Technology has been a boat anchor dragging down the industry thanks to regulations like Hippa, and requirements that all records be kept electronically. Paper charts are banned. now. This is a classic example of what happens when legislators regulate something they know nothing about. I see it everyday, as I work at the helpdesk of a major midwestern hospital chain. I am convinced all the technology that end users can't figure out has led to dead and injured patients. I am a perma-temp, where I work, not an employee. Outsourcing in healthcare is another problem, but not the one we are talking about here. Anyway, many people working in healthcare are technically illiterate, and refuse to learn. Also software like Epic is too complicated for anyone but engineers. My mother, who was a nurse, is now happily retired. Epic and other high tech whizbangs made her last years in the industry hell. The worst part of it all is cost. Computers, commercial software, and all the support staff needed cost so much more than paper charts did. All they really needed to do was to make PDF of the old paper charts, and let people type into them That would have fixed the problem of scribbly doctor's handwriting. Washington broke it. Will they ever fix it?

I would be for legalizing assisted suicide only after the estate tax is raised to 100%. Inheritance and life insurance are the top two motives for murder. If there is a financial incentive to put Grandma down, greedy heirs will do it.

Without having to turn tricks for the gamblers at the Wall Street Casino, maybe they will get back to caring about the customer. They have become the new IBM since Big Blue got out of small computers. They can be that forever if they don't screw it up, which they had been well on their way to doing.

Patent is based on the same constitutional clause as copyright. It is meant to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by granting temporary exclusive rights to authors and inventors. A patent held by someone other than the inventor goes against that. Grabbing a buck by stifling progress is what corporations that buy patents do. I am not aware of a single case where a corporation that bought out a patent promoted progress.

It was not any piece of technology that caused that outage, it was vengeful spirits!

The problem with every antivirus I have ever used in my computer business, not just Norton and McAfee, is that virus is too narrowly defined. Most miss spyware and all miss scamware, which they cannot tell from legitimate competing products and shakedowns like the FBI scam. Malwarebytes or Spybot while running in safe mode are the best bet for scamware and shakedowns.

Patent was supposed to protect inventions that physically exist, not vapor and certainly not subtle variations on a product that has existed for a long time. I can't think of a single thing related to cell phones that could possibly be new enough to constitute an invention. Abolishing patent outright would be a good thing.

They are just as much the bitches of Hollywood and the recording industry as the Democrats. No one on the hill ever considers the copyright clause when entertainment industry lobbyist show up with briefcases full of cash. This memo was the only reasonable thing ever said in Washington about copyright. It is a shame that copyright terms will be perpetually extended every 20 years so Steamboat Willie won't revert back to the public domain when Mickey Mouse is a blatant rip-off of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Universal, Walt Disney's former employer, did not sue over it because it was understood and accepted at the time that children's cartoons are frivolous entertainment, not science and the useful arts. Disney acquired the rights to Oswald a few years ago just in case Universal would ever change their minds about that.

Most of the general public will never figure out tricks like that, and an operating system should not need third party software just to work. Most people I deal with at my computer repair business can barely check their email, and some use Google to surf the net because they aren't aware of any other way. Windows 8 will be as inaccessible to non-techies, who are the majority of PC uses, as a command line interface. It does not matter if the source code is like 7. Clicking on tiles, adding one more each time you add new software, and needing to sort through 99 you aren't looking for to find the one you are is just like Windows 3.1, an absurd leap backward. Microsoft has really screwed up this time.

Taking away the start button and a simple list of all my programs isn't progress, it is a giant leap backward to Windows 3.1, just with prettier graphics. I don't want that.

I know most of the general public doesn't come here, but I will post the advice I give to them anyway. If you buy a new PC that has Windows 8, and you are lost, or just plain don't like it, return it. Even if it was a gift, what use is something that won't do what you need or is a pain to use? It doesn't make you a bad person to return it. You may have downgrade rights to Windows 7 Professional if it came with 8 Pro, but you need a Windows 7 install disc just to use them. If you try to do it anyway when your system is not covered by downgrade rights, expect no support from the manufacturer so you may have trouble finding all the device drivers.

There are off-lease refurbished computers that have Windows 7, or maybe Vista, or even XP that are a better buy. Dell even has an Ebay store to sell them. Nearly all of these are business computers which are of higher quality than home computers, as big business has the power to punish vendors who push manufactured garbage, unlike individual consumers.

If a few individuals send Microsoft nastygrams about Windows 8, it will not matter. "We got your money, sucker!" is their attitude, but if manufacturers complain that all their Windows 8 PCs are being returned, Microsoft will have to respond eventually.

Hate Windows 8? You don't have to take it, you can take it back.

Here is further proof that locking up ideas as property is no less a form of censorship than suppressing them.

I call them Hewlett-Packard-Bell, and not because I am confusing two companies.