Not that I agree with the mod, but you try to do some network-based stuff which isn't that straightforward on Windows either. (You have to know what you are doing on both systems)
Also, I think it's unfair to blame interoperability problems with Windows solely on Linux. For example you complain about problems with SMB. Well, SMB was created by Microsoft and like most things created by Microsoft, it creates interoperability problems. (And not just for non-Microsoft products, I had a lot of trouble with SMB between Win2K and Win98 a few years back)
And of course Redhat aka Fedora isn't really a desktop distro either. Even RedHat's CEO said himself once that they don't target the desktop.
Also it's unfair to cite bugs in Gnome and then constantly say general statements about "Gnome and KDE". KDE follows a completely different design philosophy and is MUCH more consistent and also much more stable. (For example KDE is written entirely in C++, while Gnome is a mish-mash of C, C++, Mono and more)
I personally think the reason why Linux in the USA isn't getting off the ground is Redhat/Fedora. In Europe where KDE-based distros predominate (SuSE and Mandriva), there is a much higher installed base and a lot more success with Linux.
To sum up: If you get a desktop distro (SuSE or Mandriva) and install it on a normal standalone computer, you shouldn't have any trouble. Of course a SMB-based system will be a little more demanding.
And of course it's a matter of familiarity:
Because you are used to Windows, you don't know the great features that a good desktop distro offers, I will offer some examples:
1) In Konqueror, when you type fish://root@myserver.tld/ you can log in via SSH/SCP and copy files around just as if it were a local directory. No installation required you can connect to any computer on the internet, that runs ssh and you have the password of. Of course the password and all traffic is encrypted. (When you include your computer in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file, you no longer need a password and voila, it's almost like a mounted drive)
This is a great feature, when you have to up- or download a lot from your server.
2) The "Alt"-Key works as a modifier for mouse buttons in KDE. For example you can "grab" a window everywhere (not just the top frame border) with Alt+LMB. Or you can resize a window near the border with Alt+RMB.
These things are pretty handy, also you can now have windows that are bigger than the screen and windows that overlap with the top screen border which is impossible AFAIK in Windows and MacOSX
3) Multiple desktops combined with KDE's session management are just great. For example I have desktops which are reserved for certain tasks (email, work, music, etc.) On each I have the appropriate websites open and ready for use. - but it doesn't clutter the taskbar (because you can configure it to only show the windows on the current desktop) and I can "switch tasks" without having to close and open applications.
AFAIK, Konqueror on KDE is the only browser that can reopen all windows in the right geometries on the correct desktops with the correct websites.
4) Of course there is so much more, for example kwallet: It's an encrypted file (yes, just one goddammed file like it should be, not some "database" or a directory) you can put anywhere and stores all your passwords for you. It is much more secure than the password database in Mozilla, it can be backuped easily and you can actually (gasp !) get the damned password out when you need it (impossible with Mozilla).
Of course I compare the first 5 months of XBox1 with the first 5 months of XBox 360 and XBox360 sold worse in the US, in Europe and in Japan even though the celebrated shortage existed only in the US and maybe for a few weeks in Europe.
They have cracked into a market where others have tried and failed. 20% (and I'm skeptical of that number but don't have anything to back it up) is nothing to be ashamed of in the timeframe they have done so. They took a risk from an economic standpoint and I think it is an interesting method and I have no doubt they will retain a strong market share.
So you backpedal from "amazing" to "not to be ashamed of". Well, OK. Wether 20% is something to be ashamed of is debatable, it certainly isn't "amazing".
Where is Atari and Sega? they couldn't hack it (crap, there goes my karma... )
Don't you get it? Both Atari and Sega had very successful consoles before they released their last failing console. Obviously their successful console didn't help them one bit in "setting it up" for the next generation.
So even if XBox1 were a amazing success, it wouldn't guarantee XBox360's success, just like Dreamcast's predecessors didn't guarantee Dreamcast's success.
So far, XBox360 wasn't able to outdo XBox1, so XBox1 FAILED in "setting it up for the second generation".
