Like any good DRM, make it annoying, but little else. Any DRM is beatable if in enemy hands. However you make it so they can't IMMEDIATELY use it, or it will be a pain in the ass to fix it so they can. Something simple like a Tank with an easily removable critical piece of the electronic sighting apparatus. When you have to abandon ship so to speak, grab the widget and go. Sure they can drive the tank around, and even fire the gun, but if they can only aim at things manually it will make it much less effective against countermeasures. Then again, removable firing pin (if such a thing even exists), sure they could machine a new one, but that would take time.
Or when said country dissolves, and it all falls into basically individuals, groups, warlords, etc... hands. Or when the Army/Government is so corrupt that they sell the weapons to anyone to line their personal pockets...
The whole point of supercaviataing torpedoes is speed. A fast and/or maneuverable ship might be able to evade a slow torpedo. While this is less likely with a very fast one. However a Carrier, let alone a "super" carrier, are A) slow, and B) not maneuverable. Their strength are the aircraft on it, and the flotilla around it. Even a very fast torpedo would be detected from a long ways away, and counter measures deployed, though there may be slightly less time to do so. It is the jobs of the anti-torp helos, and Destroyers etc... in the flotilla to take care of those things.
Really the only thing dangerous to carriers are MASS torpedoes, more so than the counter measures can compensate for... However you would have to have a lot of subs, and sacrifice many of them getting close enough and retaliation. The real worry was about these super fast missiles, which are MUCH faster than even very fast torpedoes. The trouble is, that air counter measures could probably take care of it, however could become overwhelmed more easily because of the reduced time between detection and response.
Anyway it is really only dangerous in an all out war, as the BIGGEST defense is that a super carrier is such a massive ship, that any attack would be seen as a clear act of war and generate a very nasty response.
However your University may not have used Java or some buzzword fancy new language that is all the rage, but rather used an older core language.
So when you are competing against some one year code monkey for a job that lists whatever language is the flavor of them month that you don't necessarily have it doesn't work out well. I have tried explaining that the fundamentals are the same, or that I would be able to pick up any language very quickly, however to management and HR, the guy who had the training in the fancy wing ding gets the position.
Was at a stag party, held at a cabin. One of the previous occupants left her wallet under one of the sofas. In it was all her identification as well as her iPhone. She was something like 19-20 years old. One of the guys jokingly said "I wonder how stupid this girl is" and tried to crack the "password". Tried "1234" which didn't work. Then said "hey", looked at her drivers licence, and entered her birthday. "Click".
Two tries.
Granted that is a 4 letter password, but if you pick something stupid, and lets face it many people do, not just 19 year old girls, it won't be hard to crack. Particularly if your life's details are open for public inspection.
In the end we called the girls mom, and got her to contact us with an address we could mail the package to (minus the little baggy of coke we flushed down the toilet).
Except, this is how World Wars get started. There is a Treaty in play. One that says, we Ukraine will disarm all our nuclear weapons if you the USA will come to our aid should we ever be invaded. Which is why I suspect there is all this word play as to if Russia has indeed "Invaded" Ukraine or not. If indeed Russia has invaded Ukraine, then the USA would be obligated to come to their aid significantly, as would any others that signed the treaty. Not only that, you would get allies that have signed pacts with the involved countries for mutual military actions, then so on and repeat until everyone is involved and you get a World War. Combine that with the fact that the two major combatants would be the largest nuclear weapons owners, is cause for concern, particularly if one is currently rattling that saber.
However even if it came to conventional war, using nuclear weapons would be insane. The one and only time it was considered and used, was because the potential casualty rate was expected to be well over 1 million troops for a conventional invasion of Japan to force capitulation. The largest war in recent history lasted nearly 10 years, yet less than 5,000 US troops were killed. Think about how far those two numbers are apart. Even then the two devices were in the kiloton range not the megaton. The US isn't going to invade Russia, and Russia isn't going to invade the US.
Anyway if the US doesn't honor the Treaty it brings into question all their previous treaties, pacts, alliances, etc... as being worthless and subject to political whim.
