His first language is probably Wierdo.

Demonizing MS because they are a for-profit company is ridiculous and stupid beyond belief.

Only because there are so many/much more demonic activities they have indulged in.

Indeed so, my good friend: this is the hard evidence that, when quality matters, an Open Source (BSD) version is infinitely preferable to a closed source version - even to Microsoft.

Yes sirree! The real message here is MS know damn well they cant deliver code of the same quality as BSD code.

You have omitted to mention that pretty much all software was open source till Gates came along: When you got an OS (or compiler), you got the source code - and had to patch it, possibly daily. If you invented the patches yourself, you normally shared them via the user group.

It was not (necessarily) "Free as in Beer" - you might pay very big bucks for the OS, but the code was open. (EG RSX11, BSD, Ultrix, George 2, 3, 4, OS9).

Well given that most of us end up with the cable modem next to the TV,

WTF?

In many countries, there is no such thing as cable. In others cable is limited to a few blocks of a few cities. America is not the whole world.

Meanwhile, my Chromecast has become useless. Not sure whether it is sabotage by Samsung or blunders by Google, or maybe ineptly implemented copyright protection: I can use the (Samsung) phone to point the Chromecast at Youtube, but as soon as I actually try to watch a video, connection is lost!

It was not like that a few months ago (we loaned the Chromecas to a neighbour for a few months).

I dont watch much on TV, cos it is much easier to use a desktop computer anyway, and I never watch American films, but occasionally it is a family activity. These days far less frequently as the providers seem not to understand that viewers get bored of strugging to view crap.

If you go a day without Slashdot, it probably means your life stopped sucking for a day.

Don't worry ... be happy!

If you are complaining the Osbourne was too light, you need to stop taking steroids - NOW! (it might improve your temper too).

give them each a kick in the nuts

This. a thousand times this!

Surely any browser would render content much faster than a dial-up connection can transfer data?

Never underestimate the power of bloat!

even the basic UI of a car does not change (clutch, brakes, gas, steering wheel, gear stick).

Only becase of state intervention. Before that, every new model had the pedals and handbrake in different places, sometimes to work around a competitor's patents.

I believe Ford had a patent on having all the switches on a single stalk on the steering column with the Mk1 Cortina (about 1962), so everyone else had to have two stalks, and then switch them around so you can squirt yourself in the face with the screen washer when you want the turn indicator in you partner's car, or go for the horn in an emergency.

Its not only computer UI designers that are a manace to society. The world has been subjected to this nightmare for quite some time.

The MS ribbon what what made my 80 year old mum switch to a Mac.

OK, how about "We suck less, but not a lot?" - I am all for truth in advertising.

I have emailed a whole bunch of TV dinner manufacturers explaing that if someone is going to eat the dinner, they first need to read the instructions, and if you print them in 75DPI resolution using 6 point type, in white on yellow, then this is unlikely to happen. Given that there is masses of space around the instructions, it would be easy to enlarge the print, and a change of colour might improve the contrast from 7/4 against.

Some of them reply politely.

I think you misunderstand - for most people, static content is far preferable. We dont want anything that moves unless we click on it, and probably not even then!

Me too.

Lately I keep having a popup saying "this site contains flash and your add-on needs an update because the version you have is insecure" but the update mechanism does not actually work (Iceweasel, Debian).

This has the fortunate side effect of making the site load faster, and much easier to to navigate, because it does not keep refreshing! (The worst offender is "The Independent" which I often had to abandon reading because of constant redraws - why the hell do people build these unuseable websites?)

So, in summary: "you might want to sell those Samsung shares".

Yes, I am still using my SGS3, and the SGS6 is definitely not more attractive to me (no external SD, No removable battery = no use. With CyanogenMod = no bloatware).