I was always under the impression that this style was used to save space in articles, since printed newspapers cost money for space and need to be cheap. It's the same reason there's only one space between a period and the next sentence. AP Style Guidelines, IIRC (I haven't written for UMBC's paper in a while).
The problem I have with this is that it can be ambiguous:
"I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand, and God."
If they want to run "targeted" advertising, then the issue of integrity starts to come up, just as it does in the printed edition. There was an article on/. a while back concerning Ms magazine, and the linked article mentioned that most "women's magazines" were basically worthless because they pandered to the advertisers. Running an advertisement next to a news, opinion, or feature article on the same subject can look very bad indeed.
This is not about them being able to put together their own PC, or write their own operating system. Adjusting browser settings is hardly comparable to building an engine. It's more like setting the clock on your car's radio, or setting the station presets. True, some of the more advanced settings could easily confuse the casual user, but what's so vague about "allow Web pages to open unrequested windows"? Even if someone weren't familiar with the "windows" terminology, there are classes at community colleges (sound familiar?) on basic computer literacy.
The point is that if a better Web browsing experience was important to them, they could spend an hour (if that's what it took) poking around in their Web browser to see if they could change it to suit them better. It's all about time and curiosity. OK, illiteracy would be a barrier, but is someone who can't read likely to be a big Web surfer?
I've been able to learn the basics about car maintenance and the internal combustion engine without too much trouble. If someone is interested in learning something that would benefit them, it's probably not beyond their reach. The problem is usually that it never occurs to them that things could be better.
In all of the music/arts and IT courses I've taken at UMBC, I've never had a professor use such a service. However, it should be noted that a lot of my "base" classes were done at a previous school (or skipped over via an AP exam).
As someone else already pointed out, lftp is a client. That aside, I almost never run FTP on any of my servers. SCP clients are freely available for any operating system I can imagine someone using as a desktop. Perhaps there is a need for you to run anonymous FTP, but in that case you can select a secure product like publicfile.
Also, you can't have a Microsoft server with just an HTTP and FTP server. You must have a full GUI and fully featured Web browser with a _terrible_ security history in order to get security updates. You simply can't strip out features you don't need to the degree you can in Linux.
Why is it an important feature for _servers_ to be able to be set up with "a minimum amount of clue"? Aren't there hundreds of unemployed IT folks out there? Your company should at least be able to bring in a consultant to do the initial setup and show someone how to maintain it. You don't have Bob from accounting install the real-world security system. Why are computers supposed to be different?
Yes, Microsoft is getting better. But the diagnostic tools for figuring out why something is going wrong suck (though third parties help out here as much as they can). They still have EULAs for security updates, and their service packs don't offer an option to install all the security updates without the new "features". They still want to be the ones in control of the computer, and that's not what I want. Pivx have proven via their QwikFix tool that the default settings could certainly be locked down tighter while having no effect on most people (Windows admins: check this tool out. It would have stopped Blaster even on unpatched machines.)
As for RH9 making an early trip to the gulag, I've heard that Progeny will be offering support for some Red Hat versions. This also illustrates that commercial Linux distributions are vulnerable to the some of the same hazards as commercial proprietary software. The difference is that if you were REALLY inclined, you could create your own updates for Red Hat 9, which is why companies like Progeny can do it too. Or with something like Debian's apt-get source -b [package], you could keep even an unsupported version of the OS going. And yes, for the people who still need it, the 2.0 kernel is still having new releases. As it is in many other areas, the difference is the availability of choices.
Well OK, I guess it's probably Red Hat. But I haven't been "scrambling" at all, and I don't think the difference really comes down to me using Debian instead (in the long run).
You can't compare total number of security advisories between Red Hat and Microsoft and get any kind of reasonable data. Microsoft sells an operating system and a few applications, several of which are integrated into said operating system. Red Hat sells an operating system and hundreds of applications. All but the most basic, core tools are installed because you decided they should be. Most of the Debian Security Advisories that hit BUGTRAQ don't apply to any of my machines. With Microsoft, nearly all of the advisories that hit BUGTRAQ apply to my machines (with the exception of IIS and SQL Server, but gee! if I want to use SUS, I'll need IIS too, because we MUST use a full Web browser/server for software updates! Oh, and that's OUR Web browser and server, thanks.)