When you are not a fanboi, why are you parroting this nonsense?
First of all, 20% is not "amazing marketshare". You could argue wether 20% is acceptable when you want to coexist among your competition, but it's certainly not "amazing". And when you want to become number one it's neither amazing nor acceptable.
Secondly, it's irrelevant wether it's the "first round" or not. AFAIK every "first round" console, be it from Atari, Sega, Sony or Nintendo managed to get more than 20% in the "first round" - actually those companies didn't have billions to waste, so there wouldn't have been a "second round" with such a bad launch.
Thirdly, doing well is no guarantee to do better in the "next round". Just look at Sega or Atari. So how is XBox1 marketshare going to help XBox360? Especially when backwards-compatibility is far from perfect?
When we look at the figures, XBox360 had the worst launch of any console in recent history: It launched worse than PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, Gamecube and (gasp) XBox1. So much for "setting up for second and third generation". (If XBox1 was "setting it up", shouldn't XBox360 sell better than it?)
Isn't it funny? When XBox1 was released the fanbois were boasting about how Sony is doomed. A couple of months after the launch it was just "setting up for the second generation."
Now, a big deja-vu: First the fanbois claimed how it will smash PS3, a few months later (when XBox360 can't even outsell 6 year-old Playstation 2) they say it's "setting up for the third generation".
Yeah, right.
Oh of course, it's all a supply problem, I forgot.
And Google can hurt Microsoft in many ways without much risk.
For example, Google could take Mozilla or Firefox and invest 2 man-weeks in it and release it as the "Google-Browser" (complete with official logo, etc.) and give it a link on the Google-Homepage. Cost for Google: Neglectible. Cost for Microsoft: The loss of the last chance to regain browser-domination. Many people only want to run software from a brand they know. They don't know Mozilla, but they know Google. Heck, I'd guess that 10-20% of users would use it.
Or Google could go to some noname computer maker and create a cheap and simple Linux-based "Google internet station" that is marketed for people who only use the web and email and never install any other software (except virus scanners which they will no longer need). Again neglectible cost for Google. Of course unlike the Browser (which I personally think would be an almost guaranteed success) nobody knows wether this would take off, but if it did, it would cause lots of lost revenue and even more importantly lost marketshare for Microsoft.
I think IE will never fall under the 30% market share
It's really funny how easily some people use the word "never".
Sure, IE will probably be an important browser for some years, but not forever.
First, Playstation 3 and cellphones will bring a lot of non-IE users to the web. That will remove the few IE-only websites that are left.
Then, IE7 will actually hurt IE marketshare because webmasters will start to use PNG-transparency etc. and will link only to Firefox (because it works everywhere and IE7 only works on WinXP and Vista. What about Win9x? What about Win2K? What about (gasp) MacOS? What about Linux? - It's so much easier to just link to Firefox instead of trying to guess the OS the visitor is running)
Also, IE7 hurts IE-only websites even more because some "features" that were optimized on IE6 won't work on IE7. Quite some webmasters will notice how incredibly stupid it was to optimize on a specific version of a browser.
Then, slowly but steadily, Windows will lose it's dominating status in many European governments. No Windows means no IE. And yes, the government is important.
Right now I think it is pretty safe to say that IE is never going to regain it's domination status.
Microsoft's problem is that their only real selling point is that domination status ("everybody's running it" because "everybody programs for it" and vice versa). A whole bunch of people only need a webbrowser and maybe email and a textprocessor on their computer (some even only use web-based email), without IE-only sites, there is one less reason to run Windows and those people could easily switch to Linux.
Of course all that will take some time, probably more than a decade.
Bandwith isn't nearly as expensive as some people think.
For example I pay 40 Euros for 100GB. And that includes the rent for the hardware.
So let's say 1 million people download a 10 MB video. That's 10 000 GB or 4000 Euros (probably less for that kind of volume). Sure that's serious money for an individual, but easily paid even by organizations that rely on donations.
When I'm willing to sink enough money into a market, I can sell large numbers of anything and "gain marketshare".
