+1 for Gandi. I've been using them for over a decade, and have no plans to leave. They cost more than the dirt cheap registrars, but they're worth it, for all the reasons that heypete mentioned.

They recently adopted a motto that sums them up rather well: No bullshit.

Seconded. Mine is labeled "MODELL MX 5000", and others are called the ErgoPlus, but they're all basically the same keyboard. I didn't realize what a high quality device it was when I bought my first one. I've now been coding and gaming on it for well over a decade, and it still works beautifully. Even the flexible plastic parts show no sign of damage.

The split angle is completely adjustable, from very wide to no split at all, so it will fit just about any shoulder width and can be temporarily collapsed for guests.

It has Cherry brown switches. I can feel when they engage, but they don't click, so typing noise comes mainly from the key caps bottoming out.

The numeric keypad is detached (and can be unplugged) from the main unit. This is great for right-handed gamers, because it can be moved to the left side of the keyboard and the mouse can be brought in closer.

I originally bought the Cherry 5000 because it was the most comfortable model in the ergo shop at a reasonable price. After a year of using it and a touchpad, my RSI issues were greatly reduced and I was able to go back to using a mouse. After a couple more years, my RSI issues were gone.

It's a real shame they discontinued this model, and not at all surprising that they sell for $500-1000 on ebay. I'd probably pay that much if mine disappeared. It's the only keyboard I've ever liked, and I expect it to last a very long time.

Here's the list. Seventy-three pages worth.
http://store.steampowered.com/...

I don't trust my data with any cloud storage company, because none of them can be trusted.

Most of my data gets backed up to encrypted disks that can be stored off-site.

Data that I need to access remotely, like my phone's calendar and contacts, live on my home server. It runs only the software that it needs, sits behind a firewall, and is updated with security patches regularly. It has a much smaller attack surface than any cloud storage company's data center, and is a much less interesting/valuable target for attackers.

Of course, running a personal server has long been the domain of people who have lots of computer admin knowledge, but that is starting to change. Projects like ownCloud, arkOS, and FreedomBox are working toward making it easy. Low-power server hardware is getting dirt cheap. It might not be long before anyone capable of using a smartphone or game console can set up their own file / calendar / contacts / mail / whatever server for under $100 (including storage).

I doubt it. The situation was the same before the lawsuits and regulatory pressure.

Sure.

Another option is to get a mouse with a thumb button and map it to middle-click. I did that with my old Logitech, and would probably have done the same with an Anker CG100 if I didn't want an MMO gaming mouse like the G600.

It's really absurd, isn't it? Logitech could win the favor of linux users if they offered something even as rudimentary as a command line programming tool or a protocol spec.

I would have bought a mouse from a company that supports linux, but since I really wanted all those extra buttons, my options were severely limited. The G600 was the least bad option.

In case you decide to buy it, here's the ~/.Xmodmap file I use to swap the middle and right buttons:

pointer = 1 3 2 4 5 6 7 8 9
keycode 78 = Multi_key

(That second line is unrelated; it lets me use Scroll Lock as my compose key.)

The Logitech G600 is pretty decent if you can get used to the larger size and all the buttons on the side. Stupidly, it forbids you from programming the middle button to middle click and right button to right click. You can program the middle button to right click and right button to middle click, though, and then swap the two with xmodmap if you're using linux. You might also want to program the resolution down much lower than the default for linux use. Of course, since it's from Logitech, you'll need Windows or MacOS to program it.

None of the new episodes did much for me while I was watching them, and I can hardly remember anything about them now. J.J. Abrams might make the next one more fun, at least, but I recently learned something about Episode 8 that makes me care about the series for the first time in ages: Rian Johnson is doing it. His most recent work was a mainstream movie called Looper, which was fine, but the two he did before that were astonishingly good. (It would be fair to say that story and writing matter to me more than effects.) I'm not sure whether to be worried that he'll mute his talents in pursuit of mainstream money, or excited that he'll make Star Wars interesting again. Either way, I'm looking forward to finding out.

I was given a Mac laptop at my last startup. I used it instead of buying new hardware because it helped keep our costs down. I ran (xubuntu) linux on it because all of my OS-specific development targeted linux, because most of the software that works well for me is developed primarily for linux, and because the open nature of linux makes admin, troubleshooting, and customization far easier for me than on any proprietary OS. Linux was therefore the only sensible choice.

My CEO sometimes asked why I didn't keep OSX and just run linux in a VM. He seemed surprised that anyone would willingly discard the Mac environment and Mac applications and beautiful Mac perfection that comes with a Mac. (He was a bit of an Apple fanatic.) I explained that since I don't need anything that OSX has to offer, using it as a host for my real OS would just waste resources, complicate timing issues (which were important in my work), potentially add security vulnerabilities, and increase admin overhead (like having to reboot for OSX updates). In other words, all loss, no gain.

The user experience has something to do with it as well. I was a Mac lover for a while long ago, and although I'm happy that MacOS is finally built on a real operating system and wraps it in a package that many people find intuitive, it isn't intuitive to me, and it comes with a lot of restrictions and design choices that get in my way and frustrate me. That's part of why I run linux even when work doesn't demand it.

I'd like to see an init system like this:

- Starts services on demand based on dependencies, not based on order (like sysvinit) or based on events (like upstart).
- Has a minimal core that can easily run on its own, just to do the job of a standard init system.
- Is easy to learn, configure, and understand.
- Has good documentation.
- Does not encourage application software to require it.
- Does not encourage other system services to require it.
- Works well on linux and non-linux unixes.
- Can be replaced without causing such an upheaval that OS distribution teams are scared to switch again if something objectively better comes along.
- Causes a lot fewer problems than the stuff that I've seen from systemd's author.
- Is maintained by people with the humility, competence, and care required to make it work well for the vast majority of users.

Systemd pushers often claim that it is the way forward because it addresses that first piont. They conveniently avoid recognizing that it fails on most of them. No thanks. I'd rather keep using sysvinit or upstart until something better comes along.

Wow. Thanks. Your post is a pretty good example of the behavior I was describing.

I don't understand the people who are pushing systemd so hard despite significant resistance in the community. Reasons for disliking it vary, but don't really matter, because its adoption will force a *lot* of people who don't want it to either suffer through it or suffer through migration to another OS/distro. That is reason enough not to adopt it. Trying to discredit people's reasons for disliking it is presumptuous, pointless, and rather stupid.

I don't trust Steam, so I run it in an unprivileged linux container. This way, it can't do too much damage and can't spy on my system so easily.

Setting up LXC in such a way that games still work is not trivial, but also not terribly difficult if you know your way around the OS and are willing to do some reading and learning. Here are some tips to get you started.

Clarification: I do not meant to imply that IMightB is trying to discredit people's reasons.