I agree. However, I fail to see how that's relevant to my original point that your inclusive "we" doesn't include me and was therefore a little presumptuous, or my restated point that I disapprove of an obsession with material possessions.

I have never ever bought anything that was advertised on Slashdot, except the idea of Free Software.

I said most. I admit to a computer and an internet connection. I don't play commercial games, I haven't bought a DVD in years, my TV set from 1990 rests in the basement, I don't particularly "like" cell phones.

Even if I did like all those things you named, I can easily name plenty more that don't even cost a smile: -

• sitting in the sun,
• sitting in the rain,
• reading classic books,
• listening to music,
• playing a game of cards,
• talking to friends,
• talking to you,
• lushus nectareens,
• jumping up and down on my bed, and
• (drum roll...) long walks on the beach.

Really, though, I was trying to make a different point: My disapproval of our obsession over consuming distractions in the wider sense on a regular basis, and the general assumption that everything worth having costs money. I understand my value system might differ substantially from yours. Sorry for the guided idealism.

"He who never thinks of anything as 'mine' does not feel the lack of anything: he is never worried by a sense of loss."

You'd be right it the first sentence of TFA didn't read, "Sony Ericsson may soon make the play button a thing of the past with its new motion-controlled earbuds." With a claim like that, this kind of critical response to the arcticle is to be expected and justified.

Please leave me out of this. Most of the stuff I like doesn't cost money.

You said it isn't one of them. I showed it is one of them. Your backtracking to say it didn't use to be one of them acquiesces in this.

Secondly, tangential to my point, but intersecting your new position:

Etymology:

moot

1154, from O.E. gemot "meeting" (especially of freemen, to discuss community affairs or mete justice), from P.Gmc. *ga-motan (cf. Old Low Frankish muot "encounter," M.Du. moet, M.H.G. muoz), from collective prefix *ga- + *motan (see meet (v.)). The adj. senses of "debatable" and "not worth considering" arose from moot case, earlier simply moot (n.) "discussion of a hypothetical law case" (1531), in law student jargon, in ref. to students gathering to test their skills in mock cases.

Please notice the word hypothetical, as in theoretical, as in not practical. Please also notice the mention of the year 1531, which invalidates your 1983 reference with regards to antecedence.

Conclusions:

1. While whether or not you trumped anything is moot, you did overbid.
2. As much as I enjoy bickering with you, we should really stop this. :)

The idea of this measure is to save energy. To complain that this will cost jobs in the energy industry, or in companies that produce energy-intensive devices, is like complaining that anti-smoking education will cost jobs in the tobacco industry, that fighting terror will cost jobs in the explosives industry, or that curing cancer will cost the job of many a undertaker.

Dear concerned people, we appreciate you're concerned about lost jobs, but this is exactly what we're trying to achieve here.

When you're correcting someone's correction, you really should double-check your assertions to make sure you're not talking crass nonsense, especially if you do it in that tone.

Your point:

Your fault:

moot, adj.

2: deprived of practical significance : made abstract or purely academic

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moot[3])

How about we stop worrying so much about prosecuting the people complying with the demands until we get to the people who were behind the demands?

for i in {1..10}; do cp song_i_ripped_from_my_cd.flac song_i_ripped_from_my_cd_$i.flac; done

This simple script shows that your fact (n > 1) isn't simple.

Moreover, when I don't use FLAC but MP3, i.e. introduce lossiness, I can even give those copies to my friends, who are m > 1 people, and it's still legal, as long as I don't publish, or "make them available to the public". This is true at least in countries that handle this the same sane way audio tapes were handled; which, by the way, include your own country a few years ago.

Copying audio for select friends in a lossy format was, and will always be, moral. That it was, and isn't any longer, legal is of negligible import for everybody who didn't watch too many "public service announcements".

I get "Mobile Linux", but maybe I'm strange.

You're right, my fault. I misread the Wiki article. Two paragraphs down, it actually says exactly what you say.

On April 8, 2014, all Windows XP support, including security updates and security-related hotfixes will be terminated.

But hey, who are we to criticize Microsoft for making their new OS more appealing, right? Can't have people unreasonably keep using XP, when Vista and up have all the good trusted computing support.

Alternatively, sue Microsoft because they're breaking a sales promise. Windows XP is officially supported ("Extended Support" including security fixes) until mid 2010.

From Wikipedia:

Windows XP Service Pack 2 will be retired on July 13, 2010, almost six years after its general availability. In accordance with Microsoft's posted timetable, the company stopped general licensing of Windows XP to OEMs and terminated retail sales of the operating system on June 30, 2008, 17 months after the release of Windows Vista. However, an exception was announced on April 3, 2008, for OEMs installing to ultra low-cost PCs (ULCPCs) either until June 30, 2010, or one year after the availability of the next client version of Windows, Windows 7 -- whichever date comes later.

On April 14, 2009, Windows XP and its family of operating systems were moved from Mainstream Support to the Extended Support phase as it marks the progression of the legacy operating system through the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy. During the Extended Support Phase, Microsoft will continue to provide security updates every month for Windows XP, however free technical support, warranty claims and design changes are no longer being offered.

They still sold/licensed XP as late as June 2008, which means that in Europe they're even in the mandatory two-year warranty period, regardless of whether they claim your warranty expired in the "Extended Support" phase. I hope they get sued to hell and back. And then back again.

Please clean your links. That way we'd know you're not some lowly affiliate spammer.

Right. IIRC, 34% of statistics are exhaustingly specific answers to surprisingly misleading questions, 22% are imposingly far-reaching conjecture on ridiculously small sample sizes, 44% are just made up on the spot, and the remaining 15% are conducted by people who can't even add up to 100?