This is Slashdot. It is a violation of website rules to read any linked article.

It is eminently possible that you might like Watchtower.

Easy solution. Run NoScript and you won't have to encounter any google search enhancements (although for a split second while your results are loaded, you can see them before noscript forces the webpage to behave itself).

"the" instead of "ze"? That's not how we speak German in the US.

There is a joke in here, though, if you don't miss it. tab...init...inittab?? Ok, well, I tried.

Keeping a tab on these changes is becoming tiresome, init?

Website
Source.

I dunno, it seems to me that an advanced technology-enabled dystopia is not universal in its spread. Poor third-world countries do not seem to be headed that way. Corruption may have something to do with it, but I'm too tired at the moment to form a logical construct to validate that thought.

I'm sure it was bees and not beans that you meant to write, but I wasn't only thinking of bees as a pollinating vector (because you'd want more than just staple crops). As you said, agricultural crops are wind-pollinated, because they don't sprout beautiful flowers to attract insec (except I think with maize, which may be pollinated by bees). Pollination by insects is far, far more precise and efficient than pollination by wind. But in the case of a Mars colony, are you going to generate wind to facilitate pollination (not that it isn't possible, but will you get the desired effect)? I think you'd have to painstakingly do it by hand.

Would you really consider Biosphere 2 to be a success? Yes, the people in there survived for however long it was, and certainly it was a radical new attempt at facilitating sustenance of an intelligent life-form like ours, but there was a failure in advancing the idea further, and while similar, it is quite different from a Mars habitat.

I don't think growing crops there would be easy. Pollination is a big problem, and having to live on an algal diet won't be easy. Plus, there are the usual phytopathological problems: pests, diseases, parasites, etc. Managing contaminants, the inevitability of escaping gases, making do with extremely limited resources (industrial operations require massive quantities of power and water and I'm not convinced of your vision of growth and prosperity) are only a few of the innumerable challenges that lie ahead in even bootstrapping a Mars colony. Despite how tough it's going to be, I think it is an idea worthy of being pursued, but only after having carefully experimented it here on Earth.

So, wouldn't it be prudent to set-up such an environment here on earth, run tests with human inhabitants, and then carry over that experience into building a Mars colony?

Is systemd trying to become emacs?

Well, you weren't. In my comment, while I certainly didn't mention the threats of violence to his person, an absence of condemnation does not amount to me justifying something as unacceptable as that.

Come back with your rant when Poettering's crap is not being forced down the throats of users of most major distros, and when the company he works for ceases to wield great influence over what eventually becomes accepted standard in the community. Nobody is forcing me to use Windows either, but I use Linux over it for the freedom Linux offers. Yet it's starting to become more of a "You're only free to do these things if you want to use our more popular distro. Piss off if you don't like it". I know I could always try and gather some like minded people and start yet another distro, but when software vendors will only support the major distros and their offerings won't work on your incompatible OS, you have no choice but to fall at the feet of the those you disagree with. Significant alterations to basic software is not synonymous with "scratching an itch".

Well said. Also, this is Dubai, with a king and God as rulers. They don't care about false positives, as long as the rich aren't inconvenienced, and the enslaved foreign labour in the slums is kept in check.