>>> Fossilized dinosaur shit is rare, very inert, and easy to identify, but you don't see people using it for money.
Those qualities are inherently valuable in currency. Just because something can be used as currency doesn't mean it will, especially when you have governments designating paper money as legal tender for debts. If there were competing currencies backed by gold or fossilized dinosaur shit, they would be doing a lot better than the dollar is right now.
>> Gold is great in a collapsed society that can't rely on a central authority to limit the money supply, but in a civilized country, it's just too limited.
Yeah, because the ability to manipulate our money supply has done wonders for us recently...
That is nonsensical. The inherent value of gold is that it is rare, difficult to create, and easy to manipulate into forms like coins or bars. This makes it far more valuable than fiat currency, because just like monopoly money, you can print as many dollars as you want.
You may not realize this, but the social security trust fund is running on SURPLUS because of the boomers paying in all their lives and are just now retiring and drawing from their fund-- they were supposed to DIE before the trust fund ran out at the rates they were paying in. Its their money. Previous generations GOT PAID back my parents are now, if that is a scam....
The SSA are currently paying more in benefits than they are receiving in contributions, and this will only get worse. Your parents were taxed and then now are getting paid through the taxes of others. Don't pretend this is some type of investment fund they put money into.
Now maybe we don't want to pay the gap from the underestimates in cost of living, lifespan, and unregulated medical costs... but they deserve their money back they put in.
Sure but in this case that means raising taxes on younger people in order to give them that money back. Don't young people deserve their money too?
Maybe they shouldn't have added onto the program and we should have let all the retards and autistics starve and die. Maybe its the kids fault his parents generation polluted etc and made them early social security net-losses who have been draining the system prematurely at higher than predicted rates... (or they didn't want to pay what they agreed to support while possibly feeling guilty for contributing to higher rates of needy.)
Yes I'm sure they would all have just died. The problem is that this system is a legal ponzi scheme. It takes from the young and gives to the old, and hopes that there will be enough young in the future to continue the process as the previous youth become old and retire. To think that this is somehow sustainable or even should be done at all is insane.
Since I'm paying into the trust fund most my life I want my money back later and it SHOULD be enough money because I do not live in a baby boom and the population is NOT shrinking. I'd rather they took it and kept it safe than me manually save X amount every paycheck with greater risk and no ability to "sponge" on anybody should I end up a cripple or something.... my bank collapses...etc.
Ok then so let's make it optional. So then people like me who know that trust fund "assets" are based on bonds and other IOUs don't have to have their money stolen and spent. I know how to save money, so why is it mandatory that I pay in? Oh yeah that's right because I'll be retiring far past 2037 and by then the scam will be over.
How does the government accomplish any of these "good" things they are trying to do? They pass a law saying that if you don't follow orders you will be forced to do so. I don't care how noble your goals are, using violence or the threat of violence to achieve them is itself immoral.
Another thing, our government isn't a choice. I didn't sign a social contract saying I would give my share of wages to some small minority to do whatever they think is best for our society, and neither did you. A bunch of emails or calls to your "representative" will get him to recant something he said, or maybe even swing his vote a particular way, but if you think anything threatening their power or money will change, I suggest you review the history of our government a bit more.
Now we talk like social security are general fund welfare programs but these are things WE ALL (except rich) pay into our whole lives and for generations now and we deserve to get what we paid for / invested in! I PAID for them and I'm fucking going to get my money back when I need it!
Social Security is a scam. If you think future generations of people are going to accept higher taxes to pay for your retirement you are dreaming. We need to end this stupid program now.
Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at current benefit and tax rates. Due to the recent economic recession, the program will temporarily pay more in benefits and expenses than it collects in taxes during 2010 and 2011. This pattern will reverse in 2012 through 2014 as the economy recovers. However, in each year after 2014, the program will pay more in benefits and expenses than it collects in taxes (see the chart below). By 2037 the trust funds will be exhausted. At that point, payroll taxes and other income will flow into the fund but will be sufficient to pay only 78% of program costs. As reported in the 2010 Trustees Report, the shortfall over the next 75 years is 1.92% of taxable payroll.
Why are you so afraid of unfettered speech anyway? Is your opinion of the American electorate so low that you think they need to be shielded from this speech and can't form their own opinions about it?
How can they form opinions without accurate information? If there is no simple way to find out who is funding what, how do you expect average people who are busy working or raising a family to find the truth? If you really believe that allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign ads with zero disclosure isn't a problem then you are living in a fantasy world.
