I don't know much about the initd vs. systemd argument, I haven't kept up with it and honestly I don't care, but I would like to add this:

Isn't one of the beauties of Linux, and free software in general, the power of choice? systemd is offering a choice, an alternative. Surely there will be distributions that use systemd and those that do not. Now the end user has - gasp - a choice. How is this bad? If you think systemd sucks for whatever reason then just don't use it. If you think it is awesome, then go ahead and use it. This is the power of choice, the power of the free market, and when it comes to free software the market is very, very open.

Why are people getting so pissy over someone offering an alternative? Did systemd give all of these people a bad touch or something?

When I saw the headline I honestly did think that this project was someone creating a mockery of systemd, called "useless-d", which was built to take systemd's ideals to some kind of absurd extreme.

Now that I know useless-d is a real software project I'm inclined to give it even less attention. If the developers cannot be bothered to take their own software seriously, why should I? There is a space for tongue-in-cheek names, cute names, and all the rest, but this one is just plain bad.

This is an incredibly large undertaking, and problems with large undertakings are fairly common.

This was not an incredibly large undertaking. The functionality is not complex. Nothing about it is complex or incredible large.

It has to:
1. Allow you to create an account;
2. Verify your identify;
3. Show you available health care plans in your area;
4. Let you select one;
5. Help you pay for it.

In its basic form, this is something that a group of college kids could whip up in a week or so.

The only thing even approaching complex is scaling to handle a ton of load during the registration periods - and those are problems that have been solved at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and any other high traffic site.

Maybe you like this health care system, and that's okay. We can disagree on that point. What I cannot allow is for you to tell me that this website is some kind of horrible, complex, unknown beast that simply could not be tamed, a website so complex that few applications could approach it in terms of functional requirements.

Except that subsidies are the antithesis to a free market. It's cronyism.

I also thought I'd never say this... But I don't know if this is the right thing to do. It sounds all fancy and wonderful and all, but think about this:

Which ISPs can afford to upgrade their infrastructure to provide this speed to all their users? The large ones, the powerful ones, that ones that already have the money. This means that the smaller ISPs, the ones that are already struggling, will have an even more difficult time since they're no longer receiving your tax dollars.

My question is this: Why should there be subsidies at all? If there must be subsidies, why are they slanted to help the already-successful, larger companies?

Exactly what I wanted to say. In fact, to get a STEM degree, you are required to have critical thinking and problem solving skills. A Liberal Arts degree just means you took a bunch of classes that didn't amount to much of anything else, but you wanted a piece of paper so that's the one you get. That implies a lack of critical thinking, not an abundance of it.

Microtransactions, coming to a Minecraft release near you.

I don't do anything specifically for a mass ejection from the Sun, but I do have six months of food, three wells on the property with potable water, plenty of fire wood, a few thousand rounds of ammunition (not expecting a war or anything, I've just come across some good deals so why not), etc., etc. Six months isn't a super long time but it's better than nothing at all.

I haven't done anything to protect my electronics against a mass EMP type of deal, but if the whole electrical grid and everything else is all fried, a working computer won't do me a whole lot of good anyway. So, whatever.

I don't know about you, but I would rather have the USA, despite all of its faults (and we have many), in control of these things instead of countries like Iran or North Korea.

This kind of functionality would be enough for me to switch mail providers.

Yes, yes, it can always be done manually, but I have a lot of friends that aren't as tech savvy as I am. Generating a key, keeping the private one somewhere safe, copying text from the PGP application, pasting it correctly, copying incoming text, pasting, decrypting, etc., etc., it's all a pain in the butt for the typical computer user.

If Yahoo can manage to implement this correctly so that it is safe AND easy to use that's a big deal.

Why not give people the choice?

They can choose to expose all of their personal medical information to the world for public consumption and sale, or they can keep their information private. Better yet, allow people to sell their medical information to companies.

That way people who enjoy their privacy can keep their privacy. People like you who care more about data can have their data. Everyone wins.

The major problem here is the brokering of private data, not only without consent, but also without any knowledge that it is happening.

As a side note, since you're so fascinated with the transparency and the data-driven-without-consent thing...

We should also have access to all of your financial transactions, too. After all, bad financial situations can cause lower standards of living which also affects health. We should also have access to all of your communications - email, instant messages, phone calls - so that we can use that to evaluate your mental health and build a graph of your relationships. We should also keep tabs on where you are at all times in case you are making bad decisions like visiting "the wrong part of town".

After all, just think about how all that data can help!

If that is how you want to live your life don't let me stop you from living it. You can do whatever you want. Just don't force me to live it as well.