Historically, Windows isn't stable until about the 2nd service pack, years after it's official release.

Thank you for the suggestion; I'm installing it in the background and I am going to try this out shortly.

Sony Vegas is pretty much the only program I use that still requires Windows.

It's powerful, easy to self teach, and until 10 came around, it was extremely stable.

But if your video card is anything newer than the GTX 500 series, don't expect any GPU rendering assistance.

Linux has the super low end and the super high end well covered, but it has a few serious areas that are lacking.

On the low end, OpenShot definitely beats windows movie maker, and it's about as good as iMovie, so for vloggers, it's all you'd need.

On the high end, Lightworks and Cinelerra are both powerful, comparable to Avid, but less stable, and the learning curve is steep; too steep for an amateur who is just messing around to master quickly.

But for a start up or mid-range video production company, neither option is acceptable. OpenShot is simply not good enough for their needs, and the high end is too much, the training costs for employees would be significant. There is no Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, or Final Cut 7 for the mid range companies to work with.

I've also had trouble rendering to h.264 in Linux. The files are sometimes corrupt - refusing to load in anything other than VLC, sometimes lacking features, like progressive upload that is youtube friendly, or just plain poor quality - not all renderers are made equal, some look better at a given bit rate than others.

"Projects like OpenHatch will even help you match your skill set to a project in need. So what's holding you back? Time? Lack of interest? Difficulty getting started?"

Not knowing about OpenHatch until just now may be a part of it.

As an artist, I've contributed a fair amount of material to the creative commons ecosystem, and I've posted some tutorials for open source projects that have a small user base, but other than that, I have no way of knowing what skills of mine could be useful to anyone working on a project, or what holes they need filled.

As soon as the open source world produces something better than h.264, I'm sure everyone will rush to adopt it.

Lots of people just want a tool that works, not a tool that functions better as an ideological statement than as a media player.

I click the link, video looks decent enough, loads fast enough.

"So academia is just like the rest of the world, then."

Not exactly. The reports in academia are much more long-winded.

I purchased my first ebook reader just 8 days ago, (Sony PRS-T1 for $50) and installed calibre (0.9.18 is the version currently in the ubuntu repository) this morning, and I am very impressed with this piece of software, but a little intimidated by the interface, so I will look forward to testing out this new version.

The original reason for limited-edition prints wasn't driven by marketing. The stone or wood block would physically degrade with each print, and after a certain number of runs, the drop in quality was clearly visible (why earlier editions tend to be worth more)

With digital reproduction, this just isn't a factor any more, and limiting the production run is pure marketing; creating an artificial scarcity to inflate the price.

Most of this announcement is just empty art jargon; the elite paying lip service to their vision of the unwashed masses, framing things so the academics won't slam them too harshly, while still walking away with bags of money.

D'ho! looks like I got my "micro" and "milli" prefixes mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

(using 40uSv as a flight from NYC to LA from the XKCD chard as a refrence point)

"A puddle of the contaminated water was emitting 100 millisieverts an hour of radiation"
Wow! that's slightly more radiation than you'd get from a flight over the ocean! Let's all freak out!

"In addition up to 300 tonnes a day of contaminated water is leaking from reactors buildings into the sea"
So...how contaminated is this water? the same as the puddles? More? Less? What is it contaminated by?

More like a broke billionaire who still spends like their wealth will never end.

The Wiring platform (from which Arduino is a fork of) is a great option for getting started.

http://wiring.org.co/

Code wise, It's about 99% the same as Arduino, so all the libraries and code you can find out there is usable, (you just have to tweak the pin numbers)
You can program Arduino boards, wiring boards, AND Atmel chips with the wiring software.
The Wiring S board is slightly cheaper.

And, best of all, the help system is just a lot of commented out descriptions above the code - and it links to a schematic so you know EXACTLY what to build to make the code in the example work.

It's not that factory jobs are for stupid people, it's that factory jobs are boring as hell.

Given the chance, I would (and do) earn half as much doing something that I enjoy far more.

Perhaps you should try selling service or support on top of free software, instead of re-inventing the wheel each time?

"Open Source" is often called "Open Sores" for a reason.