That's just what they want you to think.

For electromagnetic shielding, you want something that is highly conductive. Lead is a poor conductor, so it wouldn't be very good (unless you cool it enough to become superconducting). Silver would be good, but is a bit expensive. Copper is almost as good, but still expensive, though not as much as silver. Aluminum is fairly good and readily available. I would suggest wrapping any electronics that you're worried about in aluminum foil.

That said, for this sort of event, just unplugging your electronics or using a good surge suppressor would be adequate.

What do you think that the airplane designers are doing? The aircraft industry is incredibly safety conscious. That's one of the reasons that everything is so expensive. The whole plane parachute is used on Cirrus airplanes and has saved some lives. Seats have been designed to protect people in impacts up to 26Gs. You can get seatbelts with airbags installed.

Every aircraft accident (at least in the U.S.) is investigated. The goal is to find out what caused the accident and how to prevent it. NASA has a program called ASRS which encourages pilots to report anything that might impact safety.

Please do a little research and see what is being done before accusing people of dragging their heels in the dirt.

I would also suggest reading "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge. It's science fiction, but does actually talk a fair bit about data and communication security and ways of subverting systems. "A Deepness in the Sky" by the same author also covers similar themes.

I just pitched a t-shirt that mentioned OS 8.5, and I have used Mac OS 6, 7, 8, and 9.

I remember that the 7400 was a quad two input NAND gate and the rest of the 74xx series was assorted other TTL logic gates. There were variants like the 74Sxx, 74LSxx, and others. There was also the 4xxx CMOS series, but the numbers didn't map, so 4000 was not a quad two input NAND gate. I think that there was also a 74xx variant 74Hxx(?) that was also CMOS, but used TTL logic levels. Now, a PowerPC built out of 74xx series chips would be quite the sight to see, especially if you wired it up to some blinkenlights.

I expect that it would be possible to write an OS in COBOL. It's not what *I* would choose to do with my spare time, but if it turns your crank, more power to you.

Think about the people that you know who use computers. Now divide them into "skilled computer users" and "not skilled computer users". Which group has more people in it?

The thing that you're ignoring is that there are a lot more people who are not adept at using PCs, or just don't want to bother with them.

Come to think of it, I've never seen the two of them together. hmmm...

To be fair, when he left that time, he was basically fired and the company was run by suits. This time, he is easing himself out and leaving a designated successor in place. I expect that he has been grooming his successor prior to this.

This actually isn't quite true. There is one fundamental assumption that science makes. It assumes that all phenomena are the result of natural laws acting on stuff. There is also a lesser assumption that this is actually explainable.

The result is that if a god (pick any god you care to name) or some other supernatural entity came down and worked some miracles, the miracles would be studied and once enough data was gathered, appropriate modifications to the currently understood physical laws would be made. Experiments would be done, PhD thesis would be written and eventually a Nobel prize or two might be awarded. In the end, everybody (at least the scientists) would be happy that the understanding of the universe had been improved. Atheists would continue not to believe in god and believers would continue to believe.

I think that you need to get out more. There is a lot of real work that does not involve typing on a computer for 12 hours straight. There is much that *gasp* doesn't even involve a computer.

Though to judge from some of the comments on here, we haven't all been on the same side of the conversation.

Ha! I fooled you. I don't have a 30 year old stereo.