Why is this insightful? My mom uses Linux and she would have no idea how to do this. You are assuming that everyone who has linux has installed it themselves...
Really any of the most popular distros on distrowatch.org should work as long as they come with a GUI. KDE by default is oriented in a way similar to windows, and other DE's like Xfce or Gnome can be configured that way with very minimal effort. Any of the *buntu's, mandriva, opensuse, fedora, linux mint, debian, centos, and simply mepis should be suitable for your purpose. I would recommend that you start them off with something that you are familiar with in case there are issues. (similar package manager/desktop environment/configuration files among other things).
If you are looking for themes they are all over the place.
I introduced my mom to Ubuntu 2 years ago and she has been using it since without any problems. I do upgrades for her (she doesn't seem to notice otherwise) and I helped her get Google Earth installed. And with SSH access I can help her if something goes wrong from miles away. My favorite part of setting it up was telling her it was all free. She couldn't believe me:)
The average of all these studies suggests that offering lots of extra choices seems to make no important difference either way. There seem to be circumstances where choice is counterproductive but, despite looking hard for them, we don’t yet know much about what they are. Overall, says Scheibehenne: “If you did one of these studies tomorrow, the most probable result would be no effect.” Perhaps choice is not as paradoxical as some psychologists have come to believe. One way or another, we seem to be able to cope with it.
Yes, how kind of them to let you use the software you paid for on newer hardware. Personally I dislike the very thought of calling someone to ask if I could use their software, especially after paying for it.
Alsa does not mix "just fine" on its own. If it did I would never have had a problem and would not have become frustrated enough to seek out a solution. Again, my case is not unique.
Just curious, but what sound card do you have exactly?
This sort of thing should have Just Worked a long time ago but it didn't and it doesn't unless you use a sound server.
That's just not true. Just like you keep repeating, "Please understand that your experience is not typical. Even if it were, please understand that your experience is not guaranteed and as such makes for poor evangelism.".
I *do* have a specific need for jack: I need a sound server. What "extra layer" am I adding? I can't remove ALSA, unless you're suggesting I switch to OSS4 (no thanks!) You don't get fewer layers then alsa->jack->everything else, unless you have no sound server at all (which does not work, see above).
What do you need a sound server for? Alsa does mixing fine on it's own. (you say it doesn't work, and to that I would say yeah if you were using linux around 2002 it probably didn't work well then)
Let me tell you a story. For years audio worked fine for me under Linux, because my sound card mixed for me... then I got a laptop with a cheap sound card. Start firefox, play a flash video, then start mplayer. No sound in mplayer! Start a video game, then start Firefox. No sound in firefox! This kind of thing is just plain stupid, so I told everything to use jack. Now I get sound from anything no matter when I start it (and even at the same time, wow!) This sort of thing should have Just Worked a long time ago but it didn't and it doesn't unless you use a sound server.
Again, that was a looong time ago. It's just not the case anymore.
I like jack, generally, and use it for playback. I don't do recording or anything fancy, just playing MP3s, flash videos, DVDs, the normal kind of stuff.
If you don't do anything fancy, why would you throw another sound server into the stack? Maybe most users have better luck because they don't overcomplicate things.
As far as I am concerned the Linux audio stack is:
hardware->driver->alsa->jack->apps.
or
hardware->driver->alsa->jack->alsa->apps for apps that don't know how to talk to jack directly.
This works very well, apart from the bugginess I mentioned before.
Again, why you would use JACK unless you had a specific need for it? I don't know why that setup is buggy for you but it could very well be the extra layer you are adding.
Sound on Linux hasn't been an issue for a long time if and only if you have a sound card that supports mixing. If you're using a cheap card that relies on the OS to do its work, like 90% of users do, then it's been hell and is still hell.
I'm using onboard audio and I haven't had an issue in any distribution since I bought this motherboard years ago. There goes your anecdotal evidence I guess.
I've seen dozens of people complaining about screwed up audio on their system where the diagnosed failure point was PulseAudio! So, even if that's going eventually to be the the answer as of today it's still problematic. Distribution configuration issue? Application support issue? Doesn't matter if audio still sucks for the end user.
A single distribution (Ubuntu) rushed their PA support and implemented it horribly. I don't see how that single event means Linux audio sucks unless you think Ubuntu=Linux.
