I tried to read the patent however this is best left to a patent lawyer because IMHO it rambles on and says IMHO virtually nothing that hasn't been known by any civilization for millenia.
You would think that to make anything "immortal" you would have to have placed it in a media that can be replicated to infinity without any loss (eg. digital format) and have something that can enable the viewer to read (could be sight, sound, tactile feedback... etc) said information according to some standard (read my sig) method of information retrieval, but how do you do this when the method of reading would also have to be "immortal", which is the classic "chicken and egg problem". The smart people at Microsoft have most likely thought of this but by skimming the patent (interestingly you need Apple Quicktime to view some images) it looks like a work in progress not a solution.
What is bizarre about this patent if allowed is that when it is required in say a 100 years time, the patent would have expired. Maybe Microsoft is being nice (is that a flying pig I see) so that no one else can patent troll this.
In many countries once you reach the age of 18 you are legally an adult and entitled to vote at least in countries where voting is allowed. For a politician to support banning violent video games, this is political suicide because people aged between 18 and 30 make up a huge voting population and would be more likely to vote against supporters of this stupidity than voters who are over 30 and are normally more conservative. As a politician you may be able to get away with banning people under 21 from violent videos but again this smaller age demographic is still a very large voting group that would be even less sympathetic to something like this.
I have seen things like this tried in Australia that are usually the result of political point scoring or knee-jerk reactions, however thankfully this type of silliness normally dies a quiet death.
At some stage (normally when the child gets into their teens) the parent has to start letting go and relaxing their supervision (this is called trust). It is very important for a parent to talk to their child and as the child gets older the dialog must become more meaningful so that greater trust when given is something a child can look forward to earning.
Children are curious and will always try to see how far they can go before they overstep their boundaries. As parent it is up to you to define those boundaries with out being too restrictive although this can be a very difficult thing. Again this is were dialog comes in. It is normally a "cop out" on the parent's part to blindly agree with so called "well meaning" people who state that they are protecting their child's freedom because children are always going to do the wrong thing. Too many parents are willing to put their child's moral upbringing in the hands of people who probably have no idea of how to bring up a child themselves.
I have mainly trivialised this but common sense must prevail between parent and child and a parent must be willing (even if it is embarrassing) to discuss everything especially sex with their child, otherwise the child will find out anyway and usually from their peers who don't know that much or who have distorted view.
Hence if a parent does not know when asked a question by their child then the onus is on them to find out and come out with the correct answer that is not clouded by prejudice even though the parent may not like it because of their upbringing. If you as a parent can handle this you may actually learn something as well.
I don't mean to say that bringing up a child is easy, it is not, but meaningful dialog can go along way.
I highly doubt that Bluray will die anytime soon since the consortium is very much bigger than the consortium for HD-DVD. Saying that the porn industry favours HD-DVD is silly as well since at the moment HD-DVD is cheaper than Bluray disks to produce which does influence the bottom line but this will change over time (the PS3 will do that). Anyway there is nothing to stop the porn industry from burning their movies onto Bluray if they are willing to pay for the blanks. I don't recall any company in the world has the power to stop you using a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Bluray recorder from recording whatever you want onto the appropriate media unless you are illegally copying or publishing child porn.
It never ceases to amaze me the VHS/Betamax war being brought up when the subject of Bluray and HD-DVD is mentioned. The main reason why VHS won was it could hold more than the basic Betamax and Sony would not license the Betamax technology until too late. It is all well and good saying "3" layers of HD-DVD can hold more than a "2" layer Bluray, however most payers on the market will be "2" layers and Bluray still holds more.
If you enjoy a good "pissing" competition then why not look at HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) but I cannot see HD movies or games being put onto a DVD size disk capable of storing at least 3.9TB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatil e_Disc) of data. This is not to say HVD will not be useful since they can be used in backup systems (about time IMHO) which could spell the demise of the backup tape industry.
So basically for cheap meadia (flash is still too expensive) we would see CD's for music, HD-DVD/Blyray for HD Movies and HVD disks for backup systems, with DVD gradually being frozen out. Saying download services will obsolete CD, DVD and HD Disks may occur in the future (eg. iTunes which is a small download) but don't hold your breath since most ISP to home network services in developed countries are usually much less than 10mbs.
I was hoping that SED would be the driving force in bringing down the costs of LCD and Plasma and competing competitively with them especially after all the hype.
There is a new/old (started early 1970's) technology called FED (Field Emission Display) which is being developed by Sony and they already are demoing 26in and 30in versions at 1080p, although they do need to demo much larger ones to be taken seriously.
However FED like SED may not be acceptable if the overall costs are not significantly cheaper than LCD and Plasma. Still this technology may force further cuts in the flat panel market, which IMHO can only be good for the consumer. If you don't have a HDTV yet and are contemplating buying one, a six months wait may save you a considerable amount of money.
Picking the right type of sustainable fuel is extremely difficult however it is very important for politicians to understand the energy equation of each fuel source. Unfortunately I think most politicians are "technological cretins" and only have a interest in what will get them elected or re-elected so choosing viable and appropriate fuel sources becomes more and more reliant on "interest and lobby groups".
Currently fossil fuel (includes diesel and petrol) is mainly used for transport and looks like being this way for some time to come. Alternative fuels in the form of bio-diesel and ethanol are being touted as a viable alternative to fossil fuel however even these fuels have their drawbacks since you still need to actually grow, harvest, produce and deliver the fuel to the consumer. Bio-diesel is currently seen as the most viable alternative fuel (cheaper and less polluting) since most diesel vehicles can run on it with little or no modification while petrol engines do need to be modified (some more than others) to run on ethanol which is not that environmentally friendly and has a lower energy equation than bio-diesel. On average diesel is approx 30% more efficient and diesel engines usually have allot more torque at much lower RPM than their equivalent petrol counterparts.
You are right so say "So why's the US government pushing hydrogen? It's my suspicion that the oil interests want all the alt-energy money spent on things which cannot work, thus guaranteeing that taxpayer-funded research will never threaten their gravy train.". I would add many governments are touting this around the world and so far nothing has come of it although hybrid (ie. petrol/electric and diesel/electric) are viable. Again you really have to look at the energy equation (time does play a part here) to see if current hybrids are truly viable and cost effective.
Before everyone runs out and buys a diesel (equally applies to a hybrid) I would suggest you do some homework since diesel cars are normally more expensive than their petrol counterparts and you may have to travel a fair distance before you start to save. If the costs are the other-way around (mine was) then it becomes easier to make the decision. Of course buying a motor vehicle is a matter of personal choice and prestige as well and fuel efficiency may not even enter the equation.
The following is an interesting read on the potential ways of manufacturing alternative fuels. The heading reads "'Flashy' New Process Turns Soy Oil, Glucose Into Hydrogen" so read into that what you may.
