This really gets to the heart of one of the main problems with simulated worlds in general. A simulated game world has certain limitations imposed upon it. Players are not free to do whatever they want. When you have a situation like a recession in the game world, the players can only do what has been pre-coded. They can't step out of the box and try novel solutions. In real life you might try to invent some new thing to fix the problem, or pass legislation, etc. But in a game world, unless the action has been coded for, you can't do it. So your inclination might be to invent a new tree that grows faster than old trees, but unless the programmers implemented it, you can't do it.
So the solution seems to be to have games as open ended as possible, and users having the ability to modify the game world in new ways. I don't think we're even close to being there yet.
I would have to disagree. In EQ people lose all the time. The pain of death is lessened by the fact that you don't really lose much. You can go out and reclaim your corpse and its posessions.
True, people don't like to lose, but if you're bothered by it that much, why play at all? If there are no losers and only winners, it's no longer a game. The key is to make the consequences of losing commensurate with your investment in the game. If you have to spend hours and hours building your character, then death shouldn't be a huge penalty. If, on the other hand, all players are basically created equal, then there is no problem. There are all sorts of ways to make death and losing not so bad. As long as you return to the game reasonably close to where you left, there shouldn't be a problem. User education is important too. It needs to be stressed that it's a *game* and that people lose. In a role-playing situation, losing can be as fun as winning if done right.
The central focus of all MMORPGs is the economy, and so far all of them have weak or artificial economies. The rewards of playing stem from the game economy and in order to be truly compelling the economy has to be robust and realistic. Take EQ for example. The economy is really driven by two things - experience (which can't be traded) and equipment, all of which exist in essentially unlimited quantities. Spend enough time and you can get everything the world has to offer.
What is needed is an economy that motivates people to cooperate and simultaneously drives conflict. Think RTS combined with RPG. There should be certain resources that are finite in availablity, but necessary for progress. To get the resources you need you can either find them, buy them, or steal them. To help this along there should be factions or groups to which you can belong and from which you derive certain benefits that help you get the resources you need. This sets up a natural conflict between competing groups vieing for the same limited pool of resources. You are effectively forced to ally with others in order to achieve your aims, since it is easier to defend your resources when you group together. In order to get some resources, it might be necessary to pool resources, for example to get enough cash to purchase a piece of equipment that enhances resource production. You would essentially be investing in an enterprise and expecting a return on that investment. The game could even support a stock trading system in which you could invest in various enterprises based on your interests and desires.
Once you have an economy figured out, everything else comes together. You don't need to provide monsters or quests, since the dynamic of the game creates them all on its own. You get people working with or against each other, which is what it should be about anyway. Other humans are going to be far more interesting and challenging opponents or allies than any AI creature.
Uh, GPS receivers are just that, receivers. They send no data to the satellites, and they do not operate by making "requests," ala HTTP. By using a standard GPS receiver there is utterly no way the government or anyone else can determine your whereabouts. The only way your position can be transmitted is by using a transmitter like the Rino uses, or something like APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System).
The only thing to be worried about right now would be cell phones incorporating GPS technology that transmit your location, something which the government is considering mandating.
Of course the black helicopters can always find you, GPS or not.
If you look through the whole site you'll see tht the system can apparently recognize individual cats. There are two other cats that are allowed in (Ellipse & Squirrel). There's a log page that logs each day's events and identifies each cat by name and whether they were allowed in.
The ingredients for soy might be simpler, however the real limiting factor in space flight is going to be space and weight. The question is, for a given volume of space, which method returns a product with the greatest nutritional density? I think the meat vats would be more efficient in this regard. Also, I don't think the meat vat compounds are that exotic. It's just a nutrient bath, which could be prepackaged before flight. The whole system could be self-maintining. It might even be possible to package the nutrients in a powder form, so you just add water and you get nutrient soup for you meat blobs.
Question - would astronauts name their growing meat blobs and feel affection toward them?
"are a hell of a lot cheaper/easier to produce in large quantities than 'fish muscle in a can'"
Why would it be easier to grow soybeans than to cultivate meat in a vat? It strikes me that you would need a lot more space to grow soybeans hydroponically that you would need to grow blobs of meat to get the same amount of protein. The meat would probably need less user intervention as well. Open the vat, cook, and eat. With soybeans there are other time and energy intensive processes that must occur in order to turn soybeans into those textured/flavored forms.
