But I notice that you put in a vague qualifier as to how long the time is.... Could it be that you don't actually know?
In the television show I watched, they did say an amount of time but I can't 100% be sure 40 seconds is what they said, however that is very close to the amount of time stated. 40 seconds stuck in my mind, but I'm 100% sure it's less than a minute. If you think about it, you really only need to go back less than a minute because accidents happen so fast. I've personally been the victim of a poor driver that made an illegal U-turn in front of me. I tried to stop but it was too late and my front end smashed into the rear quarter panel of a much larger car. That entire accident happened in about 4 seconds. If I had the black box, they could see I was travelling at a normal speed, began to slow down for a left-turn, then slammed on the brakes. This would also help corroborate my story too.
Lobbyists don't want to raise privacy fears so they want to limit the time that is actually recorded. I may be nieve but I think the NTSB or anyone pushing these black boxes are more concerned with accident reconstruction than big-brother-esque monitoring.
But the important question is, can it [the black box] be used for that [issuing tickets]?
No because it's only triggered by catastrophic automobile activity, like airbags being deployed, sudden braking, activities like that. If you speed at 95mph but then slow down for a turn, the black box doesn't flag anything because you didn't crash into a jersey wall and trigger the airbags to stop recording data. If you speed at 95mph and do crash into a jersey wall, it will have recorded 40 seconds ago you were going 95mph and then crashed, airbags deployed, whatever. It's the triggers that we need to make sure are protecting our privacy and I'm very confident they are.
If it [the black box] only records the last 40s, I wouldn't think it would help my mechanic much.
You're confusing the two systems. The ODB-II system always runs while the engine is running but doesn't record anything at all, it merely takes the automobiles sensors and provides them to an external device via a SAE standardized connector that uses standard protocols. The black box is plugged into this system and does the recording. The mechanic doesn't have access to the black box, only to the ODB-II system. The mechanic has to plug the computer into the car, then computer pulls the codes from the ODB-II system that can only tell the mechanic where the problem may lie. For instance, one ODB-II code might correspond to low oil pressure, if the computer pulls that code then the mechanic checks the oil pressure (or the sensors).
I saw something on TV about these black boxes. The first part was simply explaining that these record maybe the past 40 seconds of what happened. For instance, they begin recording when the pedal is depressed fast enough. If you keep moving, it just tosses the data out and keeps rolling. If the airbag then deploys or you don't move, it keeps the data.
The second part of this particular TV show shows a guy in a new red Corvette and his particular privacy concerns and that he had the box removed. Which I think is important, as long as new car owners are told about the existance of a black box and that you can remove it without (legal problems, car problems, etc...), it should be up to the owner if they want the box.
ODB-I was a joke in how little it did. "OBD-II, a new standard introduced in the mid-'90s, provides almost complete engine control and also monitors parts of the chassis, body and accessory devices, as well as the diagnostic control network of the car." (http://www.obdii.com/background.html). ODB-II doesn't log anything, it merely provides a common digital protocol for mechanics to interface with using computers in the shop.
Before everyone starts crying foul, maybe you (the reader) should try understanding things better and lot allowing that which you don't understand scare you. I'm sure if you researched the ODB-II and the black box and black box circuitry, you'd understand it's not big brother trying to issue you the tickets cops aren't there to see but helping the police reconstruct what happened if you're involved in an accident and to help your mechanic out and find some problems easier.
It's probably just a proof-of-concept version. Companies rough out programs in a simpler programming language to see how things work in real life. There's probably lots of stubs all around that code. I had a friend that wrote VB code (sometimes) to show to clients how it'll work, the interface and all; it didn't actually work but it responds to button clicks. It's much easier to show a client (the government in this case) how an interface will behave and get them to sign off on it, than to begin actual coding and be 80% completed and they say "no, we want it this way...". The sooner you can get a client to sign a contract and set requirements for a program, the better. Besides, you can get to market your product if you have something operating to show them instead of notes on a legal pad.