During the holiday season people think they have deep pockets and come back to reality when the bills come in. The problem with buying a game machine be it PS2, PS3, Wii or Xbox360 is the fact that premium games will be of similar price. Of course if you are a buying a next gen game machine for your kids I doubt that very many games would be brought since this quickly adds up. This is fine if you have the money but many don't have much disposable income to pay for games unless they are second hand and second hand games are not "in the spirit" of giving.
So after the holiday season there will most likely be a slump in game sales which most likely will not pickup till March/April and this is the time when cheaper HDTV's are scheduled to hit the market which may provide a huge boost to sales of the the Xbox360 and PS3. This is not to say that people won't buy the Wii but the other machines can play HD movies and the Wii cannot so I can see this machine being relegated to the kids room with an SD TV and possibly one or two games per year, unless the parent is an avid gamer. Of course I could be wildly wrong and the Wii will get pride of place with a HDTV. Prestige does play an important part in the purchase of more expensive items be it a gaming console, gaming PC, HDTV, a car or a house.
People that can afford a HDTV and possibly a home entertainment system as well normally can afford a PS3 and/or Xbox360+HD-DVD add-on as well as having enough disposable income to afford games over the lifetime of the console. These are the people that Microsoft and Sony are targeting, not the people who can just barely afford a machine and one or two games per year. After all even selling a console at a profit is pointless unless people buy games and/or movies for it.
I have just recently put Fedora Core 6 on my new HP dual core 64 bit AMD laptop which I purchased (no dual boot ether). I did have a few minor issues which could have been solved with a HP configured install and recovery disk instead of the Microsoft XP professional it came with. So far I can actually do nearly all my work with this OS with the exception of some Microsoft specific solutions that requires I use my company laptop but 95% of my work can be done using FC6.
For a scientist or professional engineer I would strongly suggest a Linux solution (FC6, OpenSUSE, Scientific Linux... etc) than a Microsoft one even though you can get most of the applications you like for a MS OS (sometimes free as well) at least you will fully own all your data and never have to be dependent on a proprietary Operating System. Actually IMHO LaTeX is actually easier to use than IMHO most word processors and the result is normally very professional. This is especially true if you need to write mathematical papers. You still need to know how to use a test editor though. As far as any type of development that requires maths a good Linux distro can provide everything you need (if you do any type of statistics have you tried "R" since it is like "S Plus") and again for free or cheaply.
If anyone writes to me stating "Oh you had problems with a Linux install on your laptop then there is a problem with Linux". My simple answer is I will give you FC6 or OpenSUSE and Microsoft XP (legitimate copy) and then ask you to install the OS and configure it on a reasonably new laptop (I am being fair here) and I am quite sure you are going to have more problems with the Microsoft OS than with a Linux OS. Since I now have a working Laptop with FC6 (what do you think I am using to type this) I can easily create a recovery disk that could be used to configure all laptops of this type. The first install is always the hardest after that you can easily roll out an OS on equivalent machines, this is how most PC vendors install an MS OS.
Now back on topic. If you are a manager and it has been put to you that you need to spend vast amounts of money to retrain your staff to the switch from MS Office to Open Office, then I would suggest firing people and I am not just speaking as a professional engineer I am speaking as a manager. Most MS documents can be imported into Open Office (including many with macros) with little if any changes needed. The only problem you have is when you try to read an OO document back into MS Office. That in itself should tell you how standards compliant Microsoft is.
The biggest problem an organisation is going to have making a switch to Open Standards (note I did not say Open Source) are the managers who will most likely say "Oh it is not like MS Windows" or who have made bad business decisions although to be fair to them they may have made the right business decision at the time, that have locked the company into proprietary solutions.
Sometimes you have to force change (the engineer in me speaking) otherwise things will never change since most organisations are very conservative and won't change unless a decision comes down from the top but sometimes the top managers are even more conservative or love to organise committee's, which usually means nothing changes.
> there are no poor people in first world countries that could possibly benefit from having a cheap PC./sarcasm
Basically you have summed this all up in one line which IMHO is very appropriate. A a cheap laptop for people in third world countries sounds very humanitarian at first until you think about it then you really have to ask the above question.
I am quite sure these people who are proposing the $100 computer mean well but I feel the $100 could be spent on better basic education such as reading, writing and basic maths and you don't need a cheap laptop for those. In addition most poor countries have different values than those that are held by first world countries be it religious or political and trying to force, coerce or even suggest some economic reform which infringes on their values can be counter productive in the long and short term. There is no easy solution to the ills of this world and sometimes the best you can do is to just step back and only provide limited assistance when things get out of hand without going over the top. Unfortunately you then get accused of not caring.
I think the saying "Your dammed if you do and you are dammed if you don't" is also very appropriate.
> They're selling 'em for $650, and they cost about $1100 to make.
Wow that is the most expensive loss to date. Where did you hear that?
I have heard anything from US$200 to US300 but when you look at the so called factual evidence it falls flat since most of the "in the know" quotes seem to be word for word between magazines and web sites (I guess it's easier to copy someones guesses than do your own research). The only way you are going to get a real answer is to actually ask Sony and I very much doubt you will get an answer.
It must be remembered that Sony controls the manufacturing process and once you do that the overall cost of the product is much cheaper. The main costs are development and tooling up for production not to mention marketing and delivery for the final product. I do think they are making a loss but how much I don't know and if it is anything like the PS2 they only made a small loss over the first few months then turned a profit on the console, I don't think the PS3 will be all that different.
Even today the PS2 is still making Sony obscene amounts of money which will be used to prop up the slow take uptake of PS3's and Sony know this is going to be the case. Also Sony does make money from other sources such as TV's, sound systems, PC's.. etc.
Another thing few people seem to be aware of is the Cell Chip was jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba and these companies do stand to make wads of money on this as well (look at the IBM web site on the Cell). The PS3 is an excellent trojan horse for for the Cell as well as Bluray so some loss on the PS3 may be quite acceptable.
I do agree with your statement on Nintendo and even though they were in third place worldwide they still made a healthy profit over the life of the Gamecube while Microsoft made about a US$5 billion dollar (see Google) loss over the life of the Xbox, but then Microsoft does have very deep pockets.
Maybe if they filed the patent in the early 1970's they may have something but I would have been surprised if 1970's arcade joysticks used high voltage (a shocking experience otherwise). Basically the patent reads like what a second year University Electrical Engineering student back in the mid to late 1970's would do to get a few extra marks in a digital control theory project. Even back in the early 1960's 3V and 5V (in the patent) was commonly used for digital applications and I have seen much more sophisticated digital control systems even back then. Look at any electronics manual or cookbook from the 1970's (some still relevant today) and you will see how stupid this is.
