This does not suggest something special is wiping out civilization.
It's not a conspiracy, the odds for creating life are very slim, let alone sustaining life over extended periods of time.
Any species in our imagination will consume its surroundings in one way or the other, so it seems logical that the species itself is destined to extinction.

I volunteer for things that scare the shit out of most of our developers.

Hello Barry, it's the other way round. Nobody is indispensable, everybody can be a nuisance.

He will need all of his expertise in game theory to negotiate and try to get debts written off and a new batch of money.
The public has been promised as much and a grexit to Drachmes will immediately drop Greece into a 3rd world country (Greece depends fully on import).
So, EU will grudge and give some as EU's internal bank system is a shithole of interloans.
France, Italy and Spain will also want some after that.
Of course, in northern countries things start to get rumbling as well; all savings, retirement pays etc. are QE'd and bonjoured southwards..

If you have a MacBook, then OS-X already supports whatever the MacBook will be dealing w/.

Correct. I have an early 2011 macbookpro with all features supported. Since the battery life, performance and screen size is still sufficient today (after a $100 ssd upgrade), I will not be buying a new laptop soon.
The only thing going down hill is OSX. Either on subjective issues (cloud, playdoh) or objective ones (hardware requirements), so I better prep for alternatives.

Does that include auditing MacOSX (integrated cloud services et al)?

I hear you, like StarTrek meets Planet of the Apes meets the Walking Dead: cue in geriatric Worf, zombie Troi (i feeeel nothing) and zombie Data (i neat human brains) chained to LaForge (my eyes, they're bleeding) and of course Riker (without the beard or screentime please).
Oh, and it would be nice if Crusher finally lived up to his expectations and fulfill the traveller's prophecy; I'm just so tiring of the waiting, encouraging this guy even well into his adulthood without even as much as an explanation. Helloo-o?!?

I've watched my parents throw away perfectly good printer/scanner combos that were only a few years old because there were no drivers beyond XP.

In Windows 7, run driver setup with compatibility settings to WinXP and as Administrator.
This usually works.
Or get VueScan http://www.hamrick.com/.

parallel still available, http://www.newegg.com/Product/... or try ebay.

.. but you want to add noise to an otherwise silent engine just because people aren't used to silent cars?

I remember modelling bearings in a Swedish research centre using SGI's about 20 yrs ago, just for the sound (BMW, Mercedes).
Buyers tend to identify with their cars and pay the experience.

Currently the US estimates that it spends $5 Billion on health care costs associated with heroin use.

Far more on bank bailouts associated with heroin use.

If it can disable missiles, it should be sufficient for drones.

A video on Windows is a video, accessed through the appropriate API. You don't dynamically link to half a dozen libraries, hope they are there, and crash (or demand installation) when it isn't.

Either require libavcodec as dependency thru package manager or statically link it. Most freeware Windows transcoders include a version of libavcodec, no Windows specific video API is used.

clear, unambiguous, imperative, focus on data models.

the cat got my tongue

The more interesting question is really if freedom exists when you never make use of it.

Marketing newspeak.
Doing nothing is a choice.
Responsibility = freedom.