If Microsoft really wanted me to stop distrusting them, they'd ask the user which search provider they'd like to use (or just choose a random one) rather than make Bing the default. Instead, they are using their position in the market -- again -- to limit choice and tilt the field to their advantage. If they didn't have the ability to make Bing the default, there is no way it would have the position that it does today. Microsoft still has a monopoly power on the desktop. And they continue to abuse that power. When forced to compete on equal footing, we get real competition. Some, like XBox, are successful; some, like their mobile platforms, are not.

Government regulation of curricula exists to protect children from being taught "Creation Science" in public schools. You want to fix over-regulation in schools? Fix the root cause. Otherwise, I'm all in on that one.

Denial. Recognize it and you have reached the first stage of overcoming addiction.

Otherwise put up a well-reasoned rebuttal.

I've seen the effects of Solaris addiction on a company first hand. The result is little different than a drug addiction. It doesn't cost much at first, then you start having to devote more and more of the budget to support. Some companies resort to breaking the law to feed their addiction (which is what this article is about). The best engineers leave for greener pastures. The company is relegated to only hiring the second-tier developers and admins that are still willing to work on Solaris, knowing full well that the cream of the crop have moved on. The competitive edge is lost and the company is in an inexorable death spiral, with no one on board with the skill to turn it around.

Oracle customers always get what they deserve. Solaris and SPARC have been dead for a long time. Oracle bought Sun for the same reason Compaq bought DEC back in the day: to bleed dry the customers who were stuck on a legacy platform with nowhere else to go. Oracle clearly recognized this when they bought Sun, but this is not something that they can say out loud and have the business model succeed.

Using Solaris is the IT equivalent of a crack addiction. It's just as irrational. And users always find a way to justify the addiction. (Rehab costs too much and takes too much time. It's not that bad. It's not affecting my bottom line. I can quit any time.)

I think you are mistaken. Eisenhower sent troops into the south to enforce desegregation.

I wonder if RMS realizes yet that by winning the battle (not making the GCC available for other tools to use) he has lost the war for GCC and ultimately GNU. There are great free software projects, such as Eclipse, KDevelop, and others, that could really use a decent C++ parser. But, if the architecture and license of a core component such as GCC is such that it cannot be used because of a philosophy that prevents the creation of good free software tools, then the battle is lost. If RMS, GNU and the GCC steering committee had reacted fast enough when the problem was apparent, then this could have been prevented. But I'm not sure that they see the real problem with their dogma yet.

And if you need personal or professional advise, there's no better place than Yahoo! Answers."

The "with respect to the NSA" can be left off and you've made my precise point. There is no discernible correlation between gun ownership and liberty.

The NSA is a good indication that guns do not provide any guarantee of freedom or liberty.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

Sure, when you had scan lines -- electron beams illuminating phosphorous dots -- it was pretty horrible. Now it is just a number that tells you how quickly pixels can change on the display. Lag is a more important measure. And at 30FPS, you have at least a 33ms lag between a change occurring and it appearing on the screen. Gamers care about that. Most coders (game coders excepted) don't care.

You have the reasoning the wrong way around. The only reason that kids get sent to war is that they are stupid enough to go. QED. They really are too stupid to drink.

But really, you are barking up the wrong tree. You do not understand my viewpoint at all. I was responding to the poster who doesn't know or understand history and making fun of that stupidity as a reflection of kids of that age which, for whatever it is worth, has a small kernel of truth to it. And it is that truth that drove the increase in the drinking age in the U.S.

Personally I think that any sort of government limitations on drinking and drugs is wrong. Parents should bear full responsibility for their children's behavior up to the age of majority. And after that, everyone declared an adult should be able to make their own choices about inebriation.