Microsoft's lack of advancement in Office is most definitely a cause as if you read all the marketing materials for Microsoft Office 2013, every single heading and sub-heading referred to the touch based experience. If you read the flyers when the software debut, there was zero reason to buy it unless you were using a touch screen.

This is demonstrably the case upon firing the software up as the interface is horribly ugly and even Microsoft Outlook 2013 can be uninstalled and 2010 reinstalled in its place, and all the settings, mail profile information, .PST, autocomplete, etc., is in place. I don't think the majority of people would actually notice a difference flipping back to Outlook 2010 from 2013, other than a better interface with the older product.

With so many people experiencing issues with Microsoft Office 2013 activation and random requests to re-activate which result in error codes, or issues where "A problem has occurred" with no log entries or error codes when you try to install the software, it's quite possible Microsoft has strongly encouraged people to seek alternatives.

Since experiencing so many reliability issues with Microsoft Office 2013, issues that did not exist with Microsoft Office 2010, I've become a vocal advocate for making the switch from Microsoft to either OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

I often encourage OpenOffice for older folks that are looking for a more reliable experience while I suggest LibreOffice to those who want a feature rich experience and don't mind the occasional glitch or updating the software as regularly as they release updates. I feel both are great projects.

The internet is responsible for this biological change.

This article talks more about the feelings and emotions of experts rather than referring to any changes that have occurred physically with the brain so I categorize this into whatever mental file folder I archive topics concerning 'exaggerated digital age hysteria' as I was always a skimmer just like this woman, and when I say always it means the majority of my life that was pre-internet. Just like this woman, I had difficulty immersing myself into a book as I defaulted to skimming. This wasn't an adaptation caused by the internet, this was how my brain always worked.

Certainly I utilize this now to skim Slashdot in seconds to determine if I want to click further, just as I'm sure plenty of other higher functioning readers do, and as such I don't see this as a detriment or a negative byproduct of the internet.

Thank you. I read the summary and then re-read the summary many times thereafter and wasn't entirely sure if they figured it out or didn't figure it out. "Scientists figured it out..." "... but then they realized that what they figured out didn't make a difference."

It seems submitters and moderators aren't actually summarizing but rather, they're cutting up quotes and links in ways that don't jive with the post title.

"When I grow up, I want to cure world hunger!" The coal will still exist, people will still find coal, people will still want coal, etc., etc.

... which is obvious to Windows users?

In other news, a high school co-op student 'working' for Slashdot has racked up an undisclosed amount of semester time designing a new beta site, a site heavily criticized by any user that's pushed into it. Many users are attempting to pool their resources to create an alternative Slashdot site as they feel the owners of Slashdot.com aren't listening to their criticisms since the current site is fine the way it is and doesn't need any the horrid beta design.

... because I expect I'll enthusiastically agree with you, especially after reading "If you don't leave "Classic" Slashdot as a default option, there is a good chance that I will not read the site anymore." One of the reasons I come to Slashdot is the condensed nature of the site, the efficient design, and the ability to see snippets of other news sites on the side.

I'm rather angry with you for encouraging me to use this beta site more than I want to.

Perhaps this is a basic level computer class design project and it's leading up to a long buildup April fools joke?

There's nothing positive I have to say about this layout. It's not because I don't like change or 'new things', rather I hate when something good is replaced with something foul. This site is losing an extremely efficient design that scaled well regardless of the device I viewed it on and replacing it with a gigantic ugly page that I'll be avoiding once it changes.

This is the Windows 8 of Slashdot... and that's being generous to Slashdot. Perhaps Titanic will be more apt after the change is instituted...?

Yes, Cisco also does this and the necessity to call them, pleading for an up-to-date firmware when your brand new Cisco unit has a 2 year old ASA bin, ASDM and VPN which won't work with your client's newer Internet Explorer. This is also why it's common amongst IT people to say "screw you Cisco" and share firmware on secret yet publicly hosted HTTP sites made available through one service contract for one device.

If there's one thing you can credit Seagate for, it's consistency - since the 90's the (R) for refurb on their drives has been the kiss of death, guaranteeing another failure within 3 months of receiving the replacement. While it's great they have a clearly understandable domestic RMA team, they often send you a broken drive to replace your defective drive so you now have to pay to ship two drives back.

If you politely ask them to send you a new drive since they keep sending you bad drives, they'll politely tell you they can't guarantee you a healthy drive. Typically with our servers we're guaranteed a bad Seagate SAS 10k drive with a bank of 10 drives and we're pretty much at a 100% failure rate with RMA drives and many times the RMA drives they send us are broken. Seagate (R) drives should never be installed in a server or anything reliable... heck, I'd keep Seagate drives out of anything you want to remain reliable.

Clearly there's a job opening for a grammer nazi in my life.

I often interact with large companies' IT departments and the general ID is to completely block all Amazon EC2 servers to prevent spam, malware attacks and access to filter bypass services like Ultrasurf, regardless of the possibility of legitimate sites hosted on Amazon. Occasionally they'll make exceptions for port 80 but the idea is basically, "since Amazon is complicit in hosting so much malicious or nefarious crap on the internet, just block Amazon."

I'm guessing he's never been to one of the aforementioned performer's party since he's talking out of his ass.