Third... if capitalism won't work... and communism won't work... what's left?
Hehehehe... you act as if those are the only two systems that will EVER exist. Socioeconomic/Political systems have changed repeatedly over time as we have evolved from agrarian to industrial to space and computer ages. Trust me, there will be other systems that will also rise and fall. Personally, I think that some aspects of Free/Open software will spread into some economic models. Whatever the case, I'd say that it's kind of silly to think that there can only be communism and capitalism and lock out any other possibilities.:P
Doesn't anyone see this as particularly fascist? Businesses are supposed to be our SERVANTS, not the other way around. We PAY THEM for goods and services and they bend over backwards to earn their pay. Sadly, this dynamic has been damaged. Capitalism has failed in exactly the same way that communism did. (Note: I'm not a communist) Communism fell apart because some "pigs were more equal than others". It would appear that this same rot has happened within the capitalist system. Some "pigs (Bill Gates, Dick Cheney, Darl McBride, Martha Stewart, the Walton/Wal-mart family) are more equal than others (YOU)". Wake up people. You're being screwed by the bouncing smiley face at Wal-mart.
Nice article, but it would have been nice if they had included the projected cost. I'm willing to be this will be, yet another, in the long line of failures from the technology industry where wearble displays are concerned. Personally, I won't be interested until it has the following features:
1. 1900x1400 resolution 2. 32-bit colour 3. Five day battery life (in sleep mode) with a charging cradle 4. Bluetooth connectivity to anything (look ma, no wires!) 5. 5.1 surround sound 6. Contact lens form factor (with audio interface through eyes via vibration) 7. Augmented Reality overlay features 8. $299.95 at NewEgg.com
Until then, I'm happy with a laptop. (Oh yeah... I HATE cell phones. Why have all those useless features in a phone when they still can't f*cking hold a phone conversation with decent audio quality!!)
Sorry, but this article is pure crap. iD Software is king of rendering. Always has been, and probably always will be. That's what matters most if you are someone who uses FPS games for chat more than game play. The more interactive and realistic the environment, the better.
I can see it now: Rain Parrot. The bird is on the screen and looks at anything where something is missing and says: "quantity zero. judge wapner. brawwwwwwk!!!"
There is much less likelihood of that happening since it's unlikely that your but (and the rest of your GI tract) is capable of holding even one monkey. Not to mention, monkeys cannot fly. So you would also have yo have monkeys that are bizarrely small and equipped with flying apparatus of some kind thereby doubling the space (flying equipment = 1 monkey in size) required to house monkeys.
Whereas, it has been scientifically proven that *something* is out there neare Uranus and Neptune causing a gravitational pull that was unexpected. Before NASA started their cover-up story, they mistakenly reported the possibility that this is a tenth planet back in the 80s. Then the one world government made the news sources that reported the story retract it without further explanation. There is only one explanation for all of this: a planet killing planet or comet is coming back this way on it's 4000 year orbit.
When it returns, the Niburu are expected to invade in order to reclaim their slave race (us). I expect that they will weed out the unexpected mutants and pick the people that will make the best slaves. This means that the U.S. is their primary target since a majority of the population there is well prepared for mind control. This leads many to think that the one world government (that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney are part of and now Tony Blair has been admitted into the secret cabal)has been in contact with the Niburu and has promised to program their citizenry into willing slaves through the use of Fox television and Channel 4. In exchange, this secret cabal will have their families spared. Just watch The X-Files movie where Chris Carter attempts to inform us about what's happening behind the scenes of our one world government.
As you can see, there is a lot of evidence proving that Planet X, and domination by the Niburu (formerly referred to as "god" or "gods") will return to Earth. I am confident that Planet X is coming back and this is based on sound science. The crop circles have been a warning from the aliens residing on Earth that we have yet to decipher. They live among us, but as more of an entity rather than beings in disuise. They live within many of us. At night, whilst we sleep, they awaken and cause many of us to lead a second life. Sleep walking is one manifestation of this occurrence. But the ones who are truly successful manage to get people to wake up in the middle of the night and channel the alien consiousness' power at empty fields thereby rendering the crop circles in the ancient language of the Niburu and Sumeria.
