ah ok so since he is immensely wealthy, the sheer size of his donation is not very impressive, since he'll hardly miss it....whereas if he were say middle class and gave a significant percentage of his pay away to charity you would be more impressed?
you should be careful with that vaguely christian ideal, lest you get banninated from the intarwebs for not being an atheist. or at least stay off digg.
in any case bill gates is lucky to have been the right guy, in the right place, at the right time, with the right ideas. american dream all the way i think, i dont fault him for it. im glad he at least realizes he doesnt personally need all the money and is willing to put in some effort to see that some of it gets to people who do. besides that, what the heck is people's big problem with vista anyway?? i have vista at home and it works great, (ok not great, but just as well as XP did anyway). god freaking forbid people have to install a few new drivers, i think all these vista haters are either just jumping on the anti-vista bandwagon, and have never tried it themselves, or are a bunch of incompetants and whiners who don't feel like doing even the most basic system admin tasks. i just dont understand how a community which is so progressive in most ways is anachronistic about the very thing they make their living at.
i think it's naive to think that the us gov couldnt do that anyway if they wanted. we run the root servers, us military designed the internet, i think they understand how it works, and i think they could effectively shut somebody down if they really wanted to. the thing is, they wont, because regardless of how it's done, it would be obvious, and would make us look like really bad guys. even if it's as pedestrian as explosives on the cables, i think that possibility exists, and if not, id be wondering why not. one of the first things we should do in any conflict is cut off an enemy's communications, and that includes the internet.
actually we of course were the first to shoot down a satellite, so in some sense perhaps they were simply playing catch-up. although, the advantage of the chinese system is that the missile can be launched from the ground. the real issue was that since the 80's there has been a moratorium on anti-satellite weapon research, and china clearly violated that. see here for info on the US test: http://www.voughtaircraft.com/heritage/products/ht ml/asat.html
"Like other fuel cells, the sugar battery contains enzymes that convert fuel - in this case, sugar - into electricity, leaving behind water as a main byproduct."
lol, so if you had a laptop powered by sugar, both you and your laptop would have to get up and "go" after a long gaming session and lots of soda:-)
for the record, i had this idea a while ago, but am not smart/rich enough to have built one. oh well, at least somebody else actually did it, so maybe down the line i can buy one:-)
you need your very own godwin-rule like forum law named after you. the moosesocks rule, when you mention the iraq war for no reason other than to derail the conversation...
as for the article, i read it, and all i could think is "how incredibly stupid!" i mean, what happens if you drop it? is that a million bucks just totally blown? not to mention all of the way more interesting and better things that could be done with a million dollars. for 1 mil it better get up and make me some freakin coffee when i ask it to.
i like your option 1. that's an angle I've not yet really tried. all the same, I wish we had some more high tech industry in PA. I hear New York's tech industy is developing, at least that way I could stay on the east coast.
every time i see an article like this i wonder, are people on the west coast just drowning in tech jobs or what? over here in PA it seems to be pretty competitive.... perhaps its just that i dont work in healthcare, which seems to be the only industry that matters here...
Give it about 6 months to a year. by then the install base for vista will probably exceed that for OSX. As much as it gets dissed, vista does have something to offer gamers, and pc users in general. honestly almost none of it seems useful for businesses, but the media center features and the look n' feel upgrade are a plus for home use, and of course DX10, once we have some games. Crysis by itself was enough to convince me to upgrade, plus since i was building a new box anyway, why not. I did have serious driver issues though, so for now, it's true that vista upgrades on your own (not pre-installed from dell or whatnot) are not for the faint of heart. MANY MANY drivers are just not ready yet; they either don't exist, or don't function. However, in almost 2 weeks use, I've yet to experience any issues that weren't DIRECTLY driver related. No BSOD's, and no lockups. Just some non-functional NIC's.
As far as games, WoW, All my steam games(CS, CS:Source, HL2, etc..), Dawn of war, and UT2004 all work great. I haven't tried any Q3 engine games yet, you could be right about them. I guess i'll find out! Hopefully these Driver issues will be ameliorated soon, it's really kind of stupid that with such a long public beta for Vista NVidia and ATI couldn't get their act together... I have noticed that a few OpenGL-based desktop apps I run like Milkshape and Unwrap3d which did not function initially could be remedied with the Mesa Dll's from the Milkshape site. Not sure if that technique has applications for actual games. Doubt it, since even though they are functional, If I load up a model full screen in milkshape the performance is sort of unnaturally poor.
