Yeah, Vista was good enough to last an entire evening before I had to go back to XP instead. The pre-installed image crashed and crashed then crashed some more.
At least something good came out of the Vista train wreck. Microsoft realized they had to do some proper work, and ended up with Win7. By the looks of it, an actually decent OS. I could make do without all the DRM chugging through its innards, wasting cycles, but as usual it'll only really affect a few people (and no pirates), so it's not that critical.
Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal evidence based on my experience, and so I understand everyone is different.
I've been using Vista since I built this machine about ~10 months ago. Not a single problem. It has been absolutely rock solid in terms of stability. I reboot only to install updates and such, so my uptime is measured in days, weeks, and at times, months. I never experienced the typical Windows rot I got with XP. I use this computer for 3D and other graphics work, as well as a little bit of gaming here and there. It's often pushed "to the max" in terms of resources, lots of large files being loaded into memory, lots of heavy processing, etc. Everything from stuff that stresses more say, memory and the GPU (3D viewports in modo, Maya, etc, previewing stuff in Photoshop, and all that), to stuff that is more CPU intensive such as rendering and image adjustments in PS. Again, no Window rot. I've even benchmarked renders after a fresh reboot, and after uptimes of 30+ days just to see. Also, and this is totally based on my non scientific observation, I haven't noticed any slow down/rot when it comes to using the OS and apps in general.
As for performance, it flies on this machine, but I understand that my system has a bit more power than a standard user would have (well, it is 10 months old, but still no slouch, i7 920, 12gb RAM, tho my video card is a weak link, a Radeon 4850 1gb card, but that doesn't really affect Vista's performance, more so 3D stuffs). Anyway, every app I use is fast and responsive. Some benchmark tests in modo show a 5x increase in rendering speed on average, and that was still with a 32 bit app. Photoshop handles everything I throw at it without trouble. Again, I know that's more due to the hardware than the OS, but the OS isn't hindering me at all. Naturally, a more efficient OS would be even faster, but I don't think I'd actually notice it that much. Even if I had a wider variety of apps that had Linux clients, and Linux could indeed make more efficient use of my system's resources, I don't think it'd be worth it to have to dual boot in and out of Linux just to use a specific app for a slight, probably barely perceptible increase in performance. That's not to say that MS gets a pass for bloat though, of which I don't doubt Vista has. Again, maybe due to my system that I don't really notice much bloat, but I have to think that Vista isn't quite as bloated as the most rabid anti-MS zealots would have you believe.
Anyway, I'll still upgrade to Win7 soon, just because everyone I know who liked Vista likes 7 even more. And even those who didn't like Vista still seem to like 7. Everyone is pretty much telling me that 7 takes all the best of Vista, and either keeps it or improves upon on it, and it tosses out a lot of the garbage from Vista. Anyway, all that said, I still think people rag on Vista just because it's the "cool" thing to do. And yes, it has teething problems, and MS shouldn't be excused for rushing it out the door, but even people who hated and had trouble with the early Vista OS have told me that it's currently a different beast in terms of fixing all those problems that plagued it early on. I'm sure there's still a few problems with it, but I haven't really encountered any. Even though I prefaced this comment with "this is just my experience", I still have to believe that a lot of the Vista hate is just carried over from earlier on, and because it's the cool thing to do. I have no idea why anyone could continue to claim so many problems when I have had absolutely none (that is to say, I can't see why, but that's not to say that it's not possible). Again, I understand everyone's setup and experience is different, but I refuse to believe that *everyone* is on the level when bashing Vista. I know for a fact that I've seen people bash Vista by claiming to still suffer from problems that have been fixed for a long time. The other thing that annoys me is when people bitch and moan about features in Vista that they can easily disable. I know one of the first things I did was attempt to "streamline" Vista by cutting down on all the fancy UI graphics related stuff, and make it look and behave more like XP. That was more about me setting it up so that I was comfortable and working in a more familiar environment than anything else though. Even with all the fancy bells and whistles turned on, my system ran just fine, and all those bells and whistles actually barely made a dent in performance to the point of me not really being able to tell the difference in terms of performance with them on, as opposed to off. Again, it was more of a preference thing than a necessity for performance.
Finally, so I can provide a bit of objectivity here instead of coming off like a fanboy, while I think Vista is great for those who have systems that can handle it really well, that shouldn't be construed as saying it's a great OS for everyone. And Vista was marketed as just that. We saw how MS got in trouble with their "Vista Ready" or whatever marketing they had on systems that could barely handle it.
Probably the most offensive flag in existence is the Union Jack. It represents quite a few years of oppression (the Nazi flag just 4 years).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Nazi flag have been flown for 12 years, from 1933 to 1945? (Or rather, wouldn't it have been the national flag for those 12 years, though having been around longer, since the inception of the Nazi party?)
As you hinted at, the killing may or may not be painless, it's the part before the killing that's obviously cruel. Part of that is because it's physically painful to be packed in so tightly you can't move, covered in infections, etc. However being an animal in a factory farm is probably also terrifying on a more abstract level, even if you can't feel physical pain.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about the design of slaughterhouses. Apparently, it seems that recently some places have been trying to reduce the amount of stress experienced by the animals as they make their way through the "factory floor" on the way to the chopping block. I think one of the leading researchers was actually doing it for more compassionate (reducing the mental stress of the animals) reasons, and that the companies', though I could be TOTALLY wrong on this, were doing it for better quality meat. Something about the hormones and other chemicals released by the cows when they're under stress leads to meat that isn't as tasty as cows that are killed under less mentally straining conditions. Maybe someone can elaborate on this, and either confirm or correct this, as I don't remember if I read it in the actual article, or if I'm just remembering anecdotal evidence from hunters who have said that say, the meat of deer, tastes better when the animal dies quickly.
Maybe. But if the food runs out, all we'll have left to eat is meat!
But.... how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!
In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand. -- Gerald Holton