Windows piracy is one of the major factors keeping Linux down. Linux doesn't 'work out of the box' in the same way that Windows does, and it's always a bit disheartening to come up across a glitch which there is seemingly no solution for (I couldn't get Minecraft to stop crashing after I got a new ATI card for example) but most of these things would be tolerable if your copy of Windows was £99 (your local currency may vary). However for a large chunk of the population readily available pirated copies of Windows 7 means that Windows is effectively free too, thus removing pretty much the only benefit that most people would see.

People still using XP are doing so because of legacy software? Likely to be businesses which have some tech minded people behind them. Most savvy home users have moved onto Windows 7, as Vista was a pile of shit. Those left using Vista are the Moms who send emails full of cats.

'Microsoft Windows is really so much harder to use than Ubuntu. Everything on Ubuntu just works' This just isn't true though. Sure you might have to do more things to protect your Windows machine than your Ubuntu, but when you do need to do anything, even mundane things, with Ubuntu it's much more complicated for the average user (think the sort of character whose computer spends more time as a botnet than not). Mention to my Dad, or many of my less tech-savy friends the concept of 'sudo' and they'll just glaze over. For most people it's Windows that 'just works' not Ubuntu.

Presumably because there isn't anyone driving big cars to smash into them, as per the OP's comment?

Uhh I'm pretty sure it's the two second rule. So your calculation is out, that said you probably didn't realise you got it wrong due to the rhyming couplet of fool and rule. Could have worked with nine seconds, same thing. Good times.

The argument for indie labels always seems to base itself around the premise that indie=good and good=indie, and also that there is such a thing as music that is good or better. However this snobbery can sometimes blind those involved in music production and distribution to a fairly simple fact, in terms of art, where opinion is subjective, popular = good. If there really must be a debate about what qualifies as good music, surely that which appeals to the broadest spectrum of people on some level must be the best? Now I appreciate that based on artistic merit and peer review artists like Madonna may come up a bit short, and I very much doubt that anyone is touched deeply and emotionally by any of her songs, but most people like them. That's quantifiable. There could be some Patagonian pipe music which speaks to me on a deep, emotional level, but if to the other 6 billion people on earth it sounds like a guy blowing into some bamboo then who is saying it's better? Only me; and that's the point with indie music - people like indie artists more, but less people like them. That's how it works and for the most part that's why they're indie. If they wanted to become mainstream, they'd have to stop being 'indie'.... Also, I'm never entirely comfortable with this idea that the advertising budgets of big labels can make people buy music that they don't like. The whole argument behind this notion seems to imply that the majority of people are too stupid to realise that they are listening to things that they don't like. When in reality most people probably just don't really care about the finer points of the music they listen to, they don't care about the wonderful drum work, and they certainly don't need their music to 'speak to them'. This is no different to not really caring about fashion, computers, cars or the interior decor of your house. You get afficionados of most aspects of life, but I don't remember the last time I heard someone claiming that someone was forced to paint their bedroom magnolia because of 'big paint'. Indie music proponents should just be happy that THEY like it, they're in the know and that they have found music that appeals to them. Odds are they are just the sort of people who need their music to do this. Most people just want something to listen to in the car on the way to work, and considering humans are really quite similar, it's hardly surprising that they like a lot of the same music.

Using your logic that any non-smoker harmed by someone who smokes cigarettes is unacceptable - Why should I have to breathe in the polluting fumes that come from the exhaust of the car/bus/train/plane you travel on?