Is there some reason why women can't be good drinking buddies too?

Yes. It's called rape.

A synonymous phrase for Semi-Transparent could be Low-Contrast. Or Migraine-Amplifier.

UEFI and Systemd seem the perfect match: both pushed by shadowy, nefarious, a-hole entities, 'solving' problems in the worst locked-in ways possible, favoring certain for-profit institutions over all others, with a great possibility of backdoors built in to appease (or in paid service to) the organs of state security.

What's not to love?

My only complaint other than price is that the UI is not always very self-explanatory, and they refuse to post PDF manuals on their site, so don't lose the (extensive) paper manual.

Or, you know, take pictures of it...

it holds water like a sponge, takes in contaminated air and converts it into healthy air.

My concern would be the exact opposite happening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_disease

The enforcement of sales tax on high-value items.

and not have a fucking clue as to the true meaning of the words you literally mouth.

Anyone who would defend even the concept of an HOA is a greedy fascist. "Let's control every facet of the neighbor's lives, lest they devalue our precious property values by a few percentage points!!"

"Hey, Silicon Valley: we need paid-off with massive contributions or we'll grandstand on this (while not really giving a shit, other than having red meat to throw to our racist base)." -- GOP

Please make them easily re-fuelable AND establish a real refueling system. Hell, add in the ability to replace / upgrade parts during the pit stops.

We have to stop making future space junk.

but most generally we experience a particular flavor of Arab-dominated Islamic extremism

So... Boko Haram in Nigeria is Arab-dominated? Huh.

Do you also support contract killings? Because he ordered hits on a few people.

Or so you've been told by the Fed^H^H^H Media.

Yes, I can see it now. A stripped Linux kernel will boot, and then in turn will boot the SystemD-OS.

What stuns me is that Linus still doesn't seem to give a care, even as the very ground under his feet erodes into thin air.

Metastasization Continues Unchecked.

While it would be nice to think about FedGov controlling all the fiber pipes, ensuring equal and universal access, real competition, and reasonable pricing, there would be a downside.

It would only be minutes after this dream was realized when moralizing politicians would insist on fine-grained monitoring of all user activities, along with the banning of all websites showing anything more naughty than a fully-clothed nipple. The bible-thumpers and 'think about the children' hand-wringing helicopter freaks would insist on a draconian system that would make even the Suadi Arabian Morality Police jealous.

I'm all for Net Neutrality, but we should be careful what we wish for, as the devil will always own the details.