4 million people was the figure quoted. 4 million people "disagreed." I assumed that was the population of Detroit. Obviously that was wrong, It's the "Metro area of Detroit" that is 4 million, so you get off on a technicality, but it does NOT CHANGE THE FACT that Detroit's murder rate of 48 per 100,000 is FAR higher than more civilized parts of the country, including San Jose at 4.1 per 100,000.
Add to that the fact that the city is bankrupt through decades of mismanagement, it's houses are being bulldozed. The only thing that keeps the city going is gambling. It's police force is brutal, as is its extremes of climate. And its economy sucks.
Other than that, I'm sure it's a great place to live. Pardon if the rest of the country doesn't flock to live there, Meanwhile the city proper (since you insist on those numbers) has witnessed a decline in population from over a million in 1990 to 713,000 today. In other words, people are leaving as fast as they can.
Of course you have to make it through the day without getting murdered. Detroit is exceeded only by New Orleans for murder capital of America (48 per 100,000 in 2011). Compare Silicon Valley (San Jose) at 4.6 per 100,000 in 2012. So by this time next year a couple thousand of those 4 million will be dead.
There's a lot more to avoid in Detroit than the snow. I guess that makes me a wuss.
Homeowners' Associations are like little Nazi dictatorships enforcing a bland conformity on everyone. "Think of my neighbors"? How about they worry about their own shit instead of the color of my deck railing?
The idea that 3D printing won't take off because people are not well-versed in designing their own 3D products with expensive CAD software is like saying printers won't take off because people aren't really good writers and can't afford a word processor. How many people use their printers for printing off their own words from a word processor? How many people use their printers for printing off PDF files, manuals, brochures, etc. from the Net?
Computers will never be all that affordable. Mass production is too much cheaper than one-off designs. Computers will continue to be for big business and hobbyists, not mainstream.
Only if the store has it in stock. And why do I need them as an intermediary anyway? Point, click, file, print is a lot easier than driving to the mall only to find out they don't have it.
I had Lifelock when the Stratfor hack went down. Stratfor told us all Christmas Eve IIRC though the hack happened in early December. I and thousands of others verified our cards were in the wild, took action, cancelled cards, etc. Finally, in mid-January, Lifelock informed me that my card had been compromised with a single e-mail, long after I already had my new card.
WHY do you have to climb to 45,000 feet to depressurize the cabin? a normal Flight Level of 35,000 feet doesn't have enough oxygen either. There's no need to climb if that's what you intend to do.
Climbing costs fuel. Descending to 20,000 some odd feet ALSO requires fuel because it costs more fuel to fly at lower elevations. And tHAT lessens the range.
The phones weren't "ringing." the ring tone the relatives heard was supplied by Central Office Equipment to give the illusion that the phones were "ringing." That's what happens when someone picks up the phone and you say, "But it hadn't started ringing yet." Yes, it had. It's just that your simulation-ring hadn't reached you yet--two different tones. Think about it. There is only a single cable pair that hooks up a typical phone. How could you possibly "hear it ring"?
The cell network mimics the POTS network. It's just part of the "aural interface" phones have used for over a hundred years.
I did, too, for years. I used a single-cup cone and filter with freshly ground beans. There's really not much difference, and the Keurig approach is a whole lot cleaner.
COST: About the same per cup. Unless you buy from the local market for $1.00 a cup, you ought to be able to get the K-cups for about 35 cents or so apiece. Compare this to buying a pound of coffee at fair trade prices (about $13.00 per pound where I am) and for a single cup a day you go through about that much. You're going to pay some serious money for a good grinder (not those horrid centrifugal force pieces of crap that break every year) the same as you'll pay for a Keurig machine. So on a cost per cup basis if you're a single-cup-person, it's about the same cost to run either way.
QUALITY: If you're getting "watery goop" (as one said here) change your brand. K-Cups can brew excellent quality coffee--or not--your choice. Shop around and go for "bold" brands and you ought to do fine.
CLEANLINESS: Keurig hands-down. No muss, no fuss. No time needed. Spill a cone full of hot coffee and you've got yourself a disaster. Been there; done that more than once. Unless you have hard water, Keurig runs clean.
I've had my Keurig for two years or so after having done the cone atop the cup trip for several decades. I spend no more on coffee than I used to. For those of you who brew pots and drink lots, a Keurig makes no sense and is way too expensive. But if you are content with a wake-me-up cup most days, a Keurig makes a lot of sense and is cost-equivalent to other ways of brewing.
