Todays offer, host in USA, get free backup from NSA.
Only problem is getting back the copies once the cloud service crashes/vanishes underneath.

That's both good and bad thing. PHP doesn't really have any solid library thinking, it just has random functions thrown together and glued across with some duct tape and spit. Since changes to core language basically alter how the entire language works, it gets really f-ing annoying to maintain your codebase between versions. Meaning you have to rewrite alot of code.

The external includes allow you to build compiled projects, which can be delivered without source code.
Not sure if you can do something like this with PHP using hiphop etc.

Block separators is something I really hate with python aswell. It becomes hard to read if you're outside IDE.

Have you actually tried it, or are you just parroting what other people have said about it?
I've been using Win8 for few months on my netbook and it seems fine to me. Metro is just start menu with some extra bells and whistles and after few weeks you don't really even pay that much attention to it.
The integration with skydrive and easy migration of user settings/files etc are what make it great os compared to previous versions.

I started ignoring everything stated by Gartner when they announced something in lines with "Companies shoud switch to Windows Vista as soon as possible, in order to avoid costly migration later"

ABS is designed to work especially on ice, to stop your movement by sequencing braking instead of locking your wheels and causing you to slide uncontrollably.
What exactly is there not to want?

Not my list, but here's 121 reasons why you don't want Windows Phone 7.5

Password selection depends on the place you're using the password.
For most websites, enter something like abc321, hit reset password and they kindly reset the password to something and email me the new relatively good password.
It doesn't need that much security, so those are stored in my email.

For places that need better passwords, $ md5sum - lot of random text pounded on the keyboard and result is something like 24a53bc05c6f216e340aa8d5dc08b605
That checksum becomes the password.

For places where I actually have to enter the password without copypaste, something generated like xkcd's battery horse staple correct.

There's a road going near the building, and across the street, there's a bus stop
One of the neighbours has wlan called IsItColdAtTheBusStop?

If I'm laid off, my union salary kicks in and I get ~60% of my salary for 500 days.(where regular unemployment would be ~25-30%)
Now if after say 3-5 months I'm called back to work, I can continue with my normal salary.

If I would agree on a paycut instead, my salary would remain cut until I'd switch to another employer.

I would never agree to a paycut personally.
But thats probably different between countries, it works that way in Finland.

Seriously, $3500 for that? There really are people with too much money to spend.

Granted, it would be a nice woodworking project to build one.
But looking at the size of it, the wood would probably cost less than $200, throw in extra $100 for lacquer/varnish.

There are NO BUGS in the software!
You're hold^wrunning it wrong!

Combine this with AppleTV, it's only $99, and you have somewhat sane system.
It comes with remote already so one less extra step to tinker on.

Your question is about media and entertainment. Are you entertained by tinkering stuff or consuming entertainment generated by others?

That is a personal opinion, but I'm thinking of the power grid here.
When you're using electric equipment to heat water directly during usage, you're causing massive drain spikes to the network at mornings and at evenings depending on how people take showers.(doesn't apply to gas utilities, but I'm assuming electrical here)
Properly insulated tank can be heated during off-peak hours(the electricity might be cheaper) or using solar/wind, tankless rules those options out.

It's just a question of "do you have room to place that massive water tank?" mostly.

I don't like the idea of tankless water heaters at all. There are plenty of things you can do to reduce water heating costs.
If the house is in a windy place, think about getting a small wind mill, something you can easily place on your property, (think something like this)
Add directly attached heating element to the water tank and add temperature control relay to switch off the current when the water temperature in tank reaches desired level.
Second grid-connected heating element could be low-level triggered, if you're using up water faster than your wind power can heat up, the more expensive heating method kicks in and keeps your reservoir going.

Place the stuff you need on a livecd and give usb sticks to the users if they need storage, remove the hdds entirely during the event, then place hdd back afterwards to reset situation?
Samba/nfs share for storage could work also.

Other solution would be to use G4L to ghost all the laptop hard drives, first to backup them, then to image it with your preinstalled linux stuff.
Then repeat after event to restore original system image, but that would take ~10 days to do, both ways, and you'd need ~5-10Tb space to hold copies of the laptop images.(depending on the size of the original hdds)