Actually it was exactly the way you speak which caused me to believe that you are not a native English speaker. The rest of the stuff just proves it. Neither of the phrases I quoted were used in both a "grammatically and syntactically correct" way.
The first was not syntactically correct, since it was in the wrong case for what you were trying to communicate. The accusative "to his defense" might have made sense if you were trying to say that you "leapt to his defense". But you didn't. You spoke or wrote in his defense. This requires the use of "in" in the ablative case.
The second was also not syntactically correct, unless you actually believe that I need permission from "what you just said" in order to "think that you are not a native English speaker." The permissive mood is not appropriate in this case.
No native speaker over the age of twelve would ever use either of those phrases in the way you did.
Good question. I'm sitting here making a list of obsolete technologies and their replacements. And, while the majority fall into the individualist/collectivist model, some notable examples jump out, for a couple of reasons.
SaaS is one of them. And, frankly, the success of web apps has confounded me for a while. I can't imagine why customers would choose SaaS over individual apps in most instances. Web apps are slow, limited, and cannot be bought outright (though in truth little software can be). And I'm saying this as someone who actually provides SaaS for a living. I understand it's limitations.
Mostly I think the growth in SaaS comes down to cost. Software is hard. Talented developers and admins are a limited resource. At the moment, I can understand why collectivization and outsourcing of software development and management is beneficial. In a couple of generations, it probably won't be quite so. SaaS is the assembly line of the information age. The products it produces are cost-effective, functional and standardized, yet one-size-fits-all.
As for e-mail in particular, the reason I personally use web-based mail is simply because of the spam problem. The cost to manage spam for one person is obscene. That is a task that truly scales. I'd rather outsource that to Yahoo or Google, especially considering it's free. At the moment that seems like the best way to handle it. What it costs me is the slight inconvenience of having to use their poor interfaces to access my mail, and having an active internet connection which I have regardless. E-mail may be a special case. We still have the post office, after all. So I think web-mail will go away only when we have a desktop app that handles spam effectively and lets you access your e-mail from anywhere on any device. Ultimately that app may just be a web browser, but that might be okay. Communication is an inherently collective activity. It's kind of like asking whether we will ever each have our own personal soccer field. There is not much benefit.
Tangentially, one thing I realized in making my list is that e-mail, voicemail and texting have largely replaced phone conversations because they are more individualized activities. A phone conversation requires two people to be available at the same time to converse. E-mail (and Slashdot) conversations can be had between two people over very different time periods.
You can read the founding principles of the Federal Reserve here. I believe most of those are taken verbatim from the charter by Congress.
The Fed has been lowering interest rates since September of 2007. I'm not sure what small business you're concerned about having gone under recently, but whatever it was, it wasn't due to the Fed raising interest rates.
I can't really speak to who predicted the housing market bubble and who didn't. It's kind of beside the point. But Peter Schiff is one Austrian who definitely did.
Regarding Greenspan, you may want to read this article from January of 2001, outlining what an Austrian-school-inspired Fed chairman might do in the coming years, and contrast it with the chart I posted earlier of what Greenspan actually did instead.
I suggest a healthy step back and a re-examination of the world around you.
I can assure you, I am constantly examining the world around me in great detail.
basically progress is: innovation creates new paradigms for growth which then saturate and become bad in new ways.
I take issue with this. There are two types of technological innovation, those which enable more efficient collectivization, and those which enable more efficient individualization of society.
All of your examples of things "becoming bad" involve the (over-)application of the former type, collective technological innovations. I would argue that the second type of individual technological innovation is immune to this type of obsolescence. Individual technological innovations merely involve a trade-off in labor for capital. Once a particular technology has improved to the point that this trade-off becomes acceptable to the individual, the technology finds widespread use. Since it is an individual trade-off, there is nothing but individual preference or resource exhaustion that will ever change this dynamic. Collective technologies, on the other hand, also involve a trade-off in individual rights to the rights of the collective. Given two equally efficient technologies, a person will always choose the individual technology over the collective one. As technologies improve, collective technologies will tend to be replaced with more individualist technologies due to this defect.
