The problem with questing in the core WOW game is not the XP gains but with the rewards. The rewards a person or guild is going to get from grinding, either for rare drops or instance bosses are far better then any rewards from quests.
Humor during a disaster or crisis is not always a sign the joker is being flippent or mean spirited. One of the ways people deal with a situation thats unpleasent or distressing is to attempt a joke or humor because it helps creates some emotional distance from the situation. Not knowing the people making the jokes, I can't say thats the case here but it is possible.
If the installers are able to create a functional dual boot system without affecting Windows then this could be really good for Linux adoption, assuming my situation is even semi-common outside my group of friends.
I've worked with live-CD's in the past and would like to install Linux, but the problem has always been the threat of lost data and system downtime getting the OS to work. Between school and my job I can't afford to be without a functional computer for any real length of time, so even the small chance of something going wrong and the natural learning curve of a new OS have made switching impossible. If this option is able to do what Ubuntu plans then switching would be a very easy decision.
A few hours and an over-night download giving a fully functional Windows OS for work and school and a Linux OS for learning the system would be just what I've wanted.
"3. They have "abandoned money"? Wait a minute... money is nessicary when there is scarcity and a market economy... and they definitly didn't eliminate scarcity (after all, dilithium crystals are still rare and valuable... there is only one holideck on the Enterprise, not one for every crew memeber, definitly meaning it would require some sort of rationing... the Enterprise is always carrying medicine or supplies, implying that the replicators can only produce certain types of objects)." In Deep Space 9 its pretty clear that money still exists and that Starfleet pays its people some how because there are shops and you see Starfleet crew shopping in them. Also in Voyager there is a show were two of the main characters are talking about a historical renactment bar were people go around and pretend to steal people's wallets to increase accuracy. Personally I think the "no money" thing was quietly dropped after the creaters realised it caused problems like you mentioned.
4. We are left to assume that the Federation is some sort of Democracy... then why don't starfleet officers ever talk politics? Why isn't Data a member of one political party, while Wharf is a memeber of another political party, and they have heated (though respectful) political discussions? Why isn't Pickard contiplating his civilian political career after his starfleet career? Why is there never any controversy about Federation policy? The Federation is a Democracy or a Republic of some sort because we met the President of the Federation (he is an alien by the way) in a 2-parter in DS9. There is also a split between the Federation and Starfleet because in the same 2-parter Starfleet has to get permission to overhaul base security and it was the President who had to declare martial law. I know you ment the post to be funny but I wanted to point out that some of your points were talked about in the later shows and dealt with to some degree.
Tablet PC's already do what you want and at a lower price point as well. Most of them use digitizers from Wacom with input resolution of 512 DPI with the same pressure levels. The Tablet PC's are roughly equal to the last gen Intuos and Cintiq and the same as the current gen Graphire tablets. There are some models of tablet that use touchscreens like PDA's but thats the exeption.
I have a tablet pc and I do use it as a sketchbook all the time. The only thing to keep in mind is that most tablets are designed to be light so they are underpowered and can't run programs like Painter, but there are programs written just for tablets. ArtRage is one I've found useful.
Most people that are going to use this software just don't care that it is proprietary because unless your a programmer or a software engineer any type of program might as well be a black box. The average person has no understanding of how or why software works or how to change anything so unless Microsoft disappears over night the proprietary issues are never going to effect the vast majority of users.
DRM is evil but its also opt-in in Vista, there is nothing to stop people from playing their MP3's and OGG files with what ever software they want, the only people that are going to ever see the DRM are people that are going to experiment with new offering from the media companies.
There are many very real improvements and upgrades for people in the new version, DirectX 10 is looking like a massive upgrade for gamers, the new security model looks like an improvment over the existing model (even if the model is a poor version of Linux's version, that doesn't decrease the security improvment for Windows users), and like it or not the new UI is also an upgrade that is going to draw people in because glitz and glam does sale and it does matter to people.
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The problem with questing in the core WOW game is not the XP gains but with the rewards. The rewards a person or guild is going to get from grinding, either for rare drops or instance bosses are far better then any rewards from quests.
Humor during a disaster or crisis is not always a sign the joker is being flippent or mean spirited. One of the ways people deal with a situation thats unpleasent or distressing is to attempt a joke or humor because it helps creates some emotional distance from the situation. Not knowing the people making the jokes, I can't say thats the case here but it is possible.
If the installers are able to create a functional dual boot system without affecting Windows then this could be really good for Linux adoption, assuming my situation is even semi-common outside my group of friends.
I've worked with live-CD's in the past and would like to install Linux, but the problem has always been the threat of lost data and system downtime getting the OS to work. Between school and my job I can't afford to be without a functional computer for any real length of time, so even the small chance of something going wrong and the natural learning curve of a new OS have made switching impossible. If this option is able to do what Ubuntu plans then switching would be a very easy decision.
A few hours and an over-night download giving a fully functional Windows OS for work and school and a Linux OS for learning the system would be just what I've wanted.
Tablet PC's already do what you want and at a lower price point as well. Most of them use digitizers from Wacom with input resolution of 512 DPI with the same pressure levels. The Tablet PC's are roughly equal to the last gen Intuos and Cintiq and the same as the current gen Graphire tablets. There are some models of tablet that use touchscreens like PDA's but thats the exeption. I have a tablet pc and I do use it as a sketchbook all the time. The only thing to keep in mind is that most tablets are designed to be light so they are underpowered and can't run programs like Painter, but there are programs written just for tablets. ArtRage is one I've found useful.
Most people that are going to use this software just don't care that it is proprietary because unless your a programmer or a software engineer any type of program might as well be a black box. The average person has no understanding of how or why software works or how to change anything so unless Microsoft disappears over night the proprietary issues are never going to effect the vast majority of users.
DRM is evil but its also opt-in in Vista, there is nothing to stop people from playing their MP3's and OGG files with what ever software they want, the only people that are going to ever see the DRM are people that are going to experiment with new offering from the media companies.
There are many very real improvements and upgrades for people in the new version, DirectX 10 is looking like a massive upgrade for gamers, the new security model looks like an improvment over the existing model (even if the model is a poor version of Linux's version, that doesn't decrease the security improvment for Windows users), and like it or not the new UI is also an upgrade that is going to draw people in because glitz and glam does sale and it does matter to people.