Software Scratch

Before I delve into the new year, these software issues are irritating me beyond belief:

• Ubuntu linux updates on my old PC are consistently broken and have been for over 8 months - the system will only run a very old version (<8.04)
  
• I added a memory card to my flash MP3 player, but the extra card results in instability in the player - constant restarts, and it can never remember what song I was listening to when restarting (really important when listening to those hour long podcasts). The expandable memory is one of the reasons I bought this player. Nice.
  
• Left4Dead is unplayable right now - I have black textures on screen that are horrendous and render the game unplayable. The demo worked? Great?
  
• I get GTAIV - unfortunately it requires Service Pack 3 to play - SP3 renders my machine inoperable - another brick in the wall.
  

At the minimum, it looks like I need a PC upgrade. Unfortunately, that will only solve some of the problems.

Right now I'm playing a game that's over 10 years old. The company no longer exists. At least the game works.

This invective goes out to all software programmers - get off your lazy asses and write some decent code you bottom feeding twits.

Scratch This

This sounds bloody fascinating:

Scratch is a new programming environment that kids can use to create their own animated stories, video games, and interactive art -- and share their creations with one another across the Internet.

Developed by MIT's Media Lab (by the Lifelong Kindergarten research group - what a great name) it appears that Scratch will introduce concepts such as computer programming to the Generation After YouTube (whatever that's called). Supposedly a version will be developed for the one laptop per child project.

What happens when millions of children have access to this capability?

BBC Report.
MIT news.
Getting started PDF.
YouTube promo.