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Ask Slashdot: Mac To Linux Return Flow?
jasnw writes "I'm one of apparently many people who moved to OS X from Linux in the early/mid 2000s for their desktop system, keeping Linux boxes around for the heavy lifting and server work. I may also be part of a large segment of that group now considering a return because of all the iOS-ification of OS X, despite the fact that the Linux desktop still falls short in the 'it just works' area. I'm angry enough at Apple, and wary enough of Linux, that I might just go to using Windows 7 for the desktop (not Win8, however). What is the feeling/experience of other 'traitors' who run OS X for the desktop and Linux for everything else?"
This thread will be good. I expect well-reasoned and rational comments from all sides, naturally.
*Munches popcorn and waits*
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Your trollcraft is strong, you named every OS, praising it whilst simultaneously deriding it. I give you 32 troll points for what will likely be highly polarized responses and self-sustaining conjecture and disagreement.
Linux is a great kernel. Linux has never had a good or stable GUI environment. Ever.
OS X and iOS QA has gone to shit. They're toys from China that break a lot now.
Windows 8 is a LSD trip. Windows 7 is the new Windows XP. However the Microsoft people will say Windows "next version" will be super better!!!! (since about Windows 3.11) like a broken record.
What's wrong with paper again?
I went linux -> mac in about 2004, and mac -> linux in 2009. Basically got sick of the extra hassle required to get stuff that runs out of the box on linux running on mac. eg a mysql/php/apache stack that actually matched all the linux servers I administered; qgis, grass gis, inkscape, scribus,.. And by 2009 linux-on-the-desktop was a lot more 'just works' than it was in 2004. In short, the extra time I spend getting my mint linux setup working as I want from fresh install to doing work is much shorter than the amount of time spent doing the same on osx. But that's just me - my particular software needs are dictated by the kind of academic work I do, and what you do with your computers may make your experience different.
I just cannot figure out what this "question" is all about? You *apparently* *might* be part of a *possibly* large group of OS X people who *might* want to go using Windows?
Well, I just might not feel like answering this. My experience is that this type of questions are apparently suggestive, and only meant to be so.
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* Sigh *
Okay, the Distro's got it horribly wrong with their move the KDE 4. KDE said version 4.0 was only for developers and all the distro's pushed it out anyway.
I started using KDE around 4.7 or 4.8 when Ubuntu pushed out Unity that was utter crap, and the Gnome had gone to their 3.0 crap-fest. I have found KDE 4 awesome.
On lower powered compy's I've install Xubuntu. Way easier to install than Windows XP or 7. Wipe drive, format, and load Xubuntu. Worked without any screwing around with drivers or anything. I was mega impressed.
Disclaimer: This is a very speculative long shot ....
But it used to be that differences between platforms in terms of end user control were a matter of degree. Now with commercial operating systems moving rapidly away from that, with more closed systems, restricted app stores, secure boot, locked devices, disregard for privacy, etc., Linux has a much larger opportunity to distinguish itself on that feature (as well as the security that goes with it).
Don't wait for users to tell you they need it; that will be too late. Though privacy and control aren't so 'cool' now, I find it hard to believe that suddenly human beings will have permanently stopped caring about them. The pendulum could swing back, and if that happens you want Linux firmly associated with end user control and privacy in people's minds.
Plus, Linux could educate them simply by presenting an alternative. Few end users understand the value of end user control and openness.
What you do with the tools is more important that the tools themselves.
You gave us no real idea what you got going on with your computer aside from some comment made about "heavy lifting and server work." If you can use any of the platforms just decide on one. I have a boot camped rMBP that I use and I'm more than happy with it. I'm not exactly sure what the iOSification of OSX is suppose to mean but it sounds like you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
BTW: My personal experience is that people who claim that they need a machine for "heavy lifting" just don't know how to make a reasonable computer do what they need it to do. Unless you're talking storage and if you're really using a full functioning computer for storage then you're just lost right out of the gate.
You're leaving the Mac platform because you don't like the direction that platform seems to be headed, right? That's certainly an okay reason to try your luck elsewhere.
But you've already indicated with your "not Win8" comment that you ALSO don't like where the Windows platform is headed.