This is a patent troll if ever I saw one, unfortunately lawyers who will prosecute or defend the pending case will most likely have no idea what a resister, capacitor, inductor or even an integrated circuit is, not to mention what Electrical Engineering people were taught back in the 1960's and 1970's. Of course if you touch on transistors, FETS and (shock!) valves maybe their brains will explode possibly putting them (patent lawyers) up for a Darwin Award.
In principle this sounds great until you realise that your provider may not provide a high speed line so down loading could take quite some time and you may be exceeding your bandwidth allowance which may result in increased costs or a slower download. In addition the premium Xbox360 has on a 20GB hard drive which is not that big when you consider the size of High Definition content.
I am quite sure Microsoft will come out with a larger drive for the Xbox360 but it is going to be an additional cost to you so for the moment they suggest you delete the file since I would be surprised if you can save it to a different device, which then requires you to delete your file only to download it again at additional cost (I hope you don't think your provider will do this for free). Great way to continuously loose money. Of course this is not that different to renting which would most likely have similar costs, but this is your choice, your time, your money.
At least with buying a DVD, HD-DVD or Bluray disk you effectively own it subject to DRM but at least you can watch it whenever you want by putting the disk in your player, rather than wait for a download. Of course you can loose your physical collection due to fire, flood or theft but that is what home insurance is for.
Any electronic component will eventually fail, however the mean time between failure can vary enormously. When designing any electronic device you need components that have tolerances that are within an "acceptable" range, so the manufacturer usually picks the cheapest component for the job.
Picking components that are only just within tolerance is asking for a reduced lifetime. This is called "planned obsolescence" or in Business speak "Product Lifetime". The trick is to not get the consumer offside with two many failed devices over the so called product lifetime. Manufacturer's do plan for this.
It must be noted that the higher the component tolerance (this means longer or more reliable life) the more expensive that component is so a 1% reduction in component costs can translate into 10's or even 100's of Millions of dollars in saving.
When mentioning exploding capacitors this normally occurs with electrolytic ones in power supplies however put too much voltage on any capacitor and it will breakdown sometimes quite spectacularly. Of course this can also apply to any electrical component.
Most tiny capacitors on computer boards are mainly ceramic or thin film (signal passing) or tantalum (dc power filtering) with electrolytic and Mylar mainly used in power supplies because they are usually larger. There are also other types of capacitors such as those with air or mica dialectics which also have their uses.
The problem is not exactly Microsoft it is the people who miss-manage their own PC's. Basically a Computer is quite sophisticated and a user should be better educated on how to use one. The problem is that people seem to be brainwashed into thinking that a Computer is like a commodity item such as a TV and it is easy to use so they don't need to learn much. This is the concept that Microsoft pushed in the 1980's and continues to push which is now causing enormous problems and this is the fault of Microsoft.
Just over a two weeks ago I purchased a new HP/Compaq laptop and being a professional engineer read the basic instructions that came with it. The instructions were laughable (the Warranty booklet was larger) and to top it off I got a one small page stating my system could be restored without Disks which then proceeds to tell me how to create recovery disks. If this is all the instructions an MS Windows PC user gets and I have seen HD/DVD recorders and TV's with more information, it is no wonder the PC community is in such sad shape.
In addition to my purchase of the laptop (dual AMD processors) the only way to find out what this machine has is to read the Glossy which does not come with the machine. In fact you get 3 months free virus protection before you have to pay, again not in the instructions. To me this is insulting so I tried OpenSuse (Nice) and Fedora Core 6 which I settled on as my only OS (no dual booting here). Runs great and has everything I need and I don't have to pay for virus protection. Of course you do have to have some understanding of computer administration but it not much more different to managing a Microsoft OS and in many ways IMHO is actually much easier.
The whole point I am trying to get across is that computer users (not just MS Windows) must realise that computers in general are not that simple and some basic understanding coupled with security education is needed. Unfortunately many vendors will push for this at a price which many people will not pay for so the problem gets worse.
Backing up to larger disk is fine for a personal environment (ie. PC) and I do this myself but it useless and expensive in the academic, business and scientific worlds where proper backups are important. This means a strategy needs to be in place to take into account disaster scenarios.
The problem that many organisations face today is the long term storage of data, however it is not a simple matter of just archiving data, it is knowing if you can retrieve and reuse that data. Alright I have over simplified it but try writing a Disaster Recovery plan, if it is anything less then a few 100 pages you have not done your homework.
A trivial but important example is to consider a database. You religiously backup all appropriate data to some sort of media (ie. tape, CD, DVD, HD-DVD, Blueray or HVD*) and adopt recommended backup procedures such as "on" and "off-site" storage. Now a time comes when the company decides to move to a new database which is different such as moving from Oracle to MySQL. Basically your old data is effectively useless unless you are going to spend a fortune on transferring the data or keeping the old database accessible which could be very expensive. What do you do?
To sum up you need to decide what data is useful for archiving purposes and this is a major issue in the corporate world. In the PC world it is very much more simpler but if you can honestly say I can recover from the flood, fire and theft then you are reasonably ok. Many PC owners cannot do this because all their data is in one place.
Note: HVD* is Holographic Versatile Disk and if you believe the hype will eventually replace tape as a backup media, of course the tape companies are fighting back.
If it just had a USB port like the PlayStation then you can easily attach a larger drive. Why go for the added expense of replacing the dive? You should also be aware that the Xbox360 has a proprietary drive which can be quite expensive. I can't see this changing.
The most important thing people should be asking is will the HD-DVD drive be used for games and if it is then there are going to be some very pissed off console gamers forced to "up-grade" their machines.
I think Microsoft is now starting to realise that releasing early may not have been such a good idea. Yes the Xbox360 is ok now but in a year will it be without a major change, which could get many gamers offside? Of course Microsoft's PR department is excellent and they may convince people that this is a good thing.
No Microsoft is not a key backer of the HD-DVD consortium, Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC and Memory Tech are. Basically Microsoft is supporting HD-DVD since it throws a spanner in the Bluray consortium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations _supporting_Blu-ray) which to them is Sony. If things change and Bluray starts to dominate then you will see Microsoft do a back-flip.
As far as Microsoft committing to hardware support then you really need to remember that Microsoft is a software company not a hardware company. Of course they do provide software support but that would not be that much different than providing software for a more elaborate DVD player, not exactly a a great effort on their part.
Re:So let the flame wars begin!
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The Birth of vi
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Oh dear back to the eighties.
