Not to troll here, but Hitler and Stalin were both atheist AFAIK.
Christians are eager to mod you up even if your claim has no base in reality. That's so typical of religious folks.
Hitler was Christian in his public life. His mother and father were Catholic, but he personally identified more with teachings of Martin Luther. Maybe this was because Luther had very anti-Jewish views. In his book Von den Juden und ihren Luegen (On the Jews and Their Lies) Luther described jews as:
"base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."
Seems like Hitler found a soulmate in Luther.
In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote:
" The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. "
Problem is that these super bees could potentially outcompete all other pollinating insects creating sort of a monoculture. Then species dependant on these other pollinators would suffer or even go extinct (birds, parasites etc.). It would damage the ecosystem in unpredictable ways.
It's much safer to have 100 different species pollinating our plants than one. Imagine if there is only one species that does all pollination for our plants and for example a new disease wipes out all it's population.
Oh, and Israel came into being by international convention, not of its own accord, and as a result of near extinction of the race.
Jews are not a race. It's a religion. Though many jews are at least partially of semitic ehtnicity (same as arabs). So basically what you have is two groups that share common ancestry fighting eachother due to slightly different religion.
No, you'll find half broken apps that sort of do the same thing and haven't seen an update in years, but feel free to continue living in your imaginary little world where GIMP is as "good" as Photoshop, Blender is as "good" as Maya, Jahshaka is as "good" as Avid, LMMS is as "good" as Ableton Live and Tremulous is as "good" as TF2..
So GIMP and Blender haven't seen update in years? Good to know.;)
I like Linux mainly because it's more resource efficient and doesn't get into my way. I have a good ultraportable which is already over 6 years old (Thinkpad X41 with SSD drive), boots up Debian in 7 seconds and runs all software that I need. Operating system itself with X.org and fluxbox takes ca. 200MB of disk space and doesn't reserve too much memory for itself. So almost all resources can be in use by the apps that I need.
Windows 7 would be slow on this machine and all the bloat that comes with it is useless for me. It would be just waste of resources.
I happen to use GIMP on this system together with ufraw and it's quite fast and works good enough for my photo editing needs. Windows + modern enough Photoshop would be terribly slow and I prefer GIMP UI because as I'm more used to it and also because it fits better to my idea of window management (Though on OSX Photoshop works quite similarly). Choice between GIMP and Photoshop is just a matter of taste unless you are a professional photographer. Then Photoshop has it's selling points such as support for 16-bit images. With ufraw+GIMP this is possible too but with not such fidelity. (You need those 16-bits mostly for lossless adjustments in exposure and white balance which you can do in ufraw or in number of other raw editing software dcraw, darktable, bibble pro etc.).
My favorite media player MPlayer is native on Linux and hands down better (more resource efficient, better hardware and codec support and better image quality) than any of its Windows only counterparts. Irssi is still the best IRC client (nothing comes even close on Windows) and Pidgin with XMPP works for my all other messaging needs. I can talk to friends at Google talk, ICQ, MSN, Jabber and so forth by using single client which connects to single server to handle all these connections.
I could go on and on, but you probably get the point. There are lot of resource efficient and good apps for Linux. And you can get new version of most these apps daily by grabbing a snapshot from svn/git.
Oh I forgot one thing. My libdrm intel is version 2.4.24-2 (fetched from 'unstable') xserver-xorg-video-intel is version 2:2.14.902-1. So if you use 'testing' where the really crappy intel drivers are right now, try to download newer ones from 'unstable'.
The only thing that troubles me is Intel's video driver. They just can't or won't write decent drivers for Linux, so performance takes a hit.
Intel drivers used to work great just few years back. IIRC it was a major rewrite of Xorg and introducing KMS that has caused the regression and the need for rewriting much of the driver code. (anyone who knows better please correct me). I think worst of that is already behind and the drivers are improving even for my old i915 chip. Some font or other rendering artifacts still appear now and then, but the performance seems to have improved lately (it was really pathetic few months ago, even glxgears was stuttering)
Debian has been running so well on my 6 year old Thinkpad X41 that I haven't even considered buying a new laptop. I'll probably use it as long as the hardware lasts, be it another 4 or 6 years. After upgrading to SSD and aligning the partitions correctly to erase byte size it boots up to desktop (Fluxbox) in 7 seconds and basically everything that doesn't require heavy calculation from the CPU happens instantly. In practice it's much faster in all CPU non-heavy actions than any Windows laptop I've ever used (I know SSD has most to do with this). It's also ecological to buy stuff that lasts and not replace computers every another year.
