2. People value entertainment too much, in my honest opinion. Society feels that it is worthwhile to pay pro sports players, actors, and singers 8 or 9 figures a year but police, firemen, and teachers might make $40,000.
Sorry, but this is wrong. The factor at work here is that millions of people are willing to pay something for the same entertainment. A fireman serves a small community, while a famous actor entertains millions. Some forms of entertainment really are so great that they deserve wide acclaim, wide distribution, and the corresponding $$$, but most are simply well marketed and advertized to the consumer herd.
DoubleClick is an expendable middle man. Newspapers & TV stations have their own advertizing departments and people buy ads from them. If web sites want to stop people from filtering out their ads, they can make it much harder to do so simply by hosting the images & text on their own servers and eliminating the middle man. Google, for example, could be using DoubleClick for revenue. They don't. They do it in-house. DoubleClick is the only casualty here, not the people providing the content. Radio and TV used to have the advertizing included in the content. Talk show hosts would suddenly stop and read out some ad copy. There is no easy way to avoid that kind of ad.
Well, actually, I boot to the command line first. Not straight into X. I timed it when I came home tonight and it was exactly 30 seconds from the Grub choice to the login prompt.
After I log in it takes about 5? seconds for IceWM to load after I run startx (didn't time that).
And sure, I run IceWM because it is faster. I have that choice. I don't seem to recall the option to run XP-lite though.;)
Linux's slow boot sequence is something that I thought was common knowledge
Common knowledge? Well, as I said, it is faster for me. It depends on what services you are starting. Also, how are you gauging when an OS is finished booting? Windows displays the desktop long before it is really ready to use.
Sounds like your Linux install is screwed up, or maybe its just KDE. Personally, I run Gentoo (stage 3, zero tweaking) & IceWM with a Windows dual boot (for games), and for me Linux seems to boot and run apps faster than Windows. I haven't pulled out a stop watch to confirm this. But, a sample size of one proves nothing.
Perhaps you forgot about the General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy? This really happened. Read the history:
In 1922, according to GM's own files, Sloan established a special unit within the corporation which was charged, among other things, with the task of replacing the United States' electric railways with cars, trucks, and buses.
...don't even pay attention to their crap and maybe it will go away.
Ignoring their efforts will not leave you unaffected. Now might be a good time to re-read What's Wrong With Copy Protection:
http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html
Slashdot Mirror
DoubleClick is an expendable middle man. Newspapers & TV stations have their own advertizing departments and people buy ads from them. If web sites want to stop people from filtering out their ads, they can make it much harder to do so simply by hosting the images & text on their own servers and eliminating the middle man. Google, for example, could be using DoubleClick for revenue. They don't. They do it in-house. DoubleClick is the only casualty here, not the people providing the content. Radio and TV used to have the advertizing included in the content. Talk show hosts would suddenly stop and read out some ad copy. There is no easy way to avoid that kind of ad.
Well, actually, I boot to the command line first. Not straight into X. I timed it when I came home tonight and it was exactly 30 seconds from the Grub choice to the login prompt.
;)
After I log in it takes about 5? seconds for IceWM to load after I run startx (didn't time that).
And sure, I run IceWM because it is faster. I have that choice. I don't seem to recall the option to run XP-lite though.
Sounds like your Linux install is screwed up, or maybe its just KDE. Personally, I run Gentoo (stage 3, zero tweaking) & IceWM with a Windows dual boot (for games), and for me Linux seems to boot and run apps faster than Windows. I haven't pulled out a stop watch to confirm this.
But, a sample size of one proves nothing.
What makes you think MS no longer suffers from bloat?
When they compete against P2P they compete against a free alternative. The best business model to follow is that of Evian.
Indeed,
on August 30th it was:
Kerry 249 Bush 232
http://www.electoral-vote.com/aug/aug30.html
on August 31st:
Kerry 242 Bush 280
http://www.electoral-vote.com/aug/aug31.html
...don't even pay attention to their crap and maybe it will go away.
Ignoring their efforts will not leave you unaffected. Now might be a good time to re-read What's Wrong With Copy Protection: http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html