It doesn't necessarily have to be Linux only, but it should work better on Linux than the other platforms, being developed on Linux as a primary platform.
Marketshare numbers are just bollocks. I bet there are more Linux users than there were Atari ST or Amiga users back in the day.
People booting into Windows for games is indeed the problem, and if you think someone will pick Linux over Windows for playing sloppy ports of the same games they could play on Windows and were designed for Windows, think again. That is not the definition of a killer game that makes people switch to a platform.
People can switch to a new platform just for one or two killer games, you only need to look at the consoles to confirm it.
Linux needs its own sucesses and, contrary to some people, I think those will be indeed Open Source games. The commercial games have portability problems. Not all Linux users run on X86. Binary compatibility is a moving target on Linux.
The graphics and data may be proprietary and copyright encumbered though.
Sounds interesting. But that is mostly a problem for something like Windows Common Controls which demand pixel acurate coordinates and sizes. You can easily make an app in, for example, GTK+ 2.0 which has none of those problems. The containers and widgets automagically adjust in size and placement or dimensions are relative. Most GNOME apps, for example, are localized and use a single set of UI code.
If Adobe got a wiff of Apple making a competitor program, they'd cancel Photoshop and maybe a lot of their other Mac programs and force a whole lot of people to Windows. That would be bad in the short run, certainly, for Adobe, and really bad for Apple. It's just not going to happen.
They already sell Final Cut Pro, which competes with Adobe Premiere. Adobe no longer makes an Apple compatible version of Premiere.
The price for freedom is eternal vigilance. The latest stance has been towards taking liberties from consumers and giving producers more control (e.g. DMCA, Broadcast flag). If people do not fight back, eventually it will be illegal for you to use a fully free software system.
He mentions several types of corporations. From the East Indies Company, to education corporations and so forth. Seems pretty clear from that, to me at least, that modern corporations would fall into the same category. To me, it seems he didn't trust any corporate structure, because it isolated the workers from customers, decreasing accountability and efficiency.
No society can surely be flourishing and
happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and
miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and
lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the
produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed,
clothed, and lodged.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the
public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
In a free trade, an effectual
combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of
every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single
trader continues of the same mind. The majority of a corporation can
enact a bye-law, with proper penalties, which will limit the
competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary
combination whatever.
The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better government
of the trade, is without any foundation. The real and effectual
discipline which is exercised over a workman, is not that of his
corporation, but that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their
employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence. An
exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this
discipline.
Fascism was essentially neo-feudalism with a different name in a different time.
It was indeed corporate based. The corporations were the new fiefs and their leaders the new feudal lords. The fascist dictator stood at the apex, like the kings of feudal times. Corporations were not just business entities. You also had worker corporations, the military corporation, etc. But the entire society was organized in a rigid structure that allowed no criticism and little choice.
The system in the USA seems to be evolving towards a softer neo-feudalism, sort of like the Republic of Venice.
I would expect that with the new means of communication at our disposal, better education, less working hours, we would evolve towards more direct means doing politics. Athenian style democracy. There are some subtle hints of this being in progress, but the existing structure is resisting and trying to move in the opposite direction.
It wasn't open air nuclear testing. The last test in 1996 was underground. They needed the test to calibrate their simulator software, so future nuclear weapons could be designed using just software testing and still work. FWIW the USA did its last test in 1992.
The basic problem is there is too much litigation, especially frivoulous litigation. One good indication of this is that the USA supposedly has more lawyers than the rest of the world put together. If the losing side was forced to pay the winning party's expenses on non-criminal cases, the number of cases going to trial would be smaller, there would be a glut of lawyers and prices would come down. Way down. I suppose some lawyers would go broke, but having that many lawyers per capita is a bad idea anyway.
The greater spending in the USA is not positively translated in higher life expectancy or infant mortality. So it is quite clear your system is very broken.
A free market could be better, but it seems a government monopoly, like the ones several European countries have, is more efficient than what you have now.
I could use that excuse for nearly anything. Sorry, but that is lazy script writing. They can do better than that.
