I wonder how much of this study is impacted by better medicine. They should also test an area with minimal air pollution as a control to see if the people there also experienced an increased life expectancy where the air quality remained relatively the same. More details of how the study was conducted should be published.

"why would you want people forming their first impression of your software from untested development releases?" You're thinking like a product development manager rather than a programmer. If you think very practically, as a programmer, you have a tool that you need and you need it in a certain time frame. You don't have the resources, but it seems like something that others would want. So you hit the open source world and find that there are other projects that either have a vision to do what you want or maybe already have 90% of what you want. You add the 10% and now you've gained back the life you would have spent building that 90% for yourself. That is why, if you run an open source project, you want as much exposure as early as possible. It's not about selling a product or competing in the market space. It's about getting something done that is unique and serves a purpose.

I've been waiting for a good reason to get out of my Verizon account for a while now and they have just given it to me.

Perhaps it's because I fall into the Reagan-Republican category that it appeals to me, but I sort of like a razor-thin OS as a platform for applications. The one thing it should do in its "expanding role" should be to protect running programs from other running programs, but not try to protect a running program from itself. One program should not be able to consume all the resources on the machine, nor should it be starved for resources by other programs. IF the OS is successful at providing that service first and foremost, then perhaps it can start delving into other services, but not at the expense of the former.

The ~6k years number is derived mainly from genealogies. For instance, I could derive your father's age given your age and his age when you were born.

I reject this logic. I can't believe that, given the same amount of time and familiarity, that users will find Gnome or KDE less user friendly than Windows. What exactly is less user friendly about a linux environment? The fact that you can't download any old executable file and install it? Do you really think that's easier than using a package manager? If linux got 1/10th the attention from software and hardware vendors, making things work wouldn't be NEARLY as difficult. So I guess I call BS on you with that statement because I think what you are really saying is, "it needs to be more like windows", in which case I heartily disagree. I recently had to switch back from Linux to Windows because I changed jobs and I find the Windows environment so cluttered and annoying, I think it's LESS user friendly than the Gnome environment in Ubuntu. I can list a ton of reasons like the "always on top" feature, native virtual desktops, the ability to kill a locked process and have it actually die, a useful shell(much easier for giving people directions than spending most of your time telling them how to navigate a hierarchical menu), tons of tools for distributed system administration, tons of useful software for free, filesystem support that is GENERATIONS beyond FAT or NTFS, the ability to work without being continually asked if I really want to do something.... should I continue?

"What it is doing is trying to make the 50 states DLs uniform." Why, so they can stop underage drinking? Besides, what information does a police officer look at on your drivers license? They take it back to their car, run it through their computer and get your full records. They way the license looks is irrelevant.