Some of you are really missing the point and calling this a troll / flamebait. The article has some very good points. It's not the linux desktop itself that is dead, it's the dream of being a major player like OSX or Windows is dead. Linux never WAS a major player, and its opportunities to become such have passed, or at least appear to have for the time being.

I gave up on a linux desktop a long time ago. I fought the good fight. I was there for FVWM, FVWM2, Afterstep, WindowMaker, Blackbox, Original Gnome and Original KDE, Gnome with Nautilus, KDE2, and KDE3. I was there for Netscape navigator gold, dosemu, wine, communicator, star office, openoffice, openoffice.org, mozilla, firefox, thunderbird, gcalc, gimp. Now I use my favorite apps from linux on windows or mac.

Why? Because I simply don't have time to futz with my desktop anymore. I'm an adult. I have a wife that needs attention. I have a house that needs attention. I have a son that needs attention. I have a full time job that takes most of my time. I have one, perhaps two hobbies that get any remaining time and screwing with my desktop to try and make it work at least sorta as good as OSX or windows is literally the very last thing I would ever do with my time now days. I suspect that there are others in this boat. I really never realized how much time I wasted on my *desktop* until I just started using XP or OSX -- oh, you mean I'm done -- awesome, now I can go do something I really care about.

...stopping reading the blurb on slashdot last week about the new position based system being secure because the people who previously said it wasn't secure changed their mind and said it was provably secure and then proceeded to use the words "cannot easily" to justify it being secure. Now, this week I see a commercial system that has been cracked because some how thresholds of likely hood were once again used. Anyone else see a trend?

while walking home from school after teacher implements zero tolerance policy and confiscates condition-regulating candy.

I suppose it would take something terrible like the hypothetical situation above to put tolerance back into the system.

While our state capital isn't the baddest of the bunch, it certainly is more than 'a town in kansas'. Article summary makes it sound like some random tiny 200 person town with one gas station and more banjos than computers, a dur.

Perhaps we need to think less about how they implemented the hardware faults to prove the concept and how an attacker may, in the future, implement the faults. There are technologies like strong EMP that we know disrupt electronic devices. Perhaps something with strong em/rf fields could aid in this. Perhaps somebody just takes up residence next door and plugs in a device that adds precision loads to the power distribution system that both buildings use. We've all seen the lights dim or go bright when a transformer pops down the street. There are many attack vectors for causing faults like this yet to be discovered too. There are already devices that cause computer based slot machines to pay out or alter the odds supposedly.

Unfortunately, they go up like a road flare when damaged, overcharged, or overdischarged (generally they just puff up, but extreme over discharge or charge will cause them to go off). A good short will do it too.

But that's for RC. What about phones and laptops? The switch from nicd to nimh to li wasn't that hard for them. They make new models all the time with whatever charger and battery they want. It's not like they are focusing on backwards compatibility with laptop batteries or have to contend with people saying "well, I've got 5 of these dell nimh batteries for this old laptop, I won't buy this new laptop with 5 times my old laptop's battery life because I'd be wasting these old nimh batteries" -- every laptop I've ever had basically had a totally new battery profile and if they changed chemistry on me I wouldn't care one bit.

Because it's not AC -- it's DC. There's already voltage stepping in the ESC that provides a lower (6 volts) voltage DC to the radio, servo, etc, but at a much lower current requirement. The drive motors operate, at times, at 120 amps @ 7.2 volts or more, especially in the larger classes such as 1/8 electric. We're talking 800 - 2000 watts. Good luck :)

In the rc car world, the two major types of batteries in use are lipo (lithium polymer) and nimh. Nimh has less energy density, self discharge, and requires some rest after discharge still to retain full capacity when charged. I run nimh due to reasons I won't go into, but I have my eye on lifepo4, or lithium iron phosphate. They are not only more robust than traditional li cells, they go off in much the same fashion as the batteries mentioned in the article. The disadvantage to them, and why they aren't 'the thing' in rc cars is that they have a voltage disadvantage. Given the strict regulation of motors in spec class racing, a voltage disadvantage is a huge issue. In other applications, where you could pick whatever voltage and number of cells to use, these batteries are awesome. In rc, their voltage makes you pick arranging them in series at a voltage level that is a disadvantage or adding another cell and making yourself have a huge advantage -- ie, their acceptance isn't based on technical merit but existing standards in racing.

Generally speaking, FOX is the one who likes to take stories and spin them in the worst possible light to forward their own agenda. I can see now that SLASHDOT does the same thing. How on earth do you equate Microsoft following the rules of the GPL as something bad? How on earth did we get here? Seriously -- there's now going to be a lack of trust?! Are you kidding me? Because they provided a prettified PR statement to go with it? This says *nothing* about their stance on linux -- it says something about their integrity as a company that obeys software licenses. We now have definitive proof that Microsoft at least works within and respects the GPL, but somehow today is a day of mistrust?

Simply amazing. I can only imagine what the folks at MS are thinking right now who see this article. I bet their not thinking "gee, that went well -- let's do it again!"

This like shooting the publishers clearing house folks on your door step when they bring you the big check -- "Thanks, but get the heck off mah properta!"

Game FEATURES and PLAYABILITY.

Here's an example: Battlefield 1942.

BF required me to upgrade my PC when it came out. When I finally got it working decently, I found that the 'revolutionary large maps' and 'revolutionary ability to control vehicles' was no more revolutionary that tribes outside of it's 'many years newer' pc requirements... not to mention its graphics and game play were pretty much sub-par compared to tribes.

Upgrading PC hardware to move from playing something 2d sprite like DOOM to something 3d polygon like QUAKE is perfectly acceptable. Upgrading PC hardware to move from simplistic 3d polygons and textures like QUAKE to something with far more complicated polygons, 3d effects, better textures, revolutionary environment, and new game play like BIOSHOCK is also perfectly acceptable. When games come out, and the only outwardly noticeable difference from everything else on the market is the title's name, yet it requires massive hardware upgrades, then that is failure, and that market deserves to die.

Game titles shouldn't drive hardware requirements. Outside of Portal, something I can play on my xbox 360, and I don't have to upgrade every 6 months to continue to play new titles, I haven't seen anything new from game makers other than new requirements for my machine to somehow be better to play the same dumb first person shooter remakes. Oh, need I mention that now days you even need a pretty kick'n system to play what amounts to MUDS? Yes, please die. While you're at it, make mouse and keyboard style FPS navigation a standard and supported option on consoles -- the claw is not acceptable. That would be gaming Utopia: A supported console that worked for a few years and continued to play the latest titles while also offering a control system that leveraged something other than my fine motor control abilities of the digits that spend 8 hours a day inaccurately whopping the damned space bar.