But after decades of deprivation compared to how life was pre-Castro, this is wearing more than a little thin.
I'm not saying things aren't bad in Cuba now, but if you think Cuba was a paradise before Castro came to power, one of us is very wrong. Perhaps this can be a bit of an eye opener. From what I know--and I might be wrong--those living under Batista were likely just as oppressed, and just as afraid of government retaliation for speaking out, as those living under Castro now.
Right, the other issue that is apparently not taken into consideration for ranking the severity of a bug is the install base/vulnerable base. In other words, if there's a bug in sshd on OSX, and most OSX desktops have sshd turned off by default, it's not a severe risk, even if the bug itself allows remote code execution as root. In comparison, the same bug on Linux is far more severe, since most Linux boxes, even desktops, run sshd.
Secunia appears not to have taken this into account when ranking bugs by severity, though we can't be sure from the report. What's critical, though, are holes not just in the default install, but in the common configuration. If sshd is vulnerable on OSX, and OSX doesn't run sshd often, yes, OSX is still vulnerable. It's not more secure than Linux, which may suffer the exact same vulnerability in the exact same sshd, but on the other hand, it's still less likely to be exploited.
By stating that if you do not believe Fahrenheit 9/11 to be a documentary then opponent does not understand what it is to be a documentary, poster is stating one of the following:
1. opponent is stupid (ad hominem) 2. opponent is uneducated (ad hominem) 3. opponent chose to believe false information (ad hominem)
I see. So if I say I disagree with you, it's an ad hominem attack because it implies you are stupid, uneducated, or believe false information?
You seem to mistakenly believe (and attempt to prove by a baseless assertion, since we're so fond of meta-talk here) that an ad hominem attack is any argument which implicitly insults an opponent, when in fact it is merely an argument which attempts to prove its correctness solely through insulting the opponent. In other words, if I tell you you are wrong about the definition of ad hominem, but back it up with, say, a definition, while I have implied that you are stupid or uneducated, I have not conducted an ad hominem, because that implication was not the main thrust of my argument.
"Widely accepted"? This is ad numeram or perhaps even ad verecundiam, depending on who is doing the "accepting".
Once again, we've somehow managed to retain our knowledge of Latin terms, but not their proper usage. You see, if you were arguing over some factual point such as whether or not Iraq had WMDs, or whether AIDS is a contagious virus, and his argument was, ``well, a lot of people seem to believe it, so it's probably accurate'', then your critique would be correct and justified. But in this instance, you are arguing over the meaning of a word--whether this film can rightfully be called a documentary--and so to make his case, it is perfectly legitimate to present what the majority opinion is on the meaning of that word (assuming we both accept that language is determined by the practitioners and not by the dictionary publishers; feel free to dispute with the parent as desired).
I've heard this repeatedly. Unfortunately, certain people aren't clear on what a documentary is. The relevant definition from "dict" (retrieved from WordNet) is "a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event." So if this were fiction, yes, it would not be a documentary. But assuming that Moore's film is factually correct but biased in what facts it presents, it is indeed a documentary.
You may not like it, and you don't have to agree with him. But why people think they are somehow impugning his credibility with the cry that this is not a documentary is beyond me. It just makes you sound silly.
You may be right that Bush never claimed a link between Iraq and September 11, but that link was nonetheless implied. Regardless, as the White House is quick to point out, they never said anything factually untrue (at least about this).
But as for whether there was a strong link between Iraq and al Qaeda, such a link is doubtful at best. I cannot say whether there was or wasn't, nor, most likely, can you. But considering how mixed the evidence is (with US and British intelligence officers accusing links of either no longer existing--due to mutual mistrust--or never have existing), I'd be a fool to believe what Bush says.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. And I didn't know that his attorney claims it was a heart attack (I just knew the causes of death were ``unknown'').
