You are so right. The net used to be a mile wide and an inch deep. But there are now some pretty deep places.And a lot of shallow places. It seems to me that a lot of the early promise has been met and exceeded. I do miss SUCK.COM, though. It was good in the beginning. It sort of went corporate and died. Sad. Very very sad.

Sooner or later I am going to walk in somewhere and have to use Windows 8 to get something done. Sooner rather than later. Currently, there is no major OS that I could not be modestly productive on in a few minutes. However, the video rant gave me pause with respect to this new iteration of Windows. Also the video was actually instructive in a backassward sort of way. Note to self: Careful with the touchpad. Or disable the swipe feature. Use Windows key to see applications Etc...

So now I am going to take advantage of the price-of-a good-dinner introductory cost and put Windows 8 on an old Vista laptop I have in order to do a solid familiarization. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised. And ... Forewarned is forearmed. I might even RTFM. A little.

This appears to be a matter of self preservation because in my experience there seems to be some stuff that has a learning curve for dweeb types, but not for three-year olds. I remember the terrible experience I had with iTunes the first time I used this "easy-to-use" application. (And a lot of people do find it easy to use.) At the time (about four years ago) I had had an MP3 player of one sort or another (not Apple) since 1999 (Creative Nomad was my first). Someone gave me an iPod Shuffle she wasn't using. So, and for the very first time, I downloaded Apple's music utility onto my PC and attempted to use it to put mp3 files on the Shuffle in the straightforward way I was used to. All my other players worked like flash drives if I wanted. It took me far too many frustrating minutes (and a dash to the dreaded help files) to realize that Apple's resource was padding my experience and preventing me from using the equipment in the manner I wanted and which made sense. Nanny Apple: "First we make a playlist... etc". Sometimes resources are so dumbed down and bullet proofed that people who have a feeling for how computers work get limited, confounded and frustrated. Seems like this poor guy repeated my brief iTunes nightmare with Windows 8 -- on steroids. And since I have had similar experiences with easy-to-use stuff I better get familiar with 8 since it might not be a cake walk should I walk into it cold.

So, as I said, A reverse effect. Now, instead of being put off by the negative review, I heave a heavy sigh and download this thing. This because sooner or later I'll have to deal with Windows 8. Good, bad or indifferent. Feh!

However, give X0563511 some credit. He (she) has probably found himself or herself in the intellectual weeds of price elasticity and demand. It was expressed clumsily, but X0563511 has essentially forwarded the idea of an infinitely inelastic commodity (something so desirable that the demand pressure would not change no matter how high the price ascended.) Of course nothing is theoretically infinitely inelastic. Which is why price always matters. However, there are some things for which it matters far more than it does for others. And that (I think) is what X0563511 had in mind.

You wrote

If you need it, and the material is very scarce. Its value will matter a great deal. Its value will become very high. This in relation to both its utility and scarcity.

Baxter

When robots make everything most people will be forced to simply consume as much as possible. The high priests of the world will be roboticists. They will get all the desirable sex partners (Meat or plastic. However they roll.). Everybody else will just have to consume Big Box store crap, eat, defecate, urinate and procreate. Then they will write bad poetry about it. Or make bad art. And they will plant it all on some social medium called FacePlant.

The Wall-E world is coming at us, bitches, and I can't wait. Let's start with self driving cars, because with 30,000 US dead even bad robots could not do worse. Then again who cares if people die if all they do is eat, crap, piss and bump uglies? Never mind. I'm getting confused. "

Hey, Baxter, bring me a beer."

On a slightly more serious note. There was a dystopian sci fi novel I read a disgustingly long time ago that had this situation as a premise? Not Player Piano. Was it a Philip K Dick? Anyone?

"Monetizing open source software by tainting it" would have been a bit better way to phrase it.

And I agree that the Ubuntu project has been very positive for Linux on the desktop. (Compromising sleazeball that I am I just installed Linux Mint Nadia on a recent project.) And also it is clear that Canonical has managed to remain pretty decent in general as they try to walk the perilous moral tightrope they have chosen to walk. And Android is a satisfying win for the open model (But not for Google's bottom line last time I checked). So how do you measure win? And I get that there is a dynamic process going between open source and for-profit activities that is not a bad thing. All your points are very well taken. I do get it. But I have a compromising mind. So I can get it.

But RMS has styled himself a zealot, or is naturally a zealot. He won't get it. For him all that commercial activity is a dangerous cancer. And it is right and good for him to be there seeing the world that way. Because Libre software rocks like a rowboat in a riptide. And I doubt there would be such a vibrant FOSS movement without him. And, so, no magic well for the rest of us to taint.

