I don't use earbuds because I simply can't hear anything through them when used at a reasonable volume level outside of quiet environment. I'm inclined to believe no one else can either as evidenced by the sound I hear blaring (sometimes loud enough to be heard right through my own circumaural headphones) from everyone's buds on my daily commute.
Since the start of the iPod era, earbuds have become the standard for portable audio. Prior to that, only the cheapest of devices shipped with buds as opposed to phones. I would imagine this trend is a huge contributor to the loudness problem.
The Saturn Analog pad has a shorter stick and larger "thumb dish" which I find much more comfortable than the current designs from MS and Sony. Also, it's D-pad and face buttons are far superior.
I'm a bit frustrated with modern controllers and games which are shoehorned onto them.
Take the 360 pad for instance, it's well made and very good all around aside from the unusable d-pad. Now go play Halo or Gears of War with it. There are too many overlapping actions between the left analog + d-pad and right analog + face buttons.
Using a claw grip (Arch your right wrist back so that you can activate the face buttons with your index finger allowing your thumb to remain glued to the right analog) can alleviate this to some extent at the price of comfort as the 360 pad certainly isn't design with the grip in mind.
The most obvious solution is for console manufacturers and developers to do away with restrictions on which devices we can attach to the now standard USB ports on our consoles. Beyond that, the "pad" is overdue for its next evolution. Motion sensitivity will probably become a standard feature much like analog sticks and later rumble but much more is needed.
I cancelled my Netflix subsrcription after I had 1 half-watched and 2 unopened discs sitting around for nearly 6 months. A friend recently did the same. I've realized that what I really want is instant availability. The limited selection of Comcast's free OnDemand service is more valuable to me than a DVD rental subcription because I can start watch something immediately. If Comcast offered a reasonably priced, flat rate service that gave unlimited access to a decent library I would definitely subscribe.
The only people I've known who really take advantage of Netflix are DVDShrink professionals who rip three discs and put them back in the mail the same day. Of course, most of the content will never be watched, they just get a kick out of hoarding.
As usual, Novell lacks focus and can't figure out how to name or version their products properly.
Forgive me if I'm wrong about some of these. I work with these products every day and I don't even know exactly how to differentiate everything. In the last few years we've had...
-NNLS (Novel Nterprise Linux Services), a package of Novell Services like eDirectory for use on Linux.
-OES (Open Enterprise Server Linux and Open Enterprise Server NetWare) They are both called OES by Novell. The NetWare version is basically NetWare 6.5 and the original Linux version was SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. Obviously, OES L and OES N are very different. I think Novell used this naming to give people a false sense of security in sticking with NetWare based systems a little longer while they got their Linux act together.
-SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) - SLES and OES are used interchangably by Novell employees and some documentation even though SLES didn't have the components on disk to be OES until SLES 9.
-NLD9 (Novell Linux Desktop 9), based on SUSE 9.
-SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop), the new name for NLD and when it switched to SUSE 10.
-SUSE 10 OSS (The open sourced version of SUSE 10), this is now openSUSE it seems.
Before this we had...
-DirXML which became Identity Manager overnight with a major revision.
-NDS, NDS 8 and eDirectory 8 and eDirectory. eDirectory 8.5 is newer than NDS 8, it's module version is v85.x versus v8.77. Though, Prior to eDirectory 8.5 it was eDirectory 8.3 which used module v8.3. With eDirectory 8.6 the module versioning was changed entirely v10110.xx and incremented from there.
What we're really talking about here is Midway. Specifically, Midway's PR machine and market trends. Midway has been solidly focused on gimmicks, gaming trends and sequels that beat a property to death, dust and beyond for roughly the last 15 years.
Highlights of this period include *17* Mortal Kombat games, a half dozen NBA Jam games, roughly the same number of NFL Blitz (NBA Jam on a football field) games, a couple of light gun games and racers that actually weren't that bad and curious attempts to bring just a little originality (Primal Rage) and absurdity (War Gods) to the gore gimmick that the company had been living off since the original Mortal Kombat.
As Allison clearly states in the article, which is reproduced in the Slashdot blurb...
"We killed Fear and Respect," Allison explains, "because we have enough data-points to know the hood thing is basically dead. It would be dead before it came out. And you don't want to come out on a dead vibe."
Those aren't the words of company focused on making original properties or great games, they just want to catch and ride trends for easy sales.
