This will be a gamechanger for me!

Yes, literally.

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One wonders what would happen if Microsoft ever wised up and created a version of Windows that was specifically designed for handheld PCs.

Nothing much for quite a while, I would imagine. When was the last time Microsoft developed anything significant? Between the decision to do it and something usable emerging would be quite a long story I expect.

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Some of the 4.0 stuff does look interesting, but I think I'll wait to try it until 4.0 plus a few patches. I do feel like the pop system could use some work, time will tell whether the work it needs is the stuff they're actually doing.

I'm not sure if I think the Empire Focus Tasks thing sounds really cool or kind of railroady. The support thing sounds good, except this new Trade schtick I don't think I like--seems to me lots of alien races wouldn't be focused on trade, and with this I have to do it whether I like it or not.

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Try the base game--yes, quite a few of the DLCs are stuff that's worth getting if you play the game a good deal, but the base game is still a damn good game. So if you already have it, you might as well at least give it a shot.

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So, TheSHEEP's position seems to be:
1. The United States is turning into a vicious dictatorship/oligarchy
(That seems pretty likely, not gonna argue.)
2. The vicious oligarchs hate unions
(Definitely true.)

3. Therefore, unions are bad.
(What the actual fuck?)

That's definitely the weirdest anti-union argument I've ever seen.

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Defending a moving castle? This just makes me Howl with anticipation!

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@TheSHEEEP: Yes, assuming low union density and general anti-union rules, just a few unionized workers cannot create the effect I described. But with high union density, particularly if it's high enough to wield the amount of power unions have historically managed in northern Europe, it does. The political power matters because you end up with things like sectoral bargaining, meaning even non-union workers get the deal the unions negotiate.

I don't think it's a valid anti-union argument to say low levels of unionization will not create all the virtuous effects you get from high levels of unionization.

Even so, if Firm X becomes a union shop, the argument is valid within that firm: You employ someone at that firm, they get to join the union whether they're from India or Turkmenistan or Antarctica.

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It'll be nice if the Linux version does well. This is a precedent that could end up being important.

(Although not necessarily--I remember being all excited many years ago when Dell first started selling a few laptops with Linux on them, which turned out not to be a sign of bigger and better things after all)

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These people are pretty versatile in their tone.

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What about the mass immigration of "qualified" coders coming from India and other places that lower wages and push natives out of the labour market. Curiously we never hear a word about that from Unions.

Well, if these immigrants from India are in the union, they have to get paid the same, so the incentive to import them disappears and the negative impacts of their presence in dragging down wages goes away. So unions don't really have to talk about that situation because the presence of unions kind of automatically eliminates it as a problem.

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