Got a source? 'Cause I got a whole damn lot saying that there's no link that we know of. Of course, lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, but until I see otherwise, I'm going to have to go with the most likely position, which is that Bush'n'Co made the whole fucking thing up. Not saying Saddam wasn't a bad guy who should be stopped. But we were lied to, we were brought to war under false pretenses, and we, as a nation, have been made responsible for horrible things that none of us ever wanted.
You're right that he was an Afghan and not an Iraqi, but according to ABC, ``Abdul Wali went to a U.S. base in Afghanistan on his own accord and surrendered to authorities. They suspected him of participating in rocket attacks against the base and he wanted to clear things up.''
Whether or not he was truly a civilian, of course, remains to be seen. But given that he voluntarily surrendered in order to ``clear things up''? I give him the benefit of the doubt. At least enough to refrain from beating him to death.
Some (not I) would say you're doing your part to help rebuild. I find it much more likely you're doing your part to help line a government contractor's wallet (the likes of Halliburton).
As a contractor, you also aren't required to go to the front lines and shoot people (although to be fair, there seems to be multiple uses of the word contracter; the one being this use, the other being people such as the CIA civilian ``contractor'' being charged for beating an Iraqi civilian to death).
You know, it's kind of shocking how much high school science one can forget. Don't I feel foolish.
Anyway, I believe you are still somewhat mistaken, but correct me if I'm way off base here. I just read over this to jog my memory a bit.;) Lightning, if I'm not mistaken, does not require two seperate connections to complete a circuit; instead, a path of ionized air particals provides a path of low resistance for both the positive charge on the ground and the negative charge in the clouds; the electrons that have built up in the clouds (the potential difference stored there, just as in a capacitor) then flow over the path of least resistance to balance the charge differential. In a similar manner, an ionized path (or stream of conducive fibers) between the high-potential negatively-charged weapon and the positively-charged ground would cause the electrons to flow over that path of least resistence, similar to lightning striking the intended victim.
I'm no expert, but if it's using a capacitor, isn't that just like lighting or static electricity? The capacitor has a region of high potential and it jumps over the ionized path of least resistance to the person and through him to the ground, since the ground is a region of low potential. No need to complete a circuit, since it's not a circuit; it's a draining of potential. I think? I don't do EE.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The point I was making is that while there are certainly instances where the authors don't bother to write docs, there are plenty where they're just still too busy working on the release (or none of them are good technical writers). You probably wouldn't complain about someone making a beta pre-release of their software available, so in this instance it's no different.
I do agree with you about the prioritization of doc-writing, but it's hard to find people who are good at it. On the other hand, could I be so bold as to suggest you contribute docs, then? I recently spent probably 10 hours reading through the Gentoo security guide and fixing various syntactic and grammatical errors, simply to make it more clear. I added content, but what took up most of my time was simply clarifying wording. Even if you aren't an expert, if you can write--and for perspective, compared to many on Slashdot, your post is more than readable;)--you can help out.
It really depends on what you're doing. For something as mature as Samba, you should be able to get docs (and in fact you can--I know, because I've read and used them). But for some new software, the code is beta or done, but the docs have to wait. A good example of this is the 2.6 IPSec implementation. I tried to use it with ipsec-tools and easily got transport mode working, but found virtually no documentation on tunnel mode. I ultimately gave up and went with FreeBSD.
Point is, most commercial software isn't released if it's not documented (not always the case, of course). But Open Source you get when you get it. If it's not done, it's not done but you can still download it. If it's done but the docs aren't, nobody holds the release up. C'est la vie.
"What's worst, attacks on the spatial browser try to stop the innovation."
You're right. This article is stupid. Just because someone doesn't like a particular innovation doesn't make him somehow anti-innovation. Or perhaps we're just not hip enough to get it.
You know, I highly doubt you speak for BSD users as a group any more than the idiots posting about how Linux is better speak for Linux users as a group.
Guess what? I use FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, and OSX. Not on the same machine, of course. Each useful for something, and really, that's what software is for. Engineers choose the best tool for the job. Only idiots choose a tool based on how cool they think it is, and I find frequently that those who brag most about what OS they use do so not because they have a good reason for using it, but in fact because they don't. Bragging results from their idological reasons for using their chosen software; had they real reasons, they would understand that others have real reasons for using other software.