Don't use Media Player, Outlook Express, or Internet Explorer? Sorry, but we've decided that it's really important that your machines have all of those, including your servers. I don't have to install Mozilla and MPlayer on my Linux servers. I just install what I need. MS has added support for partial "uninstallation" of some software, but it seems to get put back after certain updates, and you can't get rid of IE.
I don't need the pretty point-and-drool GUIs on my servers, and Linux gives me that choice. I choose to install less software and be more secure. Microsoft doesn't offer choice, and doesn't want choices to be offered. That's the difference, and I don't think it's going to change any time soon. All of the security initiatives in the world won't change their corporate culture.
That's not quite fair. For most PHP extensions, if your OS provider has a sane package structure (e.g. Debian), you simply install more packages to add more support.
The reason PHP has caught on is because it does what a lot of people need, and it's easy enough to learn. Of course, a good argument can be made that many people are writing "applications" in PHP that have no business doing so, and unchecked input has caused many posts on BUGTRAQ. But this seems to be just as much of a problem for other languages.
I'm also not going to sit here and take comments about "often leads to a mess" from a Perl programmer:) Yes, mixing functionality and appearance can be bad, but you can write PHP so that this isn't a problem (much like you could write PHP so that register_globals wasn't a problem, but a lot of people just didn't).
I started out with some Webmonkey tutorial on a simple use of MySQL with PHP. I wouldn't actually recommend whatever particular tutorial I used, as it had some bad practices (and I prefer PostgreSQL anyway). But after that, it was pretty much all right out of the online PHP manual. Often, I will reference their section on Perl-compatible regular expressions even when I'm writing them for a different language.
Of course, if you want to learn this way, you have to have a project that you want to do. That's never been a problem for me, so I can't really point you in the direction of something that will make up "homework" for you.
I have also checked out phpbuilder.com for hints at times. The Force-Type trick is one that I picked up there (although that's really more of an Apache thing than a PHP thing, PHP helps you to make good use of it).
We had a thing back in Cub Scouts called "Genius Kits". I'm not sure if they still do it or not. The basic idea was that each scout got a paper grocery bag with the same set of common craft items (some dowels, some spools, some packing peanuts, etc.). The only thing that you could use outside of the set was glue (and possibly a cutting device). And yes, the bag counted as a part:) You got a few weeks to build something, and then the entries were judged. I really enjoyed the kits, and IIRC I won one year with a model of Holt Park.
I enjoyed all the "regular" toys too, like Captain Power (which was a pretty cool idea at the time, especially with the weekly TV show), but creative stuff like this is exactly what kids need. That, and parents who read to them early and often.
Under 2.6.x, you simply type: make (menu|g)config make make install make modules_install
"make install" tries to figure out whether you're using LILO or GRUB and tell you what to do next, though it didn't quite work in my case since I never bothered setting up a boot menu (I just use the GRUB boot prompt). Another thing you should watch is that, by default, you can't remove modules from a running kernel. Be sure to check out the options for this.
Anyone else notice that you don't see the actual gcc commands anymore? Compiling Linux now looks eerily similar to compiling DJB's software.
Hopefully my HPT370 chipset will work under 2.6.1; it locks up 2.6.0 at boot unless I disable it in the BIOS (or don't compile in support for it). But it does "feel faster" than 2.4.x on the desktop, and ALSA and my nVidia card worked like a charm (thanks minion.de).
icecast is supposed to be able to get you listed in both icecast and shoutcast directory servers, though some people have had trouble with this.
We started out running shoutcast after deciding to ditch Real. I moved to icecast mainly because the source was available and it was in Debian. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Real's software keeping one of our servers stuck on kernel 2.0 and glibc 2.0, and I don't want to run anything dependent on one entity recompiling it.
I'm using Winamp 3 on this work machine, and I can listen to icecast streams with no trouble. I didn't have to download anything other than what winamp.com gave me initially.