That's not the point. Any moron is able to do that.
The tricky part is to actually get your money back and a profit on top of it.
Even Microsoft cannot continue to lose money forever on XBox. This is not software, keeping the XBox alive costs a lot of money and things don't look that great for XBox360:
The shortage excuse is over (Microsoft claims that they want to produce about 1 million/month) but they sold less than 200 000 in the US in March (IIRC 197 000), since they sell less in Europe and nearly nothing in Japan, that would be a total of maybe 350 000 worldwide, 400 000 if we are very optimistic. Not even near the million they want to sell. And given the fact that the launch-hype wears off and the PS3 is coming, I guess they will have a very hard time even repeating the XBox1's performance when we are talking about sales. (So far they sold roughly about half of what they sold during the XBox1 launch during the same time frame.)
To put it in other words, they already need a small miracle to repeat the XBox1 "success" and they would still be miles behind the Playstation-franchise.
Wrong. The whole point is that all this complexity is unneeded and overkill. Even though I am one of the tiny minority who has already worked in a multi-user environment (large organization with thousands of users), there never was a need for ACLs. Most PCs are used by just one user anyway, so even the whole Unix groups aren't even used in most cases.
Now, it's not just the "interface". You seem to be thinking of some enduser in front of his PC (hint: Just that kind of user doesn't need any permissions at all because chances are that he is the only one who will ever use that PC and even if he shares the computer it will be most likely friends and/or family.) but that's not really the challenge.
The whole point is that I can type "chmod -R a+r dir" and still know what I'm doing.
The point is that I can look at a file and know who can read it and who can't at just one glance without checking any lists. (As soon as it is a "list", that list can get quite long)
The point is that the microscopic minority who need ACLs you can use add-ons to have them. (And if you are an admin of a CIA-style multi-user system, you should be competent enough to install this add-on) There is absolutely no need to bother the vast majority of people who will never need them.
So no, complexity is not "good" if there is no need for it. And even in large multi-user systems there is usually no need. Only in large multi-user systems with some special needs you need ACLs.
All responsible people stop having children, while the teenage-mothers, drug addicts and people on welfare breed like crazy.
If things continue in their path, the whole world will look like Haiti in 200 years. (What was once covered with rain forest is now barren rock, over 60% of the population is on food aid and they still breed like crazy and export people all over the world. You can clearly see the border to the Dominican Republic from space.)
Actually environmentalists have the fewest kids of all, which is actually pretty sad because it's pretty much a death-sentence for long-term environmentalism.
The beauty about Unix-permissions is that they are so simple that even semi-advanced users can understand them and use them instinctively. And it is flexible enough to honor almost all situations. (I never ran into a problem that couldn't be solved elegantly with Unix-style permissions. Actually you could even argue that for most situations even the group-bits are overkill)
Maybe, in some very complex situations, when you run an intelligence agency or some other very specialized organization, Unix-style permissions are not enough and you need ACLs. For the rest, Unix-permissions are just fine.
Actually people in the oil industry believe very much in peak oil, they just don't know what to do about it.
Most people just don't understand what Peak Oil really means. It does not mean that we will "run out" of oil, for the man in the street it simply means that oil will become a lot, lot more expensive than it is today - and will become even more expensive in time.
Because almost all products (including food) are dependent on oil, almost all products will become more expensive. However, your contribution at your job won't get worth more, so it means that you can buy a lot less stuff than before.
In other words a massively eroding living standard.
So the living standard would rise from itself and is kept artificially low by the evil imperialists? (did I summarize your theory correctly?) And the population doubling every 20 years has nothing to do with it?
If the US had procreated as much as a typical African country in the last century, there would be now about 1.2 billion people here - and that's without any immigration.
P.S.: Actually the poorest countries are typically those with are not touched by "multi-national corporations" at all - like Chad, Ethiopia, etc. Interesting, eh? Isn't it also interesting that Ethiopia was only a colony for less than 10 years, yet it's one of the poorest countries on earth, while Singapore was a colony for over hundred years and is rich?