Why do they do this instead of just posting on the internet? Because, much like white explorers of the old days, they consider us to be primitives. They see our technology aswe saw the stone and jawbone tools. Many white explorers would walk up to the native peoples of different lands and attempt to speak english to them. This is no different. There is a barrier to understanding. At this time, the human race is a lot like the people in the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy". We have appropriated alien technology from Roswell (where do you think Intel got it's chip designs from). One time, I saw a photo of an artifact recovered from Roswell that was essentially a Pentium-like die. But the photo was taken in 1950! So much like the Coke bottle in the movie, we are only using alien technology at a fraction of it's capabilties. If we built a proper chip core based exactly on the Roswell cores (I believe they recovered 16 of these cores), it's likely that we would have a sentient computing system with a telephatic interface.
It still amazes me how many people there are who choose to remain ignorant of the truth when the evidence is out there. Trying to laugh off the truth by saying "Monkeys COULD fly out of my butt" simply illustrates your fear at accepting the truth. If you have a better explanation for these kinds of things, I'd like to hear it.
Troll? What kind of retard modded this? If anything it's funny. However, there is always the big question about the return of "Planet X" AKA Niburu... It COULD happen.
With the latest in electronica sounding much more pleasing than most guitar acts...;P
I'm kidding. I love electronca more than guitars, but they still have their place. I play guitar in order to create interesting loops for use in electronica. Not to mention, I don't think any robotic musicians will gain a following like a human musician within our lifetimes. Maybe 200 years from now when the machines have advanced significantly, but not within the 21st century. Just look at what Max Headroom did in the 80s. He was a faked computer generated TV host that was more of a short lived fad than anything else. Even if it weren't faked today, this kind of thing never catches on.
Most people (read *I*) use US and USA interchangably. That is because US is a shortening of USA. They are both the same thing. When people ask me where I'm from when I travel, I've been known to say "The United States" or "The United States of America". However, I usually just say "The United States" since it's shorter. When people ask me what I am in terms of nationality, I usually say "Citizen of the US". Of course, I really actually consider myself a World Citizen.
Just take the laptop, plug it into a non-Internet connected network that has snort running on it. Watch for the DNS queries, ICMP, which ports are outgoing from the laptop, etc... It shouldn't be too hard to collect the needed info, write a "de-tracer" program to be installed on these types of laptops and POOF it's all yours. Not that I condone that sort of thing, but I'm simply putting out an example of how to break the system. You can't solve people problems with computer technology. If you want to cut down on laptop theft, do the following:
1. Don't let your laptop out of your sight. Ever. 2. Put the CPU (with a symbiotic identifier for your particular laptop) in a key fob that ensures it's a useless box unless your keys are stolen with it. (CPUs need to be smaller than they are. 1cm x 1cm is preferable) 3. Don't lose your fucking keys
I still remember Morgan dressed as a groovy 70s vampire on the Electric Company from when I was a kid. God I loved that show! Anyone else here remember that?
I will never understand why eye popping grosses some people out. When I see it, it just looks ridiculous. I'd say the fingernail thing is far worse because the guy has disfigured hands and has lost his hearing in one ear as a result. The eye popper just pushes her eyes back into their sockets and she's back in business. I have to imagine she's got really good peripheral vision though...;P
How does free software even come close to relating to guns and terrorism. That's like saying that people who speak out against the government are terrorists because they are exercising their right to free speech.
Welcome to the 51 United States. 48 contiguous states, Alaska, Hawaii and the rest of the world. Speak out against your government and you're going to Gitmo.
