I have been a huge supporter of Linux since I brought up my first Linux box in September of 1996. I sneaked Linux onto the raised floor of a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 company in about 1998. By the time I left that job, RHEL was the preferred O.S. with well over 200 (virtual + physical) systems in use.

On the off chance that someone in a position of authority over Linux development reads this, you people are cutting your own throats with lunacy such as systemd and networkmanager.

Like the original poster, I am starting to look for alternatives to Linux.

Toyota should have named it Hindenberg.

Oh, wait...

From years ago. Caller: "My car quit without any warning."

One of the brothers: "What did you expect, a post card?"

Still cracks me up years later. You guys were great.

Microsoft "hasn't yet decided whether to make the software commercially available."

Microsoft, get back to me when you decide to make it commercially available and I'll decide whether I want it.

Chances are I won't.

BBT is very nearly the only thing on tv that isn't totally worthless. Sturgeon's Law ("90 percent of *everything* is crap") especially applies to Hollywood.

If you find an A6M on your tail and you have the maneuverability advantage, turn sharp right. If you don't have the maneuverability advantage, don't try to dogfight, make a steep dive, get away, rejoin the fight.

Niels Bohr famously said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future." I think he was on target, even factoring in possible facetiousness.

Several of us were talking recently about the SDS/XDS Fortran IV compiler. If my memory is correct, Steve Hartman (not sure of the spelling) and Buzz O'Gard (not sure of this spelling either) were the authors. I would definitely nominate them as the best programmers, along with whoever wrote the MetaSymbol assembler.

In addition to a number of amazing features, Fortran IV had the first Easter egg I ever saw, a funny compiler message that came out if you used a GO TO JAIL statement.

... on my local cable system, The Weather Channel has been replaced by the lamer WeatherNation...

There's something lamer than the Weather Channel? Hard to imagine. It was ok (exception noted below) before they tried to be the next Today show, now it's approaching worthless. I don't want endless moronic, idle chitchat, I want the weather.

Exception: whoever thought it was a good idea for the Wx Channel to broadcast all the idiotic reality crap needs to go back to the janitorial crew.

This was from the "beatings-continued-until-morale-improved" dept. It should have been from the "tremendous-grasp-of-the-obvious" dept.

Somebody needs to go to jail for mishandling this situation. Our government has gotten way, way out of control.

See Jim Schefter's "Rocket's Red Glare" (http://books.google.com/books?id=xA5vzkW8IDsC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=%22rocket's+red+glare%22+%22jim+schefter%22&source=bl&ots=6FVQPrjyrs&sig=D9tFU6qyj_Ybv82EVLwkm4_-R9U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YmugU9mHA9SNqAaDxYCYDA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22rocket's%20red%20glare%22%20%22jim%20schefter%22&f=false) on the RD-180.

It's only been three years since Bob and Jim left us.

I exchanged a few emails with Bob Pease. He was a giant among analog engineers.

Don't forget Bob Widlar, another giant. Here's what BP said about BW: http://electronicdesign.com/analog/what-s-all-widlar-stuff-anyhow

Why does this story bring "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/) to mind?

This reminds me of the story of the kid who murdered his parents, then threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.

We have (or at least had) a Constitution to protect citizens from governmental abuses of this nature.