You were modded troll because "To be honest I have enough trouble leaving Microsoft products at times, although often it's because they are the best at what they do" is incorrect. Nobody would replace the OS that came on their computer unless the replacement was superior, and Linux IS superior. My W7 notebook will be joining the tower in running kubuntu very soon -- Windows gets slower and slower all the time as its registry becomes hugely bloated. It seems uninstalling a program seldom deletes any registry keys; I'm using the Windows AV (can't remember its name) and have uninstalled AVG, yet Windows keeps nagging my to turn AVG on.

Windows lacks features, has to be rebooted monthly, its useability is awful, and it's slow as molasses compared to Linux.

As to "Explorer file manager has no equivalent in terms of speed, functionality and usability compared to anything in Linux", that is PURE troll. Windows file manager was all right in XP but the one in W7 is klunky as hell. I don't remember the name of kubuntu's file manager, but it's heads and shoulders above Windows'.

As to MS Office I'll agree Excel is the best spreadsheet, but Word has few advantages over Oo, and MS Access is one of the reasons I'm glad I retire next year. I miss real DBMS languages like NOMAD and it's little brother dBase. I'm still pissed about what MS did to FoxPro after buying it. It was a great little DBMS before Microsoft bought and ruined it.

And Outlook is the absolute WORST email client I've ever had the misfortune of using. They went all MS a couple of years ago where I work and I miss the Novell email client.

I use MS products at work and absolutely HATE them. Microsoft makes the absolute WORST products of anyone's in my opinion.

You were modded troll because it was a troll. I completely agree with the guy who modded you down.

People keep saying that private corporations can always do things cheaper than government.

They say that, but they're wrong. Springfield's power company CWLP has cheaper rates, less downtime, and better customer service than any other power company in Illinois. The reason is, as a natural monopoly, the CEO of Amerin is only beholden to the stockholders. What are the customers going to do, use a different power company?

Springfield's ratepayers ARE the stockholders. If the price goes up too much, the service deteriorates, the Mayor loses his job next election.

Oh, and CWLP keeps taxes down by actually turning a profit for the city.

What the hell am I supposed to do with the books? I have an entire wall covered in them.

Donate them to the public library; donate them to organizations that provide books for the poor; sell them at a used book store, there are all sorts of solutions.

There needs to be a safety net for the people who end up structurally unemployed as a result, however.

Agreed completely.

As "spoil" is a word te correction was warranted. It's ok, you fixed it with your grocer's apostrophe.

How about training those people to do worthwhile jobs that will lift them from poverty? I think it's terrible that there are completely illiterate people in the US; I've known a couple of them.

People have been losing jobs to robots for decades, and to technology for centuries. If you're worried about lost jobs, look at "hedge fund managers" (corporate pirates) who buy a business, drain its capital, fire its workers and shut it down.

Typo: Soil testing, not spoil testing. Fat fingers and I had a few beers.

Living in the middle of Illinois there's a lot of farming news and farm shows around here, and you see an awful ot of impressive tech, and even science. They have self-driving combines and harvesters that use GPS, cell phone apps very useful to them (some control machinery), chemical testing of the spoil and plants available... you have to know a lot to farm these days.

I know someone's going to complain "BUT JOBS!!!" but the jobs the tech in TFA are jobs are jobs only the most desperate want. Agriculture has been constantly replacing jobs with technology for centuries. It takes fewer and fewr to feed more and more.

Someone's going to bring up GM, GM isn't used much around here, most seed is hybrid -- but the biochemists and agronomists have DNA study of the plants they breed.

There's a TV show that comes on here on Sunday morning at 5:30 AM and it's the only OTA show that's not an infomercial, and It's pretty interesting. Here's their website. I'm not a farmer but it is pretty interesting.

I wouldn't consider potted plants "Big Agriculture." That's soybeans, corn, and wheat.

Heck, in all honesty, I'd probably drift over to a NetFlix-style rental system if such existed. Pay, say $1 or so to rent a book for a month or so.

Wow, you kids are sure willing to part with your hard-earned cash for shit that used to be free. TV shows, bottled water, books... you can "rent" a book from the public library for free. If I'd had to pay for all the books I've read in my life it would take more money than I've ever earned.

If I've bought a hardcopy I've paid my share of fixed costs.

The flawed physical analogy is that electronic "goods" cost nothing to duplicate. If I have paid for the hardcover and they want $3 for the ebook, fuck 'em, I'll go to TPB for the ecopy because I already paid for the damned content when I bought the hardcover.

I'm really sick of the greed these days. Charging extra for an e version when I've paid for it already is just plain wrong. Those people must have no shame or morals at all.

And they have the gall to call pirates "thieves".

There is one site I visit that has occasional stories paywalled, the local paper here. Most info isn't likely elsewhere and the paywalls are trivial to overcome. But I generally avoid them. I'm thinking about a simple HOSTS file to send DNS requests to those sites to the bit bucket.

The incompetently educated are incompetently uneducated, since if you were educated by incompetents, you're uneducated.