This is the first wrinkle of the return of communism. I implore my fellow European white bretheren to stamp out the evil practice of communism. The people who supported being against software patents hate your freedom! They want to fund terrorist groups with intellectual property currency. Just imagine if guns were free. The terrorists would win.
Bahah!!! I didnt' vote for Bush! Either time! I only trust the governement when they are significantly different from corporations. Currently, the two are synonmous. Corporations are the primary evil and government is secondary unless coopted by corporations which they currently are. So you can't trust anyone. As far as individuals go, they're all corrupt. I don't trust you at all. And you shouldn't trust me. Only non-sentient frameworks are trustworthy. Machines are ultimately the most trustworthy as long as no humans are invovled. Learn about cubic time!! You are all singularity stupid!
Diristibuted systems are inherently insecure because yuo can't rust the source if it isn't centrally controlled/vefried. We need a system where the United Nations tracks our ID and centralizes it all on trusted diristibuted systemas. Then we can trust it because it willl be under the control of one governing body and still enjoy redundancy by virtue of multipel localations.
This reminds me of a statement a former employer (in the audio production biz circa 1994) made to me. He was a hardcore Mac user and so was I, but I was moving to Windows because of cost. I told him that I'd been researching the set up of a DOS/Win 3.1 box and S.A.W. (Software Audio Workshop) for my home project studio. If I went with a Mac to do four track audio, I would have had to spend at least $10,000 to do four track audio with Digidesign ProTools. That would have been for a pretty paltry system. Seeing that I'd just spent $4000 on a PC including all the hardware and software I needed to do desktop publishing and the basics for audio, I figured that another $399 for S.A.W. was justifiable. I hated Win 3.1. But... I have to say that once I got the system tuned and S.A.W. and Cakewalk were set up, the system cranked out the tunes. Sure, it wasn't as elegant as the Mac, but I still was able to do work and got a few clients.
I told him about my early experiences and said how going from Windows to Macintosh for the OS and Protools/M.O.T.U./Studer to S.A.W./Cakewalk for the audio apps took "some getting used to". His response was, "If it takes some getting used to, then it's crap. Software should never take getting used to. You should just start using it and never have to look at the manual". At the time, I was a little annoyed because I saw this as a closed-minded approach to audio production. Yes, the Macintosh was far better at the work, but learning to do this stuff on Windows armed me to go much farther and blow away any Mac user in the audio realm. Not to mention that now that I do my audio work on Linux, I have a huge growing array of tools at my disposal. I think people who have the attitude that learning something new shouldn't require any... um... LEARNING are just plain stupid.
You must have missed that part. Not to mention, the original post was using the word "Linux" as if it is one individual entity and then proceeded to attack X.org and ALSA or Open Sound System. If they are going to be correct about their gripes, they should aim at the correct targets. Unless he's a Bush supporter who thinks that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. In that case, there is no hope for him.
Why, just last year, I tried to get you to work with my 23" Apple Cinedisplay. I was ready to return to you full-time after a long desktop-linux hiatus, if only you could have displayed properly on that Cinedisplay without screwing up the resolution. I didn't want to run you in 1024x768 on a 1920x1600 screen. Nor did I want to run 1920x1600 worth of desktop in a 1024x768 resolution where I'd have to roll the mouse all over the place to screen-off to the rest of the desktop.
Credit, where credit is due: Go here if you want to gripe about resolution issues.
And should I even mention the fiascos with various sound cards that you just didn't want to play nicely with?
Or of the hardware that you were supposed to be "known-good" on that you chose not to work with at the most inopportune moments?
Don't buy cheap hardware or anything newer than a year old. If you want bleeding-edge new stuff, stick with Windows or Mac OS.
Most of your gripes should actually be directed at the specific Linux *distribution* that you chose to use. The distribution choice is a whole religion unto itself.;P Of course, I choose Fedora because it "just works" for me. My definition of "just works" = take the base distro and install it minimally. Hand compile everything I need. Tweak the system for what I need. Turn it into any of the following:
1. GNOME Terminal Server 2. Thin client (using cheap wireless laptop) 3. PVR/Entertainment system 4. GASP!!! A desktop computer!!