Laundromats, for instance, have "become bad" and been mostly replaced with individual washers, even though laundromats are more efficient. Suburbs, perhaps, you may argue, are an individualist technology that has "gone bad". But I think that is more due to a failure of (collective) energy production technologies. And I would argue that the same type of individualized technological innovation is currently under way in the energy field in order to make up for collective energy production having "gone bad". Barring complete breakdown of collective energy production and failure of more individualized technologies, I don't see automobiles ever being replaced by more collective transport methods. So I will concede that energy production will likely remain collectivized until Mr. Fusion is produced. Other than that, I believe all other production technologies will tend to follow the path I have outlined.
Ultimately, while you may see a cycle of boom and bust due to technological innovation, I only see a cycle of boom and bust in technological innovations that require collective ownership and use, such as high-rises, assembly-lines, and fossil fuels. These technologies are subject to monopolization and negative externalities that offset their benefits. In individual technological innovations, I believe there is more steady improvement.
I doubt that. Two hundred years ago, rich people lived in mansions with indoor stoves, plumbing, and central heating. They had private coaches. Poor people had outhouses and fireplaces, and traveled by foot. Now, rich people have the same air-conditioning, refrigerators and automobiles that you have. Theirs are just slightly fancier and more reliable. Most of them travel on the same airplanes as the middle-classes. Granted, the truly-rich have yachts too; but I think the truly-rich have had yachts for quite a while.
I will agree with *most* of what you posted, in a limited sense. It is correct that the Fed attempts to maintain the unemployment rate at the so-called "natural" rate, which has several problems, not the least of which is the method used to calculate unemployment. But official Fed policy is actually to encourage "full employment", meaning that everyone who wants a job, has one.
The major problem with your assertion is that the Fed is not the primary influence on the unemployment rate. They have no real direct method to influence employment. They can only raise or lower interest rates. And loans can just as easily be used to invest in capital improvements as they can be used to increase hiring.
The US government, on the other hand, does directly influence employment, and substantially. The first is through direct spending. But the largest factor is the fact that employee salaries are tax-deductible to an employer. Because of this, job-creation is actually encouraged, not discouraged. The actions of the Fed aside, tax policy cannot be ignored.
So your assertion that our economy is "rigged" to prevent employment is completely backwards. If it weren't for the takings (and threatened takings) of the US government through taxation, the unemployment rate would actually be higher than it is. The overall effect of government (and quasi-government) economic policy is to increase employment, not to decrease it.
I won't go into the effect of all this on real wages, but suffice it to say that full employment is not equivalent to maximum production.
Those "donations" are called "profit". And they go to whomever can sell and support Linux as a functionally equivalent alternative to Windows.
This is how free markets work. I know this may be a new concept since it doesn't exist in most mature industries. You sell at the market price, or slightly less. If your new product is a successful alternative, then over time, your profits will rise, the market price will drop, and you can invest in lowing your production costs. Inefficient competitors will not be able to keep up, and will go bankrupt and exit the market.
Of course, this mostly assumes lack of government interference, cronyism, or monopolies. It also assumes there is such a thing as a "market price" to begin with.
Who says it failed? Offering a cheaper version of Windows probably staves off defections to Free operating systems, even if no one actually buys it.
Microsoft is an excellent marketing organization. Most people probably believe that a cheaper OS costs less because less effort was put into producing it. It doesn't matter that, in fact, *more* effort must put into producing crippled versions of Windows. The average consumer equates cheap Windows with being less functional, and so by extension free software must be completely unusable.
It's all a very well-designed marketing scheme, and not a failure at all.
Capital and credit goes to where it can be used to generate the most profit. At the moment, those places are 1) a government expanding it's size and tax base, and 2) the recipients of trillions of dollars in government hand-outs.
