I've been on Slashdot for a long time and always heard that this is the year of Linux on the desktop. It's not this year, or next, and it never will be.

Frankly, I am happy to run Linux to power servers or even for development work. It excels in those areas. However, the sad reality for our resident Windows haters is that well... Windows isn't that bad any more. It doesn't crash. Yeah, Windows 8 is a mess on the UI side but on the performance side, it's exceptional. It can run as a server quite well. IIS is a pretty good web server. SQL Server is also pretty good. And Visual Studio is still arguably the best IDE (though I can't speak from personal experience on this).

So what is the benefit of Linux gaming? Well, none, really. The real benefit is to instigate a bunch of Linux lovers to bring love to SteamOS and as a result, Valve, so that Microsoft never gets off the ground their 'app store'. Because that's the true reason of the discontent by Valve, isn't it? It's not that Windows is "so bad" any more, it's that Valve, which is basically a monopoly, is in threat of having that monopoly broken by Microsoft (kind of ironic if you think about it).

And that's the reality. If you like Linux, that's great. But you can't use the argument of Windows being that bad any more, which is WHY you like Linux. It's simply not true. I'm more of the opinion that the requirement you have should dictate the use of the right tool. And this is a case of forcing the wrong tool (Linux) to match requirements of playing games that seems backwards. But not being a Windows lover or hater, or Linux lover or hater, I suppose I'm in a unique camp that way.

Is that it's well... rudimentary and crude.

Standard journalism often has to reflect on the articles they have written in the past in order to look at their viewpoints and editorial on subjects in the past, explain how those might have changed, and then reflect that in the new editorial they are writing.

Perhaps it's not just tech journalism. It's probably just ALL journalistic standards that have basically gone down in the era of FOX news and infotainment, that we don't pretend to want that intellectual honesty that perhaps once was there. The press is complicit in most things for access -- it's true of Apple's press events (and how Walt Mossberg fawns over anything Apple does), as much as it is true of traditional press fawning over the sitting President in the hopes of better access.

The Verge isn't at fault because they are Apple fanboys; we are at fault for not looking at them with a harsher eye. As Bill Clinton said, people are now more accepting than ever, unless they have a viewpoint they disagree with. And everybody LOVES Apple. It's just not cool not to (apparently).

Of course I'm a weird guy with a Windows phone because I wanted a better camera (at the time), so what the hell do I know...

So in my basement I have a 36U HP server rack that I got off of Craigslist for around $200. It is 350 lbs and getting it home was a huge challenge; the person who buys my home will inherit this rack; I think next time I do this I'll get a freestanding rack that's a lot cheaper and easier to set up.

Anyway that aside... I have a TP-LINK VPN router that intakes my cable modem connection (100/50 -- Optimum is great!). That plugs into a Dell 48 Port switch on a single VLAN (no need for multiples). I have an i5 server with SSD and 2x2TB drives in mirror that acts as my HTPC and Media Center (the Microsoft one). Attached to that is a Ceton card that records all my TV, and distributes that to two XBoxes in my family room and bedroom (so I can watch live TV and DVR). That setup is amazing. Additionally I have Media Browser (http://www.mediabrowser.tv) running to 3 Roku boxes in the family room, bedroom, and living room.

Every bedroom in my house gets two ethernet jacks. The kitchen and family room also have two. I also run Unifi POE Access Points on each floor of my house (they are great) to do my wireless; I don't have a wireless router.

That's about it... it's a great setup that saves me a lot of money on my cable bill (no boxes), provides a lot of flexibility for content I watch and stream, and it's all backed up to a cloud backup, Crashplan.

Just as it pertains to cloud, really. Their offerings are pretty terrible and far behind others in the space. If you're still in a datacenter with physical equipment, it's still a great player.

Is heavily marketed and works like absolute dog shit.

Yes, they have a great hypervisor. The rest of their products? Total, and utter shit. They can't compete on so many fronts they are running to provide anything with "Cloud" in it so people buy it. vCloud Automation Center. AirWatch. CloudVolumes. Horizon.

It's going to be interesting to watch a company who sat on its laurels while the cloud rush started and now is running to try to catch up.

