http://xkcd.com/463/

I did, at least, skim the article, and I still don't know. Didn't X11 just (as in last few years) get replaced with x.org? This is another replacement already? Ok, before posting, I google and see this:

What's different now is that a lot of infrastructure has moved from the X server into the kernel (memory management, command scheduling, mode setting) or libraries (cairo, pixman, freetype, fontconfig, pango etc) and there is very little left that has to happen in a central server process. ... [An X server has] a tremendous amount of functionality that you must support to claim to speak the X protocol, yet nobody will ever use this. ... This includes code tables, glyph rasterization and caching, XLFDs (seriously, XLFDs!) Also, the entire core rendering API that lets you draw stippled lines, polygons, wide arcs and many more state-of-the-1980s style graphics primitives. For many things we've been able to keep the X.org server modern by adding extension such as XRandR, XRender and COMPOSITE ... With Wayland we can move the X server and all its legacy technology to an optional code path. Getting to a point where the X server is a compatibility option instead of the core rendering system will take a while, but we'll never get there if [we] don't plan for it.

which bored me to tears, so I'm no longer interested, but for those who are....

came here to say that. also smarties and rock candy.

And as a bonus, you can "invent" stuff and get rich.

That's quite amusing.

But the real problem with all this travel-back-in-time-to-kill-hitler business is that Hitler didn't invent facism or scientific racism. It's quite likely that those theories would have kept gaining traction around the world if Hitler hadn't come along and started a war that made them look so bad.

I thought this would only be a problem for people who are afraid to muck around in their bios. The situation is that even tech-savy users can't turn this shit off?

Are you talking about Ontario? I think it's been up to the ultrasound practitioner's discretion, but in light of recent studies, some are advising their workers to not give out the information. I hadn't heard that it was illegal, thougth.

It's a conundrum, though. If abortion is legal, it has to be legal for everyone, for all reasons. Perhaps more effort should be made to make sure certain immigrants know that around these here parts, we appreciate our daughters.

But if it continues, well, it can't coninue for more than a generation or two. What's a sure-fire way to make sure your son abandons your sexist culture and marries someone from a different background who wont abort her female fetuses? Create a lack of women in your culture for them to date.

It has focus-follows-mouse, but you have to go into the gconf-editor, which most probably doesn't come with ubuntu anymore. But once you do enable it, it still sucks because they've done that Mac-wannabe global toolbar thing, so when you move your mouse up to the tool-bar for an application (which is at the top of the screen now) the mouse hovers over another application, and the toolbar at the top is no longer for the application you want to do something with. It'll make you want to smack someone.

Fortunately, there's XFCE. It has proper focus-follows-mouse. Just use Xubuntu, if you want to stick with an Ubuntu derivative.

I only became a scientist so that I could be the one in control of a futuristic dystopia. Mind controls, genome engineered slaves, soylent, high-tech games to the death. I was really excited!

But maybe that's just me.

Agreed, and add to that the death penalty. And then there are the statistical measures like income inequality, literacy rates, incarceration rates, and other "quality of life" indices.

If we could shame the US by listing the crappy countries it has so much in common with, in these regards, I think it would have happened already.

I think you're missing a point of why so many people are so upset; there's no trial planned because the admitted killer has not been arrested.

If you haven't seen it already, you might be interested in this:
Interactive Starry Night

Actually, in the case of plasma confinement, and the break-even point, the bigger hammer is exactly the solution. Tokamaks smaller than ITER weren't expected to reach break-even point. They theoretically have to have a minimum size in order to get the densities needed.

Agreed. I've never seen anywhere where someone is claiming that inertial confinement will one day provide us with energy.

A dumb, or feature phone, can come with all the programs you need, but doesn't have a good avenue for installing any other arbitrary program you might want.

Smart phones are more like computers that way; they're meant to have programs installed after you get it. You're not limited to what the manufacture shipped the phone with.