So, I upgraded in place from Ubuntu 13.04 to 13.10 on the 22nd during the wee hours. Most everything seemed OK. I saw how things got moved around in the menus of ClassicMenu-Indicator with the addition of "Sundry" and "Utilities".

After some sleep I started going about normal stuff, even using the built-in backup instead of what I'd been using and was pleased with the ease and simplicity for a simpleton like me.

Then I saw a few disturbing things. When I opened, closed, and re-opened several programs some of their windows did not get put where I had placed them.

The worst example by far was Domination (a Risk-like, if you haven't heard of it). The battle, move after battle, and the tactical move windows all would not re-open where I had moved them - they all creeped upward towards the title bar where they eventually stopped. This is ungood. No, actually; it's pretty fucking bad, even if some might dismiss it as a bagatelle. But hey, it's just a stupid game, right?

After some of the daily surfing routine of news, mail, and a bit of writing, I decided it was time for some Civ V, which I hadn't played for most of a week.

Big wrong. Seems 13.10 wiped CrossOver. I could not re-install it. There was a missing dependency, lib32asound2 (which I later found required lib32asound).

I'll leave out a day's worth of reading and fiddling with stuff.

There's a new CrossOver out - 12.5.1 - that is supposed to address the i386 multi-arch stuff (there was a recent change, from lib32foo-i386 to lib32foo:i386) but I can't afford it right now.

So right now I either wait until I can buy the new version (Wine itself is out - every time I manage to get something working I also manage to screw it up.) or I re-install Ubuntu 13.04.

In my usual roundabout fashion I happened onto Google Books Ngram viewer:
https://books.google.com/ngrams

Wow.

I am baffled. Why the fuck can't people tell the fucking difference between

where - were
loose - lose
ect. - etc.
infer - imply
virtually - almost or almost all (and still not grasp the meaning of virtual anyway)

and dozens of others. Did all these children sleep through English classes? Don't they read things written by people who know better?

And yupper, I know about carelessness, inattention, Spoonerisms, brain-farts, typos, and the like; but to see this shit over and over again.... it just doesn't make sense to me.

And for Christ's sake, enough already with the "going forward" and similar horseshit. What, you're gonna go back? You don't know tenses? Context is a complete mystery to you? If you really truly cross-your-heart have to spell it out for your audience, then use "in [the] future". "Going forward"? Fuck you and the horse you rode in backwards on.

If anything it's worse than the "viable" this and that or "on-going" whatever or "virtual" or "cyber" shit. Talking heads and on-air air-head TV "presenters" are not your instructors in using English, nor are the vapid rabid sound bites from politicos. Most of them abuse the language; I swear some of it's deliberate so's to fuck with people's heads. Enough.

Verrry interestink, as Arte Johnson might say. For grins, I entered my annual income, a state, and my age when I was required to retire early due to receiving SSI for a year.

Herewith the result, sorry 'bout the formatting:

If your state does not expand Medicaid

You will not be eligible for subsidies in the exchanges because your income is below 100% of the federal poverty level.

The information below is about unsubsidized exchange coverage. Note that depending on your state's eligibility requirements, you may still be eligible for coverage through Medicaid.
Household income in 2014:
78% of poverty level
Unsubsidized annual health insurance premium in 2014:
$8,265
Maximum % of income you have to pay for the non-tobacco premium, if eligible for a subsidy:
None
Amount you pay for the premium:
$8,265 per year
  (which equals 91.84% of your household income and covers 100% of the overall premium)
You could receive a government tax credit subsidy of up to:
$0
  (which covers 0% of the overall premium)

One can see what metadata is associated with what devices or services. Enlightening, it is.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/interactive/2013/jun/12/what-is-metadata-nsa-surveillance#meta=1100011

Got up at 2:30am to take a leak and a pain pill, spent the next four hours reading about OSes, mostly Linux, at a very light level, but included a good two hours diving into Qubes - which looks damn interesting. I first read of it when it was still mostly a thought-project, and I like the approach of security by isolation rather than correctness or obscurity.

Not for the first time, today when I started going down the list of stories, many made the cut to look at, some starting with source before going to the comments. I just counted, there are twenty tabs open, each earmarked for an unknown but not trivial length of time to read, try to digest, maybe have an attempted coherent thought on, and then perhaps to consider posting.

I note the time - 8:51pm - and realize that no matter how interesting many of the stories are to me, some even important in some fashion, there is no way that I can do anything more than quickly skim through at best half of what I would prefer to have the time to dig into as I find needful.

Yes, I know, poor li'l me and my first-world prob and all. Yet the problem is there. No real solution is available. Draconian triage can help, certainly, but that's not an actual solution. Thinking ahead, even given the large numbers of neurons that could handle the load did we know how to do some kind of 'out there'-into-the-brain thing, that still would not solve the problem of highly constrained time with the wealth of things to spend thinking on.

None of this is new. I found a similar situation pre-Web, pre-Usenet, pre-Internet. All that happened was that a small number of things got read, fewer digested - background reading, analyzed, etc. - and then disposed of. Of the remainder, some made it to a To-Do list or a 'rainy day' note on the bulleting board. Looking back, had each item been a dollar bill rather than adding to the pile of things to be gotten to "Real Soon Now" I'd be wealthy indeed.

My life likely won't become any the poorer for not getting to any of these tabs at the top of my screen. Yet, in the time I've been coming to slashdot, I have learned things. Some even about myself and about how to try to think and act more in line with who I am wanting to continue to become - a living, growing, improving sort better able to help himself and others as opportunity provides, beyond satisfying curiosity or addressing concerns.

Given the wealth of skills, talents, and the wealth of background and history of people, some expert in their field, some who have been around since the electronic age started making real inroads into daily existence and importance thereof, I've had the grand opportunity for the price of an Internet connection and my time, to become aware of technologies, how-tos, personal knowledge of what happened or is happening, and potential ways to proceed. Sometimes I'll find deep thinking, good questions, and good stories as well.

Such wealth, and twenty tabs, and it's now 9:15pm. And I still feel like the little kid at the grown-ups table.

Cheers.

Later....
Ok, it's 2:30am, eight tabs and three more external articles read along with two quick Wikipedia look-ups. I'm done; tabbed through the remainder and blew them off. Enough's enough.