Why do you suppose these customers are using a credit card? All my credit cards directly debit my bank account (the full amount) at the end of the month, give me rewards for using it (from the merchant fees), give me interest free purchases (till the end of month), and it's more convenient than carrying around cash. And if at any stage I'm unhappy with it, I'm free to walk away.

And the points about lock-in, unpredictable billing, surcharges and captive market are all crap. Sounds just like more whining by someone who doesn't want to take responsibility for money they've agreed to borrow.

My experiences are:

• My old desktop. Pulse was unusable (I've since got rid of it, and haven't tried later versions of pulseaudio). The two killers were periodic whisper quiet sound and stupidly massive latency (and by stupid, I literally mean like ~4 seconds. I'd get an alert about a new IM message, and realize it's about the message that I opened a few seconds ago and have read, and since closed) I can't imagine trying to play games. Even just hitting the "Play" on a music player was annoying.
• Laptop. No complaints, worked like any other sound system.
• Current Desktop: Annoying, but bearable. When more than one application is playing, it plays to different physical headphone jack (my computer has 3). If I'm listening to some music, and open a video (flash or what not). I then have to unplug my headphones and put it in the different jack to get the sound for that. Each application is getting its own jack.

So yeah, it's nice that per-application volume adjustment works for you but I'd hate to think of how long people (including myself) have spent screwing around with pulse audio when freeBSD is still offering a better sound experience.

As a biker, I'm going to agree with the GP on this. I think there are a number of factors: a) On a bike you tend to stay much more alert and aware of other vehicles. b) The average skill of a biker is higher than a car driver. c) You're only 3 feet wide. It sure makes dodging easier.

I've been in a similar situation, I was going down the road at 40 miles/hour, and a car pulls out of a side street into my lane, stops. Leaving it completely blocked. The only thing I could do, was go into the oncoming lane to get around the car. Fortunately the oncoming lane had moved over just enough that I missed them. I miraculously made it through with only inches on either side. Had it been a car? I would've ploughed into the idiots driver side door (and probably killing her). Or maybe my reflexes would've caused me to try dodge the car, and have had a head-on collision.

Yes I'm aware these are just two datapoints, but perhaps you could quit with the jerk statements:

Just tried it. It only makes /their/ session private, but still shows your history to them.

I just launch Arora (a webkit browser that I never use) and let them go nuts

Ugh? I suppose if I connected the bottom of a tank, to the top of itself -- it'd explode (from infinite pressure?).

(What ever pressure you gain from going down, you'll lose by going back up (with your connecting tube)

I do not have NoScript, have javascript enabled and also am using FlashBlock. The only thing that gets blocked for me is the 3D model. Everything else is just javascript / html. FWIW I'm using Fedora 12 / Firefox 3.5

Correction for the last line: without* flash

Are we looking at the same page? Or am I somehow getting served a flash-free page? The only flash I can find is in the rotate-360 degrees (where it shows an interactive 3D model). Even the image gallery supports smooth animation with flash..

Your body burns up muscle during starvation (iirc for a number of things, but primarily providing more glucose than the liver can provide). When you run out of muscle, it's game over. If you're an obese person, this will happen before all your fat reserves are used up.

No idea what the GP is on though..

Ugh not even close. If you are fat, your body will run out of protein long before fat and you'll die of something like cardiac arrest.

As long as energy usage is higher than intake, either approach can work. No magic here. Also, you're completely over-blowing the whole metabolic rate stuff, it's really not that big of a deal.

I believe this is the first disclaimer that I've read that's actually changed my mind on the point.

Nothing. But it'd allow you to have multiple https sites on the same ip (and would provide a nice way of doing multiple http hosts on the same ip)

You can't be serious. You are aware you can get the express editions for free? Which will do everything you need, and if your requirements are beyond that .. you probably should be buying it anyway. And if you can't afford it, you can torrent it or god forbid live with free tools. I think you just want to find problems not solution.

This is ridiculous. Hairfeet's point (who incidentally got troll mods) is that the only person who ends up with Ubuntu is someone looking for it. If you have to press "Customize with Ubuntu" (which is only on one out of 4 options) and not an option in the standard "Customize", then the person is seeking out Linux.

Come back when Linux is an option that people pick to save money, and then lets compare return rates. And this is posted by someone whos running Fedora rawhide.

Actually, he's 100% right. On this page you linked: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/laptop-mini2?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

It lists the operating system as Windows or Linux. Then go ahead and click on one, and you're presented with four choices. All Windows XP. Even when customizing, you can't change from Windows to Linux. It even took me a while to realize how to buy a Ubuntu netbook. One of the four choices has a button "Customize with Ubuntu", then and only then you can buy it with Linux.