Any caricature is bound to be inaccurate to actual individuals contained within it. Yes, I read Slashdot, yes, I run Linux - typing this on that right now, and yes, sitting right next to me is my other machine which is running Windows 7. Linux is for everything but games, and Windows 7 is for games. I also happen to have an aesthetic streak and like my systems to look good. Custom Xfce theme that looks good on Linux and Aero looks good on Windows 7. I don't fit into the "slashdotter" mold that you have roughly sketched out in your own mind.

Aero looks much, much nicer than a flat rectangle that is one color. It's too bad that the window chrome got bashed so bad. Of course a likely reason for it is that tablets will run primarily on battery and Aero might be a drain on that.

Which is the "other engineering problem." ;)

The issue for all of us who already exist today is that the tissue grows around the mesh. Certainly in the future new organisms can be grown and integrated at the same time to become cybernetic life forms. However, for all of us who are already grown getting a mesh inside of our tissues presents a whole other engineering problem.

Fine. You go America. We'll just see what the power map of the world is fifty years from now once your post-awesome country is filled with idiots and therefore of no relevance in that world.

But. I would rather you did turn yourselves around as, even with your bad stuff, I think you're generally OK.

I'd like to propose a little civil disobedience. Copyright terms are insane and have been continually extended by copyright maximalists for years now. I think sane copyright terms are 20 years for everything but software and 10 years for software as it changes so fast.

I will separate my downloads out into two categories: older than the above terms and younger than those terms. If I ever have the misfortune to be dragged into court over my downloads the older ones I will plead no contest to with a submission that I am not accepting Hollywood's forever copyright, and anything newer than those terms I will have to plead guilty of copyright infringement for.

20 years is long enough for copyright - maximalists are holding our culture hostage by pushing for anything longer.

The Public Domain

So, now that the current generation of stealth coatings on airplanes is obsolete, how long before the US starts to both A) Sell current-gen stealth to other countries, and B) develop next-gen stealth capability.

Remember, stealth doesn't mean a plane is invisible, it just means that the cross section of the plane is just too small to image using normal radar.

I am going to pick up a Raspberry Pi, once the initial hu-bub dies down. I'm waiting for them to appear in a form that already has a case and a physical power switch however. Shouldn't be more than another 3-4 months or so I would expect. I'm already swimming in computers so there isn't a pressing rush. Still, once I get mine, it'll be a badge that "yes you can have cool stuff."

Heh, sorry I've never used it. :) On Windows I use Paint.NET and on Linux I use the GIMP. But, hey, it's up to version 1.3!! ;)

There is a Linux alternative for Paint.NET: Pinta. It's coming along and is already decent. It's available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Sadly that is exactly what I did with my machine that had the Xpress 1100. On the bottom of the computer was a Genuine Vista Product Key Sticker. So, I pulled out some Vista medium I had lying around and installed it. AMD's legacy drivers do support Vista, just not the latest Catalyst. So, like Catalyst 10.2 installed on it and it works fine. I gave it to my nephew. ;)

The "garbling" I experienced was also on Ubuntu, I don't remember exactly which version but 10.04 wouldn't be far out of the park. I remember trying everything to get it to work, like enabling the X-Org Edgers PPA even. Just wouldn't work. That's the thing with proprietary drivers: when the manufacturer stops supporting it then it dies on Linux because other pieces of the system, like X, continue to change. Eventually you get an ABI breakage and you have to either stick with older software all-around or junk the affected hardware. When that hardware is your video that may not be an option - so older software it is, bugs, security issues, and all.

Yup, most laptops come with an extra display hook-up of some kind. My laptop isn't used in a portable manner, it is plugged all the time and doesn't even have its battery in it. Since it is immobile that makes it convenient to also have the other monitor plugged into it constantly. Now, if it was mobile then the extra screen would be a burden more than something useful. If that was the case then I probably wouldn't go with the xorg.conf file and would instead have two shell scripts that used the "xrandr" command directly: one to enable dual-screen and one to disable dual-screen, which would be the default. I wouldn't have the xorg.conf file because on the go I might not have an extra monitor that that file makes X expect.

You're positing a straw-man. I am not, and never mentioned, "running a render farm." I'm using it for desktop use and programming. I have a full GUI desktop, Xfce 4.10, with Compiz enabled and doing just fine. Flash video plays perfect in my Chromium browser. Intel is fine.

I have a laptop, it has its built in screen and a VGA port on the side. Here is it's xorg.conf file:

XRandR xorg.conf.

I did briefly use a Xinerama configuration, and here that is:

Xinerama xorg.conf.

I'm using Xfce 4.10, with the Xinerama config compiz worked fine. Later on someone told me it wasn't supposed to work with Xinerama. Huh, it did.. But, anyway I went with the XRandR config anyway because it is much shorter. However, on my login manager screen - SLiM - the XRandR config has both screens as clones of each other where with the Xinerama config they are independent displays.