No, you're wrong. You can't use hyperbole ("broke everything completely") and expect to just be taken as truth.

Well for corporate/business users, not much. Windows XP Pro was the last version of Windows that didn't require activation. As for home users - everyone around me has moved to Windows 7/8 or OS X (not Linux, everyone who's tried it ends up going back to Windows in short order when they find out limited it is for mainstream desktop use) and so XP being unable to be activated is quite irrelevant.

You're wrong. For the last five years my wife is a happy CentOS user. And as non technical as you can get it.

CentOS is a fine workstation distro but a terrible desktop distro. IMHO of course.

Also, my wife is a happy Windows 7 user and although she may have acquired a few skills from what I've taught her, she's hardly a geek and somehow manages to do things just fine. PLUS she can use Office 2010 like everyone else and play the Sims 3. Try that using Linux!

Actually it's stuff like that (you know, the applications) that mean I'll never convert to Linux. I've given up - not going to force my wife, a teacher, to move to an inferior application (LibreOffice, which let's face it is the best of the free alternatives but sadly lacks in many areas) just because I have a hard-on for a fucking operating system.

Very good idea. I've been using the YYYYMMDD format and although it's close to the ISO, I have to admit that the hyphens definitely improve readability while retaining the ability to sort properly, so I think I'll change things now.

Well you clearly aren't supposed to be posting here. This is supposed to be a place for geeks and nerds (or so the slogan goes), but you're just a "user" if a thin client is all you need. Go away scum!

Note: I'm mocking of course (well, somewhat), but it doesn't sound like you have any real interest in computers anymore if you're actually satisfied by thin clients. Servers might be able to do some of the heavy work but there's value in having local resources in front of you as well, at least in my line of work. A geek wouldn't relish giving up all that for a dumb terminal, would they?

Obviously someone cares, otherwise Valve wouldn't be throwing resources at an apparently dead market. Oh, and I care. That's at least one person.

As for the Dell-Alienwar announcement, ArsTechnica covered it. They're ultimately a far better tech site than Slashdot is, but I think Slashdot has a better selection of commenters.

What, you forget Uwe Boll or something?

Fucking cowards

Any particular reason you had to be so dramatic? It's not necessary to make your point. It's fairly straightfoward really: the bad guys always win; it's a fact of life. They have more money and power than good, honest, moral people will ever have, The best you can do is hold them off as much as possible, but eventually, anything that can be locked down, will be. Anything that can be done to ensure people are kept dumb and mindless consumers, will happen. I know this, because it's happening to me too despite being aware of what I'm becoming.

It's very hard to fight against those that want to take away your freedoms, and with all the pressures and problems in normal adult life, most people don't have the luxury to fight all the damn time against such things.

You forgot the lack of manual saves (quicksave or otherwise). Whenever someone complains about checkpointed save systems, invariable someone chimes in and suggests that continually pressing F5 is hardly an improvement. What the said smartarse fails to mention is that pressing F5 ensures you've saved NOW, and hence can safely quick the game knowing it's going to load exactly where you saved and not a checkpoint 5-10 minutes ago.

It also means you can experiment more with situations, try out various weapons or tactics or ideas since you can just save manually before doing so. If the lack checkpoint was a while back, the enthusiasm to experiment deteriorates if you have to progress through scripted sequences to get back to where you started messing around.

Oh and of course, no-one said that a checkpoint AND manual save system couldn't be implemented. Games like Deus Ex - Human Revolution and even Half-Life 2 have this feature, and it works great for both types of players. But apparently to some idiots, if you complain about checkpoints you must be a save-smasher.

TL;DR - people suck on the Internet and are unable to form a argument unless it involves belittling other people.

I know, I know, it's just an excuse to have fun at someone's expense. :)

I see. Thank you for the update Mr. PayPal-employee.

A gut goes to the doctor

To be honest if your gut somehow manages to detach itself from your body, it's probably a good thing it's going to see the doctor.

"We are moving to the cloud powered by OpenStack to enable agility, availability and the innovation necessary to get the best products to our customers, faster than our competitors."

Is there some kind of disease in which anyone who reaches a high enough level in the corporate world is required to talk in brain-dead marketing/buzzword speak?

Oh, and what product(s)? PayPal is a payment processor for online merchants. That's the only product anyone's aware of that they make.

The regular version of Mint though has the advantage of being to use Ubuntu PPAs, which can come in handy for projects which use PPAs to deliver the latest versions of their software. Otherwise I'd tend to agree - LMDE feels cleaner.