Genes, being a part of a species' DNA, ought to be considered 'prior art' and unpatentable.

Don't know why this is modded "troll". Poster is talking about a Pigouvian tax, raising prices to reflect external costs not captured in the market price.

Collusion may be explicit or implicit but antitrust laws should be written and enforced so that no one firm has the market power to lead or lower prices.

But it's not just about hedging bets.

It's about learning, using science as a technique that has most bearing on the physical world, and using other tools (including religion, social science, literature, and art) on the non-physical world.

(Yes, for any being with senescence, a non-physical world exists).

I used Windows ME for a year or two and it was perfectly fine, so...

True, the web cams are still active. http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Also- WTF is wrong with all the people from outside the US trying to dictate what is right for us? Why don't they leave us the hell alone and focus on their own problems.
Dunno, ask Iraq. Or Iran. Or Vietnam. Or Grenada.

Surely the GP was being ironic?

The development costs will be a one off...
Having maintained windows, linux, solaris and novell based networks my experience is basically...

You require competent staff to manage any system properly, microsoft marketing says otherwise so windows networks often end up being operated very badly by incompetent staff (and have major security and stability problems as a result)... Generally only more competent people even know linux exists, so the cheaper less competent staff will never even think to try linux - if they did the results would still be bad but probably not as bad as a poorly deployed windows setup.

If you don't mind a poor setup, windows will cost more than linux but you will probably not be able to find as many extremely cheap low skilled staff pretending to have linux skills as windows...

If you want a good secure linux setup you need decent staff...
If you want a good secure windows setup you not only need decent staff but also a lot of third party software...

It's also my experience that you need more staff to maintain a windows setup unless you cut corners...

The problem is corner cutting, people think they can cut corners with windows but the end result is a huge insecure mess.. 99% of the companies i've ever been to simply don't have the budget to maintain a windows network properly..

American is a nationality. Socialism is an ideology. The two are not mutually exclusive. I am an American socialist.

Besides, do you object to our socialist police force, our socialist fire department, our socialist postal service, our socialist military, our socialist public education system, our socialist health regulatory agencies (which make decisions for us about what food is safe to eat and water is safe to drink and which drugs are safe to take)? How about our socialist public roads? Or our socialist health insurance program for seniors? What about our socialist unemployment insurance?

Last I heard, those were all American. And last I heard, most Americans liked them.

Damnant quod non intellegunt.