I have a backup server at a second independent data center

As do I :-) Like I said, some call me paranoid...

No, my car doesn't have an OS. My TV is probably 50/50. The only OS I interact with on a daily basis is Linux. Unless you count firewalls which are IOS at work and OpenBSD at home. But I'm not sure I'd say I'm really interacting with them.

I'll ask my electrician for a full size rack on wheels, but if he can't get one, the wall mount it is

Unless you need the full 42u, I'd definitely go for something smaller. A half-ish rack on wheels should be more than adequate, will be less imposing, and they're relatively cheap, too. We have a couple in the office at work because the few machines that aren't in one of the data centres don't need a full height permanent rack. I can't believe there isn't a suitable supplier in Luxembourg, given the number of financial institutions there. But if not, there should be plenty in Germany, right?

It is a retailer warranty. It only applies as Apple sells something directly to consumers.
In other cases, other retailers have to get Apple to fix the stuff, but Apple isn't directly liable.

Also, good luck getting multiple monitors to work

I've had far more success with multiple monitors using nouveau than with the proprietary Nvidia drivers. I'm currently running with 4 monitors using nouveau, and have been for many years. Further, in the last few years I haven't encountered anyone else that's had problems with multiheaded support in nouveau either, and we have an office full of people doing so here.

I am stuck with a linux desktop that can't talk to my camcorder, scanner (though the linux-compatible printer now *finally* works), etc.

To be fair, those things are rarely due to resources being spread too thinly or duplicated efforts elsewhere and are far more commonly caused by patents, obstructive vendors and unethical business practices. Apple gets around this by paying the vendors, which simply isn't an option for most Linux distributions.

Red Hat seem to have a pretty good business model when it comes to open source, and are now a billion dollar company. That shows that you can do it. I don't think Canonical can follow their example, though.

But they are the only modern fantasy novels that are on the same high level as Tolkien

I couldn't disagree more. Donaldson has a terrible writing style that has a few brief moments of greatness and a lot of tawdry mediocrity. He doesn't come close of Tolkien on any level, and I found "The chronicles of Thomas Covenant the unbeliever" to be very dull for the most part. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

Lyndon Hardy - "Master of the five magics" and its sequels (fantasy)
Elizabeth Moon - The "Vatta's war" series (SF)
Vernor Vinge - "A fire upon the deep" and "A deepness in the sky" (SF)

John Wyndham is rarely mentioned these days

Yes. And not just the well known books, either. I'm rather fond of the collections of short stories, such as "Wanderers of time"

Yep. In addition to the Weapon Shops/Weapon Makers, I loved "The empire of the atom" and "The wizard of Linn". Also the Null-A books. I'd guess I have probably about 75% of the books he wrote, but it's increasingly hard to find the rest.

You're wrong. Code isn't always submitted back to the project. I can point to several examples of this. Hell, in many cases, code isn't even forthcoming where it's covered by the GPL and there is a legal obligation to do so. Your irrational hatred of the GPL seems to be blinding you to the facts here.

Heh. I read this a few days ago, but I hadn't noticed that you'd written it. I agree with nearly all of it. It's not a viable business, and there's only so long Shuttleworth can keep bankrolling it. Personally, I think it's a weak excuse for a distribution, too.

Disks are insanely expensive right now

Yes, I'd noticed :-( I can hold out for a little while, but not too much longer. I've already shuffled around the free space I have, but I'm running dangerously low on a couple of filesystems.