Different time frame? I use vim everyday, and I live in 2012.

So? I watch the original Star Trek everyday, and I live in 2012.

...Well, not absolutely every day, but most days in the week. I expect I must watch it, oh, at least four or five times a week...or more, really, but some weekends, like last weekend, there really wasn't the time, so that brings the average down a bit. I should say it's a solid four days a week...

Yep, they leave no detail of a candidate unexposed!

I'd be Part-Time Ultimate Goombah of the Known Universe.

...to singe a cat!

Well, I can't speak to your experience, but I also have done support for family, college faculty, students, and corporate users and found the exact opposite. When explained and demonstrated clearly, people had no problem understanding the concept.

Of course, the concept of folders is different from actually using them in practice. A lot of people found them a pain to navigate, but once they were shown tricks such as pop-up paths, shortcuts, sidebar aliases, favorites, etc. they were able to navigate much more easily.

I did support one Ph.D. professor, a well-known researcher, who kept everything he created on his desktop - and I mean EVERYTHING! :)

The interfaces for navigating the file system are horribly, horribly confusing to non-technical people.

There, FTFY.

There's nothing confusing about a hierarchical list of folders. People have no problem intuitively understanding that concept. Where they run into problems is clunky "Explorer" or "Finder" browser windows that show them too many options and too much information.

The classic Mac HFS file system was clunky, but it was dead easy to understand. You could put any file or folder pretty much anywhere you wanted, as long as you left the System Folder alone.

Somewhere along the line, overcomplexity wrecked the simple file system interface and made it "horribly, horribly confusing" in the name of feature-itis.

"How do you KNOW it's a Higgs Boson?"

"It LOOKS like one!"

Well, why not? The advertising industry has been using the trappings of science for decades to push their wares. Why shouldn't science do the same back to them?

A Piece of the Action is #5 on both your lists? You have a love/hate relationship with it?

You got it. It's a guilty pleasure because it's just good fun to watch. It's simultaneously one of the dumbest, most ludicrous hare-brained premises they came up with on TOS! Kirk stomps all over the Prime Directive, etc.

What about Mirror, Mirror, The Doomsday Machine, Space Seed, and Amok Time?

All good episodes. Also the Corbomite Maneuver, Miri, Errand of Mercy, All Our Yesterdays... it's hard to pick just 5. A case could be made for each of those.

Balance of Terror is a fine episode, but I wouldn't put it in the top 5. Too derivative, too obviously a remake of Das Boot.

The Enemy Below, I think you mean. Still, I think it's one of the best-written episodes and Mark Lenard's performance is top-notch. I give it a high rating for including an antagonist with real depth of character and not just being a typical shoot-em-up.

I really didn't like the scene with the listing space ship, but I suppose that's a fairly trivial problem, easy to clean up in a remastering. It's near the top of my list for worst violations of physics and sense.

Agh! No remastering, please! Keep it with its flaws intact. It's the strength of the story that makes it good, anyway, not the physics.

Best:

1. City on the Edge of Forever
2. Balance of Terror
3. The Trouble with Tribbles
4. Devil in the Dark
5. A Piece of the Action

Worst:

1. Spock's Brian
2. The Omega Glory
3. The Way to Eden
4. Patterns of Force
5. A Piece of the Action

I didn't like it. In fact, I threw my precious things across the room and broke them, then committed suicide.

It's been a while since I read Pinker's The Language Instinct, but IIRC he made a pretty good argument that language acquisition is natural and innate, if not language itself.

I think Stephenson's premise owes more to Julian Jaynes than Chomsky, thoug. He was more direct about it in The Big U.

Walken's too old now to play Fisheye. Besides, Fisheye is an important character to the plot - a cameo is just a walk-on by someone famous in an inconsequential role (i.e. anyone could play it).

I always pictured Fisheye as more like Harvey Keitel or Dan Hedaya.

Not if you're stealing a red stapler.

It better be damn big, I need leg room and head room. I should be able to tilt my seat ALL the way back, too!

You know, never mind. Forget it! I ain't going to the moon in no damned CASE!