Yes pretty much. Also because it is nuclear, all managers need to get paid 10x as much. Any large project like this is political also, and likely involves quite a few greased palms all over the place. It also probably gets a lot of government funding. Pretty much everyone has a stake it is taking a long as possible to squeeze as much money out it it. So just about everyone involved has a vested interest in delaying and keeping the "construction" going for as long as possible. The only downside is that someone might get blamed for the delays, which is why you always just throw the blame around at someone else, the client seems as good as any for this purpose...
[H]ardOCP was also a very good tech site. While AnandTech was good, I thought the [H] community was a bit better. Though I'll admit to checking out chart data at Tom's...
They already used the same strategy on individuals. They demanded other counties banks hand over information on any americans, and if they refused, would not be hit with huge tariffs to do business in the US. Countries and Banks caved. Much of the information being access either won't be americans either. The US did this to try and find individual tax evaders.
This is pretty much the same thing as that but with Corporations. The telling tale will be if they will back it up, as the US government is run by corporations who may not like this tact. Individuals are easier.
The difference being that this study was of the entire population, not just the wacky political spectrum.
On top of what you already mentioned, the Conservatives only won the 35% of the vote because the left is split. However, "uniting the right", basically consisted of taking the Reform party (which was primarily out out Alberta), and re-branding it the Alliance Party (which was out of Alberta), and combining it with the pathetic Progressive Conservative Party which was across Canada, but only had 9 actual seats in power (of 308), to be re-branded again as the Conservative Party... With a leader, from Alberta.
So if you discount the god smoking, oil toting, Alberta nuts, the rest of Canada is pretty good. They have however gotten a bit of a strangle hold on our government however. Day was a bit wacky I'll grant you that, buy burying him (he is still around though), re-branding again under a more comfortable name, and then getting a leader that is from Ontario (born Albertan), who is supposedly a economist.... seems to have been the ticket.
Though another weird Canadian example is in Ontario there are two school boards, a public secular one, and a public Catholic one. Which is crazy. However no politician with a chance at winning is going to touch that with a 10ft poll or have all the Catholic vote torpodeo them. Not to mention the Teachers Unions.
Soon when people say that going after a particular scientist because of their views on climate change is a witch hunt, it will ACTUALLY be a witch hunt. Burn her!
OK I am no bible thumper, but even I know one of the primary precepts is that man was created is his own image (i.e. god's own image).
That sort of kills the whole "anthropomorphizes" argument entirely, as Man would look like God... That said, one could argue what image means, and all what that entails, or even what it was translated from...
Personally I believe it is a bunch of BS not worth arguing about in the slightest anyway.
Because it ties into their current business model.
WTF does Google care about consumers who do not go online? Perhaps at some point, but in the beginning it will all be about trying to leverage one business against another for more advantage.
Rather than say Net Neutrality, which is ambiguous and a bit high high minded, call it what it really is. It is protecting from ISP double dipping. As an industry (in the USA and Canada), it is already a bloated spider feasting parasitically on society, as seen by the overwhelming consumer hatred of those companies, which somehow manage to stay in business... (I am saying rhetorically, I know how).
What they want to do, is have the ability to not only charge the consumer of media, but also the producer. It is like a perfect fucking storm of profit! As the middle man just skimming money off everyone involved. The problem is, I as the consumer have already paid for my damn service. If I plan on using it to only access simple webpages or if I plan on streaming Netflix all day everyday, that is my right, and I pay for the privilege of doing so. We have all moved to the damn CAP system already, so if I consume more than Granny Twinkles, I PAY for it. However now they want to take my service, which I already pay for, and say well since so much is going to Netflix, we want to change them more money, and if they refuse, slow the connection.... to the consumer, who has already damn well paid for the service in the first place. Or conversely if the company pays the extortion, they will simply pass the cost onto the consumer, so either way, the consumer is going to pay or get less service no matter what happens.
