Wrong. Nintendo was splitting the market with Sega.
Xbox, whilst still just second largest, has surpassed the 'Cube. History shows that the console world IS in constant turmoil, generation after generation.
The Xbox has BARELY surpassed the 'Cube, and is STILL nowhere close to where PS2 is (the latest figures I've seen say it's selling HALF as many consoles as Sony). Just what the hell is your point here? As for "history", it shows that the industry is STABILIZING. I don't know how much proof you need of this, but trends that are going into this direction have started a decade ago and are still going strong... as is the case with ANY industry. Don't expect any revolutionary change like another 2D->3D switch anytime soon. That switch was what shook up the industry. Nothing else will for many years.
BTW: the first 3d console was the 3DO, followed by the N64
I said PS1 was the first AFFORDABLE 3D console, one that had a unique, quality-filled game library (if not for this last point, I'd've said the Saturn was the first). The 3DO cost $700 and had shit games. N64 was released AFTER both the Sega Saturn and the PS1. You got your chronology mixed up.
PS1 did so well well because of the advertising campaign, which legitimised gaming over a broad section of ages.
This never happened to THIS DAY. What happened was that the kids who were buying videogames in the 80s grew older and STILL wanted to buy videogames, and Sony wisely advertised to them instead of skipping them over the way Nintendo did. At the same time, new children came of age who weren't old enough to have owned a Genesis and THEY wanted to buy videogames. This is why the market grew. Nothing was "legitimized". The people who played videogames as kids continue to play them, while Congressmen and other activists continue to believe that videogames are made for and enjoyed only by pre-teens.
But, you know, thanks for your insightful analysis.:)
I wonder, is usage of Flash inversely proportional to the quality of the show? I remember how in the early 90s cartoons were actually GOOD. Disney Afternoon was top-notch animated entertainment. Today's cartoons are basically either really dumb action fests with irrelevant storylines or Internet humor-style comedies made for college students. Either way, most of them look incredibly cheap (hooray Flash!).
Where is this generation's Duck Tales? Gargoyles? Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers? The non-anime version of Batman? Tale Spin? Hell, I'd even take Darkwing Duck over some of today's crap. They're not just saving money by using Flash, they're saving it by hiring shit writers and directors.
I'm just glad Cartoon Network still airs Tom & Jerry. Still the best cartoon series by leaps and bounds.
You're right, of course. However, I was talking about hardware sales more than software. The reason that Nintendo is financially strong is because EVERYONE who buys a Nintendo console is doing so because they want to play Nintendo GAMES. Even non-hardcore, casual gamers who don't subscribe to magazines and don't read internet gaming message boards or websites are buying Nintendo consoles because they want to play Nintendo games, above anything else. Xbox owners don't really care about Microsoft games, and PS2 owners don't really care about Sony games. Exceptions like Halo are not dependant on who made those games, they're just good and popular games. Nintendo's games are the only games that sell BECAUSE they're Nintendo's games.
Having said that, there aren't nearly as many gamers with Nintendo hardware as there are people with Sony hardware, therefore the market of any particular non-handheld Nintendo console is substantially smaller (obviously mostly for third party games), which is the only thing I took into consideration when I made the point about Nintendo suffering.
Going back to my original point, Microsoft's consoles (Xbox and Xbox 360) are in basically the same exact position where Nintendo's consoles are, only WITHOUT any kind of brand loyalty WHATSOEVER. For this reason, anyone who talks about any Microsoft gaming platforms as industry leaders or uses the term "Xbox" as a synonym for "console" is wildly out of touch with reality.
As for your second point, the market isn't as unstable as you think. There are very obvious historical reasons for why Sony is now the number one console (across all ages), and that is because the PS1 was the first affordable 3D console with a game library that was significantly different from Nintendo's or Sega's offerings. Microsoft has, and will continue to have, a console whose hardware capabilities are easily comparable to the competition, and whose game library is, by and large, exactly the same... minus the exclusives that Sony has secured.