Sorry, but it "just works" for me.:)
Here is what I've found in my own informal comparison back in 1998:
-Setting up a Windows 98 box to do everything I need: six hours and about $3000 worth of extra software. (I'm not a pirate, so I buy everything I need) Considering how a lot of the functionality included with Windows XP is low grade compared to full commercial products (ripping CDs, editing images and video, etc...) and the fact that software costs even more now, I'd have to spend at least $3000 extra to do the things I want. -Setting up RedHat 7.0 to do everything I need: six days and $0 worth of extra software because RedHat 7.0 came with everything I needed at the time. Considering that Fedora Core 3 has moved lightyears beyond RH 7.0 it's only that much easier now. So the same setup might take me three days now and probably a lot less since my knowledge has improved since 1998.
That's the key to using any Linux distro. You have to dedicate the time to learning it. Keeping in mind that the trade-off is that you wind up spending very little to no money on software. I'd say that's a significant feature that Windows can't compete with. Mac OS is in a flux right new due to the IBM to Intel CPU switch. I wouldn't touch a Mac with a ten foot pole for the next two to five years. Granted Mac OS is beautiful and can host a lot of the apps I use in Linux now, it's not worth buying a box that's only going to last a few years. Currently my Linux based GNOME terminal server is a dual P II 233 with 768 Megs of RAM from 1998 and it runs just as well as a P4 running Windows XP Pro. It can do everything that a Windows XP box can and more. So, it does "just work".
This proves that messages that tell people about healthy lifestyles can improve people's health. Unless all of the "make big penis now" and "v1agr4 is teh bomb" and "urgent message from Uganda" and the racist crap from spam worms can somehow be considered "promoting a healthy lifestyle". Spam is the stuff we don't want. Messages promoting healthy lifestyles are what you will get if you subscribe to something that you wanted. At that point it's not unsolicited.
Slashdot Mirror
Hehehehe... you act as if those are the only two systems that will EVER exist. Socioeconomic/Political systems have changed repeatedly over time as we have evolved from agrarian to industrial to space and computer ages. Trust me, there will be other systems that will also rise and fall. Personally, I think that some aspects of Free/Open software will spread into some economic models. Whatever the case, I'd say that it's kind of silly to think that there can only be communism and capitalism and lock out any other possibilities.
Doesn't anyone see this as particularly fascist? Businesses are supposed to be our SERVANTS, not the other way around. We PAY THEM for goods and services and they bend over backwards to earn their pay. Sadly, this dynamic has been damaged. Capitalism has failed in exactly the same way that communism did. (Note: I'm not a communist) Communism fell apart because some "pigs were more equal than others". It would appear that this same rot has happened within the capitalist system. Some "pigs (Bill Gates, Dick Cheney, Darl McBride, Martha Stewart, the Walton/Wal-mart family) are more equal than others (YOU)". Wake up people. You're being screwed by the bouncing smiley face at Wal-mart.
Nice article, but it would have been nice if they had included the projected cost. I'm willing to be this will be, yet another, in the long line of failures from the technology industry where wearble displays are concerned. Personally, I won't be interested until it has the following features:
1. 1900x1400 resolution
2. 32-bit colour
3. Five day battery life (in sleep mode) with a charging cradle
4. Bluetooth connectivity to anything (look ma, no wires!)
5. 5.1 surround sound
6. Contact lens form factor (with audio interface through eyes via vibration)
7. Augmented Reality overlay features
8. $299.95 at NewEgg.com
Until then, I'm happy with a laptop. (Oh yeah... I HATE cell phones. Why have all those useless features in a phone when they still can't f*cking hold a phone conversation with decent audio quality!!)