Windows 7 may be further from the hated future of the Windows OS than the current Mac OS is from the hated future of the Mac OS, and so Win7 may seem nicer for a while because of that. But in less than a decade Win7 will be orphaned for security updates and you're going to have to jump ship again to an OS you don't hate, and the only OS it looks like you're going to want to consider at that point is Linux.
It's time to dive into Linux and start learning what you like and how to make it work for you. Better now while you've got some lead time than in a few years when it becomes an emergency.
I have used both Linux and Windows pretty extensively for my desktop system, and for servers (not always my choice). I love using Linux servers (specifically CentOS) - they perform well for the tasks I use them for, and they are rock solid.
I miss Linux on my Macbook Air probably about as often as I miss having Windows on my Macbook Air. There are plenty of things I don't like about Apple: expensive hardware often lagging on the performance-features front (e.g. USB3 took a while), their 'our way or get lost' approach, how truly awful Finder is (and it is truly awful), and all of the bollocks about 'It just works' (it mostly works). However, I can use the apps I need on it (e.g. Photoshop: and no, Gimp is not a replacement; MS Office: and no, OpenOffice is not a replacement). The touchpad functionality is brilliant (multi-touch, swiping, etc). Menu bars always at the top of the screen is genius, as it turns out. I don't need to deal with installing GTK+, QT, etc etc - although this is mainly just an artifact of the packaging system.
So in essence, I don't feel like a traitor. I feel like I'm using different OSs for different things based on their match to my needs. Mind you, I revisit Linux fairly regularly to check on how it is going as a desktop OS (and was one of the weird folk who didn't mind Gnome 3), and it is certainly getting better, but I always wind up back on OSX (or Windows, prior to that).
If I stop being able to install apps without the app store, or they all need to be digitally signed and approved by Apple, then you'll see me switching to something else faster than you can blink, but that's a ways off yet.
The "iOSification" of OS X is overblown hyperbole at the moment. Yes, Apple's simplified some of the core apps like iPhoto. Yes, Apple's made the Calendar app fugly. They added the "Launchpad", which you never have to actually see unless you invoke it, and they added the Gatekeeper security feature, which you can switch off with a few clicks of the mouse.
They also recently got rid of the guy who was responsible for some of that stuff, so we may see a roll back on the nasty skeumorphic nonsense.
The core OS, and its UX in general, are still excellent, and every single app distributed outside of the App Store still have as much freedom as they used to.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
PCBSD is getting there. I still run FreeBSD-9 and FreeBSD-HEAD on laptops. But I've used PCBSD on netbooks and laptops - when the hardware support is there, it's actually rather pleasant.
The only hardware support issues have been video and wifi. I can fix the latter, I can't fix the former. :)
That just is NOT true anymore. Windows 7 has been stable from the word go. Uptime measured in days and weeks for a DESKTOP computer that is only interrupted by important updates and other administrative tasks that require a reboot. Otherwise, it Just Works. This coming from a guy who LOVES Linux- on servers.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
You say that like it's a bad thing...
I think it's more like putting the handle back on the spoon.
+1 Disagree
It's worth considering MATE. It's a fork of Gnome2 that intends to develop into what Gnome 3 would have been had they not drunk the cool aid.
@ submittor: if you don't like OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion), why not just go back to snow leopard? It's stable as a rock. My personal opinion is I like the additional usability in mountain lion, but obv ymmv.
That just is NOT true anymore. Windows 7 has been stable from the word go. Uptime measured in days and weeks for a DESKTOP computer that is only interrupted by important updates and other administrative tasks that require a reboot. Otherwise, it Just Works. This coming from a guy who LOVES Linux- on servers.
That's the first problem with Windows : there is so many things that needs you to reboot it is ridiculous. And the freakin updates that FORCES me to reboot. Only thing you can do is tell it to postpone the reboot for 4 hours. Then 4 hours later that fu***n thing pops-up again requesting you to reboot. And the worst : if you are not in front of you machine when it pops, after about a minute it will decide that it can just reboot. So you come back, your computer is at the login screen and you just have to re-open everything to get back to work. Who the f**k decided this was a good idea ?
Now I don't have that problem anymore. I installed Mint on my work computer and the only time I need to reboot is when I upgrade the kernel. After the upgrade there is a popup that tells me it needs to reboot to fully apply the update. If I click postpone IT WILL NEVER BOTHER ME AGAIN.