In other words, Sony is #1 because it was in the right place at the right time. In contrast, Microsoft entered the picture as "yet another console", and that's where it'll remain. It's consoles will never be dominating in the market. If anything is to happen, it'll simply be that the three major players will each come closer to their competition in terms of sales and penetration, which is the opposite of what happened in the mid 90s when everyone but Sony nearly got wiped out (Nintendo barely survived, and Sega perished a few years later).
And sorry for going so far off topic from the original discussion here.
Xbox 360 for what most people currently use a home PC for, Vista for everything else.
If you ever stepped away from the PC and geek news sources, you'd quickly discovers that sales of the original Xbox are a fraction of PS2's sales, and that sales of the Xbox 360 will likely be even lower thanks to everybody waiting for PS3's release a few months later and people assuming that Killzone 2 is in-game footage.
It really boggles the mind sometimes. I frequent all sorts of geek news sites and gaming sites. Why is Slashdot so obsessed with the Xbox platform? I mean, ok, it's made by Microsoft, and therefore it's an automatic topic of discussion because computer geeks care a great deal more about Microsoft than Sony or Nintendo. But, let's be honest here, Microsoft's console had negligible impact on the gaming market, much less the computer geekary audience as a whole. Why do the Slashdot horde continually bring up this second tier gaming platform as if the Xbox is synonymous with console gaming? It ain't, PS2 is. And a year from now, PS3 will be.
Hopefully I won't be modded down too bad for this, but just in case, let me end on this: I do not own either a PS2 or an Xbox.
One man's "cleaner and easier" is another man's "barren and boring". It's the geeks who go for minimalism in GUIs. Casual users would sacrifice SOME usability if it meant a more pleasant, less utilitarian experience.
This is why Ubuntu, being based on Gnome, isn't nearly as popular among casual users as Mandriva or Linspire.
In fact, this isn't so much a publicity stunt as a way to get more users dependant on their subscription download services, Click-N-Run (CNR). Links to that service are imbedded into practically every single menu you can find on the desktop, with no way to take them out. They are EVERYWHERE, within every sub-menu, on the taskbar, imbedded within web browsers and other programs, etc.
Of course it's INCREDIBLY useful for people who DO end up subscribing, since this is probably the easiest, most user-friendly way to install without any effort a MASSIVE library of software. However, if you would prefer to get your software packages on your own (through apt-get or whatever) and have no use for CNR, you're just gonna be stuck with a desktop operating system whose main purpose is to get CNR subscribers.
Are you the guy who defends Microsoft's monopoly in every Slashdot thread? You are, aren't you! I'm invoking Microsoft because this is, after all, Slashdot.
Question: What's the difference between Microsoft's monopoly and the way it deals with it's competitors, and the government's monopoly and the way it deals with it's competitors?
This blind libertarian ideology nonsense has gone too far.
The same can be said about people like you who, for whatever reason, think that their government can do no wrong. As for me, while I don't think that government is inherently evil or out to screw me over (the common consesus of Libertarians... and I am NOT a Libertarian), I do not think that the people who choose to manage government-run BUSINESSES (because that's what they are, they're businesses) are that much different from the people who work in the private sector. They don't have kinder hearts, they don't have more compassion for people. They are the same, except the fact that they run a monopoly and therefore don't need to worry about pesky customer complaints or investing money to improve their service.
EA is not marketing their games too much for PC gamers. The reason for this is that, on a PC, a highly successful game sells 100,000 copies. In the console world, this would be a big flop. Therefore, for PC games, the costs of a big marketing campaign aren't justified.
However, I would say that EA actually IS a massive player in the PC world. They make some of the biggest war games in the industry, in addition to basically holding a monopoly with sports games (almost all other sports developers only release their games for consoles). I would say that virtual monopolies on two entire genres makes them quite a force.
