OK, let's play a game. We'll let invaders from another continent come in and sell your people into slavery for a few centuries. Then, when that gets old, we'll start selling you weapons far beyond your native technology and urging you to get into wars with each other so that we can sell you more. Finally, when your whole nation is ruled by warlords and militias, we'll let horrible famines and diseases spread unchecked. Then, when you start to complain that you have no food or money, we'll declare "IMO it's their problem, and not ours."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you were "able to build a prosperous nation" because you had a bunch of pirates who could go around and steal food and slaves from more temperate regions. It's not like you guys were making cell phones back in 2500 BC.
Well, at least this time it wasn't a fellow American making an ass out of himself.
"And as for federal funding, they feds have no place in funding medical research. I looked in the constitution, and can't find mention of it anywhere. So, I oppose it on a) federalist principles and b) some moral qualms. But mostly a."
Do you have any idea how much medical research the government funds? Stem-cell research is such a miniscule part of that budget that it's not even worth mentioning on "federalist principles."
"If there was a potential for profit, they'd follow it with money."
So if there's no money to be made in curing these terrible diseases, it's not worthwhile to pursue? Interesting take.
I like the DVD format as much as any other geek. But I have to say, I'm not looking forward to this next generation of DVDs at all.
What does the consumer gain from Blu-Ray or HD-DVDs? Improvements in video quality that won't even be noticeable on 90% of TVs?
And what do consumers stand to lose? The next gen of DVDs are sure to have harsh DRM and artificially high prices. They'll be harder to back up or copy, because it'll take 5 DVD-Rs or half your hard drive to copy a single disk. And most annoying of all, if the manufacturers push the format hard enough, we'll all be FORCED to go buy new high-def drives/players to watch new movies, and they'll be pushing re-re-releases of all the older movies we've already paid for twice.
Frankly, I hope these next formats crash and burn harder than Laserdisk and Betamax combined. Let consumer demand drive the market, for once.
"While certain words such as "democracy" are banned in online chat rooms, China's Web users sometimes transmit sensitive information as images, or simply speak in code, inserting special characters such as underscoring into typing."
Actually, it's part of another phenomenon the article mentioned. "Sucks" is going the way of "zounds" and "golly," and will soon be considered completely inoffensive.
The issue brings to mind my Japanese teacher lamenting that nobody knows how to write Kanji (Sino-Japanese characters) anymore. She claimed that with modern computers, you only need to be able to recognize the correct character from a list of (typically many) homophones. This has led to an entire generation that knows how to read and pick out kanji, but can't handwrite half their own language without electronic assistance.
In an example closer to home, I can't spell (in English) nearly as well as I could in high school. The red squiggly spellcheck line has spoiled me terribly. And viewing too many message boards has dulled my "sense" for correct spellings. See "rediculous" written out enough times, and it starts to look less... well... ridiculous.
The more this type of technology is at our fingertips, the less we are forced to memorize.
He lists the Firefox "find" interface as one of his nitpicks, but honestly, this is my favorite part of Firefox. I get pissed off every time I open Word/Pages/whatever and have to toggle back and forth between the Find dialog and the document to do stuff like find/replace. The Firefox solution is just so much more elegant and easy to use... I hope other UI designers take note of this technique.
I wonder if this stock purchase indicates a willingness for the two companies to work together closely. Since AOL now owns WinAmp and AIM, two obvious advances come to mind:
1. AIM and MS Messenger sharing protocols (thus basically killing IM competition)
2. Windows Media Player being improved with some code or features from WinAmp (which could conceivably make for a very good general media player, if you ask me).
With Google Talk, GAIM, Trillian, and others making their mark in the IM field, and iTunes, VLC, and so on making headway in the media player categoroy, those Microsoft and AOL products could probably use the synergy bonus.
When I was in college, I used to tease my CS-major friends about the fact that they had a million theory classes, but never actually produced a cool working app. It pissed them off enough to explain the situation to me in simple terms:
If you want to learn vocational stuff, go to ITT Tech. It's cheap, quick, and you learn the skills to get hired quickly for entry-level tech jobs.