I can't reach the icecast page to check, so maybe they added something to later versions that breaks Winamp 3 (I'm using the icecast version that's in Debian Stable).
If you're a non-profit radio station, you can use the software I developed for WMBC radio to track your CD collection, spins, attendence, schedule, and more:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/radiodb/
If you're a for-profit radio station, you can contact me about using the software (probably no issue unless you're a ClearChannel station, which I find repulsive).
If you have any feature requests or suggestions, please let me know.
Umm, that wasn't my point at all. My point was that, while it is good that Microsoft have taken the steps to correct their previous design flaw, a large installed base still exists which is insecure, and that will be slow to change. Thus, large portions of the Internet will still be vulnerable to such things for some time. Please don't read extra things into what I write.
The instructions that came with my lava lamp, at least, say not to leave it on for longer than a certain number of hours at a time (10?). It gets weird if you fall asleep and do that (many small globules floating around).
I've been thinking about the other major source of involuntary heat in my house (aside from the computers, I mean): desert reptiles and tropical fish. I wonder if a large body of water kept above 70 degrees which tends to cool down could help out a small piece of silicon which tends to heat up? Puts a new spin on the Mac fishtank.
That's great, and I'm glad Microsoft has addressed this issue, but there's still a large percentage of Internet users with Windows 98. Think they're using Outlook 2003? People who are always using the latest software are probably not the targets of scammers who have a need to track your email.
And on that last bit, the themes section at freshmeat gets a fair number of projects that are a port of a theme from one window manager to another. So if you see a theme you like for a window manager you don't use, there's a chance someone has ported it to your favorite wm. Themes also inspire other themes so frequently that you can probably find something close to what you want even if the original hasn't been explicitly ported.
(Disclosure: I do work for freshmeat, including the themes section).
I would argue that your page should be "optimized" for a particular resolution as little as possible, if at all. Don't force your readers into a font size they didn't want, whether larger or smaller. Use percentages and let them decide (they've decided already; you just have to go along with it).
Fixed-width pages and fixed-size fonts are, except in some corner cases (none of which come to mind right now), Pure Evil. Just Say No. It's so easy to do it right.
I really have to disagree with this terminology. It's not used, for the most part, the way other hyphenations are used: to indicate dual citizenship or recent immigration. Many people who call themselves "African-Americans" haven't even traced their ancestry back to Africa. Of course, some of them can't because of slavery, and that's a terrible thing, but that almost strengthens my point. Exactly how are you associated with Africa?
Checking out the culture, music, and foods of Africa is a wonderful thing to do. I do this too, but it does not make me "African-American". I can trace my family tree back to Germany, I've studied the German language, and I enjoy many German foods, goods, and musical groups, but I don't consider myself a "German-American". People would think I were weird if I did. Why can't we just come up with another generic term like "Caucasian"?
Progeny has announced that they will be providing support for 7.x versions of Red Hat. No one can do that with older versions of Windows.
Also, as another poster mentioned, a new version of Linux doesn't require a system that's twice as powerful as the one before it. With Microsoft, you have to do software compatibility testing (don't even try to tell me everything will "just work" after you upgrade) and hardware upgrades. With Linux, you just have to worry about the software.
That funky old machine with the XT hard drive? Yes, support for it is still in the kernel (Linus has gone on record as being opposed to the removal of support for older hardware). You won't find that your perfectly working printer is no longer supported by the newest version of Linux (at least, not that I've heard).
All the games you can play on a P-133 running Windows? Yeah, I'm guessing it probably does:)
Keep in mind that the original poster was lamenting the fact that he had to use Win98 or upgrade his hardware. Linux is a perfectly good suggestion in this case. Perhaps he won't be able to do exactly everything under Linux that he could under Win98, though the chances of most of it happening are pretty good. He may have to choose between security and a game or two. Maybe he'll even discover new Linux games that he likes, like Liquidwar.
IOW, the choice may come down to "Linux", "new hardware", or "probably getting hacked". Depending on one's financial situation, Linux may look very good.
