In this case you ought to say "there is an order of magnitude more software available...(base Y)".

Otherwise, using your argument, for the same numbers you could equally say "there is a constant factor more more software available", in that for X ARM apps there are X*c x386 apps for c > 1

Obviously this is true for the constant c = X^(Y-1)

As soon as you start playing with two constants, there is an infinite number of functions that can interpolate between them (and hence describe their relationship). This includes exponential functions, polynomial, constant, sinusoidal, linear...

"Begs the question" has a specific meaning related to circular arguments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question Here the combination of two Atom processes raised a question as to what constitutes a netbook. No begging involved.

At my university, lab computers are iMacs with Vista, OS X, and Edubuntu installed. Almost all students use Windows, but the tech staff can easily handle requests from linux users. Seriously though, if you run a linux distribution on your laptop then you really ought to be capable to set up wifi and printing yourself.

The answer is: we don't know. Noone's devised a polynomial time quantum algorithm for any of the NP-complete problems yet.

I have had the exact same experience (with all desktop effects turned off). Switching to OpenSolaris 2008.11 has made a world of difference. I've never had a computer feel so snappy. If you're game enough to try Windows betas then I suggest you try OS out as well.

What is the practical reason that a list of 100,000 domains is going to result in a less efficient network than 10,000? Is there something wrong with their implementation of a hashtable?