Ha ha ha. Delusional. I have a very nice heirloom quality "conical burr grinder" and you WILL clean it every six months or so. Hopefully you'll be outside because the mess that rests in there is going to get everywhere.
You are correct, of course, but you don't understand the effect of size. my state is bigger than England, Scotland, and Wales combined--with 10% of the population. And that's just one state. I can travel 400 miles inside my state from one city to another and I'm still in the same state. When I travel 400 miles in Europe, I'm in a different country with a different language.
The distance from London to Paris is a bit over 200 miles. Going from San Francisco to New York City is about 2500 miles. The scale is enormously different and comparisons that sound so cool in writing are in practical terms irrelevant.
Public transportation is great when you're not going all that far anyway. It's great that you can commute from Bath to London by train. That will get you from one end of Los Angeles County to the other. I'm not saying bigger is better here. It's a problem, and so are the comparisons.
You still don't get it. You've taken this thread off-topic. And THAT gets under MY skin! Look at the title of this thread. It's about liability. Lots of people, including you, are touting the advantage of driverless cars because they "drive better" than a human, at least according to you. One more time:
THAT - IS - NOT - THE - POINT
The POINT is, if a driverless car crashes, WHO is liable? Can you deal with that issue for a minute rather than extoll the virtues of an unproven technology? The fact that you think a driverless car can "do better" even the majority of the time is irrelevant the first time it screws up and kills somebody. If the person is the "driver's seat" is actually a passenger, how can you hold him liable?
Unless you think a driverless car will have perfect programs, perfect technology, perfect execution, etc.
That's not the point, and it is decidedly not insightful. The point is liability. It's not that a driverless car can "do better" under certain circumstances, it's what happens when it doesn't.
I finally fired CenturyLink's 1.5Mbps DSL after a decade waiting for their promised "upgrade" for 40Mbps+ download--for the SAME price! I am astounded at the speed of, well, everything. Videos play without "buffering." Downloads are amazingly fast. It doesn't help shitty web sites bringing in ads from all over the world to 'populate' their crummy sites, but overall I'm as happy as a clam. Wow! Just wow! The 21st century has arrived.
I know. No big deal, but I'm enjoying wallowing in all this speed for awhile!
My last shop had twice as many desktops, four times as many servers, and less staff. Your problem, it seems to me, is that your ratio of programmers to IT staff is completely skewed. In other words, you're doing way too much "custom" work. Turn a programmer or two into IT staff (if not the physical person, then the position) and you should have sufficient staff for support.
Of course your programmers won't like that and your IT Manager, being a programmer, won't like that, but the fact is your programmers have created a fiefdom that never should have existed in the first place. It's like a tumor that has infiltrated the brain, hard to remove. For such a small company to create so much custom work is really absurd. You're not that "special."
What you REALLY need is a new CEO who understands the nature of the problem and cleans house.
Watched my father die by his refusing food altogether. He was still lucid enough to do this. The "rule" in my state apparently is that you can offer food three times, and if it is refused, you need not offer it again. I realize he was 'in the driver's seat,' so to speak because he was lucky enough not to be already hooked up to tubes and such.
The medical people were giving him morphine and told me I could ask them to give him more if I wanted. I really didn't understand what they were telling me at the time. Today I understand there was a lot more behind this statement than I realized.
Also, though I appreciate Adam's lament that his father's estate was being burned up at $8,000 a month and that he was probably speaking as if his father was average, the fact is Adams is a multi-millionaire several times over and could easily afford to subsidize his father's care. Few of us are in that position. I think Adams' failure to at least acknowledge his father's true financial position is a bit disingenuous on his part. He could still make his case with full disclosure.
They're fine of you are a Metro sexual who feels all tingly about saving the planet when driving a Prius around. You can afford a Tesla just by cutting back on the cologne. But for a real soccer Mom it works like this:
Two youngsters in OSHA-approved car seats (nice and bulky), plus two teenagers who have reached adult size, two huge duffel bags full of equipment and clothing, a couple of D-sticks plus Goalie sticks for lacrosse. At least one diaper bag, a stroller, folding chairs, the portable tent for the sidelines, snacks for the kids, water bottles (big ones), and the inevitable snacks for the big kids. Plus Mom & Dad.
That's a full-scale SUV which is absolutely stuffed to the gills or take two cars. Suck it up. Not everyone leads the Yuppie lifestyle and in these cases, a Tesla is not going to cut it.