Also, I measure uptimes in months, not days and weeks. In fact I have an internet-facing server that is up for more that 5.5 years.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
Its funny that Windows 8 is starting to sound like what Linux was a few years ago and Linux is far closer to 'just works' now.
"Windows 8 is great! Now after you install it go to this link, download the app and follow the instructions. That will make your computer usable."
Sound familiar?
I just can't get that emotional about an OS. I ran Linux on the desktop from the late 90s until about 2006, when I started getting seriously into digital photography. I reached a point where I needed Photoshop and real colour management, which left me with the choice of Windows or Mac. I already had the PC hardware, so I went with Windows.
Every now and then I look at the latest iMacs and think... maybe. When I really think about it, I just can't justify the price difference. Windows XP just worked for me. Windows 7 just worked. I'm now using 8, and it just works. I have WAMP to get a nice simple stack for web development, I use perl and imagemagick for some batch processing of files, but get to use Lightroom and Photoshop for the real work. If I wanted a real command line I'd stick cygwin on.
The OS is just a launcher. OK, the metro start screen is a bit clunky, but most of the time I'm on the desktop with a few apps and a browser running. It makes absolutely no difference to me which OS I'm using at that point, as long as it runs the applications I need. Since Windows does it cheaper, I use Windows.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
because apple will ultimately rip support for snow leopard away from you, while at the same time breaking your applications. Then insist you should buy a new computer. OS X is like leasing a car vs. owning one. It's not right or wrong for the right people.
It really depends on your usage pattern. Some people find it really annoying, others like it, whilst some are in between. I do find it really annoying on occasion. For example one of the things I like to do is watch a web cast while playing Free Cell. In Windows 7 this was simple enough. In Windows 8, the Free Cell game is a 200 MB download (instead of being built in like in Win 7), and it only plays in Metro - so it takes either the full screen or 80% of the screen if you snap it. Then you can't watch the web cast unless you have two monitors. Honestly whoever thought that it was a good idea to force apps to full screen on large monitors was a moron. Fortunately I do have two monitors so I can make this work. But it is annoying. Most other things are fine - as long as you avoid Metro style apps and make sure to set the system to not use the Metro apps for opening files.
I've had great success with cinnamon on Linux Mint 14, give it a try
Does this belong on Slashdot or on a cooking blog?
No left turn unstoned.
KDE tried to copy Windows as much as they could - when I saw their annoying Windows-esque dialogue when you connect a USB mass storage device I was done with that. Then Gnome chased the "everything is going Web 3.0 and mobile" dream so this leaves me with only sensible window managers like XFCE and LXDE. Any other ones I should try?
I don't really understand this. How does one become so particular about the desktop system?
I personally do prefer KDE. Having said that, you can put me in front of a Gnome, Cinnamon, Windows, OSX, Windowmaker, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, environment and I only need a couple of minutes to find my way around and be comfortable with it. My preference for KDE is marginal. It is not a deal-breaker.
What is it about that USB dialog that prevents you from getting your work done? How is it a show-stopper for you? You described it as annoying, can you elaborate? I really want to understand this because I seem to be the oddball here.
So, let me get this straight : Linux is hard because you need to modify text files to change something, while in Windows there is that super easy click-happy interface anybody can use.
Then, every time I want to do something more advanced, I have to go hack the registry to do it ?
And the first big warning is that if you fuck the registry, your computer may not boot anymore.
Like if you want to disable that CapsLock key, you have to modify some hex value in the registry. On my KDE machine, I just went into the control panel and assigned the CapsLock to another CTRL.
Avoid the MS tax, always buy I.B.M. PC's (I Built-it Myself)
That is a HUGE and ugly truth about Apple. But it is also why they have shied away from the business and government markets -- they don't want to be required to do anythying for anyone. Apple is like "you like what we have and that is all there is." You can't ask Apple for anything -- they have already decided what they will offer and what you need.
Here are my top 3 nits to pick on Windows. They sound very random, but that's because they have existed for many releases and would be VERY EASY for Redmond developers to address if usability was at all a priority.
