Because that toaster doesn't provide real support and next-day RMA service. You might work in a small shop, but for people who run multiple datacenters, 100s or 1000s of network devices, and whose jobs rely on uptime this is a no-brainer. I'll take the appliance with the service guarantee, replacements, and track record over a few Dells with *nix running on them.

I can see why you posted AC. You're out of your depth. Cisco may churn out some real crapware ancillary platforms sometimes, but when it comes to core routing and switching on the big chassis, they're pretty damned reliable.

No, it's unusable because it doesn't support my wireless on my Dell laptop at all. My choices are crap NDIS wrappers or the reverse engineered Broadcom drivers, both of which drop the connection at least twice a minute which makes doing any actual network transfer nigh impossible.

It's unusable because the goddamn thing can't remember the way I arranged my panel from one boot to another without moving shit all over the place regardless of whether I lock it or not.

It's unusable because the power management sleep mode still drains my laptop battery in roughly an hour despite this working PERFECTLY two releases ago.

It's unusable because every single time I upgrade something new breaks. I am running software entirely from the main repository, and it still breaks.

It's unusable because when you file a bug people either post "ME TOO LOL" or shit on you for being "A STPID NOOB".

It's unusable because the developer teams care more about moving buttons around on title bars and making everything purple and orange than keeping the UI consistent. Yeah, this is supposed to train us for whatever shit they want to put on the right side of the window in the next release. How does this help me now? Why the fuck are the buttons out of order?

It's unusable because hooking my laptop up to a projector should not involve me opening a terminal and dicking around with XRandR in the year 2010. Other systems have gotten this right for pretty much the last 6 years running.

I don't hate it. In fact, it's because I want it to work so badly that I get so damn mad about it. You can't act like the system is flawless though. It's just not true and you know it.

To be fair, being called an idiot instead of a reasonable reply is pretty much inherent to the entire IT community. We're an entire culture of people that have long since forgotten that our job is ultimately to provide a customer service. There is a prevaling attitude of 'works for me, you must suck' or 'program it yourself' instead of taking the moderate and service-oriented approach of actually listening, interpreting, and working collaboratively towards a solution in a manner that everyone can follow.

It's little wonder we are held in disdain by most.

Just out of curiosity, what is the timeframe for American trust levels after the shit we pulled in the early 21st century?

See how that works?

Agreed. Where would we be without those hot chicks doing Yoga on public access TV? I fucking LOVE public access.

I see that you have no problem throwing around gross generalizations, so I will toss a few of my own.

If any American corporation is doing something you don't like in your country, it is YOUR government's fault for allowing it, and ultimately YOURS for letting them stay in power.

"But wait!" you cry, as the sad realization of your own impotence in the face of a corrupt system that you cannot overthrow and fix no matter how much you might swear and yell and scream. This system allowed it to happen. You are the victim. Right?

See how that works?

Yeah, it's the same shit for us too. Life sucks all the way around, but don't act like you can sit there in your ivory tower and preach about the ills of the world. We are all to blame equally for the mess we are in.

I just wish that getting the themes to look like "not shit" didn't require so much custom CSS editing. Something as simple as redoing the colors can be a real pain, which seems counter-intuitive when you consider how amazingly awesome the engine itself actually is.

Still, I just tarball the files I edited by hand, and diff them after each upgrade. It's the only way I have found to keep any customization intact.

I like the list you posted about the top 10, but honestly... the biggest point that should be Number One all the way around is built-in image support. Embedding images into a post should NEVER require multiple modules. That should have been integrated from the start... I love the ease of working with my drupal website when I want to add a page or three, but I had to scratch my head in disbelief when I realized that image embedding wasn't included.

Despite everything though, I love the engine and how well it holds up. Custom content is a breeze. Here's hoping for version 7 to pull out the stops!

