What he said

I'm sorry, but count me among the ones who're not happy with 4.x. Eye candy is nice but the purpose of a desktop environment ought to be to enable the user to get his work done as quickly as possible. Do that, *then* add the gravy. KDE 4 is the best thing to ever happen to GNOME.

Is there a catch?

Well, we KDE users got the big one rammed up our butts with 4.x, so now it's the Gnome users' turn...

Not being a citizen of the UK I don't know what sorts of rights to privacy are constitutionally or statutorily conferred to her people, but couldn't you folks have seen this coming with the cameras everywhere? If it's any consolation, we Yanks are right behind you. George Orwell is spinning in his grave right now.

Mod up, up, up. The only reason I boot to Windows either is to play games that won't run under wine.

Define 'polarizing'. Do you mean taking a strong stance; for example being strongly for or against a hot-button issue-of-the-day? I am against same-sex marriage and have posted this to FB many times. I got comments from friends who disagreed and even a nasty-gram from one, but no one unfriended me. Anyway, the big pet-peeve for me is people who never post anything at all but have signed up for apps that spam the bejeebers out of everyone. Block the app, rinse, repeat. Then you find their accounts have no activity at all.

The way the Net is currently implemented, there's no way to secure it. PEBKAC. I'm skeptical it can be secured in any form, because people are frickin' stoooooopid. This is not to say we shouldn't *try*, any more than we should *try* to stop all murders from occurring. I know this will be an unpopular thing to say on SD, but nearly all shenanigans would stop if a way could be found to erase anonymity. Criminals depend on not being identified or caught; this is why more houses get burgled at night. Before you cry foul at the idea, realize that the world is getting ever more connected and therefore ever more vulnerable. All information and all media will be on the Internet. Sooner or later a decision will have to be made as to whether anonymity or a usable world is more important.

Sorry, but I just don't see why. A few months ago I found a 16GB 3g iPod laying in the middle of the street. I turned it on, but the only identification the owner had put on it was simply the name, "William." So I took it home and booted to Windows, and installed iTunes so I could interface with the damn thing. It was then I learned that just about *anything* you want to do, you have to go through Apple to do. Apple has your nuts in a vise in ways Micro$oft never dreamed of if you own one of these. Over the next few days I downloaded a number of jailbreaking apps, all carrying strong cautions about my device being subject to bricking. I made a token effort. All this just to have the ability to control a device that I now owned. I'd've been very happy to give it back to William had I known who he was. I ended up selling it for $40, so, happy ending there. As for the iPad, I'm sure it's a shiny and very nifty piece of technology, but the price to both wallet and soul are wayyyyy too high.

The fanboys have taken over the industry. It no longer even makes a token effort to appeal to the mainstream.

Emphasize security; how to protect themselves on the net. That's not only for their benefit, but everyone else's. Good luck