"'cause we know how well those pan out. " According to wikipedia 300-500 million people died of smallpox in the 20th century. It was irradicated via vaccine in 1979.
Ok, first of all Thermisol is a preservative. It doesn't have to be in vaccines. It did not do anything to help your body. And autism cases have increased since they removed it.
"If it works, your kid had it and won't get Pluto's Spotted Canker Sores." If it works your kid gets antibodies and won't get paralyzed by Polio.
"If it doesn't, why do I have to take it anyway?" This is a common argument. Social Darwanism would seem to say this would be desirable. If you're not intelligent enough to recognize the value of vaccines then your children should be free to die from early childhood diseases and no longer populate the gene pool with your particular brand of ignorance.
Except that this doesn't happen in the US the fact that everyone else is vaccinated means that the chance of your child getting a horrible disease is pretty low. You can piggyback off the immunity of others.
The problem is that your child becomes a host for disease. Those bugs are free to use your child to breed and spread. They're also able to use your child to mutate into new strains that can bypass the antibodies created by the vaccines in the healthy population. And your kid can wipe out 5% of the kids in the US. That's why vaccines are mandated.
The main reason that this is an issue is because we really don't have any horrible childhood diseases anymore, so no one remembers why we started this vaccinating stuff in the first place.
Scientists don't "insist that *every* vaccine is safe for *every* child". They insist that the small number of side effects in the small number of children is far better than the massive side effects (like death) of having to treat the diseases in large populations including children. They are fully aware that there are going to be a tiny number of kids that have negative reactions to vaccines. That doesn't outweigh the number of deaths that are prevented by getting rid of these diseases.
And these are planetary efforts. Sure in the US most of these diseases are not going to kill your kid (unless they're born prematurely), but outside the US these childhood diseases are much more serious. Vaccines are for the good of mankind.
You say that we all need to pay for better performance. But bandwidth costs are largely invented by the few companies that control the backbone of the Internet and have a history of collusion. I find it hard to believe that there might not be some bilking of second tier providers going on.
The Internet will stay fixed cost. If ISPs start any anti-consumer practices that affect real-world bills they're going to see a massive backlash. And the public is going to start wondering if perhaps the reason that prices for bandwidth are so high is because the internet backbone is controlled by a monopoly. A monopoly that should be split up so that there can be affordable Internet.
Broadband is currently too expensive. Not too cheap. Cell phone plans are ridiculously expensive. This isn't due to the cost of doing business. It's due to the cost of supporting a worldwide phone monopoly. Break up AT&T.
Heck this might be a great way to stimulate our economy. Think how many jobs would be created if the cell, internet and phone networks were open to any company. Think of the innovation.
Yeah, I guess it's a gray area. In Texas you can file for unemployment when fired for no cause, or when laid off due to lack of work. Fired to buoy share prices isn't listed oddly enough. Our labor law does not include the technical term "shed", however.
"We can't ask firms to not try to make a profit... that's communism!"
No it's not. Communism (as popularly implented) means that only the government can own firms.
We have plenty of non-profits in the United States that don't exist purely for the profit motive. A non-profit record label actually makes a lot of sense, just like non-profit banks (credit unions) make a lot of sense.
Obviously, you still need help on recognizing propaganda, since you seem to have bought into the current Wall Street version of capitalism as somehow the only way our society has or can work. We've had very different models of capitalism in the past. The current record company way is not the only one. And you're not somehow betraying the American way of life to question. One of the great things about our government is that if the people decide tomorrow that we want to implement communism - we can do it. The constitutional idea of property rights in no way dictates capitalism. It would be very easy to use imminent domain to move to a commuist system. Not that I'm advocating that. Just pointing out the possibilities.
Sure. A lot of art is rubbish. But so is a massive amount of engineering. Go look at Daily WTF. You actually only proved that people at museums are often there to learn about art, and that even people at museums are starved for art education. Clearly we should require more arts education in our schools. But ultimately the problem with that is that art requires higher level creative thinking, which is something that cannot be taught (and something that is commonly missing in people with engineering degrees).
And what the hell is "calling shenanigans on you" that you slashdot people are always going on about? It's a noun. Are you making a phone call to mischief asking it to rain down upon an unlucky target? Is this some alias you have for Loki? Some game I am unaware of? One is up to shenanigans. One can observe the shenanigans of truants in the town square. But one cannot "call shenanigans on someone" to my knowledge. Just try substituting the word "mischief" or "deceit" and see if your sentence still makes any sense. Neither, "I call deceit on you", nor "I call mischief on you" make any sense.
