> So what's wrong with that?

Nothing is wrong with that, but I am intelligent enough to see that you don't invalidate one shred of the original comment you reply to. What you write is orthogonal, meaning it's something unrelated, it neither supports nor invalidates the prior statement. :-)

I used RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu. Ubuntu was my desktop for a long time, but slowly Microsoft and Ubuntu working together changed that. First Microsoft got better, and it supports the latest hardware and - so I heard - power management is better, important for my new notebook. At the same time Ubuntu changed to desktop to something I have no love and no use for.

I did kernel hacking (network code - NAT and firewall, kernel 2.2), Linux was my main system since 1995, I worked for one of the major Linux companies (on two continents) and my server stuff still is solidly Linux. However, on the desktops Windows (7 and 8) has replaced it.

Reason: Good enough and hardware.

I have a new (Derll XPS 13) "ultrabook" with a touch screen (yes it's "shiny" and I hate that, but *I want touch*) and SSD drive. Contrary to what I feared when everyone complained about Windows 8 the only real difference I had even before the latest big patch was that "app" start screen. It was very easy to work on the desktop anyway (without installing anything), and all I added in addition to Chrome and Firefox was git (which includes a bash - hurra!!!) and a good console app (ConEmu). Look guys, I only installed a handful of key pieces of software and I can use my Windows 8 without getting used to any "Windows-isms" like Powershell (powerful it may be but I remain a Unix person). I feel ZERO pain using Windows 8 as my desktop, even though I use the console a lot and MongoDB and node.js and vi. The hardware requires that I run Windows 8 (don't tell me "but there's a driver for xyz", that may be but I don't want to beta-test software I rely on every day. I frankly don't care too much about the OS as long as stuff works the way I'm used to. bash, git, vi, a tiny virtual screen manager software for Windows - and I get perfect support for this up-to-date Ultrabook.

So Windows 8 is good enough for me to continue without changing my (Linux) habits, and it has the superior hardware support. Sorry, Ubuntu. Oh, and on the server I installed Debian, for commercial projects I take whatever they have decided on.

I have Ubuntu in a VMware VM on my desktop, but my Ultrabook with only 256GB SSD has no room for two OS installations, which is why I tried the above workarounds in the first place and I've been pleased far beyond my expectations after having read all those horror stories about Win 8. I find myself starting the Ubuntu VM less and less, since everything works so well.

You misunderstand this move. This isn't about the money. A drop in the bucket, utter symbolism.

This is just one small story in many decades of more and more changes to the lender-debtor relationship. In economics I learned that one of the most important reasons for US capitalism's success was that, unlike in other parts of the world until that time where debtor prison and other nasty things awaited anyone who didn't, most often couldn't pay their debts in the US you'd be freed from your debt and then could start over and try again. The invention of the corporation (16th century) was when that movement started that debts are not eternal and that one should be able to try again. It still is true for corporations, but for individuals the noose has been tightening more and more not just in the US. There have been (economic) articles about a growing disparity between economic teaching and reality in the area of lendor-debtor relationship and power for a long time. The power has slowly shifted ever more towards the lender. This story is just one tiny brick in a big wall that was started being built decades ago.

I didn't claim that there IS no word - after all, there's a word for everything - only that I didn't know. I don't think it matters much that/if there is a word when few people know it. Even with your Wikipedia link, I most certainly have never ever heard the word "Randsteinbeißen" in my life. Worse: I am not even aware that "Randstein" is a word. For me that's supposed to be "Bordstein". Conceptually "Randstein" makes sense ("egde stone", for the English speakers), but I've never heard it before.

> interestingly, the German Wikipedia seems to be the only one that has an article on this.

I think this should tell us something ;-)

I know what it means but I can't even think of a German word equivalent. I would have to resort to describing its meaning in German using at least one long sentence.

It is actually pretty well known that the entire Eastern Ukraine is very much more Russian. If you want to argue that the Russians didn't *always* live there, we can continue this discussion with some American Indians if you like.

http://oi40.tinypic.com/tz581....

I'm not sure why you care if *Microsoft* uses (La)Tex. This is a choice for the *customers*, and given that (La)Tex has always been easily and freely available for everyone I'm not sure what mindset you have to blame Microsoft. Because you don't dare insult *everyone* at once (the overwhelming customer majority), because then everyone reading your comment would have seen the lack of thinking that went into it? So you instead gained some "Insightful" votes from equally zealous MS haters, congrats, well done (from your POV).

Nice sample of one proof you've got there, AC.

If the security is so good that they need Apple to unlock it then they can easily prove that it's their mom's device because the active account on the device is her mom.

No idea who modded you "insightful" - no disrespect to you, I make 1000 silly mistakes a day, but looking at other people's texts/comments is always easier than judging your own words so I DO have some doubts about those who moderated this comment up. Unless someone can point out an error in my argument, but I think it's pretty obvious (well, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have said it, wouldn't I).

Who is a loser? It's not always so obvious. Short term winner may be longer term looser may be looonger term winner. Short term winner may cause others (1..n) become short term and/or long term losers. As so often, nice catchy phrase - and utterly useless. It does not spare you from looking at the individual complex case. This only becomes "simple" when you suppress most of reality. Example: You say the guy who makes the most $$$ is a winner - but he may for his/her entire life lack all the things that are associated with that state. Is a lack of empathy winning or losing, and/or an overblown sense of entitlement ("I did this all by myself" - like the pharao building the pyramids, right?), in this context? Depends on the point of view, but the more of the world you include in your view the harder it becomes to see clearly using simple term such as winning/losing.

> despite his claims

*He* does not make that claim (not in that video/interview, and nothing else from him has been referenced here). You responded to some random Slashdot commenter.

I'm curious, why do you think you can attribute what some random person says about some 3rd person (not present or involved or even aware of the discussion) to that person?

...how you can make such judgment calls for companies you don't even know the name of, all you know is "startup". I'd like to have that crystal ball of yours. Personally, because I don't have such insights, I'm left to trusting that people closer to the action, actually working for those businesses know what they are doing - at least better than me who doesn't even know which business we are talking about.

...because most of them are filmed freehand using totally unsuitable optics of a smartphone. So even when they get that resolution it will just be shaky fuzzy images.

Do you have any numbers about "political" prisoners? It doesn't sounds like you actually *know* anything, except for some media headlines? Knowing Russia just a little (yes I also speak some Russian and have been there a few times, and in the Ukraine) I doubt there's any significant political movement behind bars. You have a WISISTI (What I See Is What There Is) perception - of course your news media don't report on "normal" cases in Russian, all they ever do (understandable and that's okay) is report a few very high profile (well, only that reporting makes them so) cases. Pussy? Khodorkovsky? Anyone else? Not to mention that Khodorkovsky never deserved all that attention.

And don't think I want to defend Russia, it's a cold, hard country (in so more than just nature), but come up with intelligent criticism and not just some random opinion based on very little, no, more like no knowledge except a small number of headlines. Because it is such a f...-up tough country with severe poverty you can expect there to be crime, quite a bit of crime, with all those I-have-nothing-to-loose people. Better criticism would be the wealth distribution that contributes to crime. There isn't a big political movement to imprison ASAIK.

Fourth, use common sense.

Don't even try to come up with extreme cases where something else obviously does make more sense then these text formats. Because also obviously there is no one-size-fits-all. So if you think you have a problem that is better solved using some other format, binary, whatever, just DO it and don't try to use your particular example as "counter point" why everything else is wrong.