Phantasy Star Online tried to do something similar, except that their filter was ridiculous. It had no concept of bad-words-within-good-words (the "Scunthorpe" problem), so you couldn't say things like "shoes". You couldn't say "hell" either, despite the fact that several items had the word "hell" in the name. "Frozen Shooter" was also out. They also filtered "Jew" and "gay", which I found offensive. Just because idiots use them as slurs does not make them bad words.
And after all this, what have you gained? Can you filter out kids talking on the playground? Bill Cosby's theoretical 900-year-old-man-disguised-as-a-child who dispenses all of the dirty words to gradeschoolers will still find a way. If _your_ kids start swearing around you (or Grandma), then you have a problem.
People of all colors do stupid things with guns, and I've defintely seen white (redneck type) folks shooting them off into the air on New Year's.
Yes, there are a lot of high-crime areas that have large concentrations of black (I'm not German-American just because ancestors whose names I don't know were born there) people, but I think that the problem is far more complex than that. Part of the problem, I think, is that a lot of black families came out of slavery and into poverty, and poverty is a mindset as much as it is a financial situation. A lot of people just can't imagine that they can get out of it.
You've got to be kidding, or else you don't own a console. I'll give you the other two; an FPS on a console is just a bad idea. But consoles have the entire Final Fantasy series, including Tactics, and they've also got amazing games like Disgaea. Breath of Fire, Shining Force, Dragon Force...I could go on. I don't see anything out for a PC in the RPG arena that would make me want to even try to get WINE to work, except for maybe FFXI, but that will be out for the PS2 in the spring (and it's an MMORPG anyway).
I'm sure that there are some nice RPGs out for the computer (other than old classics like Zork), but I already have more than enough console games to fill up my spare time in between all the other stuff I do. Heck, Disgaea is going to last me at least a few months on its own. And you only need to buy a new $150-$300 console every few years as opposed to upgrading your RAM, video card, CPU, etc., dealing with driver issues...aagh!
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I was always under the impression that this style was used to save space in articles, since printed newspapers cost money for space and need to be cheap. It's the same reason there's only one space between a period and the next sentence. AP Style Guidelines, IIRC (I haven't written for UMBC's paper in a while).
The problem I have with this is that it can be ambiguous:
"I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand, and God."
"I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God."
Eep. Personally, I side with Strunk and White.
If they want to run "targeted" advertising, then the issue of integrity starts to come up, just as it does in the printed edition. There was an article on /. a while back concerning Ms magazine, and the linked article mentioned that most "women's magazines" were basically worthless because they pandered to the advertisers. Running an advertisement next to a news, opinion, or feature article on the same subject can look very bad indeed.
This is not about them being able to put together their own PC, or write their own operating system. Adjusting browser settings is hardly comparable to building an engine. It's more like setting the clock on your car's radio, or setting the station presets. True, some of the more advanced settings could easily confuse the casual user, but what's so vague about "allow Web pages to open unrequested windows"? Even if someone weren't familiar with the "windows" terminology, there are classes at community colleges (sound familiar?) on basic computer literacy.
The point is that if a better Web browsing experience was important to them, they could spend an hour (if that's what it took) poking around in their Web browser to see if they could change it to suit them better. It's all about time and curiosity. OK, illiteracy would be a barrier, but is someone who can't read likely to be a big Web surfer?
I've been able to learn the basics about car maintenance and the internal combustion engine without too much trouble. If someone is interested in learning something that would benefit them, it's probably not beyond their reach. The problem is usually that it never occurs to them that things could be better.
In all of the music/arts and IT courses I've taken at UMBC, I've never had a professor use such a service. However, it should be noted that a lot of my "base" classes were done at a previous school (or skipped over via an AP exam).
As someone else already pointed out, lftp is a client. That aside, I almost never run FTP on any of my servers. SCP clients are freely available for any operating system I can imagine someone using as a desktop. Perhaps there is a need for you to run anonymous FTP, but in that case you can select a secure product like publicfile.
Also, you can't have a Microsoft server with just an HTTP and FTP server. You must have a full GUI and fully featured Web browser with a _terrible_ security history in order to get security updates. You simply can't strip out features you don't need to the degree you can in Linux.
