It amazes me how many things we rely on, had it's roots in Palo Alto.

Just reread and truly enjoyed The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux. Also, I enjoyed The True Adventures of Joey and Rocky.

One of the benefits of being retired, I know longer have to pay the MS tax anymore.

In my experience, at least in the last 20 years or so, most IT decisions are driven by sales people who need new and fancy enhances to the application(s) because their client's are demanding it and they say, "We need it yesterday!" What usually happens though, there's not that many client's who want the new addition(s) to justify the cost, nor are the specs very clear, and what ends up being released is buggy and ill-thought out enhancements. And what's usually driving this frenetic release, is an Excel spreadsheet. The programmer usually gets blamed for all the bugs in the new release making him/her sinking lower and lower in the eyes of the people upstairs. JMOHO