> How about a demo of Jay Miner demoing the Amiga 1000?

Or how about a video of the 1982 Comdex where supposedly VisiCorp showed off a development version of their brand new "GUI" environment Visi On? Doubt anyone recorded that, but it would be interesting to see.

And there is actually a video on Youtube of the fall 1983 Comdex with a demonstration of a brand new product in development from Microsoft called "Wiindows". Stole all the thunder from VisiCorp, but obviously didn't put a damper on Apple's Macintosh released shortly afterwards.

Ah, yes, I meant Theora. Vorbis is the audio codec.

They didn't even need to buy On2 to get VP9. They could have used one of the open-source codecs that already exists. You know, like Vorbis, which is perfectly fine for most videos and not as resource-hungry.

I find the abbreviation, MARTA, cute. Reminds me of a certain video game character.

If windows 7/8 wasn't a downgrade from XP in every respect,

Wrong. Windows 7 is better than XP in every way

(For the pedants: "Except size on disk")

On the other hand there is the abomination known as Windows 8.

And that is all one can easily find in most stores these days.

You can run XP in a virtual machine if you have software you must absolutely run that cannot run under Windows 7 or 8.

Not if the software you need to run is a device driver for special hardware.

And you still have the issue that the VM may need to talk to the outside world and therefore be as "vulnerable" as real hardware.

Microsoft isn't putting customers at risk by not patching what will then be a 13-year old operating system. They had a full life cycle plan in place and customers have had many years advance notice to plan their transition. The lack of resources placed on transitioning legacy software to something other than an end-of-life OS is squarely the fault of the customers. The people in charge obviously don't place a great deal of importance on security or support. They have made their decision, let them suffer the consequences.

What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven's sake, mankind, it's only four light years away, you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that's your own lookout. Energize the demolition beam. I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all.

write a frontend in javascript

You're doing it wrong.

I use a mouse mat and clean my room. It's not that bad.

Speak for yourself. My "roller-ball" mouse still works after 15 years of use. The buttons don't respond as well, though.

At any rate, yesterday's "roller-ball" mice were of superior build quality than today's cheap throw-away optical mice.

You pronounce someone's name how they want it pronounced, assuming they don't have some strange sound that you can't reproduce, then you just try your best.

Tell that to every English and French speaker pronouncing a foreign name. They don't even try.

Good luck with the HTTP part if you use Server-Side Includes (SSI)... :(

Another skummy thing I have seen on at least a few instances, a show will reach some climatic scene with important dialog, and before the main character's voice even trails offTOYOTA SAVING!

I remember downloading the shareware version of DOOM from a BBS shortly after it was released. Shooting at the soul sphere displayed in level 2 because I didn't' know what it was, and then almost falling over dizzy when I had to get up and go!

It certainly wasn't the first FPS to exist or even have networking (see Mazewar on the Xerox Alto), but it was the first to provide a fully immersive experience (full screen, all surfaces with texture, and sound) on a common desktop PC.

When I first heard of DOOM, and even judging by a leaked alpha (5/22), It looked like it would be a slow interactive game similar to Ultima Underworld. Boy, did that turn out not to be the case!

The thing that really kept it popular was how easy it was to create completely new levels.

And then having to upgrade from 4 to 8 megs to keep episode 3 from chugging away...

... Faux News

You may think you are joking but much of the fear is indeed spread through the media and news channels.

Sometimes I joke that the only reason to watch the news any more is "so I know what I am supposed to be afraid of today."

Try reading between the lines of any newscast. It always goes beyond just reporting facts abut the news. Note the condescending tone in the reporters voice as they talk about some group of people. Notice how they only show bystander interviews that represent their views, such as a parent parroting "You can't be to safe!" rather than the one that says "lets not go overboard worrying about this". Ask yourself if there could be another side to the story, and notice that it is usually missing or poorly represented. Listen carefully as the anchor injects brief commentary at the close of the story such as "very scary stuff". And for broadcast news (such as noon or 5:00pm news on the major networks) flip between the channels and notice that they usually have the exact same stories even when there are no major events going on.

Realize that the vast majority of people don't have time to think about what they hear, even in the off chance they know how to use critical thinking, and you should easily see how this adds up to ladling out fear and misinformation to the masses.