds on most of the camera-watched intersections. Other cities have done the same thing.
The problem is, the shorter a yellow-light timing, the more accidents. Study after study has shown this. Shortening the yellow light timing (to trap motorists "still in the intersection") to get more ticket revenue also makes for more accidents.
It's literally blood money, coming at the expense of people injured or killed in those accidents, but the city councils don't care because it's "their" blood money.
Generations was intended to be a "passing the torch" movie, which it accomplished poorly (though finally killing off the Duras sisters was not unwelcome).
First Contact merely continued the ongoing emasculation of the Borg, driving them ever downward from The Scariest Thing In The Universe to their eventual comical demise at the hands of Janeway and Seven of Tits, who regularly had Voyager running around taunting their ships for fun.
Star Trek: Itsanerection was just sad. It might have been fun as an episode of TNG, but in no way was it movie material.
Nemesis... argh. Further proof that Berman/Braga should be buried in sand, doused with honey, and left for the ants to finish off.
if he had had any clue BEFORE he went on his insane rants, we might be in better shape and the music industry might be in better shape too.
Lars Ulrich has caused problems trying to stop new artists from entering the system and promoting their music and concerts. Oh wait, right, he's one of the few who got through the glass ceiling and has now spent the last 10 years making ever-shittier "music" while pulling the ladder up behind him.
In pharma, you generally get 5 years of sales under patent.
In electronics/tech, you generally get 5-10 years before the tech is "stale." Unless you're like Intel or IBM or some other big company that can get their patent into the "root" of a tech standard and force everyone else to pay for the use of your patent. This is why Sony put DVD drives in the PS2 and Blu-Ray in the PS3, and spent tons of money pushing Blu-Ray on everyone: if they can get their stuff to be "the standard", then they stand to make a mint. They've also managed this with certain other technology (Beta, for instance, survived quite well in the TV production industry where quality mattered more than relative price).
In manufacturing/tech, you can sometimes have the full run of your patent to make money, either by being the "exclusive" provider or (again) by getting people to license it.
What's absurd isn't those limits, but the oddly strange "copyright" limits. If copyright terms were the same as the current patent terms, you'd see a lot less DRM and other foolish bullshit-crap being forced on consumers, because the primary reason for a lot of DRM (think, for example, printer cartridges) is to try to "copyright" what should, at best, be covered under a patent.
Space Quest, Maniac Mansion, King's Quest, etc were quite "open" games in the sense that players were encouraged to try anything they could think of to solve puzzles. Quite often there were multiple answers to a single puzzle (consider the permutations just through the "demo" portion of Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders, for example).
The biggest problem with so-called "open" or "sandbox" gameplay is that gamers are given a giant, flat piece of concrete and a single toy with which to play around. It can be fun for a while, but quickly gets boring when you realize that the underlying gameplay has no mutability, no change. One of the most famous quotes about gameplay and rules is "before you can think outside the box, there needs to be a box" - which is why systems with underlying rules (such as pencil-and-paper roleplaying games)spur much greater player creativity than "blank slate" mechanics.
"Storyline on rails", like Half Life, can be fun. Equally fun can be "explore the storyline" or "choose your own adventure" style gameplay. The problem for "open" games, by contrast, is that by the time you finish their weak-ass, boring "storyline" mode, all you're left with is the concrete slab and a single toy. Sure you can do "whatever you want" (defined as "whatever crap minimissions were flagged as infinitely repeatable") but that gets boring as hell. Sure, maybe there's an achievement for screwing and then killing 1000 hookers in GTA 5: Attack of the Censors. Sure, maybe you get a "trophy" for retrieving 2000 kids' balloons in Spider-Man 4: Beating a Dead Horse. You know what? That kind of "gameplay" bores the crap out of me."
Give me a good, solid exploration/adventure style title over the GTA model any day of the week, please.
I'd stay clear of the movies/OAV's - but otherwise look at what you have! Slayers (TV), Next, and Try are each their own, entirely-encapsulated series with definite endings. Revolution and Evolution-R (no idea why they split the name like that) are working the same.
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Linux needs constructive insightful critics, not crybabies.
Sorry. Did I not suck enough ass before I told you how the real world works, rather than fairytale land?
Windows does not deserve credit for the drivers provided by the hardware manufacturers (HM).
Whether Windows deserves "credit" for this is meaningless. In much the way I wouldn't buy a car that lacks working air conditioning, I sure as hell am not going to stick with (or try for very long) an OS the does not work on my hardware, no matter how much the evangelists/zealots scream "but it's so much better and so much cooler and so much more awesome than what you're using."
