Except a dyson sphere should have a detectable "heat signature" for want of a better word...

Somebody do the math and see if it adds up.

Leave his nuts out of this!

Yeah, but because of the updates required, you're probably still screwed.

I have a 10Gb cap, and it sucks. Still older games have few updates. Yay for retro gaming!

No! Supernova safe storage media is the way to go here....

This has not been my experience, though that is anecdotal. Perhaps because people tend to drive TGDI vehicles harder than diesels. In any case, do you have a reference for this?

Nice troll. But inaccurate on both counts:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...

I could be in any part of the green area. Try again.

These things are about momentum. Diesel is really common here (my boss drives a diesel hatchback, and gets incredible km/l). Every filling station here stocks diesel. Is it a better technology? Maybe... It is really expensive to fix when it breaks. So it is in a way a really good analogy for Linux. In the some places (the USA), everyone only uses it for servers (big haulage trucks) but in other places it gets used everywhere.

There are pros and cons to every OS. Linux is my preferred platform because I am familiar with it, and I like the interface. I have not delusions of superiority. I have had good experiences with hardware support, and apart from printers (I do not own one, so it is a non-issue for me), I have not worried about linux support for hardware since around 2005. Also, a lot of hardware seems to work better: 3g modems for example - they don't require me to install the operators bs bloatware to use under linux. They just work...

I think the point here, is someone is making an effort to build diesel filling stations. You can still get petrol and it will never go away, but you now have options, and each has pros and cons. I like diesel. It has really good torque. Modern diesels have come a long way in terms of reliability (early diesels were terrible). They aren't perfect, but they do the job.

The point? I don't know there is one precisely. I game on linux because it is my preferred platform. I have been using it for so long now I actually have a ls.bat file on my windows machine somewhere.

Linux is fairly useful on the desktop. I did my entire honours project some years ago under linux (including PCB/circuit design and embedded code). In general, I have found it to 'just work' in modern times, unless you are doing something exotic. Beyond that I would love to see it used more in industry. It would be much easier to manage a SCADA under linux, where the bastard operator from hell can't plug in a usb stick with 1002 viruses and I can ssh in to troubleshoot coms problems. Yeah you can disable USB storage under windows too, but it is a PITA.

I am not saying the average user should be running linux (though I suppose we can see how Steam machines do), but it is rather nice to be able to start up a game at home without having to reboot.

This is changing. Rather fast. I have 50 Linux games on steam, and all run fine on my 4 year old Core i5 and AMD 6630M laptop. Sure detail levels aren't great, but they aren't bad either. I get 40+fps on war thunder. Still downloading bioshock.

Surprisingly I have yet to have an issue running any of these games. I'm not running Ubuntu (or other debian based), so I expected issues. I am going to experiment with my desktop later when I get time to put a modern linux distro on.

Gaming on Linux is looking good actually.

And nobody can be bought.

It is a decent constitution, not perfect, but decent. However, the ruling party has enough of a majority to change that. The big issue is they are running scared because various unpopular policies are fast eroding voter support. Africa still hasn't got the hang of democracy quite yet, and they think that controlling the media will perhaps allow them to control votes.

With regards to censorship, this will likely land in the constitutional court and be struck down. Other things have. Either that or you won't see me on /. again until I get myself a nice anonymizing proxy. Good thing I don't use my real name here. :P

Chappies is a brand of bubble-gum here.

One thing you must remember, is there is a lot of social injustice in South Africa. It will no doubt haunt the country for a long time to come. I am looking forward to seeing the movie, actually.

You are correct, but you may have missed something:

Practically, solar power will help the individual, not industry. Industry is what requires the most power(on a individual basis) bar sugar cane factories and so forth which produce power and already sell it back in this end of the world. Solar power is not practical for an induction furnace (for example). It does not have a reliable enough output.

The utility will survive on things like steel mills that run induction furnaces 24/7 and can't realistically use solar power. In fact they may make a profit selling your excess solar to industry. Base load generation is never going away though. It may become nuclear or remain coal, but it isn't going anywhere.

http://xkcd.com/1343/

I am not entirely sure I would call making BASIC popular doing something for programming. It took me years to unlearn some of that rubbish...