Honestly though, didn't we all go through the same thing when we first installed Win2k?? I know I did, and so far, my experience has been less painful than that one was....
more pointedly, depending on the individual culture of the company, a truly inordinate number of upper management types come from either a sales, or accounting background. you don't see a lot of engineers, designers, or customer service people at the top either. in my company there isn't a single VP who wasn't in sales. most of them STARTED in sales, there is one guy who began in collections and moved to sales. goes without saying the CEO was of course in sales too. I have always figured it was based on control of the income. while CIOs, coders, accountants, collections, engineers, etc make the business WORK, its the sales guys that actually most directly appear to "make money come in". therefore, they kind of steal the show in the eyes of the stockholders/owners/whatever and get all the credit for selling the product the engineers made, using the systems the coders built, by following the leads the marketers dug up. hence, they get first recognition for promotion. in other companies of a more conservative bent, they want somebody who will make sure the money, once here, is well spent, and well managed (banks, insurance, funds) so they go for an accountant.
i find it hilarious watching people defend this steaming-pile-of-crap bill just because they can't bear to admit that maybe the democrats can be the bad guys sometimes too. the redefinition of "paid" necessitated the death of this stupid bill, and I am personally damn glad it's gone. the resurgence of the democratic party is in large part DUE to grassroots and blogging efforts, but now that they have control back they stab those communities in the back?? yeh, uhm, NO. now if they want to send it back up, sans "paid" redefinition, to try and reign in the REAL astroturfing, then maybe it deserves a second look. till then, good riddance.
darn Skippy. honestly this is just stupidity. these people are scientists. use the facts to convince them, that should be sufficient. how the hell can science function if people are forbidden to ever question certain "truths"?? I've no doubt global warming is occurring (more often I've heard the RATE it is occurring at being debated, not so much its existence), but this thing is totally wrongheaded.
in all likelihood they had contestants sign a waiver to head off any possibility of lawsuit. all the same, the DJ's will probably be fired due to the obvious bad PR this will result in. I like a funny radio show as much as the next guy, but all too frequently these stupid stunts don't go well. of course, to me, _EVER_ is TOO FREQUENT. why not just stick to the fart jokes and silly noises. trivia contests are nice too. if you must, maybe do some stunts with the staff, put only themselves at risk. inevitably, when you involve the audience somebody just wants to win so bad that they go beyond their limits and get hurt. if you take a look at the wikipedia article, it points out that it's not actually all that hard to end up with water intoxication, so somebody at that station should have done their homework before running this contest. even if they aren't criminally liable, its potentially grounds for a civil suit due to their possible negligence in assessing the safety of this contest.
is never underestimate a hardcore geek with a little equipment and a decent block of vacation time....
people have been xeroxing books for like 40 years and nobody ever made such a stink as the mpaa and riaa have. their whole thing is so wrongheaded, if they would spend all those legal fees and lawyer salaries on hiring better directors/writers/actors their profits would skyrocket. its not piracy that loses them profits, it's SHITTY PRODUCTS.
heh the very idea that terrorists could possibly do something to a satellite after launch makes me laugh. i mean did it go like this?
Osama - "OK Zawawhatshisname, show me this big plan you have for taking out the satellites of the great satan?" ZAWA - "ok, basically we strap a bomb to young Uday here..." Osama - "ok, not bad so far, pretty standard, then what?" Zawa - "then we have this big slingshot and...." Osama - "whoa whoa waitasec.... are you serious??" Zawa - "yeh, well he gets in then we tie the camels to the basket and..." Osama - "what somebody cracks the whip and pulls a string c'mon man!! Is this what I pay you for?!?!" Zawa - "well, I..." Osama - "You're fired..." Zawa - "but..." Osama - "dude, just...leave...ok?!"
nah...my spidey sense tell me it was a launch damage f-up or micrometeorite, something normal like that. maybe even a bug, a software glitch like the poor MGS or polar lander (inches, meters, what being difference?!?!? haha!!)
please complete this sentence for me, "I hate my best customers because..."
one more...