If you're paying for a pricy 4-year college, you probably don't want that kind of job. You want to understand the concepts and practices of programming, not just memorize some APIs or whatever. With this kind of education, you're not shooting for a low-level programming job; you're shooting for a more challenging career, and you should be a LOT easier to train on new technology than one of those ITT guys.
So if you want to crank out database code in one of those thousand jobs listed at Monster.com, by all means save some cash and go to a vocational school. Heck, you might want to switch to plumbing or car repair and make better money. But if you're really interested in a full, rewarding career in computer science, you need the theoretical stuff. Any decent company should be willing to train you on their specific technology.
Of course, all this was coming from guys already paying over 30 grand a year in tuition, so they might be a bit biased...
The article seems to take for granted that the biggest visual difference between Wind Walker and Twilight Princess is one of style - as if Wind Waker's cel-shaded graphics are just as appealing in their own way as Twilight Princess's "realistic" graphics.
I don't buy it.
Look, I played Wind Waker and I liked the gameplay a lot. I also love cartoons of all stripes, from Dumbo to Cowboy Bebop, and I don't really care either way about the "kiddy" label.
All that being said, I didn't like Wind Waker's cel-shading. It just didn't seem that well-done to me. All the character looked like emoticons - not much variation or depth to the facial expressions, because the art style wouldn't allow it. Similarly, Wind Waker's dynamic lighting effects just distracted from the game, because light and shadows were so prominent and contrasted. And perhaps most annoying, the ocean (that took up about 50% of the screen for most of the game) was a flat, boring blue, despite the fact that the Gamecube is capable of such beautiful water effects (witness Mario Sunshine).
Cel-shading is fine as a concept. Wind Waker just didn't do the best job of it. By contrast, oOther games, like Viewtiful Joe and the upcoming Ohkami, have managed to garner rave reviews (and previews) BECAUSE of cel-shaded graphics,
Actually, Apple does have a new word processor application called Pages. It comes with Keynote in their "iWork" package.
Pages has quite a few cool benefits over Word, especially when it comes to ease-of-use. On the other hand, it's a version 1.0 program from Apple, so there are plenty of bugs and weirdnesses - for example, it's almost impossible to import Word documents without messing up the formatting terribly, and there's no support for exporting to OpenOffice-compatible XML (that I can find, at least). Still, it's good enough that it's now my mainstay word processor.
What? This paragraph is just lies. Or ignorance. I've done many Ubuntu installs, and most of them included resizing NTFS partitions. They all worked flawlessly. No problems at all. I have yet to even *hear* of data loss with the Ubuntu installer. If you already have Windows setup and you install Ubuntu, it sets up the dual-booting automagically. As soon as you reboot, you are presented with a choice of what OS to use.
Not lies, I can guarantee that much.;-) I went to setup in Ubuntu, and it displayed my two hard drives' main partitions well enough. But I couldn't figure out how to resize the partitions. There was no obvious menu choice, and no documention that I could find (either within the installer or in the more extensive online documentation) detailing how to do this properly. There may well have been a simple way to proceed safely, but I couldn't be sure, and I didn't want to risk losing all my data.
Compare this to Windows. The Windows installer doesn't even recognize filesystems other than FAT and NTFS, and it won't even resize those. Now, suppose that you have another OS installed and have left room for Windows. You install Windows just fine, but when you reboot - shits! - you can only get into Windows. Unless you have a boot disk for your other system, you're fucked.
Yup. It's a double standard, I freely admit that. But frankly, Linux programmers need to care about transitioning people quickly and easily from Windows a lot more than Microsoft needs to worry about the opposite. One of the benefits of that 95%(ish) marketshare they have.
Basically, my question isn't "which is the better OS." My question is, "Why is it worth my time and effort to switch to Linux?" Stability and security don't cut it; my Windows box is plenty stable, and secure enough for my purposes (as long as I keep my antivirus updated).