Just because a mass-market game is earning a lot of money doesn't mean that game developers have stopped creating more innovative games. There are ALWAYS new, original and exciting games coming out. And this will NEVER stop. Creative games don't need $10 million budgets, therefore there's nothing stopping a smaller company from making them.
Similarly, people always whine about the Hollywood movie industry. They whine about how all the movies coming out are big summer blockbusters. They are NOT the only movies coming out, they're just the ones that get the most public exposure. There are and always have been smaller original movies, it's just a matter of knowing where to see them.
"You'll find very few things are profitable enterprises until you start charging for them."
Do you not pay taxes? You already are charged for them. Now, onto your bigger points:
There are two problems here:
i) the implicit assumption that the free market necessarily "would deal with things more efficiently."
You're saying this is wrong? Monopolies operate more efficiently than private companies who are in competition with each other to provide the most desirable service to the customer? Do you not read history? Do you know nothing of economics? While I'm sure that, if you look hard enough, you'd find some exceptions here. However, I seriously doubt that this is true for the vast majority of cases. Competition is good for the consumer.
ii) The free market is great at providing things that are not necessities. Now, you might argue that private health care is a more efficient system than state systems, in as much as it reduces the average price of a given operation. But if the human price of that is that those in poverty have a disproportionate death rate, is that a price worth paying? Would you really be proud of living in a country that allows its poor to die of curable diseases for want of enough money to pay for medical services? Similarly, if public education were abolished, are you prepared for how an uneducated underclass would affect the social fabric? Because some things can't be measured in dollars and cents.
First, on the topic of disproportionate education... this already happens with public schools. The school systems in rich communities with high property taxes are almost always better than school systems in the ghettos of a large city. At least the difference would be that, given schools that COMPETE with each other instead of simply BEING there, there's a higher probability that the quality of schools in poorer areas would improve. If they did not, at least some percentage of the parents would pull their children out and send them to a rich school (such action is usually not possible with public schools because of student zoning). Having the constant threat of students ("customers") going off to the competing school would make the schools want to improve themselves. Public schools have no such incentive. And admission price would not be a factor, as I've already mentioned, if the government were to institute a system of school vouchers, some form of financial aid, or any other monetary assistance to all who are in need.
As for your point on private medicine... The point isn't that it doesn't work as well as public/free healthcare. The point you're trying to make has to do with HEALTH INSURANCE, not the quality of the doctors or facilities. If the government were to provide health insurance to those in need, instead of actually operating the "business" of hospitals, then it would be in accordance with my argument and be a better system overall. At least I think so.
Roads are and should be maintained by the government, along with basic city planning. The reason for this is that roads are created by the community and for the community and are not a profitable enterprise, unless you start charging more tolls to use these roads. When every road starts to have entry fees, then the argument can easily be made that a private company needs to take over.
Education for those who couldn't otherwise afford it need NOT be provided by the government. All that they should provide is the money so that the education does become affordable. In other words, the system of financial aid that allows students to go to a high quality private college needs to be brought down to lower grade levels. Vouchers are a good start. As for those who don't qualify for financial aid, they already DO pay for their public schools in the forms of taxes. Just because you don't give the money directly to the school district supervisors doesn't mean that this isn't exactly where that money goes. The difference would be that then you WOULD know where it goes, and you'd still be paying the same amount.
Public transportation need not be provided by the government. Most major cities go into contract with private transportation companies who run city bus routes. Why is the government involved at all? They're doing nothing but skimming off the bottom line of the company as a "fee" for being given the opportunity to run their business. The airline industry isn't run by the Federal government, and has functioned well for decades (and arguably better than under a government beurocracy). Taxis are operated by private companies, why aren't you complaining that they should be taken over by the government? There is a proven track record, both on a local, national, and global scale, of private companies successfully running transportation businesses.
Water supplies are a utility. Natural gas is usually provided by private companies, as is electricity. Why is water so special that only the big, powerful government is to be trusted?