If by it's not 1929 anymore you mean there's less bombing and more security on our critical infrastructure. If you mean by not 1929 anymore that we have a media that hypes up how dangerous our ridiculously safe lives are then yes, I'd agree with you. However, if you're somehow insinuating that terrorist acts are up you have a disgraceful knowledge of history. I mean, it's been almost thirty years since someone tried to assasinate a US president. Things are pretty mellow all things considered. While Al Qaida may have pulled off one stupendous crime in America they're pretty pathetic when you compare them to groups like the Weathermen or the SLA. Heck they're even pretty pathetic when you compare them to the DC snipers.
Actually, a pretty good sign of "art" is that it gets created irrespective of commercial demand for it. So a bust might be good in that we might see video games created for the sake of creation.
This was the point I was trying to make by being flip with my original comment. Public transportation is wonderful. If it gets you where you need to go. And for some people it really is a workable solution. But most people are happy with their cars, and so there's no public transport near them. Right now a lot of people are unhappy about their commute, but see no viable alternative, because their cities are not putting public transport near them. If we had congestion pricing chances are a lot of people would get really angry and hopefully some of that anger would get directed towards adding public transportation capacity.
Unfortunately, this probably won't help my situation much. The CEO decided to move the company near his house in a rich suburb that doesn't pay taxes for public transportation. So I can't get a bus near my work. The rich will continue to be able to afford to not have public transportation in their neighborhoods, which means that unfortunately a lot of our workplaces won't be reachable by public transport (since most companies are within a few miles of their CEO's house). But that's another issue to address.
That said - you like your roads, you're going to get taxed. State and Federal politicians won't raise taxes ever thanks to the likes of Norquist, so "creative" schemes like this are probably what we're going to see more of. Which is probably good. They make us think about our automotive usage, which sending a huge check to Washington each year probably does not.
Currently using public transport requires a lot of work. You have to make sure your house is near transport. You can only look for jobs on transport. Often you still have to walk up to a mile or commute with your bicycle. I was being flip, but that was my point. Currently you have to jump through hoops if you want to use public transit. Congestion charges help us nudge people towards demanding alternatives. Like, you know, getting more transit stops put in.
Which sucks. The high cost of inner city housing is another debate entirely (and won't be fixed by congestion pricing). But part of the reason developers can offer you those cheap houses in the suburbs (with no public transporation) is that they're expecting you (and the city dwellers) to foot the bill in gas prices, vehicle depreciation, utility maintenance, road maintenance, school buses, the list goes on. I'm not down on people who buy houses in the suburbs. My first house was in the suburbs. But it's pretty clear that this is not a sustainable model. Especially if we have a real oil shock. If you can't afford a 600k house my guess is you're going to have trouble buying a brand new hybrid if gas hits $500/barrel. Congestion charges are great because they are incremental changes that make us start re-analyzing the way we do things. Before it's a matter of having to sell your house and move to an apartment because you can't afford your commute.
Yeah that does suck. But it's much more rare than people buying houses nowhere near public transit and then complaining that it doesn't come close to their house.
Then my company moved out beyond the reach of buses (aka by the CEO's house in the rich township that won't pay public transportation taxes). I loved the bus. It's completely me time. I'd get home refreshed. I read more. I programmed recreationally more. I wrote more. I bought my current house with bus stops in mind. I seek out jobs with bus stops in mind.
That said. Congestion pricing is actually a great idea, because it forces the hand of employers to be more efficient. Pointy-hair bosses want everyone in by 8 and out by 6, so they can watch them. It's horribly inefficient on infrastructure, worker moral, etc. This would force employers to rethink when employees came in vs. how much they pay. And perhaps they'd realize that it's better to have their call center employees telecommute rather than paying $20/day to come in at "normal business hours". I used to hate this idea, because I felt like it pandered to the rich. Now I love it because I realize it has the probability to remake the world for the poor. Think about it. The people who will get stuck in the worst traffic will be the ones who can pay. You won't be able to find McDonald's employees to come in during rush hour because they won't get paid enough. So you'll have to change your shifts. Roads will get used more effectively. Only the rice will get stuck in traffic. Business hours will become more efficient. The hand of telecommuting will be forced. I just can't see many downsides to this. Unless you have one of those a-hole bosses who thinks you should come in from 8-6. On the dot. And won't give you the raise you need to cover the $400/month congestion charges. But then the problem is your boss finding a new employee, isn't it?