The scope doesn't just aim at one point in the sky. You can cover a whole swath in one night. Then repeat the next night and compare the images. This can all be done automatically, and in fact the hunt for minor planets is a growing hobby with amateur astronomers. GOTO computerized scopes and CCD imaging have made it possible to do real science in your backyard.
I agree there are a lot of potential uses for voice recognition, but how practical is it *today*?
How many voice activated games are you playing? How much dictation do you do? As for the random thoughts thing, voice recognition is not necessary, and in fact the digital recording capability of my iPaq is a lot quicker and more useful.
Perhaps I'm just behind the curve and VR is actually a booming application. But I kind of doubt it, since I have NEVER encountered ANYONE who uses VR on a regular basis. I'm a consultant and have worked in many, many corporations, and not one of them uses VR for any day-to-day activities, with the exception of VRU stuff, but that's a very limited and targeted application.
Does anyone out there effectively use VR? If so, I'd be real interested to know what software you use and how you use it.
FWIW, the first thing I did with my new laptop, after installing a Linux partition, was to turn off the stupid voice recognition stuff (Dell ships with it turned on). It was annoying, and frankly I can't see the usefulness of it. I certainly wouldn't use it in the office. Talking to my computer looks strange, feels strange, and is distracting to other people in the office. It's also not nearly capable enought to make using it easy or efficient.
Take a class in basketweaving at your local community college. You then qualify for all those big educational discounts. A lot of colleges use eFollett.com as their online store for hardware/software.
"I can't imagine a more effective Windows-killer than widely available pre-installed dual-boot systems."
Hah! Don't get me wrong, I've been a Linux user for years, but I've been playing around with WinXP for a couple of months, and I can tell you for certain that a dual-boot consumer PC will doom Linux. The average PC user has no use for 90% of the stuff that comes with the average Linux distro. Add that to the fact that XP is simply much easier for the average person to use, and you will quickly get a whole lot of people bitching about the wasted HD space being taken up be the difficult to use Linux partition. I'm sorry, but XP wins hands down when it comes to the functionality that the average person needs. E-mail, multi-media, word docs, and some games. That's about all the average person needs, and XP makes these things trivially easy. Just about anyone can fire up XP and figure out how to rip a CD or install a game in a matter of minutes. It is simply not possible to do that on Linux.
Linux still has a long way to go before it can rival XP in the average person's needs department. I really wish people would forget about the whole "Linux on the Desktop" issue. I don't think we'll ever win as long as we keep playing catchup to M$. To really make inroads on the desktop, a competing OS has to be basically idiot proof, and do everything XP does, only easier, faster, and more stable.
No. The root cause is people. All of these ills can be traced back to people. If there were no people no one would pirate music or software.
Therefore, I would like to propose a ban on people. Clearly without the pernicious evil of people we could alleviate most, if not all of society's problems.
Sincerely,
Vercingetorix
(paid for by the Vercingetorix for President Committee)
"- Cotton still works very well from -15 deg C to -30 -15 deg C, in fact t-shirt, jacket and winter camo works quite well if walking."
Cotton sucks as a cold weather textile. Period.
Aside from that, the problem is not when you're walking or active, but rather when you're sitting in a wet foxhole for three days. Even during a mild North Carolina winter with the temperature still well above freezing, sitting wet and motionless will quickly induce hypothermia.
"Well, no, actually... C++ memory management is much better because it is done by ME."
I'm struggling to figure out why you use C++ and not assembly. I mean, you could probably write tighter, faster code in assembler yourself instead of leaving it up to the arbitrary algorithms of the compiler.
The point is that programming languages evolve, with the ultimate goal of making them as close to natural language as possible. Garbage collection is just one step on the path leading the holy grail of a language that allows you to focus *exclusively* on solving the problem at hand without having to pay attention to implementation details. Computer languages are tools that we use to solve problems. I want to get to a point where I spend more time on the problem, and less time making sure the tool works properly.
I was expecting to see an utterly stupid spoof of 70's kung-fu movies and that's exactly what I got. It was so stupid it was hilarious. That was the whole point. I laughed my ass off. Was it a great example of cinema? No. Was there any redeeming features of the film? No. Is any of that relevant? No. It was a stupid, funny, enjoyable movie that made no pretense at being meaningful, serious, or containing a "message." It's sheer stupidity was a delight, and it is nice to see something come out of Hollywood that doesn't try to be anything other than silly. Sometimes I don't want to go to a movie to be informed or enlightened. I don't want a wry commentary on this American life. I just want to turn my brain off and be entertained, and this movie delivers. Go see it with a bunch of friends. Your soda will be coming out your nose.
