Norman Chan was my supervisor. Things were great until he got reassigned to a different department. The new guy (Alex something or other, I forget his full name after so many years) didn't have much of an interest in open source so the job kind of dried up.

I used to work for MaximumPC magazine (I wrote Linux columns on their website a few years ago) and I saw the writing on the wall even then. Dead-tree magazines (especially tech-related) have been on their last legs for awile now.

You are just a bit early for the PC enthusiasts to be equal to the car enthusiasts. Cars are over 100 years old now and PC's are just over 30.

PC's of today are where cars were back in the 1980's They have started to move away from things that we build and tinker with and into the buy what you need and take it to a specialist to fix. The real enthusiasts will still be building systems just as the real car enthusiasts are still building and working on cars. The next step is the true customization phase. Custom built cars today are a real work of art, not just an old car that has been hopped up and modified a bit. They are far more custom and far more complex than off the line cars. Computers over the next few years will begin to go that direction. Where we start to see more and more truly custom systems that wow us with both the amount of customization as well as the art involved.

KDE 4.0 was more of a prototype; it was never meant for production systems. You can't blame the KDE4 team because distro maintainers decided to replace KDE3 before KDE4 was really ready.

If we didn't interfere in other countries' business, so many people around the world wouldn't hate us and we would have no use for such a large military.

Dont know about you but my Doctor gives me a 50% discount if I pay in cash. Turns out to be less than the cost my insurance bills me as my "co-pay". He saves the money because he does not have to have 3 people dedicated to validating the insurance, billing the different insurance agencies, and a collection person whos job it is to get the insurance companies to pay him.

OMG, I cracked up laughing at the above. Even trying to live the same style as the 1800's is better just because of the above statement. ;P

My only statement is that the weak need to remember it's a choice for the strong to help them, not a right.

So you're a social darwinist. So I guess you'd be OK with the poor ganging up on the rich in huge numbers and tearing them to pieces. After all, it's the law of the jungle and there is strength in numbers.

It is for such madness that I still subscribe to your journal, my friend.

Of course, all the 20-somethings who can't find jobs these days are fucked because that's time lost they can never get back.They will have to delay retirement if they can afford to retire at all (or live way below their means).

Why not stamp the text into copper or aluminum tablets? Far less breakable than clay or stone. Copper eventually gets that green patina but it should still be readable if you stamp the words deep enough.

That, plus the new Gmail interface looks like it was beaten with an ugly stick. Useful text labels are gone, everything is represented with an icon. Are people illiterate these days or something? Some changes are downright impractical. For instance, what's with the tiny editor pop-up window when composing a new message? I have all this screen space, so why not use it? I really don't need to look at the contents of my inbox while I'm writing. Replies use the full-size interface, so what gives? They even manage to get that wrong since essential features like Forward are hidden in menus that are not immediately obvious. It's been over a year since they rolled that UI out and I still want the classic interface back.

Torrenting old (10-15 YO) episodes is fair IMO since it's hard to find anything but the last few seasons on DVD anymore.

Well, not only the navy, but also the merchant marine. Those big container ships burn the dirtiest engines and technology available, because it is the cheapest fuel.

True, you always have the right to move off the grid and become a hermit, well, mostly. There are few places off the grid these days.