I've been using linux mint for a couple of years now, and in that time have also moved my Grandpa, Dad, Dad's partner, and 1 family friend over (in every case because their xp was stuffed and they needed help). All of them are still using mint and now prefer it to xp.

Anyway, to answer the question.
1!!!!!. Most users cannot install an OS, windows comes pre-installed on almost all computers.
Lesser issues:
2. Linux sucks for games.
3. Linux sucks for running windows programs.
Honestly I don't even consider 2+3 to be big issues because most users I know only really use the web browser anyway. The ones who do play PC games, or use specialized software are generally capable of dual-booting (should they want to).

Honestly, when I think of why prejudice is bad, it's not because "all subgroups of society are equal on average", that's definitely not true socio-economically and it's probably not completely true genetically. The reason prejudice is bad is because within each subgroup the range of possible qualities a person can have are huge!, where as the differences between the averages of subgroups are almost negligible. So if you go around comparing everybody by the average of their subgroups your going to be right not much more than 50% of the time. Whereas, because of the huge differences between individuals, you only need to spend a small amount of effort to make decent comparisons on individual merit, which is what people should do.

Unfortunately I think this can be a bit hard to explain, so for the most part we just say "all subgroups of society are equal on average" and hope that the result is the same. :(

Slightly off topic, but thought someone might find this interesting.

In regard to the whole monkey/typewriter thing, even if you had infinite monkey/typewriter/time resources it would still never have any useful output.

Suppose you run the experiment long enough that you are guaranteed that one monkey on a typewriter has written romeo and juliet.
How do you find that monkey and his document?
Well you have to look through every document and find the one that matches romeo and juliet.
But you either initially require a copy of romeo and juliet to match with (in which case you already have the dam document)
Or worse, you need a human being who is capable of detecting such a document without seeing it beforehand, shakespear!, and in that case he might as well just write it himself.

I think there may be the odd patent covering the iPad, and so I don't think things are really that simple.

That said, if companies were free to produce similar products I would agree with you entirely.

they aren't going to catch most of the actual rioters?

I'd say consumers would actually be happier with the 2nd option, where they get the highest clock per quality chip that intel can produce at the best price.
If the processor market were more competitive this would be intel's only option, but it's not, so intel is going with option 3 instead...

You'd think Anonymous would be up for it. Not suing trolls, but grinding them into the ground through crowdsourced annoyance. And now that LulzSec seems to have taken over the hacking, Anon needs a new game.
Win-Win!

Slightly off topic but related to the technology and all that.

I often imagine archaeologists 300 years in the future angry because they're able to put a couple of little probes in the ground, run some quick scans, collect every conceivable iota of data on what's in the ground and how it got there, and then use computers to generate simulations of the entire history of the location with amazing accuracy.... well they would be able to .... if 20th-21st century archaeologists hadn't dug everything up thinking they were being helpful. :)

Jealous is an incomplete description of how most people feel towards this behavior.

We as humans (ideally) get to create a society and economy that makes our lives better.
In this case it seems that we've created a system where being immoral and unproductive is rewarded. So we can either choose to envy those who are immoral and unproductive and aspire to be like them and share in their wealth. Or we can attempt to alter the system so that morality and productivity is rewarded rather than immortality.

We can choose either, or a bit of both, or whatever, it's up to us. But I know which system I'd prefer.

I'm not really bothered by this, LinuxMint has taken on the Newbie role as far as I'm concerned and does a better job than Ubuntu ever did. I'm currently on Ubuntu 10.10 but am going to wait to see both Ubuntu 11.04 and LinuxMint 12 before I decide where I go next. And although Mint is based on Ubuntu they've already got a Debian version out, so if things ever get difficult with Ubuntu hopefully MintDebian will remain a strong contender.

Just speculating, but I'd guess it's because Ubuntu is currently right in the middle of the LTS cycle.

For those people unaware, every fourth Ubuntu release is a Long Term Support version. They're a bit like milestone versions if that makes any sense, plus the obvious longer support duration. By releasing Unity now it gets two releases worth of use before it hits an LTS. If it means having a less stable release now to ensure that the next LTS is solid then in my option it's a good move. I'm not saying I'm completely happy with the idea, even if my speculation is correct it still seems wrong to have the Unity release have conform to some release cycle. But honestly, if I were running things, I expect I'd be making the exact same decision.

I suppose I'm in two minds about it :S

Blizzard and Valve both make great games, and take many years to do it. Steam is of little relevence to this.

I don't understand what's actually at issue in your answer. Is it plastic surgery itself?, Is it the cost of plastic surgery relative to the risks and the gains?

An analogy is only as good as it is applicable, and that analogy is not. I've never heard of somebody undergoing gender alteration to become more like Bradley Cooper, if they did I agree that would suggest mental illness. Even if somebody did, that would not make all people who want gender alterations ill.

If you feel so strongly about it then next time take 1 minute out of your day to explain to her how important it is for her to watch where she's going. You can include some of the reasons you've listed here, children, old people, etc. The reason we don't allow people to slap each other people is that it crosses a line that society has learned from experience should not be crossed for everyday problems. If you were to slap/assault her, I assure you many men would find your reasons insufficient and would then feel that assaulting you would teach you a lesson. Then you have a situation where somebody is going to end up with injuries similar or worse to the ones you were originally so worried about.

Really, what a glass half empty view of the world.
I don't see how it's automatically an illness if somebody is one gender but wishes they were the other, it may be an illness depending on alot of things, but I can imagine it also might not be. There are many women who choose to persue other things in life than producing more humans, I image they may have the odd urge toward producing children despite this (it is of course only natural). But I don't think that would, or should be automatically labelled as a problem which needs correcting (either the feelings or the no children).
People can and should do whatever makes them happy as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else (the easily offended don't count as victims). Humans are awesome because we try different things that animals would never have thought of, if one of those things is gender alteration then that's one more interesting piece of humanity as far as I'm concernded.