Actually, to really nitpick, the 7th character deleted was a space before "Micros", but after all the ^D's, there is another space to rewrite the space back in there after "with". The story was correct terminal-wise (other than the fact it should be ^H).
Here's the relevant line:
... property laws in line with Micros^D^D^D^D^D^D^D America's.
Well, back in the days of early terminal programs where, to get good terminal emulation you had to massage the terminal client into emulating as close to how a native terminal would behave and this is what happens when it's not emulated close enough.
A backspace is the equivalent of Control-H. If you look at your ascii tables and skip the first NUL character, begin going down the line and counting off each letter of the alphabet. On H, you will land on BS (backspace). You can look at other codes and their equivalents on your own time.
Well, in Unix, it was written that when a keyboard sent a "^H" (which was recreated by holding down Control and pressing H), that it would backspace. When you are parked in your poorly-emulated remote terminal and press backspace, it sends the ^H over the line but it's not properly formatted and the terminal program thinks ^H is what the person wanted to type as plain text.
So some people are in a hurry, and want to send emails over their poorly-emulated remote terminal. They type, make mistakes, append ^H's that don't correct the typing mistake and then resume the email. It's just another call back to a golden age of computing, like how people still use vi...:)
Out all year? I did some researching (that I could have done before asking) and found out that a demo won't be out till it's done, which looks like after Doom 3 is on the shelves soon.
Any word anywhere on Doom 3 demos? If at all possible, I try the game demos to see how the game performs on my computer. I don't want to buy an unreturnable software game and find out I'd need to upgrade laptop hardware before it's framerates are sane enough to play with.
I play HL and GTA:VC on my Dell Laptop with the 15.4" display and it looks much much better than my 21" CRT I use a secondary monitor. The refresh is amazing, and the picture quality is crazy crisp. I would use an LCD over a CRT any day, even a smaller LCD too.
If you don't have days to let electronics dry out, you can try this... If something gets wet enough you don't want to turn it on, you immerse the equipment in a 50-50 solution of filtered water and Isopropyl Alcohol (91%). The alcohol will evaporate the water for you in no time flat. That's what I use to clean my LCD screen, very soft wipes that have plenty of that solution, works great.
I think you're just explaining applications of RFID, not responding to your parent. Giving each can of coke a product ID and serial number is overkill. You should put one tag on a 6-pack, 8-pack (they do have them), 12-pack, whatever and the computer and tell you how many of each pack you have.
RFID should be able to inventory things that otherwise cannot be inventoried easily. If a Coke/Pepsi guy goes to fill a machine, he can input the number of Pepsi's (and others) he's putting in the machine to the machine itself and it can count for itself. It's not like customers are going to interfere with the product before it's sold.
You need RFID for a place that customers can examine merchandise, or for a place that's too big to make inventoring a trivial task. At the Coke machine, it's really small and for a non-RFID to count how many it has (how many it was given minus how many it sold since then) is trivial. At a large department store, people pick up shirts, put them in the cart, move around, then put the shirt back wherever they want.
I saw a great show on the History Channel about the history of the gasoline. Long story short, there are two types of gasoline pipes used to transport, dedicated and community. Dedicated transport pipes transport only one brand gasoline, and I believe Texaco and someone else has their own dedicated lines.
The rest use a pipe network that takes 14 days to send gasoline from one end to another. The system is setup that you can put in X gallons at one end and extract X gallons the same day from the other end, in effect it shares gas.
The caveat I alluded to is when gas companies extract the gasoline from the pipeline, they do add in additives to improve performance, help maintain seals, et al. However, the additives are for the most part the same too.
They don't have 3 gas pipes for each grade, 87, 89 (91 if you have it), or 93. They have one pipe, and they have to send all different octanes through. The gas does mix and when the transition gas (there's a proper name for it) is extracted (it doesn't go in the tanker truck), it's sold to other companies that don't care about octane ratings, that just want gas for industrial purposes.