It is better to say that "spaces" has been supported by Linux's graphics system since 1989, but it would be better to omit a reference to Linux and say X11 directly.
Do I really need to explain myself here? X11 is a part of Linux, and has had this feature since 1989, which is why I said Linux had this feature since 1989.
Let me tell you my story. I ran Linux as my primary OS from 1994 to 2005.
Ugh, I can feel a jaded old software user rant coming up soon.
I do not like having to patch my kernel just let get my digital camera to work. (Incremented a hex value in a #define in unusual_devs.h so that my Sony DCF-707 would be mounted as a usb storage device.)
I'm not sure why you did that. The Linux kernel has had usb mass storage support since 2.4 (2001). Your camera was listed as supporting it around that time as well.(1) You were also able to transfer photos through the PTP protocol on that camera since 2002.(2) (this required changing a setting on your camera of course)
I do not enjoy having to manually load a kernel module just to get my printer working, because it fails to be autoloaded. I do not like having a print driver that makes every photo come out pink, and then buy a print driver, only to have the photos still come out pink. (Canon i850. Printed perfectly under windows. The only think I ever used it for, well that and Warcraft III.)
I got a 17" Powerbook G4, and all my hardware worked. And you know what? I got a terminal, and X11, and XEmacs, and gcc, and everything else I wanted too. It's quite simply a better unix.
Your printer is partially supported by gutenprint, which is a collection of free software printer drivers for systems such as CUPS. What OS uses CUPS besides Linux? A relevent excerpt about gutenprint:
"It was originally developed as a plug-in for the GIMP, but later became a more general tool for use by other programs. When Apple Computer brought out Mac OS X, it omitted printer drivers, claiming that it was the printer manufacturer's task to produce these. Many of them did not update their drivers, and since Apple had chosen to use CUPS as the core of its printing system, Gimp-Print filled the void."
So until a driver was written for your printer, you would have had to buy a new one with your mac. OSX is the better unix? It doesn't appear to be as different as you think. By the way, for someone so comfortable with scripts and the like, I'm surprised you couldn't write one to load this module on boot, or I dunno, compile the driver with the rest of your kernel instead of loading it as a module.
I do not like having two(!) different sound systems being installed, and my system still not always have sound. (I loved how I'd get "No ALSA devices found" during boot, but could only adjust my volume through alsamixer.)
Yeah, sound on linux sucked for a while. Just like blue screens sucked on windows. However just like windows blue screens, sound on linux hasn't been an issue for a long time.
2. It's always pale copy. Free of over bearing commercial interests, you'd think that the Linux "community" would create some ground breaking new ideas, but they don't. Instead they mindlessly copy whatever Microsoft does. (Thanks unreorganizable taskbar!) And now whatever Apple does (Thanks no-typing-allow file-open dialog!) Even when they do it, it just feels like a cheap knockoff. There's no coherent feel, beyond shoddy. You'd think after all these years, someone would get it right, but they never have, because of #1.
OS's tend to incorporate each other's features as it makes sense to do so. Just like how OSX just implemented spaces, which has been a feature of Linux since 1989. Or how Windows Vista's Desktop Window Manager (part of Aero) introduced compositing to Windows in 2007, while Compiz had already done so in Linux a year prior.
Morals do not pay the bills. As an individual would you (not the parent) be happy to content to contribute half your income for the rest of your life if it meant China was truly free and democratic? I doubt many would.
Some people realize there are more important things in this world than money.
There are apps, you run them, you get things done... ideally the software ecosystem is such that you never have to tinker around and realise that you're using a platform that's locked down.
The minute I find something I do not like about my system I start trying to find a way to change it. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this attitude and unfortunately one person's perfect desktop is another person's nightmare. With this in mind I don't think it is possible to create a software ecosystem that is locked down without annoying someone. The reason I use Linux is because I am free to start from scratch and really create something I love to work in, and invest as much or as little time as I would like into that endeavor. I could never use OSX/Windows seriously due to this limitation of theirs.
Linux also runs on modern hardware from a variety of vendors, but that doesn't stop people from complaining when their specific webcam or wireless card doesn't have a driver.
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>>> Fossilized dinosaur shit is rare, very inert, and easy to identify, but you don't see people using it for money. Those qualities are inherently valuable in currency. Just because something can be used as currency doesn't mean it will, especially when you have governments designating paper money as legal tender for debts. If there were competing currencies backed by gold or fossilized dinosaur shit, they would be doing a lot better than the dollar is right now.