-- Seth Johnson
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The "every-other-Windows-sucks" pattern isn't based on comparing NT kernels. It refers to Microsoft's OS releases for the "home user" space, and Windows NT and Windows 2000 weren't aimed at that market - unlike 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, Win 7 and now Win 8.
Command Console doesn't have simple highlight / copy / paste functionality.
Yes it does; it's just disabled by default (?!?!?!)
When the default application isn't set for a document type, the first choice that's provided in the resulting pop-up is "Do you want to wander around on the web to find an application that can open this document?" rather than the option of selecting an application from the list of installed applications.
This, surprisingly, is configurable too. Once again, stupid default, but can be changed on an entire enterprise if you desire with a simple policy update.
In SQL Server Management Studio, when you have multiple sessions open, they are tabbed. Even when you only have two or three tabs, the tabs are scrunched horizontally such that you can't read the labels, which usually start with the server name, then the database name. So, if you have six sessions all connecting to different databases on 'foo' server, all six tabs are labelled 'foo...'. Sure, that's not the OS, but that is an example of Redmond not giving a shit to produce quality usability in ways that would be trivially simple.
I could point to similar things wrong with Oracle and the various half-baked front ends to Postgres, MySQL and NoSQL. That's not even getting into the mess that is Hadoop front ends....
I've used Macs for 29 years; I've used Debian for 15 years... and I've used Windows for 17 years. Windows 7 has its annoying bits, but the points you made are not among them.
I'm still a "Windows in the enterprise, Debian Linux on the servers, OS X at home" person, and probably will be for some time to come.
After the story about Miguel de Icaza switching to Mac OS X, it got me thinking about my own history of operating systems. While I had happily used OS X for six and a half years, over that period of time I have drifted back in favor of Linux. This had less to do with new features being offered in Linux as it did with growing tired of foibles in OS X. Here are a list of some of the bigger issues:
- Beach Ball of Death (BBOD): While this didn't occur frequently, when it did it was more frustrating than a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). At least you knew you were fucked when you saw the BSOD. With the BBOD, sometimes you would recover from it and other times you could wait for up to ten minutes before realizing that you're never coming back. During that period, you are completely unable to access the System menu or start another app to find the proc that is chewing resources so that it can be killed. In 2013, this is completely unacceptable from an OS.
- Mouse Acceleration: There is no way to modify the acceleration curve in OS X, let alone disable acceleration. This is not a problem when you are using a trackpad since the acceleration curve is one of the best out of all OS'es for that, but it is incredibly frustrating when using a mouse. I have gone through many forums and found many other users complaining about this issue, but no one has come up with a decent solution for disabling mouse acceleration. For situations in which I am better off with a mouse, I always hopped over to a non-OS X machine.
- Poor Multi-Monitor Support: Since the menu for each application is in a detached panel that is only displayed on one monitor, this means you will be racking up a lot of mileage on your pointing device to hop between apps on the secondary monitor and their menu on the primary monitor.
- Updating Settings Behind Your Back: For me, this shit started with Microsoft and was one of the big reasons I left their OS. After an update, some of your settings would be changed to whatever they felt you should be using. Apple has since taken up this behavior, doing things like resetting all of your file associations to iTunes after one of their many updates. This didn't happen with my latest update, so maybe they stopped, or at least took a break from this behavior, but it has still left a very bad taste in my mouth.
- Frequent Update Cycles: This would not be too bad of a thing if they didn't regularly remove features they didn't like (but you may have loved) as well as make changes that disrupt your workflow. At this point, I am an old curmudgeon who has everything exactly as he likes it. I don't want to upgrade and run the risk of having the upgrade go south. Such an issue would cause me to have to reinstall all of my apps from scratch and attempt to reconfigure tons of settings to get it to work like it did before the upgrade. And with the update frequent cycles, it won't be long before your current OS version is not supported. Once that happens, Chrome and Firefox support go out the window as well. And don't even get me started on how Apple stops supporting perfectly fine hardware when they come out with new versions of OS X. Apple: you control the hardware in your machines yet you can't be bothered to continue supporting it six years after it is released while Microsoft supported XP on an almost infinite number of hardware configurations for eight years and Linux even longer!
