Planet Earth, The Swine Hunt, Gaming, OS Wars

[tcpip]

This Sunday I'm giving a presentation at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on "The Future of the Planet Earth", where I discuss potential disasters in international relations, politics and especially the environment. I neither seek to alarm or to appease, but rather to give a solid presentation of factual information to the best possible knowledge provided scientific knowldge.

I was supposed to be the the poster child of the revolution in the great hunt against The Swine (those who support theory and system in RPGs). I was supposed to become 'the first stuffed pig mounted in the commemorative smoking room of the Great Swine Hunt". Instead, it seems it was a total disaster for the the RPGPunbdit and jimboboz. Read it yourself for great amusement value. My personal favourites were the enlightening "It's written on the box" and phasmaphobic's summary. When I get around to it I'll also do a write-up of the Ten Thousand Islands game too. I guess The Year of the Pig is not the time to call a Swine Hunt, eh?

In other gaming news, I've started an epic-level high fantasy HeroQuest Glorantha PBeM with eleven players. AD&D Norman Britian on Sunday will see further investigation of the slavelords of Navarre (and the tie to the historical War of the Three Sanchos). Next Friday is Everway Aesheba. Next Sunday is the first game of Dragonlords (at the moment little more than RuneQuest (3rd ed) plus house rules). Adopting a holding position in Diplomacy. I think that brings the number of people I do regular gaming with to over thirty. Oh, I've been told that my Rolemaster Companion will be re-released this year (after fourteen years!)

Senior IT security expert warns to stay away from MS-Windows Vista. ("The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history"). Eric Raymond tells Linux developers that 2008 is a hard deadline in their attempts to gain world domination.

And valedictions to the great author and discordian philosopher: Robert Anton Wilson has died.

Comments

linux's killer app

[decrypt-era.livejournal.com]

Just finishd reading ESR's article (thanks for th link),
and it's refreshing to see geeks realising
that th main limitations to tech are human factors.

I agree with his main points:
that linux needs to attract a large non-tech user base before
the 64-bit architecture deadline in 2008,
and that th key stumblin block for linux within this timeframe
is all those proprietary multimedia codecs.

I do not entirely agree, however,
with his proposed methods for winning this battle.

His points on putting aside idealistic notions of open source purity
in favour of more pragmatic means in the short term, i applaud.
If we can take this preliminary watershed battle,
then we'r able to continue to fight on all those other issues
which th linux community hold so dear.

The idea of bundlin together binaries of all th relevant codecs
to provide a simple one-step completion to any linux installation -
that is also wonderfully practical thinking,
as anathema as kludges are to th thought processes of th avg geek.

But as to th possibility of providing this legally? Pfft!
Though they spend hours simulating warriors in their spare time,
geeks do not think like warriors.
Even if they could thread their way thru this legal minefield,
th path would simply be closed again by one dirty trick or another.
Microsoft, Apple, th RIAA & MPAA, and th host of other IP holders,
they'r not just goin to hand over all that power, are they?
And between them, they can afford more lawyers.
You do not conquer by fightin on yr opponent's terms.

The path to victory can be summed up in one word: China.
Th world is about to get at least a couple hundred million new computer users,
probably more than 50 mil before th 2008 deadline.
They'l have a natural distrust of American monopolies.
They'l mostly be buying very low-end systems
(which, incidentally, will extend that deadline somewhat),
so th cost of proprietary software will be a significant issue.
They have no entrenched software usage patterns.
The majority will also likely be selecting from
a small number of generic systems from major manufacturers,
reducing hardware issues.

How to capture this market?
Well initiatives like Ubuntu have already begun th task.
We need to make sure such distros are
thoroughly mandarin & cantonese friendly.
With such a huge virgin non-US market in th offing,
th OEMs won't be so fearful of th wrath of Microsoft,
as long as they and their customers know
you just need to DL one big file or copy one CD
and bam! th linux installation's done.
Th Chinese won't balk at a little piracy,
far from it, it'l give em a thrill!
Esp if it saves em 250 bucks (whatever that is in yuan).
This will be th killer app that Windows won't survive.
And fuck callin it "the Codex",
how intellectual and eurocentric is that?
Th Middle Kingdom couldn't care less
if Bill Gates bought Leonardo's old notebook,
they won't see th humour.
If the idea is to go for mass appeal,
then find out what "window-breaker" is in mandarin, and call it that.
In th west, we could call it "bill-killer".

Now, the US corporations will kick up a fuss, apply pressure,
but it'l only be a few years beyond 2008 until th greenback collapses,
and after that, it's all over bar th shoutin,
cos Asia contains all th infrastructure for buildin th damn machines,
outsourcing saw to that,
and without th machines, there is no software.

Linux, take th initiative: go Chung Gwo!

Re: linux's killer app

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, given ESRs politics, do you really think you could see him supporting the "let's promote Linux in China" idea? ;-)

[decrypt-era.livejournal.com]

Certainly, th majority of th linux community would
disapprove of th policies of th Chinese govt,
but as ESR himself admitted in that essay
(and Chomsky's pointed out many a time),
your short term goals don't always match yr long term goals,
but hopefully they'l lead to them.

Guess i shoulda emphasised th diff between
distributing an idea thru th Chinese state,
and giving it directly to th Chinese populace.
Those ppl are crying out for decentralised info transmission,
it's much more meaningful to them in that situation,
and all they need is th opportunity.
It seems to me that Microsoft would assist China th state
in keeping a lid on such info freedom
(indeed, they'r doing just that over here for th corps),
but i think the state might temporarily be sold on open source
using national security paranoia (worked in Venezuela).

Also, i apologise for not including India,
who'r shapin up to be even more infotech hungry than China.

How do you think th linux community will adapt,
when it's two-thirds Asian?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you say about India and China. Indeed, OSS may indeed be an as much as benefit to those wanting information freedom as the political leadership that wants information security. Strange that..

I think the Linux community will react quite positively. They're probably among the least racist collective group on the planet. Not exactly always culturally knowledgeably, but less likely to engage in social blunders any less than their norm ;-)