I'm only counting distros I actually used for more than a day or two, and yes I'm counting all *nix's, not just Linux...

In order since 1999 (when I discovered Linux):

Redhat 5.x, Redhat 6.x, CalderaLinux (loved the Novell Client built in), Various Fedora/FedoraCore's, Solaris 10, Solaris Express, OpenSolaris, Ubuntu 9.04, Ubuntu 10.04, Debian Etch, Ubuntu 11.10, Ubuntu 12.04, Debian Squeeze.

There were a few years (2004-2009) that I really liked and used Solaris quite a bit, but it lost me when the whole Oracle purchase went through. Fedora lost me when Ubuntu came along, and likewise, Ubuntu has recently started losing me to Debian. I like to think Debian's got the right mix of what I'm looking for (I'm posting this using Squeeze) and don't plan to leave anytime soon! Slow is fine with me, I want it to WORK and Debian does a good job of that!

Oh damn, I meant iPhone 5, obviously.

Exactly what I was thinking--does the iPhone 4 have a CDMA and GSM radio in it?? That'd be a boost to its already ridiculous market domination...and might make me consider one when my current Android gives up the ghost...

I'd say the biggest drawback to pot smoking in teenage years is a lack of ability to find and keep a job. Being a loaf isn't conducive to paying the bills, which is the skill teenagers need to learn first and foremost. Self-sufficiency is paramount to heading off to college, or work, or simply moving on in life and I'd wager is more important than grades, social status, or if they are pot-heads or not. Its possible to smoke weed and still have a reasonable income, but the desire to be self-sufficient needs to come first or the stoner mentality wins over.

Aww, tell us how you really feel....

You're very right. I work in IT at a Land-Grant Research University. Its amazing how much time I spend cleaning up the "CLICK HERE FOR FREE STUFFZ (TM)" kind of virii on the PhD's computers. A brilliant scientific brain /= computer literacy.

As has been mentioned quite a few times before you could use a backport or *gasp* compile the newest 'goodie' from scratch...

Are you sure? I thought the correct answer was "ed."

I second this comment; I did something similar with my Mom's Dell Laptop a few years back. While on summer vacation with my kids at my mom's house, she asked if I could "speed up" her laptop. Just turning it on was agonizing, 10+ minutes to get the XP desktop through a bunch of popups, "speed optimizers," and other crapware. I know this is going to sound radical, but I simply fixed it by installing Ubuntu--9.04 at the time IIRC. I just copied her "My Documents" to ~/mom/My Documents and put a shortcut on the desktop, I set the SAME background image, put the Firefox icon on the desktop and restored her Windows profile in to it (she was already a FF user) and installed her copy of Office 2003 with Crossover and put shortcuts for Word and Excel on the desktop too. Done and done. That was 4+ years back and she's still using it--90% of what she does on the computer is in a web-browser, and FF is the same across platforms. I haven't had a call to fix "XP Antivirus Pro" since.

Erm, 2 finger (right click) and drag works just fine on my Early 2008 MacBook Pro...

I'm with Brian on this--shoot, I watched RevolutionOS last night by some odd duplicitous coincidence...

Well said, wish I had that 5th mod point for this reply...

Well said, I agree completely. I have an old Gateway Solo 2500 333MHz Celeron with 256mb of RAM in my workroom running a stripped down version of XP. I didn't start with NLite either, I just installed stock, ran the updates (119 updates from a base+slipstreamed-SP3 install, not including the .NET stuff), then shut off every program and service I didn't need via MSCONFIG/MMC. IIRC, its only using 9-10 services above and beyond "WORKSTATION" and boots in under 2 minutes to a usable desktop with 120mb of free RAM.

Why XP and not some other OS? 1: XP cuts down to old hardware very well if you're willing to take a bit of time to customize it. 2: This laptop shipped with 98SE that needed a bunch of Gateway Software loaded to run the sound card, NeoMagic video adapter, and USB ports. XP doesn't need ANY extra drivers not even for the old Orinoco PCMCIA WiFi adapter (shoot, neither did ME, but I digress...). 3: Google Chrome works just peachy and my extensions sync fine, even if it is a tad slow. I can happily run WinAMP 2.95 to stream music while I build things, and have a simple Internet terminal to look things up. I also have an older HP scanner that Windows XP detects simply by plugging it in--none of the Macs in our house will work with it, even with HP's OSX drivers.

As a disclaimer, I've run 98SE, ME (for the longest time, maybe 4+ years), RedHat 6, RedHat 7, a few flavors of Fedora, a few flavors of Solaris/OpenSolaris, Windows 2000, and Windows XP all on this laptop over the years. Most recently I used Debian 4.x and XUbuntu 9.1, both worked but neither seemed very responsive when I'd fire up Chrome, even in XFCE. XP gives me the widest range of hardware compatibility for a 12+ year old laptop I use a couple times a week to listen to music or print out schematics. Everything works "out of the box," and since its behind my hardware firewall, I suppose it can run for ever, or until the hardware gives out in that laptop--they just don't build them like they used to.

We have the same problem in our town of 60K; the "big" theater here usually only carries 3D versions of new-releases. Sometimes farther down the release chain the 2D version may show up for very popular movies, or they will be in 2D when they move to the second run theater across town. I *LIKE* going to the movies, but as has been mentioned so many times above, its much more convenient and affordable to stay home and watch moves on our TV. I don't mind paying $8.50 or $9.50 to see a first run movie on opening weekend, but paying $13.50 for 3D is silly. I'm kind of mixed on 3D, I've seen a few movies in 3D that benefited from the extra dimension, but I've seen quite a few more that the 3D was distracting (Alice in Wonderland 2010, I'm thinking of you). I would prefer to see 2D most of the time, and with 16 screens available don't see why they couldn't run both or interleave them at different times in the same auditorium. As for cell phones in the theater, they are a bother but I can tone them out--years of practice toning my wife and daughter's texting addictions helps with that. Don't even get me started on the $15 popcorn and soda combo though!