We'll have socialized medicine before you can snap your fingers. Once you've got thousands of people getting screwed by the medical system as badly as they're being screwed by the credit system you'll see real change in a heartbeat.
You telling me that the system's going to stay intact with hundreds of thousands of sob stories on the TVs about children and adults being denied treatment because they didn't have the "potential" to pay? Not in a million years. This will just prove to the public that the medical system has no interest in providing health care, they are only about selling products. And they'll dismantle it in a heartbeat.
Individual contributions went to who? Non-profits. Which are highly regulated, have governance boards, and procedures for handing out money. Sounds like the government. Don't know why you're so keen on private government with little to no accountability to the public over public government.
"It's not the taxpayers responsibility to fund disaster recovery efforts. A compassionate community should be able to do that without needing to have the government confiscate our property from us (in the form of taxes)."
Do you really think if this was true that we'd have government? War and disaster are the two main reasons governments are created. Both, because the community cannot absorb these kinds of shocks. Who would have been the compassionate community with the ability to help fund disaster relief efforts in the case of Katrina? Neighbors who also don't have houses? Random individual contributions?
Once you start organizing a way for a community to provide services such as disaster relief, you're creating government.
On the upside small cars like the smart car(search youtube for the smart car road test hitting a brick wall at high speed with no cabin intrusion) are made to withstand accidents exceedingly well, while SUVs are not. Anyone who's seen an SUV/compact car accident can tell you that the compact car usually looks completely destroyed, but the cabin looks intact, while the SUV is upside down with its roof collapsed in a ditch. The lack of maneuverability in SUVs and Trucks combined with their top heaviness, often makes what should have been a simple physics equation (heaviest guy wins) devolve into complete randomness. And unfortunately weight is not a predictor of safety once you're airborne.
"I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt here that you're relatively inexperienced in computer administration".
I'm not inexperienced in "computer administration", I'm inexperienced in Windows Vista administration, as the only Vista computer I have access to is my wife's. My workplace has no plans to update their XP boxes because their customers have no plans to upgrade their XP boxes, and I run Linux at work and at home. I have however worked as a sysadmin, freelance sysadmin, and phone support for Dell. I have 27+ years of software and hardware troubleshooting. But you missed my point.
I understand the point of UAC. I don't have a problem with it. I understand that I can use google to find information on how to configure it, and monkey with it and that it is a good thing. BUT I don't understand why the dialog takes 5 seconds to pop up. I'm going to know whether or not to confirm or deny. I don't need a molasses slow dialog box to let me contemplate it. I don't need my system to appear unresponsive for 2 seconds while it tries to draw the screen. I don't need to wonder if a UAC dialog box is coming up, or if that install program is horking my entire system. If you know of a way to make the UAC dialog pop up as fast as say - a javascript alert - please, please, please reply with the answer. I do not find the 5 seconds acceptable. At all. OSX and Linux are both able to pop up these sort of messages in the same amount of time it takes to pop up a normal dialog box.
And my comparison of Vista to ME is not about security. I don't believe ME's security is better than Vistas. I was comparing buggy software that is slow and crashes a lot. And in that respect I feel that ME (on hardware when ME was released) has a slight edge over Vista (on hardware when Vista was released). Vista crashes a lot. Sure it doesn't blue screen all the time. But programs and Vista crash a lot. That may change when programs get updated and drivers get updated. And maybe the programs and drivers you use are better. But again, a lot of us are using programs and drivers that cause Vista to crash - a lot.
Obviously mileage is varying for people based upon the tasks they do, and the hardware they have. For some people it works great. But obviously there are a lot of people for whom it is not working well.
I understand the concept. I suppose the problem is not so much Vista. I suppose the problem is that every Windows program seems to want to do something that requires root access. I've also experienced the DRM. Some of the TV stations that provide their shows free online, won't play if you use TV-Out on your machine. That's completely ridiculous.
She has 2GB of RAM in her new machine. It's a machine that was sold with Vista and it's still dog slow. If I'd had the choice I would have put XP on it.
Slashdot Mirror
"'cause we know how well those pan out. "
According to wikipedia 300-500 million people died of smallpox in the 20th century. It was irradicated via vaccine in 1979.