Defense and the police are needed to protect the population, and every Libertarian would tell you that this should be the ONLY service that a government should be providing. Therefore, mentioning this point is in no way an argument against Libertarianism.
I'm not a Libertarian, and I'm not an anarchist, and I don't agree with many of their principles, but common sense dictates that there's no reason why the government closes off entire lucrative markets when private companies, concerned with efficiency and customer satisfaction rather than the status quo, would deal with things more efficiently. Especially when the government is already IN COMPETITION with private industries, as is the case with public transportation, the postal system, education, and a whole host of other industries.
Governments DO supply communities with many beneficial things, including every item on your list. However, there is absolutely NO reason for why they should be doing this when there already are alternatives.
1) Either you treat Linux as a public desktop operating system, which means that you have customers who are the desktop users and you are their developer (the fact that you work for free is your own damn problem)... OR you treat Linux as your own personal hobby operating system, which means that you answer only to yourself.
2) Either advocate the adoption of Linux and, in exchange, offer your services to your new customers (the fact that you work for free is your own damn problem)... OR stop advertising Linux for people who are not developers themselves and concentrate on making software for only yourself and your fellow developers to tinker with.
3) Either claim that Linux is at least as user-friendly as Windows and listen and address your customers' feedback (the fact that you work for free is your own damn problem)... OR make things only work as easy as you yourself would prefer and offer no user support for products you've developed
Heh, you're right about cell phone UI, but that wasn't the reason why I made the analogy. I wasn't talking about UI. I was talking about the fact that, despite of all the points you brought up, there's still no need to know how a cell phone "works". All you need to know are the steps you need to take to perform your specific task, like traversing through your address book. The cell phone was the most complicated computer-like device I could think of where abstraction of internal processes was so well refined, despite of the fact that the actual UI sucks (two different development teams likely worked on these two things).
My point is that you do not need to know the internal workings of a computer in order to use it (as with a cell phone). Since the debate here is about a file system and how files are stored versus how the user percieves them to be stored, why would you insist that they posess the former knowledge? The whole point of abstracting these things is so that you do NOT need to know. This is the progress of computer-human interfaces.
A more computer-relevant analogy than the cell phone thing is that you do not need to know the programming calls that execute a program. All you need to know is that you see an icon representation of it (sometimes in multiple locations) and that, to execute it, you click this icon. Why would it matter how it's done? Why would it matter where the program itself is stored?
All these advances are made, and you insist that, despite all that, the user should still know the internal workings of these processes. Why? Even on a rudamentary level, it should not matter to them AT ALL. With the file storage and searching advancements courtesy of Apple's Spotlight, Google Desktop, and Vista's similar functions, the users' need to know these things decreases even more.
The days of DOS, Windows 3.1, and early implementations of Unix/Linux are fading away, as is the need to know how a computer operates (even on the most basic of levels). I believe we already ARE at a level where the user needs to know only two things: 1) how to launch a program of their choice to perform their desired task, and 2) how to use THAT particular program to accomplish their task. Knowledge of operating systems, file systems, directory hierarchies, and any number of other related things dealing with the "computer" itself are no longer necessary for basic computer use.
You do not need knowledge to use a "computer", you need knowledge to do specific tasks that a computer aids you with. All other responsibilities belong with the programmers.
If you want to use a modern cell phone, do you need to know how it stores data, what operating system it uses, or how it's address book is stored in the phone's hardware? Or do you simply need to know that is has the capability of saving your friends' phone numbers and know the simple process of navigating through this list?
People will have to get it into their heads that computers are complicated things and you need some basic understanding of how they work before being able to use them.
And people like YOU will have to get it into your heads that it is the job of the technologists to take things which are inherently comlicated, and spend as much time as possibly making them less so, up to a point where interaction with the technology is as simple as pushing against a door to open it.