They had a crap games on their hands that they intended to sell with a fad-appeal and a big name license. The fad died so they killed the game.
It's really that simple. That's how it works, when you sell games based on trends, not the quality of individual titles or your brand as a developer.
One day, people will finally stop buying whatever the latest Mortal Kombat rehash is and Midway will die just like spiritual sister Acclaim.
Think over things a little before you let your wit post for you.
The article and my post are about SLED, not SLES.
SLES has been managable for a long time, it's easy enough to work around or directly fix any issue that might be rolled up into a future Service Pack when you're dealing with a relatively small number of highly controlled backend server with a specific function that are maintained by engineers. Dealing with thousands of user workstations which are exposed, have any number of different uses and are primarily supported by an different level of techs is much different.
Getting rid of NetWare on the backend and switching to SLES is easy and somewhat of a no-brainer for a Novell shop. Getting rid of the 10,000 Windows Desktops that the backend NetWare, Linux and MS boxes only exist to serve and convincing the management not to standardize the whole place on Windows (Which Microsoft and it's partners offer to plan for free and execute at a deep, deep discount every year) is the hard part. Novell jumping around from NLD 9 to SLED and now SLED 10 without addressing some very basic and important problems that kill it's chances of adoption is not helping.
I work in a shop with a lot of Novell in the backend, eDir, GroupWise, ZEN and now SLES.
My primary boxes run SuSE 10 OSS and SLED and at least 5 production boxes have been switched to SLES.
Fact is, SLED while certainly an improvement on what has come before it still isn't smooth enough for us. The Novell client is flaky, the various SuSE network config scrips don't play well with secondary DNS suffixes and simple things like the various pack-in apps don't work properly out of the box. Also, while not a SuSE issue specifically, WordPerfect support in OpenOffice is horrible. You might think "So what?" but the schools systems and government offices that run Novell are quite often running the WordPerfect Suite as well.
(Up until this year the WPO cost in volume licensing was insignifigant relative to that of MSO. WP is enjoying a false sense of security right now since MSO 07 was delayed.)
Now, if SLED isn't good enough to convince existing customers who are already fairly pro-Novell and pro-Linux what hope is there is convert the rest of the world?
The feature set is fine as it is. Novell/SuSE need stop adding new crap and increasing the major version number. Instead they should be polishing what they have and refining those everyday apps that the "users" actually care about.
The HDD in question was external.
I grew up in and still frequent the area in which they say the equipment was recovered. I seriously doubt anyone was doing back-of-truck sales there.
More likely, it wound up in one of the 3 pawn shops in the recovery area or the guy who stole it in the first place is only a few degrees seperated from those who turned it in.
Aspen Hill, where the VA worker is said to live is deceptively rotten (I lived there for 2.5 years) and I seriously doubt anyone burglarizing a home in that area would have the slightest interest in the data.
From the description of #47, the BRP EXIT Concept...
"Responding to the lifestyle cues of Generation Y users, designers imbued the vehicle with a counter-cultural, non-conventional aesthetic, finding inspiration in the insect world with its soft, rounded surfacing crossed with sharp edges."
That reads like it was ripped straight from a sitcom script about marketers who "don't get it".
I've witnessed software license "raids" twice. In both cases it was the direct result of an admin who recently quit and was (rightfully) pissed off enough to report the company and provide a signature to back his claim.
The quotes in the aritcle don't mention farmers at all, thankfully. I'm not sure where the topic text got it from?
Either way...
Shitting on evil rainforest destroying farmers sure is easy as someone in a modern country with luxurious shit like desktop PCs and whatnot. These farmers hack, burn and plant to survive and have done for a very long time.
I don't know whether to call it sick or absurd that someone has considered introducing radiation strong enough posion natives out these desired forests. For the purpose of researching newly mutated radioactive versions of the fabled rainforest miracle cures and undiscovered species.
I couldn't care less about Digg or what it happens to censor. The Digg community/comments are worthless and the topic selection is overrun with a stale mix of "Web 2.0" lists and plagiaroggers who submit links to their own worthless blogs that only exist to collect hits by linking to what is often yet another page summarizing second-hand content.
To me, Digg symbolizes everything I don't like about the direction of the modern web where page links and page rank rules over original content and reasonably intelligent discussion.
Gaming spectating and TV is huge in Korea and G4 has weathered the storm and survived on cable for years now. Meanwhile, gaming videos show up among the "Popular" results on Google Video quite often and tens of thousdands of people download match videos and view player profiles online.
