Good point, and yes, I've tried it. Also resetting my topic preferences. I'm more worried about people only getting information that agrees with what they believe already (in other words, a more general problem). Communication is touted as the solution for so many problems, and it is, but you can't listen to what you aren't being exposed to. At this point, I don't even trust my own perceptions of which side in (for instance) the Charleston shootings or on many other matters. I'm also honest enough to admit that even primary documents and documentation can need explanation. And thanks for the reply.

Slightly off-topic: I'd also like a way of getting news through Google that WASN'T based on preferences. Too much stuff is returned from partisan news sites, which is fine, but I want to hear all sides and see who has the most cogent arguments. The "echo chamber" effect ends up feeding divisiveness.

I would suggest looking at the Ubuntu derivatives for one simple reason: Most of them support running from a USB stick, and you can try a few different ones to see if it's got the support you want. Several have mentioned Kubuntu. There's also Mint. And Knoppix, not Ubuntu-derived, while it's usually used as a rescue disk, can be installed. It'll run on most things with a CD player. When you've narrowed your choices down, or at least at some point, check out the user forums for the distro. How large are they? How friendly are they? How technical do they get? Find something you're comfortable with. Secret note #1: If you find an Ubuntu-based distro, Ubuntu's forums are available. Secret note #2: Most "command line" things these days are cut and paste. Quite often BASH scripts are posted that can help you with things (if you're not familiar with them, think Windows batch scripts). Start8 has been mentioned if that silly Modern interface is the problem. There are others. Good luck!

Consider me enlightened. Thank you. I was going to ask if you thought the relative isolation accounted for this, but in the internet age, I don't think anyone online is very isolated anymore.

So does this mean a physics grad student can use the "metastable false vacuum at my thesis" excuse?

How do I know you're you? Anyone could say that.

"done right" I wish I could mod this "sad but true". There's really not a lot of incentive to keep other people's data private.

> The US government is not monolithic, especially on it's policy stances, procedures and especially agency or department culture. You also have the problem of turf fights. The military has conflicting mandates. They are supposed to win wars. They are also supposed to avoid enviromental damage when training, hence the move to steel rather than lead bullets (for fear of lead poisoning) and the banning or curtailing of testing sonar systems (for fear of messing up dolphin and whale hearing). Also in the military, there has been such a push for zero-tolerance of any failure of subordinates that the officers are taking over functions traditionally (and arguably) best left to the chie's and sergeants.

A VERY casual scan of the link in the story to the thread, at least in the first 5 pages where someone mentioned their hardware seems to note a lot of HP machines. I am not pointing the finger at anyone. I am not an engineer. No one has ever mistaken me for a deity (well, there was that one girl who said "Oh, God" and laughed, but I'd rather forget that.) But I just noticed that. FWIW

Buy a dog.

Especially if we change the last title to "Don't Throw That Wench".

The US population has resisted electronic wallets. I think there's a few reasons: Loosing the damn phone, or having it stolen. Getting hacked. (Shall we have another interesting Win XP SP2 era about passwords?) And a reason I haven't heard mentioned, but applies to any credit transaction: It's too damn easy to spend your way into debt. Especially at 28% interest, I think more and more people have learned (the hard way) to cut it off, or scale it back. Even debit transactions (and cryptocurrencies would fall in this category) are something people have found are a way of blowing money way to easily. Paper checks are on the way out...or are they? (Haven't seen any numbers on this.) But writing a paper check is more involved (writing involves muscles and takes longer), especially if you enter the amount into a register where you have your balance staring at you. None of the mobile payment methods I've seen instantly shows you how much your assets have decreased, or your liabilities have increased. I probably just gave someone the beginnings of a billion-dollar idea. Remember me when the IPO comes time. :)

And everyone was paranoid about Chinese stuff.

Tell them that the XYZCo. just hired 5 more workers, increased uptime by 5%, AND increased ROI by 12%. Hell, use my numbers. Unlikely they'll know how to check.

It's called "rent-seeking" by economists. Using lobbying to get or ensure profits rather than labor or investment.