This has nothing to do with "irrational fears" or "behavioral economics". These are soulless corporations exploiting government force, waste and stupidity. It's all quite rational. It's just not a "market".
It's not so much the codec that is the issue. The DVD codec is just MPEG-2, which like you said is a one-time fee of $2.50. Philips et al will sell a patent license to just about anyone.
The issue is DRM (CSS actually). The DVD Consortium will not license DVD player software to decode CSS without royalties and technical limitations. They have never authorized a DVD player on any open source OS. And they can sue you under the DMCA for distributing one. AFAIK, DeCSS is still illegal to distribute commercially in the United States.
VLC (and other open source players) exist as exceptions to this rule because of court rulings based on interoperability, fair use, and free speech rights, because they are not commercial software, and because they generally don't distribute code to decrypt CSS from servers located in the US.
Yes I realized this after posting. This does not affect my argument. It should have been:
2) Human genetic engineering is a potentially profitable activity.
Also, your third point is a half-truth.
Your view of profitability is unnecessarily limited. Profit can accrue in the absence of commerce. Given the technical feasibility of individual genetic engineering, the free market is not necessary to my argument. Besides, this entire line of reasoning requires human genetic engineering to already exist before market forces limiting profitability even come into play. Are you sure that's what you want to argue?
Regardless, your viewpoint is merely the one of defensive fear-mongering, with you halting technological process for your own selfish moral dilemmas, which don't happen to exist in this scenario.
Haha if you're going to nitpick every statement for logical accuracy, then I'm sure you can explain how you managed to derive my "viewpoint" from what I posted.
Modifying already-formed human cells is hard, impossible in some instances.
If we can instead modify the genetic code that produces those cells, then we can correct defects before the cells are formed. Heritability is the key to this. I don't have any specific examples because I'm not a biologist, but I'm sure they abound.
It's kind of like the difference between replacing defective capacitors on a motherboard, and building a completely new motherboard with non-defective capacitors. Just based on economic costs alone, it's been the case for a while that replacing motherboards is more cost-effective than repairing them. Unlike motherboards, humans self-reproduce and aren't expendable. So, health benefits aside, the economics of design vs. repair are even more compelling.
The slippery slope is not a logical fallacy in this instance, and in fact is not a fallacy in most instances in which it is used. The entire argument just isn't usually spelled out. Most people are able to fill in the blanks.
1) Absent effective regulation, in a free-market economy, activities which are profitable will occur. 2) Human genetic engineering is a profitable activity. 3) Technological advances lessen the barriers to profitability of any activity. 4) Humans and monkeys are genetically similar. 5) Medical research on monkeys is widely cross-applicable to humans.
Any and all of these premises may be flawed in the singular sense, but in the general sense they are all true. And this ultimately means that, absent effective regulation, genetic engineering of primates will likely help lead to genetic engineering of humans. 100% effective regulation doesn't exist.
To suggest that going with Debian is the path of least resistance versus going to Vista is a fallacy.
I think you get more out of Debian. Following the path of least resistance doesn't necessarily get you anywhere. It's always easier to take another step, than it is to jump off the treadmill. Minimizing effort and maximizing gains, over the long term, is what you should be doing.
Hell, this is the Army we're talking about. Look where the "path of least resistance" has gotten them lately.
To suggest that an upgrade to Vista is "new just because" is another one.
Vista definitely is "new just because". You don't need new hardware support unless you buy hardware that requires it. Microsoft is still supplying security patches, and will until 7 is ready. No one has a "responsibility" to buy every crappy new version of Windows that comes out. That's laughable.
I had one Ubuntu user inform me on IRC, only a few hours ago, that Linux's primary reason for existence was to apparently provide users like her with only a marginally more stable Windows clone; it is interesting just how arrogant and forceful Windows refugees are becoming with this demand.