I'd say the US is more than ready for gaming TV.
I wouldn't be suprised if it's a smashing success for advertisers. For gaming ads, you couldn't hope for a better concentration of the target market. Virtually everyone who sits down to watch MLG Halo 2 matches on this show will be a Halo 2 player. The same will go for whatever other games MLG runs tournies for.
I have a $130 pocketable digicam that takes more and better pictures than any phone I've seen for 4x the price.
Personally, I'd really like a phone that emphasized reception, battery life, tactile feedback for the keypad rather than looks, handset construction and a real cradle over all the crap (camera, color screen, fancy ringtones, digital audio playback) that you can't buy a phone without these days.
Something like a Samsung N200 which I had but broke down on me after just shy of 3 years of service and abuse.
I've found N200s on ebay but nothing in decent condition. I'd be overjoyed if I could buy a brand new phone with the same function and design for a reasonable price.
This article is a shining example of why no one should listen to what a pair financial analysts have to say about video games. The piece is full of historical inaccuracies and leaps that just don't make any sense.
It appears as if the writers pulled this together via shallow internet research rather than any actual experience with or understanding of the subject. By shallow I mean, punching a few terms into google and extrapolating the 2 line summaries into multiple paragraphs.
For example...
"Virtua Fighter, in an ever-crowding Fighter genre, became RPG Shenmue in November 2000 for Dreamcast; Shenmue II in fall 2001 for Dreamcast and Xbox; Shenmue Online is expected as an MMO on PC some time."
VF did not become Shenmue. The finished games have nothing to do with each other. At best, Shenmue was believed by some to be a VF RPG during it's development and possibly shared some assets in early development.
While not as popular as it was in the VF2 (dozens of VF2 machines packed into japanese arcades)era the series still exists entirely seperate from Shenmue as VF3, VF3tb, VF4, VF4:Evo and VF5. Anyone who had a casual interest in the series would know this and anyone who doesn't can find out as the top google results for "shenmue" + "virtual fighter" will spell it out.
The observations on joysticks, Duck Hunt, the fighting game genre, game to movie adaptations and likely much more equally unresearched, unsubstantiated and completely off-base.
After watching anime for over 20 years and I've come to realize that reading subtitles somehow filters the juvenile dialog of shows crafted for children into something more palatable. On the other hand, when you actually hear the squeaky voiced character scream out "special attacks" and magic spells in english you can't ignore just how ridiculous it all really is.
Sorry, I sold it over a year ago. EQ taught me to sell early. A 60 Undead Priest with 300/300 Ench/Tailoring and Mooncloth Robe pattern, Crusader enchant and half a suit of Tier 0 gear was worth a decent sum at the time.
Issue 55 had a piece that described the SSDT hooking that Bagle now employs. I'm pretty sure someone identified Bagle's use of this prior to McAfee but I can't put my finger on the source.
Only buy things you actually need...
on
Tech on the Cheap?
·
· Score: 0, Troll
That should cut your tech spending by better than 90%. Next, channel the time you would have spent doing price comparison sna reading enthusiast sites for product reviews into spidering through wikipedia and learning how the technology you crave actually works.
I find it funny that the poster expects that you want this guy to cut back or quit while all of "his peers" keep plugging away to satiate their reportedly lesser addictions.
The entire group should destroy their accounts then confront the guy. His choice will be simple now that he's left alone as his friends have moved on. Now, everyone can enjoy an explosion of free time to do other things like getting enough sleep at night.
Problem is, that won't happen.
I know MMOers and I know that collecting the next item and feeding the itch *is* more important to the other players than keeping this guy from losing his job and connection with reality.
If anything his peers will fight for him to stay, to continue to group/raid and enable everyone else to collect more virtual crap and virtual status.
Eventually, this guy will hit rock-bottom and his addiction will sort itself out from there.
I don't see how this is a troll. Many years ago I spent a lot of time reading Koster's writings as I found the workings of MMOs much more interesting than the games themselves.
He impressed me as a guy with a hell of a lof knowledge who obviously spent a LOT of time thinking about how to make these games work but, was way too sure of himself. He wrote with the confidence of someone who truly believes he had it all figured out a long time ago.
I could just picture him shooting down ideas left and right because he "already thought about it and it won't work" or more dangerously, "shouldn't be that way" according to his personal standard.