I've been repairing windows laptops lately (mostly Windows 7, some Vista) and my feeling is that almost without exception they are laggier and slower than what I'm used to. Even if these things have quadrupled amount of RAM compared to my old laptop, it really doesn't show in any meaningful way. Windows Vista and 7 seem to use atleast one gigabyte of RAM in order to just keep running as there is so much useless bloat loaded at any given time. Also many of these Windows 7 laptops seem to have audio issues on high CPU load. Even after fresh install audio will stutter when the machine is under heavy load (Ie. calculating primes).
So why would I make a jump from provenly trouble free Linux on this laptop to Windows 7? Would it not be slow to run Windows 7 on 6 year old laptop with 1.5GB of RAM? Would the SSD be as fast using windows filesystems? Would the suspend and hibernate actions work correctly and as fast as they do in Linux (suspends in one second, resumes in one)? Why would I use Windows 7 as I even don't know how to use it's user interface (how to move and resize windows without grabbing window borders with mouse?). How about most of CLI tools that make my life easier? Would I be able to use most of my favorite software on windows? (On Cygwin maybe, but why the trouble?)
.Wrong. As the other dude pointed out, it's a LOT older than that.
And it's spelled "Iraq"
I don't know about Irak's WMD, but Iraq's WMD were quite real.
Then stop surrendering, Frenchy.
And this is why rest of the world sees US as arrogant, self important smugs. Only arabs' israeli bashing comes close when you talk about people insulting foreigners on the internets. Grow up.
My big issue with this thing is that keyboards are seperate from PCs for a very good reason. If I spill cola on my keyboard (we've all done it), I really dont want to have to buy a new PC to replace the damaged A key or even strip down and repair the keyboard. What I want to do is buy a new $25 peripheral.
I haven't quite grasped why cheap keyboards are so popular nowadays. Afterall it - together with the screen - is the interface you most interact with and something you actually notice. It's sad to see people invest shitloads of money into computers with highest possible specs and then using it with the cheapest crap keyboard and screen available. Things have got to the point that it's very hard or even impossible to find a good quality keyboard without ordering it from the other side of the globe and paying an arm and a leg for it.
It wasn't always like this. Consider IBM Model M, which was probably the most numerous keyboard in the 80s. Liquid spills are rarely a problem. Just take it to the shower or put it into a washing machine, let it dry before plugging in and it will most likely work just fine. Also it's better to type on than 95% of todays keyboards. Mine was made in 1987 (soon 25 years old), I got it for free (school was throwing old keyboards to the dumpster) and after all these years it's still as good as new. Aside from being a joy to type on they are basically indestructible. At most you might have to change new springs (or swap them around) after 10 years of use if you are picky about even input force.
And while idiots hate to admit it, much of the middle east owes a thank you to GWB. I think the only real surprise here is it happened everywhere else but Iran.
Thanks for all the dead relatives, violence and instability?
If people really want to get rid of a dictator they will do it themselves, thank you very much. (See Egypt and Tunisia) All that international community needs to do is to end dealing with these dictators and give revolting population some moral support. Democracy comes from the people, not from the barrel of a gun. Military invasion and occupation is the worst you can do.
Almost any dictator is better than hundreds of thousands of dead people (mostly civilians) and chaos continuing to this day that resulted from the US invasion.
If the lens can't resolve sharp image even for 5MP, then 15MP won't help anything. With a better lens (which also has to be physically larger) higher sensor resolution will start to matter, but then we are talking about SLRs, not smart phones.
All this talk about megapixels is mainly just marketing for clueless people.
Underclocking doesn't necessarily improve the battery life. The idea is that faster the processor can get thru the task on hand the sooner it can go back to idling, which is good for battery life.
I.E. In case of N900 moderate overclocking actually increases the battery life as the processor will spend more time idling. For systems with fixed clock speed you might be right though, but you will have hard time finding modern tablets with CPUs that aren't capable of frequency scaling.
I think they just used a stock photo of UFO to illustrate the article. It's not supposed to be any more real than the Bill Gates with Borg apparatus picture that the Slashdot uses ever so often.
Is Assange finished with his "I hate America and want to bring down their evil, corrupt regime" business for the time being, then? Because I approve of this sort of leak; it does a lot more good in the world than the dubious Afghanistan-related stuff.
