I have a mixed views of gnome, one criticism I have with it the old one of it has been simplified to the point of being un-intuitive. When people accused gnome of this in the past I dismissed it! Now I have noted that to minimize the open application I have to point to the upper left corner, no buttons for this. File, Edit etc are not part of Gnome apps they are in the bar at the very top of the screen. Much of this change is change for changes sake, its unfamiliar (no other desktop works this way). Its a shame because the general concept is good. One area (top left corner) gives you access to all applications and parts of the system.

"I think Linux succeeded against BSD, which was a stable mature system at the time simply because BSDI got stuck in a lawsuit and was effectively stopped for several years."

The reasons may also be more to do with Linux and the way it was run! Early hackers have noted that they preferred BSD, but could not use it due to lack of dual booting, this would have meant deleting windows which may have been needed for work. It was also easier for aspiring hackers to contribute to Linux, you didn't have to be one of the inner circle to contribute. There was also a lack of politics, persons within the rival operating systems had noted and open differences which would have affected work.

provide a solid alternative.

How abut charging bankers with the crimes they have committed.

It gets worse the more you study it. The sub prime housing issue was fraud plain and simple. We then had to pay for this when the assets (read bad debts) went bad. We also have to help the banks with their debts to Greece, Ireland and co, another bailout. So banks can't loose their money we have to give it to Greece, Ireland etc. This is then administered by IMF, ECB etc who help banks pillage countries, This money does not help the people of those lands, it harms them, so that when their economy worsens assets can be picked up cheap by banks, banks debts are paid and there future profits are guaranteed at our expense. It just goes on and on, the big question is will our governments keep bailing them out until our own currencies are ruined?
Don't think that The US, Great Britain etc are safe, we have big issues our selves.

First hand reports of whats going on in London and some tactics used to snuff out demo

Makes you wonder sometimes why the US gets so suspicions of other nations some times! You need to look at an accusation sometimes and figure out if this is telling you more about the accuser than the accused!

Most of Windows
Most of Apple's OSX
All of Linux
Java is writtn in C
Python is written in C
Perl is written in C
Ruby is witten in C
Modern lisp I'll leave it to others to tell me what that is written in

Even if this is the case, we'd never know until more research is done and researchers connections with vested interests had been examined. But what we do know is if HFT is very profitable with short term returns, capital will be put here as apposed to other uses. We will be the poorer then as less is invested in our economies and more wealth will be tied up in making money for a small groups. As apposed to being invested in business that employ others and provide incentives to governments to spend on education to remain competitive.

Its going to be very hard for the US, UK etc to be competitive. Even if you could build a factory in Europe or America and sustain a strong business (using Henry Ford principles lets say) bankers would not give you the money, you'd have to build in china to get the funding. Andrew Grove former Intel exec and John L. Hennessy, MIPS chip inventor, said the same thing. Economists are also turning against the way modern business is outsourcing to developing countries for a short term gain, Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson to name but a few. Outsource to Asia, you'll impoverish us all, we'll in turn have less purchasing power, and not be able to buy the goods produced. No ones listening there is only attention paid to shareholder value, not even the customer, and who are the largest shareholders in a publicly listed company the BANKS. The MBA's may have the same problem that the economists profession, if we can call it that, has. That is to say a corrupted syllabus, designed to serve the needs of a few moneyed interests.

Hugh Grant just called the Murdoch Empire a protection racket live on Question Time.

Its also the fist time I've seen the media as the focus of the story. These guys should be shut down, they bribed the medical establishment (hugh grant medical records, as well as others) the phone companies (how did they get everyones numbers) the police (the man charged with leading the mets investigation into phone hacking now works for the Times (another Murdoch paper).

What I love about this is how the media (guardian news broke the story and chased it for years) has turned on other media outlets (murdoch press, news of the world), may the blood letting begin.

Seen this late so maybe wasting time replying but... I actually would like to see a real review of technologies. There have been many new and not so new tech advances such as Clean, cheap, nuclear fission power that should be funded, as they may save us the trouble of building traditional nuclear power stations. Off on a tangent there is also Gasification and Liquefaction leading to cheap fuel and gas. There are options, how appropriate and or beneficial they are needs to be looked at. I fear that the options that get funded however may have more to do with lobbying.

a Facebook-Like message wall

Doesn't mean a thing to me, I use twitter!