Anyway it is rapacious greed pure and simple, it is double dipping, it is wrong. These companies already have too many advantages, and constantly abuse both the system and their customers every chance they get for more profits. The reason the folks like Koch and the rest like it is they have money to gain, and the vast population has money to lose. This is not ideological (all this crap about Marxism etc...), but some idiots will think it is, and support idea, even though it is by far not in their best interests to do so. The republicans/conservatives have been playing the same shell game for years, where a large chunk of their support comes from these uninformed ideological idiots who are voting against themselves over and over again based on some fictional ideal, that doesn't even apply or even make sense given a situation. However using whatever media (and if your name is Koch, and in the USA) you have plenty of media to abuse, to convince the people to accept whatever snake oil you are selling...
Lifestyle. That is why people who diet gain weight back. Because they are only changing how they eat temporarily and not how they live. It should not be surprising that diets don't work, nor will they ever work unless you adhere to it the rest of your life.
I am pretty active but could be more. I should go to the gym more than I do, and only really play one sport about half the year. However I also bought my home so that I could walk to work in about 10min. I also walk home from work for lunch. So that is 40min a day. Sometimes I have to go take care of something, and that is 60min a day. Also living close to downtown, I usually walk most places on top of that. So if you only count just my walking to work, it is only like 1km. Four times however is 4km. 5 Days a week, is 20km. Say 50 weeks a year is 1000km. Say for the last 15 years, is 15,000km. Conservatively I would say with everything else it is likely double that. Compared to the folks that live in the burbs and drive everywhere... I have a car that I bought new about 12 or so years ago, and have about 80,000km on it, which includes several 4000km trips on it. Most people I know are on at least car number two.
Anyway it isn't for everyone in all situations, however people make choices and live how they wish to. Changing your diet may help if you stick to it, but changing how you live is bigger, but more permanent solution. There are compromises of course, my house is a lot smaller, and older than all the brand new mega houses in the burbs for example. However it is all about what is important to you.
Also considering the harsher and harder conditions are, the harder it is to survive. It could be that anyone that would get heart issues, or diabetes, or a host of other things, would simply die off earlier. Considering many of these things are to known to at least be in part genetic, if you die off before you have a chance to have kids, well those genetic traits might just be a bit rarer than in other cultures. Only the strong survive so to speak.
I have Windows 7 at home. My phone is an Android. I use OpenOffice (or LibreOffice, whatever), occasionally google docs. I have a number of video games, however the only one I really play is DOTA2 off Steam. I use it as a media device, and while I have customized it enough that most of my media files play, a growing number only work under VLC.
To also counter your Linux is too hard to configure VS windows:
I would put custom configuring linux up against custom configuring Windows Media Player codecs any day of the week. That is to say, I would much rather configure linux than try to get Media Player to a point that it can play everything. I had to do a re-install last winter of Windows 7, and while annoying, the part I dreaded the most was trying to figure out all the codec BS after my previous setup was wiped. It is one of those things that you do a whole bunch of arcane mystical shit, and eventually you get it to the point that everything seems to be working (don't even get me talking about subs as well)... and you never want to touch it again, as you will A) never remember whatever it was you did to get it all working together, and B) never be able to replicate again the same way.
That might have been true 10 years ago, however today there are plenty of flavors that are very easy and default install just fine with little or no interaction from the user.
The main stumbling block is install base and compatibility. Windows has as big a strangle hold than ever. Apple has made some strides, however with their expensive machines, they will only ever be niche players. Where they have been loosing and where it may transition into a loss for them is the tablet and phone markets which are all basically iOS and Linux (in Android). If computing transitions along those lines, windows will eventually lose. Which I am sure why they made the ill conceived leap with Windows 8 and the Metro interface to try and get ahead of any convergence that may take place in the future.
The issue with today is that they have such a large install base that is not compatible with linux. I presume that is why Red Hat bought WordPerfect software back in the day, as it was the only one that challenged MS on their home office turf. Problem was it was too little too late as it was already on the way out. Before that I recall trying use wordperfect files in office all the time. So Office compatibility is one issue on the business side, and on the other you have the gaming issues on the entertainment side. However players like Steam may have an impact in this regard depending on how their plans go.