>> Gold is great in a collapsed society that can't rely on a central authority to limit the money supply, but in a civilized country, it's just too limited. Yeah, because the ability to manipulate our money supply has done wonders for us recently...
That is nonsensical. The inherent value of gold is that it is rare, difficult to create, and easy to manipulate into forms like coins or bars. This makes it far more valuable than fiat currency, because just like monopoly money, you can print as many dollars as you want.
You may not realize this, but the social security trust fund is running on SURPLUS because of the boomers paying in all their lives and are just now retiring and drawing from their fund-- they were supposed to DIE before the trust fund ran out at the rates they were paying in. Its their money. Previous generations GOT PAID back my parents are now, if that is a scam....
The SSA are currently paying more in benefits than they are receiving in contributions, and this will only get worse. Your parents were taxed and then now are getting paid through the taxes of others. Don't pretend this is some type of investment fund they put money into.
Now maybe we don't want to pay the gap from the underestimates in cost of living, lifespan, and unregulated medical costs... but they deserve their money back they put in.
Sure but in this case that means raising taxes on younger people in order to give them that money back. Don't young people deserve their money too?
Maybe they shouldn't have added onto the program and we should have let all the retards and autistics starve and die. Maybe its the kids fault his parents generation polluted etc and made them early social security net-losses who have been draining the system prematurely at higher than predicted rates... (or they didn't want to pay what they agreed to support while possibly feeling guilty for contributing to higher rates of needy.)
Yes I'm sure they would all have just died. The problem is that this system is a legal ponzi scheme. It takes from the young and gives to the old, and hopes that there will be enough young in the future to continue the process as the previous youth become old and retire. To think that this is somehow sustainable or even should be done at all is insane.
Since I'm paying into the trust fund most my life I want my money back later and it SHOULD be enough money because I do not live in a baby boom and the population is NOT shrinking. I'd rather they took it and kept it safe than me manually save X amount every paycheck with greater risk and no ability to "sponge" on anybody should I end up a cripple or something.... my bank collapses...etc.
Ok then so let's make it optional. So then people like me who know that trust fund "assets" are based on bonds and other IOUs don't have to have their money stolen and spent. I know how to save money, so why is it mandatory that I pay in? Oh yeah that's right because I'll be retiring far past 2037 and by then the scam will be over.
How does the government accomplish any of these "good" things they are trying to do? They pass a law saying that if you don't follow orders you will be forced to do so. I don't care how noble your goals are, using violence or the threat of violence to achieve them is itself immoral.
Another thing, our government isn't a choice. I didn't sign a social contract saying I would give my share of wages to some small minority to do whatever they think is best for our society, and neither did you. A bunch of emails or calls to your "representative" will get him to recant something he said, or maybe even swing his vote a particular way, but if you think anything threatening their power or money will change, I suggest you review the history of our government a bit more.
Now we talk like social security are general fund welfare programs but these are things WE ALL (except rich) pay into our whole lives and for generations now and we deserve to get what we paid for / invested in! I PAID for them and I'm fucking going to get my money back when I need it!
Social Security is a scam. If you think future generations of people are going to accept higher taxes to pay for your retirement you are dreaming. We need to end this stupid program now.
Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at current benefit and tax rates. Due to the recent economic recession, the program will temporarily pay more in benefits and expenses than it collects in taxes during 2010 and 2011. This pattern will reverse in 2012 through 2014 as the economy recovers. However, in each year after 2014, the program will pay more in benefits and expenses than it collects in taxes (see the chart below). By 2037 the trust funds will be exhausted. At that point, payroll taxes and other income will flow into the fund but will be sufficient to pay only 78% of program costs. As reported in the 2010 Trustees Report, the shortfall over the next 75 years is 1.92% of taxable payroll.
Why are you so afraid of unfettered speech anyway? Is your opinion of the American electorate so low that you think they need to be shielded from this speech and can't form their own opinions about it?
How can they form opinions without accurate information? If there is no simple way to find out who is funding what, how do you expect average people who are busy working or raising a family to find the truth? If you really believe that allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign ads with zero disclosure isn't a problem then you are living in a fantasy world.
Why is this insightful? My mom uses Linux and she would have no idea how to do this. You are assuming that everyone who has linux has installed it themselves...
Why would you want an old driver for a new OS instead of an opensource one in the kernel that was kept up to date the whole time?