But wouldn't you find it a little bit aggrevating as a developer to be trying very hard to get something accomplished when you have someone on the sidelines taunting you and blaming you for their problems?
Funny. I don't "taunt." And I never said I "blame" them for the problems of Linux - I simply said that the problems of Linux need to be addressed in order to meet the stated goals of various portions of the Linux community.
You aren't really bringing alot to the table, right?
Doubly funny - I actually contributed quite a bit passing back my configuration files to try to help make good, "out of the box" definitions for the ATi Remote Wonder in Mythbuntu a reality. Know what I got back? "That's nice, we'll look at it later." Since the video board situation never improved and I eventually just gave up.
It's not our problem, because we don't have your problems, because we made wise buying decisions.
And this is why the real world, and collective individuals like myself, despite trying to be accommodating when you shit-spewing retard monkeys say that your OS is "better", despite offering up a real critique in good faith about what it'll take to get more than a handful of social rejects using Linux, will eventually turn to shit-spewing retard monkeys like you and say SHUT THE FUCK UP because you weren't even paying attention to what we said before you went off on your standard boilerplate diatribe.
Oh. Was that "defensive" on my part?
The number of users like you--smart/patient enough to be able to install their own operating system, not smart/rational enough to purchase hardware to suit their software rather than the other way around (hardware is a means, not an end)--is really small.
I purchased hardware years ago. Linux wasn't even a factor in the purchase. I made an entirely rational purchase based on price and performance of the hardware I was purchasing, for an existing (and working just fine thank you) software solution.
I am, in other words, smart and rational enough to purchase hardware to suit my software. You just don't like the fact that my choice of software, for which I purchased the hardware, was not the same software you troll for.
And there's the brutal the irony of Linux zealots. I could show this thread of discussion to 100 people who indicate a willingness to try Linux, and the behavior of the linux zealots alone would be enough to turn 99 of them away from it forever.
Next time be smarter in picking your hardware.
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Is it Apple's problem that MacOS does not work at all on your hardware?
If Apple wishes for me to purchase MacOS, then arguably, they need to present me a cogent argument that it is in my best interest to do so.
If I were in the market for a whole box at once (or perhaps a laptop), then Apple might be worth looking into. For my present desktop at a time when I already have a software solution that works, and works well, on my existing hardware? Apple would have to have their OS work on my existing hardware and provide a better user experience.
If you have enough Linux using friends to be constantly told that Linux is superior, it does sound as though desktop Linux is making progress wherever you are!
Nope. I just hang around with a lot of linux nerds. These guys have been "using linux" for 10 years or longer.
It may be best to delay switching till you buy a new PC, and make sure you buy one that has Linux friendly hardware.
Well, this is my DVR, not my main box. My main box is optimized for certain tasks, and sad to say, Linux simply lacks the ability to run the software I want to run under it (especially since I don't feel like fucking around with Wine/Cedega/etc for three weeks just to finally manage to get the apps sorta-kinda running at a 10-15% performance hit and then crow about how I "proved" I didn't need the copy of Windows I already own).
In sheer honesty, by the time I upgrade the DVR, maybe Congress will have finally stopped delaying the Digital switchover ;) At that point, I'll have to take stock and see how many of my components are still usable in an upgrade situation, and whether it's worth the cost. We'll see.
I have also found Linux forums to be consistently helpful. You may be told its better to buy different hardware, but you will also be helped as far as possible to use the hardware you have if that is what you want to do.
I would be interested in the names/locations of these "helpful forums" of which you speak. From my past experience they are figments of imagination, much like unicorns, honest politicians, and an Al Gore who can go three words without lying.
If you've ever bought a commodity piece of hardware, or been a student, or bothered to check close-out prices anywhere, you'd realize that the "cost" to users of a copy of XP is almost nothing (common linuxite bitching about PC's coming with a "Micro$oft tax" notwithstanding). You can get a Dell, 19" FP monitor, 4GB RAM, E7300 processor, 250GB HD, Audigy soundcard for ~$600 right now. The "Cost" of having Windows on it? Next to nothing. I've looked around to try to build a similar PC and after the cost of all the components (case, power supply, monitor, keyboard, etc) I'm coming pretty close to that price. Sure, I need to still buy a video board, but so what? $70 gets me an NVidia 9800 or ATi HD4800 series video board out at Newegg. Unless I'm going to try to run Crysis or some shit like that, I don't need more than the single board to run WoW or City of Heroes, and the rest of the PC gaming market's pretty much down the shitter since every dev house out there abandoned it for the Xbox360/PS3/Wii anyways in the last 5 years.