Sorry, but this article is pure crap. iD Software is king of rendering. Always has been, and probably always will be. That's what matters most if you are someone who uses FPS games for chat more than game play. The more interactive and realistic the environment, the better.
I can see it now: Rain Parrot. The bird is on the screen and looks at anything where something is missing and says: "quantity zero. judge wapner. brawwwwwwk!!!"
There is much less likelihood of that happening since it's unlikely that your but (and the rest of your GI tract) is capable of holding even one monkey. Not to mention, monkeys cannot fly. So you would also have yo have monkeys that are bizarrely small and equipped with flying apparatus of some kind thereby doubling the space (flying equipment = 1 monkey in size) required to house monkeys.
Whereas, it has been scientifically proven that *something* is out there neare Uranus and Neptune causing a gravitational pull that was unexpected. Before NASA started their cover-up story, they mistakenly reported the possibility that this is a tenth planet back in the 80s. Then the one world government made the news sources that reported the story retract it without further explanation. There is only one explanation for all of this: a planet killing planet or comet is coming back this way on it's 4000 year orbit.
When it returns, the Niburu are expected to invade in order to reclaim their slave race (us). I expect that they will weed out the unexpected mutants and pick the people that will make the best slaves. This means that the U.S. is their primary target since a majority of the population there is well prepared for mind control. This leads many to think that the one world government (that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney are part of and now Tony Blair has been admitted into the secret cabal)has been in contact with the Niburu and has promised to program their citizenry into willing slaves through the use of Fox television and Channel 4. In exchange, this secret cabal will have their families spared. Just watch The X-Files movie where Chris Carter attempts to inform us about what's happening behind the scenes of our one world government.
As you can see, there is a lot of evidence proving that Planet X, and domination by the Niburu (formerly referred to as "god" or "gods") will return to Earth. I am confident that Planet X is coming back and this is based on sound science. The crop circles have been a warning from the aliens residing on Earth that we have yet to decipher. They live among us, but as more of an entity rather than beings in disuise. They live within many of us. At night, whilst we sleep, they awaken and cause many of us to lead a second life. Sleep walking is one manifestation of this occurrence. But the ones who are truly successful manage to get people to wake up in the middle of the night and channel the alien consiousness' power at empty fields thereby rendering the crop circles in the ancient language of the Niburu and Sumeria.
Why do they do this instead of just posting on the internet? Because, much like white explorers of the old days, they consider us to be primitives. They see our technology aswe saw the stone and jawbone tools. Many white explorers would walk up to the native peoples of different lands and attempt to speak english to them. This is no different. There is a barrier to understanding. At this time, the human race is a lot like the people in the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy". We have appropriated alien technology from Roswell (where do you think Intel got it's chip designs from). One time, I saw a photo of an artifact recovered from Roswell that was essentially a Pentium-like die. But the photo was taken in 1950! So much like the Coke bottle in the movie, we are only using alien technology at a fraction of it's capabilties. If we built a proper chip core based exactly on the Roswell cores (I believe they recovered 16 of these cores), it's likely that we would have a sentient computing system with a telephatic interface.
It still amazes me how many people there are who choose to remain ignorant of the truth when the evidence is out there. Trying to laugh off the truth by saying "Monkeys COULD fly out of my butt" simply illustrates your fear at accepting the truth. If you have a better explanation for these kinds of things, I'd like to hear it.
Troll? What kind of retard modded this? If anything it's funny. However, there is always the big question about the return of "Planet X" AKA Niburu... It COULD happen.
With the latest in electronica sounding much more pleasing than most guitar acts... ;P
I'm kidding. I love electronca more than guitars, but they still have their place. I play guitar in order to create interesting loops for use in electronica. Not to mention, I don't think any robotic musicians will gain a following like a human musician within our lifetimes. Maybe 200 years from now when the machines have advanced significantly, but not within the 21st century. Just look at what Max Headroom did in the 80s. He was a faked computer generated TV host that was more of a short lived fad than anything else. Even if it weren't faked today, this kind of thing never catches on.
