Why do you have to convince "everyone"? You just have to convince the idiots in charge to stop making them.

You're right that $1 and $2, very possibly even $5 and $10, should be coins only, and the way to make this happen is absurdly simple. Just stop printing the goddam bills. Anybody who wants to possess change in those denominations will just have to settle for coins; like it or lump it. The bills will wear out quite quickly, and go into the furnaces just as they do now, only they will never be replaced by more.

Obsoleting 1, 5, and 10 cent coins, maybe even 25 cent coins, could be handled the same way. Just stop minting them and force all retail sales to be rounded after taxes to the nearest $0.25 or $1 by force of law. As the useless small coins get taken in change by stores and delivered to banks, they would gradually go out of circulation. On day one, nobody would be getting them any more in change.

Use of credit and debit cards is a complete red herring. It's happening. Already I think of anybody in the checkout line using cash or (shudder) check as a complete loser. I happen to think these dopes should be forced to use their own, much slower line. But this issue does not affect the above measures at all.

Your memory is incorrect. I am sick of false fantasies of incredibly low gas prices in history. It never happened. There is this thing called inflation. Gas was not "almost free" in the 1970s. Adjusted to 2004 dollars, it varied between $1.73 and $2.28. The lowest adjusted price for gas EVER was $1.22 in 1998. That compares to the best adjusted price in the 1930s - $2.15 in 1931 - and the best adjusted price in the 1950s - $2.00 in 1952. In 2004 it had only risen to $1.89 from the 1998 low.

OK, the chart stops in 2004, and the current adjusted value is probably around $3.90, but somehow I don't think twice the price is the difference between $2 and $3.90 is "nearly free" compared to agonizingly high.

Ref: Historical Gas Prices, 1919–2004

The doctor could easily proactively protect himself against cases like that by having the parent sign a disclaimer. "Prescribed routine vaccinations against [list]; patient refused - signed I. M. Takingachancewithmychildren".

Illiterate summary. You can't fire a client or customer. You can only abandon them by refusing to continue to treat them.

A client or customer can fire a professional whose services they have retained, however.

When and if distributions dump X11, I dump THEM. Period. You can put a Gnome2 mask on Gnome3, but that doesn't give it Gnome2 capabilities. It's still just a punk wearing a mask.

There are not yet extensions in Gnome3 to replicate all of Gnome2. And why is it such a sack of garbage that extensions are needed to fix it, anyway?

So yeah, I _am_ sticking with Gnome2, thanks to RHEL6. When that runs out and Gnome2 can no longer be made to work right, maybe Mate will be good enough. But the last thing I use will be Gnome3.

It is just silly to suggest that Gnome2 (or X11) were "busted". They were and are extremely capable, versatile, efficient, and dependable, and calling people who prefer these qualities "technologically Amish" just shows the smug mindset of the Gnome3 cult.

Yeah, it took Mint to partially fix a truly busted-ass design, but they couldn't completely fix it.

You in turn need to read what I wrote. It doesn't get rid of anywhere near all the cruddiness. Period. And that set of applets you point to is not complete. Nice try, but no cigar.

Wow, that looks like it might be pretty damn good. When I still had to use Windows, I liked 4nt.exe, except that it did not address the clunkiness of the text mode window itself.