Oh, and in response to a couple other guys: I have tried a Live CD distro, Slax. It was cool that it could run a whole OS from a CD, but it was stuck at 640x480 resolution and wouldn't recognize my wireless card, so no internet for me. As far games: it's nice that Cedega or Wine or whatever can run a lot of games, but the fact remains that those games are DESIGNED for Windows, and games always seem to work earlier/better on Windows than Linux.
I'm no Windows grognard. I'm writing this from my new PowerBook, in fact. But Linux defenders need to be more realistic in their assessments. Windows XP is a familiar, stable, and well-supported platform. It's the de-facto standard OS for x86 computers. Linux has a way to go before they're gonna be able to convert Joe Sixpack to their OS, and sarcastic diatribes (like TFA) aren't really constructive.
I tried that. Downloaded and burned Slax. It was very cool that they managed to load a whole functioning OS onto one disk, but it took five minutes to load up and wouldn't go higher than 640x480 screen resolution. Plus, it didn't recognize my wireless card for some reason, so no internet access. Pretty much all I could run was OpenOffice.
But to be fair, I'm sure it was the most stable and secure text editing I've ever done.
The article is trying to be facetious, but his first three points are actually dead-on.
1. Linux is too complicated. He claims that you "occasionally" need to edit a configuration file in Linux, and implies that this is no more frequent than doing so in Windows.
Bullshit. Since I've installed XP, I've never had to edit a configuration file OR registry data. Ever. I can install pretty much any PC-compatible hardware on the market and have it running quickly. Why? Because parts vendors make damn sure their stuff works in Windows.
2. Linux is a pain to set up. The author claims that modern Linux distros are easier to install than Windows. This may be true, but he neglects the fact that BOTH OS's are a pain to install for multiboot.
I decided to try out Linux, so I downloaded Ubuntu and ran the boot disk. Unfortunately, both my hard drives are NTFS, and Ubuntu doesn't know how to partition them. After half an hour looking around the net for a way to partition an NTFS drive without endangering the data on that drive, I gave up. No Linux for me, because I'm not willing to endanger all my system files or buy a new hard drive just to play around with another OS. "Insert disk and press Enter" my ass.
3. Linux doesn't have enough applications. The author points out that there are a bunch of freeware programs for Linux. Of course, almost all the ones he lists have equal or better counterparts freely available for Windows. Is the argument that those Windows programs aren't packaged with the OS? Guess what, quite a few of them are, when you buy from a big vendor like Dell. And since you're gonna have to download or purchase your Linux distro anyway, it's not like you're saving install time by running Linux.
In any case, he's missing the real "killer app" for a lot of us nerds: games. Yeah, it's been said before, but that doesn't make it less true. I regularly run maybe three apps on my computer that AREN'T games, and those work about equally well for Linux or Windows.
Oh, and on top off all of that, the premise of the article is stupid. I don't need reasons NOT to run Linux. Linux doesn't come pre-installed on my computer; Windows does. I need reasons TO run Linux, and they better be damn good reasons to overrule my apathy. If I'm going to go through all the work of switching to a new OS and learning its foibles and features, there better be some real motivation for doing so.
I'm no programmer, but I have to ask - why would any self-respecting Slashdotter want to work on a project like this? I thought the whole idealistic appeal of open source was freedom of information - why the hell would I donate my time and effort to a system designed to restrict that freedom?
It seems to me that the only proponents of a system like this would be people whose work requires some sort of DRM - and those people might well prefer to use closed-source solutions, rather than making use of a DRM system that every hacker in the world has been eyeing up since its inception.
"Apple puts serious time into making their product work, and to making it work, every single time."
Yeah, they really put a lot of work into picking out those exploding batteries and crappy monitors from LG.
