mod parent up, he's seriously insightful and backed up by references. He may be wrong, but it's definately worth reading.

mod him up

If I drive a car without driving license, without knowing what I'm doing, with no experience and no knowledge about what could go wrong, how it could go wrong and what to do not to kill myself or others, nobody will say I deserve an accident.

That's because everyone knows that I'm BEGGING for an accident.

I think the point here is that on linux systems, virii need a vulnerability to do a permission escalade to root. Without that they're pretty much harmless. (at least ah harmless as a stupid user can be, user actions still need to be managed, charted, to see if there is a worm or a nasty script running).

On Windows, by default, you're vulnerable to viruses, and when a new virus stronger than your AV comes aound, you have to upgrade your AV.
If your AV is not active, has a failure, is not up-to-date, wants you to pay for protection, you're vulnerable to 100% of them.

On Linux, by default, you are protected against viruses, both by the built-in permission system, and by the way the system is built. When a vulnerability is revealed, it takes (usually) hours, sometimes minutes before it's fixed, if you don't trust your users, your NAT or your firewall, you upgrade your system (kernel or concerned application), apply a patch and you're safe again.
there is no way you get vulnerable again to 5yo virusses on Linux, unless you run a 5yo system with 5yo applications.

Well, yeah, and if you run win95 on a virtual machine, it could also get infected, but it has no chances to get root privilege... EVER (the virus being aimed at the win, not at the underlying linux). That argument is just wrong...

And what's the story of the "" ( ... ) unicode character ? Is it supported already ? (looks like it isn't)

...break the internet, again.

Could you please explain the link between hardware requirements and game innovations ?

I just don't see it.

So should be Vista.

Google's Beta is Microsoft/Apple's post-Rock-Solid-Stable equivalent. Really, and for the last time, versions and release names are nothing but subjective marketing data.

If you are also referring to the inability to keep an information secret, I should point out that during that WWII, the research on Enigma done by Alan Turing was kept secret for years after the end of the war, including to his close friends or relatives.

can't stop laughing... tears... can't breathe... heart stopped... death by Recursive Fail.

October 6, 2009. Today, a comedian died in Slashdot.

that's google talk's default privacy policy !

"The X-Files Le guide non officiel" (french for "non official guide")
N.E Genge
ISBN: 2-258-04504-5

(that, and some research about topics discussed in X-Files, like Spontaneous Combustion, UFO sightings, Roswell case, etc. They might be all lies, but thoses phenomenons where investigated or reported from time to time, and most people never heard of them before X-Files)

I'm not saying that X-Files is to be trusted and accurate, it's not the purpose. :)

"Trust no one" !

If you look closely, you will learn that most of X-Files episodes are based on real cases and mysteries.
While this includes people's imagination being debunked by FBI's investigation, it also includes references to "top secret" projects only known by early "conspiracy theorists" and some of them were sometimes revaled true a few years later.

That's why it got that sucessful (besides the quality of the show itself) : it mixed mystic theories, unbelievable myth, and real theories about government and UFO's that were sometimes factual.

I don't have much examples in mind right now, but I remember hearing much words like "aurora" "blackbird" or theories about UFO's when I was kid, and later, discover that those were based on real reports of people claiming to have experienced those things.

...from computer simulation, that this year is going to be the year of Zombies on the Desktop !