The story in the news was particularly "funny".

It starts with "and then the slope collapsed without any warning".

Later it stated that "scientists warned of the risk in a report 15 years ago".

So how is that "without any warning"?

And I hate it when they say "scientists". They don't say "celebrities", "politicians", "football players" - no, they use names. But scientists always remain nameless. Scientists are not amorphous magicians, they are people like you and me.

And that is exactly the reason for not upgrading: it is not possible. Upgrading means throwing away a perfectly fine machine, and that is just not on.

Of course this is a culture clash. A Windows 98 computer can be attacked by a virus, and turned into a virus / spam distribution machine or worse.

To get a car analogy: that is pretty much a were-car. In an engineering world that would just not be imaginable, because physical safety is actually taken seriously. But for some reasons computer scientists keep telling us that "software has bugs, get used to it".

Cars just have bugs, sometimes they will try to run you over, get used to it. Yeah, right.

> Just don't run as an administrator!
> Also don't run IE or OE.
> Don't use Flash, Adobe Reader or Java.

Well, in that case you could just switch to Linux? IE6 is one of the main reasons why XP is still so popular. Many old web applications were targetting IE5.5 or earlier, and IE6 is the last version with a good compatibility mode.

The only other important reason is hardware. If it is just the PC, the scales have tipped now: a new basic PC is cheaper than another year of support for XP.

But there is also specialist hardware, from ATMs to raster electron microscopes, that need XP for the hardware interface. These are the use cases were locking down XP may actually be an option.

That is my experience, too. The step from 230dpi to 300dpi is clearly visible. The step to 350dpi is marginal if visible at all. So 300dpi is my limit. More may still be nice, but it is hardly worth it.

Now I am just waiting for a decent monitor with 300dpi. Even 4k does not reach that.

I second that. Initially Skype did not have a telephone bridge, but now you can call worldwide (from and to) for decent prices - even free for freephone numbers. Google Voice on the other hand is getting more and more difficult to use, and the new hangout is another huge step back (trying to find an SMS is quite a challenge). I wish Google would sometimes focus on the customer experience...

This. The world has changed, OLPC no longer has a credible goal in hardware. Netbooks have come and gone, and that is the end of that.

Now educational software, that is a demand that still has to be met in any serious way.

You call it style, but it also be the fact that the UK is quite tall, but the TV screen is very wide. Unless we want to turn the TV around (or the map), that is going to be a problem any which way you look at it.

That's not what the EU actually said. The answer was that Scotland has to join the queue and go through the regular process. It cannot jump the queue because it already was a member state due to being part of the UK. (And that is really a technicality, but maybe it is also intentionally: they have to prove themselves first.)

Indeed. Look at a good university library: team working spaces, PC terminals, on demand printing, quiet reading areas, cafes, PC clinics... the books are still there, but they are usually in the basement.

In a school this may not all be possible. But books are no longer the key of a library, and it needs to offer more variety.

Well, there seems to be one party that always starts a war when they are lost for what to do (and it works, they get reelected!), while the other party is desperately trying to pull out of those wars without leaving a failed state or total anarchy behind. So yes, use your brain and vote, man! There is a choice.

Indeed. I would happily order some items on my phone, especially if I know the retailer and do not have to make massive comparisons.

However, I yet have to find a site where it actually works.

And what if I don't like the whole genre? I am not saying that growing up is easy, but hundreds of pages of pointless self pity are not going to help, are they?

Tenure pays the bills, integrity doesn't. At least in the current climate, but I would guess this has always been the case.

If you put it like this, it sounds like the liars have already won. Have they?

Indeed. You can call it a different set of assumptions, but it certainly does not come to any conclusions. It explains nothing, it predicts nothing, it is not falsifiable. It may be a model, not science. Good case study though into how gullible people can be without scientific training... (and sometimes even with).