So that's where Armus is living in the 21st century? If we go to pluto, maybe we could kill him and save Natasha Yar from an early death!

Well, it's true that I don't play a lot of games these days. I spend a lot more time pursuing my goals in life, so I don't have hours and hours to just sit down and immerse myself in all sorts of high end games. I tend to stick to a few that I like and play them from time to time, and DX 11.2 isn't required by any of them, or even the new title(s) that I'm interested in which are still WIP.

Other than that, I spend the vast majority of my time on Linux with KDE 4. Even moreso with Minecraft working on multiple platforms due to Java. The only new title I'm currently interested in is Planetary Annihilation, which if I recall correctly, will support a Linux port. So I guess my care-o-meter about this announcement is somewhere around zero.

I will say this, though. The user interface style that was developed, with a task bar and normal start-menu (not this metro start screen crap) was developed and refined over a period of 20+ years or so now. It's available across many operating systems and kernels. It's there because it works rather well. If you ask me, this touch-centric crap that Microsoft is pushing isn't much good beyond tablets and phones, where your primary mode of interface is your finger on a screen.

So, tablets and phones came along and a new interface style was designed that worked better with almost-exclusively touch-screen interface devices... Then Microsoft decided that *everything* should use this interface. I'm not interested in relearning how to use my Desktop's or Laptop's interfaces. Screw Windows 8. If I found a part of my computer's user interface to be highly inefficient, requiring a redesign to solve the problem, I'd be very aware of it. I hate wasting time. But the stuff before Metro in most cases doesn't give me that impression. Metro does.

So there's my possibly subjective rant. But hey, the article asked.

I find it interesting that the only option that isn't something I find myself directly using is a nuclear bomb, and that it isn't even something I'd want to uninvent. Almost seems like they wanted me to pick it. Maybe traction control or anti-lock brakes. Now those piss me off.

Anonymous does a pretty good job of that themselves, if you ask me.

I use the Nature's Way Sublingual Melatonin in the 2.5mg potency. You can order it on Amazon, if you prefer. They also come in other forms where you just swallow them, but then you tend to have to take them a few hours before you go to bed, whereas you can take the lozenge closer or at the time you intend to go to sleep.

Disclaimer: I'm no doctor of course, but I'm told it's perfectly safe. I actually know of 3 people other than myself that use it without issues. I've also heard that if you take much more than 2 mg it can lessen the effect, but I've had no issues with the 2.5 mg lozenges.

Interesting tidbit: I just did the math. I used to sleep for 9.5-10 hours, and then was awake for 16. That would make my sleep cycle around 25.5-26 hours.

I actually have a circadian rhythm disorder myself. Between 2005 and 2010 my sleep 'schedule' would go around the clock fully over a period of every 1-2 weeks. So, part of the time I was up during only the night, sometimes in between, sometimes during normal parts of the day. I have a greater than 24-hour sleep cycle naturally it would seem. However, I've been maintaining a pretty normal schedule for 1.5 years now. I started using sublingual 2.5mg melatonin lozenges after my sister told me about them. It totally did the trick in my case.

Of course, more relevant to the article, there are lamps you can also buy for bright light therapy. I actually just got myself one about 11 days ago. It can take up to a few weeks to have an effect, and I think I've finally started to feel a measurable effect over the past 3 days, but I'll see how it goes before I make a final determination. According to what I've read, it can help with circadian rhythm disorders, but I personally bought it for the antidepressant effect. Perhaps I'll be able to switch over to using only the light, which would be pretty neat. But I wouldn't complain if I still had to use melatonin.

Having driven manual cars and motorcycles plenty myself, I can say that I don't find the need to use the clutch or change gears really that distracting at all. Sure, it's something else to do, but something I can do without thinking about it. On top of that, if you just want to stop in a manual and you're more concerned about avoiding an accident? You can still just hit the brake. The car will stop and stall, no big deal. It's a lot better than getting in an accident, and it probably won't do any real damage to your car. Trust me, I've stalled mine plenty when I first learned to drive a stick.

P.S. Good luck shifting a manual into reverse going at 70 MPH on the highway. Most cars, to my knowledge, don't have a synchro on the reverse gear.

My CHM 111 professor would get a kick out of this. He's always giving biologists a hard time, but he makes fun of geologists as well.

Also, I prefer iron(II) oxide personally.

No joke. My dad has Charter out at his business, and his modem died not too long ago, so he called them up and they came out and replaced it. This new modem had three different ethernet ports on it, and what the charter guy did was plug the router into the second, non-operative port (he was only paying for one connection anyway), and then plugged his desktop directly into the first port on this new modem. He also told my dad that he needed a "business router" and that's why the router no longer worked. Business router my foot, all he needed was someone with a brain larger than a peanut to come in and hook it up for him. I unplugged the computer, plugged it back into the router, then plugged the router into the first port of the new modem and all was well. It's just a cheap little d-link router but it works fine, he doesn't need anything more and never did.