I guess it's Americans like you who haven't been bothered to read WikiLeaks before US related leaks came into spotlight. Maybe it's new to you, but majority of leaks have been about things other than US of A and their dealings with other nations. Also whoever exposes thruth about your government's wrongdoings does not necessarily hate America, in fact he might care of you and do you a favor by doing so.
Would you rather stay in the dark and unknowingly support torture, selling children for Afghan cops' sex slaves (google for "DynCorp" and "Bacha Bazi") and whatever other disgusting stuff your tax money has been spent in? Is that just dubious Afghanistan related stuff that you have no interest in aware of? Well... some people say that ignorance is a bliss.
It's been working pretty doggone well for me on my desktop (variously dwm, e17, and awesome on different machines over the past 7 years), but then I don't see the need to engage in a dick-waving contest about marketshare -- it's not like, even if the year-of-Linux-on-the-desktop never comes, it will lose its utility for us who do use it.
I wish I had some mod points to mod this very important comment up. Too many people today are treating Linux as some sort of popularity contest.
People coding open source should continue to fork and create whatever they need or want. One of the main advantages of Linux used to be that there was no need to make compromises due to market. Having everyone and his mum to do the same thing kills the innovation and limits the choice. If our niche is gone many of us could as well be using Windows.
Imagine what can happen if some autocratic regime gets into power in and confiscates all the data that social network corporations have in store of their users. Then the said regime can use that data to search for probable dissidents and make their lifes hard. IMO that's good enough reason for not to use high profile social networking services with anything linked to your own name.
So for me it's not about telling something I don't want my mum to hear. Such things could cause only minor problems, maybe a lost job at worst. But there are scenarios that could lead in loss of ones life.
I don't think something like above is likely to happen anytime soon, but it doesn't hurt to play safe. I use open protocols like XMPP and IRC with known (or own) servers and have control of logs myself when it's possible. Probably my contact information (even if I try to avoid spreading such details) and discussions I've taken part in are still all over the world in various message boards, but the least I can do is to try to stay in control of my data where I can.
But when you rely on education being paid with other money in the form of taxation, it's simply *not* free. It's not free because you're tapping into units of work performed by others. And you have no metrics to judge whether or not you're worthy of such expenditure. Socialistic systems obfuscate the numbers -by design- so as to prevent class-warfare and other (fabricated or otherwise) "injustices".
Also when you rely in education paid by tax money you quarantee that smartest kids get the education they want, not the eduction their parents can afford. Sure it's not free (for the society) but it's well worth the investment and pays back for everyone.
Other forms of public services can also improve society's quality of life as whole. Just compare how many people you have in jails in US and what class in your society they belong to (mainly poor and uneducated i would guess) and compare it to some countries with less pronounced income differences. If people are not poor they don't need to resort to crime, which again makes the society nicer for everyone to live in.
Sure every system has it's problems. I think Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland etc.) had it pretty well in 70s-late 80s. Good quality free education (best in the world by many indicators), small wealth differences (basically just huge middle class with few rich and none of really poor people) and low crime rate. Much of the benefits of taxes paid and work done back then it is still visible in these societies, but these things tend to erode when they are not taken care by the people. So in a way you have a point.
People start to take benefits for granted and don't see value or understand that they have to pay for it (through the tax). This makes it possible for politicians to get more votes by promising tax cuts, thus wealth differences have increased (today average CEO in Finland earns 52 times average wage, in 1990 it was 9 times average wage...and what we get, guys like Elop who only fuck things up for us and will get away with a golden parachute), there's more crime, politicians seem more concerned with serving corporations than the people and people seem to be suprisingly indifferent about it all.
Not really biting, but on the subject of Ubuntu:
What I really love about Ubuntu is having a Debian stack underneath, with a nice desktop setup on top. I can do normal desktopy things without extra fuzz, but when I happen to need backend-component-x for our webdev stack I can just apt-get install it with a 95% probability.
I really like the blend of user friendlyness and a solid foundation that Ubuntu provides, and a lot of it is really thanks to Debian. For me, it's a win-win.
Ubuntu's OS X mimicry, especially in its recent versions and fast release cycle - which tends to break things - are few things I dislike in it. Though LTS releases make the second issue less important. I'd like to see such highly visible distro having it's own style, trying to lead the way - or choosing its own way - rather than following others. In other points you mention I agree though. Ubuntu is still the distro I recommend to most people that are new to Linux.