Fact is, when attempting to average the tastes of millions of players there's about 0 chance that it will line up well with that of any one particular guy. These designers have to understand that ultimately, they don't get to decide what works, what doesn't or how things should be, the players do.
Most companies are going to keep buying Dells or equivalent with an attached MS license by the thousands each year. Whether the pre-installed OS is Vista or XP really doesn't matter. Vista is a guaranteed success, it will sell millions by default when it becomes the standard shipping option on new PCs.
I have roughly 1,500 machines (25% of the total) that would be perfect candidates for a Linux desktop roll-out but I'm still defending our non-MS infrastructure from the "Everyone else uses MS, why don't we?" every day. Actually trying to move away from MS at any level would be suicide at the first hiccup.
Until some major companies publicly dump MS from the desktop the rest of the world is going to stick to the "standard". Even Novell (home of the Novell Linux Desktop) employees still show up with laptops running WinXP (they do use OpenOffice at least) when they make a site visit.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't use earbuds because I simply can't hear anything through them when used at a reasonable volume level outside of quiet environment. I'm inclined to believe no one else can either as evidenced by the sound I hear blaring (sometimes loud enough to be heard right through my own circumaural headphones) from everyone's buds on my daily commute. Since the start of the iPod era, earbuds have become the standard for portable audio. Prior to that, only the cheapest of devices shipped with buds as opposed to phones. I would imagine this trend is a huge contributor to the loudness problem.
Just got one on Tuesday. There's a nice "QUALCOMM 3G CDMA" right on the back of the phone.
The Saturn Analog pad has a shorter stick and larger "thumb dish" which I find much more comfortable than the current designs from MS and Sony. Also, it's D-pad and face buttons are far superior.
I'm a bit frustrated with modern controllers and games which are shoehorned onto them.
Take the 360 pad for instance, it's well made and very good all around aside from the unusable d-pad. Now go play Halo or Gears of War with it. There are too many overlapping actions between the left analog + d-pad and right analog + face buttons.
Using a claw grip (Arch your right wrist back so that you can activate the face buttons with your index finger allowing your thumb to remain glued to the right analog) can alleviate this to some extent at the price of comfort as the 360 pad certainly isn't design with the grip in mind.
The most obvious solution is for console manufacturers and developers to do away with restrictions on which devices we can attach to the now standard USB ports on our consoles. Beyond that, the "pad" is overdue for its next evolution. Motion sensitivity will probably become a standard feature much like analog sticks and later rumble but much more is needed.
The only people I've known who really take advantage of Netflix are DVDShrink professionals who rip three discs and put them back in the mail the same day. Of course, most of the content will never be watched, they just get a kick out of hoarding.
As usual, Novell lacks focus and can't figure out how to name or version their products properly.
Forgive me if I'm wrong about some of these. I work with these products every day and I don't even know exactly how to differentiate everything. In the last few years we've had...
-NNLS (Novel Nterprise Linux Services), a package of Novell Services like eDirectory for use on Linux.
-OES (Open Enterprise Server Linux and Open Enterprise Server NetWare) They are both called OES by Novell. The NetWare version is basically NetWare 6.5 and the original Linux version was SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. Obviously, OES L and OES N are very different. I think Novell used this naming to give people a false sense of security in sticking with NetWare based systems a little longer while they got their Linux act together.
-SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) - SLES and OES are used interchangably by Novell employees and some documentation even though SLES didn't have the components on disk to be OES until SLES 9.
-NLD9 (Novell Linux Desktop 9), based on SUSE 9.
-SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop), the new name for NLD and when it switched to SUSE 10.
-SUSE 10 OSS (The open sourced version of SUSE 10), this is now openSUSE it seems.
Before this we had...
-DirXML which became Identity Manager overnight with a major revision.
-NDS, NDS 8 and eDirectory 8 and eDirectory. eDirectory 8.5 is newer than NDS 8, it's module version is v85.x versus v8.77. Though, Prior to eDirectory 8.5 it was eDirectory 8.3 which used module v8.3. With eDirectory 8.6 the module versioning was changed entirely v10110.xx and incremented from there.
Highlights of this period include *17* Mortal Kombat games, a half dozen NBA Jam games, roughly the same number of NFL Blitz (NBA Jam on a football field) games, a couple of light gun games and racers that actually weren't that bad and curious attempts to bring just a little originality (Primal Rage) and absurdity (War Gods) to the gore gimmick that the company had been living off since the original Mortal Kombat.
