It's GNU-linquini, you insensitive clod! :P

Fair question, and a good point. This is a bit of an old topic by now, so I apologize for being late back into the game, but I think it's worth replying. I did a Google search for statistics, and you know what? I really couldn't find anything to conclusively back either side of the argument. Apparently, I'm not alone; neither could this guy. There is a bit of a priori reasoning, however, that can help sway the argument. As mentioned in the link above, as well as this one, the Hurt report suggests that 77% of multi-vehicle motorcycle accidents are caused by a driver ahead of the bike; most of the exhaust noise is directed rearward, however. Yes, sound propagates in all directions, but it is more attenuated towards the front of a motorcycle...precisely where it would do the most good, if "loud pipes [really] save[d] lives." Furthermore, the Hurt Report summary makes a number of bullet points drawn from the accident statistics. Points 1, 6, 7, 9, and arguably 13 and 30 support the "loud pipes" argument (mostly, IMHO, by pointing out that conspicuity helps to prevent accidents). However, points 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, and 41 support the "loud pipes do *NOT* save lives" argument (again IMHO, mostly by pointing out that rider training/skills and proper safety gear have the greatest correlation to a reduction in accidents and accident severity).

So...do I have any proof to support my position? Not really. I can make a decent circumstantial case for it, but no, I can't really prove it. I can, however, make a case -- despite your suggestion that the Interstate Commerce Clause is a get-out-of-jail-free card -- that loud pipes result in restrictions to motorcycle activities (see the two links I provided above for examples). I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on /., so I'll decline a legal debate about whether the Interstate Commerce Clause trumps local ordinances, although I will go so far as to state that I suspect you'd better have some solid statistics to bolster the "loud pipes" argument before you attempt to have your lawyer take on a local judge based upon that reasoning.

Finally, I'll point out one more thing: claiming that you only ride with loud pipes on your bike in the interest of safety is rather disingenuous when the motorcyclist making that claim is riding NATGATT ("Not 'All The Gear, All The Time'" for those unfamiliar with the acronym). You're not wearing a helmet, gloves, etc.? You're going to have a tough time convincing me that safety is what you are really interested in, then. Yes, it gets hot in the summer. That's why manufacturers make mesh gear in colors other than black.

IME, that tends to lead to additional sirens, which, of course, is part of the noise problem the submitter was complaining about.

Try adding your user account to the "audio" group. Solved the problem on my Dell 820, and I felt like a complete idiot for taking so long to figure it out.

Can't comment on the miles, but sticking to pints...yeah, that makes sense to me. It's a lot more awkward to ask your coworker to join you for "0.473 of a liter" after work than to join you for a pint.

I ride too, and you're full of crap.

A loud pipe isn't going to keep an idiot driver from cutting you off. I've been cut off by idiot drivers more than once, and generally speaking, it's by a young kid with a ten thousand watt stereo cranked up to 11. Your loud pipe isn't going to phase him in the least, but it will piss off everyone else around you, leading to onerous restrictions about what can and cannot be installed on a bike, where bikes can go, etc. As far as only being excessively loud under extreme acceleration, yeah, I call B.S. on that, too. If you're running a straight pipe with no muffler, it will be loud even at idle. It's only ear-splitting at high manifold pressure settings (i.e., acceleration). Regarding "it is the driver...not the bike itself..." well, yeah, but that's a tautology since the rider is the one who has to remove the stock muffler to install the obnoxious one, it is the rider who has to thumb the starter button, and it's the rider who has to twist the throttle to get the bike to accelerate.

I love Truth and Justice. But the post-9/11 American Way...not so much.

My sentiments, exactly. I'd mod you up, if I had mod points.

All perfectly valid reason to choose Mac over competing OS'es. Basically, we have agreed to a comment I made elsewhere in the thread: a computer is a tool, and if you need different tools than I do, you will most likely prefer a different OS than I do. As a developer, you have found that a Mac best meets your needs. As a network admin, I have found the tools available on Linux best meet my needs. That's a good thing, and it's why I get frustrated when others complain that choice is a problem.

Incidentally, I hope that I didn't sound condescending when I mentioned the eye-candy in OS-X; I certainly didn't intend to, but in hindsight, I see how it could have.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I disagree with the original submitter: choice -- even a *lot* of choice -- is not a bad thing! I use both a Mac and a couple of Linux boxes. I'm running Unity (my least favorite desktop) on one Linux box, Gnome 2 on another, Blackbox on a third...all of them have advantages and disadvantages. You really like the Mac, but although I like it too, if I had to pick Mac or Linux, I'd stick with my Linux machines. But then again, I'm not hugely into eye-candy; I tend to prefer lean and functional, even if it's not as aesthetically pleasing.

Off-topic: that's got to be one of the funniest sigs I've seen in a while :)

Last time I looked at Dia, it had a ways to go before it would be a decent replacement for Visio. That was quite a while back, though, so it might be worth checking into again :)

That would depend upon what everyone else perceives as "broken." That's a question that hasn't been clearly defined yet, so for those of use who are using -- and happy with -- Linux, "How would you fix the Linux desktop?" is a begging the question.

In a corporate environment, sure. A home user just buys a new computer.

^^THIS^^

It is neither an insult nor an offence to me if Windows or OS-X or OS/2 or Haiku or...or...or... works better for you than Linux, even though Linux is my OS of choice. Use what meets *your* needs! As long as you aren't asking me to support your computer, I'm cool with you using whatever OS works best for you.

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 as I reply to you, and while there are indeed many, many things that I use the CLI for, changing screen resolution isn't one of them. My nVidia drivers (which certainly have their share of problems) come with a GUI app to do that; even on my ATI or Intel carded machines, I don't use the CLI to change screen resolution.

I did have to use a live CD to turn off the GDW login on one machine so I could boot into a CLI to fix a borked nVidia driver after I lost power during an upgrade once, but IME, Windows didn't always deal gracefully with a power loss during upgrade, either. And yes, there are certainly buttheads on many of the forums, but there are also a number of users who are truly helpful. It's pretty rare that I run into an issue on a Linux box that a half hour with Google can't solve...but then again, I've been using Linux for over a decade, now.