I purchase my power from a private company, who creates it from their own plants, or purchases it on the open market from hydro electric projects. Unless I sign a contract that states what I will do with that energy, I'm free to do with it as I please. I purchased it, I'm paying for it, who cares what lightbulbs I use?

Now try this one. Let's say I've gone off the grid (I live on my sailboat, it's not too far from happening). Soon I will make all my own electric power from solar or wind. Why should the government then be able to force me to use only certain light bulbs WITH THE POWER I MAKE? I make some of my own power now. I buy some of my power. But the key thing is, I either make it myself, or purchase it myself. Mine. Once it hits my outlets, it's mine to do with as I please. Especially if I make the stuff.

Because now that the Eurorpeans pretty much have what few guns they own locked away and registered, the government there can start doing stupid shit. :p Ok, not really, but I had to say that. But it does set a scary slippery slope. What right does the government have to decide how I can light my home? The US is scheduled to ban incandescents for the same reason in another couple of years. I plan to have a large stockpile of them before that happens. You can have my incandescents and firearms when...

Actually I'm quite busy. Small town markets are the best for newspapers. But thank you for your concern. I'm just wondering how many more years the industry can still hold on to vague 20th century notions. Fortunately I have a very solid e-edition that I sell frequently.

The language.

I'm a contractor. But I'm contractor #1, both in number and position in the company. But since the company involves newspaper sales, that may be indicative more of my willingness to ride out the disaster that is the current newspaper industry, or perhaps my laziness to move out of my comfy small town bubble. I really need to finish that python book.

That we are starting to move away from standalone devices for a single task. I read nearly all my email on my phone. By the time my laptop is booted up, I'm already partway through the night's email. The tiny keyboard is the limitation for me right now, I use my computer for anything requiring a reply of more than a few sentences. Meanwhile, my computer makes phone calls, my amateur radio sends data, my cell phone browses the web, I make a phone call with my handheld 2 meter radio, and on and on and on.

Personally, I'm thrilled to have a tiny computer in my pocket. And if I could somehow dock it, run it off of AC power, and connect a keyboard, mouse and larger display to it (and possibly external data storage) I wager a modern Android phone would handle nearly all of my communication. A good cellphone with a decent dock could be a very useful tool. The next ten years of mobile phone evolution excites me to no great end.

I hope this takes off. It would be great to have a good OSS voice codec for amateur radio.

I never thought I'd see the day when their stock was worth so much more than Microsoft's, and that they had ubiquitous products in huge demand by the consumer public.

I am ashamed of how heavy handed and insane our government has gotten. I do my part, but not enough are. Even if the kid made threats, unless they are credible threats chalk it up to stupid. I hear abusive and threatening language about any dozen politicians in a given day. It's just a fact of life. If it isn't credible then chalk it up to stupid. Sadly the insane notion of "zero tolerance" is alive and well, with no wiggle room.

To those who say the kid would have a copy of his email, that may not be so. I use yahoo mail for a lot of things, and have it set to not save a copy of the email in my sent folder. I'm sure I'm not the only person on earth who doesn't want the annoyance of a sent folder.

Also, they are notoriously anti gun. I use gpal instead On the rare times I force myself to buy something on ebay, I try to pay without using paypal

We don't need no steenkin' privacy. In fact, if we don't roll over and submit our every move for scrutiny to our governments, the UN, and the space aliens occupying the ISS, then clearly we have something to hide, and must be locked up for our own good and the good of society.

Oh if I only had mod points today. Would have gone for insightful as opposed to funny :D

Mmmm you have a point there. I think a comfortable "looking" environment might serve as a suitable jumping off point for certain people. If you handed them a Linux system, with a Windows looking desktop, carefully eased them into what "acts wrong", it can facilitate transition. Different people have different learning curves. It's not too hard for a person to transition from one windows version to another, but harder to transition from Windows to Linux. But there is no reason to deny the opportunity to give them a comfortable looking desktop if that's what helps. Sooner or later most will realize that it's silly to go that route anyway.