Well, that's not quite correct as the first line of Integrities (Merced) were not OpenVMS compatible. I was part of the team that launched our company's product on Integrity back in 2004/2005, when VMS was still in beta on that platform.

So you're a one or two-issue kind of guy, huh? I find the problems you mention with the CLI pretty small when compared to:
- Being able to abbreviate commands (SEARCH to SEA, BACKUP to BACK, etc.)
- Having commands that abbreviate means the commands can make sense in English and still be truncated by experts for speed (e.g., no commands like "ls", "rm", "tar", "man")
- CLI integrates with system calls, so you can write quick scripts for web services or to obtain system information without doing SEARCHES (excuse me, I think that's "grep" in your world) on text dumps
- ISAM databases (RMS) can be created, designed, and updated from the CLI

ODS-5 only handles 2 TB volumes (or 2 TB files) right now, but I don't see why this can't be improved. It's slower because, besides not increasing the maximum size of volumes, HP didn't bother implementing the full XFC caching. It's clear they were preparing for this rundown for some time. Files-11 volumes have been the most robust I've ever worked with. I haven't seen anyone corrupt a file from an unexpected shutdown in 15 years, which I can't say for any other file system (although recent NTFS versions are close).

Of course, someone who is learning Mandarin needs to understand that. But someone who is Chinese needs to understand the concept of "yes" and "no" in English. Why hold them to a lower standard-- are they subhuman?

Having excellent language skills does not mean you are intellectually superior any more than my being able to play many musical instruments does.

Thanks for making me feel young. My not-so-greybeard stories are about hacking Apple IIs and VIC-20s...

Some are still playing 'there are 400 communists in the Obama white house' card or claiming so other such nonsense and trying to use it to limit rights

Who in government is saying that? These guys, Democrat and Republican, go out to have lunch and drinks with each other. Then they pretend their polite disagreements about how many freedoms to take from their subjects are actual drag-down fights in front of the mainstream media, to suggest there's any real difference between the parties. It would be nonsense to slander the president and his staff and use such deceit as an excuse to impose restrictions on the public.

Yup. I'm pretty sure I fried a flash drive by plugging it into a port I had miswired, but Sandisk replaced it for me anyway.

Yes, but DIY instructions are readily available.

Don't be so thick.

I wonder if either of you see the irony-- because the government arguably overstepped its bounds by forcing everyone to buy health insurance, now it gets to claim it can overstep its bounds even further by telling you what you can do with your body.

Government is the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

Maybe we can now take basement-dwelling slashdotters and put them in the body of someone who goes outside and actually contacts other people in meatspace. The only problem I can see is the brightness of the daystar causing sensory overload.

Sorry to crush your cocky statist attitude, but he'd simply assumed the island was privately owned and was incorrect. It has nothing to do with whether he's a libertarian or not, although I'm greatly concerned if the concept of private property is now only the province of libertarians.

No auditor I have dealt with in five years of PCI DSS has demanded software firewalls. They do require that systems be monitored for changes and only critical services be running.

Ironically, the software that most often makes it difficult to run a local firewall is AV software. Symantec is notorious. They need dozens of ports opened. And when you upgrade, suddenly they need a different set.

We gave up our freedom through the ACA, and yet this continues. It's not about being billed, it's about being billed incorrectly and not having any control over the process. The UK has fully socialized health care, yet people are denied care or left to die waiting... sometimes, literally waiting in the ER.

Clearly, giving up more freedom isn't the answer.