Only a truly stubborn fool gets Rule 11 sanctioned most of the time.

So just how many has Jack Thompson had, then?

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.

I agree, this clearly falls under the auspices of the interstate commerce clause, so the federal government should be all over this!

On CPU-bound tasks like transcoding, it scales 1:1. I have a Q6600 overclocked from 2.4 ghz to 3.0 ghz - a 25% bump which is all-but-guaranteed with this chip (even higher overclocks are easily attainable, the Core line overclocks ridiculously well). This results in a 25% reduction in transcode times. Whether this is worth it to you, I suspect, is dependent on how many cpu-limited tasks you do.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. I have a preference to let the market correct itself rather than to throw good money after bad, which in my opinion will just prolong the crisis and delay the recovery. Better a large pain over a short period than a moderate pain over a huge period.

And for those of us who didn't make mistakes? Those who didn't get into ridiculous amounts of debt, or finance houses they couldn't afford? Fair payback for them as well?

Where is this money that the government will give to the corporations coming from?

Ubuntu doesn't ship with VLC, you download it just as you would for Windows. But in Windows, it can decode dvds regardless of whether you have in any other way obtained the mpeg-2 codec. When you download it for Linux, it doesn't work. I know there are patents involved, but why does the Windows version have the ability to play dvds, and why can't that same functionality be carried over to Linux?

Thanks for this viewpoint. It is sadly too rare in the Linux community, based on my brief experience. I know nothing about Linux but decided to install Ubuntu as I'd heard so much about it. For reference, I'm a systems admin of an all-Windows network. This is just to give you a bit of background - I may not be the brightest admin the world has seen, but I know my way around computers. The install was nice, very easy and straightforward on a Dell Latitude, and to my recollection all hardware worked straightaway. The two main problems I had, and that I was unable to find answers for, were: 1) I have all my media on a Windows-based NAS. From what I understand, I need to connect to Windows shares with Samba. I tried that and it wouldn't connect. Couldn't find any help as to why this would be. 2) In Windows, I use VLC to watch dvds. It works straight out of the box, with all necessary codecs bundled with the app. I used the package manager to install VLC, but it refused to launch the dvd, basically acting like there was no mpeg-2 decoder. Frustrated, I wiped it and reinstalled XP, where things are not necessarily easier but where I at least know how to do them. Changing operating systems is a major step, much larger than moving from one image editing app to another, or one movie editing app to another. It might not be "fair" that I require any OS other than Windows to be easy to learn, but that's the reality of the situation. Currently, Linux is only free if your time has no value, and I'm afraid mine does.

People give up their legal rights all the time. Every fly on an airplane? You're agreeing to cursory searches without probable cause, in direct violation of the 4th amendment. It's a tradeoff - the convenience of air travel is, for most, enough to outweigh the negligable infringement of a right. Same with Steam.

But your S2000 gets the same mileage as many a 'large vehicle', so it's rather a moot point. It's not like you're doing the environment any favors by shunning SUVs in favor of a sports car. That said, I drive an RX-8 in the summer and love every minute of it. But I have no illusions that it's a more environmentally conscious vehicle than, say, a Ford Windstar or Expedition.

Just to clarify, you agree with the GP's statement that a single post on Slashdot is applicable to and proves a stereotype regarding "most" (i.e., more than 50%) Americans?