And a coal plant can actually install cleaning filters that are a lot better than in cars. Usually doesn't get rid of the CO2, but a lot of the other nasty stuff at least.

Easier to install such stuff in a few places than in every car at least.

Yup, I can only agree to that. Unfortunately the world doesn't always follow my opinions :)

I've seen URL shortening used in print magazines for quite a long time as well though. Where it makes sense as you have to type the URL by hand to visit it. So Twitter isn't the only use case.

In Sweden there used to be cords to pull in 60's era buses they have been replaced by buttons long time ago.

tbh a lot of that fragility comes from doing backwards incompatible API & ABI changes quite frequently in different libraries and in kernel etc. APT handles the situation pretty well IMO.

The situation in Windows is instead that deprecated APIs have to be maintained for literally decades and every app ships their own version of libraries they use that don't get security and bug fixes managed centrally.

And why would you use a unsupported open source SQL and mail server if the goal was to have a platform that was supported for 10+ years?

Answer: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/

If you wanted a SQL server or mail server on that Windows XP, Microsoft would probably want to to upgrade to Windows 2003 and buy Exchange & MSSQL server licenses that would cost you a lot more than 275GBP.

And coal also contains radioactive materials:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Yup, and coal plants also release radioactivity:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

In Sweden all this information is public for all citizens. Private organizations do however need a permit to keep a registry with personal information.

Which is also the ISO standard for dates.

Why wouldn't faster processor speed make a difference in your gameplay? It certainly would for mine (maybe not $700-800 worth of difference though).

At the moment I have a desktop for work and games, and a netbook for mobility and bringing along when travelling. I guess a phone like that could easily replace the netbook, but not the desktop.

That is assuming this small business has someone to handle security updates or even distribution upgrades on this server. If they use a consultant for that it is probably more expensive than to use Google apps (even if they do it in house it is likely more expensive for a small business).

Also the outage is likely to be longer is the server breaks down and needs to be completely rebuilt from backups than a typical Google apps outage would have been.

I mean a lot of small businesses (or non profit organisations for that matter) with less than 50 employees might only have one "IT-guy" if even that.