"I deserve over 80% of the profits from the sales of other people's artistic works because...."
thanks, I'm here all week....
artists should get tech savvy, and sell their music direct to the consumer. any fly by night company can print you a couple thousand CD's a week, then just put em up on your site and use paypal or something to collect your money. better yet, why can't they make their own distribution deal with apple to offer their music on itunes? cut out all these bullshit publishers and middlemen. most of the people who pirate music anyway just dont wanna have to scour around the store or pay for a bunch of "value added" crap they don't want. just give em the music they want for a low price, and i think most people will pay it.
yeh i got it, so my refusal to believe in something not yet proven by science makes me stupid? have they ever been able to create a living organism from non-living matter in a lab?
i didn't think so. maybe when and if they do i will consider re-evaluating my opinion. until then, i remain skeptical.
whoa whoa whoa back up dude. i NEVER said we should stop teaching evolution. i never said we should teach religion in schools. i merely complained that threads about evolution on slashdot frequently degenerate to bashing religious people. of any flavor, not just Christians. i do not intend to deny anything to anyone. dont put words in my mouth.
did you even read my post or did you just knee-jerk out this flame huh???
shhhh...
don't challenge the group-think. It makes the atheists ornery.
seriously, every time anything about evolution is brought up it starts a huge religious-bashing flamefest, with little if no representation from a religious viewpoint. as far as slashdot is concerned religious folks are not welcome. the comments are not predominantly rational argument, they VERY rapidly become little more than slurs, accusations of stupidity, and insults. the best part is that those who use offensive language don't get modded down. usually, its the already oppressed minority opinion that gets called "flamebait" or "troll" for being different.
flame me/mod down if you want, it just proves i'm right....
and so the _blatant_ non-atheist bashing commences. not that there wasn't plenty in the earlier posts, yours just had the most "oomph" to it.
//just don't wanna be first in line for the lions ///darwin never said life came from inanimate matter, which is the crux of the creationist argument IMHOP, regardless of which form of it one chooses. regardless if it was 7 days or 7 billion years i just don't buy it that a bunch of muck and volcanic ash suddenly sprang to life and formed cells totally randomly.
heh yeh, but being modded down for challenging the group-think gets frustrating after a while. one of the things that gets ignored frequently is that everyone is entitled to an opinion, however much you disagree with it.
back to the actual topic: if they do this game right, i think it will kick ass. i loved firefly, and its a great setting for a sci-fi MMO. however, firefly has some rabid fans, and if this games sucks, they will _crucify_ this company for f'ing up firefly..
if the employment state in india is bad, I welcome them to come here! it's a way better solution than outsourcing our jobs there. let them come here, and apply for citizenship, get visas, and get some jobs! bring your whole family if you can. this way you can all do the same, and keep the money here to help boost our economy. the only trouble with high immigration is if the influx of immigrants we get are poorly educated. As I understand it, in India, most college educated folks can speak a form of british english, have studied pretty extensively, and could provide some skilled labor and technical and managerial experience of value to our economy.
I will say however, if immigrants wish to come here, they should learn to speak good english if they cannot already. How can you possibly expect to get by in a new country without understanding and at least being mostly-fluent in the common language?
I think we should welcome all who wish to come here to work, and we should provide the language training and efficient immigration procedures to make it work. but as with all of us, there should never be a free ride. no welfare, no SSI, no free lunch unless you have already lived and worked in the USA as a citizen for a good period of time. maybe make it work like how you get "vested" for your 401K yknow? as long as people are coming to _WORK_ i think it's a good thing.
if somebody in the know has spent enough time to customize their own install image for linux, using openoffice, evolution, firefox, GNOME, etc... you can make it very windows-like. however, potentially, aside from the time spent configuring that install image, (which if you do things proper you would have spent working up a ghost image with windows anyway) the difference is about $300. that custom ubuntu image you worked up (or whatever distro you based it on) cost nothing but time. that windows license however, costs money. if you are in a position where you want to provide only basic desktop computing, but cash is tight (in many areas, education is a perfect example of this), for the user, making the jump to linux should be pretty easy. more often, the factor making this difficult is the shortage of IT people with the linux skills to make this happen. windows admins are everywhere, microsoft certifies them by the dozens. finding real experienced unix/linux talent is another matter. since, in general, _demand_ for serious unix/linux talent is more scarce, so is that talent. in my company I am the only person with any significant unix or linux experience, yet, all our webservers and our email server run various flavors of linux. I'm not trying to say my co-workers cant do anything with the systems, but they only know how to use the webmin interface/shell scripts/etc I have set up for them to make it easier. If they actually had to sit down at a command prompt and figure something out, they would be pretty lost.