Does anyone know where that site is that lists all contributions made to senators and such (how much and where from)? You know, these people legally have to report all contributions and such. I've looked around for links here on slashdot, and also through numerous google searches.
Jeopardy is starting to move up the ratings ladder too. Alex Trebek has states the record for continual wins is 56 days in a row, and Ken has less than 10 days to go if I recall correctly.
Also, he should have used BRA (branch unconditionally from my Motorola 6811 assembly studies) (JMP uses absolute, but longer addresses; BRA uses shorter, relative addresses).
but only time will tell if it actually will be useful or will it fall to the wasteside like the phones in the early 90's with the cameras built into them that I think AT&T built.
I was actually thinking about this for the past few days. I came to the conclusion that PC users are smarter.
My experiences: I spent a little time on a PowerBook G4 and Apple has written the OS to do everything for me (or the user).
I own a Dell i8600 with Windows XP and I enjoy it. I don't have any problems because I reserve a small portion of my time to maintain the PC. I clean up empty subdirectories, clean up errant files, update virus protection, clean ad-ware, et al. Some guys work on their cars, some guys build ships in bottles, some guys build ships, I keep a highly stable and secure Windows installation. At school, if anyone has computer problems like they can't print, or won't boot, they ask to use my computer because they know it's stable and won't let them down because it never lets me down.
My conclusion: Apple removes all challenge and problem solving from computing. I didn't get a chance to, but I hear to install a program in OS X, you drag and drop the CD-ROM onto the Finder? I know if I had a Mac fulltime, that I'd feel like I was in the rubber-room of computing. An Apple would literally make me feel stupid because it wouldn't challenge me.
On my Dell, it runs fine. No BSOD, only crashes I see are third-party applications I chose to put on there (and are usually removed). I feel I'm very good at problem solving (almost finished my second engineering degree) and I like the challenge Windows sometimes gives to me. When I do solve the challenge, whatever it is, I feel smart because I solved a real world problem others probably have.
My conclusion: If I owned a Mac, I'd feel like OS X thought I was some menacing child that needs protection from myself. I own a PC and the occaisional problems I face challenge me and entice me to fix. The solutions to those problems reward me for fixing something myself and when the solutions are shared to others with the same problem, it enhances my social situation with friends. My PC reinforces my confidence in myself in not only computing, but maybe mechanical tasks like fixing something complex on a car, or something else.
My UIN used to be 267466 but someone hijacked the number and changed the password somehow. However, I can go to their password recovery service and enter the email address I originally registered the number under and acknowledges the email address as correct and it sends the email. Too bad it sends it to an old Mindspring email address that was deactivated when service was canceled several years ago.
Well, our examples we're working from are different.
In my example, I'm saying that it's theft if you copy a movie you rented. Renting is paying (borrowing is the free kind) for the temporary use of something. If you keep a copy of something rented indefinitely, that's a no-no.
The example you're working off is if you buy a DVD and want to watch it on a portable player that can't read DVD's. That it should be okay since you paid for the right to view, and you want the right to watch it wherever and however you want?
Perhaps we should be working from the same type of example, my fault. If you've paid for the right to watch a movie, you should be entitled to watch it how you want. I agree with what you wrote now that I got the right context that you were talking about. When I think piracy, my knee-jerk scenario is where people setup cameras in movie theaters, or copy DVD's from friends or that kind of stuff.
Say if you want a copy of some movie that you have in your hands (say rented the DVD at a movie store). If you copy the movie (compress to AVI, copy to DVD, whatever), you are creating a new instance of the movie but haven't compensated the production studio for the right to make a new instance. Theft, by any other name, is still theft.
By your terms about the victim starting to have something, then losing it. In this instance, the victim (movie company) never received compensation due to them.
True story, the original writers of the game were going to call the game "Puck Man" hence the shape. They changed their mind because malitious players could scratch out a part of the P and make it into an F.
I agree with your first paragraph, although I can't comment on what you said about the server side out of ignorance of the server market.