People in business buy Windows because of largely office and other windows only business related software (on the desktop, not servers). People that buy for gaming get windows because most games are only compatible with windows. Everyone else (who you are talking about) pretty much buy windows because it is really the only thing available (other than iOS if you have the $$$). It used to be that common users might be more comfortable with windows, however MS pretty much killed that advantage with windows 8.
On top of all this, what baffles me, is that Windows as an integrated media player is truly horrible with Windows Media Player. I have no idea why this is the case, a company like MS *should* be able to make a decent video player, but they do not. Software like VLC are becoming much better alternatives, than trying to break your system installing malware loaded "codec packs" in an attempt to fix their broken media player. I can only surmise that MS makes it intentionally broken in an attempt to only support official codecs that they can load DRM for the media companies... however is that business worth flushing their brand down the toilet?
Anyway linux while not there yet, and not a lock for surpassing MS, has some opportunities to do so. However likely it would take a large company (like Google say partnering with Steam) to really put a nail in the coffin. Pushing things like Google Docs and the like for office compatibility and transition (particularly when MS starts pushing their Office 365 BS), also strengthening the media software as more and more people use their devices as a connection to their TV, while getting Steam to offer an easy conduit for linux games and developers to market them to a growing user base. Once you have people that are used to it at the office, as a media device, as a gaming device, the common light users will start having more options, and have more people used to the UI. Also if using similar devices say on tablets and phones, this will also raise your common users comfort level, particularly as the demographic that grew up with smart phones start maturing...
So while I don't see it happening anytime soon, it is defiantly something that is possible over time should all the ducks line up in a row.
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite was when their National Bank burned to the ground by accident recently... supposedly.
My first thought was, um that isn't going to erase your debt you know, that is held by other banks...
Like any good DRM, make it annoying, but little else. Any DRM is beatable if in enemy hands. However you make it so they can't IMMEDIATELY use it, or it will be a pain in the ass to fix it so they can. Something simple like a Tank with an easily removable critical piece of the electronic sighting apparatus. When you have to abandon ship so to speak, grab the widget and go. Sure they can drive the tank around, and even fire the gun, but if they can only aim at things manually it will make it much less effective against countermeasures. Then again, removable firing pin (if such a thing even exists), sure they could machine a new one, but that would take time.
Or when said country dissolves, and it all falls into basically individuals, groups, warlords, etc... hands.
Or when the Army/Government is so corrupt that they sell the weapons to anyone to line their personal pockets...
The whole point of supercaviataing torpedoes is speed. A fast and/or maneuverable ship might be able to evade a slow torpedo. While this is less likely with a very fast one. However a Carrier, let alone a "super" carrier, are A) slow, and B) not maneuverable. Their strength are the aircraft on it, and the flotilla around it. Even a very fast torpedo would be detected from a long ways away, and counter measures deployed, though there may be slightly less time to do so. It is the jobs of the anti-torp helos, and Destroyers etc... in the flotilla to take care of those things.
Really the only thing dangerous to carriers are MASS torpedoes, more so than the counter measures can compensate for... However you would have to have a lot of subs, and sacrifice many of them getting close enough and retaliation. The real worry was about these super fast missiles, which are MUCH faster than even very fast torpedoes. The trouble is, that air counter measures could probably take care of it, however could become overwhelmed more easily because of the reduced time between detection and response.
Anyway it is really only dangerous in an all out war, as the BIGGEST defense is that a super carrier is such a massive ship, that any attack would be seen as a clear act of war and generate a very nasty response.
However your University may not have used Java or some buzzword fancy new language that is all the rage, but rather used an older core language.
So when you are competing against some one year code monkey for a job that lists whatever language is the flavor of them month that you don't necessarily have it doesn't work out well. I have tried explaining that the fundamentals are the same, or that I would be able to pick up any language very quickly, however to management and HR, the guy who had the training in the fancy wing ding gets the position.
True Story:
Was at a stag party, held at a cabin. One of the previous occupants left her wallet under one of the sofas. In it was all her identification as well as her iPhone. She was something like 19-20 years old. One of the guys jokingly said "I wonder how stupid this girl is" and tried to crack the "password". Tried "1234" which didn't work. Then said "hey", looked at her drivers licence, and entered her birthday. "Click".