Your guitar analogy is quite idiotic as well. There are only so many people who are psychologically inclined to write or perform guitar music. Usage of common household appliances, like television sets, microwaves, and computers, should NOT take any specific effort to use. And if they do, then they're either ill-conceived, poorly designed, or in an unfinished experimental stage.
Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo used to be the only game in town
:)
Wrong. Nintendo was splitting the market with Sega.
Xbox, whilst still just second largest, has surpassed the 'Cube. History shows that the console world IS in constant turmoil, generation after generation.
The Xbox has BARELY surpassed the 'Cube, and is STILL nowhere close to where PS2 is (the latest figures I've seen say it's selling HALF as many consoles as Sony). Just what the hell is your point here? As for "history", it shows that the industry is STABILIZING. I don't know how much proof you need of this, but trends that are going into this direction have started a decade ago and are still going strong... as is the case with ANY industry. Don't expect any revolutionary change like another 2D->3D switch anytime soon. That switch was what shook up the industry. Nothing else will for many years.
BTW: the first 3d console was the 3DO, followed by the N64
I said PS1 was the first AFFORDABLE 3D console, one that had a unique, quality-filled game library (if not for this last point, I'd've said the Saturn was the first). The 3DO cost $700 and had shit games. N64 was released AFTER both the Sega Saturn and the PS1. You got your chronology mixed up.
PS1 did so well well because of the advertising campaign, which legitimised gaming over a broad section of ages.
This never happened to THIS DAY. What happened was that the kids who were buying videogames in the 80s grew older and STILL wanted to buy videogames, and Sony wisely advertised to them instead of skipping them over the way Nintendo did. At the same time, new children came of age who weren't old enough to have owned a Genesis and THEY wanted to buy videogames. This is why the market grew. Nothing was "legitimized". The people who played videogames as kids continue to play them, while Congressmen and other activists continue to believe that videogames are made for and enjoyed only by pre-teens.
But, you know, thanks for your insightful analysis.
I wonder, is usage of Flash inversely proportional to the quality of the show? I remember how in the early 90s cartoons were actually GOOD. Disney Afternoon was top-notch animated entertainment. Today's cartoons are basically either really dumb action fests with irrelevant storylines or Internet humor-style comedies made for college students. Either way, most of them look incredibly cheap (hooray Flash!).
Where is this generation's Duck Tales? Gargoyles? Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers? The non-anime version of Batman? Tale Spin? Hell, I'd even take Darkwing Duck over some of today's crap. They're not just saving money by using Flash, they're saving it by hiring shit writers and directors.
I'm just glad Cartoon Network still airs Tom & Jerry. Still the best cartoon series by leaps and bounds.
You're right, of course. However, I was talking about hardware sales more than software. The reason that Nintendo is financially strong is because EVERYONE who buys a Nintendo console is doing so because they want to play Nintendo GAMES. Even non-hardcore, casual gamers who don't subscribe to magazines and don't read internet gaming message boards or websites are buying Nintendo consoles because they want to play Nintendo games, above anything else. Xbox owners don't really care about Microsoft games, and PS2 owners don't really care about Sony games. Exceptions like Halo are not dependant on who made those games, they're just good and popular games. Nintendo's games are the only games that sell BECAUSE they're Nintendo's games.
Having said that, there aren't nearly as many gamers with Nintendo hardware as there are people with Sony hardware, therefore the market of any particular non-handheld Nintendo console is substantially smaller (obviously mostly for third party games), which is the only thing I took into consideration when I made the point about Nintendo suffering.
Going back to my original point, Microsoft's consoles (Xbox and Xbox 360) are in basically the same exact position where Nintendo's consoles are, only WITHOUT any kind of brand loyalty WHATSOEVER. For this reason, anyone who talks about any Microsoft gaming platforms as industry leaders or uses the term "Xbox" as a synonym for "console" is wildly out of touch with reality.
Your demographics breakdown by age is ridiculous.
