Can someone expain to me why I should give up a high-end gaming PC in exchange for selling my soul to Microsoft (or Sony)?

I used SuSE from 2004 until the fall of 2011, when I switched to Mint. I like both of them, and Mint "just works" out of the box better than SuSE. The lack of nVidia proprietary drivers is a showstopper for my purposes, and requiring root privileges to access NTFS drives might be a security feature, but to me it's a headache. I say all this in the spirit of constructive criticism. However, once you get SuSE configured like you want it, it runs like a champ. I love YAST; it's everything all in one place.

But I *am* fed up with Ubuntu!

I've been using Mint for about a year now, through 13 and 15. I love how it 'just works' out of the box, but I'm switching back to SuSE today. It takes a little time to configure, but I've never had any trouble with past versions

Bingo

It went from Phoenix to Firebird, then to Firefox

If you want the peasants to revolt, this is a good way to do it

It was a piece of shit, that bore no resemblance to the masterpiece it was allegedly based on. A pretty-looking piece of shit.

My second PC was an Acer 486DX2 that I paid around $1600 for in 1994. I got three years of good service out of it, then gave it to my sister-in-law's kids and they used it a couple more. Mind you, this was two decades ago; maybe Acer's gotten worse.

+1 Insightful

FTFY. Do you not see where your reasoning is flawed? Your argument essentially boils down to, "people will do whatever they want to do and laws cannot stop that." and also implies that since (a) alcohol is a Bad Thing and (b) alcohol is legal, that other Bad Things should be legal as well. Finally it assumes that people who take hard drugs and become addicts are simply exercising their God-given right to do what they want with their own bodies. Again I say, when those people become so addicted that they become a drain on society, they become everyone's problem.

Two or more wrongs do not equal a right. No law is 100% effective. No man is an island, and what we do or don't do *does* affect others.

And there already *are* needle exchange programs. I'd call that an enablement of addictive behavior if not a subsidy.

Why not apply that reasoning to murder and rape laws? After all, they haven't eradicated their targets either. The lack of sheer common sense in this argument just floors me.

Drugs have not always been the problem that they are today. When someone becomes so addicted that they can't function then they become a burden on society, and that makes it everyone's problem. Some of these responses I see are so wrapped up in self-congratulatory "Look at me! I'm *compassionate*" declarations that they're almost parody.

Your solution to crime is to make nothing illegal. What is solved? You cannot seriously be arguing that hard drugs are a (tm)Good Thing and that everyone should have free or even subsicized access to them. I say this as a pretty regular marijuana smoker. There's a vast world of difference too between the bright internet, that tries to protect the privacy of its users, and the dark internet, which has become a wretched hive of scum and villainy. No, you can't blame the technology, but you can sure blame the people that (ab)use it.