Most likely he would be; he was born in 1929, and would have been 85 if not dead - far more than the average male lifespan.

Anyhow, arguing from alternative history is a fallacy.

I think it's more of a mindset that you, the system administrator is the one who decides, and unless you say otherwise, it's static
Yes, you can hotplug, but may not want an init process deciding that since you plugged a cable into a network card, it should automatically probe it and change your network settings, and restart processes that depends on networking.

No one should make hardware changes without the blessing of the system administrators, and they - not a piece of software - are responsible for the decision of how to deal with the change, and when.
Yes, we sysadmins tend to be control freaks. For very good reasons.

It doesn't matter whether they are objective or not - what you can easily do is check the claims they make. They're verifiable and for the technical claims, falsifiable.

Dismissing something based on who is saying it is a fallacy.

Yes.
Non-deterministic latency.

You got to wonder what's most likely. That all these people who criticize systemd/pulseaudio or work on the Linux kernel are assholes who gang up on an outstanding individual, or that Lennart Poettering is an asshole who can't handle criticism?

His attacks on Linus Torvalds and likening the Linux Kernel core development team to "a fish [that] rots from the head down" tells me he has gone off the rails. He doesn't need derision, he needs help.

Research some yourself. That's the House name that was changed, not the surname.
The British branch of the House Saxe-Coburg and Gotha became the House of Windsor. Neither is a last name - it's the monarch's ducal name.

That said, by royal decree, the descendants of Elizabeth II who are not mononymic princes or princesses, are to have the last name of Mountbatten-Windsor. Like the Queen's grandson, Viscount Severn, James Mountbatten-Windsor.
His cousin is Prince William, with no last name unless you count his current duchy, Cambridge, or the name he used during military service, William Arthur Philip Louis Wales. When not being either the Duke of Cambridge or the son of the Prince of Wales, I expect he can be named William Mountbatten-Windsor.

In neither case is the last name "Windsor".

Yet science has superseded of many of the taboos.

Veterinary inspections means we can eat pork without getting trichinosis, and we don't get Kreutzfeldt-Jacob from prions because of extensive testing. Likewise, we can probably take reasonable precautions against Kauri too.

And modern birth control and genetic testing means that close relatives can engage in sex without the risk of birth defects. Yet it's a strong taboo in most (but not all) cultures.

But some taboos don't even have a "pre-scientific" justification. The masturbation taboo, for example. Or not speaking the name of someone dead.

I think it's quite alright that people have taboos. As long as they don't impose their taboos on anyone else. If people have a strong aversion to something, I am not going to force them to partake in it, whether it's eating taboo animals, homosexuality, nudity, working on particular days, or anything else that might be taboo. But I expect them to not try to limit others because of their own taboos.

I have a couple of taboos myself. One is food contamination taboo. I will politely refrain from accepting more food if someone at a table double-dips, helps himself to food from a common plate with his fork or chopsticks, or touches his plate with a serving spoon and then puts it back. But I will not yell "everybody stop eating" or chastise those that do. I also have a taboo against anal sex, so I won't participate in that. But others can do what they like.
I don't care what people do as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.

Likewise, if someone cannot eat pork or horse or drink coffee because of a taboo, I have no problems with them turning it down. But I won't change what I serve because of them. It's their taboo, not mine.

No, the Principal House is not the same as a surname. A person can belong to multiple royal houses (and often do, due to the intermarriage between royal houses). And many have a different surname while belonging to a house.

The principal house Harald V of Norway belongs to is Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg. He's also a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, and thus of the Oldenburg house. But Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg is not his name. Neither is Oldenburg. Never was, and never will be.

The only "full name" that would make sense for him would be to add the patronymical, Harald V Olavson. But he has never used it - he signs "Harald R", the R standing for Rex.

Presumably some "Mr/Ms de" too.
And these days, more than a few Ibn, Bin and Al folks too, I should think.

Where I hail from, the last name is often the name of the farmstead. And they often have qualified names like "North Hill", "Lower Pond" or "Large Valley Farm".

Add that it's not uncommon to combine the names of your mother and father, or for women, keep your old name and tack the new last name to the end.
And finally, interject patronymics.

So you can end up with full names like "Daisy Franksdaughter North Hill Lower Pond Large Valley Farm", and that's with no middle names.
The "short forms" could be either of "Daisy Franksdaughter" or "Daisy Large Valley Farm" depending on context.

Someone else might be named "John John Johnson Johnson Johnson".

Truly, the only sane solution is to let people enter their own names and desired forms of address free-form.

You're confusing family name with House. This is a problem because nobility can belong to more than one house.

Many of the British royals belong to the House of Windsor, but their name isn't Windsor, any more than HRH Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece having a last name of neither Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg nor Oldenburg - the two houses to which he belongs.

Pray, tell - what is the last name of HRH King Harald of Norway?

He signs Harald Rex, or these days Harald R. - presumably to avoid getting letters to Mr. Rex.

Seconded.

I always thought Rick Astley got better near the end too.

If plural of cephalopus are cephalopods, why do you think the plural of octopus should be octopi?

Octopuses, octopods or octopodes are all acceptable. Octopi is not.

Like Ferdinand the bull?

I eat Bambi and Thumper too. Not to mention Donald.
(And Wilbur, but that was Hanna-Barbera, not Disney.)

And I'd sure as hell eat Snow White too, if she asked me.