It's better because it's where the people are.

When you're trying to build a new platform, it's not enough to be better. You have to be so much better that staying with the existing platform doesn't make sense. Otherwise the momentum of the existing community already being where it is, of people knowing to look there for it, all of that mass is just not worth moving.

Unless the platform you're competing with screws up so handily people feel like they don't have a choice. Take a look at freenode a couple years ago removing effectively all the value of the platform in a matter of days when a new owner took control. People moved, and moved quickly, because the thing they had been using disintegrated, just like reddit is in the process of doing now.

You can do this without killing the ISPs even. The municipality can own the cable in the streets and on the poles, and bring it back to a POP where different ISPs can connect in. You want to switch from comcast to verizon? Someone moves a cable in the POP, and it's done.

I think this is the logical next step, as it'll be a bit easier to do this without the ISPs lobbying it away. (but still nearly impossible)

They also last a good 6 years... (assuming they ever stop working.)

I hate "social" trivia. Please don't do this...

The American Work Ethic? I'd say they have it. They're pedaling to keep things going.
I've met many of those protesting. You know what? Many of them do have jobs. They do have lives. They're there anyway because they know things are messed up.

In my city the protestors are feeding the homeless. They're doing good works, and they're encouraging discussion about the future of our nation. There is no possible way this is a bad thing. Why are there so many unemployed out there? It isn't because the employed don't care, it's because the employed are trying to keep their jobs.

Pedal away, SF.

Business laptops still have them. At least, mine (thinkpad) does.

Don't basement-dwelling virgins weed themselves out of the gene pool?

But if you invite them over to play, you'll only buy one copy... they don't make as much that way!

This is why I still love my PS2. Lots of multiplayer splitscreen games means I can play with the family, or friends who come over.

Lets consider though, if you did setup your parents/grandparents/whatever with linux. If they ran ubuntu, and a window (in firefox) popped up saying they were infected, would they still not fill in their credit card info? I realize it would look like a "windows" window, as do you, but would that really stop the clueless?

Maybe, but probably not. I'm not saying running linux won't make them at least a LITTLE more secure, but I doubt it would solve this issue in all cases, either. If anything, the popup blocker might. Maybe :)

Have you bought a house? Every house has it's quirks. Most of these are discovered after at least a few weeks of "use." Often, you can pay a little extra to fix or improve the quirks, or you can just live with them. I'd say the initial walkthroughs, the home inspections, etc, are not too far removed from reviews of games.

If the reviews all say it's terrible, it's crap, it's incomplete, you don't buy it. Just like the the home inspector tells you the furnace is likely to explode in a month or two, you don't buy the house.

On the other hand, the lack of being able to resell games, etc, does annoy the heck out of me. No, I wouldn't download a house, but I sure as heck want to be able to sell the one I bought when I'm done with it. And the garage should still come with it, even if I added it later :)

I'm an american, and outside law enforcement officers, I've seen perhaps 3 or 4 guns in private possession in my life. I suppose they must be out there somewhere, and I've sure heard stories that make me shake my head, but I think those stories get a little overblown with regards to how many of us own or carry a gun.

Most of this teaches responsibility with money. Lost/spent your lunch money on the way to school? Bout 1pm you'll realize you should have been more careful.

It should be criminal to base next years funding on what was spent last year and little else. This needs to be fixed before any of these depts are going to address the other side of it (spending in order to have access in the future to similar funds). I've seen some downright insane wastes as a result of end of year surpluses.

Back in high school I bought a laptop at a garage sale that turned out to be chock full of qbasic code and the PDS compiler. One of the programs allowed you to net send but specify the "from" computername. This was of course used only for kind and gentle purposes at the time, but before posting this I googled around to see how this was possible. Anyone got a clue? :) I seriously doubt I still have the code 14 years later.