Point: I use Mac OSX on my laptop. Why? Because it has desktop software I want to use and it functions smoothly and reliably. When time means something, graphical one-click installers are kinda nice, and because the hardware--Powerbooks are sweet--isn't as well supported in other OSes. I use Linux on my desktop. Why? Because I like the software available, I know my way around it, and I find myself more productive in it. I also code for Linux, so it's important I have a machine that runs what I write. I run FreeBSD on my server. Why? Because it runs faster and more reliably on the old hardware I have, and generally requires fewer software patches than Linux. I used to run OpenBSD on that machine, in fact, but found the performance hit wasn't worth it. However, I chose OpenBSD for embedded access-point use, because of the few patches needed--upgrading software on a 25MB diskonmodule is a bitch--and the excellent VPN impelementation.
So you can see, there are reasons for using each OS in it's own environment. Tell me differently.
Regarding Stern; first, I don't really see what this has to do with the RIAA (granted, censorship is censorship, but the motivation for censoring Stern is quite different from that of the RIAA). Stern's case, if anything, is quite a bit worse; where the RIAA is hampering people through an abuse of the civil court system, the FCC is actually using government-granted power to clamp down on him.
Also, you mention that he's gone, but he's still got an audience of millions. Clear Channel was not the only network carrying him, and as long as he has fans, he'll have a broadcaster, I think.
That's a good point. I hadn't considered this. Nonetheless, in some simple form, plenty of games do do matte surfaces. And they don't seem to be doing any sort of reflectivity to the point that it slows them down at all (they don't seem to be doing much ray scattering or anything like that). But like I said, I don't know much about video games. Could be wrong.
Actually, a ``matte'' texture should be a lot less computationally expensive. Think lambert in Maya instead of a blinn or anistropic. I don't know what rendering method most games use, but a non-reflective texture--or less reflective--will have fewer rays to trace if you are doing ray tracing. Realism doesn't have a lot to do with that, I don't think; the big issue is coming up with a realistic texture map and bump map.
Of course, for something like a pre-rendered movie, you can do far more advanced techniques, but I think things like subsurface scattering are a ways away for realtime graphics yet.
So in short, I haven't noticed that video games all have shiny human skin textures, but I am not much of a gamer, either. But if that is the case, it shouldn't be due to computational limitations.
Actually, I'm using it now at the lab where I'm forced to use Windows. Perhaps I need to learn more to use the advanced features before I can make a fair judgement, but in my opinion, an IDE shouldn't be a skill to manage in and of itself. And IDE should simply make it easier to use your coding skills.
In fact, I saw a resume yesterday in which the writer listed `Emacs' and `VisualStudio' as skills. Cut me a freakin' break. He might as well list `InternetExplorer' and `Computer Mouse'.
In all seriousness, some people appreciate an IDE and some don't. I've moved from one to another and never really took the time to learn the advanced features of any of them. Perhaps that's not a fair assessment then, but as I said, the reason I stick with Linux isn't because its unilaterally better, but because it's what I'm familiar with. Same thing for VisualStudio, it's not that Emacs is better, but it is a familiarity thing.
People who use pirated software don't get updates, security patches (sometimes), support, and of course run the risk of getting sued.
These risks clearly aren't taken seriously by most pirates--of which there are many, perhaps nearly as many as Linux users (I have no idea about the statistics, and the BSA likes to blow things out of proportion, but I suspect there is a somewhat significant percentage of all desktops running pirated software).
As for reasons getting Windows installed on a Dell sucks:
So? There hasn't been a new version of Windows in years. And I don't get that on my Mac, either (well, I might, because I have a developer subscription, but most people don't).
I believe that comes pre-loaded with the OEM install. It's also available as a site-license for me, and probably many other university students, and probably from many ISPs. The grand-parent poster was a college student.
Buy? The two most popular anti-spyware applications are both free: adaware and spybot S&D.