The electric market isn't taking off because the consumer has few choices. And just because a tiny electric can get good "mileage" does not solve the problem above where the advantage disappears just on weight alone. Make an electric that can actually do the job plus not have a range that is across town, but not back without recharging, and you'd have a winner. The market is not going to blossom until the manufacturers produce what consumers want to buy. And that's not the consumers' fault.
McGinn is mayor of Seattle, but not well-liked. First, he's a bully. He does the kinds of things you all condemn Comcast for doing. He uses his power to close down businesses he doesn't like. He closes roads so he can make them for bicycles. He opposed the tunnel that is going to clean up Seattle's waterfront. Meanwhile crime is up so much that it is unsafe to walk the streets. His response: Businesses should be gun-free zones. He's the opposite of the "Progressive" he thinks he is and ANYTHING that can stop McGinn is a good thing, including Comcast. Why is it okay for McGinn to do the things you condemn Comcast for doing? Living in a city like Seattle is not all about sitting home safe alone in your basement with oodles of bandwidth; it's about being able to walk to the corner grocery without being harassed by a "homeless victim" who wants you to turn out your pockets for him.
So he kinda pissed me off, but I'm really more angry at cable than I am at Wade. The exchange:
Hey Wade,
Just read the article on how I am subsidizing your access to shows. Well done. Just the right amount of snide "I'm smarter than you" rhetoric. You must be really proud of yourself to have "discovered" and taken advantage of streaming video. With an IQ like that, well, you are ALREADY great. Thanks for writing and letting some of it rub off us peons.
Now I'm going to tell you WHY I am subsidizing you. I mean, I have the Internet, obviously. I even have a "network capable" TV with it's own IP address. And my DVD player has a gigabyte USB device on it expressly for watching streaming video. It uses something called OrbCaster. Pretty cool. I'm right on the brink of firing Comcast, so why don't I?
Because, Wade, my Internet connection is limited to T-1 download speeds. That's 1.544Mbps on a DSL connection furnished by Centurylink (The former Quest). And you know what? It's not fast enough to stream much of anything. Even a YouTube video jerks along slowly. But an hour-long TV program? Not a chance, Wade. I'd rather watch the damn commercials than endure the gaps while it is "buffering." Now I've asked for a higher speed. I live in an affluent community which would lap up higher speeds faster than a new model Lexus. I've been on the list quite a long time now. When they "upgrade services" for their DSL lines I'll be the first to know.
I've been waiting about 15 years so far. Before that I tried satellite Internet. Every time it rained, the Internet went out. And I live near Seattle, so you know the Internet was down more than it was up.
I do have an alternative. There is one provider that will give me about 6Mbps for about the same price I am now paying Centurylink. That provider is
Comcast.
See the problem now, Wade? I knew you would. And I don't even watch sports.
His answer:
Thanks for your thoughts about my article. The snide act was intended to get readers riled up; I had hoped it would be recognized as satire. I wasn't trying to tell 100 million cable subscribers that they're stupid. I was trying to rile them up about being forced to overpay.
That said, quite a few readers have been reading the piece as a direct insult, so it sounds like I didn't strike the tone I'd wanted.
I totally understand that there are lots of people in your situation who don't have the broadband speeds needed to make extensive Internet video viewing practical, and I'm all in favor of policies to improve broadband delivery around the country. But given that the article was a bit of a comedy sketch, my feeling as I was writing was that it would have weakened the effect if I'd insert a bunch of caveats like that.
Anyway, thanks, and I totally get your point that the alternative to cable that I was suggesting is only available to people lucky enough to have fast broadband.
That about says it. Nobody else cares. I've been using Word since it came on two 5-1/4" floppy disks and included a mouse and used every version since what? 1983 or so? (Before that I used Zardax on an Apple ][ and, of course, WordStar.)
There's not a damn thing wrong with Microsoft Word. It is quite adequate--superb, even--for 99% of the people 99% of the time. I've written several 300 page books with it, including extensive indices, sidebars, tables, graphs, and pics and it works just fine. No, you can't do EVERYTHING you might want to do with it. And you might actually have to put some time in learning how it works, but ONE thing is CERTAIN:
It's not going to go away. The chances of it going away are equivalent to the chances the United States will convert to driving on the left. Only the nerds care about the arcane details under the hood.
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Using a key is so 19th century. Pushing a button? 20th century. Embedded RFID is where it's at. Get in the car; it turns on. End of story.