Your views are horrifically myopic. I know the view from the ivory tower of academia looks damned rosy, but the world is far more gray than you can perceive from those heights. It's a world of beauty and grace with amazing acts of heroism and selflessness, and it's an ugly place where people tear each other apart for trivial reasons.

I would highly encourage you to leave the US and see the world a little. Countries like South Korea that have conscription have lower crime rates and less violence despite the crowding. There is a reason for this. Everyone served time in the military. Not only does time in the military give you an opportunity to see the world a different way, it prepares you for how to deal with problems should they arise, stay calm under pressure, and understand the ramifications of any violent action whether it be interpersonal or large-scale.

The very idea that you have done more good for society as a programmer than you would have doing a 2-year stretch in the armed forces is so laughable I am not entirely sure that you meant it that way. The military isn't just a bunch of people that can walk in a straight line with snappy uniformity. It's another side of life that would honestly benefit almost everyone. The US would certainly be in a better place right now if every member of the Legislature, the Supreme Court, and every President could not hold office without having served in the active military. Instead we have a bleating mass of insipid lawyers, businessmen, and academics playing "commander" with actual soldier's lives.

Instead of posting your lofty ideals, I would rather you just fucking say "Thank you" to everyone around you that served because you refused to. I realize that will never happen though.

So, on behalf of myself and every other military veteran in the US, you and your ilk are quite welcome for the security and lifestyle you enjoy. We did it for you even if you don't even understand what that means or appreciate it.

Consider my hand raised then?

My webserver and email servers both run -stable on the powerpc port.

Priests are an excellent demonstration of what they are talking about.

I have been playing a priest since the game was released back in '04.

Vanilla:
-- My priest was a Night Elf on the PVP server Laughing Skull. It was my main and only character for almost all of Vanilla. --

Priests were the undisputed champions of healing. Tank heals, raid heals, party healing were all easy and accessible to a priest with moderate skill and half-decent gear. Druids were great for topping off tanks and keeping HoTs stacked, but mostly they were brought along for Battle Res and Innervating the priests. Paladins were healing monsters for the few that knew how to play it, but they were best confined to tanks and offtanks.

Burning Crusade:
-- I rerolled my priest to Human just over halfway through BC and re-levelled it up to take advantage of the 15% Spirit boost from the human racial. Fear Ward was globally available by now. --

The introduction of shamans and buffing of healing paladins to obscene levels stole the crown from priests as the definitive healing class. Druids had always been decent enough in their own right for basic purposes, but Burning Crusade gave them Lifebloom, and that is all they needed to stack with Rejuvenation to heal pretty much anyone. To balance this growing disparity of priests being relegated to raid-healing (meaning non-tanks) only, they were given Circle of Healing. Circle of Healing turned out to be a phenomenal spell. By stacking tons of spellpower and Spirit, a priest could effectively spam CoH across a raid and dominate the meters and keep everyone alive. Tank healing was left to Druids and Pallies. Shamans did both tank and raid healing pretty darn well. By the advent of widescale Tier-5 and Tier-6, priests were second-rate healers. We were brought along for CoH spam, and skill was no longer required. A good priest still used the arsenal of heals available to them, but let's be honest here... You really could just smash CoH to get through SSC and TK if you wanted to. Zul'Aman was probably the only raid instance that still required priests to do more than spam

Wrath Of The Lich King:
-- My priest was levelled to 80, did a few raids, then I took a few months away from the game. I came back to it after 3 months or so and still play it. --

Wrath introduced not only the scourge of the entire game, Death Knights, it also gave all of the priest toys away to other classes while giving none of theirs back to us. Druids got a Circle of Healing-type spell that expanded on their already ridiculous HoTs. Pallies were rocking the healing with Beacon of Light and glyphs that provide a basic group heal component to Holy Light. Shamans have had the resto tree buffed pretty much non-stop since Wrath release. Priests got... well... nothing. Guardian Spirit is really neat, but a 51 point talent that has no direct healing effect other than an "Oh shit" button that lasts for 10 seconds every three minutes? No. This does not compare at all. Still, priests were effective healers for parties and raids. Circle of Healing now had a cooldown, but Prayer of Healing was putting out great numbers if you stacked regen to support it.

