A bigger vessel means either more fuel or a longer journey. For humans that's a hell of a lot of fuel or an incredibly long time. It's on the scale of thinking of the Earth as a spaceship.

With computers, theoretically you could fit thousands of distinct consciousnesses in a computer the size of a sugar cube. And computer consciousnesses could be "frozen" rather than put in to suspended animation for the journey. Add some nano-tech replicators and a spacecraft could be no larger than a football, shoot out across the galaxy, find a planet and start building android bodies, buildings, telecoms, a complete civilization. Even human bodies if you really want.

Again, fanciful, but more likely than sending people.

it will take a long time until we have any hint of this life-giving resource on worlds orbiting stars thousands of light-years away.

Doesn't matter. By the time we reach any planets in other solar systems we won't need water to survive. We'll have transferred our brains to computers and will use whatever android bodies are suitable for the terrain.

I know, sounds fanciful, but it's more realistic than to think that we'll be sending human beings to other solar systems. The amount of oxygen, water, food, and other resources required - even if we invent some kind of suspended animation - makes it laughably unlikely.

People have had their finger chopped off [newscientist.com] just so that someone can steal their fingerprint-scanning car.

What's more important to you, your finger or your car?

So just chop off someone else's finger and use that for your car door lock. See? - the basic idea is fine.

The Stanford Linear Accelerator isn't on that map.

Well, if it's a place you can drop in to and visit then add it. The site is driven by visitors adding their own places of interest.

We're not reproducing any faster - we're having children later and we're having fewer of them. We're just being rather selfish and refusing to drop dead as quickly as we used to.

Seconded. Started by Ben Goldacre, with plenty of destinations in the UK and the US, and if you know of any more just add them:

Nerdy Day Trips

The article ends by calling Woz "the creator of the Macintosh" - he isn't, he's the creator of the Apple computer. The Mac was Jobs's baby.

ALOT ISNOT AWORD

"A mere abacus. Mention it not."

You missed out the "self-respecting geek", and the "passive, slack-jawed consumption"

No I didn't. Believe it or not "geeks" is a subset of "people", not a separate set, and I specifically pointed out that your definition of "passive slack-jawed entertainment" can equally apply to reading, listening to the radio, or watching sport. Or looking at art, for that matter.

Digressions into what autism is aside, well so what? Significant degrees of autistic behaviours are generally accepted to be more common in in the "geek" population than in the "normal" population. So?

I made no judgement on autism. I just pointed out that if your argument against television viewing is not just rhetoric, then you are probably an extremely unusual person so your views would not apply to the general population. It would also explain why you can't understand how a geek could enjoy watching Star Trek.

You can't work out how people can enjoy entertainment? Honestly?

I'm trying to work out why any self-respecting geek would participate in any pastime that requires passive, slack-jawed consumption of entertainment over something that requires active involvement.

In this respect, how is watching a screen any different to reading a book? Or listening to the radio? Or being at a hockey match? Or is it just fiction in any form you dislike as opposed to factual, because you think fiction doesn't engage the brain but factual does? Because there is nothing "passive" about watching or reading or listening to entertainment - entertainment is processed by the brain just as any other information is, often more intensely and vividly.

You are either being wilfully obtuse, or you are somewhere way out in the autistic spectrum. People need entertainment and I'd be very surprised to find you had none in your life - no music, no books, no films, no sport, no hobbies. Singling out and demonising television as being "slack-jawed consumption of entertainment" just makes you sound like you think other people are inferior to you.

You might try out "Factotum" or "Post Office" For short stories, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" or "Tales of Ordinary Madness".

I think the obvious one for McGrew to go for is "Women" :-) I'd also recommend "The Most Beautiful Woman In Town".

may also offer their buyers the option

That's in addition to Paypal. You still HAVE to offer Paypal on your listings as well, and that's what most buyers will choose because that's what they're familiar with. It doesn't solve the problem at all.