Dozens? Like what? Browsers? Try Mozilla or Firefox. Mail clients? Eudora has a free version (and is available in the full version in a site-license, once again). Thunderbird is also free. Mozilla is free. Instant messaging? Try AIM or GAIM. Office? Try OpenOffice. I can think of nearly no free desktop software available for Linux or UNIX that hasn't got a free Windows equivalent.
Honestly, I don't see any good reasons you present. The best is the one about pirating, but most people don't have to pirate, because Windows comes with their machine. As I said, Linux is simply a more familiar environment for me; I'm more efficient with it. But there's no really good financial incentive, for me, at least, to use it. Nor for most others, I think, as I showed above.
This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. While my current desktop was custom-built, previously--and probably much of the time in the future--I bought and will buy machines from an OEM. It's simply faster, easier, and generally as cheap, if not cheaper (of course, with your own custom build, you get what you want, you know the components are good, and so forth). But I don't really enjoy hardware enough to get a thrill from building a machine.
Anyway, when I get an OEM, I get Windows. Additionally, at my university, I can get Windows licenses for free (site license) with minimal hassle. So price is hardly a sticking point (of course, I have become used to free software enough that having to mess about with license authentication and so forth is still a big hassle).
On top of that, I know literally nobody, I think, who does not pirate (other than myself). So if the vast majority of students are willing and able to get Windows for free, legally or not, why do some choose not to? Perhaps you are unwilling to pirate Windows, and I commend you, but likely it came with your computer (and if not, the educational version of XP is under $100).
I personally use Linux, FreeBSD,and MacOS X because I prefer the environment. I've been working on Windows machines in the lab I work in, and it's painful. For development, I've heard VisualStudio is supposed to be great. But I'd say give me grep and Emacs any day. I've tried Cygwin. It's installed here. But it still just isn't really the same.
I think security is my number one concern, but it's a concern with Linux, too. Despite the zealotry, Linux security is hard to do well. Sure, you don't have to worry about worms as much, but in all honesty if someone were deliberately aiming for my machine, can I be sure it would hold up? Probably not. That's not to say one can't do Linux security; by dint of being open source, I have a plethora of options like PaX, GRSec, and SELinux to choose from. But I don't personally think many Linux users are as ``secure by default'' as they might think.
Stability might be a close second, but I've had some complaints with OS X (which I've only been using for a few months) and my experiences with WinXP show it to be a big improvement in that regard over previous versions.
Familiarity, then, is what takes the cake. On a UNIX-ish system, I am at home. On Windows? ``Where can I find the button to do this?''
Because that's a hassle. That's essentially what a debit card does now (you contact your bank over an allegedly trusted device, the card reader, view the amount to be charged, and punch in your PIN to signify acceptance). The problem here is twofold: the time this takes leads me to use credit more often than debit, and the security gained is minimal, since someone could simply swipe my card through a hacked reader.
Providing trusted communication becomes a whole lot more difficult. Smart cards make it simple, of course, by providing a challenge-response style authentication that cannot be broken by swiping the card and storing it's contents as with a simple magnetic credit card, but what that comes down to is the cost. Not for me, but for the issuer.
Sure, I'd gladly punch in a PIN instead of signing. But the cost of rolling out readers would be millions, quite possibly more than the cost of a few stolen cards. Regardless, why should I care much about the security of my card, my account information, and so forth? If my card is stolen, I'm not responsible for a penny (and even with the crappiest credit card company I'm not responsible for more than $50), and if the bank is robbed, I'm not responsible for anything. Sure, it's a hassle to report a stolen credit card, and even more worrysome, some people may not even notice false bills at first, but the burden on any interested party is hardly great enough to make anyone care.
If I'm not mistaken, EPS is just built on PostScript (hence the acronym, Encapsulated PostScript). Anywhere EPS is accepted, PS is likely to be as well, although I don't believe you could say the reverse (though I doubt anyone would have a problem with either). Point being that EPS, as far as I know, provides little benefit over PostScript in terms of compatibility or features (you can export Illustrator to PS, if I'm not mistaken--but I may be). Meanwhile, there aren't any common browser plugins for browser-based viewing of EPS the way there is with SVG, so it's not really great for web-use.
