I would suggest finding a used Laptop if you want to avoid windows 8. I work for a used computer sales company and we have 40 to 50 laptops a month that we sell with windows 7, vista, and even XP.

Also check Craigslist.

If you aren't buying used I don't know where you might find somebody still selling machines with windows 7.

Sophmore year was basically "introduction to computers" giving the basic history from Babbage to the PC, covering apple, and the start of Microsoft buying DOS. After that the only thing we were taught was Lotus 1-2-3 on Windows 3.1. The next year the school upgraded and we were running windows 98 with whatever MS Office suite was available at the time. This was the depressing part. These were things I was fortunate enough to learn before I went to high school. Being the teacher's assistant is definitely not much fun.

Next was drafting with Autocad, which was really just the basics on CAD and mostly focused on the basics of paper and pencil drafting.

Computer Science was available my Junior and Senior year. The first teacher we had didn't actually keep a grade book and when asked to write an essay on what I had learned in his class for the final project I wrote a large goose egg, handed it in 5 minutes after class started and still made a 90 for the year...

Senior year was taught by the same teacher who was teaching intro to computers and she was way out of her depth. At this time I had been scripting in mIRC for the last three years and had a pretty good grasp on variables, functions, writing modularly, and once again was set in the role of teacher's assistant... When I started CS2 I realized taking time to learn Pascal in CS1 did actually teach me a lot of the fundamentals of CS. I may not have cared much for the first teacher because of his teaching method, but the ideas sunk in.

I graduated in 99.

Sadly, most of the people my age don't seem to know how to do much more than write a document or the very basics of spreadsheets. Then again, I also live in a tiny town of 80,000.

Hit the Minecraft crowd up. Some of our interns just couldn't stop talking about it. I just didn't get the appeal.

Damn it! I've been saying socialist all these years.

Considering that 70% of their manufacturing is now taking place in China, it's not hard to believe. Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvl5Gan69Wo&feature=player_embedded

No, I said I'm not perfect. If you didn't get that concept, maybe you need to go back to sku sku sku school, where they seem to have failed to teach our current sheep herd the most basic principles needed to get by in life, but some how managed to pass them through grade after grade until they got out into the real world. Woe is the general tax payer who actually has to pay for them and theirs...

Do you have any idea what it's like to listen to somebody read out loud and struggle to make it through a few paragraphs in a story because they can't fucking read? Did you know these same people are driving on our streets, unable to read or comprehend the guidelines motorists need to know? Oh wait, we're all winners, nobody is behind the curve...

Yes! Absolutely this technology could save my life! Do I want it in my vehicle? NO! Not until the day I decide I want it. At that time I can call On Star, provided by Government Motors.

I don't have to cost the government, YOU and other taxpayers, a dime! I don't have insurance. Why? I'm not married and I don't have any children. Who would benefit? Well insurance companies for one, and now if I still don't buy insurance I get fined / taxed (however you see it) thanks to Obamacare. Yep, I decide not to be a burden to society while I pay for those that do. Funny how what I worked for doesn't benefit me, but takes care of somebody else.

Fuck that!

WTF do you think I'm talking about? I'm trying to save you untold thousands over the course of your natural working years in life. Do you have any idea how many people and how much new equipment it will take to answer all of these "emergency" calls that may be nothing more than some dumb ass who backed into his own garage door? My long term medical costs are only covered if I CHOOSE to ask the government for assistance because of my current position. My lack of insurance usually means I won't be able to get long term help unless I make that choice. I'm a fucking white male. That fact alone means I most likely won't see the light of day from behind the wall of paper work and red tape that would be thrown up in my face. Gotta take care of the fucking illegals and minorities first. So I don't have the obsessive need to live like most people... So sue me, and get your money's worth before the government takes it all...

So do my posts make you a prophet, a profit, or logical?

You're right, PUBLIC services aren't FREE. We have to pay for them, don't we? Well, I certainly don't want to pay for your accident. I already have to pay for other people's accidents all the time. It's nice how MY money takes care of you and yours... While I'm certainly not perfect, in 15 years of driving I've never managed to be involved in an accident. Being aware of your surroundings, and what others are doing is so much better than winding up in the same situation they're in. That helps minimize the damage of driving a heavy box of metal. Actually knowing how to drive responsibly and not aggressive helps too. Unfortunately we let just about anybody drive these days, 70+ year old people who refuse to do the speed limit and drive 10-20 miles under the limit, to immature 16 year old kids who think their new sports car daddy bought them is hot shit and can smoke anybody on the road. Instilling ethics, morals, and responsibility into our nations' people is so hard, let's just give up and track them all because they're too fucking stupid to take care of themselves...

But if you're smoking out of a pipe shaped like a gun they have to run and hide and call the real police...

Fine, pay for your own service. Don't fucking mandate that we all must purchase it. Are there fines if you disconnect your emergency tracking beacon?

One of the many reasons I don't own a cell phone is so I don't have to worry about being tracked or listened to. 99.9% of the conversations I have on the phone are at work and only have to do with work. I know I'm not the only one holding out on buying a cell phone, for whatever reason. So, we'll have GPS in every car... Mandated... Once we accept the need, because of emergency, we'll soon be forced to deal with the realities of being tracked where ever our vehicle goes. It takes 30 minutes to get to work by car. I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. A bicycle is a little out of the question... I guess I'll just have to start rebuilding cars that predate the mandate and are excluded. Cash for clunkers seemed like such a great idea at the time... Also, how do they plan to offset the expense of paying more medics to be on call, the increase in the number of ambulances needed, the number of cops that have to show up to the scene of an accident that might have happened on public property, where they can't even do anything if nobody was injured... We're already having a hard enough time paying our public servants to deal with the shit they already have to deal with. And who gets the contract to supply all these devices? Will they be manufactured in China with compromised chips like we're seeing with so many of our current electronics? You guys are already being video taped everywhere you go, and now your car will have GPS... How easy it will be for investigators to consider anybody to be a suspect that was in the general area a crime occurred? It sounds like it would be good for police because they could narrow the suspects down to just a select few to begin with, but do you want to possibly be harassed by the police for something that didn't involve you in any way? We already have plenty of people who are being found innocent of crimes they supposedly committed 15 or 20 years ago. I say fuck your tracking. As many citizens as possible should remove their bullshit mandated tracking devices and refuse to pay inspection taxes until they retract this law. A government run with no money. Too bad I didn't think of it first...

So I sent a letter 2 nights ago to chuck, fox news, and a few others asking about these messed up contradictions. I have yet to receive a response... I simply asked how this works: Fox news (boo, ya, whatever), says you're raising the red flag on Google and Apple over more detailed maps, but here, http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/05/30/announces-plans-to-arm-domestic-surveillance-drones-missiles-139411/ you're advocating for 6 drone bases instead of the original 4, all because you hoped one of the bases would be in your own state. So are you trying to create jobs, and look good to your constituents, all in the name of spying on Americans, and then telling the nation that you're tough on privacy issues?

Am I the only one thinking The Mighty Stephen Hawking is a fucking Quake master? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXLIzk_7KCE