Why is it an important feature for _servers_ to be able to be set up with "a minimum amount of clue"? Aren't there hundreds of unemployed IT folks out there? Your company should at least be able to bring in a consultant to do the initial setup and show someone how to maintain it. You don't have Bob from accounting install the real-world security system. Why are computers supposed to be different?
Yes, Microsoft is getting better. But the diagnostic tools for figuring out why something is going wrong suck (though third parties help out here as much as they can). They still have EULAs for security updates, and their service packs don't offer an option to install all the security updates without the new "features". They still want to be the ones in control of the computer, and that's not what I want. Pivx have proven via their QwikFix tool that the default settings could certainly be locked down tighter while having no effect on most people (Windows admins: check this tool out. It would have stopped Blaster even on unpatched machines.)
As for RH9 making an early trip to the gulag, I've heard that Progeny will be offering support for some Red Hat versions. This also illustrates that commercial Linux distributions are vulnerable to the some of the same hazards as commercial proprietary software. The difference is that if you were REALLY inclined, you could create your own updates for Red Hat 9, which is why companies like Progeny can do it too. Or with something like Debian's apt-get source -b [package], you could keep even an unsupported version of the OS going. And yes, for the people who still need it, the 2.0 kernel is still having new releases. As it is in many other areas, the difference is the availability of choices.
Well OK, I guess it's probably Red Hat. But I haven't been "scrambling" at all, and I don't think the difference really comes down to me using Debian instead (in the long run).
You can't compare total number of security advisories between Red Hat and Microsoft and get any kind of reasonable data. Microsoft sells an operating system and a few applications, several of which are integrated into said operating system. Red Hat sells an operating system and hundreds of applications. All but the most basic, core tools are installed because you decided they should be. Most of the Debian Security Advisories that hit BUGTRAQ don't apply to any of my machines. With Microsoft, nearly all of the advisories that hit BUGTRAQ apply to my machines (with the exception of IIS and SQL Server, but gee! if I want to use SUS, I'll need IIS too, because we MUST use a full Web browser/server for software updates! Oh, and that's OUR Web browser and server, thanks.)
Don't use Media Player, Outlook Express, or Internet Explorer? Sorry, but we've decided that it's really important that your machines have all of those, including your servers. I don't have to install Mozilla and MPlayer on my Linux servers. I just install what I need. MS has added support for partial "uninstallation" of some software, but it seems to get put back after certain updates, and you can't get rid of IE.
I don't need the pretty point-and-drool GUIs on my servers, and Linux gives me that choice. I choose to install less software and be more secure. Microsoft doesn't offer choice, and doesn't want choices to be offered. That's the difference, and I don't think it's going to change any time soon. All of the security initiatives in the world won't change their corporate culture.
That's not quite fair. For most PHP extensions, if your OS provider has a sane package structure (e.g. Debian), you simply install more packages to add more support.
:) Yes, mixing functionality and appearance can be bad, but you can write PHP so that this isn't a problem (much like you could write PHP so that register_globals wasn't a problem, but a lot of people just didn't).
The reason PHP has caught on is because it does what a lot of people need, and it's easy enough to learn. Of course, a good argument can be made that many people are writing "applications" in PHP that have no business doing so, and unchecked input has caused many posts on BUGTRAQ. But this seems to be just as much of a problem for other languages.
I'm also not going to sit here and take comments about "often leads to a mess" from a Perl programmer
I started out with some Webmonkey tutorial on a simple use of MySQL with PHP. I wouldn't actually recommend whatever particular tutorial I used, as it had some bad practices (and I prefer PostgreSQL anyway). But after that, it was pretty much all right out of the online PHP manual. Often, I will reference their section on Perl-compatible regular expressions even when I'm writing them for a different language.
Of course, if you want to learn this way, you have to have a project that you want to do. That's never been a problem for me, so I can't really point you in the direction of something that will make up "homework" for you.
