Interestingly, being in the UK and having bought stuff from the US (from Amazon), it is legitimate for the UK to 'tax' the purchase (VAT) as it comes into the country. If not already paid, the item is held (usually by the Post Office) until I (the purchaser) go and pay the tax.

(The fact that the tax was incorrectly applied as by UK law books and such are not subject to VAT, was neither here nor there. I had to apply - and got - a refund, but the principle was that the law applied where I was - the UK, and not where the 'transaction' took place - the US).

Of course, Amazon (US) is not obliged to collect taxes for the UK government on items bought by UK citizens. Then again, unlike New York State, it is possible for government agents (Customs and Excise) to check all items coming into the country.

I suppose the point I'm making is that it is about goods crossing a (state or national) boundary. That is the logical point of taxation. Therefore (according to this principle) Texas can only tax a transaction between a Ohio resident that occurs in Maryland, if the 'result' of that transactions ends up in Texas!

LMDE comes in two flavours - Mate or Cinnamon. It also used to come with KDE and XFCE (I use the XFCE version, haviong installed it when it was available.) You can now get the KDE and XFCE equivalents now from http://solydxk.com/.

Note - there are issues with LMDE. The main one is that the update cycle is infrequent, as in the last "update pack" became available nine months after the previous one. Between update packs there are no security updates. This is what will drive me away from LMDE in the end. I believe Solydxk is better.

I also have Xubuntu LTS on a laptop. Security updates for this every week. At some point I'm going to try (main) Ubuntu in a virtualised environment to see if I can live with it.

I think they believe Canonical was mistaken, not malicious. The issue seems to be over how far you need to defend your trademark before you lose it.

Going to do business with Apple Inc instead? They would never sue over 'i' (as in 'iPhone').

Did Microsoft order all glass companies to quit using the word "windows"? Or, to put it another way, "[citation needed]"!

I believe with trademarks context is everything. I can go to a store and buy an apple (the fruit), but if I buy an "Apple" electronic device, if it isn't made by Apple Inc (the computer company), then lawyers will be coming down hard! (There is also Apple Corps Ltd, owned by the Beatles. There have been trademark disputes between Apple Inc and Apple Corp Ltd, none of which will affect you buying apples (the fruit)),

Interestingly, the article itself said that although it believed Shuttleworth was wrong, it didn't believe he meant any malice.

Hurd?

Well, given that the majority of home computer users are using a Microsoft OS, and of those using Linux, I would imagine a large number (if not most) using a Canonical OS (or derivative), I'm not convinced that this is as much of an insult as you would like it to be.

Oh, and as for the other likely home computing OS, I've heard rumours that Steve Jobs wasn't altogether saintly either!

I always admire how those who take the moral high-ground regarding insults, always manage to avoid using insults themselves!

Oh well, at least Mark Shuttleworth apologised.

Not wasting my time. As a result of the question, I'm reading some very interesting and useful comments here, including yours. Thanks.

Agreed, it may be difficult to change directions once employed, but it is possible (I once worked with someone who resigned a programming job because she'd just got a job with the police - something she'd always wanted to do. Someone else gave up a project management job to do a Radiography degree. And others I've known have resigned to travel the world for a year).

In this case, we don't know what the job is with the electronics company. Is is a programming job? If so, it may be easier to switch from industrial programming to games programming if the opportunity arose. If it isn't, then maybe not so easy.

I think the trick (looking at your post) is not to get "locked in". In this case I would possibly advise to take the job that is definitely there, but tread lightly until you get the job you want. Don't buy a house, don't get married, and don't have children, until it is certain that the games programming job isn't going to materialise. In other words, think of the job that is definitely there as an interim job until you get the one that you do want.

In the end, an interim job is better than no job at all (or flipping burgers).

I too see both sides. To be fair, so does the poster of the question (when he asks for contrary experiences).

One of my personal rules is never to tread on the dreams of people I know. To take your example, some people who dream of being rock stars do indeed become rock stars. Then again, if I had a friend who couldn't sing, couldn't play the guitar (or any other instrument) and had no musical ability, then I might suggest them trying an alternative career (you know, in the short term, while they manage to get a band together, etc.!)

What we don't know in this case if the "strength" of the dream, and the likelihood of achieving it. What did the questioner's friend do in college? How is this related to games programming? How many programmers do Blizzard take on each year? What did they do in college? Has the questioner's friend done any games programming before? And so on.

The only observation I'll make is that there are college courses specifically for computer games programming (I've a nephew doing one). If the questioner's friend is doing one of these, then it's almost a no-brainer; try with Blizzard. However, if he isn't, guess who he'll be competing with for any job!

He's a friend. Do you have friends? Do you care about your friends? Do your friends care about you? If you saw a friend making what you think might be a mistake, wouldn't you perhaps talk to them. If your friends saw you making what to them might be a mistake, wouldn't you want them to talk to you?

Of course, if all you have is acquaintances, then, hey, you're not their mom, what do you care if they make a mistake. (and hey, they're not your mom, what do they care about you if you make a mistake).

Personally, I can understand where the Original Poster is coming from. He's a friend to his friend. It's what friends do.

LMDE is essentially dead. The last update pack was in December 2012. As soon as I summon the time I'll be moving off it (desktop). Currently day-to-day my Xubuntu 12.4 LTS (laptop) gets more updates! For the desktop I'll either go with Xubuntu, Arch or (possibly) SolydX.

I chose "Other" although I could've chose "Ubuntu", "Mint" or even "Arch".

My current desktop uses Mint's LMDE XFCE. Generally happy with it although I'm thinking of moving away due to (1) stateness and (2) future lack of support for XFCE. Regarding staleness, although this is meant to be a "semi-rolling" distribution the last update pack was in December last year - and there is no indication of when the next update pack will be ready. In the Mint stable, LMDE is definitely the runt of the litter.

On my laptop is Xubuntu 12.04 LTS (is this included in "Ubuntu" or is this a separate distribution?). I like it. I may move my desktop to the latest Xubuntu if LMDE remains stale. However, which version - latest or LTS?

(I could use Mint 15 XFCE, but the idea of a complete reinstall every time a new version comes out doesn't appeal).

Other distributions I use are Centos (on an old pc) and Raspbian. These are "Other".

Another distribution I may consider is Arch, but this depends whether I would prefer the up-to-dateness of this as compared to the ease-of-use of Xubuntu. I would need to play around with it in VirtualBox before going this route.

There are other distributions (SolydX? Aptosid?), but again, which one. In the end I may revert to the Ubuntu stable to and stick with Xubuntu. (But the again, with the merging of LXDE and Razor-qt, perhaps Lubuntu may be the future!)