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oh wow ok cool, i had never heard of that one.
ah ok so since he is immensely wealthy, the sheer size of his donation is not very impressive, since he'll hardly miss it....whereas if he were say middle class and gave a significant percentage of his pay away to charity you would be more impressed?
you should be careful with that vaguely christian ideal, lest you get banninated from the intarwebs for not being an atheist. or at least stay off digg.
in any case bill gates is lucky to have been the right guy, in the right place, at the right time, with the right ideas. american dream all the way i think, i dont fault him for it. im glad he at least realizes he doesnt personally need all the money and is willing to put in some effort to see that some of it gets to people who do.
besides that, what the heck is people's big problem with vista anyway?? i have vista at home and it works great, (ok not great, but just as well as XP did anyway). god freaking forbid people have to install a few new drivers, i think all these vista haters are either just jumping on the anti-vista bandwagon, and have never tried it themselves, or are a bunch of incompetants and whiners who don't feel like doing even the most basic system admin tasks. i just dont understand how a community which is so progressive in most ways is anachronistic about the very thing they make their living at.
i think it's naive to think that the us gov couldnt do that anyway if they wanted. we run the root servers, us military designed the internet, i think they understand how it works, and i think they could effectively shut somebody down if they really wanted to. the thing is, they wont, because regardless of how it's done, it would be obvious, and would make us look like really bad guys.
even if it's as pedestrian as explosives on the cables, i think that possibility exists, and if not, id be wondering why not. one of the first things we should do in any conflict is cut off an enemy's communications, and that includes the internet.
actually we of course were the first to shoot down a satellite, so in some sense perhaps they were simply playing catch-up. although, the advantage of the chinese system is that the missile can be launched from the ground. the real issue was that since the 80's there has been a moratorium on anti-satellite weapon research, and china clearly violated that.t ml/asat.html
see here for info on the US test: http://www.voughtaircraft.com/heritage/products/h
"Like other fuel cells, the sugar battery contains enzymes that convert fuel - in this case, sugar - into electricity, leaving behind water as a main byproduct."
:-)
:-)
lol, so if you had a laptop powered by sugar, both you and your laptop would have to get up and "go" after a long gaming session and lots of soda
for the record, i had this idea a while ago, but am not smart/rich enough to have built one. oh well, at least somebody else actually did it, so maybe down the line i can buy one
you need your very own godwin-rule like forum law named after you. the moosesocks rule, when you mention the iraq war for no reason other than to derail the conversation...
as for the article, i read it, and all i could think is "how incredibly stupid!" i mean, what happens if you drop it? is that a million bucks just totally blown? not to mention all of the way more interesting and better things that could be done with a million dollars. for 1 mil it better get up and make me some freakin coffee when i ask it to.
i like your option 1. that's an angle I've not yet really tried. all the same, I wish we had some more high tech industry in PA. I hear New York's tech industy is developing, at least that way I could stay on the east coast.
every time i see an article like this i wonder, are people on the west coast just drowning in tech jobs or what? over here in PA it seems to be pretty competitive....
perhaps its just that i dont work in healthcare, which seems to be the only industry that matters here...
Give it about 6 months to a year. by then the install base for vista will probably exceed that for OSX. As much as it gets dissed, vista does have something to offer gamers, and pc users in general. honestly almost none of it seems useful for businesses, but the media center features and the look n' feel upgrade are a plus for home use, and of course DX10, once we have some games. Crysis by itself was enough to convince me to upgrade, plus since i was building a new box anyway, why not. I did have serious driver issues though, so for now, it's true that vista upgrades on your own (not pre-installed from dell or whatnot) are not for the faint of heart. MANY MANY drivers are just not ready yet; they either don't exist, or don't function. However, in almost 2 weeks use, I've yet to experience any issues that weren't DIRECTLY driver related. No BSOD's, and no lockups. Just some non-functional NIC's.
As far as games, WoW, All my steam games(CS, CS:Source, HL2, etc..), Dawn of war, and UT2004 all work great. I haven't tried any Q3 engine games yet, you could be right about them. I guess i'll find out! Hopefully these Driver issues will be ameliorated soon, it's really kind of stupid that with such a long public beta for Vista NVidia and ATI couldn't get their act together...
I have noticed that a few OpenGL-based desktop apps I run like Milkshape and Unwrap3d which did not function initially could be remedied with the Mesa Dll's from the Milkshape site. Not sure if that technique has applications for actual games. Doubt it, since even though they are functional, If I load up a model full screen in milkshape the performance is sort of unnaturally poor.
Honestly though, didn't we all go through the same thing when we first installed Win2k?? I know I did, and so far, my experience has been less painful than that one was....