Really any of the most popular distros on distrowatch.org should work as long as they come with a GUI. KDE by default is oriented in a way similar to windows, and other DE's like Xfce or Gnome can be configured that way with very minimal effort. Any of the *buntu's, mandriva, opensuse, fedora, linux mint, debian, centos, and simply mepis should be suitable for your purpose. I would recommend that you start them off with something that you are familiar with in case there are issues. (similar package manager/desktop environment/configuration files among other things).
:)
If you are looking for themes they are all over the place.
http://art.gnome.org/themes
http://gnome-look.org/
http://kde-look.org/
I introduced my mom to Ubuntu 2 years ago and she has been using it since without any problems. I do upgrades for her (she doesn't seem to notice otherwise) and I helped her get Google Earth installed. And with SSH access I can help her if something goes wrong from miles away. My favorite part of setting it up was telling her it was all free. She couldn't believe me
The average of all these studies suggests that offering lots of extra choices seems to make no important difference either way. There seem to be circumstances where choice is counterproductive but, despite looking hard for them, we don’t yet know much about what they are. Overall, says Scheibehenne: “If you did one of these studies tomorrow, the most probable result would be no effect.” Perhaps choice is not as paradoxical as some psychologists have come to believe. One way or another, we seem to be able to cope with it.
Yes, how kind of them to let you use the software you paid for on newer hardware. Personally I dislike the very thought of calling someone to ask if I could use their software, especially after paying for it.
OO Spreadsheet is not an acceptable replacement for MS Excel for power users
I've read this statement often. What featureset is OO Spreadsheet missing that Excel power users need?
Alsa does not mix "just fine" on its own. If it did I would never have had a problem and would not have become frustrated enough to seek out a solution. Again, my case is not unique.
Just curious, but what sound card do you have exactly?
This sort of thing should have Just Worked a long time ago but it didn't and it doesn't unless you use a sound server.
That's just not true. Just like you keep repeating, "Please understand that your experience is not typical. Even if it were, please understand that your experience is not guaranteed and as such makes for poor evangelism.".
I *do* have a specific need for jack: I need a sound server. What "extra layer" am I adding? I can't remove ALSA, unless you're suggesting I switch to OSS4 (no thanks!) You don't get fewer layers then alsa->jack->everything else, unless you have no sound server at all (which does not work, see above).
What do you need a sound server for? Alsa does mixing fine on it's own. (you say it doesn't work, and to that I would say yeah if you were using linux around 2002 it probably didn't work well then)
Let me tell you a story. For years audio worked fine for me under Linux, because my sound card mixed for me... then I got a laptop with a cheap sound card. Start firefox, play a flash video, then start mplayer. No sound in mplayer! Start a video game, then start Firefox. No sound in firefox! This kind of thing is just plain stupid, so I told everything to use jack. Now I get sound from anything no matter when I start it (and even at the same time, wow!) This sort of thing should have Just Worked a long time ago but it didn't and it doesn't unless you use a sound server.
Again, that was a looong time ago. It's just not the case anymore.
I like jack, generally, and use it for playback. I don't do recording or anything fancy, just playing MP3s, flash videos, DVDs, the normal kind of stuff.
If you don't do anything fancy, why would you throw another sound server into the stack? Maybe most users have better luck because they don't overcomplicate things.
As far as I am concerned the Linux audio stack is: hardware->driver->alsa->jack->apps. or hardware->driver->alsa->jack->alsa->apps for apps that don't know how to talk to jack directly. This works very well, apart from the bugginess I mentioned before.
Again, why you would use JACK unless you had a specific need for it? I don't know why that setup is buggy for you but it could very well be the extra layer you are adding.
Sound on Linux hasn't been an issue for a long time if and only if you have a sound card that supports mixing. If you're using a cheap card that relies on the OS to do its work, like 90% of users do, then it's been hell and is still hell.
I'm using onboard audio and I haven't had an issue in any distribution since I bought this motherboard years ago. There goes your anecdotal evidence I guess.
I've seen dozens of people complaining about screwed up audio on their system where the diagnosed failure point was PulseAudio! So, even if that's going eventually to be the the answer as of today it's still problematic. Distribution configuration issue? Application support issue? Doesn't matter if audio still sucks for the end user.
A single distribution (Ubuntu) rushed their PA support and implemented it horribly. I don't see how that single event means Linux audio sucks unless you think Ubuntu=Linux.