Two tries.
Granted that is a 4 letter password, but if you pick something stupid, and lets face it many people do, not just 19 year old girls, it won't be hard to crack. Particularly if your life's details are open for public inspection.
In the end we called the girls mom, and got her to contact us with an address we could mail the package to (minus the little baggy of coke we flushed down the toilet).
Except, this is how World Wars get started. There is a Treaty in play. One that says, we Ukraine will disarm all our nuclear weapons if you the USA will come to our aid should we ever be invaded. Which is why I suspect there is all this word play as to if Russia has indeed "Invaded" Ukraine or not. If indeed Russia has invaded Ukraine, then the USA would be obligated to come to their aid significantly, as would any others that signed the treaty. Not only that, you would get allies that have signed pacts with the involved countries for mutual military actions, then so on and repeat until everyone is involved and you get a World War. Combine that with the fact that the two major combatants would be the largest nuclear weapons owners, is cause for concern, particularly if one is currently rattling that saber.
However even if it came to conventional war, using nuclear weapons would be insane. The one and only time it was considered and used, was because the potential casualty rate was expected to be well over 1 million troops for a conventional invasion of Japan to force capitulation. The largest war in recent history lasted nearly 10 years, yet less than 5,000 US troops were killed. Think about how far those two numbers are apart. Even then the two devices were in the kiloton range not the megaton. The US isn't going to invade Russia, and Russia isn't going to invade the US.
Anyway if the US doesn't honor the Treaty it brings into question all their previous treaties, pacts, alliances, etc... as being worthless and subject to political whim.
Yes pretty much. Also because it is nuclear, all managers need to get paid 10x as much. Any large project like this is political also, and likely involves quite a few greased palms all over the place. It also probably gets a lot of government funding. Pretty much everyone has a stake it is taking a long as possible to squeeze as much money out it it. So just about everyone involved has a vested interest in delaying and keeping the "construction" going for as long as possible. The only downside is that someone might get blamed for the delays, which is why you always just throw the blame around at someone else, the client seems as good as any for this purpose...
[H]ardOCP was also a very good tech site. While AnandTech was good, I thought the [H] community was a bit better. Though I'll admit to checking out chart data at Tom's...
They already used the same strategy on individuals. They demanded other counties banks hand over information on any americans, and if they refused, would not be hit with huge tariffs to do business in the US. Countries and Banks caved. Much of the information being access either won't be americans either. The US did this to try and find individual tax evaders.
This is pretty much the same thing as that but with Corporations. The telling tale will be if they will back it up, as the US government is run by corporations who may not like this tact. Individuals are easier.
5820K should be enough for anyone?
You've actually talked to women right? ;)
The difference being that this study was of the entire population, not just the wacky political spectrum.
On top of what you already mentioned, the Conservatives only won the 35% of the vote because the left is split. However, "uniting the right", basically consisted of taking the Reform party (which was primarily out out Alberta), and re-branding it the Alliance Party (which was out of Alberta), and combining it with the pathetic Progressive Conservative Party which was across Canada, but only had 9 actual seats in power (of 308), to be re-branded again as the Conservative Party... With a leader, from Alberta.
So if you discount the god smoking, oil toting, Alberta nuts, the rest of Canada is pretty good. They have however gotten a bit of a strangle hold on our government however. Day was a bit wacky I'll grant you that, buy burying him (he is still around though), re-branding again under a more comfortable name, and then getting a leader that is from Ontario (born Albertan), who is supposedly a economist.... seems to have been the ticket.
Though another weird Canadian example is in Ontario there are two school boards, a public secular one, and a public Catholic one. Which is crazy. However no politician with a chance at winning is going to touch that with a 10ft poll or have all the Catholic vote torpodeo them. Not to mention the Teachers Unions.
Soon when people say that going after a particular scientist because of their views on climate change is a witch hunt, it will ACTUALLY be a witch hunt. Burn her!
