The AC to whom you are responding demonstrates why it is difficult sometimes for adults to have meaningful conversation. There are always small-minded people like him who not only do not appreciate it (which is their loss), but actively resent it and seek to interfere with it. They choose to be on the noise side of the signal-to-noise ratio.

I suspect that deep down, they have never learned to deeply appreciate much of anything because doing so generally doesn't fit into their ten-second attention spans. Rather than being "just their way of doing things", this is an inferior choice. They themselves know it, if only instinctively, and it comes out in the envious manner in which they try to disrupt others from enjoying it.

There are some sad, sad people on this planet, trying so hard to be self-important. Since they aren't finding real worth within themselves, they have to grasp for it in the outside world of other people. The only method available to them is denigrating someone else. It is too bad that they'd rather continue to act out such impulses, since they lack the introspection and the emotional maturity to recognize them as the character flaws that they are.

This is why drugs are not for everyone.

Lawyers are one of the few priesthoods left in Western society. The purpose of a priesthood is to guard information from the uninitiated, so that most people are dependent on the priests.

The Catholic Church of medieval times really hated the idea of a Bible written in the native languages of the laypeople. They preferred Latin, a language that was generally taught only to the clergy at that time. If there is ever a movement to simplify the law and remove the legalese, so that the average person could easily understand and apply it without professional help, you will see a similar outcry from the lawyers.

The difference between a lawyer and a doctor is that the human body is inherently complex. The law is only so complex because men have made it so.

That tactic is used in politics all the time, particularly whenever the desire is to expand government. Float an idea and pretend like there's any real debate about what you are going to do anyway. It gives the illusion of legitimacy. If there is a lot of backlash, do it over time in baby steps with carefully crafted excuses as justification; if not, just go for it.

It is proof that small-minded people want to blame (their concept of) God for what man has done.

I think I know what you want. You want a micromanaging God that doesn't ever let us make any of our own choices. That way nothing bad ever happens. That is a God you could believe in, with none of that messy faith stuff, right? Just like your other emotionally childish counterparts want a God-like Government that can take away all the guns because they are cowards, cowards love easy wrong answers, so they blame inanimate objects for what people do. That may be drugs, guns, video games, music, movies, you name it: these people are themselves so dehumanized and shallow that the human element is the very first thing they want to deny.

It ain't gonna work. Certain drugs are completely illegal in all circumstances. Guess what? They can't even keep them out of PRISONS. Perhaps a lot of people didn't know that? Maybe they hadn't researched the feasibility of this idea? No one who has looked into it thinks it's realistic. Lots of people who can't distinguish emotion from reason, who really don't know anything about the topic, think it's just great. What a coincidence. Maybe you could ponder that for a little while.

Now if you can grasp a general principle when you see one and realize that it applies to more than one thing, perhaps it will dawn on you that banning guns won't work either. It makes sense too. This shooting was done by a psychopath who obviously wasn't worried about dying and obviously wasn't worried about mass murder charges. Gee, I wonder if a weapons violation charge is going to deter him? Yeah, that DOES sound silly, now doesn't it? Good, the ability to face a harsh reality is the mark of adulthood.

I am glad you are not going to get what you want. The adults don't want to be stuck in your little playpen. Yes, 20 people were murdered. In fact the death toll was a bit higher than that. Is hating a troll going to bring them back? Is there, in fact, anything at all that you and I or anyone else could do to reverse what has been done? No, there isn't. But there are a lot of rash mistakes with long-lasting consequences that we could make. There are also lots of petty little ways that we could find reasons to hate each other. Do you think that either of those would honor the dead?

Speaking of small-minded people, I suppose it's time for them to call me names and express their impotent outrage because I said something they don't agree with. Knowing no better way, that is how they handle such things. It gives them a whole moment of feeling self-important before they come right back down to the life they have to live.

I think you could have a career in politics.

False dichotomy. You limit yourself by viewing it in such narrow terms. It leaves no allowance for beauty.

One can be intelligent and supremely joyful in this life. The bitterness and resentment are the prime reasons you don't see that yourself.

Yes I am responding late but perhaps you will read this anyway.

And, does anyone else see the (huge) potential problem with the perception that "if Google doesn't list it, it does not exist"? They don't need to be even further entrenched.

Well, he could start by not implicitly linking a few psychopaths who USE BOMBS AND MURDER OTHERS with those who go to church or have their own personal beliefs. He is not asking for evidence to satisfy his own inquiry. That would be a separate discussion. He's simply expressing his hatred and mockery of anyone who entertains beliefs he finds distasteful.

Blaming all religion (and he made no distinction) for the problems in Pakistan is like never eating food again because someone was choking.

This one is apparently wasted on him, but maybe you will appreciate it. I am not an atheist, yet I feel no need to mock, disrespect, denigrate, or look down my nose at anyone who chooses to be an atheist. To me that is a personal decision. If a person wants my input, they will have to ask me specifically. Otherwise, it's none of my damned business what they believe. I should treat other people with the dignity and respect they deserve no matter what I think about their faith or lack of faith.