Even if you bought a beige-box years ago and were given a "proprietary" install CD with some stupid motherboard-tying app or something, it's still easy enough to handcraft a compatible retail CD (all you have to do is replace the "retail" version's setupp.ini file with the one from yours, barely different from building a "slipstream" drivers-inclusion cd) that'll accept your license code and let you reinstall should you build a new box and scavenge the still-usable parts (soundcard, DVD drive, case, etc) from your old one.
Again: "Free" is relative. If you already have a legitimate license of Windows, it's "free" for you to use, which is to say it requires no additional expenditure on your part to keep using it.
Wow. Thank you for proving my point so well with your vitriolic, hate-spewing post.
The stated goal - at least from a large portion of the linux community - is to see as many people using Linux as possible. Even as "volunteers" and "freeloaders", it is to Linux's advantage to try to reach this goal. The more market share that Linux has, the more support that they should see from software and hardware developers in the form of things like more open sourcing of drivers, better relationships with vendors (perhaps convincing companies to ship computers with Linux rather than Windows for example), and in terms of companies being willing to produce Linux-centric versions of their game (or in the case of MMO's, their game client). In other words, if Linux gets to a critical mass, then problems like "hey, Video Board X doesn't work in Distro Y Funkey Monkey" will be much easier to address.
Functionally, however, this is a "chicken and the egg" issue. At its current market share, and given the way many so-called "linux advocates" behave towards companies that don't do exactly what they want at the drop of a hat, I can understand why there are companies out there not handing out their design documents and driver source code. Linux zealots have burned a lot of bridges, made a lot of enemies, and generally made asses of themselves at just the wrong time during many points in Linux's history.
Again: whether this is what you, personally, have done may have bearing on whether it is "your fault." The fact remains that whose "fault" it is, in terms of support and in terms of making Linux friendly enough to get that coveted "critical mass" of market share where the various companies all start having to play along or else risk losing sales, is completely irrelevant.
Linux, IF you want it to reach that "critical mass" market share point, needs to reach a certain bar of compatibility. This doesn't mean that it needs to be compatible with everything known to mankind, but it DOES mean that you need to support, say, the major product lines of the "big three" video board market share holders (NVidia, ATi, Intel), the "big three" styles of audio card (built-in AC'97, Realtek, Creative), and so on. And these need to work without users having to go hunt down some obscure repository, post to 5 messageboard forums, and then follow instructions written like "well obviously you have to bleep fraggle this and sudo command toggle bashznz that and then it'll work, what kind of a lame n00b are you if you don't understand that."
*SIGH.*
There are three possible reactions to finding out that a piece of hardware doesn't work with an OS (that you are trying to convince other people to use):
#1 - Write the drivers yourself (doable if you're a code-monkey, not doable for the majority of people, even the majority of Linux users).
#2 - Convince the company that made the product to write the drivers.
#3 - Run around screaming about how much the company "sucks", and what an "idiot" anyone who bought the hardware (using another OS where the support is present) is for buying hardware that isn't supported under an OS they probably had no intention of running.
Most Linux guys tend to go with #3. Unfortunately, the reality is that #3 not only does nothing to help get new users into your platform, but actually causes them to turn away from it on the basis that "those guys are fucking nuts."
Being serious for a moment, a large part of the problem with Linux - at least in the "getting more people to adopt it" sense (chicken and egg) - is the fact that Linux developers/proponents tend to be unable to understand that while something is "not their fault", it is still their problem.
For example: I have a DVR box that I put together a few years back. It uses an ATi All-In-Wonder capture board. A "clean rebuild" of the box, including all the recording software and OS (it uses WinXP), takes ~3 hours.
I am consistently told by Linux-using friends that I should "absolutely be using Linux instead", that all Linux software is inherently superior, etc. Yet when trying to install any of the various Linux/MythTV flavors, I've consistently found all sorts of problems. The ATi Remote Wonder doesn't work well for most of them. The recording software either doesn't work at all, or is "spotty at best." Video playback quality is lower.
When I've asked about this on Linux help boards, the response is always the same (and I'm sure I'll get a bunch of raving loons attacking me here for saying so as well): "well it's your fault for having an ATi board you should go spend $$$$$$ on a hauppauge and a nvidia board and buy this and buy that because that's what my box uses and anyways the ati drivers suck because ati sucks."
Now, I recognize that ATi hasn't been as "forthcoming" with driver source / documentation as some other companies. This is where the Linux folks can say it's "not my fault." The reality, though, is that it is a barrier to entry, and therefore it is their problem.
