Well, yes, but...

A computer is a tool. If the software I need is only available for Windows, much as I loathe it, guess which OS I am going to use? Fortunately, there aren't very many Windows-only apps that I need to use (Visio comes to mind), so I own a couple of Linux boxes and a Mac, and at work, I use Visio on a terminal server from my Linux laptop. However, that isn't true for a number of other users here. One example is our billing software, but that's not the only example.

For the home user, I don't see much of a barrier to Linux adoption, other than inertia (unless you are a gamer, in which case, we are back to the "which OS supports the software I want to use?" question).

Care to explain why you think that someone who is happy with Linux is part of the problem? Like Hatta up above, I've been using Linux since around 2001, and it does just about everything I want/need it to do. It's a Swiss Army Knife, IME, so I agree with him.

Yes, the original submitter kind of alluded to desktop fragmentation, but I haven't really seen that as a problem. You can still add QT/Trolltech/whatever-KDE-is-using-now libraries to Gnome, if you want to run an app that was built for KDE and you can load GTK libraries on your KDE desktop if you want to run GTK-based apps. It seems to me that Linux gives you the ability to write the apps with the libraries you want, and the end user can install the appropriate libraries to run those apps -- in other words, it gives both the developer and the end user the flexibility and freedom to do what that want. Most modern distros will even handle the dependency checking for you, so it's not like adding additional libraries are beyond even a n00b's abilities. Consequently, I don't see that fragmentation is a problem, but I'll admit that as a Linux network admin, I may not have the best grasp of the problem from the average home user's perspective.

Only in the short term (in the case of your own code). If it's my guys writing indecipherable code, then, yeah, that's not your fault, and I wouldn't hold you responsible for it. However, if it's your code that's indecipherable, I'll probably try to find someone else next time.

I apologize; I misread your comment. In hindsight, what you posted was quite obvious but I was just being especially dense that particular day.

That's a good point, and I (obviously) hadn't considered that :)

Ah. I didn't realize that. Thanks for educating me :)

I wonder if that has anything to do with the recent /. story about the FAA re-examining the usage of portable electronic devices in flight...? Nah, couldn't be.

Yes, but in this case, "enough devices" is something like 281,474,980,000,000 network interfaces, unless my math is off. That's something like 46,000 network interfaces for every man, woman and child on the planet.

Even counting every network interface in every cellphone, laptop, desktop, server, router and switch that I have ever owned, administrated or even *touched*, I don't think I'm anywhere near my share of network interfaces. While I have no doubt whatsoever that there are people whose network interface count is higher than mine, I still suspect it's safe to say that if I'm not anywhere near that count (as a network admin), then there's no way the average number of network devices in use is anywhere even remotely near that number.

Dude, chill :) I'm a Yank too, but I didn't get that out of TFS* or anyone else's posts here. There is a difference between what is implied, and what is inferred. I think you have *inferred* far more than the author intended.

* in true /. tradition, I didn't RTFA, so if TFA more explicitly blames Americans, then I respectfully withdraw my comment.

I think you answered your own question there. What I got from TFS was that despite the fact that DNA evidence "...is a flawed process..." the public's perception (which is due, in no small part, to television shows like CSI) is that it is infallible evidence. "Oh, you're DNA was present on the victim? Done deal, you're guilty."

Unfortunately, AFAIK, DNA evidence isn't a digital (i.e., yes or no) proposition, it's a matter of probability: the answer is "there is a xx% chance that this DNA belongs to the accused," where "xx" is some number less than 100. However, as long as the people on the jury believe what they see on TV, they put undue faith in DNA evidence. When the cops show up with an expert in tow saying that, in his (or her) professional opinion, there is indeed a match between the accused's DNA and the DNA found on the victim, the tendency among the CSI-brainwashed public is to automatically jump to the conclusion that the accused is guilty, ignoring all of the evidence suggesting otherwise, and neglecting to consider the possible, plausible ways in which it could have gotten there *without* the accused having committed the crime. Your exactly right -- that isn't the way it's supposed to work, and that's the point this article is bringing up.

Yeah, I get the picture :)

Highway miles vs. commuting miles, maybe? I like to go explore on my bike, but the vast majority of my mileage is still stop-and-go in town, back-and-forth to work, running errands around town. <shrug> Regardless, I'm still impressed that your 'Busa gets better mileage than my Wee-Strom.

I'm guessing reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. Either that, or you own a Prius and I touched a nerve.

In either case, what I was *trying* to say is that there are already vehicles that come close to that mandate, but they all involve some pretty significant trade-offs. As you so eloquently pointed out, a bike isn't suitable 365 days a year for everyone (however, you incorrectly assumed that I was one of the people for whom it *does* work -- nice try, but no. 61 degrees 15' N, do the math). For those who opt for a more fuel-efficient vehicle, the jury is still out on the eco-friendliness of them, and from what I can tell by frequently being stuck behind them in traffic, their performance sucks. In either case, mandating that Detroit raise the bar to 54.5 MPG isn't likely to improve either of those cases much, IMHO.

Rain isn't really a big deal. I've got a pretty decent rain suit, so I ride rain or shine. There have only been maybe two trips (in three years of motorcycle commuting) where the weather was bad enough that I wasn't really having much fine on the bike. Heat? LOL! In Anchorage, Alaska? We don't know the meaning of the word! :) Snowy? Well, yeah...you've got me there. I don't ride once the snow flies, so from November to April, I'm relegated to the Nissan :(

Actually, no. It's a Suzuki V-Strom, (one of) Japan's answer(s) to the BMW F650GS, F800GS and R1200GS. It's a street bike with trail pretensions, meaning it isn't particularly good at either one, although it is adequate at either (not so much for true off-road, though).

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that on pavement, I ride it as if it were a sportbike, even though I'm running 80/20 dual sport tires (thick lugs == lots of drag), and I've got all kinds of crap hanging out in the breeze (Pelican 1430 cases for saddle bags, and crashbars covering the engine and fairing). As if that wasn't enough, another V-Strom rider on a forum I hang out on described his bike, which was parked in a row of sportbikes, as "the Lurch of the family" (photo -- his Strom is the third from the left, the blue one with the gas tank that sits higher than the windscreen of the bikes on either side of it), so it's a big, draggy beast. But it suits me :)

That's may be a workable solution for you, but not everyone in the country lives in your neighborhood.

We got over 130 inches of snowfall in my home town last year. Although the muni plows streets, it doesn't plow sidewalks or bike paths until it gets around to it (read that: "maybe some time next week" after any significant snowfall). I hiked six miles home after work when my old motorcycle wouldn't start a couple of years ago; I've even roller bladed to work just for the lulz, so I'm in reasonably good shape. However, there's no way I could walk to or from work even from mid-town in the middle of winter here. You'd have to walk in the streets, and your life expectancy would drop to less than the time until spring if you were to try that here. Then there's the couple of weeks of -20F temps (plus wind chill), and...