I was speaking generally of the entire Slashdot community. ;P (I'm feeling cheeky today)
Most people (read *I*) use US and USA interchangably. That is because US is a shortening of USA. They are both the same thing. When people ask me where I'm from when I travel, I've been known to say "The United States" or "The United States of America". However, I usually just say "The United States" since it's shorter. When people ask me what I am in terms of nationality, I usually say "Citizen of the US". Of course, I really actually consider myself a World Citizen.
"The US" is a shortening of... (wait for it) "The United States of America". Bzzt!!! Wrong again in a long list of previous failures. ;P
Just take the laptop, plug it into a non-Internet connected network that has snort running on it. Watch for the DNS queries, ICMP, which ports are outgoing from the laptop, etc... It shouldn't be too hard to collect the needed info, write a "de-tracer" program to be installed on these types of laptops and POOF it's all yours. Not that I condone that sort of thing, but I'm simply putting out an example of how to break the system. You can't solve people problems with computer technology. If you want to cut down on laptop theft, do the following:
1. Don't let your laptop out of your sight. Ever.
2. Put the CPU (with a symbiotic identifier for your particular laptop) in a key fob that ensures it's a useless box unless your keys are stolen with it. (CPUs need to be smaller than they are. 1cm x 1cm is preferable)
3. Don't lose your fucking keys
I still remember Morgan dressed as a groovy 70s vampire on the Electric Company from when I was a kid. God I loved that show! Anyone else here remember that?
I will never understand why eye popping grosses some people out. When I see it, it just looks ridiculous. I'd say the fingernail thing is far worse because the guy has disfigured hands and has lost his hearing in one ear as a result. The eye popper just pushes her eyes back into their sockets and she's back in business. I have to imagine she's got really good peripheral vision though... ;P
Welcome to the 51 United States. 48 contiguous states, Alaska, Hawaii and the rest of the world. Speak out against your government and you're going to Gitmo.
Phhht!!! I don't eat Windows NT, it gives me gas.
This is the first wrinkle of the return of communism. I implore my fellow European white bretheren to stamp out the evil practice of communism. The people who supported being against software patents hate your freedom! They want to fund terrorist groups with intellectual property currency. Just imagine if guns were free. The terrorists would win.
Bahah!!! I didnt' vote for Bush! Either time! I only trust the governement when they are significantly different from corporations. Currently, the two are synonmous. Corporations are the primary evil and government is secondary unless coopted by corporations which they currently are. So you can't trust anyone. As far as individuals go, they're all corrupt. I don't trust you at all. And you shouldn't trust me. Only non-sentient frameworks are trustworthy. Machines are ultimately the most trustworthy as long as no humans are invovled. Learn about cubic time!! You are all singularity stupid!
Diristibuted systems are inherently insecure because yuo can't rust the source if it isn't centrally controlled/vefried. We need a system where the United Nations tracks our ID and centralizes it all on trusted diristibuted systemas. Then we can trust it because it willl be under the control of one governing body and still enjoy redundancy by virtue of multipel localations.
Wow. My absurdist sense of humor has proven to be too surreal for Slashdot once again. ;P
...am glad to see that David Allan has moved onto other things after his long career with M.A.S.H. in the 70s. ;P
This reminds me of a statement a former employer (in the audio production biz circa 1994) made to me. He was a hardcore Mac user and so was I, but I was moving to Windows because of cost. I told him that I'd been researching the set up of a DOS/Win 3.1 box and S.A.W. (Software Audio Workshop) for my home project studio. If I went with a Mac to do four track audio, I would have had to spend at least $10,000 to do four track audio with Digidesign ProTools. That would have been for a pretty paltry system. Seeing that I'd just spent $4000 on a PC including all the hardware and software I needed to do desktop publishing and the basics for audio, I figured that another $399 for S.A.W. was justifiable. I hated Win 3.1. But... I have to say that once I got the system tuned and S.A.W. and Cakewalk were set up, the system cranked out the tunes. Sure, it wasn't as elegant as the Mac, but I still was able to do work and got a few clients.