The other problem is that the Linux world lacks consistency. The same command structure, driver package, installation routine often has to be "tweaked" to work - if it works at all - on any given random distribution or even between versions of the same distribution.
Now of course, merely by saying something like this in the open, it's a good chance I'll be branded a Linux heretic. Maybe even a slew of nasty downmods will come my way. After all, criticisms like these are part of the whole "not in front of the goyim" mentality of Linux users whenever there are non-Linux users about.
Wait, it's not DRM... because it's Steam... but without Steam... it won't run. Or without your specific keycode, login, etc PLUS a Steam installation, it won't run.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. DRM by any other name is still just a big STEAMing turd.
Hmmm.
Anyone else reminded of The Phantom?
No kidding. The first game was cool and inventive; the second was rehashed dreck, devoid of meaningful plot and saddled with far too many little "add-on" mechanics that served only to detract from the gameplay experience.
Remember, game designers: more complicated != more fun. In fact, it's usually the opposite.
You clearly fail to understand how "light bulbs" really work. They should really be called Darksuckers. See, what they do is you turn them on, and they suck all the dark out of the immediate area. Once the dark is sucked out, you can see in the area. The more powerful they are, the more Dark they can suck.
Of course, they can't STORE the Dark that they suck in. It has to come out somewhere. That's why the clouds coming out of power plants are usually black - they're chock-full of all the Dark that's been transmitted back down the lines to the power plant. If the clouds are coming up white, then there's not much Dark in them, which means it's probably daytime and more people are keeping their Darksuckers turned off.
It's the same thing as your air conditioner unit, which is just a giant Heatsucker unit that sucks heat out of your home and dumps it back outside...
Easiest ways to tell if you have a cheesily/half-baked AI programmer:
- The camera pans down and the enemies are standing there doing nothing over your corpse, because when you died you ceased to be a "player object"
- The enemies are still dodging and weaving around, trying to evade your nonexistent fire, while shooting your corpse full of holes.
Now, what I love instead are when the enemies have a "gloat" pose, or else a melee attack and are physically hacking you to bits. Face it, if the enemy is acting like they don't know you're dead (or suddenly vanished when you "died") something is wrong.
It's mandatory here. I pay about $1000 (one thousand) a year for my insurance. That includes an optional $2M coverage against under-insured motorists. That also includes a "new car replacement" policy so I get enough money to buy a new car of the same brand if it gets totaled.
Down here, "uninsured/underinsured" coverage is almost as mandatory as liability coverage. Every agent will tell you you need UIM. Everyone with half a brain will tell you the same.
Why? Because 1/3 of the cars on our roads are uninsured, illegal aliens who don't give a shit if they get into an accident. So they fucked your car up and injured you? Good luck finding them to sue - they gave the cop a fake name and address along with their fake Mexishitty license plate and faked ID. Cops don't dare arrest them; that takes up too much paperwork and if they get too many of them in jail at once, a visit from LULAC/La Raza/MEChA and all the racist garbage that comes with it.
Rates here for UIM are 10x what they would be if we enforced our border laws. Remember that the next time you pay your auto insurance bill.
In other words: by not treating them as a single intersection, you cause accidents. These intersections CONSTANTLY have people drag-racing off the green, expecting the "other end" to turn green with the right timing for them to get through. Not just that, you're then talking T-bone accidents with the T-boning car doing 40+ mph easily.
Thank you for proving my point for me.
A few miles north, Scott St and I-45, is the 6th most dangerous intersection in the US.
You add up Houston traffic, dumbshit idiots crossing the road on foot without paying attention, gang crime from Houston's Third Ward (aka racist drug gang turf) all in one intersection and add a badly timed light and far-too-short freeway onramp to the mix.
Worse yet:
- You try to stop for the light.
- You don't make it.
- Some asshat rear-ends you, pushing you into the intersection
- Some OTHER asshat floors the pedal and t-bones your already rear-ended car.
Now the intersection's REALLY clogged.
I watched this happen a couple years back. Shortened yellow light, guy with bad brakes... so he tries to stop, and he's halfway into the intersection. Next thing he knows, one of the two drag racing motherfuckers coming through the intersection from the other side slams into him (this was one of the "freeway underpass" sections with plenty of room to get moving before an eastbound car would hit a northbound car, and some genius apparently tried to "synchronize" the lights so that the eastbound green lit up while northbound still had a yellow). With a longer yellow light, he'd have had the time to realize he wasn't making it and instead hit the gas, but he decided to stop where he was instead. I have to think the fact that it was a redlight-camera intersection had something to do with that.
The intersection in question, in case you are interested or want to claim I'm 'lying' about this, is I-45 at Almeda-Genoa in Houston TX.