If you are tracking a company's performance by its stock price it's kind of laughable; share holders are a mentally unstable bunch, and unless you sacrifice your company for short term profits they really don't get excited. There is no long term outlook for companies any more, and MS' long term strategy I think, is getting stronger. The cutting of the 18k employees is just showing they are narrowing their focus and really concentrating on the areas they think will be big; cloud, and mobile.

And as somebody in the cloud space myself (for work), I look at Azure with great interest because of their investment into it. We are a huge Microsoft customer already, and we can leverage that size and contract for our benefit with Azure and licensing; Amazon can't beat them on that, and if I get the enterprise tools I want... it's a no brainer. AWS has a lot of features, but the vast majority of them aren't useful at this point for our needs... we need pure infrastructure, autoscaling, and database services -- all of which are available through Azure, and all of which are available for a lower cost.

This is a marketing gimmick.

Scholarship money is heavily designed to give the student the idea of a "price break" when making a choice in school. Now this school is adding a bullshit scholarship to play video games to lure a lot of students there with the idea that "Oh, I can play video games and get paid!"

No, you're not getting paid for it. You are getting a coupon for the university so they get your business, rather than you choosing another university that might be a better fit, or cheaper for you.

Who wants last-gen games for a Linux console that nobody is really supporting?

Valve's ONLY motivation isn't the goodness of their hearts to the Linux community, it's to stop Microsoft from eating their lunch with the storefront. And right now, Steam works great on Windows 8.1 but MS is also making improvements (albeit small ones) to their store. It will be a long while before I give up Steam.

But the threat is real to Valve, and they want us to undertake all the heavy lifting, all the change, so that only 30% of our library now works instead of 100% on Windows. Thanks, but I'll stay with Windows. The Steam Box holds zero purpose for me since they introduced in home streaming. I can just stream a game to a small HTPC in my living room, or onto my tablet and have it powered by my main rig. But again... MS has technology like RemoteFX that can do the same thing... just a matter of time before it's implemented.

I originally bought my 920 for just the camera; I have kids so I wanted to have a good camera at all times.

It wound up being better then the iPhone in a lot of ways, and now with the update (yes, I went to the developer preview mode) it's actually far better than iPhone or Android. And I have a Galaxy S4 I use for work, so it's not for lack of trying everything.

The only quip I have right now is the way that associations for things are handles (open with), but I think there has been some work done here, apps just have to take advantage of it.

I'm agnostic... I design solutions around Linux or Windows; it's the core requirement that makes me choose a technology, not a technology that makes me fix my requirements.

It is a good case however, for you to not really be in the position to speak from knowledge on the subject. You've hated MS for years, and adding your two cents about "yea I went to Linux" over ten years ago seems about par for the course of Slashdot angry posts about Microsoft.

It's a tool. You use it in the right place, at the right time. When you get religion about a tool, then it tends to be a problem. MS or not.

What I'm saying is that 80% of the time, the timeframe is irrelevant -- the private firms can't beat the indexes.

In IT, of course...

And one thing I've learned is that financial firms generally speaking, don't beat the market. If you look at the S&P 500 as a baseline index for the health of the economy (and it might not be perfect, but it's a good measure), 80% of firms CANNOT beat the S&P in the same timeframe. If the S&P loses, those private firms lose too.

And even if they did... maybe 1-2% over? Which you won't get, because that's what they charge in FEES to manage their funds.

So basically HFT exists, because people still have the idea that investing with Morgan Stanley or somebody is a great idea, and so MS have a huge amount of equity to derive ridiculous profits on for who else -- themselves. Add to that the fees they charge to manage the funds they offer, and the marginal rates of return that investors get well... you know how it goes.

Hopefully my job interviews pending will pan out and I'll get out of finance for good; but sadly the money is what has kept me there, especially with the student loans... yet another benefit from our wonderful financial industry.

Agreed... carbon fiber has a brittleness, and while more sturdy than porcelain, exhibits some of the same behavior of cracking rather than absorbing any impact.

Also no Windows apps... for a certain market, it will do well. Like my wife.