I have to admit that in my actual job I don't use a lot of mathematics.
As network engineer all kind of processor powered devices do that for you.
Still my initial formation as electronician simply required a well knowledge of math !

When people ask me how to calculate something in excel my answer is a formula and not an excel function.
Am I old school when I prefer to know how to do it instead of just doing it ?
Knowledge is an option, curiosity is mandatory to discover new things.

Why is Apple suing Samsung ? Because they can.
Actually let dig a bit deeper, why the hell in the US you can own a patent about every shit ?
A US Judge (involved in an Apple case) recently stated that the whole patent system is crap (well he formulated differently) and it's true.
His statement was mostly based on following facts:
- the patent bureaus are understaffed, therefore the check if the patent application is correct are just minimal.
- the judges involved in patent claims have no clue about technology.
- the main reasons to hold a patent are only two:
a) holding a patent protects you about being sued for the use of it
b) get a patent for whatever and wait for someone to infringe it and thus sue them.

He also proposed a really simple way to eliminate those foolish debates:
- a patent holder cannot have exclusive right on it. A patent implicitly allows others to copy and build upon licenses payment to the patent owner.
- a patent holder loses the patent if not applied within a reasonable amount of time.

I would even go further and define a roof for the due licenses, otherwise one could decide to get gazillions licenses...
But anyway, the system is crap and urgently needs to be reviewed.
I prefer technology companies to invest time and money in R&D rather than in lawyers and trials !

"The average home network still uses NetBIOS"

1) NetBIOS is not DNS.
        gTLDs refers to DNS, so don't worry your NetBIOS name resolution is still safe.

2) If the average home network still use obsolete NetBIOS then the average home network is crap.

3) Who cares about gTLD ? Probably some suite wearing tech-nooby who think it's cool...
        The average user don't care about the URL, that's why we have phishing.

4) This proliferation of TLDs is simply plain stupid and only adding complexity to domain name resolution.

5) In short: it sucks !

Yeah right, don't let you fool by those panic makers !
Stick on you IPv4 !

Too bad that the rest of the world is moving to IPv6...

But hey, Darwin theory probably applies also on the Internet users ;-)

There still a huge amount of people who thinks that IPv6 is a replacement for IPv4.
Well it will be somewhen but it will take quite a while...
Dual stack is a must for everybody who wants to keep theirself connected to future services.

I'm a network and security engineer and although IPv6 require a rethinking about the security it is the solution to lot of IPv4 related problems.
For instance and just as an example, port scans are kind of useless in IPv6 when run it on a /64 network as it contains more addresses than the whole IPv4 range...
NAT/PAT belongs to the category "security by obscurity", if you want to secure your network get a good firewall and know which traffic passes it.

Finally lets put it that way: if you want or not, IPv6 is there, so either you move to dual stack or you look for an ISP who does NAT-PT for you...

The "I don't need it" fraction will realize that they will though need it as soon as they try to access a IPv6 only addressed service.
I'm running IPv6 at home (connected via dual-stack VDSL) since more than 3 years and whitout any noticeable speed difference.

Hybrids will partially solve the problem.
The actual problem is that we still use a huge amount of oil and up to now the alternatives are either still too expensive or blocked by lobbies.
If you want to save money hybrid are an alternative if you manage to make long drives on pure electric.
A step further would be the long range electric cars where the combustion engine simply generates electricity. With those, the gas engine always revs at the maximum efficiency as it's loading the batteries and not moving the wheels.
In Europe Renault as a good alternative to that: pure electric cars with swappable batteries. On short runs (up to 100 mi) you can charge them, on long runs you can swap your empty battery for a full one at the gas station. They are introducing the idea and if they manage to have a widespread network of gas station storing batteries it could have quite a success. The car itself is a bit expensive (but not as an hybrid would be) and it requires way less maintenance as it is pure electric.
The ecological aspect is another story since what is the advantage of clean drive when the power needed to charge the batteries come from coal ?...

I'm a radio amateur and sometimes I use a digital modulation called PSK31 which transfers data in a "chat-like" way at 31 baud.
The normal reaction when I state this is "but you know that we have a worldwide spanning network called Internet where you can transfer data at megabit rates, why you do that ?"

Because I can !

Don't mix up things. Directory service is one thing, user-facing OS another. You want to stay on Active-Directory ? Why not. You want to connect Macs, Linux or whatever to AD ? Why not. The mileage of effort to bind a workstation to AD will vary but it's mostly possible. So why is people still using Windows instead of Mac OS or Linux ? I personally think because they are used of it and they know nothing else. Buy a new PC and it will have Windows preinstalled on it, go work somewhere and you will probably find a Windows workstation. Switching between Windows and Mac is quite easy, the differences from the user perspective are not so big. Linux as workstation is still not a real valid competitor, although the community is doing a great job and is keeping up. What about the price ? Is time to stop comparing cheap-bad-ass hardware running Windows with Macs ! Get a notebook with similar HW performance of a MacBook and compare the prices including OS: where is the difference ? So finally as end-user we are driven by companies selling us bundles of HW with Windows on it and as workers we are hired by companies with Windows administrators dictating the OS to use.