I'm not sure about it, but I think Novell includes support, but you have to buy it extra for the Windows-solution. (And that makes sense because if you don't need support you also don't need Novell to run Linux)
I wasn't aware that Saudi-Millionaires were starving to death.
Never mind, the only solution is birth control, anybody who thinks that an exponentially growing population can lead to anything but starvation is a moron.
Of course, I'm just saying lets make sure people AREN'T starving FIRST before we start shipping over laptops.
Are you a socialist?
If you think your argument to the end, you take ressources from everyone else to feed an exponentially growing starving population until everybody on the planet is on the edge of starvation.
I'm not agreeing to the other poster (his numbers are indeed wrong), however currently the US uses a very high level of argiculture.
Actually while the output per acre has increased, the output per litre of fertilizer has decreased. That means we push more and more fertilizer into the ground because otherwise nothing would grow anymore because the soil is in pretty bad shape.
That wouldn't be that much of a problem if fertilizer wouldn't be made out of oil. So yeah, the US is indeed overpopulated after the coming oil problems.
Sony's delays may well have let Microsoft back into the game in the Japanese market.
Sony's 6 year-old Playstation 2 currently sells more than 20 (yes, that's "twenty") times as many units as the brand-new XBox360 a few months after launch.
Sony could delay for another 10 years and not being threatened by Microsoft (regarding Nintendo, that's another story)
You would be happy to own a $400+ box that would give you the same thing you can get with on demand/PPV/MTV/VH1? Oh, and with the ability to play the equivalent of free online flash games for $5 a pop.
Yeah, that's the kind of religious worship that surrounds Microsoft. (At least in some circles)
One friend of mine also told how great VirtualPC was - even though VMWare did the same years ago.
Some people just buy only Microsoft. They think they are creative, too because they never even try anything from another vendor.
Which games aren't compliant? AFAIK they support all PS2-games.
Why do you need 2 HDTVs to use 2 screens? (huh?) AFAIK, the PS3 will have a VGA and/or DVI port, so the most common scenario would be HDTV for player 1 and computer screen for player 2 - or both screens for one player for games that support it. Even if the players have to play on differently sized screens (which may give one player a small advantage) it beats splitscreen by a longshot. Also for flight simulators you could have the landscape on the big screen and the controls on the other screen, which would be pretty nice. But of course the games have to support it, true.
7 controllers are overkill, nevertheless it may be fun for some party-games or so, it certainly doesn't hurt.
I've read the PS3 will support all 3 cards: PS1/2 memory cards, memory sticks and SD-cards. However that was over a year ago, I've no idea wether that will materialize.
If Microsoft starts really hammering it in that the "next generation" is here, people will get sick of waiting for the PS3 and get a 360. It's common sense.
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Also, I think it's unfair to blame interoperability problems with Windows solely on Linux. For example you complain about problems with SMB. Well, SMB was created by Microsoft and like most things created by Microsoft, it creates interoperability problems. (And not just for non-Microsoft products, I had a lot of trouble with SMB between Win2K and Win98 a few years back)
And of course Redhat aka Fedora isn't really a desktop distro either. Even RedHat's CEO said himself once that they don't target the desktop.
Also it's unfair to cite bugs in Gnome and then constantly say general statements about "Gnome and KDE". KDE follows a completely different design philosophy and is MUCH more consistent and also much more stable. (For example KDE is written entirely in C++, while Gnome is a mish-mash of C, C++, Mono and more)
I personally think the reason why Linux in the USA isn't getting off the ground is Redhat/Fedora. In Europe where KDE-based distros predominate (SuSE and Mandriva), there is a much higher installed base and a lot more success with Linux.
To sum up: If you get a desktop distro (SuSE or Mandriva) and install it on a normal standalone computer, you shouldn't have any trouble. Of course a SMB-based system will be a little more demanding.