There are many, many more reasons, but these are the biggest gripes. None of them on their own were dealbreakers, but over time they wore on me to the point of driving me back to Linux. While I still use my Mac for some commercial software that isn't available on Linux, it's Linux for everything else.
Its retarded to say Sony took away 'Other OS' when you could have simply not upgraded
No, it is not. The advertised capabilities of the PS3 were "it plays games, and you can also run Linux on it!". Then Sony entered phase 2 of the bait-and-switch and that statement became "it plays games or you can run Linux on it, and once you choose option A you can never again have option B."
What exactly is this iOSsification people keep complaining about? There's nothing forced onto you that I can think of.
Quite a few things:
They got rid of spaces. You still have different virtual desktops, but I can no longer assign applications to always open in a particular one. They're also not always there, assigned in a configuration that was easy for me to remember, "from here, go to the desktop above to get to the browser, or the desktop to my right to get to xcode.
Applications no longer quit, instead they keep running in the background, if you click the red button. You can command-q for now, but they still try to retain state. Which is insane. When I open up a new video in quicktime, why would I want the last video that I watched to pop up in a window beside it? I keep having to go and close that other window. (At least now they give me the option to not save the current state of the desktop when I log out. No, I do not want to log back in and see what I was working on before. It's very unlikely I'll be working on the same thing. If I do have something that I always open every time I log in, and I do, I know how to set applications to start automatically every time.)
Applications are auto-saving on me. I don't mind that things auto-save into a backup file, for recovery purposes, but you should NOT overwrite the file I'm working on without my specifically clicking save. I know mac os x lets you get back to previous versions. That's cumbersome unless you're the one who chose to punctuate where each new version starts.
Applications are trying to save to iCloud by default, instead of the local drive. I don't have a problem with iCloud, but it shouldn't be the default location.
The launchpad displays applications in multiple screens and I gotta swipe right to see the other applications. That doesn't make any sense when you have a wheel mouse...I just want to scroll down. The applications folder still exists, so this one doesn't bother me as much, I can avoid using launchpad altogether.
When the iPhone came out, I remember many people saying that apple fully intended to eventually make OS X as locked down as iOS, and a bunch of people dismissing that as conspiracy theories. They have, however, been slowly moving toward that. They released the Mac OS X app store, which isn't really a problem. But then they made it so that you can't install any application that doesn't come from the app store by default, until you go and change the settings to allow it. My prediction is that the next step is going to be making it a setting that you can't get to without going to the command-line, and then they'll just not give you the option, and people will have to jailbreak their macs.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
You still have different virtual desktops, but I can no longer assign applications to always open in a particular one.
Not to say that there aren't some things that I would like back from Leopard, but what you say is not correct. I can still assign applications to open on specific desktops. This is the only way I could imagine things working for some of my workflows.
Right click open app's icon -> Options -> Assign to; that should get you sorted with this.
They're also not always there, assigned in a configuration that was easy for me to remember, "from here, go to the desktop above to get to the browser, or the desktop to my right to get to xcode.
This too works, except that up and down are gone. I have three desktops created that are always there by default. All you have to do is create empty desktops and leave them there.
Applications no longer quit, instead they keep running in the background, if you click the red button.
That is how it always was. Red button closes window, Command-Q quits. In fact, the one thing that bugs me now at times is that if an app has no open window, it automatically quits it. This is inconsistent. But either way, what you say is not how it works.
You can command-q for now, but they still try to retain state. Which is insane.
Agreed, if it did this by default, this would be insane. But this is not what any of the applications do anymore. When quit and restarted the application starts brand new. You can enable the resume previous state options, but in 10.8 that is not default.
Applications are auto-saving on me. I don't mind that things auto-save into a backup file, for recovery purposes, but you should NOT overwrite the file I'm working on without my specifically clicking save.
This might be personal preference, but I sort of like this. It makes it convenient in case of problems. My laptop had started randomly dying due to a very old battery and this feature saved me many times.
Applications are trying to save to iCloud by default, instead of the local drive. I don't have a problem with iCloud, but it shouldn't be the default location.
Again, iCloud is an option but not the default. Something seems amiss on your setup.
The launchpad displays applications in multiple screens and I gotta swipe right to see the other applications. That doesn't make any sense when you have a wheel mouse...I just want to scroll down. The applications folder still exists, so this one doesn't bother me as much, I can avoid using launchpad altogether.
