Don't forget about that civil war that is coming if Obama wins.

Can we just skip ahead to the magical point in the future where the recounts are done, the lawsuits are complete, and the insanity around the election dies down so we return to life as usual?

In the early 90's, we were taught such gems as this is is a monitor not a TV, you cannot change the channel with this remote and the cable should come out of the top of the mouse. We also learned minesweeper and the solitaire games that came with Win95.

There was a small group of "nerds" that formed and shared what they had picked up by studying on their own.

Proclaim yourself the most interesting coder thinkgeek style.

I don't often test my code, but when I do, I do it in production.

According to this last year's total album sales for the US was 330.57 million. Compare to 1996's sales of 616.6 million. The solution here seems simple. To save music/movies/games/life as we know it, we only need to asses a fine of say $100/month to each person who has ever used any form of computer. Programmable coffee pots, cruise control, pocket calculators, etc all count here.

Based on current US population of 311,591,917 the proposed fine nets us a nice 31.1 billion in revenue. At $15/album only 4.1 billion of this is needed to bring the album sales revenue up to 1996's numbers, leaving 27 billion for movies and games.

Indeed. Look at the /. story from 8/10 Poll Finds Americans Think the TSA Is 'Doing A Good Job'

You can setup alerts with equifax and experian here:
equifax
experian

Remember back during the 2004 games when we were discussing the "clean venue" policy and monitoring for "advertising terrorism"?

It takes me about 10 minutes to rip a drive apart while watching TV in the evening. Out of it I get 2 neodymium magnets and if I'm lucky a stack of platters. The older the drive the better. 80GB circa 1999 == 4 platters, 80GB circa 2002 == 1 platter. Put your platters in a box, shake them up to randomize them, and then take a few and make a windchime or 3.

I have had a 120GB windchime hanging on the porch for the last 2 years and have yet to have anyone try to recover the data off it.

What happens before the laptop in question comes online?

First rule of technology: if it works, don't poke it with a stick.

And what are the issuance requirements here? Drivers license? Social security card? Passport?

The last time I renewed my license, the DMV would not accept the passport as proof of citizenship. Birth certificate paired with social security card only, thank you very much.

That's easy. Gold pressed latinum.