Aren't you the same people who complain when Microsoft fails to support some aspect of HTML5 in IE, rather than complaining to the HTML5 web sites that they aren't supporting IE?

It's idiotic to expect a web site to pander to every crippled browser out there. If the webmaster is writing to W3C standards and the browser won't render the content properly, it's 100% the browser's fault.

Ten years ago on my site, just because I was sick of "best if viewed in IE" I rewrote it so if IE was the user agent I flashed a message "get a browser that doesn't suck" and added a bit of HTML (not javascript, plain HTML) that crashed the visitor's browser.

That If IE5 IF IE6 IF IE7 bullshit is just that -- bullshit. Write to standards, not some monopolists made-up "standards".

I wrote the first several chapters of Nobots straight into slashdot's journal system. Later chapters were in Open Office and copied there. Changed layout quite a bit afterwards. Good luck getting full justification with HTML 5.

Nobots (full book, what's at slashdot is a crude first draft) will be out shortly.

And he put the retinas in backwards too.

How do you figure? All the retina does is collect photons, convert them to electrochemical signals, and the nervous system transmits them to the brain, where the seeing actually happens.

If your retina were backwards you'd be blind.

I'm still not sure what you mean by backwards; yes, the image on the retina is upside down and the image is backwards, but that's a process of lensing. Take the lens off of your SLR camera, hold the film (or rather, sensor) end close to a white surface, and you'll see a backwards upside down picture on that surface. Like your brain does with the retina input, the camera itself makes it rightside up.

Also, what type of idiot wires up the larynx via the heart?

You remind me of a client I had fifteen years ago who was screaming because a database application I'd written stopped working. It turned out he'd removed some "useless" columns in a table because he could see no use for them. Are you a neurosurgeon, heart specialist, or a larynx specialist? Can you design and build a human being? If not, how are you in any way qualified to question the inner workings?

You know quoting from Kent Hovind's PhD thesis is technically copyright infringement.

This sounds like something from a Futurama episode.

Computer hardware is a physical, durable object which, if well manufactured, is limited only by capacitor and fan failures.

Moving parts wear out. Connections get corroded. Dust builds up. I've had all sorts of hardware failures in 30 years of owning computers. Hard drives, fans, CPUs, power supplies.

Software is an intangible, constantly changing abstraction which is under constant attack by humans.

It should be designed with that in mind. Good software is.

IF PEOPLE DON'T LIKE M$ the can buy a Mac or (gasp) install GNU/Linux.

Without buying an Apple it's hard to find a computer without Windows preinstalled. Yes, I can install Linux (and do) but most of the 30% of computer owners who are on XP computers can't.

Even if I have no Microsoft whatever on my network, I'm at risk from those millions of unpatched machines. I'm not Microsoft's customer, why should I pay for them to make a profit?

Linux is linux, whether it's an Ububtu or Mandriva desktop, a Red Hat server, an Android phone, or a supercomputer. The point is Linux is fast, Windows is slow.

Also, you can easily set the updater in winxp/vista/7/8 to only download updates

I have it set like that, but I got burned with an auto update on XP that replaced a perfectly good network driver for one that just wouldn't work. I want to see what it's updating.

and allows you to choose when you want to install/reboot your system.

Yeah, you have up to four hours to be nagged again to close all your tabs, documents, and programs and reboot before you have to open them all back up again. In Linux, you don't have to reboot. You click "update" and keep on working. Ironically I wouldn't mind having to boot Linux because it boots into the state it was in when you shut it down. You don't have to lose your place.

I'd google that for you, but I'm too busy being productive on my computer.

Productive, my ass, you're posting on slashdot.

It's simple - send a human when a robot just won't do (like fixing the Hubble). Mars? Send robots.

But I breathe CH4! Send me to Titan!

By purchasing and installing Windows XP you are entering into a contract with Microsoft that they will support your product for a reasonable amount of time. That time is over.

It isn't reasonable that the hardware would outlast the software - it isn't a reasonable amount of time. When only 5% has XP, then maybe that would be a reasonable time. It's a year older than my car, and if the temperature control (a digital device) goes out I can replace it. There's no way to repair Windows' defects. As to safety, you can expect almost all XP computers to be bots next year. If one person got control of all those XP computers they could take the internet down.

Almost nobody bought Windows. They bought a computer, and Windows was part of the deal. It's a shoddy product that won't last past a decade, my 2002 TV works fine. Why won't XP? Because Microsoft makes shitty products.

What Microsoft is doing is past irresponsible. It's dangerous.

Ooh, like that one on Robot Wars episode 20. Here, I think I have it on one of my hard drives somewhere. Let me cue it up on the big screen.

You make incorrect assumptions about both computers and humans. I was in a head-on car wreck in 1976 -- my left front tire blew and I was thrown into oncoming traffic. The guy I hit didn't even have time to take his foot off the gas, let alone swerve. Had his car been autonomous he might not have been involved at all (my car was completely out of control, nothing but God was going to save me).