I think you misunderstood the point. I don't think anyone is saying that the father gets a permanent pass on that kind of logic.

Rather, we're saying to ignore what he's saying for now, because the poor guy is out of his mind with a level of grief we'd wish on almost nobody.

If I understand you correctly, you're referring to copies of W10E for which the user does not have a valid license.

The users I mostly have in mind are the owners of small, law-abiding businesses based in the U.S. If I've understood you correctly, that solution would not be viable for these people.

I've heard that users of Windows 10 Enterprise can eliminate most of the nasty qualities found in Windows 10 Professional edition.

I've also heard that the biggest barrier to obtaining Windows 10 Enterprise is that Microsoft will only sell licenses in very large (1000+?) quantities.

If all of the above are true, has anyone looked into forming a Windows 10 Enterprise "Buyers Club"? I.e., we get 1000 would-be users of Windows 10 Enterprise, and form a purchasing block. The "organization" through which the licensing occurs would be that buyer's club.

Perhaps my Google-Fu is weak, but I've found nothing on the web discussing this approach.

That's technically correct. But FWIW, I the vast majority of the the C# jobs I've seen advertised are for a Windows environment. If we're talking about trending languages, it's a reasonable approximation to say C# / .Net is Windows-only.

I disagree. My use of Steam over the last 7? 8? years has been nothing but a pleasure.

The only downside I've ever had with Steam is that it lets me easily buy games from Sid Meiers, which for me are like a life-ruining crack addiction.

Dialog windows: "Do you want to register for your FREE Windows 10 Upgrade?"

Me (vocally): "No, no... of for the love of all that's sacred, NO!"

Windows: "This may take a while. Please do not power down your computer ..."

Apologies if I'm badly behind the discussion on UBI, but I'm curious about one aspect of its viability.

One limiting factor in human reproduction rates is our ability to afford food, housing, and healthcare. To the extent that UBI would meet those needs, I would expect human populations to grow even further, until other limiting factors imposed an equilibrium.

At that point, prices would rise, causing an unlimited inflationary bubble with the things UBI was meant to provide for. Because no matter what money games people play, you still have $X people competing for $F units of food and $L units of living space.

Is there some reason people think this wouldn't be a serious problem with UBI?

Touche.

Funny, you don't sound all that happy to me.

Exact same thing happened to me when I had a Google phone screen at age 41. I'm not sure what happened - it was the first time ever that I did that. My best guess is that I was wound too tightly because I was interviewing with Google.

But could it have been age? I can't say no for sure. I've definitely seen some changes to how my mind performs at I get into my lower 40's. It hasn't necessarily been a net negative, but I'm certainly a little less sharp in some categories of mental function.

I think many of us software developers share a fear that the ageism we face is partially valid.

The hackers found one weird trick that webmasters don't want them to know!

I'm not sure DOJ hires a lot of mathematicians.

In fact, over the last 8 years, they seem to have mostly acted like well-armed SJW's.

I've usually found that getting my credit-card company involved gets the problem fixed quickly.

For better or worse, the credit-card companies seem to (often) provide mafia-level protection against unreasonable sellers.

I apologize if my point was unclear. Please let me clarify:

You had written:

But you are right, working hard is not the key, the key is working SMART. The difference between low/middle/upper class isn't how hard you work.

The fact that you transitioned from talking about "the good life" to talking about "low/middle/upper class", makes me think that you were implicitly equating living the "good life" with attaining membership in one of those [economic] classes. That was my main point.

But I see also that I thought you were directly equating one's level of effort with which economic class one attains. I realize now that that was not your point at all. My apologies.

All puns aside, I think the SCOTUS and U.S. Congress have shown a shocking degree of unwillingness in protecting the public from unscrupulous click-wrap EULA's and other onerous contracts. Nothing gives me particular hope that this will change in the near future. My guess is that it won't change until if/when some kind of revolution occurs which interrupts the influence corporations have over politics.