Indeed and their goal with Linux is to have a gaming platform independent of Apple and Microsoft, from their perspective you have a choice of nVidia (closed), AMD (open and closed) and Intel (open) covering all the bases. I don't think Valve feels the need for more choice for Linux to be a choice.

A common misconception, with complex products there's always so many environments and conditions you never get all the corner cases worked out. So what you want is ten million people playing GTA V on Windows (7/8/Vista), not all these niche users finding subtle ways to break it on their special snowflake of a Linux setup. It costs time and money, hurts your brand and most companies would rather just sell to the 95%+ doing mainstream tasks.

There are no "rape charges". Never were. He's wanted, by order of a single right-wing prosecutor which our intel boys carefully selected, to answer questions about not using a condom once during a threesome - a session be conducted only on a particular spot next to a convenient airport for the US to snatch him up and drag him to a kangaroo trial wherever they care to hold one. If they even bother to charge him. They refuse to ask the questions anywhere but where the US can snatch him. For this he's been in a single room in an embassy for half a decade while the Brits spend millions of pounds to watch the doors, at the behest of the English-speaking intelligence nations little club. The fact that he exposed their crimes seems to be a bit pertinent. They're the charged, and convicted, and yet they have the guns ready to shoot him. No one is waiting for them to leave their holes.

BTW, one of the women has departed this "case" in disgust, because she figured out she's being used by the US. What Assange did, if he did it, was to not use a condom during a night of three-way sex. They said. It's a crime only in that country; nowhere else in the world can this "crime" be charged. And the "crime" isn't rape. Let's put it out there: US intelligence used its NSA superpowers to track down every woman Assange ever slept with, contacted them, and twiggled and wiggled until they found something, somewhere, to start an investigation on territory they could use to grab him. Even then, they had to shop until they found a rightwinger that hated him enough to start the process. Other prosecutors had refused to gin up a crime. Simultaneously they used their widespread network of tame journalists and news companies to spread the "rape" accusation far and wide, to destroy his credibility and blacken his name. And as the HB Gary emails showed, there is software sold by HB Gary and others used by people employed by corporations and the government to set up networks of fake personas to splatter newsgroups such as this with horseshit that they want to promulgate. Truth may just be getting its shoes on while lies run around the world, but now they have paid groups of fake people shooting the truth before it gets out the goddamned door...

Who did he lie to, again? Did he phone them up and tell them, or did he drop that turd on the NSA listeners? Either way, he didn't point any gun at anyone.

WE DID.

How did Assange "give" them that intel?

Cheney and his little cohort committed cold blooded murdered when they outed Valerie Plame and her Iranian anti-nuke intel program. Just to get even with her husband. That's Kingpin-level asshole murder. Any Iranian associated with her front groups was tortured to death as a traitor.

Bill Kristol is floating the idea that Cheney should run for President this week. I don't see Cheney imprisoned in any embassy. I don't see roboposters slamming his rep and spreading false charges on every. single. thread. on. the. internet. his story might be told.

Whom did he throw the bone to? Was it to the NSA, who were listening to his calls? How else? He must have told someone that he was on that plane. He most certainly didn't call up the White House to tell them. He must have told someone, knowing full well that person would rat him out, or he knew his calls and emails were being monitored in real time.

Except that she has. Not that the investigation has anything to do with her; it's to haul Assange to the US.

One did walk away, because she was disgusted with being used.

There are no "rape charges". Never were. He's wanted, by order of a single right-wing prosecutor which our intel boys carefully selected, to answer questions about not using a condom once during a threesome - a session be conducted only on a particular spot next to a convenient airport for the US to snatch him up and drag him to a kangaroo trial wherever they care to hold one. If they even bother to charge him. They refuse to ask the questions anywhere but where the US can snatch him. For this he's been in a single room in an embassy for half a decade while the Brits spend millions of pounds to watch the doors, at the behest of the English-speaking intelligence nations little club. The fact that he exposed their crimes seems to be a bit pertinent. They're the charged, and convicted, and yet they have the guns ready to shoot him. No one is waiting for them to leave their holes.

BTW, one of the women has departed this "case" in disgust, because she figured out she's being used by the US. What Assange did, if he did it, was to not use a condom during a night of three-way sex. They said. It's a crime only in that country; nowhere else in the world can this "crime" be charged. And the "crime" isn't rape. Let's put it out there: US intelligence used its NSA superpowers to track down every woman Assange ever slept with, contacted them, and twiggled and wiggled until they found something, somewhere, to start an investigation on territory they could use to grab him. Even then, they had to shop until they found a rightwinger that hated him enough to start the process. Other prosecutors had refused to gin up a crime. Simultaneously they used their widespread network of tame journalists and news companies to spread the "rape" accusation far and wide, to destroy his credibility and blacken his name. And as the HB Gary emails showed, there is software sold by HB Gary and others used by people employed by corporations and the government to set up networks of fake personas to splatter newsgroups such as this with horseshit that they want to promulgate. Truth may just be getting its shoes on while lies run around the world, but now they have paid groups of fake people shooting the truth before it gets out the goddamned door.

And how long will it last? WWII lasted six years and after the war there was rationing on everything, I imagine an apocalypse like that only bigger and worse. Power will have been out for years, generators don't have fuel and people will be too busy doing what the illiterate masses has done for most of human history, surviving. There won't be any replacement parts so when your machine fails it's dead, assuming you got clean power to begin with. And they need something useful at their current level of technology.

I don't think you understand how much of a downward spiral we'll have simply because the infrastructure and division of labor is collapsing. I'd probably be out in the fields trying to make food and firewood for the winter and sorry but if I had kids that's the kind of thing that'd be my first priority for them too. Learning what I know about computers wouldn't even rate as nice-to-have because it'd be bloody unlikely they'd see a transistor made after the apocalypse anyway. Life span would probably drop to what they were 2000 years ago because there's no industrial production of hygiene, sanitation or medical products. And when I'm dead and the computer's dead, yes maybe there's some books on a shelf... but it's a long, long way to recovery.

Stephenson's books have gotten worse and worse as he's gotten older. Usually authors improve as they age, not put out dreck like Cryptonomicon.

Sorry, but I liked Cryptonomicon. As I did REAMDE. Both pretty good books.
The Baroque Cycle was a bit of a drag, that I admit.

Robot cars won't need them. Are you against progress, grandpa?

Crayola needs to make a crayon color called Indoor White Boy.