Ubuntu is a bastard child. It should be lost on no one that the money Mr Shuttleworth has put into it is an investment, not a donation. Yet libre software licensing is not structured primarily to make money, it is structured to promote knowledge, and science. Attempting to monetize Debian (excuse me 'Ubuntu') is like trying to milk a Gorilla. Possible, but not pretty. Or easy. And nearly impossible to do and keep your hands clean.

'Lighten up', you say. But that is the whole point. Most of us do have compromising minds. Yes, I confess, I loaded the Nvidia binary blob. It is easy and natural for me to lighten up. Believe me I can live with myself.

But... If RMS had a compromising mind there would not be a vibrant open source universe, or at least not the one we have. (Although there would no doubt still be some sort of fuzzy academic open computing something.) The day he could not get those specs to write his modified printer driver is the day he saw -- in a flash -- the science of computing being swallowed by business. And boy was he right. He could have cashed in like so many others. Or shrugged it off like I would. But he put his obsessive uncompromising Asbergerish hairy soiled foot down and fought to create an intellectual space for computing that was free from the kind of proprietary sandboxing that hobbles progress in every field (But which makes sh*tloads of money -- Not a bad thing either). Very few people would fight as hard as RMS has to NOT make money. Amazingly many others saw the utility and necessity of what he was doing and joined him. So now, when a lab needs a specialized computing application they don't have to buy it. (They can of course.) They can build it.

RMS is not being childish in regard to Ubuntu's recent play. He is just being RMS. Monetizing open source software by crippling it is like charging for slide rides on a public playground. It's wrong. (Even if you fix and wax the slide.) Buy an empty lot. Build your own slide. Sell all the rides you want.

Then I saw it was just snakes in The River of Grass. How come nobody is hunting them to extinction to make cowboy boots?

Nothing to see here.

I was gob smacked to see from Nitehawk214's post that Rosatom and the Russian Railroad were actually considering such a thing. When I raised the issue hypothetically it was to point out that technically such a thing was, perhaps, feasible. By no means was I meaning to suggest that it would or could be practical or desirable (Save CO2 green, which advantage you pointed out was negligible. And I agree.) Although... admit it. A monster nuclear locomotive roaring across the tundra at 350 MPH would be cooler than bees on roller skates. In a pave-the-earth kind of way, that is.

Your other point that there are no civilian nuclear ships is really interesting upon consideration. Thanks.

How interesting. Well, no one can ever fault Russian engineers for a lack of vision. Execution is sometimes problematic. A nuclear Siberian express. Let's roll, comrades!

One of the smaller nuclear power plants for a sub might actually be quite efficient for a very large locomotive running on a much larger-than-standard track. At speed with radiator cooling you might manage some good efficiency. Tanker cars for coolant. Green as hell as as far as CO2 is concerned. You could move heavy freight. I bet in the fifties or sixties some serious thought went into big nuclear trains. Not feasible then with the reactors they had, but some of the N power plants in our ships are very compact now I believe. Albeit highly classified. What a poor analogy the poster made in his tirade against the sci fi fan.. Because, obvious security and political disadvantages aside, using a nuclear power plant in a big-ass steam locomotive may not be a half bad idea. Especially these days.

On this we are agreed. Personally I am infuriated by the TSA protocol. One reason I am so careful to make the experience smooth from the start is that I don't want to give rise to an awkward situation where I might get provoked and lose my temper. (I have nothing to hide, but I come to this situation on edge.) I recognize that a tantrum would not alter the state of affairs. And could result in harm to me, and would serve no good end.

This surveillance mission creep is extremely bad for the country. But it has been going on for some time. I was frisked by a US Marshall in 1973 because I had long hair and had forgotten my draft card. I was allowed to board after getting a lecture from Wyatt Earp. Now get off my lawn.

I'll bring you some in jail. Boy, it sure is hell to be right. But the truth is I bet you are just as well behaved as I am in a TSA security line. (Or you are posting from behind bars. Or are too poor to fly.) I am simply being honest about getting through it as quickly and as painlessly as possible. And in a good mental state. Of course if you want to amuse and or irritate the agents by being disorganized and uncooperative you can do so. Your pointless bravado will get them a commendation and, perhaps, a promotion for wrapping you up if the situation escalates. What will it get you?...Well, since you have decided to put them in complete control by giving them cause to make you a target. It is up to them what you get. Me? I make my flight. This gives me a chance to support realistic efforts to curtail this wrongheaded nonsense. Oh, and I am not the one who posted as a coward.