As Allison clearly states in the article, which is reproduced in the Slashdot blurb...
"We killed Fear and Respect," Allison explains, "because we have enough data-points to know the hood thing is basically dead. It would be dead before it came out. And you don't want to come out on a dead vibe."
Those aren't the words of company focused on making original properties or great games, they just want to catch and ride trends for easy sales.
They had a crap games on their hands that they intended to sell with a fad-appeal and a big name license. The fad died so they killed the game.
It's really that simple. That's how it works, when you sell games based on trends, not the quality of individual titles or your brand as a developer.
One day, people will finally stop buying whatever the latest Mortal Kombat rehash is and Midway will die just like spiritual sister Acclaim.
The article and my post are about SLED, not SLES.
SLES has been managable for a long time, it's easy enough to work around or directly fix any issue that might be rolled up into a future Service Pack when you're dealing with a relatively small number of highly controlled backend server with a specific function that are maintained by engineers. Dealing with thousands of user workstations which are exposed, have any number of different uses and are primarily supported by an different level of techs is much different.
Getting rid of NetWare on the backend and switching to SLES is easy and somewhat of a no-brainer for a Novell shop. Getting rid of the 10,000 Windows Desktops that the backend NetWare, Linux and MS boxes only exist to serve and convincing the management not to standardize the whole place on Windows (Which Microsoft and it's partners offer to plan for free and execute at a deep, deep discount every year) is the hard part. Novell jumping around from NLD 9 to SLED and now SLED 10 without addressing some very basic and important problems that kill it's chances of adoption is not helping.
My primary boxes run SuSE 10 OSS and SLED and at least 5 production boxes have been switched to SLES.
Fact is, SLED while certainly an improvement on what has come before it still isn't smooth enough for us. The Novell client is flaky, the various SuSE network config scrips don't play well with secondary DNS suffixes and simple things like the various pack-in apps don't work properly out of the box. Also, while not a SuSE issue specifically, WordPerfect support in OpenOffice is horrible. You might think "So what?" but the schools systems and government offices that run Novell are quite often running the WordPerfect Suite as well.
(Up until this year the WPO cost in volume licensing was insignifigant relative to that of MSO. WP is enjoying a false sense of security right now since MSO 07 was delayed.)
Now, if SLED isn't good enough to convince existing customers who are already fairly pro-Novell and pro-Linux what hope is there is convert the rest of the world?
The feature set is fine as it is. Novell/SuSE need stop adding new crap and increasing the major version number. Instead they should be polishing what they have and refining those everyday apps that the "users" actually care about.
The HDD in question was external. I grew up in and still frequent the area in which they say the equipment was recovered. I seriously doubt anyone was doing back-of-truck sales there. More likely, it wound up in one of the 3 pawn shops in the recovery area or the guy who stole it in the first place is only a few degrees seperated from those who turned it in. Aspen Hill, where the VA worker is said to live is deceptively rotten (I lived there for 2.5 years) and I seriously doubt anyone burglarizing a home in that area would have the slightest interest in the data.
"Responding to the lifestyle cues of Generation Y users, designers imbued the vehicle with a counter-cultural, non-conventional aesthetic, finding inspiration in the insect world with its soft, rounded surfacing crossed with sharp edges." That reads like it was ripped straight from a sitcom script about marketers who "don't get it".
I've witnessed software license "raids" twice. In both cases it was the direct result of an admin who recently quit and was (rightfully) pissed off enough to report the company and provide a signature to back his claim.
I'd pay for a sensor that would accurately, automatically adjust my diplay's gamma correction to the lighting of the room.
Either way...
Shitting on evil rainforest destroying farmers sure is easy as someone in a modern country with luxurious shit like desktop PCs and whatnot. These farmers hack, burn and plant to survive and have done for a very long time.
I don't know whether to call it sick or absurd that someone has considered introducing radiation strong enough posion natives out these desired forests. For the purpose of researching newly mutated radioactive versions of the fabled rainforest miracle cures and undiscovered species.
I couldn't care less about Digg or what it happens to censor. The Digg community/comments are worthless and the topic selection is overrun with a stale mix of "Web 2.0" lists and plagiaroggers who submit links to their own worthless blogs that only exist to collect hits by linking to what is often yet another page summarizing second-hand content.
To me, Digg symbolizes everything I don't like about the direction of the modern web where page links and page rank rules over original content and reasonably intelligent discussion.
I'd say the US is more than ready for gaming TV.