Geez, I'm sure you can find a way to explain the differences between distros with an appropriate level of assholishness. You don't have to "retreat" to some other OS because a demanding user shows up. Next time, just tell them to switch to Debian if they want something more stable. Then laugh at them when they say they can't get their [ webcam | touchpad | graphics card ] to work in Debian.
You can draw a line between where free support ends and unreasonable expectations begin, without 'sperging out and becoming afraid of the horrible Windows users impurifying your operating system userbase.
Progress is evolutionary. Progress is guided by the needs of the users. Progress is building upon an established base that you know works. Progress is not a totally new OS with totally new bugs every few years for absolutely no benefit.
Microsoft is the same stuff over and over again, with a different interface to have to learn. It's called an upgrade treadmill for a reason.
The entire idea of "new just because" needs to be re-evaluated and completely trashed
New house, new car, new credit card, new clothes... wait.
this makes absolutely no sense when the same amount of brainpower it takes to mind all the bugs, patches, hangups and general arthritic-jointed nature of all of its software could be used better building something open-source.
I think the OP pretty much nailed it. Welcome to Debian. Wine will save you a reboot for anything you can't live without.
And for that, the US government cancelled contracts and investigated the Qwest CEO:
On March 15, 2005, Nacchio and six other former Qwest executives were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They were accused of a "massive" $3 billion financial fraud between 1999 and 2002 and of benefiting from an inflated stock price.
He's now in a Federal prison serving a six year sentence.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually it was exactly the way you speak which caused me to believe that you are not a native English speaker. The rest of the stuff just proves it. Neither of the phrases I quoted were used in both a "grammatically and syntactically correct" way.
The first was not syntactically correct, since it was in the wrong case for what you were trying to communicate. The accusative "to his defense" might have made sense if you were trying to say that you "leapt to his defense". But you didn't. You spoke or wrote in his defense. This requires the use of "in" in the ablative case.
The second was also not syntactically correct, unless you actually believe that I need permission from "what you just said" in order to "think that you are not a native English speaker." The permissive mood is not appropriate in this case.
No native speaker over the age of twelve would ever use either of those phrases in the way you did.
"to his defence" -> "in his defense"
"allow you to think" -> "cause you to think"
You have a French name, a French IM name, and a Yahoo.fr e-mail address. I'm not saying your English is bad, by any means.
Good question. I'm sitting here making a list of obsolete technologies and their replacements. And, while the majority fall into the individualist/collectivist model, some notable examples jump out, for a couple of reasons.
SaaS is one of them. And, frankly, the success of web apps has confounded me for a while. I can't imagine why customers would choose SaaS over individual apps in most instances. Web apps are slow, limited, and cannot be bought outright (though in truth little software can be). And I'm saying this as someone who actually provides SaaS for a living. I understand it's limitations.
Mostly I think the growth in SaaS comes down to cost. Software is hard. Talented developers and admins are a limited resource. At the moment, I can understand why collectivization and outsourcing of software development and management is beneficial. In a couple of generations, it probably won't be quite so. SaaS is the assembly line of the information age. The products it produces are cost-effective, functional and standardized, yet one-size-fits-all.
As for e-mail in particular, the reason I personally use web-based mail is simply because of the spam problem. The cost to manage spam for one person is obscene. That is a task that truly scales. I'd rather outsource that to Yahoo or Google, especially considering it's free. At the moment that seems like the best way to handle it. What it costs me is the slight inconvenience of having to use their poor interfaces to access my mail, and having an active internet connection which I have regardless. E-mail may be a special case. We still have the post office, after all. So I think web-mail will go away only when we have a desktop app that handles spam effectively and lets you access your e-mail from anywhere on any device. Ultimately that app may just be a web browser, but that might be okay. Communication is an inherently collective activity. It's kind of like asking whether we will ever each have our own personal soccer field. There is not much benefit.