Then came the mana regeneration nerf. Priests relied on stacked Spirit for killer mana regeneration and even to boost healing output. Druids did to, but they had innervate to help offset the nerf. Pallies regenerate mana through their own tools and through crits. Shammies never used Spirit for much of anything anyways. Mail gear is heavy in mana per 5, and they have very effective water shields for boosting mana pools. Suddenly... my priest had less than half of the regeneration it had back at level 70. Yet my spell costs are double in some cases. Spirit became a joke. Mana issues plagued priests until the other casters helped us out with replenishment. Prayer of Healing became our staple raid healing spell. It could be alternated in a loose cycle with Circle of Healing while Prayer of Mending made the rounds. We were suddenly the bottom of the rung in healing. Meters aren't everything, but they sure are clear in this regard. Our numbers were bad.

Then came the Prayer of Healing nerf and the replenishment nerf with the last patch. I won't even elucidate on how unnecessary or damaging this was.

A priest can still rock the charts and be a valuable raid healer... but we have to work twice has hard as the other healing classes for it. My guild takes a priest on every raid for Fortitude and Divine Spirit. Our main healing team, which I used to lead, is now stocked with paladins and druids instead. I still put up some pretty decent numbers, but a druid or paladin with crap gear can field the same or better if they have even half a clue.

Blizzard has no idea what they are doing anymore with class balance. The recent priest Q&A was a case study in self-contradiction and half-truths.

In the meantime, my paladin is coming along nicely.

Not all of us are loons. I know this will come as a shock, but some of us are not Republicans, we don't watch Bill O'Reilly, and we were just as embarrassed about Bush Jr. as everyone else.

Besides, everything in your comment could be said about any state. Look in the news on any given day and see the lunacy, crime, and ridiculous things going on all over the country.

Or do you just want a punching bag and Texas is your current choice?

Sweeping generalizations and ignorant commentary only make you look just as bad as those you would condemn.

This also is the way I read it.

To paraphrase what ari_j said: The burden of professional response lies on the shoulders of those least qualified to respond professionally, because that is how the system is rigged and we should all go along with this or lose everything we have worked for to immoral lawyers.

Sorry, ari_j, I don't accept that, and it is just not right. Our legal system has gotten out of control and unfortunately, since it is controlled by the lawyers and judges who are part of the problem, this is not likely to ever change. We have a system that allows for the indiscriminate fleecing of regular citizens to the tune of millions for patent shell companies and industry representatives. You or I have little chance of fending off one of these attacks, and even if we succeed in court, we still fail when the bills have to be paid for the defense. It is beyond the scope of the average person to afford to fight.

So your solution to contending with the inherent issues within Open Source software is to be a thief?

Got it.

Tom Baker without a doubt.

Ecceleston was a good doctor if only because he had a similar sense of humor though. I really just don't care for Tennant at all. I'll be glad to get this new guy even if he does look a bit foppish.

I suspect there is something going on behind the scenes that keeps them from targeting the Mac. Perhaps a joint venture with Safari in the future, or something new that is a hybrid. Mac is a stable development platform, so there has to be something business-related going on.

Speaking of development platforms:
Which linux distribution should they target? Which packaging system should they use? Which compiler version should they compile against? Should they make it QT-based or GTK-based? Will GNOME crap on it for breaking their precious HIG? What about in 6 months when all of those things needlessly change and break?

No matter how you answer those questions, someone else in the linux community will tell you that you are WRONG. This more than any other reason is why I don't see it ever being ported by Google. Who would want to have to deal with the hassle of perpetual fragmentation and breakage?

Perhaps they are secretly laughing at us right now since the code is out there and no one is doing anything with it. Tin foil hats abound!