I think the easiest way to sum up Emacs vs Vi is "vi" is for System Admins and people who want to get the job done quickly and efficiently without having to learn Control and Esc commands (if you look "vi" commands they are surprisingly logical compared to "Emacs"), while Emacs is for people who either have dedicated terminals or have a masochistic streak. This is not to say "vi" is better than "Emacs" in fact it is the other way round and if you are prepared to learn it then it is extremely powerful and can make you much more productive. Of course I am generalising but I do remember the first "vi" vs "Emacs" wars.
If you want a graphical editor there is "gvim" or "xEmacs" both great if you have a GUI, however if you are moving between different Unix machines you have to remember that "xEmacs" or even "Emacs" as well as other so called "free" editors may not be installed so that is why most Systems Admins learn "vi" rather than learn "Emacs". Of course if you are a Systems Admin you should at least be aware of how to use "ed" as well.
To sum up. If you like and can use an editor (not just "vi" or "Emacs") productively then go for it.
Now bring on the "car" analogies. Please no "edlin" since you should be marked as "funny" or "troll"!
If you can see it and hear it you can copy it, however the copied result may not have the same quality which may not be an issue to some people.
Since HD-DVD and Blueray are proposed for High Definition TV's (720 and 1080 using interlace or progressive scan) you will notice the difference between Standard Definition TV and HDTV. Consider a small HDTV (normally 720i,p) at approx 12in (30cm) you can hardly tell the difference between SD and HD content but now consider a 40in (101cm) and above HDTV (720p,i or 1080p,i) displaying SD and HD content and you will really pick the difference. In fact for HDTV's above 40in (101cm) you can start to see significant differences between 720 and 1080.
If you are happy with SD content and have a SDTV then fine, but once you get a HDTV and like it or not you will eventually get one then you will pick the difference so your rip which would contain the basic content will appear grainy and possibly intolerable to watch.
From my personal perspective if I watch a movie on DVD then it would be rare for me to ever watch it again and I cannot see this changing when HD content becomes available so if I would like to watch the latest movie I would rent it. It is unfortunate from my perspective that most movies today are rehashes of shows made over 10 years ago and it is rare to see an innovative show or movie.
Now music is a different matter and this is so much harder to to protect against copying since it does not make much of a difference if you have it on CD, DVD, HD-DVD or Bluray media, it can be copied with very little degradation in content that it can be listened to again and again as well as being re-copied for the rest of your life.
From the web page for Share-point: "Provide a scalable, manageable platform for collaboration and the development of Web-based business applications with Windows Share-Point Services 3.0, a versatile technology in Windows Server 2003."
The continuing vague blurb sounds fantastic but Share-point is specifically for MS Windows. I have seen this in use and like any managed process someone has to manage it otherwise you are going to have a mess on your hands. Linux/Unix can do something similar but the method is different. Again management is important here.
It is unfortunate that when Linux (inset your favorate distro here) is proposed for the desktop the main naysayers are managers who IMHO are extremely conservative (unless they have a good IT background) who normally say "Oh it not like Windows" or "It does not have my favorite MS Windows app" or "We are going to have to retrain all our staff". The saying of "No one gets fired for buying Microsoft" is very appropriate here.
Whenever I purchased a racing game for my kids I always made sure the game showed crash damage otherwise my kids and their friends would not play it. Still they mainly played racing games just to crash the cars so games like Twisted Metal and Destruction Derby (there are many others) where the most popular. I do have friends who rave about GT but they are not interested in crashing the car so crash damage is not important and in many ways it would detract from the game.
I don't really like to suggest a specific distro since there are so many around. I think it is best of you ask yourself if you are going to require paid support from a commercial company such as Novell (I know but they still produce a good distro) or Redhat. You could also look at their free versions such as OpenSuse or Fedora Core 6 or CentOS (basically Redhat Enterprise 4). Other distros such as Ubuntu and Debian from what I have heard are also excellent. There is always fantastic on-line support for nearly all distros but please before you ask RTFM. It is best to subscribe to a forum for beginners first then graduate to the more serious groups.
Before you get any distro make sure it is going to support all (laptop) or nearly all (desktop) of your PC peripherals otherwise you will be disappointed and will go back to MS Windows (a dual boot is excellent to test this although some will say get a test CD). One thing people should realise is that if you are going to use graphical packages such as Gnome or KDE you should look at at getting a PC/laptop with at least 1GB of memory. MS Windows Vista will require this as well.
Since many newer PC/laptops are coming out with Dual Core 64 bit processors (AMD and Intel) you should get a 64 bit Linux OS, however you will probably need a bit of patience while packages are updated to reflect this trend (this is going to impact MS Windows as well). Of course you could compile the source but if you don't have any programming experience you will most likely have problems. Obviously if you do have a 32 bit processor you should not have problems but you still need to be aware that 64 bit apps don't run on 32 bit processors however if you do have a 64 bit processor you can most likely run 32 bit apps.
When you find a distro that you can easily install (most are) which supports all peripherals and you like it, then get rid of your dual boot and have a pure Linux machine. Before anyone says "But you can't get back to Windows" my answer is you really need to burn your bridges otherwise even with the best of intentions you will slide back to MS Windows.
A word of caution. Most modern Linux distros are very easy to install out of the box but the main sticking point with a new person is partitioning and what packages you want. It is usually safer to accept the defaults for partitioning and select everything for your software (4GB to 8GB) otherwise you may have problems and have to get involved with package management too early in the game.
Now to address another problem with Linux, Games! Well there are a few mainly retro games and some good emulators but you are not going to get the latest PC games so basically get over it and get the latest console (your choice) if you like to play games. The PS3 does support Linux which may have some interesting potential, while the Wii does look like fun. The Xbox360 is the closest you will get to PC gaming but I thought you want to get away from Microsoft.
Who cares about a Wii or Xbox360 or PS3 but after I think you will need a PS3 just to relax with, so you can build up your strength for another round of bedroom sport.
In Australia there is CSIRO and some Universities and some of the research is world class. I know other countries spend a small percentage (1 to 5% of GDP) on government research and in many cases there is a world wide cooperation. Where everything becomes skewed is when the basic research is transferred to private industry who seem to want a goose that lays the golden eggs but are not willing to put up any money.
There are very few private companies that actually do serious research and for those that do many of them do rely on Government funding, but nearly all work in isolation to protect what they perceive as their "Intellectual Property". The patent system is really to blame for this since it may have been a good thing in it's day but it is now becoming abused to the point where innovation is actually being suppressed.
As far as the Pharmaceutical industry is concerned only the bottom line is important (like most other private companies) and while the company PR people will cry crocodile tears people will unnecessarily die because the government cannot (or will not) subsidize an expensive drug when a cheaper alternative may partially infringe on a patent. Unfortunately Politicians (not the ordinary people who in many ways don't know) only seem to look to the next election and unless something really serious happens they will do nothing.
