Two things: someone at work has contracted swine flu and id Software has sold up to Bethseda.

id Software has sold up!
Jesus. The last bastions of digital independence, programming heroes for whom innovation means freedom of the soul. When Frank Miller turned into a parody of himself and started strip mining his past rather than creating anything new or interesting, when Alan Moore seemed as petty as a six year old girl not being given a pony, John Carmack kept plowing the same path with zeal, integrity and ingenuity. He forced corporate behemoths to bend to his will, showed up his entire industry and became the de facto market leader in any segment he dabbled in. This is a man who is more responsible than any other for the longevity and adaption of OpenGL on the PC platform. Who bequeathed 3DFx, NVidia and ATI their entire (and lucrative) markets through sheer innovation and quality, who revolutionised gaming at every turn and very nearly went into space in his free time. I admired the man more than anyone else alive.

And now he has gone and (seemingly) sold out. More than George Lucas’ inability to realise not everything he does is great, more than Fatboy Slim releasing mediocre albums, more than bad films and dubious politics, this is the moment my childhood is laid bare and any certainty I had rent asunder.

Also, the lack of a sudo command in the command prompt in Windows Vista is really, really annoying.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Computers, Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.