If user has some clue what specific software he likes to use, then my vote goes to Debian. 'Stable' for servers and 'testing' for desktops. It doesn't have any of annoyances of Ubuntu, while all the good stuff (apt, Debian configuration tools, etc.) is there.
It also has the nice advantage that if certain software package in 'testing' happens to have a bug you can always fetch another version from 'unstable'. I've now had my desktop 'testing/unstable' install for some 5 years, incrementally upgrading to newer software as it comes available and haven't run into bigger problems than occasional bug that hasn't been too hard to work around. Usually the way I mentioned above, just by installing another version of the said package.
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Christians are eager to mod you up even if your claim has no base in reality. That's so typical of religious folks.
Hitler was Christian in his public life. His mother and father were Catholic, but he personally identified more with teachings of Martin Luther. Maybe this was because Luther had very anti-Jewish views. In his book Von den Juden und ihren Luegen (On the Jews and Their Lies) Luther described jews as:
"base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth."
Seems like Hitler found a soulmate in Luther.
In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote:
" The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. "
Those aren't words of an Atheist, are they?
Problem is that these super bees could potentially outcompete all other pollinating insects creating sort of a monoculture. Then species dependant on these other pollinators would suffer or even go extinct (birds, parasites etc.). It would damage the ecosystem in unpredictable ways.
It's much safer to have 100 different species pollinating our plants than one. Imagine if there is only one species that does all pollination for our plants and for example a new disease wipes out all it's population.
No. Birds are the only currently existing clade of dinosaurs and are warm-blooded while reptiles are cold-blooded.
Jews are not a race. It's a religion. Though many jews are at least partially of semitic ehtnicity (same as arabs). So basically what you have is two groups that share common ancestry fighting eachother due to slightly different religion.
Why should any outside power support either one?
So GIMP and Blender haven't seen update in years? Good to know. ;)
.
I like Linux mainly because it's more resource efficient and doesn't get into my way. I have a good ultraportable which is already over 6 years old (Thinkpad X41 with SSD drive), boots up Debian in 7 seconds and runs all software that I need. Operating system itself with X.org and fluxbox takes ca. 200MB of disk space and doesn't reserve too much memory for itself. So almost all resources can be in use by the apps that I need.
Windows 7 would be slow on this machine and all the bloat that comes with it is useless for me. It would be just waste of resources.
I happen to use GIMP on this system together with ufraw and it's quite fast and works good enough for my photo editing needs. Windows + modern enough Photoshop would be terribly slow and I prefer GIMP UI because as I'm more used to it and also because it fits better to my idea of window management (Though on OSX Photoshop works quite similarly). Choice between GIMP and Photoshop is just a matter of taste unless you are a professional photographer. Then Photoshop has it's selling points such as support for 16-bit images. With ufraw+GIMP this is possible too but with not such fidelity. (You need those 16-bits mostly for lossless adjustments in exposure and white balance which you can do in ufraw or in number of other raw editing software dcraw, darktable, bibble pro etc.)
My favorite media player MPlayer is native on Linux and hands down better (more resource efficient, better hardware and codec support and better image quality) than any of its Windows only counterparts. Irssi is still the best IRC client (nothing comes even close on Windows) and Pidgin with XMPP works for my all other messaging needs. I can talk to friends at Google talk, ICQ, MSN, Jabber and so forth by using single client which connects to single server to handle all these connections.
I could go on and on, but you probably get the point. There are lot of resource efficient and good apps for Linux. And you can get new version of most these apps daily by grabbing a snapshot from svn/git.
I think your exchange was interesting. If there are more people like you at Nokia, then they still have some hope.
What do you mean? Prefixes are always the same:
...Gm (10^9m), Tm (10^12m), Pm (10^15m).
Same goes for flop/s. Prefix is only a multiplier.
It's correct to say that Sun's average distance from the Earth is roughly 149.6 gigametres. (149,600,000 kilometres).
Oh I forgot one thing. My libdrm intel is version 2.4.24-2 (fetched from 'unstable') xserver-xorg-video-intel is version 2:2.14.902-1. So if you use 'testing' where the really crappy intel drivers are right now, try to download newer ones from 'unstable'.