Linux is still only spreading with word-of-mouth and the occaisional Wired article. If Linux hopes to make dents into Windows marketshare, they need to make Linux easier to use, have games (like Half-Life) available for it that a lot of people want to play, and other things. How many people do you know that would be willing to undergo several months of relearning how to use a computer just to switch OS's and perform the same tasks they used to like Email and get on the Web? People are used to Windows and how Microsoft does things. You can't show people how good Linux is because most people can't appreciate it, especially when they just get turned to it. You have to show people how worse Windows is, then offer them a free alternative OS called Linux. About the graphics, you can't just throw them a link to Wine and expect them to be satisfied with a compatability layer. I'm talking natively built 3D graphics games. Loki games had it right when they offered made-for-Linux games available. If you can show regular folks that they can run the same games they want to for cheaper, it will catch their interest.
The bottom line is that you (as an advocate) have to make it obvious to them to switch, not obvious to you for them to switch. I consider it more ethical to simply show them the door and give them the choice to walk through it. That way, they commit themselves to learning Linux. If you force them by speaking in a condescending tone, they will let you format their PC (losing personal items they didn't backup) and just sit there while you spoon-feed them the tutorial only for them to tell you a week later that 5 days ago he/she reinstalled Windows because they couldn't figure Linux out.
I can't stand it when people such as yourself have a bad experience and you think the company is wholly flawed. Maybe you just got a bad unit, did you think about that. I've had my PS2 since after a year it came out, even with my sister pushing the tray in and putting drinks and VHS tapes ontop of it, it still works fine.
You can't expect anyone that produces 50 million of anything to not have imperfections here and there. I'm sure you'll find out that you're the exception and not the rule.
Slashdot Mirror
But I notice that you put in a vague qualifier as to how long the time is. ... Could it be that you don't actually know?
In the television show I watched, they did say an amount of time but I can't 100% be sure 40 seconds is what they said, however that is very close to the amount of time stated. 40 seconds stuck in my mind, but I'm 100% sure it's less than a minute. If you think about it, you really only need to go back less than a minute because accidents happen so fast. I've personally been the victim of a poor driver that made an illegal U-turn in front of me. I tried to stop but it was too late and my front end smashed into the rear quarter panel of a much larger car. That entire accident happened in about 4 seconds. If I had the black box, they could see I was travelling at a normal speed, began to slow down for a left-turn, then slammed on the brakes. This would also help corroborate my story too.
Lobbyists don't want to raise privacy fears so they want to limit the time that is actually recorded. I may be nieve but I think the NTSB or anyone pushing these black boxes are more concerned with accident reconstruction than big-brother-esque monitoring.
But the important question is, can it [the black box] be used for that [issuing tickets]?
No because it's only triggered by catastrophic automobile activity, like airbags being deployed, sudden braking, activities like that. If you speed at 95mph but then slow down for a turn, the black box doesn't flag anything because you didn't crash into a jersey wall and trigger the airbags to stop recording data. If you speed at 95mph and do crash into a jersey wall, it will have recorded 40 seconds ago you were going 95mph and then crashed, airbags deployed, whatever. It's the triggers that we need to make sure are protecting our privacy and I'm very confident they are.
If it [the black box] only records the last 40s, I wouldn't think it would help my mechanic much.
You're confusing the two systems. The ODB-II system always runs while the engine is running but doesn't record anything at all, it merely takes the automobiles sensors and provides them to an external device via a SAE standardized connector that uses standard protocols. The black box is plugged into this system and does the recording. The mechanic doesn't have access to the black box, only to the ODB-II system. The mechanic has to plug the computer into the car, then computer pulls the codes from the ODB-II system that can only tell the mechanic where the problem may lie. For instance, one ODB-II code might correspond to low oil pressure, if the computer pulls that code then the mechanic checks the oil pressure (or the sensors).