As for your second point, the market isn't as unstable as you think. There are very obvious historical reasons for why Sony is now the number one console (across all ages), and that is because the PS1 was the first affordable 3D console with a game library that was significantly different from Nintendo's or Sega's offerings. Microsoft has, and will continue to have, a console whose hardware capabilities are easily comparable to the competition, and whose game library is, by and large, exactly the same... minus the exclusives that Sony has secured.
In other words, Sony is #1 because it was in the right place at the right time. In contrast, Microsoft entered the picture as "yet another console", and that's where it'll remain. It's consoles will never be dominating in the market. If anything is to happen, it'll simply be that the three major players will each come closer to their competition in terms of sales and penetration, which is the opposite of what happened in the mid 90s when everyone but Sony nearly got wiped out (Nintendo barely survived, and Sega perished a few years later).
And sorry for going so far off topic from the original discussion here.
It really boggles the mind sometimes. I frequent all sorts of geek news sites and gaming sites. Why is Slashdot so obsessed with the Xbox platform? I mean, ok, it's made by Microsoft, and therefore it's an automatic topic of discussion because computer geeks care a great deal more about Microsoft than Sony or Nintendo. But, let's be honest here, Microsoft's console had negligible impact on the gaming market, much less the computer geekary audience as a whole. Why do the Slashdot horde continually bring up this second tier gaming platform as if the Xbox is synonymous with console gaming? It ain't, PS2 is. And a year from now, PS3 will be.
Hopefully I won't be modded down too bad for this, but just in case, let me end on this: I do not own either a PS2 or an Xbox.
Touché. :)
What's new for USERS?
One man's "cleaner and easier" is another man's "barren and boring". It's the geeks who go for minimalism in GUIs. Casual users would sacrifice SOME usability if it meant a more pleasant, less utilitarian experience.
This is why Ubuntu, being based on Gnome, isn't nearly as popular among casual users as Mandriva or Linspire.
There's a very clear difference to casual computer users between dealing with these two screens:
Synaptic
Click-n-Run
No.
In fact, this isn't so much a publicity stunt as a way to get more users dependant on their subscription download services, Click-N-Run (CNR). Links to that service are imbedded into practically every single menu you can find on the desktop, with no way to take them out. They are EVERYWHERE, within every sub-menu, on the taskbar, imbedded within web browsers and other programs, etc.
Of course it's INCREDIBLY useful for people who DO end up subscribing, since this is probably the easiest, most user-friendly way to install without any effort a MASSIVE library of software. However, if you would prefer to get your software packages on your own (through apt-get or whatever) and have no use for CNR, you're just gonna be stuck with a desktop operating system whose main purpose is to get CNR subscribers.
Are you the guy who defends Microsoft's monopoly in every Slashdot thread? You are, aren't you! I'm invoking Microsoft because this is, after all, Slashdot.
Question: What's the difference between Microsoft's monopoly and the way it deals with it's competitors, and the government's monopoly and the way it deals with it's competitors?
Answer: NONE
Read: http://www.cleanwateraction.org/
The same can be said about people like you who, for whatever reason, think that their government can do no wrong. As for me, while I don't think that government is inherently evil or out to screw me over (the common consesus of Libertarians... and I am NOT a Libertarian), I do not think that the people who choose to manage government-run BUSINESSES (because that's what they are, they're businesses) are that much different from the people who work in the private sector. They don't have kinder hearts, they don't have more compassion for people. They are the same, except the fact that they run a monopoly and therefore don't need to worry about pesky customer complaints or investing money to improve their service.
EA is not marketing their games too much for PC gamers. The reason for this is that, on a PC, a highly successful game sells 100,000 copies. In the console world, this would be a big flop. Therefore, for PC games, the costs of a big marketing campaign aren't justified.
However, I would say that EA actually IS a massive player in the PC world. They make some of the biggest war games in the industry, in addition to basically holding a monopoly with sports games (almost all other sports developers only release their games for consoles). I would say that virtual monopolies on two entire genres makes them quite a force.