I do love my PowerBook, but let's not go crazy here. For the price I paid for this thing, I could probably find a Toshiba or Sony laptop just as shiny and feature-packed. And chances are, it wouldn't EXPLODE.
"First off, video support sucks under Windows. Let's see... I need Windows Media Player for wmv and mpeg, Quicktime for mov, RealPlayer for real, a proprietary DVD-codec for DVD's, etc. etc. Linux? mplayer"
Funny, because I need every program you just mentioned PLUS VLC to run video on my Mac.
Here's a hint: Windows Media, Real, and Apple all have shiny new codecs that ONLY work in their own media players. MPlayer can't play them all - believe me, I've tried it, and I have no reason to believe it would work in Linux if it doesn't in OSX.
As for audio, I've never seen (heard?) an audio file that WinAmp couldn't play.
And just for the record, the Gimp is still inferior to Photoshop.
I find the "sequel treadmill" for video games far less worrisome than the same phenomenon in movies.
Look at your own personal list of "best video games ever," and count how many sequels are on there. Mario 3, Zelda 2, Doom 2, Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 3, GTA 3, Final Fantasy 7, Baldur's Gate 2...
Now do the same for movies. Let's see, we've got Godfather 2, maybe Star Wars or Lord of the Rings... not quite as long a list, is it?
The trick is that fun and innovative gameplay has always been the key to a good game, not plot. I can't watch even my favorite movie twice in the same month without getting bored, but I can play the same level of Soul Calibur 2 for hours on end. And frankly, I'd much rather have Namco spend their time and money refining that already polished gameplay than starting from scratch with some new game that I'd have to learn anew.
Does this mean "the death of innovation"? Of course not. In fact, I'd say a sequel can sometimes leverage the good name of its franchise to take more gameplay "risks" than a non-sequel could manage. Why do you think Final Fantasy Tactics is a million-seller and Tactics Ogre (the game it's based on) is hardly a blip Stateside? One's part of a beloved franchise, while the other's part of a franchise that never caught on in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, let's play a game. We'll let invaders from another continent come in and sell your people into slavery for a few centuries. Then, when that gets old, we'll start selling you weapons far beyond your native technology and urging you to get into wars with each other so that we can sell you more. Finally, when your whole nation is ruled by warlords and militias, we'll let horrible famines and diseases spread unchecked. Then, when you start to complain that you have no food or money, we'll declare "IMO it's their problem, and not ours."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you were "able to build a prosperous nation" because you had a bunch of pirates who could go around and steal food and slaves from more temperate regions. It's not like you guys were making cell phones back in 2500 BC.
Well, at least this time it wasn't a fellow American making an ass out of himself.
"And as for federal funding, they feds have no place in funding medical research. I looked in the constitution, and can't find mention of it anywhere. So, I oppose it on a) federalist principles and b) some moral qualms. But mostly a."
Do you have any idea how much medical research the government funds? Stem-cell research is such a miniscule part of that budget that it's not even worth mentioning on "federalist principles."
"If there was a potential for profit, they'd follow it with money."
So if there's no money to be made in curing these terrible diseases, it's not worthwhile to pursue? Interesting take.
I like the DVD format as much as any other geek. But I have to say, I'm not looking forward to this next generation of DVDs at all.
What does the consumer gain from Blu-Ray or HD-DVDs? Improvements in video quality that won't even be noticeable on 90% of TVs?
And what do consumers stand to lose? The next gen of DVDs are sure to have harsh DRM and artificially high prices. They'll be harder to back up or copy, because it'll take 5 DVD-Rs or half your hard drive to copy a single disk. And most annoying of all, if the manufacturers push the format hard enough, we'll all be FORCED to go buy new high-def drives/players to watch new movies, and they'll be pushing re-re-releases of all the older movies we've already paid for twice.
Frankly, I hope these next formats crash and burn harder than Laserdisk and Betamax combined. Let consumer demand drive the market, for once.
"While certain words such as "democracy" are banned in online chat rooms, China's Web users sometimes transmit sensitive information as images, or simply speak in code, inserting special characters such as underscoring into typing."