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I tried to read the patent however this is best left to a patent lawyer because IMHO it rambles on and says IMHO virtually nothing that hasn't been known by any civilization for millenia.
... etc) said information according to some standard (read my sig) method of information retrieval, but how do you do this when the method of reading would also have to be "immortal", which is the classic "chicken and egg problem". The smart people at Microsoft have most likely thought of this but by skimming the patent (interestingly you need Apple Quicktime to view some images) it looks like a work in progress not a solution.
You would think that to make anything "immortal" you would have to have placed it in a media that can be replicated to infinity without any loss (eg. digital format) and have something that can enable the viewer to read (could be sight, sound, tactile feedback
What is bizarre about this patent if allowed is that when it is required in say a 100 years time, the patent would have expired. Maybe Microsoft is being nice (is that a flying pig I see) so that no one else can patent troll this.
In many countries once you reach the age of 18 you are legally an adult and entitled to vote at least in countries where voting is allowed. For a politician to support banning violent video games, this is political suicide because people aged between 18 and 30 make up a huge voting population and would be more likely to vote against supporters of this stupidity than voters who are over 30 and are normally more conservative. As a politician you may be able to get away with banning people under 21 from violent videos but again this smaller age demographic is still a very large voting group that would be even less sympathetic to something like this.
I have seen things like this tried in Australia that are usually the result of political point scoring or knee-jerk reactions, however thankfully this type of silliness normally dies a quiet death.
At some stage (normally when the child gets into their teens) the parent has to start letting go and relaxing their supervision (this is called trust). It is very important for a parent to talk to their child and as the child gets older the dialog must become more meaningful so that greater trust when given is something a child can look forward to earning.
Children are curious and will always try to see how far they can go before they overstep their boundaries. As parent it is up to you to define those boundaries with out being too restrictive although this can be a very difficult thing. Again this is were dialog comes in. It is normally a "cop out" on the parent's part to blindly agree with so called "well meaning" people who state that they are protecting their child's freedom because children are always going to do the wrong thing. Too many parents are willing to put their child's moral upbringing in the hands of people who probably have no idea of how to bring up a child themselves.
I have mainly trivialised this but common sense must prevail between parent and child and a parent must be willing (even if it is embarrassing) to discuss everything especially sex with their child, otherwise the child will find out anyway and usually from their peers who don't know that much or who have distorted view.
Hence if a parent does not know when asked a question by their child then the onus is on them to find out and come out with the correct answer that is not clouded by prejudice even though the parent may not like it because of their upbringing. If you as a parent can handle this you may actually learn something as well.
I don't mean to say that bringing up a child is easy, it is not, but meaningful dialog can go along way.
I highly doubt that Bluray will die anytime soon since the consortium is very much bigger than the consortium for HD-DVD. Saying that the porn industry favours HD-DVD is silly as well since at the moment HD-DVD is cheaper than Bluray disks to produce which does influence the bottom line but this will change over time (the PS3 will do that). Anyway there is nothing to stop the porn industry from burning their movies onto Bluray if they are willing to pay for the blanks. I don't recall any company in the world has the power to stop you using a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Bluray recorder from recording whatever you want onto the appropriate media unless you are illegally copying or publishing child porn.
l e_Disc) of data. This is not to say HVD will not be useful since they can be used in backup systems (about time IMHO) which could spell the demise of the backup tape industry.
It never ceases to amaze me the VHS/Betamax war being brought up when the subject of Bluray and HD-DVD is mentioned. The main reason why VHS won was it could hold more than the basic Betamax and Sony would not license the Betamax technology until too late. It is all well and good saying "3" layers of HD-DVD can hold more than a "2" layer Bluray, however most payers on the market will be "2" layers and Bluray still holds more.
If you enjoy a good "pissing" competition then why not look at HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) but I cannot see HD movies or games being put onto a DVD size disk capable of storing at least 3.9TB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versati
So basically for cheap meadia (flash is still too expensive) we would see CD's for music, HD-DVD/Blyray for HD Movies and HVD disks for backup systems, with DVD gradually being frozen out. Saying download services will obsolete CD, DVD and HD Disks may occur in the future (eg. iTunes which is a small download) but don't hold your breath since most ISP to home network services in developed countries are usually much less than 10mbs.
I was hoping that SED would be the driving force in bringing down the costs of LCD and Plasma and competing competitively with them especially after all the hype.
There is a new/old (started early 1970's) technology called FED (Field Emission Display) which is being developed by Sony and they already are demoing 26in and 30in versions at 1080p, although they do need to demo much larger ones to be taken seriously.
However FED like SED may not be acceptable if the overall costs are not significantly cheaper than LCD and Plasma. Still this technology may force further cuts in the flat panel market, which IMHO can only be good for the consumer. If you don't have a HDTV yet and are contemplating buying one, a six months wait may save you a considerable amount of money.
Picking the right type of sustainable fuel is extremely difficult however it is very important for politicians to understand the energy equation of each fuel source. Unfortunately I think most politicians are "technological cretins" and only have a interest in what will get them elected or re-elected so choosing viable and appropriate fuel sources becomes more and more reliant on "interest and lobby groups".
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Currently fossil fuel (includes diesel and petrol) is mainly used for transport and looks like being this way for some time to come. Alternative fuels in the form of bio-diesel and ethanol are being touted as a viable alternative to fossil fuel however even these fuels have their drawbacks since you still need to actually grow, harvest, produce and deliver the fuel to the consumer. Bio-diesel is currently seen as the most viable alternative fuel (cheaper and less polluting) since most diesel vehicles can run on it with little or no modification while petrol engines do need to be modified (some more than others) to run on ethanol which is not that environmentally friendly and has a lower energy equation than bio-diesel. On average diesel is approx 30% more efficient and diesel engines usually have allot more torque at much lower RPM than their equivalent petrol counterparts.
You are right so say "So why's the US government pushing hydrogen? It's my suspicion that the oil interests want all the alt-energy money spent on things which cannot work, thus guaranteeing that taxpayer-funded research will never threaten their gravy train.". I would add many governments are touting this around the world and so far nothing has come of it although hybrid (ie. petrol/electric and diesel/electric) are viable. Again you really have to look at the energy equation (time does play a part here) to see if current hybrids are truly viable and cost effective.
Before everyone runs out and buys a diesel (equally applies to a hybrid) I would suggest you do some homework since diesel cars are normally more expensive than their petrol counterparts and you may have to travel a fair distance before you start to save. If the costs are the other-way around (mine was) then it becomes easier to make the decision. Of course buying a motor vehicle is a matter of personal choice and prestige as well and fuel efficiency may not even enter the equation.