I saw something on TV about these black boxes. The first part was simply explaining that these record maybe the past 40 seconds of what happened. For instance, they begin recording when the pedal is depressed fast enough. If you keep moving, it just tosses the data out and keeps rolling. If the airbag then deploys or you don't move, it keeps the data.
The second part of this particular TV show shows a guy in a new red Corvette and his particular privacy concerns and that he had the box removed. Which I think is important, as long as new car owners are told about the existance of a black box and that you can remove it without (legal problems, car problems, etc...), it should be up to the owner if they want the box.
ODB-I was a joke in how little it did. "OBD-II, a new standard introduced in the mid-'90s, provides almost complete engine control and also monitors parts of the chassis, body and accessory devices, as well as the diagnostic control network of the car." (http://www.obdii.com/background.html). ODB-II doesn't log anything, it merely provides a common digital protocol for mechanics to interface with using computers in the shop.
Before everyone starts crying foul, maybe you (the reader) should try understanding things better and lot allowing that which you don't understand scare you. I'm sure if you researched the ODB-II and the black box and black box circuitry, you'd understand it's not big brother trying to issue you the tickets cops aren't there to see but helping the police reconstruct what happened if you're involved in an accident and to help your mechanic out and find some problems easier.
It's probably just a proof-of-concept version. Companies rough out programs in a simpler programming language to see how things work in real life. There's probably lots of stubs all around that code. I had a friend that wrote VB code (sometimes) to show to clients how it'll work, the interface and all; it didn't actually work but it responds to button clicks. It's much easier to show a client (the government in this case) how an interface will behave and get them to sign off on it, than to begin actual coding and be 80% completed and they say "no, we want it this way...". The sooner you can get a client to sign a contract and set requirements for a program, the better. Besides, you can get to market your product if you have something operating to show them instead of notes on a legal pad.
Actually, to really nitpick, the 7th character deleted was a space before "Micros", but after all the ^D's, there is another space to rewrite the space back in there after "with". The story was correct terminal-wise (other than the fact it should be ^H).
... property laws in line with Micros^D^D^D^D^D^D^D America's.
Here's the relevant line:
Well, back in the days of early terminal programs where, to get good terminal emulation you had to massage the terminal client into emulating as close to how a native terminal would behave and this is what happens when it's not emulated close enough.
:)
A backspace is the equivalent of Control-H. If you look at your ascii tables and skip the first NUL character, begin going down the line and counting off each letter of the alphabet. On H, you will land on BS (backspace). You can look at other codes and their equivalents on your own time.
Well, in Unix, it was written that when a keyboard sent a "^H" (which was recreated by holding down Control and pressing H), that it would backspace. When you are parked in your poorly-emulated remote terminal and press backspace, it sends the ^H over the line but it's not properly formatted and the terminal program thinks ^H is what the person wanted to type as plain text.
So some people are in a hurry, and want to send emails over their poorly-emulated remote terminal. They type, make mistakes, append ^H's that don't correct the typing mistake and then resume the email. It's just another call back to a golden age of computing, like how people still use vi...
ah, no I didn't until you brought it back up, it's a possibility. Good sleuthing on that story.
Out all year? I did some researching (that I could have done before asking) and found out that a demo won't be out till it's done, which looks like after Doom 3 is on the shelves soon.
Coming from you, that means less than nothing, coward. If you're going to step in and be a dick, at least log in and own up to your comments.
Any word anywhere on Doom 3 demos? If at all possible, I try the game demos to see how the game performs on my computer. I don't want to buy an unreturnable software game and find out I'd need to upgrade laptop hardware before it's framerates are sane enough to play with.
How is an LCD bad for gaming, the refresh rate?
I play HL and GTA:VC on my Dell Laptop with the 15.4" display and it looks much much better than my 21" CRT I use a secondary monitor. The refresh is amazing, and the picture quality is crazy crisp. I would use an LCD over a CRT any day, even a smaller LCD too.
