Yeah... I've done that, Ubuntu's Upgrade system is not failproof. The simplest way is to just mount your home directory on a separate partition, and then just reinstall any time you do a major update (I tend to skip every other release, just cuz I'm too lazy to do an upgrade every 6 months) But, that being said, you can change the notification system so that a senior citizen would not ever have to mess with that. Even outdated Ubuntu is more user-friendly than XP for a non-proficient user in my mind.

Simply point out the fact that this post has made it to the /. front page. That alone should give you sufficient geek cred that they will respect your judgments and understand that you are trying to to what's best for the project, from both sides (Development AND Business).

Actually, that would make it worse. The sun is the source of solar winds, so our closer proximity means that the particle density of solar winds are greater where we are than at mars. The sun's flares do not "cook" and neutralize the solar wind, but instead, solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections add even more highly energetic and heavier particles into the solar wind, causing greater hazards to earth (particularly to communications satellites, electrical grids, and astronauts). For more information, check wikipedia next time.

Heh, God would probably prefer the command line: dnack -t mammoth -ay