4 million people was the figure quoted. 4 million people "disagreed." I assumed that was the population of Detroit. Obviously that was wrong, It's the "Metro area of Detroit" that is 4 million, so you get off on a technicality, but it does NOT CHANGE THE FACT that Detroit's murder rate of 48 per 100,000 is FAR higher than more civilized parts of the country, including San Jose at 4.1 per 100,000.
Add to that the fact that the city is bankrupt through decades of mismanagement, it's houses are being bulldozed. The only thing that keeps the city going is gambling. It's police force is brutal, as is its extremes of climate. And its economy sucks.
Other than that, I'm sure it's a great place to live. Pardon if the rest of the country doesn't flock to live there, Meanwhile the city proper (since you insist on those numbers) has witnessed a decline in population from over a million in 1990 to 713,000 today. In other words, people are leaving as fast as they can.
Of course you have to make it through the day without getting murdered. Detroit is exceeded only by New Orleans for murder capital of America (48 per 100,000 in 2011). Compare Silicon Valley (San Jose) at 4.6 per 100,000 in 2012. So by this time next year a couple thousand of those 4 million will be dead.
There's a lot more to avoid in Detroit than the snow. I guess that makes me a wuss.
Homeowners' Associations are like little Nazi dictatorships enforcing a bland conformity on everyone. "Think of my neighbors"? How about they worry about their own shit instead of the color of my deck railing?
But it was legal because his cars were never more than 6 months old.
The idea that 3D printing won't take off because people are not well-versed in designing their own 3D products with expensive CAD software is like saying printers won't take off because people aren't really good writers and can't afford a word processor. How many people use their printers for printing off their own words from a word processor? How many people use their printers for printing off PDF files, manuals, brochures, etc. from the Net?
Why won't 3D printers take off again?
Computers will never be all that affordable. Mass production is too much cheaper than one-off designs. Computers will continue to be for big business and hobbyists, not mainstream.
Only if the store has it in stock. And why do I need them as an intermediary anyway? Point, click, file, print is a lot easier than driving to the mall only to find out they don't have it.
I had Lifelock when the Stratfor hack went down. Stratfor told us all Christmas Eve IIRC though the hack happened in early December. I and thousands of others verified our cards were in the wild, took action, cancelled cards, etc. Finally, in mid-January, Lifelock informed me that my card had been compromised with a single e-mail, long after I already had my new card.
Totally useless.
So go elsewhere.
WHY do you have to climb to 45,000 feet to depressurize the cabin? a normal Flight Level of 35,000 feet doesn't have enough oxygen either. There's no need to climb if that's what you intend to do.
Climbing costs fuel. Descending to 20,000 some odd feet ALSO requires fuel because it costs more fuel to fly at lower elevations. And tHAT lessens the range.
The phones weren't "ringing." the ring tone the relatives heard was supplied by Central Office Equipment to give the illusion that the phones were "ringing." That's what happens when someone picks up the phone and you say, "But it hadn't started ringing yet." Yes, it had. It's just that your simulation-ring hadn't reached you yet--two different tones. Think about it. There is only a single cable pair that hooks up a typical phone. How could you possibly "hear it ring"?
The cell network mimics the POTS network. It's just part of the "aural interface" phones have used for over a hundred years.
I did, too, for years. I used a single-cup cone and filter with freshly ground beans. There's really not much difference, and the Keurig approach is a whole lot cleaner.
COST: About the same per cup. Unless you buy from the local market for $1.00 a cup, you ought to be able to get the K-cups for about 35 cents or so apiece. Compare this to buying a pound of coffee at fair trade prices (about $13.00 per pound where I am) and for a single cup a day you go through about that much. You're going to pay some serious money for a good grinder (not those horrid centrifugal force pieces of crap that break every year) the same as you'll pay for a Keurig machine. So on a cost per cup basis if you're a single-cup-person, it's about the same cost to run either way.
QUALITY: If you're getting "watery goop" (as one said here) change your brand. K-Cups can brew excellent quality coffee--or not--your choice. Shop around and go for "bold" brands and you ought to do fine.
CLEANLINESS: Keurig hands-down. No muss, no fuss. No time needed. Spill a cone full of hot coffee and you've got yourself a disaster. Been there; done that more than once. Unless you have hard water, Keurig runs clean.
I've had my Keurig for two years or so after having done the cone atop the cup trip for several decades. I spend no more on coffee than I used to. For those of you who brew pots and drink lots, a Keurig makes no sense and is way too expensive. But if you are content with a wake-me-up cup most days, a Keurig makes a lot of sense and is cost-equivalent to other ways of brewing.