I guess you could say I've taken a pretty non-traditional career route. I hated high school with a passion and had no desire to go to college, so within a month of graduation I joined the Army spent the next four years as a paratrooper in the 82d Airborne Division.
I didn't exactly enjoy the Army, however I did excel at my duties, and had a priviledged place in my company's command as I was the only person who had a computer (Atart ST). They made me the operations NCO, gave me my own office and a private room, and basically gave me whatever I wanted as long as I kept up the company roster, produced jump manifests, reports, etc.
Not being one who particularly likes bowing to authority however, I did my time and got out of the military. I applied, and was accepted to the University of Minnesota computer science program, however I guess I still wasn't ready to return to school, because an Army buddy called me up and told me to come out to California. Within a week everything I owned was in a U-haul trailer and headed to sunny California, where I spent a couple of years as a surf bum, getting high and hitting the waves. I also got a job working as a care provider in a group home for developmentally disabled adults. I spent about four years doing that, and moved up in the company to the position of assistant to the CEO, again largely because of my skill with computers.
During this time I took a few classes at the local community college, wandering around from major to major; marine biology, journalism, English Lit., etc. But nothing really intrigued me.
I then met the woman I was going to marry, and that really set me moving I guess. I started attending community college regularly to get enough transfer credits for the University of California. I also developed a strong interest in history, stemming largely from my years of playing games like D&D. I transferred to UC Santa Barbara (by this time I was not only married, but had a kid).
I majored in medieval history, and planned on getting a Ph.D. I also worked in the university microcomputer lab. As I was getting ready to graduate, I started thinking that a Ph.D. might not be the right thing for me at that point (my Ph.D. program would take ~11 years to complete - lots of languages). I started looking around, and almost on a lark I applied for a job with a large consulting firm. I figured I didn't have a chance, but they were impressed with my grades, and I kicked ass in the interviews, so they hired me. I figured it was a good choice to work there, as I'd make as much money there with a four year degree, as I would after spending 11 years getting a Ph.D. in history.
So I moved to Denver and spent the next four years shooting up the consulting ladder. Within a couple of years I transferred to the Seattle office of my firm, and was doing very well. Then Sept 11 happend. I got laid-off. Big shock. The job market, particularly in Seattle, stinks. I spent three months looking, with barely a nibble. So finally I said screw it, and opened my own computer consulting firm and landed a contract. Now I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm making great money, am my own boss, and doing something I enjoy.
So I guess the moral is, do what you want. I got one of the worst degrees there is in terms of earning potential, but it was what I was interested in. It was fun, and I would do it the same way again. My computer skills were such that I din't think I needed a CS degree, and it turns out I didn't. Do what you love. You'll be happier in the end.
And so to take this to it's logical conclusion, when Linux is 100% like Windows, then everyone will use Linux. But then at that point Linux would just be Windows under a different name. Oh joy.
I don't WANT ans OS that's 100% like Windows. That's WHY I use Linux!!!!
Why, oh why can't we start coming up with new ideas and implementing them? Why must we constantly play catch-up to Windows? Who gives a rat's ass about Windows? The key to getting more people to use Linux is *NOT* to be more Windows-like. The only way to topple the MS monopoly is to make Linux something completely different from Windows. Make it do stuff that you simply can't do on Windows. Make it *easier* to use than Windows, not *just like* Windows. Make it so that it's easier and faster for people to do the things they like to do on a computer. Come up with the "killer app" for Linux that everyone simply HAS to have. Invent new UI paradigms that are more intuitive. Do whatever it takes to make Linux better than Windows, but for chrissakes stop looking to Windows as the model!
Forget Windows. Just make Linux so insanely great that everyone will want it.
"What a jackass. This is a zero zum game. If you buy a huge car to 'protect' your family (lame excuse) the person you hit with a small car will suffer much worse."
As I said, I drive what I drive because no other vehicle can do what I need it to do. Show me a sedan that can get me to work through two feet of freshly fallen snow, carry seven passengers and a pile of camping gear, and I'll happily buy one.
Slashdot Mirror
This really gets to the heart of one of the main problems with simulated worlds in general. A simulated game world has certain limitations imposed upon it. Players are not free to do whatever they want. When you have a situation like a recession in the game world, the players can only do what has been pre-coded. They can't step out of the box and try novel solutions. In real life you might try to invent some new thing to fix the problem, or pass legislation, etc. But in a game world, unless the action has been coded for, you can't do it. So your inclination might be to invent a new tree that grows faster than old trees, but unless the programmers implemented it, you can't do it.
