Here you go...

http://www.dmp.com.tw/tech/os-xlinux/

Our country puts money over everything else, and like the sick disgusting zombies that follow money, we look at each other and wonder why we're all so hungry for brains.

Maybe I need to get some sleep: that sentence makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Yes, I have a problem with that. The two "ideologies" should not be taught side-by-side.

Evolution is a scientific theory (and if you don't know the difference between a "theory" and a "hypothesis" PLEASE look it up). Creationism is a statement of religious belief that fails to meet the requirements of a scientific hypothesis (notably, testability), and therefore does not belong in a science class.

There is nothing wrong with your belief that God played a role in shaping the origin of humans. It's just that it is a religious belief. Many, many Christians (including many scientists and the Catholic Church) have no problem reconciling Christianity with evolution. Religious beliefs belong in churches. Scientific theories belong in science classes.

I'm 42...

Spent first 5 years out of college doing air pollution research with the EPA (physics degree).

Decided I didn't want to do that anymore, rebooted my career with a switch to IT. Spent a year and a half building my credentials doing tech support.

Moved to a university research institute doing support and networking. THAT job is the one I still have (13+ years).

The trick is that my position kept growing. Now it's all sysadmin and infrastructure development -- i.e.: cool projects.

If it gets dull, stops evolving in ways I like, etc., then I'll move on to job number 4.

The retraining needed for moving to the current version of OpenOffice is no greater than moving to a new version MS Office from an older one except for the transition away from Access.

My wife and daughter have MacBooks. I have an HP Desktop running Ubuntu Linux. It was a matter of price and the ability to upgrade the hardware (this coming from someone whose machine slowly evolved from IBM AT to 486). I do like the Macs (and think they are well worth the price due to the quality of OS X and the bundled apps). However, I like the power of Linux (OK... and the pretty eye candy...) better.

Also, many people have old PC's and new Macs. They didn't throw out the old PC and still use it for their kids' games or the like. My mom has an old PC that just collects dust in the basement, but they still own it.

Actually, a fiat currency IS a type of planned economy. With a fiat currency the government can manipulate the value of its currency. In many, many cases said government finally gets too greedy and manipulates the currency to the point that no one trusts it and the value plummets towards zero. In any case, though, controlling the nominal value of the currency is a tool governments with fiat currencies use to manipulate (i.e.: plan) their economy.

I think fiat currencies are inherently risky due to the high probability of government overreach, but I disagree with your comment that all fiat currencies are doomed to fail. The only failed fiat currencies that can be mentioned in history books are those that have failed. Ones that haven't failed still exist, so their failure is not recorded. You therefore cannot invoke history to claim that all fiat currencies fail as long as there are fiat currencies still in existence that have been viable for long time periods. (This is not to say they won't fail, only the the "history shows" argument is fallacious).

Finally, saying that "all systems of humanity eventually fail" suffers from the same sort of problems. I can point to many human systems that have existed for millennia and continue to work for us (think agriculture, trade, language, writing... none have passed away and few seem destined to do so in the foreseeable future).

For me in NC it's now Japanese Stiltgrass that's the big problem:

http://www.nps.gov/plants/ALIEN/fact/mivi1.htm

The deer don't eat it, so they've moved into suburbia and wrecked everyone's yard (and the occasional car). However, the deer do walk through it and spread the seeds. If you mow it, it flowers earlier and seeds. If you pull it, the disturbed ground gives the seeds an advantage. And the seeds? They can germinate up to five years after they're produced. About the only solution is to spray. Often. :-(

When I was a kid the woodland floor was brown. Now broad areas are green.

It's all GM...

For decades companies would use radiation to induce random mutation, then search for offspring that had desirable properties. That's not labeled GM, but it IS "genetically modified".

Is having plants full of random mutations of unknown sort really better than plants with carefully controlled modifications? Your already getting the former at every meal.

The information over at Ubuntu says it's only in Koala during the development phase for testing parts of the Ubuntu custom search UI.

There does not seem to be any intention of deploying data mining extensions in any release. It would be nice if there was a little more warning in the dev version, but this doesn't seem malicious. Just a tool to help the developers optimize the custom search UI -- which in turn would generate additional revenue for Ubuntu because more people will choose to use it if it is very well done.

Hmm... you have some good criticism there (which just goes to show that Linux does have good sources of criticism).

I disagree with the bloat issue. It's gotten bigger, yes, but...

I just retired a Dell Optiplex as my primary work machine. I was running the Jaunty Jackalope alpha on it, including all that eye candy you mention. Now it's my Windows XP test machine. The performance is WAY down, especially video. I can't imagine just how bad Vista would be on it.

So, yes, Linux is getting a bit of bloat, but it still (in my personal experience) has less bloat than the aged XP.

On the subject of a help interface... well, on that one you're right on the spot. I use man pages (which, REALLY, isn't it time we stop expecting average users to need them?) or go Google. The help system is improving, but it still isn't anything I turn to when I need information.

I think the biggest concern is that a large number of middle school kids watch the show and are QUITE likely to try to replicate what they see.

I know some of my experiments at that age were... less than successful.

All things considered... $80 is not a bad price.

The kits are for people that are interested in getting started with microcontroller-based projects. Do you remember just how hard it can be to figure out where to start?

Well-documented projects, all the components you need, support -- for $80 that sounds like a steal!

Yes, you can get the parts much cheaper, but this isn't about buying the parts.

If you really do want something a little cheaper you can get started with an Arduino board and browse the various guides (disclaimer: I wrote one there) on getting started. However, you are still going to spend $50 including a decent breadboard, components, etc.

For an all-inclusive getting started kit, $80 seems very reasonable to me.

Wine's nice, but it's still not quite there for me (and I'm posting from one of my Ubuntu boxes).

iTunes. 3d-accelerated games. Wine doesn't quite cut it in every case, so I still end up using a bit of Windows...

Not Vista, of course...

I'll bite...

Did you know that some REALLY old school DOS apps bypassed the OS and wrote files straight to the hard drive? That's the kind of behavior the GP is alluding to. I've seen it first hand... dang, have I been dealing with computers that long. How old am I? Oh...

That's one example, but there are PLENTY of really old DOS apps that want direct hardware access -- and plenty of companies still using some of them.

I don't mean to sound down on DOSbox, I'm just answering your question: the answer is that it won't always do the job.