http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/info/x/3755m3/

"With up to 48 cores..."

Defense is much harder than that. If I shut someone down and take their angles and force them to pass the ball backwards, I get 0 points. If I go for a tackle from a terrible angle and get blown by, I get the same. Even if you take away points, it's not able to count marking someone or positional play shutting things down. It just rewards defenders who are hard tacklers or good at poking a ball free.

Fully Informed Jury Association

NAT and SPI will serve the same purpose in this instance. However, NAT is not required for SPI and is not interesting in a firewall discussion IMO.

NAT merely creates a situation where the packets run into a dead end if not explicitly told to go someplace. SPI is the opposite, where a dead end is created explicitly for a packet that would normally be forwarded.

NAT in all but niche cases serves no purpose with IPV6. A firewall set to filter all inbound packets would serve the same purpose as NAT does today without an added layer of complication.

Seismic scale for Europe?

I know nothing about Europe or Seismic Scales... But, if that is correct, then WTF?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software Because Windows only has one installer.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/41531554-d5ef-4f2c-8fb9-149bdc5c8a701033.mspx because Windows has only one binary.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Top-10-Windows-7-Features-3-XP-Mode/1243378978 because different versions of Windows all work the same way.

These are all chosen for you by whoever makes the software. Or you can compile it yourself on Windows. http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/BuildingWinPidgin

Look, if you go with a distribution that is modern, you'll have none of those issues unless you go out of your way to the point that you'd have the same problems on Windows. Ubuntu is going to have you use one package manager that will make you not even have to think about binary formats or package formats.

Where exactly are you seeing software that isn't niche that requires any extra work on Linux? I've had to shoe horn software badly made at work into working on Linux. Through Wine and various other methods since I prefer a Linux Desktop. I found it easier than the headache that most people there go through with Windows. Am I just crazy? I consider what I had to do out of my way and annoying as a Linux desktop goes.