The following is an interesting read on the potential ways of manufacturing alternative fuels. The heading reads "'Flashy' New Process Turns Soy Oil, Glucose Into Hydrogen" so read into that what you may.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/0611
During the holiday season people think they have deep pockets and come back to reality when the bills come in. The problem with buying a game machine be it PS2, PS3, Wii or Xbox360 is the fact that premium games will be of similar price. Of course if you are a buying a next gen game machine for your kids I doubt that very many games would be brought since this quickly adds up. This is fine if you have the money but many don't have much disposable income to pay for games unless they are second hand and second hand games are not "in the spirit" of giving.
So after the holiday season there will most likely be a slump in game sales which most likely will not pickup till March/April and this is the time when cheaper HDTV's are scheduled to hit the market which may provide a huge boost to sales of the the Xbox360 and PS3. This is not to say that people won't buy the Wii but the other machines can play HD movies and the Wii cannot so I can see this machine being relegated to the kids room with an SD TV and possibly one or two games per year, unless the parent is an avid gamer. Of course I could be wildly wrong and the Wii will get pride of place with a HDTV. Prestige does play an important part in the purchase of more expensive items be it a gaming console, gaming PC, HDTV, a car or a house.
People that can afford a HDTV and possibly a home entertainment system as well normally can afford a PS3 and/or Xbox360+HD-DVD add-on as well as having enough disposable income to afford games over the lifetime of the console. These are the people that Microsoft and Sony are targeting, not the people who can just barely afford a machine and one or two games per year. After all even selling a console at a profit is pointless unless people buy games and/or movies for it.
I have just recently put Fedora Core 6 on my new HP dual core 64 bit AMD laptop which I purchased (no dual boot ether). I did have a few minor issues which could have been solved with a HP configured install and recovery disk instead of the Microsoft XP professional it came with. So far I can actually do nearly all my work with this OS with the exception of some Microsoft specific solutions that requires I use my company laptop but 95% of my work can be done using FC6.
... etc) than a Microsoft one even though you can get most of the applications you like for a MS OS (sometimes free as well) at least you will fully own all your data and never have to be dependent on a proprietary Operating System. Actually IMHO LaTeX is actually easier to use than IMHO most word processors and the result is normally very professional. This is especially true if you need to write mathematical papers. You still need to know how to use a test editor though. As far as any type of development that requires maths a good Linux distro can provide everything you need (if you do any type of statistics have you tried "R" since it is like "S Plus") and again for free or cheaply.
For a scientist or professional engineer I would strongly suggest a Linux solution (FC6, OpenSUSE, Scientific Linux
If anyone writes to me stating "Oh you had problems with a Linux install on your laptop then there is a problem with Linux". My simple answer is I will give you FC6 or OpenSUSE and Microsoft XP (legitimate copy) and then ask you to install the OS and configure it on a reasonably new laptop (I am being fair here) and I am quite sure you are going to have more problems with the Microsoft OS than with a Linux OS. Since I now have a working Laptop with FC6 (what do you think I am using to type this) I can easily create a recovery disk that could be used to configure all laptops of this type. The first install is always the hardest after that you can easily roll out an OS on equivalent machines, this is how most PC vendors install an MS OS.
Now back on topic. If you are a manager and it has been put to you that you need to spend vast amounts of money to retrain your staff to the switch from MS Office to Open Office, then I would suggest firing people and I am not just speaking as a professional engineer I am speaking as a manager. Most MS documents can be imported into Open Office (including many with macros) with little if any changes needed. The only problem you have is when you try to read an OO document back into MS Office. That in itself should tell you how standards compliant Microsoft is.
The biggest problem an organisation is going to have making a switch to Open Standards (note I did not say Open Source) are the managers who will most likely say "Oh it is not like MS Windows" or who have made bad business decisions although to be fair to them they may have made the right business decision at the time, that have locked the company into proprietary solutions.
Sometimes you have to force change (the engineer in me speaking) otherwise things will never change since most organisations are very conservative and won't change unless a decision comes down from the top but sometimes the top managers are even more conservative or love to organise committee's, which usually means nothing changes.
> there are no poor people in first world countries that could possibly benefit from having a cheap PC. /sarcasm
Basically you have summed this all up in one line which IMHO is very appropriate. A a cheap laptop for people in third world countries sounds very humanitarian at first until you think about it then you really have to ask the above question.
I am quite sure these people who are proposing the $100 computer mean well but I feel the $100 could be spent on better basic education such as reading, writing and basic maths and you don't need a cheap laptop for those. In addition most poor countries have different values than those that are held by first world countries be it religious or political and trying to force, coerce or even suggest some economic reform which infringes on their values can be counter productive in the long and short term. There is no easy solution to the ills of this world and sometimes the best you can do is to just step back and only provide limited assistance when things get out of hand without going over the top. Unfortunately you then get accused of not caring.
I think the saying "Your dammed if you do and you are dammed if you don't" is also very appropriate.
> They're selling 'em for $650, and they cost about $1100 to make.
.. etc.
Wow that is the most expensive loss to date. Where did you hear that?
I have heard anything from US$200 to US300 but when you look at the so called factual evidence it falls flat since most of the "in the know" quotes seem to be word for word between magazines and web sites (I guess it's easier to copy someones guesses than do your own research). The only way you are going to get a real answer is to actually ask Sony and I very much doubt you will get an answer.
It must be remembered that Sony controls the manufacturing process and once you do that the overall cost of the product is much cheaper. The main costs are development and tooling up for production not to mention marketing and delivery for the final product. I do think they are making a loss but how much I don't know and if it is anything like the PS2 they only made a small loss over the first few months then turned a profit on the console, I don't think the PS3 will be all that different.
Even today the PS2 is still making Sony obscene amounts of money which will be used to prop up the slow take uptake of PS3's and Sony know this is going to be the case. Also Sony does make money from other sources such as TV's, sound systems, PC's
Another thing few people seem to be aware of is the Cell Chip was jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba and these companies do stand to make wads of money on this as well (look at the IBM web site on the Cell). The PS3 is an excellent trojan horse for for the Cell as well as Bluray so some loss on the PS3 may be quite acceptable.
I do agree with your statement on Nintendo and even though they were in third place worldwide they still made a healthy profit over the life of the Gamecube while Microsoft made about a US$5 billion dollar (see Google) loss over the life of the Xbox, but then Microsoft does have very deep pockets.
Maybe if they filed the patent in the early 1970's they may have something but I would have been surprised if 1970's arcade joysticks used high voltage (a shocking experience otherwise). Basically the patent reads like what a second year University Electrical Engineering student back in the mid to late 1970's would do to get a few extra marks in a digital control theory project. Even back in the early 1960's 3V and 5V (in the patent) was commonly used for digital applications and I have seen much more sophisticated digital control systems even back then. Look at any electronics manual or cookbook from the 1970's (some still relevant today) and you will see how stupid this is.
