> What he should have said, 11 September 2011

By "he", you mean George Dubya Bush? Three structured coherent paragraphs of text? All at once? That never ever happened in those eight year. I'm sure the teleprompter could have had that text, but it would not have been delivered anywhere close. So let me try to rephrase your content above, the way it might have been delivered:

Dear citizens of America! Today I am shocked... I am sad. I am shocked and sad.... Very...

Those evil-doers attacked America, our nation. Attacked our people, our nation... people... And lives were lost. Those towers in New Yark fell down. Two towers. But, there is a saying: You can fool me twice, but fool me, once, twice... There were two towers, that's what I mean to say. No, three. Four towers. No three... The Pentagon was also attacked.

*whips froth from the corner of his mouth*

But we will not be at a nation of violence, like it was in the old west... wild west. We will not be killers. We will not hunt down and kill those who flew those planes. ehh...

We will rebuild those towers in New Yark. Because we are the greatest nation. America is the greatest nation in the whole world. And I believe we can rebuild, and show that we cannot be attacked, because... And America... And... will build towers twice as high. Very high. There are very many great building companies in America. Because we are the greatest nation.

So bless you all. And God bless America!!

Really like your business plan! In other words, the year of the desktop Linux is here, but not all people have been enlightened. :-)

Out of curiosity, what is your retreat plan if some customer do return and want their old Windows back? Do you store a backup somehow? Make sure they have original install CDs? Take note of their OEM key, etc? If they lose that stuff, they'd have to pay you another $300-400 for a Windows restore, or what?

> GNU Emacs

I believe there's another guy who ranks higher on the list of notable contributions to that one. Also, there was something about free vs. open source software... :-p

* runs away before the rotten tomatoes come flying *

I assume 'here' means US?

Yeah, travelling light, with minimum amounts of personal electronics, and a clean loaner laptop from work is definitely standard procedure when going to the US. We're based in Western Europe, if that matters.

Since the other half of the topic of the thread was Reddit...: You'll find that a lot of people frequenting there are not hackers, or not very much into computers at all. The ones that do know a bit of tech, mostly know how to download Windows and apply a crack.

I guess the best way forward is to continue to educate. Linking to RMS' essays, which are all relevant and catching. E.g. 'The right to read' is even more important to highlight now, with new walled gardens, locked devices, and rampant content control popping up everywhere. There's a lot of work to do in this area, and informing more people is a big part of it.

Upvote this guy.

And here's the words you're looking for. From Wikipedia:

Ephebophilia is the sexual preference of adults for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19.

Hebephilia refers to the sexual preference for individuals in the early years of puberty (generally ages 11–14, though onset of puberty may vary)

> the human ear can barely discern 192k mp3 from CD quality, and 256k is pretty much beyond the ability of all but the most acoustically inclined.

If you play it back on some dedicated hardware Digital-to-Analog equipment, or burn it back onto a CD, that is probably true. On a run-of-the-mill laptop or desktop, with a cheap on-board soundcard, you'll still get very audible interference with the power supply, spinning disks, and just poor reproduction in general.

Regardless of what playback method you choose, though, there is a risk that the original encoding of the MP3, which is still lossy, cut out parts which the human ear supposedly cannot hear. At the lower end, that is around 20 Hz. However, a good bass speaker will still make the room shake below that frequency, even if your ear cannot pick it up directly. For examples of this effect, see the last "hidden" track on Leftfield's "Leftism", or Prodigy's Charly from their "Experience" album.

Although a cute comment , I'm guessing you haven't spent a lot of time around these companies . Let me tell you .

First off, they're all very big, so you'll find all of the political spectrum represented . From freedom fighters like you and me to conservative and biased MAFIAA supporters . Who gets to talk to these media cartels is more a toss of a coin.

However, more importantly , they're all about money , and not getting sued out of business. So when somebody's threatening and there's a possibility to make money , these companies will happily negotiate with assholes. Look no further than Google's YouTube. They now have an advanced system triggering on copyrighted content , and offering ads revenue splitting deals to those who claim ownership.

Actually ,let's talk about bathrooms for a minute . Why is it that every public toilet stall in the US is designed for exobists? There is at least a foot between the floor and walls, if you're only slightly taller than average you can see over the door without effort , and there's half an inch between the door and frame on both side.

No wonder Americans don't care about privacy. They cannot even take a dump in private .

Wow. I would have mistaken your attack for PMS, but assume "Dan" is not short for Daniella. Talking about socially inept; be careful with those stones and class windows.

No streaming: No shitty YouTube videos. No skipping sound. No background noise from the fan or power supply interfering with the sound card. No Spotify ad-breaks. Just my NAD, my CDs and I.

(Oh, and here's a secret: CD-DA still beats vinyl)

> If it fails to gain popularity, then it might as well not exist.

What a daft attitude. However, I find it interesting that it pops up in mobile related topics more than on the desktop.

Imagine some obscure distro going: "Well, if we don't get 100M users, we'll just give up". Or a manager of niche RPM: "If we don't double our download rate by tomorrow, we'll throw in the towel".

Expecting every market, app, or initiative to be another Angry Birds or Google market is unrealistic and unnecessary. There is plenty of room for success in niche products. Take the f-droid market; not big, but certainly an interesting idea if free & open source is your cup of tea.

http://mthruf.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/kidstoday-e1314808448884.jpg

Actually, the "old guy" is 100% right though. And it refreshing to see that some still have their feet on the ground, rather than their head in the cloud.

Ever heard of the Gillette business model? Yeah, same thing with printers.

In fact, inkjet printers are mentioned as an example in the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebie_marketing

> How long has it been since you used windows?

About 10 years, give or take. I didn't realise it was still around. Or as it already gone through its faded cycle, and come back as retro hip?