I have also checked out phpbuilder.com for hints at times. The Force-Type trick is one that I picked up there (although that's really more of an Apache thing than a PHP thing, PHP helps you to make good use of it).
We had a thing back in Cub Scouts called "Genius Kits". I'm not sure if they still do it or not. The basic idea was that each scout got a paper grocery bag with the same set of common craft items (some dowels, some spools, some packing peanuts, etc.). The only thing that you could use outside of the set was glue (and possibly a cutting device). And yes, the bag counted as a part :) You got a few weeks to build something, and then the entries were judged. I really enjoyed the kits, and IIRC I won one year with a model of Holt Park.
I enjoyed all the "regular" toys too, like Captain Power (which was a pretty cool idea at the time, especially with the weekly TV show), but creative stuff like this is exactly what kids need. That, and parents who read to them early and often.
Under 2.6.x, you simply type:
make (menu|g)config
make
make install
make modules_install
"make install" tries to figure out whether you're using LILO or GRUB and tell you what to do next, though it didn't quite work in my case since I never bothered setting up a boot menu (I just use the GRUB boot prompt). Another thing you should watch is that, by default, you can't remove modules from a running kernel. Be sure to check out the options for this.
Anyone else notice that you don't see the actual gcc commands anymore? Compiling Linux now looks eerily similar to compiling DJB's software.
Hopefully my HPT370 chipset will work under 2.6.1; it locks up 2.6.0 at boot unless I disable it in the BIOS (or don't compile in support for it). But it does "feel faster" than 2.4.x on the desktop, and ALSA and my nVidia card worked like a charm (thanks minion.de).
icecast is supposed to be able to get you listed in both icecast and shoutcast directory servers, though some people have had trouble with this.
We started out running shoutcast after deciding to ditch Real. I moved to icecast mainly because the source was available and it was in Debian. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Real's software keeping one of our servers stuck on kernel 2.0 and glibc 2.0, and I don't want to run anything dependent on one entity recompiling it.
I'm using Winamp 3 on this work machine, and I can listen to icecast streams with no trouble. I didn't have to download anything other than what winamp.com gave me initially.
I can't reach the icecast page to check, so maybe they added something to later versions that breaks Winamp 3 (I'm using the icecast version that's in Debian Stable).
If you're a non-profit radio station, you can use the software I developed for WMBC radio to track your CD collection, spins, attendence, schedule, and more:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/radiodb/
If you're a for-profit radio station, you can contact me about using the software (probably no issue unless you're a ClearChannel station, which I find repulsive).
If you have any feature requests or suggestions, please let me know.
Umm, that wasn't my point at all. My point was that, while it is good that Microsoft have taken the steps to correct their previous design flaw, a large installed base still exists which is insecure, and that will be slow to change. Thus, large portions of the Internet will still be vulnerable to such things for some time. Please don't read extra things into what I write.
The instructions that came with my lava lamp, at least, say not to leave it on for longer than a certain number of hours at a time (10?). It gets weird if you fall asleep and do that (many small globules floating around).
I've been thinking about the other major source of involuntary heat in my house (aside from the computers, I mean): desert reptiles and tropical fish. I wonder if a large body of water kept above 70 degrees which tends to cool down could help out a small piece of silicon which tends to heat up? Puts a new spin on the Mac fishtank.
That's great, and I'm glad Microsoft has addressed this issue, but there's still a large percentage of Internet users with Windows 98. Think they're using Outlook 2003? People who are always using the latest software are probably not the targets of scammers who have a need to track your email.
And on that last bit, the themes section at freshmeat gets a fair number of projects that are a port of a theme from one window manager to another. So if you see a theme you like for a window manager you don't use, there's a chance someone has ported it to your favorite wm. Themes also inspire other themes so frequently that you can probably find something close to what you want even if the original hasn't been explicitly ported.
(Disclosure: I do work for freshmeat, including the themes section).
That is annoying, and should be reported as a bug. But as a workaround, you could just do "/usr/bin/X11/xterm -e /usr/bin/vim".
I would argue that your page should be "optimized" for a particular resolution as little as possible, if at all. Don't force your readers into a font size they didn't want, whether larger or smaller. Use percentages and let them decide (they've decided already; you just have to go along with it).
