I'm full sure that you can get a screensaver that does exactly the same job as snow.

And if not, there's always porn - and anything nature can do... see rule 35.

...and when Microsoft have third party support ranging from acquiescence to mindless obedience to the exclusion of all others, complaining that it's a biased disadvantage in a benchmark is a bit rich.

Fair play to you!

I'm well impressed with your never-say-die attitude. So what if this approach was completely disastrous in 1929. Why not try it again? Who knows, maybe this time it might actually work. Keynes was an idiot anyway.

And the self-sacrifice is admirable too - putting your savings and investments at risk like that.

I wish I could be like you - me, I'm more of a coward, I just want to see stability restored to the economy and to have some financial security. But you know it might be worth everything turning to shit, just to see some poor person I don't know get their comeuppance - that'll teach them.

(Or is that 21, not quite sure).

The point that is missed by this guy is that Linux doesn't need a year of the Desktop.

Linux market share is about 1%-1.5%, something small - but growing at a substantial rate. Now, a lot of small is still small, so by the end of next year it will only be a little bit bigger and Microsoft's market share will only be a little bit smaller. But if you compound that year on year, then all Linux needs is time. And unlike Microsoft, that's something it has plenty of - a commercial reality that, you can be sure, the boys in Redmond are all too aware of.

Humble Pie like Christmas Pudding is at its best when it is left to season and mature, and I'm pretty sure our friend here is going to be able to eat his fill.

Obviously this is statistically complete poo, but having a look at a couple of sites that I have Google analytics running on and IE is down consistently by about 5-10% with Firefox filling in the blanks.

As we all know browser stats are complete nonsense anyway, but change in relative market share after a hyped event like this one is still of interest.

It will take a while before these figures can be considered indicative, but maybe there is a change in the air.

How about:

Internet Explorer: Everything will be fine if you just wait a minute!

I think you'll find that that particular issue got a good airing in Dawkins' (et al) last book - he even went so far as to describe it as child abuse.

You are a sick sick puppy.

More to the point, religions are programming languages.

Obviously waves of COBOL nostalgia caused your brain to shut down.

I don't know that that is completely true. IIRC Microsoft have always had a pretty bad time of it.

The difference now is that there are real alternatives.

Take Linux, for example, I've been using it for about 10 years now, but it really is only recently that I can show off - most hardware works and there aren't really any applications that are beyond the OS (other than games).

Apple is also far more acceptable as an alternative - I would imagine because of iPod, iPhones and iTunes etc.

(And as we all know XP is also a real alternative to Vista).

Same with Firefox, because "broken" websites that could only work with IE5.5 were all the rage, Firefox failed (even though it was the better product). But more and more websites are aware of its 20%-40% market share and the IE specific websites are less prevalent. And Firefox is really shining.

<sarcasm>Really?</sarcasm>

Is this kind of carry on not just asking for a "useful" virus? (Not proposing it)

There are plenty of smart people out there who are for net neutrality and a number of them might consider it lawful (or even their duty) to exploit the infection vectors that have served botnets for so long, to provide an "inoculation" that reverses the effect of this unrequested distortion of the network - "stealing from the rich" so to speak, which will inevitably "give to the poor".

Would Fungus not be a better choice then?

Although, going back to your original point, the downside of that is that the terms Fungus and STD shouldn't be used in the same sentence - Eeeyuwwwww!

(Whatever you do, don't google it)

You've got serious problems mate. ;-)