If you don't have days to let electronics dry out, you can try this... If something gets wet enough you don't want to turn it on, you immerse the equipment in a 50-50 solution of filtered water and Isopropyl Alcohol (91%). The alcohol will evaporate the water for you in no time flat. That's what I use to clean my LCD screen, very soft wipes that have plenty of that solution, works great.
I think you're just explaining applications of RFID, not responding to your parent. Giving each can of coke a product ID and serial number is overkill. You should put one tag on a 6-pack, 8-pack (they do have them), 12-pack, whatever and the computer and tell you how many of each pack you have.
RFID should be able to inventory things that otherwise cannot be inventoried easily. If a Coke/Pepsi guy goes to fill a machine, he can input the number of Pepsi's (and others) he's putting in the machine to the machine itself and it can count for itself. It's not like customers are going to interfere with the product before it's sold.
You need RFID for a place that customers can examine merchandise, or for a place that's too big to make inventoring a trivial task. At the Coke machine, it's really small and for a non-RFID to count how many it has (how many it was given minus how many it sold since then) is trivial. At a large department store, people pick up shirts, put them in the cart, move around, then put the shirt back wherever they want.
I saw a great show on the History Channel about the history of the gasoline. Long story short, there are two types of gasoline pipes used to transport, dedicated and community. Dedicated transport pipes transport only one brand gasoline, and I believe Texaco and someone else has their own dedicated lines.
The rest use a pipe network that takes 14 days to send gasoline from one end to another. The system is setup that you can put in X gallons at one end and extract X gallons the same day from the other end, in effect it shares gas.
The caveat I alluded to is when gas companies extract the gasoline from the pipeline, they do add in additives to improve performance, help maintain seals, et al. However, the additives are for the most part the same too.
They don't have 3 gas pipes for each grade, 87, 89 (91 if you have it), or 93. They have one pipe, and they have to send all different octanes through. The gas does mix and when the transition gas (there's a proper name for it) is extracted (it doesn't go in the tanker truck), it's sold to other companies that don't care about octane ratings, that just want gas for industrial purposes.
Me too, I don't see how all these people that are supposedly skillful with computers can't keep a Windows installation in line, it's not that hard.
Does anyone know where that site is that lists all contributions made to senators and such (how much and where from)? You know, these people legally have to report all contributions and such. I've looked around for links here on slashdot, and also through numerous google searches.
Ken Jennings
Jeopardy is starting to move up the ratings ladder too. Alex Trebek has states the record for continual wins is 56 days in a row, and Ken has less than 10 days to go if I recall correctly.
Also, he should have used BRA (branch unconditionally from my Motorola 6811 assembly studies) (JMP uses absolute, but longer addresses; BRA uses shorter, relative addresses).
but only time will tell if it actually will be useful or will it fall to the wasteside like the phones in the early 90's with the cameras built into them that I think AT&T built.
I was actually thinking about this for the past few days. I came to the conclusion that PC users are smarter.
My experiences:
I spent a little time on a PowerBook G4 and Apple has written the OS to do everything for me (or the user).
I own a Dell i8600 with Windows XP and I enjoy it. I don't have any problems because I reserve a small portion of my time to maintain the PC. I clean up empty subdirectories, clean up errant files, update virus protection, clean ad-ware, et al. Some guys work on their cars, some guys build ships in bottles, some guys build ships, I keep a highly stable and secure Windows installation. At school, if anyone has computer problems like they can't print, or won't boot, they ask to use my computer because they know it's stable and won't let them down because it never lets me down.
My conclusion:
Apple removes all challenge and problem solving from computing. I didn't get a chance to, but I hear to install a program in OS X, you drag and drop the CD-ROM onto the Finder? I know if I had a Mac fulltime, that I'd feel like I was in the rubber-room of computing. An Apple would literally make me feel stupid because it wouldn't challenge me.
On my Dell, it runs fine. No BSOD, only crashes I see are third-party applications I chose to put on there (and are usually removed). I feel I'm very good at problem solving (almost finished my second engineering degree) and I like the challenge Windows sometimes gives to me. When I do solve the challenge, whatever it is, I feel smart because I solved a real world problem others probably have.