Tangentially, one thing I realized in making my list is that e-mail, voicemail and texting have largely replaced phone conversations because they are more individualized activities. A phone conversation requires two people to be available at the same time to converse. E-mail (and Slashdot) conversations can be had between two people over very different time periods.
You can read the founding principles of the Federal Reserve here. I believe most of those are taken verbatim from the charter by Congress.
The Fed has been lowering interest rates since September of 2007. I'm not sure what small business you're concerned about having gone under recently, but whatever it was, it wasn't due to the Fed raising interest rates.
I can't really speak to who predicted the housing market bubble and who didn't. It's kind of beside the point. But Peter Schiff is one Austrian who definitely did.
Regarding Greenspan, you may want to read this article from January of 2001, outlining what an Austrian-school-inspired Fed chairman might do in the coming years, and contrast it with the chart I posted earlier of what Greenspan actually did instead.
I suggest a healthy step back and a re-examination of the world around you.
I can assure you, I am constantly examining the world around me in great detail.
basically progress is: innovation creates new paradigms for growth which then saturate and become bad in new ways.
I take issue with this. There are two types of technological innovation, those which enable more efficient collectivization, and those which enable more efficient individualization of society.
All of your examples of things "becoming bad" involve the (over-)application of the former type, collective technological innovations. I would argue that the second type of individual technological innovation is immune to this type of obsolescence. Individual technological innovations merely involve a trade-off in labor for capital. Once a particular technology has improved to the point that this trade-off becomes acceptable to the individual, the technology finds widespread use. Since it is an individual trade-off, there is nothing but individual preference or resource exhaustion that will ever change this dynamic. Collective technologies, on the other hand, also involve a trade-off in individual rights to the rights of the collective. Given two equally efficient technologies, a person will always choose the individual technology over the collective one. As technologies improve, collective technologies will tend to be replaced with more individualist technologies due to this defect.
Laundromats, for instance, have "become bad" and been mostly replaced with individual washers, even though laundromats are more efficient. Suburbs, perhaps, you may argue, are an individualist technology that has "gone bad". But I think that is more due to a failure of (collective) energy production technologies. And I would argue that the same type of individualized technological innovation is currently under way in the energy field in order to make up for collective energy production having "gone bad". Barring complete breakdown of collective energy production and failure of more individualized technologies, I don't see automobiles ever being replaced by more collective transport methods. So I will concede that energy production will likely remain collectivized until Mr. Fusion is produced. Other than that, I believe all other production technologies will tend to follow the path I have outlined.
Ultimately, while you may see a cycle of boom and bust due to technological innovation, I only see a cycle of boom and bust in technological innovations that require collective ownership and use, such as high-rises, assembly-lines, and fossil fuels. These technologies are subject to monopolization and negative externalities that offset their benefits. In individual technological innovations, I believe there is more steady improvement.
I doubt that. Two hundred years ago, rich people lived in mansions with indoor stoves, plumbing, and central heating. They had private coaches. Poor people had outhouses and fireplaces, and traveled by foot. Now, rich people have the same air-conditioning, refrigerators and automobiles that you have. Theirs are just slightly fancier and more reliable. Most of them travel on the same airplanes as the middle-classes. Granted, the truly-rich have yachts too; but I think the truly-rich have had yachts for quite a while.
Sure it does. It just doesn't count as placing faith in politics to make life better. More the opposite.
I will agree with *most* of what you posted, in a limited sense. It is correct that the Fed attempts to maintain the unemployment rate at the so-called "natural" rate, which has several problems, not the least of which is the method used to calculate unemployment. But official Fed policy is actually to encourage "full employment", meaning that everyone who wants a job, has one.
The major problem with your assertion is that the Fed is not the primary influence on the unemployment rate. They have no real direct method to influence employment. They can only raise or lower interest rates. And loans can just as easily be used to invest in capital improvements as they can be used to increase hiring.
