And, for me, Sibelius... music notation. There is not a good replacement for it. Yes, there is "music notation" software for Linux. I said "good" replacement ;)

I haven't had to do that on my Windows 7 machine for a long time, either. Windows 7 knows about the drivers. I even get video card driver updates from within Windows Update.

And yes, I use Linux, too. RHEL Workstation 6.x on my work laptop, Linux Mint in a VM just for fun, Linux Mint on my desktop in a VM (Windows 7 host). In the past two years, I've also used openSuSE and Ubuntu. I work with Linux *for* work as well. I'm not quite sure I prefer it to Windows 7, I actually like the Windows 7 interface.

This could be framed another way; that is, "swing states" are the only ones the candidates care about. The rest of us are taken for granted.

In general, and as a Christian, I agree. Except with the "Baby Killer" part.

I cannot support abortion. And, frankly, the lack of doing anything on the part of those who even campaign as a pro-life/anti-abortion stance is disappointing and disturbing.

If he is not actually legally entitled, i.e., has the right to own property ... what's the complaint then?

It's not basically the same thing, because at least in the USA, we have the right to own property. I don't have the right to own a domain name, explicitly. Furthermore, this isn't even in the USA, this is in Gabon. Wherever that is. ;)

This would be more similar to a convicted drug dealer trying to buy a marijuana dispensary. Or maybe a pharmacy.

Believe it or not, I try to avoid both wacky sides.

And, on global warming, I'm not 100% convinced in either way. I can go along with the concept that it's warming. I'm just not sold on (1) that that is necessarily bad and (2) that it hasn't happened [naturally] before.

That said, even though I'm fairly conservative and rather libertarian, I think I might be seen as a [scary music goes here] environmentalist by some people because I actually support [more scary music] some regulation to keep people and, more importantly, large corporations with lots of lawyer money, from destroying the environment.

I've heard some positive reviews for their Surface tablets, actually. "Live Drive" is currently "Sky Drive" I think?

And you didn't mention Windows 7. IMO, it's actually pretty good. I prefer it much more to Windows XP, and it's actually more stable, IMO. Of course, not surprising, but still.

And Skype, they are doing a good job of supporting platforms, it seems. Everyone and their dog were predicting they'd drop Linux support, but they seem to be more inclined to support it than errr the company Skype was.

Yeah, clearly, consolidating your messaging applications so that you only have one, rather than two, is "change for the sake of change." Because it makes far more sense to continue to support and develop both of them, I guess.

Your bias may be showing, Mr. AC. ;) :)

Lying "for good," whether to kids or the public, only works as long as you hide the fact you lied. The minute the public, or kids, find out it was a lie, they begin to question everything else.

It's actually hard for me to make up my mind about global warming. Why? Because there has been so much lying, deception, and contradiction involved in the entire debate. Rather than making me think even more seriously about it, it makes me want to just totally ignore it altogether because it apparently isn't important enough to tell the truth about.

Want to convince me of something? Tell me the truth in such a way that you can back up your claims. Want to turn me off? Lie to me and then say that you were just trying to convince me because you knew I wouldn't believe it if you told me the truth.

(bonus points: make it a political argument. ;) )

There is no start button on Microsoft's microwaves anymore.

Clearly, what Ballmer should have said was that the Surface is *not* what people want. That would have been better. CEOs should never believe in their products. I mean, it's not like Steve Jobs or Tim Cook or anyone else in their Marketing presentations ever said anything crazy (you know, like "inventing" tablets or something)...

I don't see how this is even a story. Of course Ballmer is going to say that the Surface is better than the iPad. What do you expect him to say?! "The iPad is better than the Surface, but please buy a surface."