it's also not a problem in the Philippines, because over here real people will work for cheaper than robots.

I'm not the only American who doesn't change the clock - there are lots of us living in other countries where there isn't such a thing. I understand the problem DST is supposed to solve, I guess, but I think we should change our schedules rather than the clocks. Changing the clocks is about the kludgiest fix imaginable.

Swords and remote areas would form the basis of my Zombie preparations, in which case I'm off to a decent start. Swords made for hacking humans (not just farm tools) are still readily available in the southern Philippines and I would consider the Kampilan, Panabas and Barong to be ideal for zombies (nothing wrong with a sharp Japanese sword, mind you, but they are made more for slicing and a little extra weight shifted towards the end is nice for decapitation). Unfortunately, the population here is incredible, so the first thing to do would have to be to escape to another island. Not sure why this poll is so fixated on documents, emergency plans of any kind should be simple enough to remember. I'm also not exactly sure why I already had a plan in the first place, given that any real plague that only could be transmitted by bite and destroyed most of the brain would be contained and eradicated far too quickly to become an epidemic. -Dan

no you absolutely have a point, people have become used to being ridiculously over-armed in first-person games, which is too bad because it's a perspective that is great for immersiveness. Minecraft lets you do a lot more than shoot stuff, but others that exist are much less well-known. The Penumbra series and their successor, Amnesia, are games made by someone who has the same view, except with the adrenaline fix and a hearty dose of pure horror mixed in. I'm not sure if I know any recent titles that capture the qualities of Myst, but I'd be happy to see some, even if the overuse of puzzles turned me off to that series when I was younger.

Don't do anything, just donate. And now for the long answer: If you will build and maintain a lab, use GNU/Linux (it really is best for education on many levels, except for cases where the necessary software is unavailable, which is becoming less common). I prefer Fedora on newer machines and Scientific Linux on older ones, but if you're more experienced with Ubuntu it's a great choice too (I maintain an office and two small educational labs in the Philippines that only use Linux, there are drawbacks but the benefits negate them for us). If you will donate machines to someone else, unless you are also donating a 'blank check' amount of support, leave Windows on it. If they don't have the ability to manage Linux machines, you won't have caused them any difficulty, and if they do know how to manage Linux, they certainly know how to install it (lately that's the easiest part).

if it's crashed upside down you'd still only see the bottom of it from the orbiter ;)

i love how, given the context of the current situation between Google and Facebook, 'loosing' users is more accurate than a non-typo. although it wouldn't be practical to be loosed from FB just yet. maybe some day.

don't forget easily editable posts, the ability to back up everything to a computer (i LOLed when i saw they named that Data Liberation, given recent FB events) and not having photos sold to advertisers

the first thing i thought of was using Zerg Overlords for transport. I used to use mind control a lot in Broodwar and always felt like I shouldn't use the Overlords to transport Protoss troops, because ew.

i think you'd better re-read what he wrote. no one would render a Captcha string in the clear in alt-text. i hope. he was talking about alt-text on the button that triggers the audio version, just like you are.

yeah, i figured someone who drops Linux because they don't like the Fedora defaults might be more likely to try a LiveCD (or better, Live USB media) as a weekend project than do another install from DVD sources and install a non-default desktop. When I get a new computer I'll just use groupinstall and load all three desktops on there and see what i end up really using (I'm holding out hope the Gnome devs will come to their senses eventually). As a side note, would you believe I don't have access to a DVD burner or a USB key large enough to put the DVD ISOs on? People like me are probably what is holding Fedora back in that regard. Either way, live media is for many people the first taste of Linux, and also a good way to test whether a release supports their hardware, and people will download a smaller ISO for that if they can. so probably they should just show both prominently and trust people will understand the choice.

lol, it's almost more like they're trying to mimic iOS! but if you start to miss Linux, and have some time, try using the XFCE spin of Fedora some time. it still contains a lot of what was good about Gnome 2

no, you're on to something. I'm neither a windows user nor a KDE user, i like Gnome 2 on Fedora, but my experience is the same. it's supposed to be about personal choice. Gnome 2 was simple and gave room for customization and generally had become something i could proudly show my friends and have them say "oh, this is Linux? it's not hard to use. and the effects look nice! why did i keep hearing Linux was hard?". Gnome 3 with Gnome Shell, or even in fallback mode, is crap. it takes away tons of tools, features, customizability etc. that are sorely missed and gives in return, what? a new ugly interface that no one likes, which is clearly designed for touch screens. why do i need a touchscreen interface for my six-year-old laptop? it means several extra clicks to get anywhere and a first-time Linux user isn't going to intuitively find Firefox or LibreOffice and be able to get to work on it like they can with my current setup. I can see making this interface available as an option for high-end touchscreen computers, but making it the default for everyone with no way to get back the old, useable Gnome 2 desktop? it's unforgivable. I'll hold out until my Fedora 14 install starts showing its age too much and jump to XFCE. note to Gnome devs: there are many people using linux with touch screens - they're using Android. We Gnome users are using actual, proper computers, and we want a proper desktop, or at least one customizable enough to turn into a proper desktop with a little tweaking, and you already made that. wtf is this new crap?

sorry, i don't have mod points today. this si the problem right here - people are trying to do serious stuff with Linux. Ubuntu brands itself as the Linux that's not just for geeks tinkering with it at home anymore - and that's why they have such a huge user base. I find it annoying myself and stick to Fedora, but we're having growing pains there too - Gnome 3 with its gnome shell is clearly designed for touchscreen tablets, and it should stay there. it's not a bad option for that, but i find it completely worthless for my proper-sized notebook, or anything without a touchscreen. after testing everything out, including KDE, I'm pretty set on going to XFCE with the official release of Fedora 15 - but i'd be happier keeping my Gnome 2 desktop. i'm about to open a Linux-based computer lab and I can't have the entire desktop constantly changing on me for that. not to mention that even in fallback mode, Gnome 3 has severely reduced functionality. It's really disappointing to see that they've scrapped everything that I liked about Gnome, like the very simple idea of a panel that i can set wherever i want and then populate with whichever widgets i want. and all to force us all onto a new interface that won't run without hardware acceleration (reducing my gaming performance and crashing stuff), requires several extra clicks just to start something from a menu, and in general is only suitable for touchscreens. I suppose if I got a new computer i'd be considering KDE but i need to stick with simple stuff until then. oh well, at least we have a choice.

i have experienced a lot of that but as of Fedora 10 and the latest Skype release I haven't had to mess with anything at all, and pulse is playing a lot better with my collection of native games that used to have me running back to ALSA in the past. YMMV though.