Because if you're not running low end gear like some user tend to have a hard on for it's actually nice to have a pretty interface. If you're only wasting memory and cycles on it when your machine is at rest and it's a pitiful amount of resources for the system you're on then there's no harm in it. Why does every single XFCE user need to come into every Unity and Plasma article and and squeal with indignation like there's a catastrophic world wide memory shortage. If you're running XFCE, LXDE or any DE designed for low end hardware you're probably not playing games.

There is a major difference between upgrading from windows 7 to 8 ass there was from xp to vista or xp to windows 7. XP came about before things like wireless G was ubiquitous. It didn't handle a lot of web frameworks very well and it was frequently populated with applications that look far shinier than it did. Combine that with the large time gap between OSes, most people were running XP on laptops with external pci wireless cards or no wireless at all and they were seeing friends, family, and coworkers with sleeker, faster, easier to use laptops that just worked with any wireless network they were in range of and actually like similar in quality aesthetically with all of the applications people were running on it.

Nobody has a problem with their current version of windows 7 where they're thinking "If only I had a new windows 8 laptop this would be so much faster/easier/less frustrating etc". In fact, the processing power required to complete most tasks your average lay windows user does has pretty much stagnated over the past five years. Screen resolutions are virtually unchanged for most; Web browsing, email and productivity apps are pretty much at a stand still processing wise. The biggest changes in leaps and bounds have been internet bandwidth and the ability for network cards to process internet bandwidth has never been a bottleneck. This is why tablets are starting to takeover for lay computer users, because the stagnation in processor requirements have allowed smaller form factor hardware to catch up.

All in all, for most user upgrading doesn't mean a shiny new toy, it means work learning a new interface. Combine that with cost and the fact that it offers no solutions to problems or limitations they are currently having with windows 7 means nobody really wants it.

What we might see then is a kind of hybridization of PC and console hardware, which I'm sure PC developers would love, soon everyone will want to be distributing hardware that is compatible with the "steambox specification" and developers will have to optimize their games for a lot less hardware.

You know they don't necessarily have to release the console themselves. They could easily make it an open platform and let Asus, Samsung, and other PC vendors make their own consoles based on it. Given that Valves hardware department can be counted on one hand, this is likely what's going to happen. You just need to be able to optimize against commonly used hardware, optimize the opensource graphics drivers and design specifications and maybe even produce a few controllers and peripherals. They would basically just be creating the console to enable their distribution system to expand into a new market. To that end, having someone else make the hardware instead of making it yourself at cost or even a loss is a much better scenario.

There isn''t going to be a year of desktop linux. It's going to be decade of desktop linux.

Steam likely reduces the rate of piracy among PC gamers because it actually offers some really good benefits over piracy and buying in store. When you buy through steam you can always redownload the game, scratched your black ops 2 dvd? Fuck you buy another one. Your rig's harddisk failed? Redownload the game free of charge as many times as you like; I know that any game I buy on steam I will have until the service dies at which point the game will likely be freeware anyway. It offers a lot of stability as well. If I pirate a game on pc then I would have top find a new crack for the executable every time I wanted to play on the latest patch. Steam will automatically update my games for me and I have a reasonable that everything will work if I meet the hardware specs for the game and it was developed in the last 5 years.

Combine the low prices, convenience features, and permanence that physical media doesn't offer, a lot of people prefer to buy games through steam rather than pirate; At least anyone with a reasonable amount of disposable income.

Remember to complete your sentences when criticizing other people's grammar.

No we would just be using something else. Very rarely are someone or something's inventions non obvious that wouldn't soon be developed by someone else in a slightly different form.

Agreed. In order for a developer to royally screw a project up, there has to be systemic failures in process. It means he didn't have a second pair of eyes reviewing his code and it means there was no QC resource. Combined those two are indicative of gross negligence on management's part and they got what was coming to them. If someone bluffs their way through a technical and an HR interview and lands a job, initial training and a good development process should have the guy back out the door in the span of a week or two.

You're an idiot. Bush ran against two very uninspiring candidates, the first one arguably having his base split by the green party candidate and could have won. During the second election the full consequences of relaxed regulations on wall street, the mounting debt from 2 wars and the well hidden but inevitable housing market crash had not come to fruition yet. By the time the 2008 election had come around all of them had been realized. There is no fucking way Bush could have ever won a third term if such a thing existed.

He was way too liberal. Kept talking about helping the poor and ran on a very anti-war platform.

As opposed to the alternative? Jesus Fucking Christ, yes.

The accusation was of being "Linux Shills". Last I checked it was free.

I think in rare cases it can help, but it largely impairs your ability to code. A small amount of substance use can slightly impair the brain and allow you to be less rigid in your thinking and get past a block by considering valid ideas you would immediately dismiss otherwise. It's the same way a small amount of alcohol in your blood will impair motor function a small amount to act as a muscle relaxant which can help smooth out your motion and make you more precise at certain tasks, like a game of darts or pool, but it very quickly becomes a serious impairment.

These are basically crude solutions to the fact that our brains are prone to overfitting our patterns for how to come to a solutions. Yes it can help, but 9/10 it is probably more harmful and there certainly isn't some hidden potential that is unlocked by regular substance use and there are certainly means of getting past code blocks or coming up with more elegant solutions that don't require it. If you came up with a great idea while using, there are was probably a safer way to get the creative juices lowing without it.

Kinda hard to shill a free product.