I can't come up with a great reason to abandon EPS--I don't know a lot about it or it's limitations--but SVG does at least do a couple of things EPS does not.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not saying things aren't bad in Cuba now, but if you think Cuba was a paradise before Castro came to power, one of us is very wrong. Perhaps this can be a bit of an eye opener. From what I know--and I might be wrong--those living under Batista were likely just as oppressed, and just as afraid of government retaliation for speaking out, as those living under Castro now.
Right, the other issue that is apparently not taken into consideration for ranking the severity of a bug is the install base/vulnerable base. In other words, if there's a bug in sshd on OSX, and most OSX desktops have sshd turned off by default, it's not a severe risk, even if the bug itself allows remote code execution as root. In comparison, the same bug on Linux is far more severe, since most Linux boxes, even desktops, run sshd.
Secunia appears not to have taken this into account when ranking bugs by severity, though we can't be sure from the report. What's critical, though, are holes not just in the default install, but in the common configuration. If sshd is vulnerable on OSX, and OSX doesn't run sshd often, yes, OSX is still vulnerable. It's not more secure than Linux, which may suffer the exact same vulnerability in the exact same sshd, but on the other hand, it's still less likely to be exploited.
Or maybe they did mention this and I missed it?
By stating that if you do not believe Fahrenheit 9/11 to be a documentary then opponent does not understand what it is to be a documentary, poster is stating one of the following:
1. opponent is stupid (ad hominem)
2. opponent is uneducated (ad hominem)
3. opponent chose to believe false information (ad hominem)
I see. So if I say I disagree with you, it's an ad hominem attack because it implies you are stupid, uneducated, or believe false information?
You seem to mistakenly believe (and attempt to prove by a baseless assertion, since we're so fond of meta-talk here) that an ad hominem attack is any argument which implicitly insults an opponent, when in fact it is merely an argument which attempts to prove its correctness solely through insulting the opponent. In other words, if I tell you you are wrong about the definition of ad hominem, but back it up with, say, a definition, while I have implied that you are stupid or uneducated, I have not conducted an ad hominem, because that implication was not the main thrust of my argument.
"Widely accepted"? This is ad numeram or perhaps even ad verecundiam, depending on who is doing the "accepting".
Once again, we've somehow managed to retain our knowledge of Latin terms, but not their proper usage. You see, if you were arguing over some factual point such as whether or not Iraq had WMDs, or whether AIDS is a contagious virus, and his argument was, ``well, a lot of people seem to believe it, so it's probably accurate'', then your critique would be correct and justified. But in this instance, you are arguing over the meaning of a word--whether this film can rightfully be called a documentary--and so to make his case, it is perfectly legitimate to present what the majority opinion is on the meaning of that word (assuming we both accept that language is determined by the practitioners and not by the dictionary publishers; feel free to dispute with the parent as desired).
See? Isn't debating fun?
You may not like it, and you don't have to agree with him. But why people think they are somehow impugning his credibility with the cry that this is not a documentary is beyond me. It just makes you sound silly.
But as for whether there was a strong link between Iraq and al Qaeda, such a link is doubtful at best. I cannot say whether there was or wasn't, nor, most likely, can you. But considering how mixed the evidence is (with US and British intelligence officers accusing links of either no longer existing--due to mutual mistrust--or never have existing), I'd be a fool to believe what Bush says.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. And I didn't know that his attorney claims it was a heart attack (I just knew the causes of death were ``unknown'').
But I'm getting a bit off topic.
Whether or not he was truly a civilian, of course, remains to be seen. But given that he voluntarily surrendered in order to ``clear things up''? I give him the benefit of the doubt. At least enough to refrain from beating him to death.
I fully agree that violent fanatics need to be stopped, be they Muslim suicide bombers or Christian crusaders in the guise of American patriots.