***SPOILER WARNING***
Besides, he does not seem plain insane. He is not just seeing things in his head from his neurons, his pseudo-delusions have been seen by others too, not to mention that his delusions know things he had no personal knowledge of. It is painfully obvious he is being manipulated by the Cylon into seeing those visions. Yes, he is a coward. If he is being edgy and paranoid, well, who wouldn't be on those conditions? The fact remains, despite the artificial visions, he seems to be holding up pretty well. So sorry, but that line doesn't stick on this aspect of the plot.
The new Battlestar Galactica is good, but the plot doesn't match Babylon 5's by a long shot. Babylon 5 is an epic story. Battlestar Galactica attempts to be one, but at the same time we see characters doing erratic out of character things a lot of the time. There are many plot holes and inconsistencies.
Captain Adama's speech in the pilots for example was completely ridiculous. Why do we even deserve to live? Was that supposed to inspire anyone? Crap, if any real military leaders ever did that, their soldiers would be too dispirited to fight.
Then you have the fact that the Cylons are attempting to cross-breed with Humans. But if they wanted that so much, why did they try to wipe all the Humans out with nukes, *before* getting their hybrid? It makes no sense. If they wanted to nuke all the colonies, and destroy military ships, plus evading civilian ships, how could they ever get a cross-breed?
The fact that Baltar got too tired from doing tests, so he stopped testing people was also sheer nonsense. Why didn't he just get *someone else* to do the hard labour of testing? I mean, he was supposed to have an assistant already, plus a nuclear warhead, I doubt he would not be granted spare personnel. Not to mention: who is doing the testing (supposed to take man-years) now since he seems to be only doing political work since he got to be Vice-President?
There is some good stuff in there of course. I like this Baltar better than the old Baltar in the original series. The old Baltar made absolutely no sense at all.
Sorry, you're mistaken. All models that are capable of reproducing the last 1000 years or so of climate fail to reproduce the recent global temperature increase (the 'hockey stick') unless they include the effects of human CO2 emissions. That the recent uptick is due to human CO2 is no longer an area of dispute (amongst those researchers with some grasp on reality, who actually know something about the subject, and are capable getting published in respectable peer-reviewed juornals, anyway. Supermarket tabloids and AM radio shows may not agree...)
All I know is my butt is freezing with this global warming:
Have you played FreeCiv? It's like playing "Civilization 2 for Excel" or something. Everything is crammed into that same old stupid grey-box-with-scrollbar Windows interface design. Part of what's nice about Civ 3 is that it's an escape from the "normal" world of using a computer. Sure, it's got lots of features not available in Civ 3, but the graphics are still low-quality and it still feels like I'm working in a freakin' FileMaker database.
Guess what, CivNet and Civilization II also used Windows common controls. I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but some people actually prefer windowed games (2.0.0 even has a fullscreen mode option). GTK+ is themable, so it isn't like you can't easily change the look if you don't like it using one of the zillions of free available themes. Try that on Civilization III... The interface has strong and weak points. The cities list is one of the strong points. I've never found one in a Civilization like game that allows to do complex actions that easily, instead of having to click the mouse a zillion times.
If you want to "escape from the computer world", go play in the outside world instead of being stuck in front of a computer screen.
Quoting the 5 "Informative" post, in full: I sure hope so, because the current release makes me want to blow my brains out. I thought the original Civ and Civ 2 had a craptacular interface, but then I played freeciv.
Blow my brains out. Worse than Civilization I (a game on which the mouse sometimes stopped froze permanently and required constant pointer-chasing to click in teensy squares).
Seems pretty terrible doesn't it? It must be pretty terrible. Freeciv has earned 5 HappyPenguin stars, is the #2 best OSS game according to their rank, etc.
Not surprising. Blowhards like you who like to dish out criticism often can't take it themselves.