Also, the Limerick nuclear plant in PA is not censored... Limerick, PA
more pointedly, depending on the individual culture of the company, a truly inordinate number of upper management types come from either a sales, or accounting background. you don't see a lot of engineers, designers, or customer service people at the top either. in my company there isn't a single VP who wasn't in sales. most of them STARTED in sales, there is one guy who began in collections and moved to sales. goes without saying the CEO was of course in sales too. I have always figured it was based on control of the income. while CIOs, coders, accountants, collections, engineers, etc make the business WORK, its the sales guys that actually most directly appear to "make money come in". therefore, they kind of steal the show in the eyes of the stockholders/owners/whatever and get all the credit for selling the product the engineers made, using the systems the coders built, by following the leads the marketers dug up. hence, they get first recognition for promotion.
in other companies of a more conservative bent, they want somebody who will make sure the money, once here, is well spent, and well managed (banks, insurance, funds) so they go for an accountant.
i find it hilarious watching people defend this steaming-pile-of-crap bill just because they can't bear to admit that maybe the democrats can be the bad guys sometimes too. the redefinition of "paid" necessitated the death of this stupid bill, and I am personally damn glad it's gone. the resurgence of the democratic party is in large part DUE to grassroots and blogging efforts, but now that they have control back they stab those communities in the back?? yeh, uhm, NO.
now if they want to send it back up, sans "paid" redefinition, to try and reign in the REAL astroturfing, then maybe it deserves a second look. till then, good riddance.
darn Skippy. honestly this is just stupidity. these people are scientists. use the facts to convince them, that should be sufficient. how the hell can science function if people are forbidden to ever question certain "truths"?? I've no doubt global warming is occurring (more often I've heard the RATE it is occurring at being debated, not so much its existence), but this thing is totally wrongheaded.
in all likelihood they had contestants sign a waiver to head off any possibility of lawsuit. all the same, the DJ's will probably be fired due to the obvious bad PR this will result in. I like a funny radio show as much as the next guy, but all too frequently these stupid stunts don't go well. of course, to me, _EVER_ is TOO FREQUENT. why not just stick to the fart jokes and silly noises. trivia contests are nice too. if you must, maybe do some stunts with the staff, put only themselves at risk. inevitably, when you involve the audience somebody just wants to win so bad that they go beyond their limits and get hurt. if you take a look at the wikipedia article, it points out that it's not actually all that hard to end up with water intoxication, so somebody at that station should have done their homework before running this contest. even if they aren't criminally liable, its potentially grounds for a civil suit due to their possible negligence in assessing the safety of this contest.
is never underestimate a hardcore geek with a little equipment and a decent block of vacation time....
people have been xeroxing books for like 40 years and nobody ever made such a stink as the mpaa and riaa have. their whole thing is so wrongheaded, if they would spend all those legal fees and lawyer salaries on hiring better directors/writers/actors their profits would skyrocket. its not piracy that loses them profits, it's SHITTY PRODUCTS.
heh the very idea that terrorists could possibly do something to a satellite after launch makes me laugh. i mean did it go like this?
Osama - "OK Zawawhatshisname, show me this big plan you have for taking out the satellites of the great satan?"
ZAWA - "ok, basically we strap a bomb to young Uday here..."
Osama - "ok, not bad so far, pretty standard, then what?"
Zawa - "then we have this big slingshot and...."
Osama - "whoa whoa waitasec.... are you serious??"
Zawa - "yeh, well he gets in then we tie the camels to the basket and..."
Osama - "what somebody cracks the whip and pulls a string c'mon man!! Is this what I pay you for?!?!"
Zawa - "well, I..."
Osama - "You're fired..."
Zawa - "but..."
Osama - "dude, just...leave...ok?!"
nah...my spidey sense tell me it was a launch damage f-up or micrometeorite, something normal like that. maybe even a bug, a software glitch like the poor MGS or polar lander (inches, meters, what being difference?!?!? haha!!)
Why do you hate freedom??
oh, or better yet:
please complete this sentence for me, "I hate my best customers because..."
one more...
