I remember when... ...dialing a phone meant putting your finger in a hole and spinning the dialer. ...25MHz was fast for a computer. ...a dollar could actually get you a chocolate bar, and leave you with change to spare. ...downloading a song from the internet took 25-30 minutes, or more. ...I could bring my pocket knife on a plane. ...I could say merry christmas to somebody without offending them. ...cell phones were the size of masonry bricks, and were actually used to make phone calls. ...all personal computers were beige. ...a personal computer cost $2000 or more. ...playing a 4-color adventure game was cool. ...everyone knew how to use a command line interface. ...I had to rewind movies after watching them. ...I had to turn the cassette tape over in the player to listen to the other half of the album. ...camera's used film. ...polaroid camera's were the only way to get an instant photograph. ...a printer, a scanner, a copier, and a fax machine were 4 separate devices. ...the only way to make a phone call away from your home was to put quarters in a payphone.

Okay... I'll stop now. I could likely do this all day. :)

The interesting part of your whole argument is that you completely ignore the fact that both Wolfire and ID Software do more than just rant about it.

They develop games that support OpenGL. What they want, is *other* big developers to stop supporting the inferior libraries and open their eyes.

Plan and simple: There is nothing bad about Open standards.

- If they are broken, you can fix them.
- if they lack features, you can add them.
- If the performance is poor, you can improve it.

Can you say this about Direct3D? The only entity that can fix, add to, or improve Direct3D is Microsoft. Period.

- If its broken, you have to wait for a patch.
- If it lacks features, you have to wait for the next version, and pray that it supports your operating system.
- If the performance sucks, you have to deal with it.

Whats good about that? And thats talking a strictly Windows audience.

From a cross platform point of view, there really is just one choice. And its not Direct3D.

While I agree with your sentiment, I download the full ISO so that I can make additional copies for friends/family.

Everytime they complain about Windows chewing up their machine, I hand them a Linux disk.

Hooray for free! :)

Wake me up when it's shipped with Linux pre-installed.

Windows 7 will have it running like a 286 in no time.

You don't *HAVE* to buy the game...

I think the sentiment here is that if M$ brings this sort of technology on the market, they will likely "innovate" themselves right out of the market.

Not only does this act to descriminate against users, it also singles them out and takes away one of the reasons people play these games to begin with (to escape reality). There are also heaps of privacy concerns in this, as it would almost certainly require user consent to glean data from medical records.

I can't see this actually coming to fruition and making them any kind of money.

Nintendo's approach was much better. Introduce the tools that people can use to get fit (physically and mentally), but don't force them to use it, and don't single them out if they don't want to.

My suspician is that this is yet another vapourware patent that we'll never see any actual implementation of.

I love how you managed to quote a single /. article about a single persons opinion (albiet an influencial opinion) about the Linux Kernel and have used it as evidence in a sarcastic reply to an even more sarcastic post.

Windows *is* bloated. I believe the Windows 7 footprint when I installed it was in the range of 2-3gig, and that was *just* the OS.

Ubuntu footprint from my latest install on a laptop: 2gig, and that was *WITH* all sorts of games, apps, web browser, etc all installed with it.

If you stripped Linux down to what M$ gives you out of the box, the footprint would be significantly smaller.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't get Windows 7 to fit on a 1.44" floppy and still have it boot.

This type of news is disgusting to me as a Canadian.

Throughout the summer, Canada held an enormous copyright consultation in which large corporations expressed an interest in these types of changes, and artists, creators and citizens expressed an interest in the exact opposite direction to this.

Michael Geist usually carries all the latest news about this topic.

At the same time, I think we have nothing to worry about. In a country that shows a 30% voter turnout (at best), that makes 6.9 million voters. Historically, over 500000 canadians joined the protest against the last attempt to bring laws like this. Thats a 7% swing in the vote towards the party that will stand up against this type of law making. Thats enough to win an election in Canada.

With all this hype over copyright and trademark law, I expect it to be a hot topic in the next election, and with us running under a minority gov't, we could end up with an election at any time.

incorrect.

This "Linux isn't mainstream" myth needs to go.

I would expect that kind of line to come from a Windows fan, but not a self-proclaimed Linux fangirl like yourself.

I disagree.

Bought a Dell Linux Netbook for my wife. Took careful note of the specs and the OS on each version of the netbook.

The windows version of her netbook was $100 more expensive.

The netbook came loaded with Ubuntu. Not dodgy, no headaches.

And there were at least 3-4 other models available with Linux pre-loaded.

Perhaps your just looking in the wrong place if what you say has been your experience. Because I seriously doubt that its the norm.

Geeky/Nerdy paraphernalia is unappealing to women...

Am I the only one who got this from that article?

I don't think its geeks that are driving women out of CS. I think men and women think and see things in different ways. Our brains function very differently. The very idea that they could draw the conclusion that they did based solely on womens reactions to varrying degrees of geekery... it's quite a stretch.

Just my two cents though...

I was going to reply with pretty much the same thing, but you about covered it.

I switched to Ubuntu about 3 years ago, and haven't used windows on my desktop system since.

If I were to install Windows XP on my system now, I would spend hours trying to track down the right drivers for my system.
If I were to install Windows Vista on my system now, It would be unstable and slow, and I would have to track down drivers for my hardware.
I tried to install Windows 7 on my system to try it out. I never did get the sound to work, and the wireless networking barely worked through a cludged generic driver.

If I install Ubuntu, everything works, and its done in like 20-30 mins, a complete usable system. Even my printer works.

Negative. There has not been a flu like H1N1 before. H1N1 is different because it has genetic components from 3 different influenza viruses (Human, Swine, and Avian). Thus, it can pass freely between all 3 species. This is troublesome because it makes the disease spread much more quickly.

On top of that, traditional flu's are more likely to kill the elderly, children, and people with pre-existing health conditions.

H1N1 is more likely to kill perfectly healthy people. It causes a severe auto-immune reaction in your lungs and makes them fill with fluid.

I would much sooner trust the science behind it, then trust the crap that your spouting.

Have the big pharma companies taken advantage of this to make some money? Probably.

Should we get the vaccine anyways? Definitely.

Perhaps.

But consider this:

Even if you make 10% of what I do... I have a house, a wife, 2 kids, and a car to pay for... oh, and I'm working under a pay-cut.

We're all victims of our own choices. I'm happy in my life, even if I can't travel because my budget wont allow it. I have 2 wonderful little girls and a loving wife to go home to every night, and that makes my life complete.