Hopefully it will be of the Monty Python variety... Science! http://www.urbandictionary.com...!
OK I am no bible thumper, but even I know one of the primary precepts is that man was created is his own image (i.e. god's own image).
That sort of kills the whole "anthropomorphizes" argument entirely, as Man would look like God... That said, one could argue what image means, and all what that entails, or even what it was translated from...
Personally I believe it is a bunch of BS not worth arguing about in the slightest anyway.
Windows SEME: All the non-compatibility of SE with the slowness of ME, Win - Win!
Just add Metro for an unusable UI, and you get the Trifecta! :)
Because it ties into their current business model.
WTF does Google care about consumers who do not go online? Perhaps at some point, but in the beginning it will all be about trying to leverage one business against another for more advantage.
Rather than say Net Neutrality, which is ambiguous and a bit high high minded, call it what it really is. It is protecting from ISP double dipping. As an industry (in the USA and Canada), it is already a bloated spider feasting parasitically on society, as seen by the overwhelming consumer hatred of those companies, which somehow manage to stay in business... (I am saying rhetorically, I know how).
What they want to do, is have the ability to not only charge the consumer of media, but also the producer. It is like a perfect fucking storm of profit! As the middle man just skimming money off everyone involved. The problem is, I as the consumer have already paid for my damn service. If I plan on using it to only access simple webpages or if I plan on streaming Netflix all day everyday, that is my right, and I pay for the privilege of doing so. We have all moved to the damn CAP system already, so if I consume more than Granny Twinkles, I PAY for it. However now they want to take my service, which I already pay for, and say well since so much is going to Netflix, we want to change them more money, and if they refuse, slow the connection.... to the consumer, who has already damn well paid for the service in the first place. Or conversely if the company pays the extortion, they will simply pass the cost onto the consumer, so either way, the consumer is going to pay or get less service no matter what happens.
Anyway it is rapacious greed pure and simple, it is double dipping, it is wrong. These companies already have too many advantages, and constantly abuse both the system and their customers every chance they get for more profits. The reason the folks like Koch and the rest like it is they have money to gain, and the vast population has money to lose. This is not ideological (all this crap about Marxism etc...), but some idiots will think it is, and support idea, even though it is by far not in their best interests to do so. The republicans/conservatives have been playing the same shell game for years, where a large chunk of their support comes from these uninformed ideological idiots who are voting against themselves over and over again based on some fictional ideal, that doesn't even apply or even make sense given a situation. However using whatever media (and if your name is Koch, and in the USA) you have plenty of media to abuse, to convince the people to accept whatever snake oil you are selling...
Lifestyle. That is why people who diet gain weight back. Because they are only changing how they eat temporarily and not how they live. It should not be surprising that diets don't work, nor will they ever work unless you adhere to it the rest of your life.
I am pretty active but could be more. I should go to the gym more than I do, and only really play one sport about half the year. However I also bought my home so that I could walk to work in about 10min. I also walk home from work for lunch. So that is 40min a day. Sometimes I have to go take care of something, and that is 60min a day. Also living close to downtown, I usually walk most places on top of that. So if you only count just my walking to work, it is only like 1km. Four times however is 4km. 5 Days a week, is 20km. Say 50 weeks a year is 1000km. Say for the last 15 years, is 15,000km. Conservatively I would say with everything else it is likely double that. Compared to the folks that live in the burbs and drive everywhere... I have a car that I bought new about 12 or so years ago, and have about 80,000km on it, which includes several 4000km trips on it. Most people I know are on at least car number two.
Anyway it isn't for everyone in all situations, however people make choices and live how they wish to. Changing your diet may help if you stick to it, but changing how you live is bigger, but more permanent solution. There are compromises of course, my house is a lot smaller, and older than all the brand new mega houses in the burbs for example. However it is all about what is important to you.
Also considering the harsher and harder conditions are, the harder it is to survive. It could be that anyone that would get heart issues, or diabetes, or a host of other things, would simply die off earlier. Considering many of these things are to known to at least be in part genetic, if you die off before you have a chance to have kids, well those genetic traits might just be a bit rarer than in other cultures. Only the strong survive so to speak.