So the solution seems to be to have games as open ended as possible, and users having the ability to modify the game world in new ways. I don't think we're even close to being there yet.
The French word for 'library' is 'bibliothèque'
Discotheque means the same thing in both French and English - a place where records are played and people dance.
I would have to disagree. In EQ people lose all the time. The pain of death is lessened by the fact that you don't really lose much. You can go out and reclaim your corpse and its posessions.
True, people don't like to lose, but if you're bothered by it that much, why play at all? If there are no losers and only winners, it's no longer a game. The key is to make the consequences of losing commensurate with your investment in the game. If you have to spend hours and hours building your character, then death shouldn't be a huge penalty. If, on the other hand, all players are basically created equal, then there is no problem. There are all sorts of ways to make death and losing not so bad. As long as you return to the game reasonably close to where you left, there shouldn't be a problem. User education is important too. It needs to be stressed that it's a *game* and that people lose. In a role-playing situation, losing can be as fun as winning if done right.
The central focus of all MMORPGs is the economy, and so far all of them have weak or artificial economies. The rewards of playing stem from the game economy and in order to be truly compelling the economy has to be robust and realistic. Take EQ for example. The economy is really driven by two things - experience (which can't be traded) and equipment, all of which exist in essentially unlimited quantities. Spend enough time and you can get everything the world has to offer.
What is needed is an economy that motivates people to cooperate and simultaneously drives conflict. Think RTS combined with RPG. There should be certain resources that are finite in availablity, but necessary for progress. To get the resources you need you can either find them, buy them, or steal them. To help this along there should be factions or groups to which you can belong and from which you derive certain benefits that help you get the resources you need. This sets up a natural conflict between competing groups vieing for the same limited pool of resources. You are effectively forced to ally with others in order to achieve your aims, since it is easier to defend your resources when you group together. In order to get some resources, it might be necessary to pool resources, for example to get enough cash to purchase a piece of equipment that enhances resource production. You would essentially be investing in an enterprise and expecting a return on that investment. The game could even support a stock trading system in which you could invest in various enterprises based on your interests and desires.
Once you have an economy figured out, everything else comes together. You don't need to provide monsters or quests, since the dynamic of the game creates them all on its own. You get people working with or against each other, which is what it should be about anyway. Other humans are going to be far more interesting and challenging opponents or allies than any AI creature.
Well won't they be surprised then. There's a *reason* I got the VibraCall alert feature.
Call me, PLEASE!
Uh, GPS receivers are just that, receivers. They send no data to the satellites, and they do not operate by making "requests," ala HTTP. By using a standard GPS receiver there is utterly no way the government or anyone else can determine your whereabouts. The only way your position can be transmitted is by using a transmitter like the Rino uses, or something like APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System).
The only thing to be worried about right now would be cell phones incorporating GPS technology that transmit your location, something which the government is considering mandating.
Of course the black helicopters can always find you, GPS or not.
If you look through the whole site you'll see tht the system can apparently recognize individual cats. There are two other cats that are allowed in (Ellipse & Squirrel). There's a log page that logs each day's events and identifies each cat by name and whether they were allowed in.
The ingredients for soy might be simpler, however the real limiting factor in space flight is going to be space and weight. The question is, for a given volume of space, which method returns a product with the greatest nutritional density? I think the meat vats would be more efficient in this regard. Also, I don't think the meat vat compounds are that exotic. It's just a nutrient bath, which could be prepackaged before flight. The whole system could be self-maintining. It might even be possible to package the nutrients in a powder form, so you just add water and you get nutrient soup for you meat blobs.
Question - would astronauts name their growing meat blobs and feel affection toward them?
"are a hell of a lot cheaper/easier to produce in large quantities than 'fish muscle in a can'"
Why would it be easier to grow soybeans than to cultivate meat in a vat? It strikes me that you would need a lot more space to grow soybeans hydroponically that you would need to grow blobs of meat to get the same amount of protein. The meat would probably need less user intervention as well. Open the vat, cook, and eat. With soybeans there are other time and energy intensive processes that must occur in order to turn soybeans into those textured/flavored forms.
The scope doesn't just aim at one point in the sky. You can cover a whole swath in one night. Then repeat the next night and compare the images. This can all be done automatically, and in fact the hunt for minor planets is a growing hobby with amateur astronomers. GOTO computerized scopes and CCD imaging have made it possible to do real science in your backyard.