H4rdc0re d3m0_cracy CLICK HERE
Actually, it's part of another phenomenon the article mentioned. "Sucks" is going the way of "zounds" and "golly," and will soon be considered completely inoffensive.
So instead he required every client to pay money for the Opera browser, just to open his webpage? Kind of doubtful...
The issue brings to mind my Japanese teacher lamenting that nobody knows how to write Kanji (Sino-Japanese characters) anymore. She claimed that with modern computers, you only need to be able to recognize the correct character from a list of (typically many) homophones. This has led to an entire generation that knows how to read and pick out kanji, but can't handwrite half their own language without electronic assistance.
In an example closer to home, I can't spell (in English) nearly as well as I could in high school. The red squiggly spellcheck line has spoiled me terribly. And viewing too many message boards has dulled my "sense" for correct spellings. See "rediculous" written out enough times, and it starts to look less... well... ridiculous.
The more this type of technology is at our fingertips, the less we are forced to memorize.
He lists the Firefox "find" interface as one of his nitpicks, but honestly, this is my favorite part of Firefox. I get pissed off every time I open Word/Pages/whatever and have to toggle back and forth between the Find dialog and the document to do stuff like find/replace. The Firefox solution is just so much more elegant and easy to use... I hope other UI designers take note of this technique.
I wonder if this stock purchase indicates a willingness for the two companies to work together closely. Since AOL now owns WinAmp and AIM, two obvious advances come to mind:
1. AIM and MS Messenger sharing protocols (thus basically killing IM competition)
2. Windows Media Player being improved with some code or features from WinAmp (which could conceivably make for a very good general media player, if you ask me).
With Google Talk, GAIM, Trillian, and others making their mark in the IM field, and iTunes, VLC, and so on making headway in the media player categoroy, those Microsoft and AOL products could probably use the synergy bonus.
So Nintendogs is a computerized experience designed to produce interactive enjoyment. How exactly is it not a "game"?
If other sandbox titles like The Sims can be considered games, I don't see any reason why Nintendogs doesn't deserve the title.
But I want it NOW!
When I was in college, I used to tease my CS-major friends about the fact that they had a million theory classes, but never actually produced a cool working app. It pissed them off enough to explain the situation to me in simple terms:
If you want to learn vocational stuff, go to ITT Tech. It's cheap, quick, and you learn the skills to get hired quickly for entry-level tech jobs.
If you're paying for a pricy 4-year college, you probably don't want that kind of job. You want to understand the concepts and practices of programming, not just memorize some APIs or whatever. With this kind of education, you're not shooting for a low-level programming job; you're shooting for a more challenging career, and you should be a LOT easier to train on new technology than one of those ITT guys.
So if you want to crank out database code in one of those thousand jobs listed at Monster.com, by all means save some cash and go to a vocational school. Heck, you might want to switch to plumbing or car repair and make better money. But if you're really interested in a full, rewarding career in computer science, you need the theoretical stuff. Any decent company should be willing to train you on their specific technology.
Of course, all this was coming from guys already paying over 30 grand a year in tuition, so they might be a bit biased...
I saw this title and I was like, "What, table salt is outdated now?"
The article seems to take for granted that the biggest visual difference between Wind Walker and Twilight Princess is one of style - as if Wind Waker's cel-shaded graphics are just as appealing in their own way as Twilight Princess's "realistic" graphics.
I don't buy it.
Look, I played Wind Waker and I liked the gameplay a lot. I also love cartoons of all stripes, from Dumbo to Cowboy Bebop, and I don't really care either way about the "kiddy" label.
All that being said, I didn't like Wind Waker's cel-shading. It just didn't seem that well-done to me. All the character looked like emoticons - not much variation or depth to the facial expressions, because the art style wouldn't allow it. Similarly, Wind Waker's dynamic lighting effects just distracted from the game, because light and shadows were so prominent and contrasted. And perhaps most annoying, the ocean (that took up about 50% of the screen for most of the game) was a flat, boring blue, despite the fact that the Gamecube is capable of such beautiful water effects (witness Mario Sunshine).
