After twelve years in the IT industry, working for four different companies, three large and now one small business, the most important thing I've learned is this:

Users don't listen and they don't want to learn.

Sure, the idea of educating users and management about what we do sounds great and we all start off trying to do just that but after a year or so it becomes clear that 99% of your users don't listen to you. They find it boring, they don't think they should have to learn because it's not their job to know that crap, it's my job to know that crap. It's not their job to learn to fix their computer, it's mine. Trying to explain to them that there are very simple things they can do to prevent their computers from needing to be fixed is a waste of time, they don't want to hear it. They say they do, they might even mean it when they say it, but when it comes down to actually doing it, they won't. They never do.

The company I work for now does only IT and we do it for more than one hundred businesses. All of them are the same as I've described above. ALL OF THEM. So it's best for us to explain as little as possible, just enough to placate them, do what we can behind the scenes, restrict as much as we can get away with so they have less ways to hurt themselves and present everything in the form of dollar signs.

"Here is how much money you spent with us this year. Here are the disasters we averted/fixed. Here is how much money it would have cost you if we hadn't done our job or will cost you if we don't do it."

That's something they do understand.

You're right. In the last decade the Dems have become cornered but still, they allowed themselves to get in to that position. I will add though that the democratic party has not just been this way in last few years. They've been like this for decades, ever since the Reagan administration. I'll probably get flamed for daring to impune the honor of "The Ray-gun", but it's true. We've been on a steady decline since he took office, with the republican party cracking the whip behind us, like cattle drivers herding us all out of the middle class with the democratic party standing on the sidelines, shouting about how wrong it all is and not doing a damn thing to stop it. But I'm not so foolish as to think that it's just the government's fault, we the people allowed this to happen. We did this to ourselves.

Ya, I hate the republican party but the Dems are no better. They refuse to hold their ground on anything, completely spineless. The system IS completely broken and like it or not, the USA is a corporate state now. The will of the people is totally irrelevant, the only will that matters is that of large corporations.

Been using kubuntu since 6.x and I'm still very happy with it. I don't get involved in the distro politics at all but the forums that I do follow have had no such discussion.

It used to be great, now it's running horribly slow on every computer I have it installed on, windows and linux. Chrome is starting to look pretty good.

In the PC gaming arena, LAN parties are all but dead. A few still linger on around the country but they are dwindling. It's part of a growing trend in the US, we're slowly isolating ourselves. Not just from the rest of the world but also from each other. The gaming industry is just one example of that. It's very, very sad.

Re-read what I said. I've done it, me and about 10 other guys, several times. Get on the steam forums.

I've played steam games over a LAN with no internet connection, it can be done very easily.

I agree on this point, I really think steam needs a feature that allows you to de-license a game and gift that license to a friend. Would be a nice feature. I'd love to be able to give some of my older games to my kids but I'm not going to let them get on my steam account.

I don't think these retailers have really thought through just why people use steam. I don't use it because I can buy games through it, for me that's just one of the perks. I use it for everything else I can do with it.

- All of my games are in one place

- It keeps track of my stats

- In-game chat and voice that actually works and works well.

- Friends list, ability to see what friends are playing and join them, invite them, whatever.

- Keeps track of my stats and lets me look at others' stats.

- VAC. Anti cheat software that actually works.

All of these things seriously enhance the online play of any game, making it much more appealing to gamers. I think publishers recognize this and will also recognize that if players can't get it from a retail store, they'll just get it from steam. No skin off the publishers back. I prefer to have a hard copy of my games. I like having the case and the little booklet that comes with it and whatever else some like to include but if I walk into a store and they aren't selling steam games, I'll walk right back out and get it online. I think most other steam loving gamers will do the same.

Is it DRM? Sure it is but they aren't using it out of hand. The mod community is alive and well and valve software supports them. Until that stops, I'm not going to complain about their use of DRM. The games that don't allow modding are not actually published by valve and that has nothing to do with steam.

The only con that I can think of is what happens if valve goes belly up and takes steam with it? Suddenly I can't play any of my games that I paid for. I don't think it's likely to happen but it's a concern.

The only thing that might be considered a competitor to steam in these areas is xfire, but the simple fact that I can't click on a players name in the game and see that he's using xfire, add him, look at his stats etc. really hinders it's usability. I know very few people that actually use xfire.

The main reason Linux doesn't have the virus and security problems that windows does is that it's not so widely used. That's just fine by me.

I was pleased that google chose to leave china much in the same way that I'm pleased that someone stops beating their child. Anyway, kudos to Google nonetheless. However, I would expect nothing less from Microsoft on this kind of thing. Their record shows, since the companies formation that they will always, without exception, choose the profitable thing over the right thing.

This morning the bean counters at NPR were figuring it was closer to 19%. Gotta make it all look good to the public though don't we.