Well, the reason there's both KDE and GNOME needs a little historical context. KDE relied (and still does) heavily on the then-closed Qt toolkit. The authors of GNOME wanted to build something basically like KDE, except with entirely free software components. Naturally, they also needed to write replacements for KDE applications too, because they also relied on Qt.

Of course years later Trolltech relicensed Qt under the LGPL so there was no longer any fear of Qt vanishing and KDE having to scramble to find a replacement. But by then, KDE and GNOME had taken different paths, KDE focusing on extreme configurability, GNOME focusing on user-friendliness. And then there were all those people who didn't like either desktop and decided to roll their own to fit their own needs better, and that's fine too.

Please don't make that assumption. I make $20,000 a year studying to get my PhD. Low pay does not mean unskilled.

I tell my students over and over every semester that a good night's sleep is just as important as studying. Not that they listen, but I still tell them.

My pants contain an inhaler, a cell phone, my wallet, and a handheld game console. I'm not sure what conclusions you could draw from this.

I'm bombarded by advertisements every which way I turn. I can't even enjoy the horizon without some gigantic billboard for divorce lawyers ruining the view. I don't think it's so much to ask that I have one outlet that's ad free.

Listen, buddy. It is never going to be cured. It's bad. There's not a fucking thing we can do about it. So we may as well get a laugh out of it. Unless you have a magical solution that for some reason doesn't work in the presence of humor, howsabout you take the stick out of your ass, grab a beer, and relax a little? All your fuming isn't improving the situation either.

Also, some of the other comments make me think you don't know what you're talking about.

An information bomb? A science fiction author by the name of Nick Harkaway answered that question in his book The Gone-Away World. It's probably my favorite book that I've read in the last five years (and I read a lot of books.) You should go read it.

They've already completely captured the hipster, coffee-shop, pseudo-intellectual market with their past advertising campaigns. Might as well go for a different demographic that didn't buy in to their weird-and-kinda-snobby aesthetic.

One of the things I've learned about kids is that up until a certain age, let's say 5ish, they're perfectly content to watch the same thing over and over and over and over. Netflix, or better yet just a couple of well-chosen DVDs, is perfectly sufficient until they hit that age. And even afterwards, what's wrong with Netflix again? Do your kids really need a constant stream of content interspersed with advertisements? Just imagine just how much money you'd save if your kids didn't have the most expensive new toys beamed into their eyeballs every five minutes.

Hmm. I'd say it's closer to a virus. Or at least the GPL-licensed stuff.

I think it's somewhat analogous to video game consoles. If all you want to do is play games, you don't need both a Wii and an XBox. But if you want to play certain exclusive games that only come out on one or the other, then you need both.

On the other hand, I don't have 16GB of RAM because with 4GB of RAM I almost never hit swap space. Hell, my netbook has 2GB of RAM, and I still hit swap space very infrequently. (And I run KDE! No lightweight WM trickery here.)

I've been wondering for a while now what it is people do that they need so much RAM. And don't say gaming. I play loads of games on my 4GB box.

I read faster than I can watch a video interview, and the same goes for most of the people I know.

I thought that was an urban legend. Didn't someone or other debunk the whole "qwerty was invented to slow typists down" thing?

Because your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, then they're no friends of mine.