Some (not I) would say you're doing your part to help rebuild. I find it much more likely you're doing your part to help line a government contractor's wallet (the likes of Halliburton).
Anyway, I believe you are still somewhat mistaken, but correct me if I'm way off base here. I just read over this to jog my memory a bit. ;) Lightning, if I'm not mistaken, does not require two seperate connections to complete a circuit; instead, a path of ionized air particals provides a path of low resistance for both the positive charge on the ground and the negative charge in the clouds; the electrons that have built up in the clouds (the potential difference stored there, just as in a capacitor) then flow over the path of least resistance to balance the charge differential. In a similar manner, an ionized path (or stream of conducive fibers) between the high-potential negatively-charged weapon and the positively-charged ground would cause the electrons to flow over that path of least resistence, similar to lightning striking the intended victim.
Sounds plausible, but am I way off?
I'm no expert, but if it's using a capacitor, isn't that just like lighting or static electricity? The capacitor has a region of high potential and it jumps over the ionized path of least resistance to the person and through him to the ground, since the ground is a region of low potential. No need to complete a circuit, since it's not a circuit; it's a draining of potential. I think? I don't do EE.
I do agree with you about the prioritization of doc-writing, but it's hard to find people who are good at it. On the other hand, could I be so bold as to suggest you contribute docs, then? I recently spent probably 10 hours reading through the Gentoo security guide and fixing various syntactic and grammatical errors, simply to make it more clear. I added content, but what took up most of my time was simply clarifying wording. Even if you aren't an expert, if you can write--and for perspective, compared to many on Slashdot, your post is more than readable ;)--you can help out.
Point is, most commercial software isn't released if it's not documented (not always the case, of course). But Open Source you get when you get it. If it's not done, it's not done but you can still download it. If it's done but the docs aren't, nobody holds the release up. C'est la vie.
You're right. This article is stupid. Just because someone doesn't like a particular innovation doesn't make him somehow anti-innovation. Or perhaps we're just not hip enough to get it.
Guess what? I use FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, and OSX. Not on the same machine, of course. Each useful for something, and really, that's what software is for. Engineers choose the best tool for the job. Only idiots choose a tool based on how cool they think it is, and I find frequently that those who brag most about what OS they use do so not because they have a good reason for using it, but in fact because they don't. Bragging results from their idological reasons for using their chosen software; had they real reasons, they would understand that others have real reasons for using other software.
Point: I use Mac OSX on my laptop. Why? Because it has desktop software I want to use and it functions smoothly and reliably. When time means something, graphical one-click installers are kinda nice, and because the hardware--Powerbooks are sweet--isn't as well supported in other OSes. I use Linux on my desktop. Why? Because I like the software available, I know my way around it, and I find myself more productive in it. I also code for Linux, so it's important I have a machine that runs what I write. I run FreeBSD on my server. Why? Because it runs faster and more reliably on the old hardware I have, and generally requires fewer software patches than Linux. I used to run OpenBSD on that machine, in fact, but found the performance hit wasn't worth it. However, I chose OpenBSD for embedded access-point use, because of the few patches needed--upgrading software on a 25MB diskonmodule is a bitch--and the excellent VPN impelementation.
So you can see, there are reasons for using each OS in it's own environment. Tell me differently.
Regarding Stern; first, I don't really see what this has to do with the RIAA (granted, censorship is censorship, but the motivation for censoring Stern is quite different from that of the RIAA). Stern's case, if anything, is quite a bit worse; where the RIAA is hampering people through an abuse of the civil court system, the FCC is actually using government-granted power to clamp down on him.
Also, you mention that he's gone, but he's still got an audience of millions. Clear Channel was not the only network carrying him, and as long as he has fans, he'll have a broadcaster, I think.
That's a good point. I hadn't considered this. Nonetheless, in some simple form, plenty of games do do matte surfaces. And they don't seem to be doing any sort of reflectivity to the point that it slows them down at all (they don't seem to be doing much ray scattering or anything like that). But like I said, I don't know much about video games. Could be wrong.