My conclusion:
If I owned a Mac, I'd feel like OS X thought I was some menacing child that needs protection from myself. I own a PC and the occaisional problems I face challenge me and entice me to fix. The solutions to those problems reward me for fixing something myself and when the solutions are shared to others with the same problem, it enhances my social situation with friends. My PC reinforces my confidence in myself in not only computing, but maybe mechanical tasks like fixing something complex on a car, or something else.
My UIN used to be 267466 but someone hijacked the number and changed the password somehow. However, I can go to their password recovery service and enter the email address I originally registered the number under and acknowledges the email address as correct and it sends the email. Too bad it sends it to an old Mindspring email address that was deactivated when service was canceled several years ago.
Well, our examples we're working from are different.
In my example, I'm saying that it's theft if you copy a movie you rented. Renting is paying (borrowing is the free kind) for the temporary use of something. If you keep a copy of something rented indefinitely, that's a no-no.
The example you're working off is if you buy a DVD and want to watch it on a portable player that can't read DVD's. That it should be okay since you paid for the right to view, and you want the right to watch it wherever and however you want?
Perhaps we should be working from the same type of example, my fault. If you've paid for the right to watch a movie, you should be entitled to watch it how you want. I agree with what you wrote now that I got the right context that you were talking about. When I think piracy, my knee-jerk scenario is where people setup cameras in movie theaters, or copy DVD's from friends or that kind of stuff.
I think you got it wrong...
Say if you want a copy of some movie that you have in your hands (say rented the DVD at a movie store). If you copy the movie (compress to AVI, copy to DVD, whatever), you are creating a new instance of the movie but haven't compensated the production studio for the right to make a new instance. Theft, by any other name, is still theft.
By your terms about the victim starting to have something, then losing it. In this instance, the victim (movie company) never received compensation due to them.
I hope I made my point clear...
True story, the original writers of the game were going to call the game "Puck Man" hence the shape. They changed their mind because malitious players could scratch out a part of the P and make it into an F.
I agree with your first paragraph, although I can't comment on what you said about the server side out of ignorance of the server market.
Linux is still only spreading with word-of-mouth and the occaisional Wired article. If Linux hopes to make dents into Windows marketshare, they need to make Linux easier to use, have games (like Half-Life) available for it that a lot of people want to play, and other things. How many people do you know that would be willing to undergo several months of relearning how to use a computer just to switch OS's and perform the same tasks they used to like Email and get on the Web? People are used to Windows and how Microsoft does things. You can't show people how good Linux is because most people can't appreciate it, especially when they just get turned to it. You have to show people how worse Windows is, then offer them a free alternative OS called Linux. About the graphics, you can't just throw them a link to Wine and expect them to be satisfied with a compatability layer. I'm talking natively built 3D graphics games. Loki games had it right when they offered made-for-Linux games available. If you can show regular folks that they can run the same games they want to for cheaper, it will catch their interest.
The bottom line is that you (as an advocate) have to make it obvious to them to switch, not obvious to you for them to switch. I consider it more ethical to simply show them the door and give them the choice to walk through it. That way, they commit themselves to learning Linux. If you force them by speaking in a condescending tone, they will let you format their PC (losing personal items they didn't backup) and just sit there while you spoon-feed them the tutorial only for them to tell you a week later that 5 days ago he/she reinstalled Windows because they couldn't figure Linux out.
That's Intersting? whatever...
I can't stand it when people such as yourself have a bad experience and you think the company is wholly flawed. Maybe you just got a bad unit, did you think about that. I've had my PS2 since after a year it came out, even with my sister pushing the tray in and putting drinks and VHS tapes ontop of it, it still works fine.
You can't expect anyone that produces 50 million of anything to not have imperfections here and there. I'm sure you'll find out that you're the exception and not the rule.