This comment is not really insightful. A lot of people even use electric heating pads underneath seed trays specifically to generate heat. I agree the experiment would have been even more impressive with controls wrt certain variables (including heat--why not), but it is extremely, extremely unlikely that, as the poster put it, "they can also get warm enough to prevent a seed grom growing."

It isn't about hiding the price tag. It's about protecting against potential liabilities.

You have a different opinion, and I won't try to convince you. I myself had the same opinion for many years. My only point was that, in response to the original question of "who will buy this?" I think it was always a pretty small niche, and now even smaller with long-time users like me throwing in the towel.

My view:

- With Windows, I can install pretty much any application I want.
- With Apple, I am completely at the company's mercy.
- With Ubuntu, it is sort of in between. I can install whatever I want that's available to me, which isn't as much as with Windows because of the barriers to developing for Linux. Those barriers are real. I they weren't, any commercial developer looking to make money (i.e., all of them) would port their apps to Linux. All of the apps you cited don't change the fact that the majority of commercial apps that end users actually want to buy are not ported to Linux. There are good reasons for that. The community does not make it easy.

>>And hey, Unity is always being criticised as looking like a phone/tablet OS shoehorned onto a desktop...

This is a very valid point.

My argument was not that Ubuntu is more open than Apple. However, I do think that from a user's perspective it is less open than Windows or Android. That it why I said Ubuntu is not the choice for someone looking to escape Apple's closed ecosystem.

I understand your argument: You can install whatever app you want on Ubuntu. Technically, this is true. In practice, no. The apps most people want are not available on Ubuntu, and probably never will be.

The vast majority of people who have stuck with windows on the desktop and never switched cite one major reason: Availability of applications. This is especially evident with games but also true of many other types of apps. It is pretty easy to get gimp, mplayer, vlc, xbmc, etc., running on Windows, but not so easy to get closed applications ported to linux. Large parts of the community actively discourage it. There is no support for developers who might want to sell an application, because making a living by selling software is somehow inherently bad. I call this "closed." I wholeheartedly support the idea of an open-source OS, but only if the developers of that OS understand that it needs to be able to run a wide spectrum of software. Right now, commercial developers have little incentive to port anything to linux unless they fork a whole distribution that they can control. Otherwise, the community will just break the software with every update.

One reason people have so much vitriol toward Windows 8 is that they sense they will lose something very valuable if Win 8 is widely adopted. Win 8 moves MS a step closer to a closed system, and it makes people realize that Windows 7 is the most open-architecture OS we have right now. No, it is not open source or free software. But it is the most open.

The thing is, a year or two ago, I would have bought one. Until recently, I ran Ubuntu as my primary desktop since Dapper (before that, I was a RedHat person), so you would think I would be part of the primary target group. But, if my own feelings are in any way indicative, this is going to be a very tough sell. Even I gave up hope for Ubuntu (and linux) after numerous annoyances and bugs...things were getting worse each year, not better.

- The Ubuntu One annoyance started it for me.
- The Gnome 3 fiasco. "We just don't care what our users think. If we build it, they will come. Oh, wait, don't leave... Come back!" Nope, we're gone.
- The Unity fiasco. Worse than Windows 8. Really. (OK, I'll be honest: I haven't used Windows 8. It could be just as bad. But it's bad.)
- The Amazon search fiasco. Wow. Privacy, anyone?
- The ongoing hostility toward anything closed being available on linux (because god forbid we users actually have a choice).

Given the last two items, why would a nerd who is protesting Apple's closed system ever want to choose Ubuntu?

Nerds like to tinker. We pride ourselves on it. But we also pride ourselves on using the best tool for the job. That is no longer Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is completely misreading their market.

My switch: I have been using Win 7 for about 6 months now, and I love it. There are also smaller smaller things that I didn't even notice were wrong until I switched: When transferring large files on my network with NFS, I always got random Nautilus crashes from time to time. I just assumed it was my router or something, and never really had time to look into it. I lived with it. No such issues with Windows 7 shares. Dragging and dropping large folders from one computer to another has never been easier for me. I could kick myself for being so stubborn that I didn't switch sooner.

That was really funny. Thanks for the link.

I am a health nut, and I would argue that all except the cigarette are good for you--assuming the grease in the greasy side is not monounsaturated, except maybe olive oil. Saturated fats and cholesterol have gotten a bad rap. The people I know who drink diet soda and eat fat-free this or that, and butter substitutes, protein bars made of soy, and other so-called healthy foods, are the ones who have a really hard time controlling their cravings and weight and just generally have a lot of unpleasant issues regarding food. I think their bodies are actually starving for real food, despite all the calories they are consuming. I know someone will point it out, so let me just go ahead and say that I know that correlation doesn't equal causation and that my anecdotes a clinical trial does not make. Still, the conclusion I draw is that the vast majority of so-called health food is anything but.

Not an over-reaction. It happened.

http://www.global-reality.com/biotech/articles/othernews022.htm

http://www.nben.ca/environews/media/mediaarchives/04/jan/percy.htm

No, apparently we didn't learn that. Because the Fed turned right around and started pumping again after the dotcom bust. Remains to be seen whether we will learn the easy-credit-fuels-bubbles lesson after the bursting of this latest bubble. My guess: probably not.

I was getting so down after reading his comment... But then I saw yours. Thanks.

Yes, on the one hand, there is some abuse of maternity and family leave policies. People think they should be able to shrug their work off on others and then still get the credit for it when they return, in terms of advancement, etc. As a single, childless woman, that really irks me. The other side of the issue is that it is in society's best interest for mothers to spend a lot of time with their newborns. It's in society's best interest to have children who feel secure, breast fed when possible, etc., etc. There is a middle ground. It's up to us to find it and to push for it, and not to be completely blind to one side of the issue.