Intel drivers used to work great just few years back. IIRC it was a major rewrite of Xorg and introducing KMS that has caused the regression and the need for rewriting much of the driver code. (anyone who knows better please correct me). I think worst of that is already behind and the drivers are improving even for my old i915 chip. Some font or other rendering artifacts still appear now and then, but the performance seems to have improved lately (it was really pathetic few months ago, even glxgears was stuttering)
Debian has been running so well on my 6 year old Thinkpad X41 that I haven't even considered buying a new laptop. I'll probably use it as long as the hardware lasts, be it another 4 or 6 years. After upgrading to SSD and aligning the partitions correctly to erase byte size it boots up to desktop (Fluxbox) in 7 seconds and basically everything that doesn't require heavy calculation from the CPU happens instantly. In practice it's much faster in all CPU non-heavy actions than any Windows laptop I've ever used (I know SSD has most to do with this). It's also ecological to buy stuff that lasts and not replace computers every another year.
I've been repairing windows laptops lately (mostly Windows 7, some Vista) and my feeling is that almost without exception they are laggier and slower than what I'm used to. Even if these things have quadrupled amount of RAM compared to my old laptop, it really doesn't show in any meaningful way. Windows Vista and 7 seem to use atleast one gigabyte of RAM in order to just keep running as there is so much useless bloat loaded at any given time. Also many of these Windows 7 laptops seem to have audio issues on high CPU load. Even after fresh install audio will stutter when the machine is under heavy load (Ie. calculating primes).
So why would I make a jump from provenly trouble free Linux on this laptop to Windows 7? Would it not be slow to run Windows 7 on 6 year old laptop with 1.5GB of RAM? Would the SSD be as fast using windows filesystems? Would the suspend and hibernate actions work correctly and as fast as they do in Linux (suspends in one second, resumes in one)? Why would I use Windows 7 as I even don't know how to use it's user interface (how to move and resize windows without grabbing window borders with mouse?). How about most of CLI tools that make my life easier? Would I be able to use most of my favorite software on windows? (On Cygwin maybe, but why the trouble?)
And this is why rest of the world sees US as arrogant, self important smugs. Only arabs' israeli bashing comes close when you talk about people insulting foreigners on the internets. Grow up.
I haven't quite grasped why cheap keyboards are so popular nowadays. Afterall it - together with the screen - is the interface you most interact with and something you actually notice. It's sad to see people invest shitloads of money into computers with highest possible specs and then using it with the cheapest crap keyboard and screen available. Things have got to the point that it's very hard or even impossible to find a good quality keyboard without ordering it from the other side of the globe and paying an arm and a leg for it.
It wasn't always like this. Consider IBM Model M, which was probably the most numerous keyboard in the 80s. Liquid spills are rarely a problem. Just take it to the shower or put it into a washing machine, let it dry before plugging in and it will most likely work just fine. Also it's better to type on than 95% of todays keyboards. Mine was made in 1987 (soon 25 years old), I got it for free (school was throwing old keyboards to the dumpster) and after all these years it's still as good as new. Aside from being a joy to type on they are basically indestructible. At most you might have to change new springs (or swap them around) after 10 years of use if you are picky about even input force.
click-click-click
Thanks for all the dead relatives, violence and instability? If people really want to get rid of a dictator they will do it themselves, thank you very much. (See Egypt and Tunisia) All that international community needs to do is to end dealing with these dictators and give revolting population some moral support. Democracy comes from the people, not from the barrel of a gun. Military invasion and occupation is the worst you can do.
Almost any dictator is better than hundreds of thousands of dead people (mostly civilians) and chaos continuing to this day that resulted from the US invasion.
If the lens can't resolve sharp image even for 5MP, then 15MP won't help anything. With a better lens (which also has to be physically larger) higher sensor resolution will start to matter, but then we are talking about SLRs, not smart phones.
All this talk about megapixels is mainly just marketing for clueless people.
Underclocking doesn't necessarily improve the battery life. The idea is that faster the processor can get thru the task on hand the sooner it can go back to idling, which is good for battery life. I.E. In case of N900 moderate overclocking actually increases the battery life as the processor will spend more time idling. For systems with fixed clock speed you might be right though, but you will have hard time finding modern tablets with CPUs that aren't capable of frequency scaling.
Not only that but kph is plain wrong as it doesn't tell the unit at all. Kilo means thousand. Thousand of what?
Abbreviation for kilometre (1000m) is km. So correct abbreviations for kilometres per hour are km/h or kmph.
I think they just used a stock photo of UFO to illustrate the article. It's not supposed to be any more real than the Bill Gates with Borg apparatus picture that the Slashdot uses ever so often.
