Why would they need to know? Although they may need to know what the version of the software is.

Quite right, however they don't write the applications. It is really up to the application software writers to know.

.While a programmer may not be interested (although many are) in marketing they need to know the kernel version and the versions of the API's that they are going to use with their software if they are going to be programming under MS Windows. If they are going to be programming under Unix or Linux then they need to know what the version of the kernel is and the versions of the libraries that they are going to use with their software.

MS Windows 95 had a 7.0 version of MS-DOS. MS Widows 98 had a 7.1 version of MS-DOS and MS Windows ME had a 7.0 Version of MS-DOS. See here.

Actually MS Windows 10 is supposed to have an NT 6.4 kernel

If developers can't tell the difference between MS Windows NT and MSDOS then they really should get out of the IT industry and take up say "basket weaving". After-all the world would be a much safer place although I am a bit worried about the quality of the baskets that would be produced. :)

This is informative? Jaw meet deck!

You mean MS Window programmers are that bad they cannot determine a kernel or library version without drawing a y2k pentagram and mumbling incantations to the great old-ones? Be afraid, very afraid.

Next you will be telling me that Firefox is up to version 33. .... Oh wait it is, however you can easily tell what version it is. /(*o*)\

Short answer. No!

Long answer. People do have separate likes and dislikes, what may be interesting to one group of people may not be interesting to another group. Name any gaming genres and you will have some people who like that and some that don't, even within specific genres you still will have likes and dislikes, the same is true for gaming mods and indie games.

How many low range PC's have 8 CPU's and 8GB of memory? I would concede that the PS4 and XB1 fail into the category of the upper end of a modern mid-range PC but putting them into the low end range is definitely trolling.

You can get 4k HDTV that are usually 16:9 aspect ratio which is 3840x2160 pixels and they are not that much more expensive than the 2k or 1080p HDTVs. What is really important as well in choosing a screen is the refresh rate and the frame rate the screen can support.

The problem you have with games and movies is they can be made with different aspect ratios and depending on your screen you may see what is called pillar-boxing. While this can be annoying there is little you can do since the physical display screen has a specific physical aspect ratio which cannot be changed. There are some interesting articles on this and why the compromise of the 16:9 aspect ratio was chosen for most HDTV's.

Which aspect ratio is the best? Difficult to say since that depends on the predominate content the viewer likes to display on their screen.

Where did you get this info? The XBox360 and the PS3 both can output up to 1080p. I won't deny that many games on both machines display at 720p but there are games that do display at 1080p.

Please do a simple web search. Yes you can get a faulty PS1, PS2 or PS3 repaired although you will have to pay for it, likewise for petty much any electronic device and that includes PC's as well. How much it will cost depends on the cost of the parts and labour to do the repairs.

Err lets see. Time is 14:27:55, types "yum install eclipse" - finishes at 14:34:32, that is 6:37 to do the download with all dependencies, install and checks. Total cost $0.00. Use "app-get" if you are on a Debian based distribution or if you don't like the command line use the GUI installer which works on pretty much all Linux distributions..

Now either run Eclipse from the command line or GUI and wait about 10 seconds then spend 20 seconds configuring. Ok it works for me.

Oh wait I can't run Visual Studio so I can't do a fair comparison.

You are being too nice. When developing anything you first have to consider your target consumer demographic that will return the best monetary value for your product, this is basic statistical analysis and common business sense. Once you decide on the appropriate demographic you develop for that and if you have the time and expertise you may wish to develop that product for prospective customers that fall outside of you main target demographic.

Basically Ubisoft developed a game that in reality targeted the high end PC users and from what I can gather poorly then basically gave a much more poorer product to the new generation consoles (approx 18 million prospective buyers) which is in itself extremely short sighted.

I know of some developers (the name escapes me and I can't be bothered looking it up) that have stated that their new game will only run on high end PC's. This is a classic example of how not to make make money. Sure develop your game for the High End PC gamer but that market is relatively small with the real money being made on the medium end PC and new console markets.