News like this always makes me laugh.
Just because a mass-market game is earning a lot of money doesn't mean that game developers have stopped creating more innovative games. There are ALWAYS new, original and exciting games coming out. And this will NEVER stop. Creative games don't need $10 million budgets, therefore there's nothing stopping a smaller company from making them.
Similarly, people always whine about the Hollywood movie industry. They whine about how all the movies coming out are big summer blockbusters. They are NOT the only movies coming out, they're just the ones that get the most public exposure. There are and always have been smaller original movies, it's just a matter of knowing where to see them.
Do you not pay taxes? You already are charged for them. Now, onto your bigger points:
You're saying this is wrong? Monopolies operate more efficiently than private companies who are in competition with each other to provide the most desirable service to the customer? Do you not read history? Do you know nothing of economics? While I'm sure that, if you look hard enough, you'd find some exceptions here. However, I seriously doubt that this is true for the vast majority of cases. Competition is good for the consumer.
First, on the topic of disproportionate education... this already happens with public schools. The school systems in rich communities with high property taxes are almost always better than school systems in the ghettos of a large city. At least the difference would be that, given schools that COMPETE with each other instead of simply BEING there, there's a higher probability that the quality of schools in poorer areas would improve. If they did not, at least some percentage of the parents would pull their children out and send them to a rich school (such action is usually not possible with public schools because of student zoning). Having the constant threat of students ("customers") going off to the competing school would make the schools want to improve themselves. Public schools have no such incentive. And admission price would not be a factor, as I've already mentioned, if the government were to institute a system of school vouchers, some form of financial aid, or any other monetary assistance to all who are in need.
As for your point on private medicine... The point isn't that it doesn't work as well as public/free healthcare. The point you're trying to make has to do with HEALTH INSURANCE, not the quality of the doctors or facilities. If the government were to provide health insurance to those in need, instead of actually operating the "business" of hospitals, then it would be in accordance with my argument and be a better system overall. At least I think so.
Roads are and should be maintained by the government, along with basic city planning. The reason for this is that roads are created by the community and for the community and are not a profitable enterprise, unless you start charging more tolls to use these roads. When every road starts to have entry fees, then the argument can easily be made that a private company needs to take over.
Education for those who couldn't otherwise afford it need NOT be provided by the government. All that they should provide is the money so that the education does become affordable. In other words, the system of financial aid that allows students to go to a high quality private college needs to be brought down to lower grade levels. Vouchers are a good start. As for those who don't qualify for financial aid, they already DO pay for their public schools in the forms of taxes. Just because you don't give the money directly to the school district supervisors doesn't mean that this isn't exactly where that money goes. The difference would be that then you WOULD know where it goes, and you'd still be paying the same amount.
Public transportation need not be provided by the government. Most major cities go into contract with private transportation companies who run city bus routes. Why is the government involved at all? They're doing nothing but skimming off the bottom line of the company as a "fee" for being given the opportunity to run their business. The airline industry isn't run by the Federal government, and has functioned well for decades (and arguably better than under a government beurocracy). Taxis are operated by private companies, why aren't you complaining that they should be taken over by the government? There is a proven track record, both on a local, national, and global scale, of private companies successfully running transportation businesses.
Water supplies are a utility. Natural gas is usually provided by private companies, as is electricity. Why is water so special that only the big, powerful government is to be trusted?
Defense and the police are needed to protect the population, and every Libertarian would tell you that this should be the ONLY service that a government should be providing. Therefore, mentioning this point is in no way an argument against Libertarianism.
I'm not a Libertarian, and I'm not an anarchist, and I don't agree with many of their principles, but common sense dictates that there's no reason why the government closes off entire lucrative markets when private companies, concerned with efficiency and customer satisfaction rather than the status quo, would deal with things more efficiently. Especially when the government is already IN COMPETITION with private industries, as is the case with public transportation, the postal system, education, and a whole host of other industries.