I wouldn't be suprised if it's a smashing success for advertisers. For gaming ads, you couldn't hope for a better concentration of the target market. Virtually everyone who sits down to watch MLG Halo 2 matches on this show will be a Halo 2 player. The same will go for whatever other games MLG runs tournies for.
Personally, I'd really like a phone that emphasized reception, battery life, tactile feedback for the keypad rather than looks, handset construction and a real cradle over all the crap (camera, color screen, fancy ringtones, digital audio playback) that you can't buy a phone without these days.
Something like a Samsung N200 which I had but broke down on me after just shy of 3 years of service and abuse.
I've found N200s on ebay but nothing in decent condition. I'd be overjoyed if I could buy a brand new phone with the same function and design for a reasonable price.
It appears as if the writers pulled this together via shallow internet research rather than any actual experience with or understanding of the subject. By shallow I mean, punching a few terms into google and extrapolating the 2 line summaries into multiple paragraphs.
For example...
"Virtua Fighter, in an ever-crowding Fighter genre, became RPG Shenmue in November 2000 for Dreamcast; Shenmue II in fall 2001 for Dreamcast and Xbox; Shenmue Online is expected as an MMO on PC some time."
VF did not become Shenmue. The finished games have nothing to do with each other. At best, Shenmue was believed by some to be a VF RPG during it's development and possibly shared some assets in early development.
While not as popular as it was in the VF2 (dozens of VF2 machines packed into japanese arcades)era the series still exists entirely seperate from Shenmue as VF3, VF3tb, VF4, VF4:Evo and VF5. Anyone who had a casual interest in the series would know this and anyone who doesn't can find out as the top google results for "shenmue" + "virtual fighter" will spell it out.
The observations on joysticks, Duck Hunt, the fighting game genre, game to movie adaptations and likely much more equally unresearched, unsubstantiated and completely off-base.
After watching anime for over 20 years and I've come to realize that reading subtitles somehow filters the juvenile dialog of shows crafted for children into something more palatable. On the other hand, when you actually hear the squeaky voiced character scream out "special attacks" and magic spells in english you can't ignore just how ridiculous it all really is.
Sorry, I sold it over a year ago. EQ taught me to sell early. A 60 Undead Priest with 300/300 Ench/Tailoring and Mooncloth Robe pattern, Crusader enchant and half a suit of Tier 0 gear was worth a decent sum at the time.
Issue 55 had a piece that described the SSDT hooking that Bagle now employs. I'm pretty sure someone identified Bagle's use of this prior to McAfee but I can't put my finger on the source.
That should cut your tech spending by better than 90%. Next, channel the time you would have spent doing price comparison sna reading enthusiast sites for product reviews into spidering through wikipedia and learning how the technology you crave actually works.
The entire group should destroy their accounts then confront the guy. His choice will be simple now that he's left alone as his friends have moved on. Now, everyone can enjoy an explosion of free time to do other things like getting enough sleep at night.
Problem is, that won't happen.
I know MMOers and I know that collecting the next item and feeding the itch *is* more important to the other players than keeping this guy from losing his job and connection with reality.
If anything his peers will fight for him to stay, to continue to group/raid and enable everyone else to collect more virtual crap and virtual status.
Eventually, this guy will hit rock-bottom and his addiction will sort itself out from there.
Another Intel marketing term masquerading as unique technology like Centrino?
He impressed me as a guy with a hell of a lof knowledge who obviously spent a LOT of time thinking about how to make these games work but, was way too sure of himself. He wrote with the confidence of someone who truly believes he had it all figured out a long time ago.
I could just picture him shooting down ideas left and right because he "already thought about it and it won't work" or more dangerously, "shouldn't be that way" according to his personal standard.
Fact is, when attempting to average the tastes of millions of players there's about 0 chance that it will line up well with that of any one particular guy. These designers have to understand that ultimately, they don't get to decide what works, what doesn't or how things should be, the players do.
I have roughly 1,500 machines (25% of the total) that would be perfect candidates for a Linux desktop roll-out but I'm still defending our non-MS infrastructure from the "Everyone else uses MS, why don't we?" every day. Actually trying to move away from MS at any level would be suicide at the first hiccup.
Until some major companies publicly dump MS from the desktop the rest of the world is going to stick to the "standard". Even Novell (home of the Novell Linux Desktop) employees still show up with laptops running WinXP (they do use OpenOffice at least) when they make a site visit.