While I agree that not having health insurance is really risky and dumb, taxing someone for not buying / wanting something goes against freedom.

The government does has the right to tax, but that should only apply for the things that the government should take care of, which is 1) providing national defense and 2) the legal system, not telling us which insurances to get.

Playing devil's advocate, you could also say "Not saying that Microsoft isn't technical, but it doesn't seem to be all that matters to them".

To be fair, a lot of companies underestimate the ability for tech people to have good communication skills, for both inside the company and without. When you have big companies like Microsoft and Google, to have a good infrastructure, you need good communication. This just shows that, for one reason or another, Microsoft has chosen to focus on this in their current hiring process.

Honestly, they both want / need money and tech to stay in business.

Pirk: Mr Fukov, twist factor 1000. Just pick a direction
Fukov: It doesn't go to 1000....
Spook: It would be logical to avoid the direction we just came from. The station commander would hardly appreciate it.
Pirk: Hmph. Engage...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPglc3z6r_A

I once soldered a molex connector on a hard drive using a lighter. It worked, I just singed the board a bit....

Because of this, I selected "Clumsy but workable solder joins." otherwise I would have put "Nothing useful"

http://bash.org/?142934

Remember when we used to joke about these things?

I'm not a big fan of this UI, but it does remind me of the fairly recent UI change that I've seen in gmail. Yeah... not a big fan of that either.

Is this just some kind of "natural" progression we're going with?

That is a good point, because it exists. That being said, at least for me, I see a lot of value in Linux already, and a lot of improvements actually being implemented, where as Microsoft promises a lot more than it delivers.

Also, I'm sure the whole open source thing helps as well. If someone really, _really_ doesn't like something they could do something about it themselves.

Excuse me. You're correct. I should have phrased it slightly different, such as "Why should our tax money ever be used for something like this?"

Heh, I caught that right after I submitted it, and wondered if anyone would comment on it.

The government has to be very careful with opinions as a whole though, since they are really there to represent the people.

There's a difference between Joe the representative voicing an opinion and the government body applying resources (given to them by the tax payers) to voice an opinion.

I happen to be one who think that there is enough evidence to say at the very least that global warming is possibly non-existent. If the government starts spending my tax money to at best argue global warming or at worst silence people who don't think there's enough evidence to support it, I'd feel both ripped off / used and controlled. These are not good things.

Why is our tax money being used for this?

I mean, I don't care about people who think the moon landing is fake. Let them spend their time thinking that. It doesn't hurt me. What does hurt me is _my_ hard earned money being used for a useless cause.

It even states in TFA that "some conspiracy theories, under [their] definition, have turned out to be true." So why spend time and energy arguing potentially the wrong side?

But it's still better than not voting.

Well from the very limited amount of screenshots and the 9 second video clip, it seems to look a lot like it does in Warcraft 3, so while it does look pretty awesome and fun, I'm not sure what they'll be able to do that wouldn't be possible using Warcraft 3.

I'd think the main things this game could have to offer is better graphics and more options (more heroes / the ability to build and repair structures / etc). Plus, it might be cool if they allowed mods, kindof how World of Warcraft does, so that players could customize the interface and whatnot (however I say that not knowing specifics about this game, so that might not be possible).

Then again, just the simple fact that it's "DOTA on Linux" does have appeal in-and-of itself.

While that's true, it still doesn't link the person to the document, so they're sill ok.

Actually, let me rephrase that: They _should_ be ok. There is no direct evidence that connects the two, just circumstantial evidence. However, even though I don't think that would be enough to prove anything, you never know with this government... (oh, and IANAL)

I'm really confused.... Yes.

Playing devil's advocate here for a second:

What do you mean by "simple little html table"? I just tried making a really simple table and it looked pretty much the same... the default font was slightly different but that's to be expected, and doesn't prove incompatibility by itself.

Note: Sorry for responding to a flame, but I didn't have any mod points :-(