The first thing that came to mind was the baking soda volcano that are a part of every 6th grade science fair. I wonder how many of these researches saw this as the "grown-up" version.

Ballmer... is that you?

I have seen this as well. It's not uncommon for someone coming from Windows to ask "What is a good Linux distro to learn on?". Some knucklehead will pipe up with Gentoo, LFS, or Slackware so that they "learn" linux.

Most new users have embraced Linux by starting with Ubuntu rather than getting frustrated and giving up like in the "good ol' days".

Actually, I would say thanks for spending a lot of money to create and promote a Linux distribution that even non-linux geeks have heard about. He has done more to increase exposure of Linux than most anyone. It's unfortunate that Canonical isn't doing well since I think most people would say that building a sustainable model to keep Linux in the spotlight is a good thing for the community as a whole. Guess what?... servers and bandwidth cost money. Advertising and putting on events cost money. When was the last time you contributed to your local LUG to keep it afloat?

Where's your God now?

Good luck with the show Ilan!

Being from SoCal, it's great to have a replacement for the now defunct LinuxWorld. In fact, it is a bit more like a giant .org pavillion.

Now if we can just get LugRadio to come back...

Actually, the most useful these days would be a marketing degree. Web design was once thought of as the balance between graphics design and programming, but now days everything comes down to SEO. Being able to design a site (and landing pages) that get good placement on google is more valuable.

So how is Gentoo these days?

It's so simple, I don't see why everyone doesn't do that.

You mean there is already a French Toaster?

When was it ever credible?

It was most popular due to a lack of choices. Now that there are choices, I don't see many giving Microsoft a "second chance" - especially Web developers who have been burned for years by IE incompatibility with standards.

I always suspected that those bearded villains were behind this with their "apt-get" weapons of mass destruction.

You are right about this one. I recently listened to a podcast with Kevin Smith interviewing Mark Hamill and the Star Wars franchise is more of a blip in his career path.

He has a lot more going for him than just being typecast as Luke. He was doing voiceover before Star Wars as well as after. And he's really good. Listen to the podcast for proof.

I guess if I had to pick the comparisons (Jobs Rockefeller, Hughes, or Stark)... I pick Stark.

Hughes wouldn't be that bad if the guy didn't have that "saving my pee" habit.

I miss my old clicky keyboard. I have been meaning to pick up a modified USB model, but have not gotten around to it. PS2 to USB adapters don't work that well at boot time. We still use them for some of our lab equipment. I agree they are the best keyboards ever made.