It's time to turn LEO over to commercial operators and let NASA get back to pushing frontiers. It was right to kill Constellation and Ares.

And you missed my point, which was "but what about Game X?" is a stupid argument because very many don't care and/or have something like a Wii for that. Most of the people I know have lappies which still aren't very good for graphics-intensive games. And after a couple of years they nearly uniformly bitch about decreased performance and have no relish for wiping and reloading. My point about the old lappy was that I don't experience that.

You can whine "elitist" all you want. I say grow up and face the move to portables which will never run Skyrim, etc.

You have just reinforced my argument. Wanna play games? Get a Windows system. For real work you can use Linux and enjoy better performance and the ability to do truly useful and fun things. I have a laptop built in 1998 that runs Debian better than it ran Win95. It was my personal workstation until 2007 when I was forced to switch to a WinXP system due to disability. I still use that lappy as a LAN server.

Rather than cry about wastes of time, address the issue that not everybody cares about just gaming and the fact that computers can do so much more.

Actually I am sick of the weak argument "But can you run Game X??". Lots of people don't really care about games.

I bought a computer when all I really wanted was an Xbox.

Then get an Xbox

If you wanted an Xbox you should have bought one.

That's exactly what I mean. "What do you want?" I chose Linux because I could do what I wanted.

You don't sell Linux as a product: You sell it as an idea.

The idea is that you can do anything you want with it.

"DeVry" != "Degree"

I don't have a degree of any kind and managed to have a rather successful career. I taught myself early programming and PC maintenance in the 80s, and UNIX in the early 90s with Linux following shortly thereafter. One continual drawback was the lower starting pay and drudgery tasks, but I quickly demonstrated myself and overcame that in every position held until I was the one in charge of the IT Dept.

I am willing to contemplate that I am an unusual case, and that you might not be able in your life circumstances to start on the extreme low end of the payscale.

If you have ever flown Continental Airlines you would rethink your destination...

I need to know how many Libraries of Congress each American consumes. For global agriculture I guess we could use Libraries of Alexandria...

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!

The point was about the lowest common denominator.