Hammer, meet Nail!

This is the issue exactly! Apple is not the only company that likes to hold information closely. I once had an ISP that would pretend that they did not have outages, and liked to blame their customers. I spent several hours trying to debug my girlfriend's network connection only to find out that they had a 6 hour outage that they only admitted to after the fact.

I have a WII, didn't see the need to upgrade to the WII-U. I also have a XBox, had a PS3 but only because I wanted to watch BlueRays. Is it me, or has Nintendo just lagged a bit in terms of graphics? They revolutionized the controllers with the WII, but now I really feel the others have caught up. I do not know if the Nintendo catalog will be enough to keep people with the platform just to play those games. Time will tell.

They already switched to OpenOffice, I've used both and while there are some differences, if you know one, you can use the other without too many problems.

Most folks don't even use more than a small percentage of the features of a word processor anyways. I have friends who work with lawyers who say Word is no good for them, and that they have to use WordPerfect for their legal documents.

I agree that formats are very important. This organization is large enough to be able to mandate the formats they will use. But a quick check of LibreOffice Writer (4.0.2.2) shows it can handle the fol formats: odt, ott, sxw, stw, fodt, uot, doxc(MS Word 2007/2010 XML) , doc, xml(ms Word 2003 and Doc Book), html, rtf, txt, and docx (OpenOffice XML Text)

It appears that they won't have many problems accepting any common format.

I work in a very large organization. We use MS Office, and we provide training for many of our staff in Excel, Word, Powerpoint and Outlook. If we were to swtich, it would involve creating new lesson plans, but the savings in licensing would more than pay for that.

CISCO has IOS which of course Apple has licenced

Morse Code was predigital. It was on and off keyed using an unmodulated carrier designed to be sent my human operators. There are variations between the length of the elements, the space between the elements, the space between letters and words. This is more a language than code, experienced operators did not hear letters, they heard words. Speeds up to and past 60 wpm were not unheard of. And there were no machines up until recently that could compete with the accuracy of a human operator.

Morse code does not necessarily a binary system. If sent by a machine, I could buy that, but it was designed to be sent by humans using a key. Later a two paddle bug was often used to speed up the code. One paddle sent a stream of dits, and the other keyed the dahs. you could vary the speed of the dits using a dial, but you varied the dahs using the paddle itself. Good operators would shorten the dahs, and use the fastest dits they could manage. So, you might use a dit from 40 wpm, but a dah from 45 wpm. The end result was code that was fairly easy to decode by a human operator, but difficult to decode by a machine. The best machines that I saw had an accuracy of about 85%, which was not good enough.

Later electronic bugs had two paddles that shaped both the dits and the dahs, but because the operator varied the space in between the elements you ended up with the same issues

A digital replacement for morse code was the Baudot Code

.This used machine generated and read code. Early systems used a punch tape as storage medium.

I was a trained and certified Wireless Station Operator, when I first qualified I could send and receive 20> wpm using a stick (pencil) and hand key

Indeed, I was trained as a wireless operator after high school. I certified in morse code, sending and receiving 20wpm. There was some effort in sending the telegram, but even calculating how much it was going to cost. A good operator could save the sender money by combining words and using shorthand expressions.

When I was unable to attend either of my brother's weddings, I sent telegrams to congradulate them. Aside from the cost, they represent a level of effort which email or a telephone call just cannot emulate.

Easy answer, any country that wishes to maintain a balanced Naval Fleet requires submarines. These vessels, if not completely accounted for make an excellent "Fleet in being". During the Falklands, just the possibility of Argentine subs meant the Royal Navy had to commit significant ASW forces to the campaign. Spain and Canada nearly came to blows during the "Turbot War"In the event that that conflict had gone "hot" you can bet Spanish Submarines would have played a pivotal role.

From the Wikipedia article:

OUCH!

I'm sorry that you have experienced the worst side of the human experience. It has certainly not been mine. Yes, I have encountered the occasional scammer, but by and large the tradesmen I have had direct contact with have been honest. I have heard people complain about the $50/hr plumber or mechanic, so they hire the $20/hr guy who comes in and does a crappy job, then they end up paying a competent worker the 50 bucks an hour anyways to make it right.

If you hire someone who takes you to the cleaners, you have a right to be upset, but if you failed to get references, and do your research, you have to accept some of the blame as well

There is nothing wrong with becoming a Tradesman. Plumber, Electrician, Welder or Mechanic, etc

Just as we need Engineers, Nurses and Lawyers (I can't believe I'm including Lawyers!), we need the folks that keep our machines running. Just as not everyone has the money, or the aptitude to become a Doctor, I know many people who do not have the abilities to become a carpenter or metal worker.

I don't much care for the way some look down on the tradesmen that keep things running. Where I live there is a shortage of plumbers and electricians. Out west there is a shortage of carpenters. As a resul the ones that do exist command high wages, and are busy with lots of work. All this without the debilitating school loans that many University Graduates have.

From my perspective, it sounds like good advice

I'm running XFCE on Ubuntu on mine. The only reason I left chromeOS running was to handle netflix. Otherwise I have to really agree with most folks that the chromebooks are just too limiting. Running Linux, with an 8 hr battery life is nice. I can sit back and get some work done.

As far as android/win8 or iOS, I do not even want to consider one of these without a touchscreen.

Actually, it wasn't OK. That is why Mate and Cinnamon exist now. At least with Linux there is still some choice

And the fools days is upon us again. Well done slashdot, and happy Birthday to the Royal Canadian Air Force