I graduated in 1966. I remember that we took a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles when I was in High School. The only computer I ever saw was the Univac at the Museum. However, when I looked it up, it said that the Museum had the Johnniac at that time. Guess my memory is starting to fail :)

I use WSL Debian for certain applications that work better with it than in a Windows Environment. Specifically, I use the simple version of vim that comes with Debian for all my text documents because I do not care for what is available in Windows and after leaving Quicken for my finances found Ledger-CLI to be a very suitable substitute. I have no use for most of the graphical environments in Linux as a simple layman but love the bash command line.

That is one of the most reasonable statements I've seen in Slashdot for a while. Thank you. When I was in High School, Barry Goldwater was considered Mr. Conservative and then came Ronald Reagan. Whether they were mistaken or not in their ideas, I don't recognize anything in the current "conservatives" as resembling anything they said. Thank you again for your post.

I will give my experience. However, I am not a guru when it comes to computers so take it with a grain of salt. The problem I have with my Vanilla Debian installation of Debian 12 with Gnome on an old Dell 755 Optiplex from 2008 is that if Gnome has Wayland and I click on either Thunderbird or Firefox, a black box shows up on the desktop and that is it. If i change it to Gnome with Xorg, Thunderbird and Firefox come up like normal. I do not know what would cause that, but it has been true for the last couple of Debian versions. I'm sure someone with more technical knowledge than I would know exactly the cause. The computer has a very old Nvidia Graphics Card which is no longer supported by Debian, and I believe that is part of the problem.

I enjoy your post because I've never been able to "visualize" and figured it was a metaphor. In 2nd grade, I was staring off in space with what I call a "blank mind." That refers to my mind not thinking about anything. I mentioned that to someone else once and they said one's mind is always thinking so there is no such thing as a blank mind. Well, mine goes blank :) My teacher said, "Stop day-dreaming." So in second grade I learned that a "blank mind" meant day dreaming. Didn't find out that other people could visualize until I was 21 and by boss was going to a "Gestalt Therapist." I read some literature on Gestalt Therapy and then asked other people if they could "literally" see things because I didn't believe it was possible. What did I learn from this? Every one's brain works slightly differently and I can't assume what is natural to me is natural to anyone else. I'm 75 now and recognize that as the truth. Guess I'm a slow learner :)

I agree with your sentiment. What makes it even worse is "If you bought a Vizio TV in California after April 30th, 2014, Vizio may owe you some money." I'm outside of California, so it doesn't mean anything to me.

I think you are right on here. Most steps forward in technology have improved people's lives. I was never good at number crunching but I understood how to do things so Calculators helped when they were invented. When I was taught how to use a typewriter in Junior High School, my grade average went up immediately because now the teachers could read my papers because my handwriting was atrocious. The one problem was term papers. You couldn't have any errors on your term paper and couldn't use a white cover-up. It had to be perfectly typed. When Word Processors were invented and Computers with Word Processing software, it improved my ability to write papers without errors. At 75, I've been finding most of the young people I meet pretty smart. Of course for me, 40 and under are young people. :) Most young people I've met are discovering and inventing new ways to improve the future. They give me hope for a better future.

Whenever I run windows, I do use the store for the following apps: Debian (I use ledger-cli for my finances), Firefox, Rufus and occasionally Thunderbird and Apache OpenOffice. While I admit it is hard to find decent software, I do think those programs are alright. Haven't had any experience with VPN apps or ARM Windows though.

Thank you. Perhaps I need the professional help. I've reinstalled windows 11 on a daily basis on my new Dell XPS 8950 and have had nothing but trouble; but then I can't figure out whether it is problems with Windows 11 or Dell, so not sure what to say :) The major problem I have when I reinstall is that neither notepad or the Windows Store will work. Haven't figured out how to fix either one yet. So, I do change the widgets almost on a daily basis, after I do a reinstall where the Windows Store and notepad will work for me. I can't blame that on Microsoft or Dell, but me trying to figure out how to make Windows 11 usable for me.

Let's see. I don't like the weather widget that they put in Windows 10. I have to right click the taskbar and press a menu to get rid of the weather widget. I don't like the picture they put in the search button. I have to right click the taskbar in Windows 10 and press a menu to get rid of the picture. In Windows 11 to do the same thing I have to turn on Settings and then push Personalization then press Taskbar. From there, I push a button to get rid of Widgets. Then I have to go back to Personalization and go to Privacy & security. Then I press, Search Permissions, scroll down and turn off Show search highlights. I think the right click was easier.

I'm 75 and I love my computers. When I was in high school and college, we didn't have computers to use and when you had to type and retype your term papers because the teacher wouldn't allow any mistakes and didn't allow correction fluid the first computer one got with Word processing software was wonderful. It was something I couldn't have imagined using in High School and College. WordPerfect 6.0 for Dos was wonderful and my bank account stopped having bounced checks after I got Quicken 8.0 for Dos. Of course, now it is Vim, the gnu text tools and ledger-cli on Windows Subsystem for Linux. The most useful programs I've ever found for Windows. I just read a quote reportedly from Linus Torvalds today: "The value of any software lies in its usefulness not its price."

The reason their Linux was based on Caldera was because in fact they were actually the company Caldera. The Santa Cruz Operation sold their Unix business to the Caldera Linux Company and SCO changed their name to Tarantella, I believe. Then Caldera International changed its name to the SCO Group under Darl McBride. It was confusing back then, and it still is today.