And of course it's a matter of familiarity:
Because you are used to Windows, you don't know the great features that a good desktop distro offers, I will offer some examples:
1) In Konqueror, when you type fish://root@myserver.tld/ you can log in via SSH/SCP and copy files around just as if it were a local directory. No installation required you can connect to any computer on the internet, that runs ssh and you have the password of. Of course the password and all traffic is encrypted. (When you include your computer in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file, you no longer need a password and voila, it's almost like a mounted drive)
This is a great feature, when you have to up- or download a lot from your server.
2) The "Alt"-Key works as a modifier for mouse buttons in KDE. For example you can "grab" a window everywhere (not just the top frame border) with Alt+LMB. Or you can resize a window near the border with Alt+RMB.
These things are pretty handy, also you can now have windows that are bigger than the screen and windows that overlap with the top screen border which is impossible AFAIK in Windows and MacOSX
3) Multiple desktops combined with KDE's session management are just great. For example I have desktops which are reserved for certain tasks (email, work, music, etc.) On each I have the appropriate websites open and ready for use. - but it doesn't clutter the taskbar (because you can configure it to only show the windows on the current desktop) and I can "switch tasks" without having to close and open applications.
AFAIK, Konqueror on KDE is the only browser that can reopen all windows in the right geometries on the correct desktops with the correct websites.
4) Of course there is so much more, for example kwallet: It's an encrypted file (yes, just one goddammed file like it should be, not some "database" or a directory) you can put anywhere and stores all your passwords for you. It is much more secure than the password database in Mozilla, it can be backuped easily and you can actually (gasp !) get the damned password out when you need it (impossible with Mozilla).
Of course I compare the first 5 months of XBox1 with the first 5 months of XBox 360 and XBox360 sold worse in the US, in Europe and in Japan even though the celebrated shortage existed only in the US and maybe for a few weeks in Europe.
So you backpedal from "amazing" to "not to be ashamed of". Well, OK. Wether 20% is something to be ashamed of is debatable, it certainly isn't "amazing".
Where is Atari and Sega? they couldn't hack it (crap, there goes my karma ... )
Don't you get it? Both Atari and Sega had very successful consoles before they released their last failing console. Obviously their successful console didn't help them one bit in "setting it up" for the next generation.
So even if XBox1 were a amazing success, it wouldn't guarantee XBox360's success, just like Dreamcast's predecessors didn't guarantee Dreamcast's success.
So far, XBox360 wasn't able to outdo XBox1, so XBox1 FAILED in "setting it up for the second generation".
First of all, 20% is not "amazing marketshare". You could argue wether 20% is acceptable when you want to coexist among your competition, but it's certainly not "amazing". And when you want to become number one it's neither amazing nor acceptable.
Secondly, it's irrelevant wether it's the "first round" or not. AFAIK every "first round" console, be it from Atari, Sega, Sony or Nintendo managed to get more than 20% in the "first round" - actually those companies didn't have billions to waste, so there wouldn't have been a "second round" with such a bad launch.
Thirdly, doing well is no guarantee to do better in the "next round". Just look at Sega or Atari. So how is XBox1 marketshare going to help XBox360? Especially when backwards-compatibility is far from perfect?
When we look at the figures, XBox360 had the worst launch of any console in recent history: It launched worse than PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, Gamecube and (gasp) XBox1. So much for "setting up for second and third generation". (If XBox1 was "setting it up", shouldn't XBox360 sell better than it?)
Isn't it funny? When XBox1 was released the fanbois were boasting about how Sony is doomed. A couple of months after the launch it was just "setting up for the second generation."
Now, a big deja-vu: First the fanbois claimed how it will smash PS3, a few months later (when XBox360 can't even outsell 6 year-old Playstation 2) they say it's "setting up for the third generation".
Yeah, right.
Oh of course, it's all a supply problem, I forgot.
And Google can hurt Microsoft in many ways without much risk.
For example, Google could take Mozilla or Firefox and invest 2 man-weeks in it and release it as the "Google-Browser" (complete with official logo, etc.) and give it a link on the Google-Homepage. Cost for Google: Neglectible. Cost for Microsoft: The loss of the last chance to regain browser-domination. Many people only want to run software from a brand they know. They don't know Mozilla, but they know Google. Heck, I'd guess that 10-20% of users would use it.
