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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Tuesday, May 28, 2002
01:31 - Further Xplanations

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Here's the question I want to ask the people I mention in that last Xbox post:

Assuming that you use Linux and not Windows, do you do so based on the platform's actual merits as a workstation-- or because you want to stick it to Microsoft?


The reason I ask is that I find it very difficult to believe that any rational geek would legitimately prefer the user experience of KDE or Gnome over the undeniable convenience of Windows. Yeah, sure, it's more configurable, it lets you put windows every which where, it has transparent xterms and virtual desktops, yadda yadda. But is that enough to make up for the lack of Word and Excel and Photoshop, or for the dearth of games that makes the Mac look like a choice gaming platform by comparison, or for the need to live a life of web-based groupware clients and shareware that's perpetually in version numbers below 1.0?

There are benefits to using Linux or FreeBSD as a desktop workstation, yes. Some of the alternatives you use in that environment are in fact superior to Windows' native versions. But the reality is that most Linux-on-the-desktop users have chosen their platform out of rebellion against the Evil Empire.

The entire defining decision in desktop computing, then, is founded on idealism rather than practicality. It's a major concession and sacrifice in the name of ethical purity.

So, then, why in God's name would these same people turn around and buy Xboxes?

My theory, depressing though it is, is that games are an exception to every rule-- like any mind-altering drug, they crawl under the skin, they blur reality, they alter priorities, and they make a person's ethics and ideals sizzle away like so much Hawaiian shave ice on a Palm Springs sidewalk.

I hear story after story now about people we used to know who have mysteriously vanished off the face of the earth-- they appear only sporadically in social circles (if at all), they call to say they'll be somewhere or do something and then they don't, they languish for months or years without finding gainful employment. It's all an insoluble mystery to those who wonder where the person has gone.

Well, I know what's happened.

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© Brian Tiemann