Oh please coming from a long time linux and freebsd user.

The costs to fly consultants to fix broken IE specific sites like SAP, java applets that look for XP and crap out on other platforms, wine bugs, lack of AD support for lockdowns, and help desk Temps to sort through the angry users, documents created with Libre office looking funny to potential clients with Office, are pure madness to consider! Don't give me the garbage about how users were supposed to save as .docx with no macros. Many are drooling idiots who will want to reprimand your ass for ca using this etc. Wine config? Yeah good luck with a 1,000 users including HR who have a weird java applet where people don't get paid if an error arises ;-)

I am not saying this as a troll. Linux has it's uses for specialized servers.

But if people wanted to be freed they would have last decade. Windows is reliable now since NT came and gets shit done

Why bother then? Easier to just use what came with computer which is Windows.

Mate is a fork for the now obsolete gnome 2 4 years ago. I left linux 4 years ago because of nonsense like 5 his realizing gnome 3 made it game over.

Why would someone want to be free of Microsoft? It just works and is stable now. It ain't 1998 anymore where you could make a case since Windows now has an NT kernel

What you describe is skuemorphic design which objects mimic real world objects which is the old way of doing things.

Look at the candy buttons and leather in the address bar to see why the art professors decided not to go this route anymore.

With flat the design possibilities are endless as you can make the gui in a way you want and the user can focus on content-consumption and work. Not glass and depicting what a tiny pic of something like a skuemorphic button means. Think of Stop signs? They are simple colors and text.

I am not saying I agree with this. Just reprinting what I read on art blogs. FYI it was Google that started this. Not Microsoft. The search is soo basic but is powerful underneath

Once again it shows only leader like Rand Paul have our interests at heart.

IE 6 only uses 32 megs of ram top. You know just saying

Here's the trick: You and I know this, but the average schlub out there does not.

That distinction is kinda vital, and it's what I think GP was driving at.

True, though it sadly proves P.T. Barnum's maxim, and says more about a gullible public, the lack of peer review in the field of nutrition (and worse, the sheer incompetence of so-called 'nutrition journalists' and 'specialists'), than it does about a science journal's shady/sloppy practices.

Long story short, it exposes a hell of a lot more than just what the scientist initially wanted exposed.

Maybe someone could do and publish a sociology study from it?
(/me ducks and runs like hell...)

...albeit this has already happened on a smaller scale before. All you need to do is ask anyone who owns or has owned an RV or Camping trailer.

I dealt with it myself when I had an RV: a bank of huge batteries, an inverter, and a generator. In Tesla's instance, you replace "generator" with "local power grid", but otherwise it's the same routine: Your lights and similar are low-voltage (just like most RVs), but you use an inverter for any general consumer item (TV, computer/laptop, hair dryer, whatever).

I think the only diff would be in the appliances... most RV appliances (e.g. the refrigerator, furnace blower, AC units) are made to run off of 12v DC, but most RV appliances are pretty small when compared to their house-made counterparts.

Maybe ask folks who do the hardcore solar/wind thing?

I agree with your post mostly, but what exactly constitutes a "power user"?

Yeah, I root my phone, parked Cyanogen on it, and spent time modding my UI to fit my needs and tastes, but I consider myself to be someone who tinkers with the thing (as part of an old sysadmin's habit), and not a 'power user'. I fully understand what goes on with the OS, and have tinkered with mobile OSes before even Familiar Linux came out, and even wrote (okay, adapted) a quickie printer driver once, long, long ago... but I'm not a 'power user'.

IMO (and little more), I've always considered a 'power user' to be someone who has an above-average grasp of the item (phone, application, etc), and has very successfully integrated it into their life's workflow, and in turn the item has boosted their productivity, entertainment, etc. in very apparent ways. However, on a technical level such folks only know enough at best to be *very* dangerous - they can follow directions on a website to root their phone w/o blowing it up, but they don't understand *how* it works.

Dunno... what do you think? I just seem slightly fuzzed when it comes to assuming what a 'power user' actually is in the mobile realm.

Thing is, this works both ways. I've puttered around with my wife's iPhone, and iPad, etc. (it's the same UI/OS/etc).

But... I'll stick with Android. Mind you, my primary personal machine is a MacBook Pro, and will continue to be so. My house is blissfully windows-free. However, for my sense of needs and ease-of-use? I don't need/want iTunes to manage or transfer my music. I want an obscene amount of storage plus the ability to expand it as desired, and don't want to pay arm+leg to get that storage (a 64GB SD chip is way cheaper than a 64GB phone). I don't want to pay $800+ for an unlocked phone with a really big screen on it. I want to mod the actual user interface and look/feel to make the phone work the way *I* want to use it

- but yeah - that's my sense of needs and ease of use. It's different from yours, and others will have theirs different from ours. This is why I really don't see it as much of a threat, really. Folks will bounce around back and forth, there will be churn, and unless a better challenger arises***, Apple and Google will happily occupy their dominant roles and cash their checks.

*** mind you, this does not mean Microsoft or Blackberry for the foreseeable future.

...and then there's those of us who never switched, and have no intention to.

My house is almost an Apple Store in miniature now - my MBP, my wife's iPad, her iPhone... but then there's my Android phone. I even have a new phone on the way via FedEx (I always buy unlocked), and it runs Android. But then, I prefer to have root on every device I own, even my phone. Keeps the bloatware to a minimum.

As for TFA, meh... if Android wasn't there, something else would be there instead (anyone else remember Palm?)

On the plus side, Android and iOS have chastened Microsoft hard enough that they're forced to play nice now... which IMHO is pretty awesome.

...prolly why TFA only mentioned Amtrak employees ;)

But yes, I understand your point as well.

Question... was it an actual cut in current baseline funding, or a "cut" insofar as "we wanted $10 zillion extra for next year's budget, but those bastards in Congress only want to give us $9 zillion extra!" ?

If it's the former, I'd love to see proof. If it's the latter, then kindly take that partisan sound-bite-mimicking bullshit elsewhere.

Brings up a fun question... do Amtrak trains carry something similar to an aircraft in-flight recorder?