The US government, on the other hand, does directly influence employment, and substantially. The first is through direct spending. But the largest factor is the fact that employee salaries are tax-deductible to an employer. Because of this, job-creation is actually encouraged, not discouraged. The actions of the Fed aside, tax policy cannot be ignored.
So your assertion that our economy is "rigged" to prevent employment is completely backwards. If it weren't for the takings (and threatened takings) of the US government through taxation, the unemployment rate would actually be higher than it is. The overall effect of government (and quasi-government) economic policy is to increase employment, not to decrease it.
I won't go into the effect of all this on real wages, but suffice it to say that full employment is not equivalent to maximum production.
He (she perhaps) is obviously not a native English speaker. You're obviously not either. Have a little perspective.
Those "donations" are called "profit". And they go to whomever can sell and support Linux as a functionally equivalent alternative to Windows.
This is how free markets work. I know this may be a new concept since it doesn't exist in most mature industries. You sell at the market price, or slightly less. If your new product is a successful alternative, then over time, your profits will rise, the market price will drop, and you can invest in lowing your production costs. Inefficient competitors will not be able to keep up, and will go bankrupt and exit the market.
Of course, this mostly assumes lack of government interference, cronyism, or monopolies. It also assumes there is such a thing as a "market price" to begin with.
Who says it failed? Offering a cheaper version of Windows probably staves off defections to Free operating systems, even if no one actually buys it.
Microsoft is an excellent marketing organization. Most people probably believe that a cheaper OS costs less because less effort was put into producing it. It doesn't matter that, in fact, *more* effort must put into producing crippled versions of Windows. The average consumer equates cheap Windows with being less functional, and so by extension free software must be completely unusable.
It's all a very well-designed marketing scheme, and not a failure at all.
Capital and credit goes to where it can be used to generate the most profit. At the moment, those places are 1) a government expanding it's size and tax base, and 2) the recipients of trillions of dollars in government hand-outs.
This has nothing to do with "irrational fears" or "behavioral economics". These are soulless corporations exploiting government force, waste and stupidity. It's all quite rational. It's just not a "market".
http://www.santacruz.com/News/2009/01/06/Bluefin_Tuna_on_the_Brink
It's not so much the codec that is the issue. The DVD codec is just MPEG-2, which like you said is a one-time fee of $2.50. Philips et al will sell a patent license to just about anyone.
The issue is DRM (CSS actually). The DVD Consortium will not license DVD player software to decode CSS without royalties and technical limitations. They have never authorized a DVD player on any open source OS. And they can sue you under the DMCA for distributing one. AFAIK, DeCSS is still illegal to distribute commercially in the United States.
VLC (and other open source players) exist as exceptions to this rule because of court rulings based on interoperability, fair use, and free speech rights, because they are not commercial software, and because they generally don't distribute code to decrypt CSS from servers located in the US.
your second point is incorrect.
Yes I realized this after posting. This does not affect my argument. It should have been:
2) Human genetic engineering is a potentially profitable activity.
Also, your third point is a half-truth.
Your view of profitability is unnecessarily limited. Profit can accrue in the absence of commerce. Given the technical feasibility of individual genetic engineering, the free market is not necessary to my argument. Besides, this entire line of reasoning requires human genetic engineering to already exist before market forces limiting profitability even come into play. Are you sure that's what you want to argue?
Regardless, your viewpoint is merely the one of defensive fear-mongering, with you halting technological process for your own selfish moral dilemmas, which don't happen to exist in this scenario.
Haha if you're going to nitpick every statement for logical accuracy, then I'm sure you can explain how you managed to derive my "viewpoint" from what I posted.
Modifying already-formed human cells is hard, impossible in some instances.
If we can instead modify the genetic code that produces those cells, then we can correct defects before the cells are formed. Heritability is the key to this. I don't have any specific examples because I'm not a biologist, but I'm sure they abound.
