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Comment My guess is OpenOffice.org was the biggest hurdle (Score 1) 901

I love what the OpenOffice.org (and varriants) have done, but MS Office is SO INGRAINED in the soul of office work that anything else is unbearable for the majority. I'm sure that will change as younger generations utilize google docs, iWork, etc, but that's not the case today. At least not in German government.

Comment Re:Related question (Score 1) 932

Exactly. A better question might be, "why does your family have such little respect for your time/expertise"? Or, "why am I such a pushover in such that I repeatedly help those who never heed my advice?" Tell them to bring their computer to the geek squad so they can get reamed for at least 100 bucks (likely more).

Science

A New Explanation For the Plight of Winter Babies 276

Ant passes along a Wall Street Journal report on research that turned up a new explanation for the lifelong challenges experienced by winter babies. "Children born in the winter months already have a few strikes against them. Study after study has shown that they test poorly, don't get as far in school, earn less, are less healthy, and don't live as long as children born at other times of year. Researchers have spent years documenting the effect and trying to understand it... A key assumption of much of that research is that the backgrounds of children born in the winter are the same as the backgrounds of children born at other times of the year. ... [Economist] Mr. Hungerman was doing research on sibling behavior when he noticed that children in the same families tend to be born at the same time of year. Meanwhile, Ms. Buckles was examining the economic factors that lead to multiple births, and coming across what looked like a relationship between mothers' education levels and when children were born." Here's a chart in which the effect — small but significant — jumps out unmistakeably.

Comment Selling expertise or access? (Score 0) 168

If the editor was simply selling his expertise in writing acceptable/good/great Wikipedia articles then I cannot see any harm in what he was doing. But, if he was selling his access (can he edit things others are not allowed to edit? can he bypass filters/restrictions that your average joe cannot?), then he's wrong. He's wrong and there should be a policy that anyone caught doing so has their rights busted down to average joe.

Comment Re:I Like It (Score 1) 379

"Hate the headphone arrangement in principle, but I can live with it for now." That's an interesting way to put it. But if you are really pleased overall, with the exception of the "headphone arrangement" aren't you still pleased? I find that, constantly wanting to change "just one thing" about my computers, ipods, etc., is really just wasted energy. It works. It works well. Why be frustrated with it?

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