Of course, for something like a pre-rendered movie, you can do far more advanced techniques, but I think things like subsurface scattering are a ways away for realtime graphics yet.
So in short, I haven't noticed that video games all have shiny human skin textures, but I am not much of a gamer, either. But if that is the case, it shouldn't be due to computational limitations.
In fact, I saw a resume yesterday in which the writer listed `Emacs' and `VisualStudio' as skills. Cut me a freakin' break. He might as well list `InternetExplorer' and `Computer Mouse'.
In all seriousness, some people appreciate an IDE and some don't. I've moved from one to another and never really took the time to learn the advanced features of any of them. Perhaps that's not a fair assessment then, but as I said, the reason I stick with Linux isn't because its unilaterally better, but because it's what I'm familiar with. Same thing for VisualStudio, it's not that Emacs is better, but it is a familiarity thing.
These risks clearly aren't taken seriously by most pirates--of which there are many, perhaps nearly as many as Linux users (I have no idea about the statistics, and the BSA likes to blow things out of proportion, but I suspect there is a somewhat significant percentage of all desktops running pirated software).
As for reasons getting Windows installed on a Dell sucks:
Honestly, I don't see any good reasons you present. The best is the one about pirating, but most people don't have to pirate, because Windows comes with their machine. As I said, Linux is simply a more familiar environment for me; I'm more efficient with it. But there's no really good financial incentive, for me, at least, to use it. Nor for most others, I think, as I showed above.
Anyway, when I get an OEM, I get Windows. Additionally, at my university, I can get Windows licenses for free (site license) with minimal hassle. So price is hardly a sticking point (of course, I have become used to free software enough that having to mess about with license authentication and so forth is still a big hassle).
On top of that, I know literally nobody, I think, who does not pirate (other than myself). So if the vast majority of students are willing and able to get Windows for free, legally or not, why do some choose not to? Perhaps you are unwilling to pirate Windows, and I commend you, but likely it came with your computer (and if not, the educational version of XP is under $100).
I personally use Linux, FreeBSD,and MacOS X because I prefer the environment. I've been working on Windows machines in the lab I work in, and it's painful. For development, I've heard VisualStudio is supposed to be great. But I'd say give me grep and Emacs any day. I've tried Cygwin. It's installed here. But it still just isn't really the same.
I think security is my number one concern, but it's a concern with Linux, too. Despite the zealotry, Linux security is hard to do well. Sure, you don't have to worry about worms as much, but in all honesty if someone were deliberately aiming for my machine, can I be sure it would hold up? Probably not. That's not to say one can't do Linux security; by dint of being open source, I have a plethora of options like PaX, GRSec, and SELinux to choose from. But I don't personally think many Linux users are as ``secure by default'' as they might think.
Stability might be a close second, but I've had some complaints with OS X (which I've only been using for a few months) and my experiences with WinXP show it to be a big improvement in that regard over previous versions.
Familiarity, then, is what takes the cake. On a UNIX-ish system, I am at home. On Windows? ``Where can I find the button to do this?''
Providing trusted communication becomes a whole lot more difficult. Smart cards make it simple, of course, by providing a challenge-response style authentication that cannot be broken by swiping the card and storing it's contents as with a simple magnetic credit card, but what that comes down to is the cost. Not for me, but for the issuer.
Sure, I'd gladly punch in a PIN instead of signing. But the cost of rolling out readers would be millions, quite possibly more than the cost of a few stolen cards. Regardless, why should I care much about the security of my card, my account information, and so forth? If my card is stolen, I'm not responsible for a penny (and even with the crappiest credit card company I'm not responsible for more than $50), and if the bank is robbed, I'm not responsible for anything. Sure, it's a hassle to report a stolen credit card, and even more worrysome, some people may not even notice false bills at first, but the burden on any interested party is hardly great enough to make anyone care.
I can't come up with a great reason to abandon EPS--I don't know a lot about it or it's limitations--but SVG does at least do a couple of things EPS does not.