This is a patent troll if ever I saw one, unfortunately lawyers who will prosecute or defend the pending case will most likely have no idea what a resister, capacitor, inductor or even an integrated circuit is, not to mention what Electrical Engineering people were taught back in the 1960's and 1970's. Of course if you touch on transistors, FETS and (shock!) valves maybe their brains will explode possibly putting them (patent lawyers) up for a Darwin Award.
In principle this sounds great until you realise that your provider may not provide a high speed line so down loading could take quite some time and you may be exceeding your bandwidth allowance which may result in increased costs or a slower download. In addition the premium Xbox360 has on a 20GB hard drive which is not that big when you consider the size of High Definition content.
I am quite sure Microsoft will come out with a larger drive for the Xbox360 but it is going to be an additional cost to you so for the moment they suggest you delete the file since I would be surprised if you can save it to a different device, which then requires you to delete your file only to download it again at additional cost (I hope you don't think your provider will do this for free). Great way to continuously loose money. Of course this is not that different to renting which would most likely have similar costs, but this is your choice, your time, your money.
At least with buying a DVD, HD-DVD or Bluray disk you effectively own it subject to DRM but at least you can watch it whenever you want by putting the disk in your player, rather than wait for a download. Of course you can loose your physical collection due to fire, flood or theft but that is what home insurance is for.
Any electronic component will eventually fail, however the mean time between failure can vary enormously. When designing any electronic device you need components that have tolerances that are within an "acceptable" range, so the manufacturer usually picks the cheapest component for the job.
Picking components that are only just within tolerance is asking for a reduced lifetime. This is called "planned obsolescence" or in Business speak "Product Lifetime". The trick is to not get the consumer offside with two many failed devices over the so called product lifetime. Manufacturer's do plan for this.
It must be noted that the higher the component tolerance (this means longer or more reliable life) the more expensive that component is so a 1% reduction in component costs can translate into 10's or even 100's of Millions of dollars in saving.
When mentioning exploding capacitors this normally occurs with electrolytic ones in power supplies however put too much voltage on any capacitor and it will breakdown sometimes quite spectacularly. Of course this can also apply to any electrical component.
Most tiny capacitors on computer boards are mainly ceramic or thin film (signal passing) or tantalum (dc power filtering) with electrolytic and Mylar mainly used in power supplies because they are usually larger. There are also other types of capacitors such as those with air or mica dialectics which also have their uses.
The problem is not exactly Microsoft it is the people who miss-manage their own PC's. Basically a Computer is quite sophisticated and a user should be better educated on how to use one. The problem is that people seem to be brainwashed into thinking that a Computer is like a commodity item such as a TV and it is easy to use so they don't need to learn much. This is the concept that Microsoft pushed in the 1980's and continues to push which is now causing enormous problems and this is the fault of Microsoft.
Just over a two weeks ago I purchased a new HP/Compaq laptop and being a professional engineer read the basic instructions that came with it. The instructions were laughable (the Warranty booklet was larger) and to top it off I got a one small page stating my system could be restored without Disks which then proceeds to tell me how to create recovery disks. If this is all the instructions an MS Windows PC user gets and I have seen HD/DVD recorders and TV's with more information, it is no wonder the PC community is in such sad shape.
In addition to my purchase of the laptop (dual AMD processors) the only way to find out what this machine has is to read the Glossy which does not come with the machine. In fact you get 3 months free virus protection before you have to pay, again not in the instructions. To me this is insulting so I tried OpenSuse (Nice) and Fedora Core 6 which I settled on as my only OS (no dual booting here). Runs great and has everything I need and I don't have to pay for virus protection. Of course you do have to have some understanding of computer administration but it not much more different to managing a Microsoft OS and in many ways IMHO is actually much easier.
The whole point I am trying to get across is that computer users (not just MS Windows) must realise that computers in general are not that simple and some basic understanding coupled with security education is needed. Unfortunately many vendors will push for this at a price which many people will not pay for so the problem gets worse.
Backing up to larger disk is fine for a personal environment (ie. PC) and I do this myself but it useless and expensive in the academic, business and scientific worlds where proper backups are important. This means a strategy needs to be in place to take into account disaster scenarios.
The problem that many organisations face today is the long term storage of data, however it is not a simple matter of just archiving data, it is knowing if you can retrieve and reuse that data. Alright I have over simplified it but try writing a Disaster Recovery plan, if it is anything less then a few 100 pages you have not done your homework.
A trivial but important example is to consider a database. You religiously backup all appropriate data to some sort of media (ie. tape, CD, DVD, HD-DVD, Blueray or HVD*) and adopt recommended backup procedures such as "on" and "off-site" storage. Now a time comes when the company decides to move to a new database which is different such as moving from Oracle to MySQL. Basically your old data is effectively useless unless you are going to spend a fortune on transferring the data or keeping the old database accessible which could be very expensive. What do you do?
To sum up you need to decide what data is useful for archiving purposes and this is a major issue in the corporate world. In the PC world it is very much more simpler but if you can honestly say I can recover from the flood, fire and theft then you are reasonably ok. Many PC owners cannot do this because all their data is in one place.
Note: HVD* is Holographic Versatile Disk and if you believe the hype will eventually replace tape as a backup media, of course the tape companies are fighting back.
If it just had a USB port like the PlayStation then you can easily attach a larger drive. Why go for the added expense of replacing the dive? You should also be aware that the Xbox360 has a proprietary drive which can be quite expensive. I can't see this changing.
The most important thing people should be asking is will the HD-DVD drive be used for games and if it is then there are going to be some very pissed off console gamers forced to "up-grade" their machines.
I think Microsoft is now starting to realise that releasing early may not have been such a good idea. Yes the Xbox360 is ok now but in a year will it be without a major change, which could get many gamers offside? Of course Microsoft's PR department is excellent and they may convince people that this is a good thing.
No Microsoft is not a key backer of the HD-DVD consortium, Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC and Memory Tech are. Basically Microsoft is supporting HD-DVD since it throws a spanner in the Bluray consortium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations _supporting_Blu-ray) which to them is Sony. If things change and Bluray starts to dominate then you will see Microsoft do a back-flip.
As far as Microsoft committing to hardware support then you really need to remember that Microsoft is a software company not a hardware company. Of course they do provide software support but that would not be that much different than providing software for a more elaborate DVD player, not exactly a a great effort on their part.
Oh dear back to the eighties.
I think the easiest way to sum up Emacs vs Vi is "vi" is for System Admins and people who want to get the job done quickly and efficiently without having to learn Control and Esc commands (if you look "vi" commands they are surprisingly logical compared to "Emacs"), while Emacs is for people who either have dedicated terminals or have a masochistic streak. This is not to say "vi" is better than "Emacs" in fact it is the other way round and if you are prepared to learn it then it is extremely powerful and can make you much more productive. Of course I am generalising but I do remember the first "vi" vs "Emacs" wars.