Hey! Not everyone living here is affiliated with The Beast. Most, but not all.
I agree there are a lot of potential uses for voice recognition, but how practical is it *today*?
How many voice activated games are you playing? How much dictation do you do? As for the random thoughts thing, voice recognition is not necessary, and in fact the digital recording capability of my iPaq is a lot quicker and more useful.
Perhaps I'm just behind the curve and VR is actually a booming application. But I kind of doubt it, since I have NEVER encountered ANYONE who uses VR on a regular basis. I'm a consultant and have worked in many, many corporations, and not one of them uses VR for any day-to-day activities, with the exception of VRU stuff, but that's a very limited and targeted application.
Does anyone out there effectively use VR? If so, I'd be real interested to know what software you use and how you use it.
FWIW, the first thing I did with my new laptop, after installing a Linux partition, was to turn off the stupid voice recognition stuff (Dell ships with it turned on). It was annoying, and frankly I can't see the usefulness of it. I certainly wouldn't use it in the office. Talking to my computer looks strange, feels strange, and is distracting to other people in the office. It's also not nearly capable enought to make using it easy or efficient.
Take a class in basketweaving at your local community college. You then qualify for all those big educational discounts. A lot of colleges use eFollett.com as their online store for hardware/software.
"As you might know, one time pads when propertly implemented are very difficult to crack in a reasonable amount of time."
Minor nit, but one-time pads properly implemented are uncrackable.
Just because she can't do it on both is in no way an argument that XP is no more idiot proof than Linux.
That would be like saying that if I can't lift a Volkswagen, and I can't lift a Mack Truck, then the truck is no heavier than the Volkswagen.
All that's proven is that I'm too weak to lift either.
"I can't imagine a more effective Windows-killer than widely available pre-installed dual-boot systems."
Hah! Don't get me wrong, I've been a Linux user for years, but I've been playing around with WinXP for a couple of months, and I can tell you for certain that a dual-boot consumer PC will doom Linux. The average PC user has no use for 90% of the stuff that comes with the average Linux distro. Add that to the fact that XP is simply much easier for the average person to use, and you will quickly get a whole lot of people bitching about the wasted HD space being taken up be the difficult to use Linux partition. I'm sorry, but XP wins hands down when it comes to the functionality that the average person needs. E-mail, multi-media, word docs, and some games. That's about all the average person needs, and XP makes these things trivially easy. Just about anyone can fire up XP and figure out how to rip a CD or install a game in a matter of minutes. It is simply not possible to do that on Linux.
Linux still has a long way to go before it can rival XP in the average person's needs department. I really wish people would forget about the whole "Linux on the Desktop" issue. I don't think we'll ever win as long as we keep playing catchup to M$. To really make inroads on the desktop, a competing OS has to be basically idiot proof, and do everything XP does, only easier, faster, and more stable.
No. The root cause is people. All of these ills can be traced back to people. If there were no people no one would pirate music or software.
Therefore, I would like to propose a ban on people. Clearly without the pernicious evil of people we could alleviate most, if not all of society's problems.
Sincerely,
Vercingetorix
(paid for by the Vercingetorix for President Committee)
"- Cotton still works very well from -15 deg C
to -30 -15 deg C, in fact t-shirt, jacket and winter camo works quite well if walking."
Cotton sucks as a cold weather textile. Period.
Aside from that, the problem is not when you're walking or active, but rather when you're sitting in a wet foxhole for three days. Even during a mild North Carolina winter with the temperature still well above freezing, sitting wet and motionless will quickly induce hypothermia.
"Well, no, actually... C++ memory management is much better because it is done by ME."
I'm struggling to figure out why you use C++ and not assembly. I mean, you could probably write tighter, faster code in assembler yourself instead of leaving it up to the arbitrary algorithms of the compiler.
The point is that programming languages evolve, with the ultimate goal of making them as close to natural language as possible. Garbage collection is just one step on the path leading the holy grail of a language that allows you to focus *exclusively* on solving the problem at hand without having to pay attention to implementation details. Computer languages are tools that we use to solve problems. I want to get to a point where I spend more time on the problem, and less time making sure the tool works properly.
I was expecting to see an utterly stupid spoof of 70's kung-fu movies and that's exactly what I got. It was so stupid it was hilarious. That was the whole point. I laughed my ass off. Was it a great example of cinema? No. Was there any redeeming features of the film? No. Is any of that relevant? No. It was a stupid, funny, enjoyable movie that made no pretense at being meaningful, serious, or containing a "message." It's sheer stupidity was a delight, and it is nice to see something come out of Hollywood that doesn't try to be anything other than silly. Sometimes I don't want to go to a movie to be informed or enlightened. I don't want a wry commentary on this American life. I just want to turn my brain off and be entertained, and this movie delivers. Go see it with a bunch of friends. Your soda will be coming out your nose.