Or Google could go to some noname computer maker and create a cheap and simple Linux-based "Google internet station" that is marketed for people who only use the web and email and never install any other software (except virus scanners which they will no longer need). Again neglectible cost for Google. Of course unlike the Browser (which I personally think would be an almost guaranteed success) nobody knows wether this would take off, but if it did, it would cause lots of lost revenue and even more importantly lost marketshare for Microsoft.
It's really funny how easily some people use the word "never".
Sure, IE will probably be an important browser for some years, but not forever.
First, Playstation 3 and cellphones will bring a lot of non-IE users to the web. That will remove the few IE-only websites that are left.
Then, IE7 will actually hurt IE marketshare because webmasters will start to use PNG-transparency etc. and will link only to Firefox (because it works everywhere and IE7 only works on WinXP and Vista. What about Win9x? What about Win2K? What about (gasp) MacOS? What about Linux? - It's so much easier to just link to Firefox instead of trying to guess the OS the visitor is running)
Also, IE7 hurts IE-only websites even more because some "features" that were optimized on IE6 won't work on IE7. Quite some webmasters will notice how incredibly stupid it was to optimize on a specific version of a browser.
Then, slowly but steadily, Windows will lose it's dominating status in many European governments. No Windows means no IE. And yes, the government is important.
Right now I think it is pretty safe to say that IE is never going to regain it's domination status.
Microsoft's problem is that their only real selling point is that domination status ("everybody's running it" because "everybody programs for it" and vice versa). A whole bunch of people only need a webbrowser and maybe email and a textprocessor on their computer (some even only use web-based email), without IE-only sites, there is one less reason to run Windows and those people could easily switch to Linux.
Of course all that will take some time, probably more than a decade.
For example I pay 40 Euros for 100GB. And that includes the rent for the hardware.
So let's say 1 million people download a 10 MB video. That's 10 000 GB or 4000 Euros (probably less for that kind of volume). Sure that's serious money for an individual, but easily paid even by organizations that rely on donations.
That's not the point. Any moron is able to do that.
The tricky part is to actually get your money back and a profit on top of it.
Even Microsoft cannot continue to lose money forever on XBox. This is not software, keeping the XBox alive costs a lot of money and things don't look that great for XBox360:
The shortage excuse is over (Microsoft claims that they want to produce about 1 million/month) but they sold less than 200 000 in the US in March (IIRC 197 000), since they sell less in Europe and nearly nothing in Japan, that would be a total of maybe 350 000 worldwide, 400 000 if we are very optimistic. Not even near the million they want to sell. And given the fact that the launch-hype wears off and the PS3 is coming, I guess they will have a very hard time even repeating the XBox1's performance when we are talking about sales. (So far they sold roughly about half of what they sold during the XBox1 launch during the same time frame.)
To put it in other words, they already need a small miracle to repeat the XBox1 "success" and they would still be miles behind the Playstation-franchise.
Now, it's not just the "interface". You seem to be thinking of some enduser in front of his PC (hint: Just that kind of user doesn't need any permissions at all because chances are that he is the only one who will ever use that PC and even if he shares the computer it will be most likely friends and/or family.) but that's not really the challenge.
The whole point is that I can type "chmod -R a+r dir" and still know what I'm doing.
The point is that I can look at a file and know who can read it and who can't at just one glance without checking any lists. (As soon as it is a "list", that list can get quite long)
The point is that the microscopic minority who need ACLs you can use add-ons to have them. (And if you are an admin of a CIA-style multi-user system, you should be competent enough to install this add-on) There is absolutely no need to bother the vast majority of people who will never need them.
So no, complexity is not "good" if there is no need for it. And even in large multi-user systems there is usually no need. Only in large multi-user systems with some special needs you need ACLs.
Actually there are over 200 in Europe alone, plus about 50 in Japan.
