My inner geek screams

So Charles Murtaugh points out this article on Tech Central Station:

I had an aunt and uncle who were Communists until the end. They saw any flaw in the capitalist sytem as fatal, and they saw hope in the most tired and discredited leaders and systems (my uncle wrote an exultant pamphlet about Yugoslavia under Tito).

I am reminded of my aunt and uncle whenever I read an anti-Microsoft tirade...

...and I can't help but think the author, Arnold Kling, may have a point. My first computer was an Atari 800 with a cassette recorder for data storage. I learned what is now considered an evil programming language, Basic, so I could fiddle with the programs and games that Atari ran. My monsters in "Crush, Crumble, Chomp" were invincible.

But I bought the thing to do word processing, because I didn't want to have to do another 1,000,000 words on a typewriter.

Word processing is still #1 on my list of Reasons Why I Have a Computer, though Internet research is a very close #2. (Oh, all right, and there is that selection of first-person shooters, too.) I have bought three distributions of Linux (Caldera, Corel, and Mandrake) and the horrible realization is that I don't have the time, hobby or otherwise, to get a system really up and running. I just want to work, play, surf, etc.

But my inner geek still whines for the command line....