Thursday, September 6, 2001

Make an Agnostic Believe -- 10:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

PCReview has an article entitled It's Enough to Make an Agnostic Believe. The author comments on recent happenings that have allowed Linux to become a viable alternative, even for the non-über-geek crowd. My favorite bit is this comment on most people's attitude toward software:

For normal humans the idea of being attached to software is as bizarre as being fond of the tarmac on which one drives to work.

Thanks Linux Today. As an aside, this article reminded me of one of my favorite Monty Python quotes: "It's like I've always said, 'There's nothing an agnostic can't do if he really doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not.'"

Breaking up Is Hard to Do -- 11:41 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The U.S. Department of Justice has decided to stop seeking to break up Microsoft. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this. I know that M$ needs to be reigned in, but after the whole Judge Jackson debacle, it was seeming unlikely that M$ would actually be broken up anyway. The various state Attorneys General seem to be in favor of this decision. I guess we'll have to wait and see what actually happens.

I've a feeling that most Americans are sick and tired of the whole thing. They see no problem with Microsoft and can't fathom why people would take issue with their practices. It's kind of hard to for the government to keep throwing cash at it when no one seems to care.

The Master comments: The biggest issue with this whole thing is that people do not see the dangers of Microsoft as a monolithic giant. If this case is thrown out, the government will have a VERY difficult time trying to bring down Microsoft once they start playing big brother on everyone (passport? activation? software-renewal contracts?) but by then it will be impossible to remove this tick from the computing hide. I guess we'll see what happens. I'm sure it won't be pretty.

Pool of Radiance 2 Gold -- 10:19 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gone Gold is reporting, appropriately enough, that UbiSoft and SSI's Pool of Radiance 2 has gone gold and will arrive in stores on October 1. I've been pushing off buying Diablo II to see what PoR2 will be like. Qbe and I played the original quite a bit back in the day. As a matter of fact I believe it was in a PoR session that the name J.t.Qbe was born.

J.t.Qbe comments: Good memory! When was that, 1987? The original was a fun, fun game--and I just saw it on the shelf at Babbage's, as part of a collection. I wonder if the new version will live up to the name. . .

Wednesday, September 5, 2001

The History of Gaming -- 9:59 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Ars Technica has a pretty sweet article on the history of computer gaming. It goes all the way back to the very first games in the 50s to the 3D shooters of today. I found it to be a nice walk down memory lane. He concludes with some thoughts on gaming's future, fearing that it will become as trite as most popular movies or music to appeal to the masses. With the success of Deer Hunter and the countless Pokemon games, I fear that that time is already upon us.

As an aside, a complete stranger (who was a serious redneck) asked me out of the blue when I was in the software section of Wal-Mart if the graphics in "Deer Hunter II" (or something like that) were any good. I was surprised that he asked me at first, then I wanted to laugh, but I just said something about graphics not exactly being the game's forté. I'm sure he was up all night trying to figure out what the heck forté means.

Max Payne Demo Released -- 1:11 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

As promised, 3D Realms has released a demo of Max Payne (130.8M), their popular third-person shooter. The link takes you to Blue News' list of mirrors for the demo. Modemers might want to pitch a tent.

NVIDIA 1.0-1512 XFree86 Drivers -- 9:51 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

NVIDIA has released their 1.0-1512 drivers for XFree86 in Linux. The word is that these new drivers give a nice speed boost, especially for GeForce2-class cards, and fix some nagging bugs a few people have reported. Thanks Linux Games.

UPDATE! The drivers are now also available on NVIDIA's FTP site. There you will find the other kernel RPMs which are not yet listed on the website for whatever reason.

Past Two Days' News

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