The real one should probably look something like this: http://www.isna.ir/ISNA/PicView.aspx?Pic=Pic-1736235-1&Lang=E
Please get back under the bridge and shut up.
I guess it's Americans like you who haven't been bothered to read WikiLeaks before US related leaks came into spotlight. Maybe it's new to you, but majority of leaks have been about things other than US of A and their dealings with other nations. Also whoever exposes thruth about your government's wrongdoings does not necessarily hate America, in fact he might care of you and do you a favor by doing so.
Would you rather stay in the dark and unknowingly support torture, selling children for Afghan cops' sex slaves (google for "DynCorp" and "Bacha Bazi") and whatever other disgusting stuff your tax money has been spent in? Is that just dubious Afghanistan related stuff that you have no interest in aware of? Well... some people say that ignorance is a bliss.
Google is in trouble. Unless the law is different for those who have wealth and power. ;)
I wish I had some mod points to mod this very important comment up. Too many people today are treating Linux as some sort of popularity contest.
People coding open source should continue to fork and create whatever they need or want. One of the main advantages of Linux used to be that there was no need to make compromises due to market. Having everyone and his mum to do the same thing kills the innovation and limits the choice. If our niche is gone many of us could as well be using Windows.
Imagine what can happen if some autocratic regime gets into power in and confiscates all the data that social network corporations have in store of their users. Then the said regime can use that data to search for probable dissidents and make their lifes hard. IMO that's good enough reason for not to use high profile social networking services with anything linked to your own name.
So for me it's not about telling something I don't want my mum to hear. Such things could cause only minor problems, maybe a lost job at worst. But there are scenarios that could lead in loss of ones life.
I don't think something like above is likely to happen anytime soon, but it doesn't hurt to play safe. I use open protocols like XMPP and IRC with known (or own) servers and have control of logs myself when it's possible. Probably my contact information (even if I try to avoid spreading such details) and discussions I've taken part in are still all over the world in various message boards, but the least I can do is to try to stay in control of my data where I can.
Also when you rely in education paid by tax money you quarantee that smartest kids get the education they want, not the eduction their parents can afford. Sure it's not free (for the society) but it's well worth the investment and pays back for everyone.
Other forms of public services can also improve society's quality of life as whole. Just compare how many people you have in jails in US and what class in your society they belong to (mainly poor and uneducated i would guess) and compare it to some countries with less pronounced income differences. If people are not poor they don't need to resort to crime, which again makes the society nicer for everyone to live in.
Sure every system has it's problems. I think Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland etc.) had it pretty well in 70s-late 80s. Good quality free education (best in the world by many indicators), small wealth differences (basically just huge middle class with few rich and none of really poor people) and low crime rate. Much of the benefits of taxes paid and work done back then it is still visible in these societies, but these things tend to erode when they are not taken care by the people. So in a way you have a point.
People start to take benefits for granted and don't see value or understand that they have to pay for it (through the tax). This makes it possible for politicians to get more votes by promising tax cuts, thus wealth differences have increased (today average CEO in Finland earns 52 times average wage, in 1990 it was 9 times average wage...and what we get, guys like Elop who only fuck things up for us and will get away with a golden parachute), there's more crime, politicians seem more concerned with serving corporations than the people and people seem to be suprisingly indifferent about it all.
It's a researcher who belongs into Turkic ethnic group that mainly resides in Kyrgystan.
You might know where Afghanistan is, Kyrgystan is about 100km (or 62miles) NE of it.
Ubuntu's OS X mimicry, especially in its recent versions and fast release cycle - which tends to break things - are few things I dislike in it. Though LTS releases make the second issue less important. I'd like to see such highly visible distro having it's own style, trying to lead the way - or choosing its own way - rather than following others. In other points you mention I agree though. Ubuntu is still the distro I recommend to most people that are new to Linux.
If user has some clue what specific software he likes to use, then my vote goes to Debian. 'Stable' for servers and 'testing' for desktops. It doesn't have any of annoyances of Ubuntu, while all the good stuff (apt, Debian configuration tools, etc.) is there.
It also has the nice advantage that if certain software package in 'testing' happens to have a bug you can always fetch another version from 'unstable'. I've now had my desktop 'testing/unstable' install for some 5 years, incrementally upgrading to newer software as it comes available and haven't run into bigger problems than occasional bug that hasn't been too hard to work around. Usually the way I mentioned above, just by installing another version of the said package.