Other than actual kernel updates you do not need to reboot linux after updates.
Naturally any single program which is updated needs to be restarted for the updates to take effect, but this means that the entire computer doesn't need to be rebooted. Even kernel level drivers can be updated without a reboot - probably the the closest you get is when you have to update your GUI (either KDE or Gnome) or Nvidia drivers, but even that is a "drop back to the command prompt, issue 1 command, start gui again" procedure, not a full restart (only takes 10 seconds).
Most people don't have a separate SMS or SCCM server knocking around (medium sized business and above could, but thats not "most" people)

He does have a basis -- the effort (time or cost) required to get the system to a state where compromise was not likely.

simplified a bit :
Linux - don't run as root, install updates regularly, think twice before entering root password.
Windows - attempt to have the logged in user not running as admin, install updates regularly, install run update and monitor virus scanner + firewall software. think twice before entering admin password (if running as non-admin)

OSX - never had admin on OSX, from what i understand its the same as linux with respect to security.

the effort to run (pre vista) windows as non-admin is substantially harder than non-admin linux.
installing updates is approximately the same effort.
windows (currently) requires extra software installed to be secure.

Objectively windows is harder to secure (harder on 2 out of 3). (this also assumes that this is the minimum effort required to secure each system to the same level - on any system you could spend much more effort due to a lack of knowledge, or wrong pre-conceived ideas concerning security)

"So bank robbers and pickpockets are just capitalists, then?"
Bank robbers are just people who consider the return on investment, or risk vs reward (whichever way they do it) of bank vault monies vs jail time to fall on the side of the bank vault. Most people disagree, and consider the damage to society that the theft would represent to be more than the financial gain of that individual and so a social system of punitive damages (called "the law") was organised along with enforcement measures (police).

Anything can be though of in terms of return on investment. Thats the entire point of having these punitive damages (admittedly, charging someone their entire lifes earnings should discourage people, but that doesn't appear to be working) -- to make the return on stealing a $1 cd to be negative.

anand's review -- http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3531 -- shows that random write performance on a good ssd is still 20x better than the best hdd.

That review also covers the cause of the performance drop as the drive ages that most review don't originally consider. The review covers random reads and writes in a variety of patterns.

can someone comment on the leagility of doing something like this?

an inclined plane !

let me google that for you
oh, wait, that now points to a slashdot post, perhaps if you look down that page you can find someone who has searched it out for you.

you forgot A*) Too expensive ...

isn't it more traditional to use a car analogy?

At the moment every time i re-install FF (probably every 6 months or so) I clear the addblock list.
The first few websites i visit inevitably have a few animated adds which get an immediate blanket block.
It is surprising how few servers need to be blocked to get rid of the obnoxious adds. (google is one of the few advertisers that i don't end up blocking, most times). This way i support sites which advertise to me in a non-obnoxious manner while some sites never seem to manage more than one add impression per 6 months to me.

just a nitpick about the nitpick,
from the point of view of any specific particle, relativity states more than 1 ly/year separation isn't achievable, so the total distance isn't 2 ly, a particle on one side of the universe would measure the distance to a particle at the other side of the universe as x% of 1 ly (depends on velocity) + inflated distance

2 particles going in opposite directions at 99% of the speed of light do not end up almost 2 ly apart, from the point of view of each other.

Against that there are people like me who have a linux desktop (duel boot, but these days it only runs linux), a windows laptop (linux in a vm), i use a windows desktop at uni, and 2 linux servers.

I have a total of 1 old stage 3 gentoo download, and 2 windows licences.
As most of the 'net is from my laptop and the windows desktop at uni i'm probably counted twice on the windows side, even though >50% of my time doing anything other than browsing the web is spent amongst the 3 different linux boxes i use.

Unfortunately, short of doing a random, large-scale survey and trusting the results, there isn't a good way to get statistical data like this.

because, as one of the up-thread comments says, a large file which looks true random is either encrypted or the output of a (good) random number generator. This software wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Unfortunately very few people need very large amounts of true random data, as the people who need the most random numbers are probably computational scientists, and then a good PRNG will do that for you.
Alternative needs of true random data relate to communication, or cryptography. Either way you are either 1) an academic (easy to rule out/use as an excuse) 2)have a need for better than internet banking security on your communication (once again easy to prove or rule out, as almost noone needs this) or 3) have a large encrypted file.

One way around this would be to format the blank space on your hard drive true-random, rather than a specific pattern. that way all space which hasn't been used recently looks like a blob of "encrypted/random" text. If you then go and shred (overwrite with random data) all files as you delete them, then having a block of random text on your hard drive is only then evidence of paranoia, not criminal conspiracy.

I've found the onboard graphics card on my laptop is good for a good portion of modern games - sins of a solar empire, gal. civ 2 (if i'm careful with the settings; beyond a certain number of objects on the screen the game suddenly gets very sluggish), Peggle. -- sure, none of them are 1st person shooters, but i've a desktop for when serious graphics need to be displayed, in the mean time, using a computer without any graphics card provides me sufficient entertainment while i'm on the train.
(oh, and I think the FF Australian dictionary needs an update, it marked peggle as a spelling error :p )

well, that's one explanation for the negative population growth in the western world (ignoring immigration)