If you want a graphical editor there is "gvim" or "xEmacs" both great if you have a GUI, however if you are moving between different Unix machines you have to remember that "xEmacs" or even "Emacs" as well as other so called "free" editors may not be installed so that is why most Systems Admins learn "vi" rather than learn "Emacs". Of course if you are a Systems Admin you should at least be aware of how to use "ed" as well.
To sum up. If you like and can use an editor (not just "vi" or "Emacs") productively then go for it.
Now bring on the "car" analogies. Please no "edlin" since you should be marked as "funny" or "troll"!
If you can see it and hear it you can copy it, however the copied result may not have the same quality which may not be an issue to some people.
Since HD-DVD and Blueray are proposed for High Definition TV's (720 and 1080 using interlace or progressive scan) you will notice the difference between Standard Definition TV and HDTV. Consider a small HDTV (normally 720i,p) at approx 12in (30cm) you can hardly tell the difference between SD and HD content but now consider a 40in (101cm) and above HDTV (720p,i or 1080p,i) displaying SD and HD content and you will really pick the difference. In fact for HDTV's above 40in (101cm) you can start to see significant differences between 720 and 1080.
If you are happy with SD content and have a SDTV then fine, but once you get a HDTV and like it or not you will eventually get one then you will pick the difference so your rip which would contain the basic content will appear grainy and possibly intolerable to watch.
From my personal perspective if I watch a movie on DVD then it would be rare for me to ever watch it again and I cannot see this changing when HD content becomes available so if I would like to watch the latest movie I would rent it. It is unfortunate from my perspective that most movies today are rehashes of shows made over 10 years ago and it is rare to see an innovative show or movie.
Now music is a different matter and this is so much harder to to protect against copying since it does not make much of a difference if you have it on CD, DVD, HD-DVD or Bluray media, it can be copied with very little degradation in content that it can be listened to again and again as well as being re-copied for the rest of your life.
From the web page for Share-point:
"Provide a scalable, manageable platform for collaboration and the development of Web-based business applications with Windows Share-Point Services 3.0, a versatile technology in Windows Server 2003."
The continuing vague blurb sounds fantastic but Share-point is specifically for MS Windows. I have seen this in use and like any managed process someone has to manage it otherwise you are going to have a mess on your hands. Linux/Unix can do something similar but the method is different. Again management is important here.
It is unfortunate that when Linux (inset your favorate distro here) is proposed for the desktop the main naysayers are managers who IMHO are extremely conservative (unless they have a good IT background) who normally say "Oh it not like Windows" or "It does not have my favorite MS Windows app" or "We are going to have to retrain all our staff". The saying of "No one gets fired for buying Microsoft" is very appropriate here.
GT games have never shown crash damage.
Whenever I purchased a racing game for my kids I always made sure the game showed crash damage otherwise my kids and their friends would not play it. Still they mainly played racing games just to crash the cars so games like Twisted Metal and Destruction Derby (there are many others) where the most popular. I do have friends who rave about GT but they are not interested in crashing the car so crash damage is not important and in many ways it would detract from the game.
I don't really like to suggest a specific distro since there are so many around. I think it is best of you ask yourself if you are going to require paid support from a commercial company such as Novell (I know but they still produce a good distro) or Redhat. You could also look at their free versions such as OpenSuse or Fedora Core 6 or CentOS (basically Redhat Enterprise 4). Other distros such as Ubuntu and Debian from what I have heard are also excellent. There is always fantastic on-line support for nearly all distros but please before you ask RTFM. It is best to subscribe to a forum for beginners first then graduate to the more serious groups.
Before you get any distro make sure it is going to support all (laptop) or nearly all (desktop) of your PC peripherals otherwise you will be disappointed and will go back to MS Windows (a dual boot is excellent to test this although some will say get a test CD). One thing people should realise is that if you are going to use graphical packages such as Gnome or KDE you should look at at getting a PC/laptop with at least 1GB of memory. MS Windows Vista will require this as well.
Since many newer PC/laptops are coming out with Dual Core 64 bit processors (AMD and Intel) you should get a 64 bit Linux OS, however you will probably need a bit of patience while packages are updated to reflect this trend (this is going to impact MS Windows as well). Of course you could compile the source but if you don't have any programming experience you will most likely have problems. Obviously if you do have a 32 bit processor you should not have problems but you still need to be aware that 64 bit apps don't run on 32 bit processors however if you do have a 64 bit processor you can most likely run 32 bit apps.
When you find a distro that you can easily install (most are) which supports all peripherals and you like it, then get rid of your dual boot and have a pure Linux machine. Before anyone says "But you can't get back to Windows" my answer is you really need to burn your bridges otherwise even with the best of intentions you will slide back to MS Windows.
A word of caution. Most modern Linux distros are very easy to install out of the box but the main sticking point with a new person is partitioning and what packages you want. It is usually safer to accept the defaults for partitioning and select everything for your software (4GB to 8GB) otherwise you may have problems and have to get involved with package management too early in the game.
Now to address another problem with Linux, Games! Well there are a few mainly retro games and some good emulators but you are not going to get the latest PC games so basically get over it and get the latest console (your choice) if you like to play games. The PS3 does support Linux which may have some interesting potential, while the Wii does look like fun. The Xbox360 is the closest you will get to PC gaming but I thought you want to get away from Microsoft.
Who cares about a Wii or Xbox360 or PS3 but after I think you will need a PS3 just to relax with, so you can build up your strength for another round of bedroom sport.
In Australia there is CSIRO and some Universities and some of the research is world class. I know other countries spend a small percentage (1 to 5% of GDP) on government research and in many cases there is a world wide cooperation. Where everything becomes skewed is when the basic research is transferred to private industry who seem to want a goose that lays the golden eggs but are not willing to put up any money.
There are very few private companies that actually do serious research and for those that do many of them do rely on Government funding, but nearly all work in isolation to protect what they perceive as their "Intellectual Property". The patent system is really to blame for this since it may have been a good thing in it's day but it is now becoming abused to the point where innovation is actually being suppressed.
As far as the Pharmaceutical industry is concerned only the bottom line is important (like most other private companies) and while the company PR people will cry crocodile tears people will unnecessarily die because the government cannot (or will not) subsidize an expensive drug when a cheaper alternative may partially infringe on a patent. Unfortunately Politicians (not the ordinary people who in many ways don't know) only seem to look to the next election and unless something really serious happens they will do nothing.
Unfortunately I don't have any mod points either, having lost them because the last three days were boring.