If you don't think governments (including the US) already have control over power generation then you're delusional. If you actually want unregulated power generation then you're suicidal.

doesn't wish to learn another way of doing things.

That's your problem.

It's nice when you have a 10 year old formula in excel and can boot up office 2k and it works.

If you had written it in R to begin with you'd be able to run the same code on either Windows or Linux.

Windows because it looks nice

You know what looks nice? Awesome. Can't do that on Windows.

drivers (for me) have always just worked

I have just as many driver problems on Windows as on Linux. Linux generally comes with a working driver for just about any piece of hardware, and you can go get proprietary drivers for extra features.

Any software I care about works.

I suppose so. You can run bash on Windows if you want, but it's much nicer to use in a real unix environment. Same with great software like vim, rtorrent, irssi, latex, and R. They all exist on windows, but it's not the same.

I can play games from just about any era of Windows.

When I want to play games on Linux, I just run emulators. There's no shortage of fun games to play, only a lack of current ones.

...and now their database and all the backups vanish? - I feel a conspiracy theory brewing.

And, as a bonus the resulting app is more portable.

This is a good thing. It will encourage authors of free software on Windows to use free compilers, or even create free software on free platforms instead.

Sounds like a job for the ACCC to me, they have the independence and the teeth to tackle something like this, as you say the opposition are not going to want to help the government look useful. The US could benifit from a similar institution, particularly wrt to pharmecuticals.

Yes you can validate .iso files with a lot less than $150 worth of your time and if this wasn't slashdot that would be informative :)

I'm a 50+ corporate data plumber and have made a good living at it for 20yrs. I don't like the current IP laws, they are the proverbial dog's breakfast. I think the *IAA's should be prosecuted under racketering laws in the US for bankrupting avaerage Joe's, thankfully they can't pull that shit here in Oz and pretend it's not extortion.

Having said that, for at least the last decade I have paid for the proprietary software I use. This is because when all's said and done, paying for proprietry software is the RightThing(TM) to do for those who are willing and able to spend money doing the RightThing(TM). If you don't have money and still want to do the RightThing(TM) then use the free stuff that glues the internet together, even if you have bags of money the free stuff is still worth a look.

Conclusion: The RightThing(TM) and MS software are both expensive and often inconvienient.

Norman Borlaug is his name, he won the Nobel for his part in the green revolution nothing to do with GM foods, he does however believe GM foods have the potential to bring about a second revolution.

I think Penn and Teller are entertaining, and I think the lingering concerns in the public about the safety of GM foods are bullshit, they're sparked by gross ignorance of what has been done to answer those concerns, and fueled by political and/or financial oportunists. However please be aware that P&T are both fellows of the Cato institute pushing their own brand of bullshit. The Cato institute and Greenpeace are two sides of the same propoganda war, they both 'spin' the science to gain advantage.This doesn't mean P&T (or GP for that matter) don't have valid points, just be aware they're both heavily involved in the manafactue of anti-science propoganda for political advantage.

OTOH this sort of thing is eternal, so if we must have it I prefer side splitting comedy as the medium. At least that way I get something of value from it.

This is what's wrong with capitalism. The problem here wasn't bad programming, art, or game design. The problem here was bad management. The staff should be firing Curt Schilling, not the other way around.