Well, there's always "subvocalization." I'm not sure what it is, but it sure shows up in a lot of sci-fi books.
-Jeff
I guess you could say I've taken a pretty non-traditional career route. I hated high school with a passion and had no desire to go to college, so within a month of graduation I joined the Army spent the next four years as a paratrooper in the 82d Airborne Division.
I didn't exactly enjoy the Army, however I did excel at my duties, and had a priviledged place in my company's command as I was the only person who had a computer (Atart ST). They made me the operations NCO, gave me my own office and a private room, and basically gave me whatever I wanted as long as I kept up the company roster, produced jump manifests, reports, etc.
Not being one who particularly likes bowing to authority however, I did my time and got out of the military. I applied, and was accepted to the University of Minnesota computer science program, however I guess I still wasn't ready to return to school, because an Army buddy called me up and told me to come out to California. Within a week everything I owned was in a U-haul trailer and headed to sunny California, where I spent a couple of years as a surf bum, getting high and hitting the waves. I also got a job working as a care provider in a group home for developmentally disabled adults. I spent about four years doing that, and moved up in the company to the position of assistant to the CEO, again largely because of my skill with computers.
During this time I took a few classes at the local community college, wandering around from major to major; marine biology, journalism, English Lit., etc. But nothing really intrigued me.
I then met the woman I was going to marry, and that really set me moving I guess. I started attending community college regularly to get enough transfer credits for the University of California. I also developed a strong interest in history, stemming largely from my years of playing games like D&D. I transferred to UC Santa Barbara (by this time I was not only married, but had a kid).
I majored in medieval history, and planned on getting a Ph.D. I also worked in the university microcomputer lab. As I was getting ready to graduate, I started thinking that a Ph.D. might not be the right thing for me at that point (my Ph.D. program would take ~11 years to complete - lots of languages). I started looking around, and almost on a lark I applied for a job with a large consulting firm. I figured I didn't have a chance, but they were impressed with my grades, and I kicked ass in the interviews, so they hired me. I figured it was a good choice to work there, as I'd make as much money there with a four year degree, as I would after spending 11 years getting a Ph.D. in history.
So I moved to Denver and spent the next four years shooting up the consulting ladder. Within a couple of years I transferred to the Seattle office of my firm, and was doing very well. Then Sept 11 happend. I got laid-off. Big shock. The job market, particularly in Seattle, stinks. I spent three months looking, with barely a nibble. So finally I said screw it, and opened my own computer consulting firm and landed a contract. Now I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm making great money, am my own boss, and doing something I enjoy.
So I guess the moral is, do what you want. I got one of the worst degrees there is in terms of earning potential, but it was what I was interested in. It was fun, and I would do it the same way again. My computer skills were such that I din't think I needed a CS degree, and it turns out I didn't. Do what you love. You'll be happier in the end.
And so to take this to it's logical conclusion, when Linux is 100% like Windows, then everyone will use Linux. But then at that point Linux would just be Windows under a different name. Oh joy.
I don't WANT ans OS that's 100% like Windows. That's WHY I use Linux!!!!
Why, oh why can't we start coming up with new ideas and implementing them? Why must we constantly play catch-up to Windows? Who gives a rat's ass about Windows? The key to getting more people to use Linux is *NOT* to be more Windows-like. The only way to topple the MS monopoly is to make Linux something completely different from Windows. Make it do stuff that you simply can't do on Windows. Make it *easier* to use than Windows, not *just like* Windows. Make it so that it's easier and faster for people to do the things they like to do on a computer. Come up with the "killer app" for Linux that everyone simply HAS to have. Invent new UI paradigms that are more intuitive. Do whatever it takes to make Linux better than Windows, but for chrissakes stop looking to Windows as the model!
Forget Windows. Just make Linux so insanely great that everyone will want it.
"What a jackass. This is a zero zum game. If you buy a huge car to 'protect' your family (lame excuse) the person you hit with a small car will suffer much worse."
As I said, I drive what I drive because no other vehicle can do what I need it to do. Show me a sedan that can get me to work through two feet of freshly fallen snow, carry seven passengers and a pile of camping gear, and I'll happily buy one.