It is better to say that "spaces" has been supported by Linux's graphics system since 1989, but it would be better to omit a reference to Linux and say X11 directly.
Do I really need to explain myself here? X11 is a part of Linux, and has had this feature since 1989, which is why I said Linux had this feature since 1989.
Windows are managed with Expose which doesn't have an analog in Gnome or Windows
Actually both Linux and Windows have applications which do similar things.
Let me tell you my story. I ran Linux as my primary OS from 1994 to 2005.
Ugh, I can feel a jaded old software user rant coming up soon.
I do not like having to patch my kernel just let get my digital camera to work. (Incremented a hex value in a #define in unusual_devs.h so that my Sony DCF-707 would be mounted as a usb storage device.)
I'm not sure why you did that. The Linux kernel has had usb mass storage support since 2.4 (2001). Your camera was listed as supporting it around that time as well.(1) You were also able to transfer photos through the PTP protocol on that camera since 2002.(2) (this required changing a setting on your camera of course)
(1)http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/USB-Digital-Camera-HOWTO.html#AEN33
(2)http://www.gphoto.org/news/
I do not enjoy having to manually load a kernel module just to get my printer working, because it fails to be autoloaded. I do not like having a print driver that makes every photo come out pink, and then buy a print driver, only to have the photos still come out pink. (Canon i850. Printed perfectly under windows. The only think I ever used it for, well that and Warcraft III.)
I got a 17" Powerbook G4, and all my hardware worked. And you know what? I got a terminal, and X11, and XEmacs, and gcc, and everything else I wanted too. It's quite simply a better unix.
Your printer is partially supported by gutenprint, which is a collection of free software printer drivers for systems such as CUPS. What OS uses CUPS besides Linux? A relevent excerpt about gutenprint:
"It was originally developed as a plug-in for the GIMP, but later became a more general tool for use by other programs. When Apple Computer brought out Mac OS X, it omitted printer drivers, claiming that it was the printer manufacturer's task to produce these. Many of them did not update their drivers, and since Apple had chosen to use CUPS as the core of its printing system, Gimp-Print filled the void."
So until a driver was written for your printer, you would have had to buy a new one with your mac. OSX is the better unix? It doesn't appear to be as different as you think. By the way, for someone so comfortable with scripts and the like, I'm surprised you couldn't write one to load this module on boot, or I dunno, compile the driver with the rest of your kernel instead of loading it as a module.
I do not like having two(!) different sound systems being installed, and my system still not always have sound. (I loved how I'd get "No ALSA devices found" during boot, but could only adjust my volume through alsamixer.)
Yeah, sound on linux sucked for a while. Just like blue screens sucked on windows. However just like windows blue screens, sound on linux hasn't been an issue for a long time.
2. It's always pale copy. Free of over bearing commercial interests, you'd think that the Linux "community" would create some ground breaking new ideas, but they don't. Instead they mindlessly copy whatever Microsoft does. (Thanks unreorganizable taskbar!) And now whatever Apple does (Thanks no-typing-allow file-open dialog!) Even when they do it, it just feels like a cheap knockoff. There's no coherent feel, beyond shoddy. You'd think after all these years, someone would get it right, but they never have, because of #1.
OS's tend to incorporate each other's features as it makes sense to do so. Just like how OSX just implemented spaces, which has been a feature of Linux since 1989. Or how Windows Vista's Desktop Window Manager (part of Aero) introduced compositing to Windows in 2007, while Compiz had already done so in Linux a year prior.
Desktop Linux can go
Morals do not pay the bills. As an individual would you (not the parent) be happy to content to contribute half your income for the rest of your life if it meant China was truly free and democratic? I doubt many would.
Some people realize there are more important things in this world than money.
There are apps, you run them, you get things done... ideally the software ecosystem is such that you never have to tinker around and realise that you're using a platform that's locked down.
The minute I find something I do not like about my system I start trying to find a way to change it. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this attitude and unfortunately one person's perfect desktop is another person's nightmare. With this in mind I don't think it is possible to create a software ecosystem that is locked down without annoying someone. The reason I use Linux is because I am free to start from scratch and really create something I love to work in, and invest as much or as little time as I would like into that endeavor. I could never use OSX/Windows seriously due to this limitation of theirs.
Linux also runs on modern hardware from a variety of vendors, but that doesn't stop people from complaining when their specific webcam or wireless card doesn't have a driver.
I'm not asking for the removal of tasers, just for police to use them appropriately.
It's obviously an update...