Fixed-width pages and fixed-size fonts are, except in some corner cases (none of which come to mind right now), Pure Evil. Just Say No. It's so easy to do it right.
I really have to disagree with this terminology. It's not used, for the most part, the way other hyphenations are used: to indicate dual citizenship or recent immigration. Many people who call themselves "African-Americans" haven't even traced their ancestry back to Africa. Of course, some of them can't because of slavery, and that's a terrible thing, but that almost strengthens my point. Exactly how are you associated with Africa?
Checking out the culture, music, and foods of Africa is a wonderful thing to do. I do this too, but it does not make me "African-American". I can trace my family tree back to Germany, I've studied the German language, and I enjoy many German foods, goods, and musical groups, but I don't consider myself a "German-American". People would think I were weird if I did. Why can't we just come up with another generic term like "Caucasian"?
Progeny has announced that they will be providing support for 7.x versions of Red Hat. No one can do that with older versions of Windows.
Also, as another poster mentioned, a new version of Linux doesn't require a system that's twice as powerful as the one before it. With Microsoft, you have to do software compatibility testing (don't even try to tell me everything will "just work" after you upgrade) and hardware upgrades. With Linux, you just have to worry about the software.
That funky old machine with the XT hard drive? Yes, support for it is still in the kernel (Linus has gone on record as being opposed to the removal of support for older hardware). You won't find that your perfectly working printer is no longer supported by the newest version of Linux (at least, not that I've heard).
All the games you can play on a P-133 running Windows? Yeah, I'm guessing it probably does :)
Keep in mind that the original poster was lamenting the fact that he had to use Win98 or upgrade his hardware. Linux is a perfectly good suggestion in this case. Perhaps he won't be able to do exactly everything under Linux that he could under Win98, though the chances of most of it happening are pretty good. He may have to choose between security and a game or two. Maybe he'll even discover new Linux games that he likes, like Liquidwar.
IOW, the choice may come down to "Linux", "new hardware", or "probably getting hacked". Depending on one's financial situation, Linux may look very good.
Phantasy Star Online tried to do something similar, except that their filter was ridiculous. It had no concept of bad-words-within-good-words (the "Scunthorpe" problem), so you couldn't say things like "shoes". You couldn't say "hell" either, despite the fact that several items had the word "hell" in the name. "Frozen Shooter" was also out. They also filtered "Jew" and "gay", which I found offensive. Just because idiots use them as slurs does not make them bad words.
And after all this, what have you gained? Can you filter out kids talking on the playground? Bill Cosby's theoretical 900-year-old-man-disguised-as-a-child who dispenses all of the dirty words to gradeschoolers will still find a way. If _your_ kids start swearing around you (or Grandma), then you have a problem.
People of all colors do stupid things with guns, and I've defintely seen white (redneck type) folks shooting them off into the air on New Year's.
Yes, there are a lot of high-crime areas that have large concentrations of black (I'm not German-American just because ancestors whose names I don't know were born there) people, but I think that the problem is far more complex than that. Part of the problem, I think, is that a lot of black families came out of slavery and into poverty, and poverty is a mindset as much as it is a financial situation. A lot of people just can't imagine that they can get out of it.
You've got to be kidding, or else you don't own a console. I'll give you the other two; an FPS on a console is just a bad idea. But consoles have the entire Final Fantasy series, including Tactics, and they've also got amazing games like Disgaea. Breath of Fire, Shining Force, Dragon Force...I could go on. I don't see anything out for a PC in the RPG arena that would make me want to even try to get WINE to work, except for maybe FFXI, but that will be out for the PS2 in the spring (and it's an MMORPG anyway).
I'm sure that there are some nice RPGs out for the computer (other than old classics like Zork), but I already have more than enough console games to fill up my spare time in between all the other stuff I do. Heck, Disgaea is going to last me at least a few months on its own. And you only need to buy a new $150-$300 console every few years as opposed to upgrading your RAM, video card, CPU, etc., dealing with driver issues...aagh!