The problem today is, we aren't dealing with a government. We are dealing with idealogues, zealots, and radicals.

Now, take another look at Germany and Japan, and the rest of the Axis powers. Have the allies succeeded in stamping out the ideas of Nazism, and the divinity of the Emperor? Today, there are more skinheads, neonazis, and white supremacists here at home and around the world, than there were in 1940. Japan's Emperor is still a divine figure, if diminished in power.

No government has the power to root out an ideology, and crush it. And, I hope that no government ever does get that power.

Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" advocates reduction of the earth's population by more than 2/3, before the end of the century. Methodology for accomplishing this is not elaborated on; yet the only way to reduce population that drastically in that short a time frame is either mass sterilization, or mass genocide.

Please quote a relevant excerpt of the book advocating genocide, not fanciful conspiracy theories.

How do you suppose THAT would effect global climate, eh?

*Global* climate ? Probably not a lot. Do you have any evidence to support your idea ? Can you propose a more effective way of reducing emissions ?

So basically you're proposing a model in which there is selection and crossover but no mutation.

In this case, the total diversity in any population (including "the total of all animals on earth") can only go down. Right?

So then why do there appear to be species around now that were not around, say, during the time of the dinosaurs (because they do not seem to appear in the fossil record). How can new things be created after the Creation, without mutation? Or is the Genesis account of Creation to be understood in a metaphorical sense, and is it still ongoing? If so, is mutation a reasonable way to explain the mechanism by which this occurs? Or is this straying too far from a literal interpretation of scripture (and do we need a literal interpretation?)?

It has only been in the past 6 months that I've thought about replacing it. It just can't handle the load of spam I get, plus spamassassin and a couple other anti-spam counter-measures. Each message takes about 5 seconds to process on this old iron

Try to replace SpamAssassin (written in Perl) with Bogofilter (written in C). You'll have to retrain the filter, but improvements in memory usage and speed are assured.

From TFA:

Here is the official list of system requirements for Ubuntu 10.04, from the Ubuntu Manual:

700 MHz x86 processor
256 MB RAM
3 GB disk space
Graphics card capable of 1024 x 768 resolution
[...]

One can't help thinking that this would be a better world if all reviewers tested software by sticking to the official system requirements.

Who said it's all text (aside from the incorrect summary) ?

Gopher could (and did) serve all kinds of documents, including multimedia files.

Then again, some others were flashed for 12ms...

To me, the most disturbing thing that this research seems to suggest is that subliminal frames actually work.

Since this stuff was dissed as ineffective by a whole lot of sources I'd read in the past, I now wonder if there is some kind of conspiracy going on: false news on the ineffectiveness of subliminal messages being spread by the very people who seek to manipulate the general public through the media.

but it is bad for business.

Bad for the selling software part of business, perhaps, but good for the buying and using software part of business. Which is the vast majority of businesses. So if you want to generalize, the GPL is without a doubt great for business.

If one could feed a family

Anything that helps you cut costs makes it easier to feed a family. Profitability has two parts, not only revenue but also expenses.

Why would anyone ... use a license that undermines their business?

Because it simply doesn't undermine most businesses. It undermines a few business models based completely on monopoly rights, but for most businesses software or software development is simply a cost centre. They get a higher profitability by cutting the costs and using (and/or modifying and/or producing) GPL software than they would by taking the whole cost themselves and having to increase revenue elsewhere.

Microsoft would probably have a hard time switching over to the GPL+services model as they've accumulated so much fat from living in a high-margin uncompetitive segment for so long they'd get a corporate aneurysm if they actually had to shed that fat. But Microsoft is hardly the average company in the computing industry.

Weren't the first issues of OMNI named NOVA? I think the title was changed because of the TV show, NOVA.

A) Netflix HD streams are not current available for computers. Sure they are low bitrate HD streams, but they are better on larger TVs than the SD streams
B) Buying a PC for each TV in my house (5) is much more expensive than buying these lower end boxes and using a central storage server. Plus its much cheaper on the electricity bill.
C) HTPCs tend to take time to setup correctly, more so than these inexpensive dedicated boxes. While I would probably enjoy making these tweaks (as would most of slashdot), I enjoy spending time with my family more or making money by working and billing my clients.
D) Dedicated boxes like this tend to have a simpler UI and therefore a much higher WAF (wife acceptance factor).

Just a few points off the top of my head.

Princess and the Frog is another movie worth seeing even as an adult. Interesting story, colorful characters, funny jokes, pretty animation, and good music. Maybe not terribly original, deep, or groundbreaking; but a worthwhile kid-friendly film.