"I deserve over 80% of the profits from the sales of other people's artistic works because...."
thanks, I'm here all week....
artists should get tech savvy, and sell their music direct to the consumer. any fly by night company can print you a couple thousand CD's a week, then just put em up on your site and use paypal or something to collect your money. better yet, why can't they make their own distribution deal with apple to offer their music on itunes? cut out all these bullshit publishers and middlemen. most of the people who pirate music anyway just dont wanna have to scour around the store or pay for a bunch of "value added" crap they don't want. just give em the music they want for a low price, and i think most people will pay it.
yeh i got it, so my refusal to believe in something not yet proven by science makes me stupid? have they ever been able to create a living organism from non-living matter in a lab?
i didn't think so. maybe when and if they do i will consider re-evaluating my opinion. until then, i remain skeptical.
whoa whoa whoa back up dude. i NEVER said we should stop teaching evolution. i never said we should teach religion in schools. i merely complained that threads about evolution on slashdot frequently degenerate to bashing religious people. of any flavor, not just Christians. i do not intend to deny anything to anyone. dont put words in my mouth.
did you even read my post or did you just knee-jerk out this flame huh???
shhhh... don't challenge the group-think. It makes the atheists ornery.
seriously, every time anything about evolution is brought up it starts a huge religious-bashing flamefest, with little if no representation from a religious viewpoint. as far as slashdot is concerned religious folks are not welcome. the comments are not predominantly rational argument, they VERY rapidly become little more than slurs, accusations of stupidity, and insults. the best part is that those who use offensive language don't get modded down. usually, its the already oppressed minority opinion that gets called "flamebait" or "troll" for being different.
flame me/mod down if you want, it just proves i'm right....
and so the _blatant_ non-atheist bashing commences. not that there wasn't plenty in the earlier posts, yours just had the most "oomph" to it.
//just don't wanna be first in line for the lions
///darwin never said life came from inanimate matter, which is the crux of the creationist argument IMHOP, regardless of which form of it one chooses. regardless if it was 7 days or 7 billion years i just don't buy it that a bunch of muck and volcanic ash suddenly sprang to life and formed cells totally randomly.
heh yeh, but being modded down for challenging the group-think gets frustrating after a while. one of the things that gets ignored frequently is that everyone is entitled to an opinion, however much you disagree with it.
back to the actual topic: if they do this game right, i think it will kick ass. i loved firefly, and its a great setting for a sci-fi MMO. however, firefly has some rabid fans, and if this games sucks, they will _crucify_ this company for f'ing up firefly..
if the employment state in india is bad, I welcome them to come here! it's a way better solution than outsourcing our jobs there. let them come here, and apply for citizenship, get visas, and get some jobs! bring your whole family if you can. this way you can all do the same, and keep the money here to help boost our economy. the only trouble with high immigration is if the influx of immigrants we get are poorly educated. As I understand it, in India, most college educated folks can speak a form of british english, have studied pretty extensively, and could provide some skilled labor and technical and managerial experience of value to our economy.
I will say however, if immigrants wish to come here, they should learn to speak good english if they cannot already. How can you possibly expect to get by in a new country without understanding and at least being mostly-fluent in the common language?
I think we should welcome all who wish to come here to work, and we should provide the language training and efficient immigration procedures to make it work. but as with all of us, there should never be a free ride. no welfare, no SSI, no free lunch unless you have already lived and worked in the USA as a citizen for a good period of time. maybe make it work like how you get "vested" for your 401K yknow? as long as people are coming to _WORK_ i think it's a good thing.
if somebody in the know has spent enough time to customize their own install image for linux, using openoffice, evolution, firefox, GNOME, etc... you can make it very windows-like. however, potentially, aside from the time spent configuring that install image, (which if you do things proper you would have spent working up a ghost image with windows anyway) the difference is about $300. that custom ubuntu image you worked up (or whatever distro you based it on) cost nothing but time. that windows license however, costs money. if you are in a position where you want to provide only basic desktop computing, but cash is tight (in many areas, education is a perfect example of this), for the user, making the jump to linux should be pretty easy.
more often, the factor making this difficult is the shortage of IT people with the linux skills to make this happen. windows admins are everywhere, microsoft certifies them by the dozens. finding real experienced unix/linux talent is another matter. since, in general, _demand_ for serious unix/linux talent is more scarce, so is that talent. in my company I am the only person with any significant unix or linux experience, yet, all our webservers and our email server run various flavors of linux. I'm not trying to say my co-workers cant do anything with the systems, but they only know how to use the webmin interface/shell scripts/etc I have set up for them to make it easier. If they actually had to sit down at a command prompt and figure something out, they would be pretty lost.
as far as i know, my situation is not uncommon.
so you make ridiculous arguments like this just to pick fights on the internet. brilliant.....