Ha ha ha. Delusional. I have a very nice heirloom quality "conical burr grinder" and you WILL clean it every six months or so. Hopefully you'll be outside because the mess that rests in there is going to get everywhere.
You are correct, of course, but you don't understand the effect of size. my state is bigger than England, Scotland, and Wales combined--with 10% of the population. And that's just one state. I can travel 400 miles inside my state from one city to another and I'm still in the same state. When I travel 400 miles in Europe, I'm in a different country with a different language.
The distance from London to Paris is a bit over 200 miles. Going from San Francisco to New York City is about 2500 miles. The scale is enormously different and comparisons that sound so cool in writing are in practical terms irrelevant.
Public transportation is great when you're not going all that far anyway. It's great that you can commute from Bath to London by train. That will get you from one end of Los Angeles County to the other. I'm not saying bigger is better here. It's a problem, and so are the comparisons.
You still don't get it. You've taken this thread off-topic. And THAT gets under MY skin! Look at the title of this thread. It's about liability. Lots of people, including you, are touting the advantage of driverless cars because they "drive better" than a human, at least according to you. One more time:
THAT - IS - NOT - THE - POINT
The POINT is, if a driverless car crashes, WHO is liable? Can you deal with that issue for a minute rather than extoll the virtues of an unproven technology? The fact that you think a driverless car can "do better" even the majority of the time is irrelevant the first time it screws up and kills somebody. If the person is the "driver's seat" is actually a passenger, how can you hold him liable?
Unless you think a driverless car will have perfect programs, perfect technology, perfect execution, etc.
in which case, you're delusional.
That's not the point, and it is decidedly not insightful. The point is liability. It's not that a driverless car can "do better" under certain circumstances, it's what happens when it doesn't.
I finally fired CenturyLink's 1.5Mbps DSL after a decade waiting for their promised "upgrade" for 40Mbps+ download--for the SAME price! I am astounded at the speed of, well, everything. Videos play without "buffering." Downloads are amazingly fast. It doesn't help shitty web sites bringing in ads from all over the world to 'populate' their crummy sites, but overall I'm as happy as a clam. Wow! Just wow! The 21st century has arrived.
I know. No big deal, but I'm enjoying wallowing in all this speed for awhile!
My last shop had twice as many desktops, four times as many servers, and less staff. Your problem, it seems to me, is that your ratio of programmers to IT staff is completely skewed. In other words, you're doing way too much "custom" work. Turn a programmer or two into IT staff (if not the physical person, then the position) and you should have sufficient staff for support.
Of course your programmers won't like that and your IT Manager, being a programmer, won't like that, but the fact is your programmers have created a fiefdom that never should have existed in the first place. It's like a tumor that has infiltrated the brain, hard to remove. For such a small company to create so much custom work is really absurd. You're not that "special."
What you REALLY need is a new CEO who understands the nature of the problem and cleans house.
Watched my father die by his refusing food altogether. He was still lucid enough to do this. The "rule" in my state apparently is that you can offer food three times, and if it is refused, you need not offer it again. I realize he was 'in the driver's seat,' so to speak because he was lucky enough not to be already hooked up to tubes and such.
The medical people were giving him morphine and told me I could ask them to give him more if I wanted. I really didn't understand what they were telling me at the time. Today I understand there was a lot more behind this statement than I realized.
Also, though I appreciate Adam's lament that his father's estate was being burned up at $8,000 a month and that he was probably speaking as if his father was average, the fact is Adams is a multi-millionaire several times over and could easily afford to subsidize his father's care. Few of us are in that position. I think Adams' failure to at least acknowledge his father's true financial position is a bit disingenuous on his part. He could still make his case with full disclosure.
They're fine of you are a Metro sexual who feels all tingly about saving the planet when driving a Prius around. You can afford a Tesla just by cutting back on the cologne. But for a real soccer Mom it works like this:
Two youngsters in OSHA-approved car seats (nice and bulky), plus two teenagers who have reached adult size, two huge duffel bags full of equipment and clothing, a couple of D-sticks plus Goalie sticks for lacrosse. At least one diaper bag, a stroller, folding chairs, the portable tent for the sidelines, snacks for the kids, water bottles (big ones), and the inevitable snacks for the big kids. Plus Mom & Dad.
That's a full-scale SUV which is absolutely stuffed to the gills or take two cars. Suck it up. Not everyone leads the Yuppie lifestyle and in these cases, a Tesla is not going to cut it.