Cel-shading is fine as a concept. Wind Waker just didn't do the best job of it. By contrast, oOther games, like Viewtiful Joe and the upcoming Ohkami, have managed to garner rave reviews (and previews) BECAUSE of cel-shaded graphics,
Actually, Apple does have a new word processor application called Pages. It comes with Keynote in their "iWork" package.
Pages has quite a few cool benefits over Word, especially when it comes to ease-of-use. On the other hand, it's a version 1.0 program from Apple, so there are plenty of bugs and weirdnesses - for example, it's almost impossible to import Word documents without messing up the formatting terribly, and there's no support for exporting to OpenOffice-compatible XML (that I can find, at least). Still, it's good enough that it's now my mainstay word processor.
Not lies, I can guarantee that much. ;-) I went to setup in Ubuntu, and it displayed my two hard drives' main partitions well enough. But I couldn't figure out how to resize the partitions. There was no obvious menu choice, and no documention that I could find (either within the installer or in the more extensive online documentation) detailing how to do this properly. There may well have been a simple way to proceed safely, but I couldn't be sure, and I didn't want to risk losing all my data.
Compare this to Windows. The Windows installer doesn't even recognize filesystems other than FAT and NTFS, and it won't even resize those. Now, suppose that you have another OS installed and have left room for Windows. You install Windows just fine, but when you reboot - shits! - you can only get into Windows. Unless you have a boot disk for your other system, you're fucked.
Yup. It's a double standard, I freely admit that. But frankly, Linux programmers need to care about transitioning people quickly and easily from Windows a lot more than Microsoft needs to worry about the opposite. One of the benefits of that 95%(ish) marketshare they have.
Basically, my question isn't "which is the better OS." My question is, "Why is it worth my time and effort to switch to Linux?" Stability and security don't cut it; my Windows box is plenty stable, and secure enough for my purposes (as long as I keep my antivirus updated).
Oh, and in response to a couple other guys: I have tried a Live CD distro, Slax. It was cool that it could run a whole OS from a CD, but it was stuck at 640x480 resolution and wouldn't recognize my wireless card, so no internet for me. As far games: it's nice that Cedega or Wine or whatever can run a lot of games, but the fact remains that those games are DESIGNED for Windows, and games always seem to work earlier/better on Windows than Linux.
I'm no Windows grognard. I'm writing this from my new PowerBook, in fact. But Linux defenders need to be more realistic in their assessments. Windows XP is a familiar, stable, and well-supported platform. It's the de-facto standard OS for x86 computers. Linux has a way to go before they're gonna be able to convert Joe Sixpack to their OS, and sarcastic diatribes (like TFA) aren't really constructive.
I tried that. Downloaded and burned Slax. It was very cool that they managed to load a whole functioning OS onto one disk, but it took five minutes to load up and wouldn't go higher than 640x480 screen resolution. Plus, it didn't recognize my wireless card for some reason, so no internet access. Pretty much all I could run was OpenOffice.
But to be fair, I'm sure it was the most stable and secure text editing I've ever done.
The article is trying to be facetious, but his first three points are actually dead-on.
1. Linux is too complicated.
He claims that you "occasionally" need to edit a configuration file in Linux, and implies that this is no more frequent than doing so in Windows.
Bullshit. Since I've installed XP, I've never had to edit a configuration file OR registry data. Ever. I can install pretty much any PC-compatible hardware on the market and have it running quickly. Why? Because parts vendors make damn sure their stuff works in Windows.
2. Linux is a pain to set up.
The author claims that modern Linux distros are easier to install than Windows. This may be true, but he neglects the fact that BOTH OS's are a pain to install for multiboot.
