Google's new cloud computing ChromeOS looks like a plan "to push people into careless computing" by forcing them to store their data in the cloud rather than on machines directly under their control, warns Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the operating system GNU.

Two somewhat interesting but unrelated topics. The antibiotics must be kicking in ;)

Ubuntu and Linux Mint are great for new users, but I'm not a new user. I'm not trying to be snobby, and I don't think I'm better than anyone else; I just have different needs than most people. I don't want polish. I want to see and work with the guts of my operating system, because I like to be in total control of my computing experience.

Make no mistake -- due to the energy that the Ubuntu community and Canonical, its corporate arm, have put into improving the desktop, this popularity is well-deserved. Yet, at the same time, I find myself wondering whether user-friendliness must inevitably mean discouraging users from exploring their systems or taking firm control over them.