Anyone else read this as the "MacGyver" test facility?
I like my version better.
Is it just me or did anyone else visualize the warheads of these missiles being painted with mean looking sheep with fangs and red eyes...
Or perhaps sexy sheep in alluring pinup poses ah la fighter plans in WW2... :)
As an example:
I have Windows 7 at home. My phone is an Android. I use OpenOffice (or LibreOffice, whatever), occasionally google docs. I have a number of video games, however the only one I really play is DOTA2 off Steam. I use it as a media device, and while I have customized it enough that most of my media files play, a growing number only work under VLC.
To also counter your Linux is too hard to configure VS windows:
I would put custom configuring linux up against custom configuring Windows Media Player codecs any day of the week. That is to say, I would much rather configure linux than try to get Media Player to a point that it can play everything. I had to do a re-install last winter of Windows 7, and while annoying, the part I dreaded the most was trying to figure out all the codec BS after my previous setup was wiped. It is one of those things that you do a whole bunch of arcane mystical shit, and eventually you get it to the point that everything seems to be working (don't even get me talking about subs as well)... and you never want to touch it again, as you will A) never remember whatever it was you did to get it all working together, and B) never be able to replicate again the same way.
That might have been true 10 years ago, however today there are plenty of flavors that are very easy and default install just fine with little or no interaction from the user.
The main stumbling block is install base and compatibility. Windows has as big a strangle hold than ever. Apple has made some strides, however with their expensive machines, they will only ever be niche players. Where they have been loosing and where it may transition into a loss for them is the tablet and phone markets which are all basically iOS and Linux (in Android). If computing transitions along those lines, windows will eventually lose. Which I am sure why they made the ill conceived leap with Windows 8 and the Metro interface to try and get ahead of any convergence that may take place in the future.
The issue with today is that they have such a large install base that is not compatible with linux. I presume that is why Red Hat bought WordPerfect software back in the day, as it was the only one that challenged MS on their home office turf. Problem was it was too little too late as it was already on the way out. Before that I recall trying use wordperfect files in office all the time. So Office compatibility is one issue on the business side, and on the other you have the gaming issues on the entertainment side. However players like Steam may have an impact in this regard depending on how their plans go.
People in business buy Windows because of largely office and other windows only business related software (on the desktop, not servers). People that buy for gaming get windows because most games are only compatible with windows. Everyone else (who you are talking about) pretty much buy windows because it is really the only thing available (other than iOS if you have the $$$). It used to be that common users might be more comfortable with windows, however MS pretty much killed that advantage with windows 8.
On top of all this, what baffles me, is that Windows as an integrated media player is truly horrible with Windows Media Player. I have no idea why this is the case, a company like MS *should* be able to make a decent video player, but they do not. Software like VLC are becoming much better alternatives, than trying to break your system installing malware loaded "codec packs" in an attempt to fix their broken media player. I can only surmise that MS makes it intentionally broken in an attempt to only support official codecs that they can load DRM for the media companies... however is that business worth flushing their brand down the toilet?
Anyway linux while not there yet, and not a lock for surpassing MS, has some opportunities to do so. However likely it would take a large company (like Google say partnering with Steam) to really put a nail in the coffin. Pushing things like Google Docs and the like for office compatibility and transition (particularly when MS starts pushing their Office 365 BS), also strengthening the media software as more and more people use their devices as a connection to their TV, while getting Steam to offer an easy conduit for linux games and developers to market them to a growing user base. Once you have people that are used to it at the office, as a media device, as a gaming device, the common light users will start having more options, and have more people used to the UI. Also if using similar devices say on tablets and phones, this will also raise your common users comfort level, particularly as the demographic that grew up with smart phones start maturing...
So while I don't see it happening anytime soon, it is defiantly something that is possible over time should all the ducks line up in a row.
Obviously there is only one clear choice.
Make all the obese people pedal exercise bikes in specially created "Fat Farms" connected to dynamos to generate electricity.
Kills two birds with one stone! :)