I don't think crashing icy comets into Mars is going to really help thicken the atmosphere instead that technique would only make for much larger ice sheets since Mars is much more colder in comparison to our planet. Of course it could increase the mass of the planet and that alone could make for some interesting occurrences. Making Mars like our planet (ie. Terra-forming) is still the stuff of Science Fiction and is probably not going to happen, if ever for hundreds or even thousands of years. Sure we can send people to Mars and probably mine it in the fairly foreseeable future, but in the long term space colonies are more practical since we have to take into account protection from solar radiation and even the gravitation requirements of our species just to name a few of the hazards.

Mars and space are very hostile to our species and any manned missions will require a considerable amount of foresight and preparation. Travelling to Mars and living there is many orders of magnitude greater than what the first Explorers travelling from Europe to the Americas would have experienced. This not to say don't send manned missions but we have to be practical as well.

While I can't comment on Debian based Linux distributions I have found Fedora with GUI's like KDE (my preferred GUI), Gnome, Xfce etc to be a very good desktop and been using it Professionally as one for over 6 years. Personally I have never had a problem installing Fedora (since Fedora core 7) and it usually runs fine. As for upgrades I never do them I always do a fresh "overlay" (keep the original file-systems and only install in the systems ones) install since it is actually quicker and easier to do.

I have never had an issue like this with Fedora (the discussion is Fedora not Debian based Linux) and that is going back to the late 1990's. As for the Desktop I would have to assume you are aware of what is commonly called the "Microsoft Tax".

From the Fedora home page "Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat".

There is a big difference between "sponsoring" and "owning". Sure some of the features of Fedora get incorporated into a commercial release of Redhat Linux but because Fedora is open source those same features can be incorporated into other Linux distros.

You will always find that commercial releases of a Linux distro are at least one to two years behind a stable release and a development release can be a couple of months to a year ahead of a stable release. As for Rehat making a separate distro (supported up to 10 years) to Fedora I fail to see that this is a problem.

The De Havilland Comet (cira 1950's) had large rectangular windows which were later found to have contributed to metal fatigue at the corners. The Comet was involved in 26 hull-loss accidents, including 13 fatal crashes which resulted in 426 fatalities which resulted in the catastrophic loss of some of the planes. Of course modern jet planes have smaller rounded windows which are so much more safer but all still have to be checked periodically for symptoms of metal fatigue which usually means around the windows and other parts of the plane which are under stress.

It is important to note that the cabin pressure of a jet aircraft at altitude is higher than the outside atmosphere and this pressure differential can also cause stress due to skin expansion. When landing the air pressure inside is made to equal the outside air pressure which result in the skin shrinking. So this expansion and compression actually causes metal fatigue on the planes structure, hence the rigorous checking requirements of all aircraft .

Removing windows from jet aircraft is IMHO a good move although it would not be difficult to have camera feeds from parts of the aircraft to the back seat screens, assuming of course they have them. Even if the windows are removed a schedule of testing must be still carried out although maybe not as often.

As for rear facing seats, this maybe a good safety feature in a minor front end crash, however it would not matter if the plane suffered a major crash such as a terrorist attack.

The original poster was referring to the Operating system and you bring up the the implied cost of the hardware of which as everyone is aware is a cost no matter which OS you install on it otherwise we could install an OS on a brick or some such inanimate object.

You should also be aware that Intel is not the only manufacturer making PC components so you do have a choice, but like all PC hardware this is normally not free.

The main topic was the Italian court stating that "the practice of forcing users to pay for a Windows license when they buy a new PC is illegal" not the actual composition of parts that go to make up the physical PC. I suppose we could look at the BIOS which can restrict the installation of different Operating Systems but so far it is possible to install MS Windows, Linux and OSX on most modern PC's. However that is totally different to customers being "forced" to pay for an OS that normally is installed prior to their purchase of said PC. In this case the Operating System that is normally referred too as the "Microsoft Tax".