It's kind of like the difference between replacing defective capacitors on a motherboard, and building a completely new motherboard with non-defective capacitors. Just based on economic costs alone, it's been the case for a while that replacing motherboards is more cost-effective than repairing them. Unlike motherboards, humans self-reproduce and aren't expendable. So, health benefits aside, the economics of design vs. repair are even more compelling.
The slippery slope is not a logical fallacy in this instance, and in fact is not a fallacy in most instances in which it is used. The entire argument just isn't usually spelled out. Most people are able to fill in the blanks.
1) Absent effective regulation, in a free-market economy, activities which are profitable will occur.
2) Human genetic engineering is a profitable activity.
3) Technological advances lessen the barriers to profitability of any activity.
4) Humans and monkeys are genetically similar.
5) Medical research on monkeys is widely cross-applicable to humans.
Any and all of these premises may be flawed in the singular sense, but in the general sense they are all true. And this ultimately means that, absent effective regulation, genetic engineering of primates will likely help lead to genetic engineering of humans. 100% effective regulation doesn't exist.
There is labor mobility within the US. I can freely work in any State.
That is all that is required for the US labor market to be free.
Anything beyond that is globalist cheap-labor bullshit that doesn't help Americans.
Remember, computers are currently our tools. If we give them consciousness, would we then be treating them as slaves?
McDonald's employees have consciousness. How do we treat them?
To suggest that going with Debian is the path of least resistance versus going to Vista is a fallacy.
I think you get more out of Debian. Following the path of least resistance doesn't necessarily get you anywhere. It's always easier to take another step, than it is to jump off the treadmill. Minimizing effort and maximizing gains, over the long term, is what you should be doing.
Hell, this is the Army we're talking about. Look where the "path of least resistance" has gotten them lately.
To suggest that an upgrade to Vista is "new just because" is another one.
Vista definitely is "new just because". You don't need new hardware support unless you buy hardware that requires it. Microsoft is still supplying security patches, and will until 7 is ready. No one has a "responsibility" to buy every crappy new version of Windows that comes out. That's laughable.
What happens when the video from one of these cameras gets leaked onto the Internet?
Urine trouble, then.
I had one Ubuntu user inform me on IRC, only a few hours ago, that Linux's primary reason for existence was to apparently provide users like her with only a marginally more stable Windows clone; it is interesting just how arrogant and forceful Windows refugees are becoming with this demand.
Geez, I'm sure you can find a way to explain the differences between distros with an appropriate level of assholishness. You don't have to "retreat" to some other OS because a demanding user shows up. Next time, just tell them to switch to Debian if they want something more stable. Then laugh at them when they say they can't get their [ webcam | touchpad | graphics card ] to work in Debian.
You can draw a line between where free support ends and unreasonable expectations begin, without 'sperging out and becoming afraid of the horrible Windows users impurifying your operating system userbase.
It's called progress.
Progress is evolutionary. Progress is guided by the needs of the users. Progress is building upon an established base that you know works. Progress is not a totally new OS with totally new bugs every few years for absolutely no benefit.
Microsoft is the same stuff over and over again, with a different interface to have to learn. It's called an upgrade treadmill for a reason.
The entire idea of "new just because" needs to be re-evaluated and completely trashed
New house, new car, new credit card, new clothes... wait.
this makes absolutely no sense when the same amount of brainpower it takes to mind all the bugs, patches, hangups and general arthritic-jointed nature of all of its software could be used better building something open-source.
I think the OP pretty much nailed it. Welcome to Debian. Wine will save you a reboot for anything you can't live without.
And for that, the US government cancelled contracts and investigated the Qwest CEO:
On March 15, 2005, Nacchio and six other former Qwest executives were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They were accused of a "massive" $3 billion financial fraud between 1999 and 2002 and of benefiting from an inflated stock price.
He's now in a Federal prison serving a six year sentence.
Where was this Verizon when the warrantless wiretaps were going on?
Making money on government contracts in Iraq?