Ok, first of all Thermisol is a preservative. It doesn't have to be in vaccines. It did not do anything to help your body. And autism cases have increased since they removed it.
"If it works, your kid had it and won't get Pluto's Spotted Canker Sores."
If it works your kid gets antibodies and won't get paralyzed by Polio.
"If it doesn't, why do I have to take it anyway?"
This is a common argument. Social Darwanism would seem to say this would be desirable. If you're not intelligent enough to recognize the value of vaccines then your children should be free to die from early childhood diseases and no longer populate the gene pool with your particular brand of ignorance.
Except that this doesn't happen in the US the fact that everyone else is vaccinated means that the chance of your child getting a horrible disease is pretty low. You can piggyback off the immunity of others.
The problem is that your child becomes a host for disease. Those bugs are free to use your child to breed and spread. They're also able to use your child to mutate into new strains that can bypass the antibodies created by the vaccines in the healthy population. And your kid can wipe out 5% of the kids in the US. That's why vaccines are mandated.
The main reason that this is an issue is because we really don't have any horrible childhood diseases anymore, so no one remembers why we started this vaccinating stuff in the first place.
Scientists don't "insist that *every* vaccine is safe for *every* child". They insist that the small number of side effects in the small number of children is far better than the massive side effects (like death) of having to treat the diseases in large populations including children. They are fully aware that there are going to be a tiny number of kids that have negative reactions to vaccines. That doesn't outweigh the number of deaths that are prevented by getting rid of these diseases.
And these are planetary efforts. Sure in the US most of these diseases are not going to kill your kid (unless they're born prematurely), but outside the US these childhood diseases are much more serious. Vaccines are for the good of mankind.
You say that we all need to pay for better performance. But bandwidth costs are largely invented by the few companies that control the backbone of the Internet and have a history of collusion. I find it hard to believe that there might not be some bilking of second tier providers going on.
The Internet will stay fixed cost. If ISPs start any anti-consumer practices that affect real-world bills they're going to see a massive backlash. And the public is going to start wondering if perhaps the reason that prices for bandwidth are so high is because the internet backbone is controlled by a monopoly. A monopoly that should be split up so that there can be affordable Internet.
Broadband is currently too expensive. Not too cheap. Cell phone plans are ridiculously expensive. This isn't due to the cost of doing business. It's due to the cost of supporting a worldwide phone monopoly. Break up AT&T.
Heck this might be a great way to stimulate our economy. Think how many jobs would be created if the cell, internet and phone networks were open to any company. Think of the innovation.
Yeah, I guess it's a gray area. In Texas you can file for unemployment when fired for no cause, or when laid off due to lack of work. Fired to buoy share prices isn't listed oddly enough. Our labor law does not include the technical term "shed", however.
They're firing 10% of their workforce. Not "shedding" them. Is "lay off" not enough of a euphemism? Now we're going to use "shed"?
"We can't ask firms to not try to make a profit... that's communism!"
No it's not. Communism (as popularly implented) means that only the government can own firms.
We have plenty of non-profits in the United States that don't exist purely for the profit motive. A non-profit record label actually makes a lot of sense, just like non-profit banks (credit unions) make a lot of sense.
Obviously, you still need help on recognizing propaganda, since you seem to have bought into the current Wall Street version of capitalism as somehow the only way our society has or can work. We've had very different models of capitalism in the past. The current record company way is not the only one. And you're not somehow betraying the American way of life to question. One of the great things about our government is that if the people decide tomorrow that we want to implement communism - we can do it. The constitutional idea of property rights in no way dictates capitalism. It would be very easy to use imminent domain to move to a commuist system. Not that I'm advocating that. Just pointing out the possibilities.
Sure. A lot of art is rubbish. But so is a massive amount of engineering. Go look at Daily WTF. You actually only proved that people at museums are often there to learn about art, and that even people at museums are starved for art education. Clearly we should require more arts education in our schools. But ultimately the problem with that is that art requires higher level creative thinking, which is something that cannot be taught (and something that is commonly missing in people with engineering degrees).
And what the hell is "calling shenanigans on you" that you slashdot people are always going on about? It's a noun. Are you making a phone call to mischief asking it to rain down upon an unlucky target? Is this some alias you have for Loki? Some game I am unaware of? One is up to shenanigans. One can observe the shenanigans of truants in the town square. But one cannot "call shenanigans on someone" to my knowledge. Just try substituting the word "mischief" or "deceit" and see if your sentence still makes any sense. Neither, "I call deceit on you", nor "I call mischief on you" make any sense.
