I'm not a creationist, but I live in a red state, so I know enough of them to tell you their answer will be "But they're still bacteria". They won't believe it's evolution, until they see a bacterium evolve into something like a human.

have you considered running?

Assuming you mean "running for office", do you really think we need more creationists in Congress?

But on 6502 machines one did not have to wait for the vertical sync to update the video memory.

I'm pretty sure you believe that, because the only 6502-based machines you've worked with have very low resolution. (Both the C64 and Apple II were 40x24.) I have a 6502-based machine, at home, whose resolution is 64x32, and it does require you to pay attention to Vsync. It's easy to play tricks like that, when you cut corners.

6502-machines' 40-column displays are probably one of contributing factors to their reputation as gaming machines, since they don't work well for business, and most Z80-based machines at the time were 80x25.

That malicious software wouldn't happen to be called SELinux, would it?

The fact that the new consoles utilize processors suited for low-profile notebooks is a joke

Shhhhh! Weaker consoles are easier to emulate on PCs.

As for E.T. I wouldn't give up quite yet: http://xkcd.com/638/

I have to admit, I was secretly of hoping that when we got LIGO online, we'd see stuff that was clearly transmissions from intelligent beings...

Actually, if you go fast enough, you don't need life-extension.

I remember reading, somewhere, that if we could just reach something like 99% of the speed of light, the entire universe is only a year away, due to time dilation. I read that a long time ago, though, so it may be out of date.

Of course, I'd much rather find a way around having to accelerate, at all, like wormholes, or something. Between the acceleration time, the radiation issues, etc., there are many more problems with lightspeed, than just getting there.

The 7 year old has graduated to looking at odd things on youtube

I used to let my kids watch YouTube, too, until it became clear that quite a few of the videos on there aren't appropriate for children. Between the language - even in something as innocuous as a Minecraft video - and the borderline violence, I finally had to turn it off.

When the end users are already using Firefox, Open Office, etc., I have found that the transition goes much more smoothly with very little resistance.

Sadly, even that part is difficult, sometimes. We tried that at my place of employment, and everyone complained bitterly. As far as I can tell, no one likes to change, once they learn something; we actually have some people who are still using WordPerfect, and insist they can't do their jobs without it.

My favorite was always Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

I must be really cool, then. I have a working Zenith Z29 and Data General D420. :-)

I still can't believe I used to work on a screen that small.

I'll be the first to admit that the US government has issues, but it's not like they're the only ones. Apparently, the Canadians are just as bad. My sister tried to cross the border a year ago, and the border patrol there thoroughly searched her car and all her stuff, insisting she must be carrying drugs. After they were done, it took her half an hour to repack everything.

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with whitespace as syntax, either.

What I don't get is that there aren't more people complaining about the syntax for functions like range(), where the lower limit is inclusive, but the upper limit is exclusive. Can anyone explain to me how that makes sense?

People don't wait in line for Microsoft products just because they are Microsoft products.

You clearly weren't around when Microsoft released Windows 95. There were long lines for that - at midnight, no less. I think what Microsoft needs to ask themselves is why that's no longer true.

Fedora have good KDE support.

I'd love to know which Fedora you're using, because I don't think I've ever used a Fedora that had good KDE support - and I've used them all. I still marked it as my favorite, and I use it with KDE. In reality, though, it only works 100% with Gnome, and I really hate Gnome 3.

I used to love SuSE, mainly because they had fantastic KDE support, but they lost their momentum long ago, and I feel like I'm stuck with Fedora. (Ubuntu seems to be alienating expert users and Mint isn't quite ready, yet.)