I don't know how they would respond to ET, but there are plenty of adherents here on slashdot (with numbers growing at a staggering rate). This is a faith with a number of people who spend a great deal of time attempting to recruit new members. I'm not talking about Pastafarians, nor am I talking about Jedi Knights. I'm talking about the most profound cult in the US in some time, and I'm not talking about Apple fanboys either.

I'm talking about the church of Ron Paul. I expect their dear leader would tell them that ET can be dealt with somehow through the miracle of the open market but what that would actually mean is anyone's guess.

I tried Lo but it wouldn't do full justification, so it was a no-go for me; I need to format printed books. Oo seems to work like any other Windows program, except it loses it's "last used files" list in the start menu whenever it's upgraded (they really need to fix that).

Overrated?? Asimov wrote over 500 books, both fiction and nonfiction. His stories were between the covers of all the science fiction magazines every month. And the trilogy you rate so poorly won a Hugo award (the most respected science fiction award there is, with the possible exception of the Nebula). He, Heinlein, and Clarke are are often considered to be the "Big Three" of science fiction authors.

Sheesh, judge the author of over 500 books on three. That's pathetic.

Oh, and in case you didn't figure it out, I've been a huge Asimov fan for fifty years (as well as Heinlein and Niven and most of the rest). I didn't care for Clarke, but I'd not call him unimpressive, I just didn't care for his style. If I cared for that style I'd probably love his work, but I don't.

Couldn't agree more. Not restoring the (useful) start menu for W8, even as an option, goes to show how much they really care about it's customers.

You're not their customer unless you're buying boxed sets of their OS and apps to install on your home brew machine. Acer, Dell, etc. are their customers. You didn't buy that OS from Microsoft, the OEM did. You bought it from him, and he's the one you should complain to.

I'm hoping W7 is it for me, but I'd said that XP was it; I've been mostly using Linux for a decade. Then about 3 years ago I bought this notebook and have been too lazy to install kubuntu (which I had on the older one that had been stolen). Despite its annoyances W7's still there.

From the time I got Windows 7, and I could just press "start" type the first few characters of the program name and launch it

And then open the file you want to work on. Meanwhile, using the Start Menu, two clicks and your document is open inside the app.

Your method is extremely problematic with something like GIMP that has little or no keyboard use.

Don't like Start? Don't use it. But just because I don't have a use for something doesn't mean it should be abolished.

On my small notebook I have the file manager, Thunderbird and Firefox pinned, but I mostly use Open Office Write. Most recently opened documents are two clicks away, while if Oo was pinned a click would open a blank document, and it's a couple more clicks from Oo's interface.

Getting away from that damned ribbon is one of the nicer things about being retired! Even better than not needing an alarm clock.

Far better than what I was going to say, which was that old Doctor Asimov is rolling in his grave. I do think he'd approve of that Japanese robot named Asimo.

I stand corrected.

I'm not sure how that would effect sales. Are people who learned Photoshop without understanding how it works really be likely Linux users? I think the overlap on those sets is vanishingly small.

First of all, I can tell you that I have used a significant number of Photoshop tutorials in GIMP to do various functions and found that they work just fine.

Second, the most critical (by frequency of use) tools in Photoshop are the technical adjustments - color, levels, curves, etc. They work the same in GIMP and are even in the same menus. There is no significant relearning to do. My wife uses Photoshop and Illustrator (as well as InDesign) professionally on a daily basis. A while back we were traveling with only my laptop, which has GIMP and Inkscape but nothing from Adobe. She was able to get by just fine for a quick job while we were out; going well beyond the use level that I get from GIMP even though I use it almost daily.

I'm not sure how this applies. How many businesses are running Linux workstations and need Adobe on them? Again this seems to me like a likely very small set. I don't see the absence of Adobe software in Linux as being a critical impediment to Linux migration for businesses who want to do that, either.

I know that Photoshop is still the gold standard, but I'm not sure how many Linux users are concerned about it. I use GIMP for all my photo work in Linux and it meets all my needs. It seems that the overlap between people who need Photoshop (and are wiling to pay for it) and the people who are using Linux would be pretty small.

I know that Photoshop gets a lot of attention from the WINE community but that doesn't necessarily translate to people who want to buy licenses for running it in Linux.

Citizens' band is NOT ham radio. CB is limited by law to low power transmitters and anyone can use it. Ham radio can reach anywhere in the world. Also, you need to take a test to be granted a ham license. Never heard of Ohm's Law? No license for you! Back when I was a teenager you had to know Morse code to get a license, the one thing that kept one out of my hands (I never could memorize).

Yes, they control their spectrum but this uses bluetooth, not their spectrum.

The electric companies (other utilities as well, but electric in particular) have been getting it both ways for some time. They have a lock on providing most - if not all - of their services for their market, and government is generally unwilling to investigate their actions when they use their power to abuse customers. I recall in a previous home of mine, one winter the temperature wasn't as cold as predicted, which led to less need for heating energy. The power companies hence made less money, which they made up for by forcing a subsidy on the customers. Customers who tried to contest the subsidy (which raised their monthly bill) were threatened with disconnect and collections.

Now that solar is becoming a viable option - even if just to reduce the electric bill - the power companies are seeking ways to prevent it from hitting them. Eventually they will follow the same path that the insurance industry took with "health care reform" and dictate to the government a giant handout for themselves.