Quote: The methods of securing silk and weaving fabrics from it were held secret by the Chinese for nearly two thousand years. Alexander the Great was credited with discovering it in India during the Third Century B.C., though for centuries afterward Westerners could only import this mysterious new fabric. It was among the Chinese a capital offense to reveal the secrets of the trade or to export the eggs from which the worms were hatched, but that didn't stop two priests from smuggling some eggs in the hollows of their bamboo staffs and bringing them to Constantinople in 555 A.D. However, silk continued to be imported from Asia, as silk production in Europe was fraught with disaster and danger. Attempts to raise silkworms consistently failed, due to the difficulty of growing healthy mulberry trees. Even today, while many efforts have been made to produce silk in the United States and Europe, most raw silk still comes from China, Japan, Bengal, and other Asian countries, where labor is cheap, and the requisite Bombyx mori and mulberry leaves are plentiful.
Re:Sony blew it... but that's not all they blew
on
Sony Admits MP3 Error
·
· Score: 1
Sony needs to spin off the media publisher side from the electronics side. This mess started once they let the media publishers meddle with the electronics business policy.
Slashdot Mirror
So which new games has the commercial sector come up in... the last 4 years?
It doesn't necessarily have to be Linux only, but it should work better on Linux than the other platforms, being developed on Linux as a primary platform.
If it interferes with Cedega it is a feature not a bug. Call it virus protection.
Just use the real Wine or, if you want to pay money, CrossOver.
People booting into Windows for games is indeed the problem, and if you think someone will pick Linux over Windows for playing sloppy ports of the same games they could play on Windows and were designed for Windows, think again. That is not the definition of a killer game that makes people switch to a platform.
People can switch to a new platform just for one or two killer games, you only need to look at the consoles to confirm it.
Linux needs its own sucesses and, contrary to some people, I think those will be indeed Open Source games. The commercial games have portability problems. Not all Linux users run on X86. Binary compatibility is a moving target on Linux.
The graphics and data may be proprietary and copyright encumbered though.
Yes, if you want a games console, get a console.
Kids these days. You only care about the package, not the contents. If I gave you a sugar coated stick of mud, you would snap it right away.
Sounds interesting. But that is mostly a problem for something like Windows Common Controls which demand pixel acurate coordinates and sizes. You can easily make an app in, for example, GTK+ 2.0 which has none of those problems. The containers and widgets automagically adjust in size and placement or dimensions are relative. Most GNOME apps, for example, are localized and use a single set of UI code.
They already sell Final Cut Pro, which competes with Adobe Premiere. Adobe no longer makes an Apple compatible version of Premiere.
How do you know he wouldn't be allowed to board the plane after being searched, just like the other time?
The price for freedom is eternal vigilance. The latest stance has been towards taking liberties from consumers and giving producers more control (e.g. DMCA, Broadcast flag). If people do not fight back, eventually it will be illegal for you to use a fully free software system.
Wine used to be BSD licensed. For all you know, they could be legally using old Wine code.
He mentions several types of corporations. From the East Indies Company, to education corporations and so forth. Seems pretty clear from that, to me at least, that modern corporations would fall into the same category. To me, it seems he didn't trust any corporate structure, because it isolated the workers from customers, decreasing accountability and efficiency.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
In a free trade, an effectual combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single trader continues of the same mind. The majority of a corporation can enact a bye-law, with proper penalties, which will limit the competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary combination whatever.
The pretence that corporations are necessary for the better government of the trade, is without any foundation. The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman, is not that of his corporation, but that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence. An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline.
From An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
It was indeed corporate based. The corporations were the new fiefs and their leaders the new feudal lords. The fascist dictator stood at the apex, like the kings of feudal times. Corporations were not just business entities. You also had worker corporations, the military corporation, etc. But the entire society was organized in a rigid structure that allowed no criticism and little choice.
The system in the USA seems to be evolving towards a softer neo-feudalism, sort of like the Republic of Venice.
I would expect that with the new means of communication at our disposal, better education, less working hours, we would evolve towards more direct means doing politics. Athenian style democracy. There are some subtle hints of this being in progress, but the existing structure is resisting and trying to move in the opposite direction.
It wasn't open air nuclear testing. The last test in 1996 was underground. They needed the test to calibrate their simulator software, so future nuclear weapons could be designed using just software testing and still work. FWIW the USA did its last test in 1992.
Not just that. The states of Washington and Texas have given huge bonuses and tax breaks to Boeing.