The electric market isn't taking off because the consumer has few choices. And just because a tiny electric can get good "mileage" does not solve the problem above where the advantage disappears just on weight alone. Make an electric that can actually do the job plus not have a range that is across town, but not back without recharging, and you'd have a winner. The market is not going to blossom until the manufacturers produce what consumers want to buy. And that's not the consumers' fault.
What, is this some sort of Jewish tank or something? never been in the Army, have you? Nice try, though.
McGinn is mayor of Seattle, but not well-liked. First, he's a bully. He does the kinds of things you all condemn Comcast for doing. He uses his power to close down businesses he doesn't like. He closes roads so he can make them for bicycles. He opposed the tunnel that is going to clean up Seattle's waterfront. Meanwhile crime is up so much that it is unsafe to walk the streets. His response: Businesses should be gun-free zones. He's the opposite of the "Progressive" he thinks he is and ANYTHING that can stop McGinn is a good thing, including Comcast. Why is it okay for McGinn to do the things you condemn Comcast for doing? Living in a city like Seattle is not all about sitting home safe alone in your basement with oodles of bandwidth; it's about being able to walk to the corner grocery without being harassed by a "homeless victim" who wants you to turn out your pockets for him.
So he kinda pissed me off, but I'm really more angry at cable than I am at Wade. The exchange:
Hey Wade,
Just read the article on how I am subsidizing your access to shows. Well done. Just the right amount of snide "I'm smarter than you" rhetoric. You must be really proud of yourself to have "discovered" and taken advantage of streaming video. With an IQ like that, well, you are ALREADY great. Thanks for writing and letting some of it rub off us peons.
Now I'm going to tell you WHY I am subsidizing you. I mean, I have the Internet, obviously. I even have a "network capable" TV with it's own IP address. And my DVD player has a gigabyte USB device on it expressly for watching streaming video. It uses something called OrbCaster. Pretty cool. I'm right on the brink of firing Comcast, so why don't I?
Because, Wade, my Internet connection is limited to T-1 download speeds. That's 1.544Mbps on a DSL connection furnished by Centurylink (The former Quest). And you know what? It's not fast enough to stream much of anything. Even a YouTube video jerks along slowly. But an hour-long TV program? Not a chance, Wade. I'd rather watch the damn commercials than endure the gaps while it is "buffering." Now I've asked for a higher speed. I live in an affluent community which would lap up higher speeds faster than a new model Lexus. I've been on the list quite a long time now. When they "upgrade services" for their DSL lines I'll be the first to know.
I've been waiting about 15 years so far. Before that I tried satellite Internet. Every time it rained, the Internet went out. And I live near Seattle, so you know the Internet was down more than it was up.
I do have an alternative. There is one provider that will give me about 6Mbps for about the same price I am now paying Centurylink. That provider is
Comcast.
See the problem now, Wade? I knew you would. And I don't even watch sports.
His answer:
Thanks for your thoughts about my article. The snide act was intended to get readers riled up; I had hoped it would be recognized as satire. I wasn't trying to tell 100 million cable subscribers that they're stupid. I was trying to rile them up about being forced to overpay.
That said, quite a few readers have been reading the piece as a direct insult, so it sounds like I didn't strike the tone I'd wanted.
I totally understand that there are lots of people in your situation who don't have the broadband speeds needed to make extensive Internet video viewing practical, and I'm all in favor of policies to improve broadband delivery around the country. But given that the article was a bit of a comedy sketch, my feeling as I was writing was that it would have weakened the effect if I'd insert a bunch of caveats like that.
Anyway, thanks, and I totally get your point that the alternative to cable that I was suggesting is only available to people lucky enough to have fast broadband.
Wade
That about says it. Nobody else cares. I've been using Word since it came on two 5-1/4" floppy disks and included a mouse and used every version since what? 1983 or so? (Before that I used Zardax on an Apple ][ and, of course, WordStar.)
There's not a damn thing wrong with Microsoft Word. It is quite adequate--superb, even--for 99% of the people 99% of the time. I've written several 300 page books with it, including extensive indices, sidebars, tables, graphs, and pics and it works just fine. No, you can't do EVERYTHING you might want to do with it. And you might actually have to put some time in learning how it works, but ONE thing is CERTAIN:
It's not going to go away. The chances of it going away are equivalent to the chances the United States will convert to driving on the left. Only the nerds care about the arcane details under the hood.
Nobody else gives a rip.