Exactly, you can now use the Application folder, drag it to the dock and have it show as a stack or folder to quickly browse through every application you have, or use launchpad. Honestly, choice is good. This is not complaint worthy.
They released the Mac OS X app store, which isn't really a problem. But then they made it so that you can't install any application that doesn't come from the app store by default, until you go and change the settings to allow it.
At least you can disable it and even use an option-right-click to launch the application and ignore the security settings. Besides, having something like this is not bad as it ensure some degree of security, especially for "new" users.
Also, the default is not the mac app store only, but mac app store and identified developers. A year ago, this was irritating, but I just got a new Mac and I had to turn it off to install all but two applications. It is not as inconvenient anymore.
My prediction is that the next step is going to be making it a setting that you can't get to without going to the command-line, and then they'll just not give you the option, and people will have to jailbreak their macs.
This is highly unlikely to happen. But if i
For what it's worth, I'm running Ubuntu 12.10 with Cinnamon and I swear I have to reboot just as much as I do in Windows. There are prompts for updates almost every other day, and probably a reboot prompt every other week or so. Now, I know in Linux I probably don't *have* to reboot and could just kick services, and it's probably a lot related to the desktop manager and I could just restart that. But at least for me it's far from the panacea of infinite uptime, at least from a desktop user perspective.
The only hardware support issues have been video and wifi.
Oh, that's it? I'm glad that there are no issues with anything important...
Anything hard looks easy when compared to impossible.
Macs are fine so long as you stay on the guided tour. If you are the least bit creative with how you use technology, you will likely find that things aren't so easy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No, you are not the oddball. Most of us are happy and relatively flexible -- and KDE user according to the linux user choice awardss. People who feel compelled to explain how desktop X (KDE SC 4, GNOME 3) destroyed their workflow/unhinged their view of the universe by changing the three crucial pixels on which everything stood are mad.
Also, they try to convince you that their solution (a 1% preference on Linux which is itself a 2% preference in general) is the best thing ever for $BATSHIT_INSANE_REASON.
Now I do think that KDE in its latest iteration is the best desktop there is bar none. And I am irritated a times by the idiosyncrasies of the other desktops (windows, mac, gnome) when I need to use them. But if I had to work for any length of time in any one of them, I'd be OK and quickly pick up the habits. These threads only tell you what the crazies are all about this timeof year.
Have you actually used KDE recently? The reason I ask is because I hadn't. I had it in my mind, like you, that it was basically a windows clone desktop (because that's how it used to be). Recently, Unity on Ubuntu annoyed me enough that I installed Kubuntu. I have to tell you, I was blown away. Modern KDE is nothing like windows. It's stunning, really - quite amazing, and has some great paradigms that I haven't seen in any other OS, like actually making the desktop area useful.
Navigating to apps etc.. is pretty awesome. Every time I boot it up I'm just struck by how beautiful it is, I really don't understand how Apple gets all this "beauty" cred. To me, it looks like a turd compared to KDE. It's in the eye of the beholder, I guess - but if you haven't tried it recently, I highly recommend giving it a shot.
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
Settings --> Wireless & Networks --> VPN. It's right there on my Galaxy Nexus running vanilla Android.
Are you prepared to defend the premise that people are only allowed to be upset by things that are forced upon them? That doesn't seem right to me. Nobody "forces" me to drive my Jeep Liberty but I still fucking hate the god-damned beeping sound it makes all the time. I've never thought "Oh, well you know, I could choose to cartwheel to the store instead of drive, therefore this car, other drivers, traffic, potholes and delays are off limits for annoyance." Nothing else in the world is like that so it seems silly to apply it to computers. Yeah, I could choose to live like the Amish, but I don't think that precludes the legitimacy of negative opinions about aspects of the computer systems I "choose" to use.
What the fuck is it with the Choice Police anyway? What kind of weird ideology is that? Where anything that can be tracked back, no matter how far, to a "choice" suddenly renders the outcome out of bounds for sympathy? It sounds like Republican bullshit to me. "Mmm, you chose to have that second cocktail, therefore you have to carry your rapebaby to term. No complaining! That's what you get for making choices, tsk tsk." Give me a break.