I told him about my early experiences and said how going from Windows to Macintosh for the OS and Protools/M.O.T.U./Studer to S.A.W./Cakewalk for the audio apps took "some getting used to". His response was, "If it takes some getting used to, then it's crap. Software should never take getting used to. You should just start using it and never have to look at the manual". At the time, I was a little annoyed because I saw this as a closed-minded approach to audio production. Yes, the Macintosh was far better at the work, but learning to do this stuff on Windows armed me to go much farther and blow away any Mac user in the audio realm. Not to mention that now that I do my audio work on Linux, I have a huge growing array of tools at my disposal. I think people who have the attitude that learning something new shouldn't require any... um... LEARNING are just plain stupid.
You must have missed that part. Not to mention, the original post was using the word "Linux" as if it is one individual entity and then proceeded to attack X.org and ALSA or Open Sound System. If they are going to be correct about their gripes, they should aim at the correct targets. Unless he's a Bush supporter who thinks that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. In that case, there is no hope for him.
Credit, where credit is due: Go here if you want to gripe about resolution issues.
And should I even mention the fiascos with various sound cards that you just didn't want to play nicely with?
Go here for support with your sound card.
Or of the hardware that you were supposed to be "known-good" on that you chose not to work with at the most inopportune moments?
Don't buy cheap hardware or anything newer than a year old. If you want bleeding-edge new stuff, stick with Windows or Mac OS.
Most of your gripes should actually be directed at the specific Linux *distribution* that you chose to use. The distribution choice is a whole religion unto itself. ;P Of course, I choose Fedora because it "just works" for me. My definition of "just works" = take the base distro and install it minimally. Hand compile everything I need. Tweak the system for what I need. Turn it into any of the following:
:)
1. GNOME Terminal Server
2. Thin client (using cheap wireless laptop)
3. PVR/Entertainment system
4. GASP!!! A desktop computer!!
Sorry, but it "just works" for me.
Here is what I've found in my own informal comparison back in 1998:
-Setting up a Windows 98 box to do everything I need: six hours and about $3000 worth of extra software. (I'm not a pirate, so I buy everything I need) Considering how a lot of the functionality included with Windows XP is low grade compared to full commercial products (ripping CDs, editing images and video, etc...) and the fact that software costs even more now, I'd have to spend at least $3000 extra to do the things I want.
-Setting up RedHat 7.0 to do everything I need: six days and $0 worth of extra software because RedHat 7.0 came with everything I needed at the time. Considering that Fedora Core 3 has moved lightyears beyond RH 7.0 it's only that much easier now. So the same setup might take me three days now and probably a lot less since my knowledge has improved since 1998.
That's the key to using any Linux distro. You have to dedicate the time to learning it. Keeping in mind that the trade-off is that you wind up spending very little to no money on software. I'd say that's a significant feature that Windows can't compete with. Mac OS is in a flux right new due to the IBM to Intel CPU switch. I wouldn't touch a Mac with a ten foot pole for the next two to five years. Granted Mac OS is beautiful and can host a lot of the apps I use in Linux now, it's not worth buying a box that's only going to last a few years. Currently my Linux based GNOME terminal server is a dual P II 233 with 768 Megs of RAM from 1998 and it runs just as well as a P4 running Windows XP Pro. It can do everything that a Windows XP box can and more. So, it does "just work".
This proves that messages that tell people about healthy lifestyles can improve people's health. Unless all of the "make big penis now" and "v1agr4 is teh bomb" and "urgent message from Uganda" and the racist crap from spam worms can somehow be considered "promoting a healthy lifestyle". Spam is the stuff we don't want. Messages promoting healthy lifestyles are what you will get if you subscribe to something that you wanted. At that point it's not unsolicited.