Houston, TX installed "red light cameras."
Then the greedy-ass city council wanted more revenue, so they shortened the yellow-light timing. They now have yellow-light times that are around 2 seconds on most of the camera-watched intersections. Other cities have done the same thing.
The problem is, the shorter a yellow-light timing, the more accidents. Study after study has shown this. Shortening the yellow light timing (to trap motorists "still in the intersection") to get more ticket revenue also makes for more accidents.
It's literally blood money, coming at the expense of people injured or killed in those accidents, but the city councils don't care because it's "their" blood money.
That and Obama, all in the same month?
You've just proven God is stoned. With one hand he giveth (removing MadTV), and with the other he shitteth all over us...
Generations was intended to be a "passing the torch" movie, which it accomplished poorly (though finally killing off the Duras sisters was not unwelcome).
First Contact merely continued the ongoing emasculation of the Borg, driving them ever downward from The Scariest Thing In The Universe to their eventual comical demise at the hands of Janeway and Seven of Tits, who regularly had Voyager running around taunting their ships for fun.
Star Trek: Itsanerection was just sad. It might have been fun as an episode of TNG, but in no way was it movie material.
Nemesis... argh. Further proof that Berman/Braga should be buried in sand, doused with honey, and left for the ants to finish off.
Thank you for being one of the few people who could correctly understand the concept.
if he had had any clue BEFORE he went on his insane rants, we might be in better shape and the music industry might be in better shape too.
Lars Ulrich has caused problems trying to stop new artists from entering the system and promoting their music and concerts. Oh wait, right, he's one of the few who got through the glass ceiling and has now spent the last 10 years making ever-shittier "music" while pulling the ladder up behind him.
In pharma, you generally get 5 years of sales under patent.
In electronics/tech, you generally get 5-10 years before the tech is "stale." Unless you're like Intel or IBM or some other big company that can get their patent into the "root" of a tech standard and force everyone else to pay for the use of your patent. This is why Sony put DVD drives in the PS2 and Blu-Ray in the PS3, and spent tons of money pushing Blu-Ray on everyone: if they can get their stuff to be "the standard", then they stand to make a mint. They've also managed this with certain other technology (Beta, for instance, survived quite well in the TV production industry where quality mattered more than relative price).
In manufacturing/tech, you can sometimes have the full run of your patent to make money, either by being the "exclusive" provider or (again) by getting people to license it.
What's absurd isn't those limits, but the oddly strange "copyright" limits. If copyright terms were the same as the current patent terms, you'd see a lot less DRM and other foolish bullshit-crap being forced on consumers, because the primary reason for a lot of DRM (think, for example, printer cartridges) is to try to "copyright" what should, at best, be covered under a patent.
Firefly got nothing, but damn it, it's still my favourite space show next to Doctor Who!
A fucking theater-released feature film is "nothing"???????
Space Quest, Maniac Mansion, King's Quest, etc were quite "open" games in the sense that players were encouraged to try anything they could think of to solve puzzles. Quite often there were multiple answers to a single puzzle (consider the permutations just through the "demo" portion of Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders, for example).
The biggest problem with so-called "open" or "sandbox" gameplay is that gamers are given a giant, flat piece of concrete and a single toy with which to play around. It can be fun for a while, but quickly gets boring when you realize that the underlying gameplay has no mutability, no change. One of the most famous quotes about gameplay and rules is "before you can think outside the box, there needs to be a box" - which is why systems with underlying rules (such as pencil-and-paper roleplaying games)spur much greater player creativity than "blank slate" mechanics.
"Storyline on rails", like Half Life, can be fun. Equally fun can be "explore the storyline" or "choose your own adventure" style gameplay. The problem for "open" games, by contrast, is that by the time you finish their weak-ass, boring "storyline" mode, all you're left with is the concrete slab and a single toy. Sure you can do "whatever you want" (defined as "whatever crap minimissions were flagged as infinitely repeatable") but that gets boring as hell. Sure, maybe there's an achievement for screwing and then killing 1000 hookers in GTA 5: Attack of the Censors. Sure, maybe you get a "trophy" for retrieving 2000 kids' balloons in Spider-Man 4: Beating a Dead Horse. You know what? That kind of "gameplay" bores the crap out of me."
Give me a good, solid exploration/adventure style title over the GTA model any day of the week, please.
I'd stay clear of the movies/OAV's - but otherwise look at what you have! Slayers (TV), Next, and Try are each their own, entirely-encapsulated series with definite endings. Revolution and Evolution-R (no idea why they split the name like that) are working the same.