Then there is cognitive dissonance. The theory of cognitive dissonance is supposed to explain why people gamble. You lose money, and no sane person would want to do that. So you think to yourself: continuing to gamble, and losing money don't make sense. How can you save face? Well, you think, you like gambling. If you like gambling, then it's alright to lose money. If you like doing it, do it again! Lose some more money -- and you've got more cognitive dissonance to sort out. So you must really like gambling. This line of reasoning spirals out of control for some people. I like my Land Rover because I've put a lot of work into it -- that might be irrational and costly -- but I'd rather say I like the Land Rover than admit I'm wasting my time on it! Microsoft Word catches out us the same way. It's such a silly and difficult to use program that we are stupid if we continue to use it. But we're not stupid, so we'd rather go around telling people how much we like Word. Indeed, some experts on Word get so much satisfaction out of helping people that they confuse the satisfaction of helping people for the stupidity of anything creating the need for so much help in the first place! Who needs help using a pencil and paper? Something as basic as a word processor ought to be as easy to use as any other everyday tool. I don't need to keep ringing up the AA to ask how to get my car to turn left, and computers ought to be as easy as that. _Spare the Rod, Spoil the Computer?_ --Harold Thimbleby http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/harold/papers/ariadne.html