If by it's not 1929 anymore you mean there's less bombing and more security on our critical infrastructure. If you mean by not 1929 anymore that we have a media that hypes up how dangerous our ridiculously safe lives are then yes, I'd agree with you.
However, if you're somehow insinuating that terrorist acts are up you have a disgraceful knowledge of history. I mean, it's been almost thirty years since someone tried to assasinate a US president. Things are pretty mellow all things considered. While Al Qaida may have pulled off one stupendous crime in America they're pretty pathetic when you compare them to groups like the Weathermen or the SLA. Heck they're even pretty pathetic when you compare them to the DC snipers.
Actually, a pretty good sign of "art" is that it gets created irrespective of commercial demand for it. So a bust might be good in that we might see video games created for the sake of creation.
This was the point I was trying to make by being flip with my original comment. Public transportation is wonderful. If it gets you where you need to go. And for some people it really is a workable solution. But most people are happy with their cars, and so there's no public transport near them. Right now a lot of people are unhappy about their commute, but see no viable alternative, because their cities are not putting public transport near them. If we had congestion pricing chances are a lot of people would get really angry and hopefully some of that anger would get directed towards adding public transportation capacity.
Unfortunately, this probably won't help my situation much. The CEO decided to move the company near his house in a rich suburb that doesn't pay taxes for public transportation. So I can't get a bus near my work. The rich will continue to be able to afford to not have public transportation in their neighborhoods, which means that unfortunately a lot of our workplaces won't be reachable by public transport (since most companies are within a few miles of their CEO's house). But that's another issue to address.
That said - you like your roads, you're going to get taxed. State and Federal politicians won't raise taxes ever thanks to the likes of Norquist, so "creative" schemes like this are probably what we're going to see more of. Which is probably good. They make us think about our automotive usage, which sending a huge check to Washington each year probably does not.
Currently using public transport requires a lot of work. You have to make sure your house is near transport. You can only look for jobs on transport. Often you still have to walk up to a mile or commute with your bicycle. I was being flip, but that was my point. Currently you have to jump through hoops if you want to use public transit. Congestion charges help us nudge people towards demanding alternatives. Like, you know, getting more transit stops put in.
Which sucks. The high cost of inner city housing is another debate entirely (and won't be fixed by congestion pricing). But part of the reason developers can offer you those cheap houses in the suburbs (with no public transporation) is that they're expecting you (and the city dwellers) to foot the bill in gas prices, vehicle depreciation, utility maintenance, road maintenance, school buses, the list goes on. I'm not down on people who buy houses in the suburbs. My first house was in the suburbs. But it's pretty clear that this is not a sustainable model. Especially if we have a real oil shock. If you can't afford a 600k house my guess is you're going to have trouble buying a brand new hybrid if gas hits $500/barrel. Congestion charges are great because they are incremental changes that make us start re-analyzing the way we do things. Before it's a matter of having to sell your house and move to an apartment because you can't afford your commute.
Yeah that does suck. But it's much more rare than people buying houses nowhere near public transit and then complaining that it doesn't come close to their house.
Then my company moved out beyond the reach of buses (aka by the CEO's house in the rich township that won't pay public transportation taxes). I loved the bus. It's completely me time. I'd get home refreshed. I read more. I programmed recreationally more. I wrote more. I bought my current house with bus stops in mind. I seek out jobs with bus stops in mind.
That said. Congestion pricing is actually a great idea, because it forces the hand of employers to be more efficient. Pointy-hair bosses want everyone in by 8 and out by 6, so they can watch them. It's horribly inefficient on infrastructure, worker moral, etc. This would force employers to rethink when employees came in vs. how much they pay. And perhaps they'd realize that it's better to have their call center employees telecommute rather than paying $20/day to come in at "normal business hours". I used to hate this idea, because I felt like it pandered to the rich. Now I love it because I realize it has the probability to remake the world for the poor. Think about it. The people who will get stuck in the worst traffic will be the ones who can pay. You won't be able to find McDonald's employees to come in during rush hour because they won't get paid enough. So you'll have to change your shifts. Roads will get used more effectively. Only the rice will get stuck in traffic. Business hours will become more efficient. The hand of telecommuting will be forced. I just can't see many downsides to this. Unless you have one of those a-hole bosses who thinks you should come in from 8-6. On the dot. And won't give you the raise you need to cover the $400/month congestion charges. But then the problem is your boss finding a new employee, isn't it?