Governments DO supply communities with many beneficial things, including every item on your list. However, there is absolutely NO reason for why they should be doing this when there already are alternatives.
You're quite the imbecile, aren't you.
1) Either you treat Linux as a public desktop operating system, which means that you have customers who are the desktop users and you are their developer (the fact that you work for free is your own damn problem)... OR you treat Linux as your own personal hobby operating system, which means that you answer only to yourself.
2) Either advocate the adoption of Linux and, in exchange, offer your services to your new customers (the fact that you work for free is your own damn problem)... OR stop advertising Linux for people who are not developers themselves and concentrate on making software for only yourself and your fellow developers to tinker with.
3) Either claim that Linux is at least as user-friendly as Windows and listen and address your customers' feedback (the fact that you work for free is your own damn problem)... OR make things only work as easy as you yourself would prefer and offer no user support for products you've developed
This is precisely why a file is called a "file", and why the term "folder" is preferable to "directory".
It's not that we don't "get" it, it's that this is one of the problems of Linux.
You make me wish I had mod points today.
Heh, you're right about cell phone UI, but that wasn't the reason why I made the analogy. I wasn't talking about UI. I was talking about the fact that, despite of all the points you brought up, there's still no need to know how a cell phone "works". All you need to know are the steps you need to take to perform your specific task, like traversing through your address book. The cell phone was the most complicated computer-like device I could think of where abstraction of internal processes was so well refined, despite of the fact that the actual UI sucks (two different development teams likely worked on these two things).
My point is that you do not need to know the internal workings of a computer in order to use it (as with a cell phone). Since the debate here is about a file system and how files are stored versus how the user percieves them to be stored, why would you insist that they posess the former knowledge? The whole point of abstracting these things is so that you do NOT need to know. This is the progress of computer-human interfaces.
A more computer-relevant analogy than the cell phone thing is that you do not need to know the programming calls that execute a program. All you need to know is that you see an icon representation of it (sometimes in multiple locations) and that, to execute it, you click this icon. Why would it matter how it's done? Why would it matter where the program itself is stored?
All these advances are made, and you insist that, despite all that, the user should still know the internal workings of these processes. Why? Even on a rudamentary level, it should not matter to them AT ALL. With the file storage and searching advancements courtesy of Apple's Spotlight, Google Desktop, and Vista's similar functions, the users' need to know these things decreases even more.
The days of DOS, Windows 3.1, and early implementations of Unix/Linux are fading away, as is the need to know how a computer operates (even on the most basic of levels). I believe we already ARE at a level where the user needs to know only two things: 1) how to launch a program of their choice to perform their desired task, and 2) how to use THAT particular program to accomplish their task. Knowledge of operating systems, file systems, directory hierarchies, and any number of other related things dealing with the "computer" itself are no longer necessary for basic computer use.
You do not need knowledge to use a "computer", you need knowledge to do specific tasks that a computer aids you with. All other responsibilities belong with the programmers.
Let me put it to you this way:
If you want to use a modern cell phone, do you need to know how it stores data, what operating system it uses, or how it's address book is stored in the phone's hardware? Or do you simply need to know that is has the capability of saving your friends' phone numbers and know the simple process of navigating through this list?
People will have to get it into their heads that computers are complicated things and you need some basic understanding of how they work before being able to use them.
And people like YOU will have to get it into your heads that it is the job of the technologists to take things which are inherently comlicated, and spend as much time as possibly making them less so, up to a point where interaction with the technology is as simple as pushing against a door to open it.
Your guitar analogy is quite idiotic as well. There are only so many people who are psychologically inclined to write or perform guitar music. Usage of common household appliances, like television sets, microwaves, and computers, should NOT take any specific effort to use. And if they do, then they're either ill-conceived, poorly designed, or in an unfinished experimental stage.