That is what you are not seeing from the GP. He does not appear to be an atheist because he found no religion to be satisfying or believable. He appears to be an atheist so he can pat himself on the back for being better than all those "morons" who don't see things his way. What a miserable way to be. I assure you, no one who lives like that can be truly joyful and happy, not in any enduring sort of way. Their happiness depends on what other people do.

With organized religion there is some truth to that.

When an individual is seeking a way to express the more abstract parts of his or her nature, what is called spirituality, and finds that some of the best real teachers had one "persuasion" or another but tend to all say very similar things, as though they all saw the same things and put them in different terms according to different frameworks ... there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Ignoring the progress made by those who came before means you are doomed to constantly reinvent the wheel.

The trick any real individual understands is to not get caught up with any particular language or framework, to instead focus on what truly advanced people have seen or done. It's the difference between looking at the finger that points, versus seeing the heavenly constellation it tries to point out.

Obviously individuals who really grok this tend not to herd together in large congregations with bylaws and conventions and someone to take the meeting minutes. For the most part, that is for the insecure who need to be surrounded by the like-minded to feel validated. Thus anyone who seriously questions or objects is a sort of threat. I for one say fuck that.

The right thing to do is the right thing to do, even if that might give "our team"* something to think about.


* No, I don't think that way because it's mindless, but nonetheless it's all too common.

Your comment amused me, because I know just how much you make yourself suffer by being so bitter.

Perhaps one day you'll recognize that this is beneath you.

Then, logically, their worst fear would be that apps become more portable so that the underlying OS becomes increasingly irrelevant. They don't see that as an eventuality if they continue along this course?

Yeah. I disagree with it strongly, but there is certainly a school of thought that prefers to remove options because it might confuse us "stupid users", rather than implement those options in a more robust and transparent way.

By not treating them like complete idiots and explaining that changes made "under the hood" are important too. Yes, I know that's unrealistic but that's how it could easily be done. Only, this entire industry has invested so much in the opposite form of marketing that at this point, it would be a shock to the average customer.

Two of those are standard features of X (VirtuaWin, WizMouse). What Winsplit Revolution does is handled by some window managers. But generally the best way to do multiple things in *nix is with the command line, which is really simple and straightforward if you know how to use it. Most GUI applications take command-line arguments or have command-line versions that make this very easy. I am not trying to talk you out of your preference (leave that for the zealots), just pointing out that Windows doesn't have a monopoly on those things. That's a good thing no matter which OS you use.

Heh that's pretty funny (because it's true). I believe you have identified the pattern!

Still ... I don't like Microsoft one bit, but I would compromise my objectivity if I didn't admit that they have some seriously talented employees who really could do better. Is it that they don't want to break this pattern? Maybe they think a combination of vendorlock and "next one will be better really!" increases sales more than consistent improvements could? Or are they simply a one-trick pony in this regard?

I see a lot of otherwise successful companies make a lot of dumb decisions, things I could have told them were a bad idea. I assume that maybe at least one of these two possibilities is true: what you have to do to become an executive selects for a certain mentality and that one mentality only, with very little diversity of thought; or, once you get to such a position it becomes so abstract and you are surrounded by so many yes-men that it completely distorts your view of reality.

Considering that people who will do anything for positions of authority overwhelmingly tend to be sociopaths, it could be as simple as the sociopaths' inability to sincerely admit error and reverse course when it is appropriate to do so. They'd rather convince everyone else that there was no error.

I really don't understand what they're doing with Win 8.

I recently bought a netbook that came with Windows 7. I strongly prefer Linux, so it wasn't very long before I repartitioned the drive and installed the OS of my choice. But before I did that, I decided to gave Windows 7 a try, just for the hell of it. I was a bit impressed, actually.

I generally don't like the Windows way of doing things. I prefer the transparency of a *nix system, the storage of important settings in plain text files, the central package manager instead of being nagged about updates for lots of individual programs, the way I don't need malware scanners, the ease with which open source programs can be modified and studied, the fact that drivers are generally maintained with the kernel and not by third parties, the power of the command line, the ease of automation and scripting, the huge variety of choices for graphical desktop, the simple fact that my Linux distro of choice (Gentoo) doesn't assume I'm clueless and thus doesn't get in my way, the ease with which I can find out what caused a problem and fix it and it stays fixed, and the general Open Source philosophy.

Those things about Windows that I don't like are not going to change anytime soon. So it's just not for me. But, having said all that, when I tried Windows 7 I thought that Windows had come a long way. It was stable, solid, and slick. It seemed to me to be what most people wanted: a highly improved and polished XP.

Then I learn about Windows 8 and I'm wondering what the hell the people at Microsoft are thinking. It's as though they want to sabotage themselves. What do they hope to gain here? Is it just that the days of Win 9x made them too arrogant and they don't appreciate that people have more options now? Or what? I haven't seen them pull something like this since either Microsoft Bob or Windows Millenium.