The basic problem is there is too much litigation, especially frivoulous litigation. One good indication of this is that the USA supposedly has more lawyers than the rest of the world put together. If the losing side was forced to pay the winning party's expenses on non-criminal cases, the number of cases going to trial would be smaller, there would be a glut of lawyers and prices would come down. Way down. I suppose some lawyers would go broke, but having that many lawyers per capita is a bad idea anyway.
A free market could be better, but it seems a government monopoly, like the ones several European countries have, is more efficient than what you have now.
***SPOILER WARNING***
Besides, he does not seem plain insane. He is not just seeing things in his head from his neurons, his pseudo-delusions have been seen by others too, not to mention that his delusions know things he had no personal knowledge of. It is painfully obvious he is being manipulated by the Cylon into seeing those visions. Yes, he is a coward. If he is being edgy and paranoid, well, who wouldn't be on those conditions? The fact remains, despite the artificial visions, he seems to be holding up pretty well. So sorry, but that line doesn't stick on this aspect of the plot.
Captain Adama's speech in the pilots for example was completely ridiculous. Why do we even deserve to live? Was that supposed to inspire anyone? Crap, if any real military leaders ever did that, their soldiers would be too dispirited to fight.
Then you have the fact that the Cylons are attempting to cross-breed with Humans. But if they wanted that so much, why did they try to wipe all the Humans out with nukes, *before* getting their hybrid? It makes no sense. If they wanted to nuke all the colonies, and destroy military ships, plus evading civilian ships, how could they ever get a cross-breed?
The fact that Baltar got too tired from doing tests, so he stopped testing people was also sheer nonsense. Why didn't he just get *someone else* to do the hard labour of testing? I mean, he was supposed to have an assistant already, plus a nuclear warhead, I doubt he would not be granted spare personnel. Not to mention: who is doing the testing (supposed to take man-years) now since he seems to be only doing political work since he got to be Vice-President?
There is some good stuff in there of course. I like this Baltar better than the old Baltar in the original series. The old Baltar made absolutely no sense at all.
All I know is my butt is freezing with this global warming:
Guess what, CivNet and Civilization II also used Windows common controls. I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but some people actually prefer windowed games (2.0.0 even has a fullscreen mode option). GTK+ is themable, so it isn't like you can't easily change the look if you don't like it using one of the zillions of free available themes. Try that on Civilization III... The interface has strong and weak points. The cities list is one of the strong points. I've never found one in a Civilization like game that allows to do complex actions that easily, instead of having to click the mouse a zillion times.
If you want to "escape from the computer world", go play in the outside world instead of being stuck in front of a computer screen.
Quoting the 5 "Informative" post, in full:
I sure hope so, because the current release makes me want to blow my brains out. I thought the original Civ and Civ 2 had a craptacular interface, but then I played freeciv.
Blow my brains out. Worse than Civilization I (a game on which the mouse sometimes stopped froze permanently and required constant pointer-chasing to click in teensy squares).
Seems pretty terrible doesn't it? It must be pretty terrible. Freeciv has earned 5 HappyPenguin stars, is the #2 best OSS game according to their rank, etc.
Not surprising. Blowhards like you who like to dish out criticism often can't take it themselves.
Want some cheese with that whine?
Industrial espionage goes way before that.
Quote:
The methods of securing silk and weaving fabrics from it were held secret by the Chinese for nearly two thousand years. Alexander the Great was credited with discovering it in India during the Third Century B.C., though for centuries afterward Westerners could only import this mysterious new fabric. It was among the Chinese a capital offense to reveal the secrets of the trade or to export the eggs from which the worms were hatched, but that didn't stop two priests from smuggling some eggs in the hollows of their bamboo staffs and bringing them to Constantinople in 555 A.D. However, silk continued to be imported from Asia, as silk production in Europe was fraught with disaster and danger. Attempts to raise silkworms consistently failed, due to the difficulty of growing healthy mulberry trees. Even today, while many efforts have been made to produce silk in the United States and Europe, most raw silk still comes from China, Japan, Bengal, and other Asian countries, where labor is cheap, and the requisite Bombyx mori and mulberry leaves are plentiful.
Sony needs to spin off the media publisher side from the electronics side. This mess started once they let the media publishers meddle with the electronics business policy.