You bought your house in the wrong place. Next time look for bus stops when you buy.
Is it possible that rather than DRM you need:
1) Access control
2) Revision Tracking
3) Document Encryption
Because those needs can probably be met by open source software.
We'll have socialized medicine before you can snap your fingers. Once you've got thousands of people getting screwed by the medical system as badly as they're being screwed by the credit system you'll see real change in a heartbeat.
You telling me that the system's going to stay intact with hundreds of thousands of sob stories on the TVs about children and adults being denied treatment because they didn't have the "potential" to pay? Not in a million years. This will just prove to the public that the medical system has no interest in providing health care, they are only about selling products. And they'll dismantle it in a heartbeat.
Individual contributions went to who? Non-profits. Which are highly regulated, have governance boards, and procedures for handing out money. Sounds like the government. Don't know why you're so keen on private government with little to no accountability to the public over public government.
"It's not the taxpayers responsibility to fund disaster recovery efforts. A compassionate community should be able to do that without needing to have the government confiscate our property from us (in the form of taxes)."
Do you really think if this was true that we'd have government? War and disaster are the two main reasons governments are created. Both, because the community cannot absorb these kinds of shocks. Who would have been the compassionate community with the ability to help fund disaster relief efforts in the case of Katrina? Neighbors who also don't have houses? Random individual contributions?
Once you start organizing a way for a community to provide services such as disaster relief, you're creating government.
There are a few elections before then, so we can change this if we want.
On the upside small cars like the smart car(search youtube for the smart car road test hitting a brick wall at high speed with no cabin intrusion) are made to withstand accidents exceedingly well, while SUVs are not. Anyone who's seen an SUV/compact car accident can tell you that the compact car usually looks completely destroyed, but the cabin looks intact, while the SUV is upside down with its roof collapsed in a ditch.
The lack of maneuverability in SUVs and Trucks combined with their top heaviness, often makes what should have been a simple physics equation (heaviest guy wins) devolve into complete randomness. And unfortunately weight is not a predictor of safety once you're airborne.
"I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt here that you're relatively inexperienced in computer administration".
I'm not inexperienced in "computer administration", I'm inexperienced in Windows Vista administration, as the only Vista computer I have access to is my wife's. My workplace has no plans to update their XP boxes because their customers have no plans to upgrade their XP boxes, and I run Linux at work and at home. I have however worked as a sysadmin, freelance sysadmin, and phone support for Dell. I have 27+ years of software and hardware troubleshooting. But you missed my point.
I understand the point of UAC. I don't have a problem with it. I understand that I can use google to find information on how to configure it, and monkey with it and that it is a good thing. BUT I don't understand why the dialog takes 5 seconds to pop up. I'm going to know whether or not to confirm or deny. I don't need a molasses slow dialog box to let me contemplate it. I don't need my system to appear unresponsive for 2 seconds while it tries to draw the screen. I don't need to wonder if a UAC dialog box is coming up, or if that install program is horking my entire system. If you know of a way to make the UAC dialog pop up as fast as say - a javascript alert - please, please, please reply with the answer. I do not find the 5 seconds acceptable. At all. OSX and Linux are both able to pop up these sort of messages in the same amount of time it takes to pop up a normal dialog box.
And my comparison of Vista to ME is not about security. I don't believe ME's security is better than Vistas. I was comparing buggy software that is slow and crashes a lot. And in that respect I feel that ME (on hardware when ME was released) has a slight edge over Vista (on hardware when Vista was released). Vista crashes a lot. Sure it doesn't blue screen all the time. But programs and Vista crash a lot. That may change when programs get updated and drivers get updated. And maybe the programs and drivers you use are better. But again, a lot of us are using programs and drivers that cause Vista to crash - a lot.
Obviously mileage is varying for people based upon the tasks they do, and the hardware they have. For some people it works great. But obviously there are a lot of people for whom it is not working well.
I understand the concept. I suppose the problem is not so much Vista. I suppose the problem is that every Windows program seems to want to do something that requires root access. I've also experienced the DRM. Some of the TV stations that provide their shows free online, won't play if you use TV-Out on your machine. That's completely ridiculous.
She has 2GB of RAM in her new machine. It's a machine that was sold with Vista and it's still dog slow. If I'd had the choice I would have put XP on it.