The list is totally fubar, but remember one thing: it's a console list.

I use it as my main browser. I've got a portable Firefox and (of course) IE, but I only fire them up when something isn't working right in Chrome. This is happening less and less.

The 9000 figure is assuming that the radiation is spread equally in every direction. A "stellar dog fight" weapon might not work that way. Think of a laser. Focus a lot of energy into a fairly tight beam. It would look a hell of a lot more powerful if someone assumed that same amount of energy was being spread in every direction.

I don't think you made the part about standard candles very clear, so I'll elaborate on that point.

The term doesn't refer to a specific type of star. Standard candles are any stellar objects that have some quality that allows them to be used to measure distance.

One of the most famous examples are Cepheid variable stars. These stars all vary in brightness over some predictable period of time. There is a relationship between how fast they "pulse" and how bright they are. The faster they pulse, the dimmer they are (in absolute terms). If one is pulsing really slow, and it looks dim (relatively speaking), it's probably very far away since it should be relatively bright. If it looks bright and pulses quickly, it's probably close by since they don't get very bright (absolutely speaking).

Other standard candles include planetary nebula, supergiants, globular clusters, H II regions, and supernova. Each of them has a different maximum range over which they can be detected, but there is some overlap. The ones in the overlapping regions are used to calibrate the distances for the rest.

How do you know what movie he's talking about?

Actually, La Brea is the name of the ranch the tar was found at and obviously named for. So 'La Brea Tar Pits' is short for 'Rancho La Brea Tar Pits'. It's not redundant in this case as it's referencing a proper noun.

There is no Rio Grande River. It's the Rio Grande. Rio means river in Spanish so it would be redundant to tack river at the end of the name. Also, it's the Sierra Nevada. Shouldn't add mountains at the end as sierra means mountain range. Redundant, once again.

It's obvious you know nothing about nautical subjects. The nautical mile was defined as 1,852 meters in 1929, and every navy in the world uses this definition. It is approximately one arc minute of length along any meridian. All international treaties dealing with distances on water use the same nautical mile definition.

They may have the base architecture available, but not any of the fancy simd or 64-bit instruction sets.

First appearances (not necessarily patent dates):
MMX - 1997
3DNow! - 1998
SSE - 1999
SSE2 - 2001
AMD 64 - 2003
Intel 64 - 2004
SSE3 - 2004
SSE4 - 2006

Of course, most software doesn't use any of these extensions, but Intel and AMD can use this as a weapon in a possible FUD campaign.

You're quoting me? I never said that. I think the whole document/window/desktop metaphor stuff gets in the way of providing organizational mechanisms that possibly "break" some stupid metaphor. If something works, I don't care if it behaves within the bounds of a "desktop" metaphor. Or if something uses a "slurp" animation when such things don't occur in nature. It's useful organizational mechanism and happens to look good. All that matters to me is that it's useful.

The wobbly windows, on the other hand, only look good. They serve no other purpose.

A user new to OSX might find it difficult to find where a document went after clicking the minimize button if not for the animation. A user new to KDE wouldn't notice the absence of wobbly windows.

Actually, most criminals get some of their rights permanently revoked. Like the right to vote and own guns.

That's not the purpose of the minimize effect. It's purpose is to let you know where the window went so you can find it.
The wobbly effect in KDE is just eye candy.