Actually, MS has a worse reputation for abusing its customers than do most other companies. So being tied hand and foot to MS is worse. It's just that the proposed alternative isn't that much better.

The reason to switch is to gain control of the software that runs your business.

Switching to Linux would, indeed, be more difficult. But after you've made the switch, you are no longer locked into proprietary file formats, and this means that you aren't locked into any particular version of any particular software. Even if you're using a product that is closed source (bad idea) you have tools available to parse the files. For most purposes you are NOT locked into something that is closed source, and multiple applications can handle the same file type. In that case, even if everyone else decides to drop the project, you can spin up a virtual machine with an old version of the OS and run the version that you are familiar with...or hire someone else to reverse engineer the code.

P.S.: The same is true of the BSDs, but the number of applications isn't quite as large. Still, there are a few BSDUnix applications that nobody has ported to Linux.

The space is clearly NOT smooth and continuous. Many possibilities are lethal.

No, the stars are not out of reach. You just need to change your planet-centric bias and have a VERY large ship. You may also need fusion power, but fission might work, depending on the composition of free bodies. (I.e., asteroids, planets, etc. not bound to any star.) You also need a very long trip time, as you don't want there to be an unreasonable delta-V when you send out mining parties while on the way.

The problem, if such it is, with this approach is that by the time the party reaches the next star system, they'll see no reason to bother with the planets, and just build another ship or so to allow population growth...and then head off for parts unknown.

OTOH, you will need a large population, and robots, etc. The machines will need to be maintained, redesigned, rebuilt, etc. And this means a full range of highly technical skills.

The problem with this approach is that there is no economic payoff to the society that sends off the starship. It can be done, but the motivation for doing it will need to be either political or religious. (One mode has mobile societies develop to mine the Oort clouds, etc. and then get into a political disagreement with the home planet.)

Disagree. The can be multiple users or a global name-space, but only one has priority. It would be perfectly reasonable for systemd to look at the line and say (to itself) "O, the kernel is in debug mode". This is quite distinct from it saying "I guess I'll print out all my debug messages to the kernel log too", which is what it was doing.

FWIW, the kernel thread is talking about putting process-specific rate limits on writing to the kernel log to avoid this cropping up in another context. With some discussion as to what are valid use cases where other processes should be allowed to write to the kernel log. (One case mentioned was a series of messages saying things like "Now starting debug test # 93 of this-n-that", so if things hang, you'll know what test was running when it hung.)
Note that if this is adopted, the systemd messages would just get written to /dev/null when the (small) limit had been exceeded.

I dual boot Debian stable and Debian testing. Currently Debian testing is causing my computer to periodically reboot, so I'm spending most of my time in stable.

According to your link:

Wikipedia reports:

So using the Los Angelas Times as a source, the main funding was against the proposition. Approximately equal proportions of funding came from outside for each side of the proposition. And the funding did not count the door-to-door campaign by the missionaries from the Mormon church. And that political intervention that was publically promoted and enjoined upon the members of the Mormon church should have caused the church to loose it's tax exempt status if the laws were followed.

I thought the answer was "We fill it up with cement, and them bury it in cement.". It may not be government approved, but I think I've heard of it being done elsewhere, and it actually doesn't sound like that bad an approach, once you get the fuel out. Any leaks should be quite slow.

SourceForge did not in the past cause you to download advertisements with your software. I understand that's current practice. (If I'm wrong, please advise.)

Even so, that figure was obtained after an intense "pro-prop 8" campaign that was well financed by a couple of religions and certain wealthy individuals. Line the new CEO of Mozilla.

The "anti-prop 8" cause didn't have anywhere near as much money to campaign with. So I don't think I believe that's an accurate analysis of even the feelings of the voters at that time. (Except in a very temporary sense.)

FWIW, for me the main result is that I now think much more poorly of the Mormon Church, and believe that they hold their tax exemption on a fraudulent basis.

Unfortunately, this story is true. I have decided that this policy means I will not be renewing my subscriptions to their magazines. (Well, not Nature, as I am not currently a subscripter, but to others of their magazines.) Their response is not an acceptable explanation.

There's a lot to be said for wooden building, but they do tend to lead to destructive city fires. Also hard wood takes a long time to grow. So yes, I agree. But we need to ameliorate the problems that come with wooden buildings. Termites and fire are two of the considerations. There are many wooden buildings around here, and they are pleasant to look at. However, I prefer stucco covered wood frame buildings...probably with ceramic tile roofs. Both features decrease the ease with which fire spreads. Termites are a more difficult problem. Possibly all wood used in the lower 6 feet of the building should be chemically treated to be indigestible.

OTOH, this is just a refinement of common current practice, and probably won't increase the amount of wood used. (If logs were used, this wouldn't be true, but I have difficulty thinking of logs used for internal walls.)

Too expensive meaning people operating the plants will be allowed to wiggle out of doing it. Coal is NOT the only option, and in our current situation it's a bad option. Probably worse than widespread nuclear, if reasonable oversight could be provided to the nuclear. Definitely worse than solar, even though solar requires some intermediate storage.

For the really long term I'm in favor of Solar Space Power Sattelites, but that's not something that we can reach by heading directly for it, and careful tests will be needed to ensure that it's not itself a terrible choice. (E.g., proper selection of wavelengths for downwards transmission of power. Probably some microwave wavelength is best, but you want a wavelength that's not too adversely affected by atmospheric moisture, and you also want a reception antenna that's smaller than 10 miles in radius. But you probably DON'T want a wavelength that can be focused sharply, as that's too dangerous a toy.

P.S.: Paper doesn't require that much processing to be rendered durable. It does if most of your production is aimed at cheap pulp, but even that has a pretty good lifetime. It becomes birttle after, say, 40 years (judging from 1940's science fiction that I used to collect) but even then it remains pretty much intact. There are several different processes that can be used to preserve it. I'm sure several are less harmful than what you're thinking of. Remember, the goal isn't that they should be permanently legible, but rather that they not decay into CO2. (So you want to termite-proof them, e.g.) And the chemicals that you do use can be largely recycled.

Keep it simple stupid - an engineering principle that has been tossed out forever.

Another damned piece of electronics that will fail in less than seven years. Another piece of electronic junk with a thousand dollar replacement or repair price tag (dealer cost to you). More damned code that can fail. More maintenance costs. More power consumption. More holes in the shell to let rust in. Tech lust as engineering.

Geeze, let's not use a MIRROR. My side view mirror was just torn off by a speed-crazed yuppie - it cost me 23 bucks to replace it, good as new, from an eBay vendor. Shipping included.

the idea is to make damned sure that no new car will have a lifetime greater than seven to ten years. New cars, new debt without end. Cars as smart phones - unrepairable. Toss 'em out and get a new one will be the only option. The used car market will slowly shrivel and finally die when the last repairable car gets totaled.