I thought the NT kernel strongly resembled that of VMS. :)

I love the example given in Language and Cognition: Investigating the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis:

'Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia. I came here because of the way the locals, the Kuuk Thaayorre, talk about space. Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other Aboriginal groups, use cardinal-direction terms â" north, south, east, and west â" to define space.1 This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." One obvious consequence of speaking such a language is that you have to stay oriented at all times, or else you cannot speak properly. The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello."'

You miss my point. Thats user ready for US - me and you - who are interested in computers and are happy to take the time to learn all about it. Most people are too damn lazy (i refuse to accept stupid to be the case given personal experience, its pure laziness) to learn a new OS. Setup Ubuntu on a laptop, then show someone how to open Firefox and thats it; their sorted.

Thats really not the case for OpenSolaris; nowhere near it.

But anyway, Im on the side as you here, anything that gets more people off Windows, the better. Personally im a hypocrite in that as both my laptop and Desktop are running Windows 7 but those are the only computers I own which do. At the moment, I have such a huge number of Windows-only programs that its simply impractical to switch. But given good reason - whether that be a bad new mistake in windows or something new in linux - I wouldn't hesitate to.

You use more muscles for these than you do for passively sitting in a car or buss.

You answered your own question. I played Everquest for years, and it was excruciating to solo, so you sat around for extended periods of time begging for a group. WoW gives you the option to play the way YOU want to play... in a group to taking on tougher encounters, or solo if you can't find a group, or just don't feel like being social.

One of the many strengths of WoW is that it does NOT "force" you to play any particular way. You love to explore on your own? No problem. Like to pvp? Check. Want to run thru a dungeon for an hour or two? Yep. Really want the bigger raid encounters that require a team to learn how to work together? Got that too.

And it's all done really, really, really well. Blizzard doesn't do stuff that isn't thought out completely. THAT is why they have the 12 million players. It's not like they started out with some huge advantage. They earned a huge base by doing the hard work.