4) Vista SP 1 fixed a lot of performance-related bugs. In other words, pre-SP1, Vista was slow and buggy: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistadesktopui/thread/30c9c7f3-2cc4-426a-9db9-885086ff183e/ That bug for example was fixed, but the crucial point is, it was there when Vista was rolled out and everyone and their dog wrote reviews. Recovering a ruined reputation is hard.

Of course Atheists are charitable. Altruism is a human trait that we perpetuate in spite of any religious conditioning. Some of the most thoughtful and kind people I know are atheists.

Though, I will add, the bit about the lawsuit is rather excessive. While, yes, I see why there are laws that govern things like handicap accessibility in buildings and jobs, but when you're playing what is, essentially, visual media... that's starting to stretch it. Thanks to nerve damage sustained from a Hot Wheel car when I was a kid, I am unable to diverge my eyes.... maybe I could sue the Magic Eye people.

The CDC estimates 22M cases among Americans through mid-October. The actual number is probably close to 30M by now, which is nearly 1 in 10. Since most people know roughly 100 other people, that means the poll averages should be closer to 10, not 2-5, and *certainly* not "none at all." Most people who picked the "None" option are either willfully ignorant or woefully uninformed.

Okay, if you want to take that approach (and personally, I consider the CDC as full of shit on this one - No way have they actually confirmed 22M cases, they've gone by MD reporting, which currently consists of "You have flu symptoms? Go away. Swine flu. Have a script for Tamiflu, and consider yourself yet another statistic"), let me clarify my answer of "none":

If I know anyone with the swine flu, then, as per my expectations, it counts as nothing worse than every other yearly flu contracted by millions of people. No one that I know dead, no one that I know knocked on their ass any harder than by any other flu, no one that I know who even felt the need to go to the doctor for treatment.

So Swine Flu? I can't with 100% certainty say "none". I can, however, say with 100% certaintly that no one has caught the media-feeding-frenzy, FUD-of-the-year plague-to-end-all-plagues.

Oh, I understand. You jumped straight into a thread without understanding what it is about.

You try to discredit me through attacking my character, instead of attacking my premise. I don't think you even understand my premise.

I never suggested there was less malware for Windows than OS X (cause obviously Windows is littered with it). I never suggested to ignore bugs (where did you get this from?). All I suggested was that Windows Vista/7 has many security features built in that Mac OS X does not. And it is of my opinion, for example, a person surfing with IE8 in Vista/7 is more secure than that of a person surfing Safari on OS X. However, I still think you are more likely going to be targeted on a Windows platform than an Apple one - so while the security of product might be better or on par with Mac OS X, it will be more likely of the 2 to have malware.

Being a target does not make a product less secure, but rather makes security problems more likely to arise.

I do think it's a baseless and obviously biased claim when people say Mac OS X security is fantastic, and in the same breath say Windows is so far behind in this department. This people are usually Mac fanboy's or M$ bashers.

You, I think, are just an idiot.

I just tried Moses' online demo for French-->English. 'J'aime pas le chocolat' is translated to 'I am not chocolate' and 'Je n'aime pas le chocolat' to 'I do not like the choclate'
I guess state-of-the-art is still far from perfect too. The GP's point still stands.

I get the rest of your defence but why allow users to execute random files in a windows environment?

Reminds me of something my father told me about. He's in the cyclotron (atom smashers, for medical purposes) business, and back in the 70s, the control systems for his machines were run on PDP 11s.

Well, the old computers have all died over the years, but some of that equipment is still running, albeit with it's third owner. Y'know, Sloan Kettering upgrades and sells their cyclotron to UCLA. UCLA upgrades and sells it to University of Shanghai. Shanghai sells it to a hospital in Java...

Anyway, the same control software is being used; they're just running PDP 11 emulators in a Windows context.

>>>they'd make off with around two grand before they were stopped. I was informed that I'm only worth 645 dollars. :/

Correct. The "guy" pays $645 for your information and he scores about $2000 using it. So around $1300 profit minus expenses like gasoline, renting a place to atash the stuff, and so on. It wouldn't make sense for the guy to pay $5000 for your data if he's only netting $2000 stolen, would it?

I had my credit card number stolen one time, and somebody in California bought $3500 worth of stuff at Walmart. I had been traveling and I suspected the girl behind the Motel 6 desk had collected and sold my number. I don't know how much the scammer paid that girl but if it was around $1500 (Symantec's estimate), then he "earned" $2000 profit overall. Not bad.

See it's not about "your" value. It's about the value to the scam artist and how much he thinks he can get with that data.

Yes, it's less spectacular if they've done it only because they were in violation but I think they should be applauded either way.
In the worst case, it shows that they are willing to play by the rules. They didn't try to take it as far as they could. They found out the violation and promptly fixed it.

My "Smart" thermostat turned the A/C on 45 minutes before my set time at 7pm, beginning of off-peak rates. It's called "Smart Response Technology" and it's "thinking for me"; aka: costing me money. Couldn't get the manual/specs off honeywell.com without registering but luckily it was loose on the tubes. So now Setting 13 has been switched to 0, the dumber response of activating at the time I chose to activate!

I'm finding smart appliances are just like the cloud, great in theory but painful in practice.

Nice, when will it be available for TomTom?

It was plain enough the first time. I'll repeat as well. I had no intention to buy this game in the first place.
Yes, you don't have to buy them all. You don't have to buy any. I pointed out that what usually was done in one game (RTS with campaigns for all species) is now being offered in three.
I still don't get it. What do you mean? If I don't want to buy a product then I am not allowed to discuss it or even whine about it? Your only addition to the discussion was condescension.