Yeah, just like the Space Shuttle.
All responsible people stop having children, while the teenage-mothers, drug addicts and people on welfare breed like crazy.
If things continue in their path, the whole world will look like Haiti in 200 years. (What was once covered with rain forest is now barren rock, over 60% of the population is on food aid and they still breed like crazy and export people all over the world. You can clearly see the border to the Dominican Republic from space.)
Actually environmentalists have the fewest kids of all, which is actually pretty sad because it's pretty much a death-sentence for long-term environmentalism.
Exactly, and that is NOT a good thing.
The beauty about Unix-permissions is that they are so simple that even semi-advanced users can understand them and use them instinctively. And it is flexible enough to honor almost all situations. (I never ran into a problem that couldn't be solved elegantly with Unix-style permissions. Actually you could even argue that for most situations even the group-bits are overkill)
Maybe, in some very complex situations, when you run an intelligence agency or some other very specialized organization, Unix-style permissions are not enough and you need ACLs. For the rest, Unix-permissions are just fine.
Most people just don't understand what Peak Oil really means. It does not mean that we will "run out" of oil, for the man in the street it simply means that oil will become a lot, lot more expensive than it is today - and will become even more expensive in time.
Because almost all products (including food) are dependent on oil, almost all products will become more expensive. However, your contribution at your job won't get worth more, so it means that you can buy a lot less stuff than before.
In other words a massively eroding living standard.
If the US had procreated as much as a typical African country in the last century, there would be now about 1.2 billion people here - and that's without any immigration.
P.S.: Actually the poorest countries are typically those with are not touched by "multi-national corporations" at all - like Chad, Ethiopia, etc. Interesting, eh? Isn't it also interesting that Ethiopia was only a colony for less than 10 years, yet it's one of the poorest countries on earth, while Singapore was a colony for over hundred years and is rich?
I'm not sure about it, but I think Novell includes support, but you have to buy it extra for the Windows-solution. (And that makes sense because if you don't need support you also don't need Novell to run Linux)
Never mind, the only solution is birth control, anybody who thinks that an exponentially growing population can lead to anything but starvation is a moron.
Are you a socialist?
If you think your argument to the end, you take ressources from everyone else to feed an exponentially growing starving population until everybody on the planet is on the edge of starvation.
Economic equality! Finally!
Actually while the output per acre has increased, the output per litre of fertilizer has decreased. That means we push more and more fertilizer into the ground because otherwise nothing would grow anymore because the soil is in pretty bad shape.
That wouldn't be that much of a problem if fertilizer wouldn't be made out of oil. So yeah, the US is indeed overpopulated after the coming oil problems.
Sony's 6 year-old Playstation 2 currently sells more than 20 (yes, that's "twenty") times as many units as the brand-new XBox360 a few months after launch.
Sony could delay for another 10 years and not being threatened by Microsoft (regarding Nintendo, that's another story)
Yeah, that's the kind of religious worship that surrounds Microsoft. (At least in some circles)
One friend of mine also told how great VirtualPC was - even though VMWare did the same years ago.
Some people just buy only Microsoft. They think they are creative, too because they never even try anything from another vendor.
Why do you need 2 HDTVs to use 2 screens? (huh?) AFAIK, the PS3 will have a VGA and/or DVI port, so the most common scenario would be HDTV for player 1 and computer screen for player 2 - or both screens for one player for games that support it. Even if the players have to play on differently sized screens (which may give one player a small advantage) it beats splitscreen by a longshot. Also for flight simulators you could have the landscape on the big screen and the controls on the other screen, which would be pretty nice. But of course the games have to support it, true.
7 controllers are overkill, nevertheless it may be fun for some party-games or so, it certainly doesn't hurt.
I've read the PS3 will support all 3 cards: PS1/2 memory cards, memory sticks and SD-cards. However that was over a year ago, I've no idea wether that will materialize.
In 2006, maybe.
But what about 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011?
Nintendo's and Sega's failures all were starting from scratch, the large userbase from the previous generation didn't help them an itch.