I decided to try out Linux, so I downloaded Ubuntu and ran the boot disk. Unfortunately, both my hard drives are NTFS, and Ubuntu doesn't know how to partition them. After half an hour looking around the net for a way to partition an NTFS drive without endangering the data on that drive, I gave up. No Linux for me, because I'm not willing to endanger all my system files or buy a new hard drive just to play around with another OS. "Insert disk and press Enter" my ass.
3. Linux doesn't have enough applications.
The author points out that there are a bunch of freeware programs for Linux. Of course, almost all the ones he lists have equal or better counterparts freely available for Windows. Is the argument that those Windows programs aren't packaged with the OS? Guess what, quite a few of them are, when you buy from a big vendor like Dell. And since you're gonna have to download or purchase your Linux distro anyway, it's not like you're saving install time by running Linux.
In any case, he's missing the real "killer app" for a lot of us nerds: games. Yeah, it's been said before, but that doesn't make it less true. I regularly run maybe three apps on my computer that AREN'T games, and those work about equally well for Linux or Windows.
Oh, and on top off all of that, the premise of the article is stupid. I don't need reasons NOT to run Linux. Linux doesn't come pre-installed on my computer; Windows does. I need reasons TO run Linux, and they better be damn good reasons to overrule my apathy. If I'm going to go through all the work of switching to a new OS and learning its foibles and features, there better be some real motivation for doing so.
Frankly, I ain't motivated yet.
I'm no programmer, but I have to ask - why would any self-respecting Slashdotter want to work on a project like this? I thought the whole idealistic appeal of open source was freedom of information - why the hell would I donate my time and effort to a system designed to restrict that freedom?
It seems to me that the only proponents of a system like this would be people whose work requires some sort of DRM - and those people might well prefer to use closed-source solutions, rather than making use of a DRM system that every hacker in the world has been eyeing up since its inception.
"Apple puts serious time into making their product work, and to making it work, every single time."
Yeah, they really put a lot of work into picking out those exploding batteries and crappy monitors from LG. I do love my PowerBook, but let's not go crazy here. For the price I paid for this thing, I could probably find a Toshiba or Sony laptop just as shiny and feature-packed. And chances are, it wouldn't EXPLODE.
"First off, video support sucks under Windows. Let's see... I need Windows Media Player for wmv and mpeg, Quicktime for mov, RealPlayer for real, a proprietary DVD-codec for DVD's, etc. etc.
Linux? mplayer"
Funny, because I need every program you just mentioned PLUS VLC to run video on my Mac.
Here's a hint: Windows Media, Real, and Apple all have shiny new codecs that ONLY work in their own media players. MPlayer can't play them all - believe me, I've tried it, and I have no reason to believe it would work in Linux if it doesn't in OSX.
As for audio, I've never seen (heard?) an audio file that WinAmp couldn't play.
And just for the record, the Gimp is still inferior to Photoshop.
I find the "sequel treadmill" for video games far less worrisome than the same phenomenon in movies. Look at your own personal list of "best video games ever," and count how many sequels are on there. Mario 3, Zelda 2, Doom 2, Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 3, GTA 3, Final Fantasy 7, Baldur's Gate 2... Now do the same for movies. Let's see, we've got Godfather 2, maybe Star Wars or Lord of the Rings... not quite as long a list, is it? The trick is that fun and innovative gameplay has always been the key to a good game, not plot. I can't watch even my favorite movie twice in the same month without getting bored, but I can play the same level of Soul Calibur 2 for hours on end. And frankly, I'd much rather have Namco spend their time and money refining that already polished gameplay than starting from scratch with some new game that I'd have to learn anew. Does this mean "the death of innovation"? Of course not. In fact, I'd say a sequel can sometimes leverage the good name of its franchise to take more gameplay "risks" than a non-sequel could manage. Why do you think Final Fantasy Tactics is a million-seller and Tactics Ogre (the game it's based on) is hardly a blip Stateside? One's part of a beloved franchise, while the other's part of a franchise that never caught on in the US.