I recommend Django to you. It seems to be written by clueful folk who care about things like backwards compatibility and fixing the small broken things rather than throwing it all away for the next version. As a bonus, it's not PHP.

I consider AdBlock a form of antivirus, in that ad positions are an attack vector (for random third party code injected into the page from behind some stack of brokers).

For the same reason, I don't install free phone apps if they're ad-supported.

Digital comms is soulless and overrated anyway. It doesn't have the warmth, vibrancy or resonance of analogue. I use a solid granite radio phone with a golden antenna so I can really capture the subtleties of my interlocutor's voice.

I think I'd advise the reverse, at least in terms of company size. A small company is more likely to value you for what you do, rather than want to replace you because your salary has become "too high". The small company I work for has a family feel to it, with zero office politics, but possibly not the same career advancement possibilities you'd get at a megacorp.

Perhaps startups are a special case; an established small company will be more stable. Or at least, your future is tied more to the performance of the company than the whims of those above you.

I disagree. Churning out a Wordpress brochure site requires some non-zero level of IT skills, but it's not the same level as, say, designing a data processing algorithm to run on MapReduce.

Surely "mild" and "harsh" are subjective? From the point of view of a molecule, what constitutes "harsh"?

Perhaps evolving life in high temperatures turns out to be easier than at room temperature, e.g. because there's more free energy around.

Don't worry... the Republicans will veto this for fear of finding yet more Europeans.

I remember a little interview (in the New Scientist I think) with a marine biologist who said he stopped experimenting on octopi when, after inserting a probe into the head of an octopus he thought was anaesthetised, the octopus calmly raised its tentacle and pulled the probe back out.

Not sure why you're currently modded redundant as I came to say pretty much the same thing.

Although it's pretty funny if saying one doesn't trust the NSA is now considered redundant...

Isn't putting branding in a command's name a bit of a hostage to fortune?

If this had come out 10 years ago, would we all be laughing at having to use get.NET / OLEget / ActiveGet / Get95 / etc ?

Roughly speaking, as I understand it, if it would be criminal to say something to a person's face, it will be criminal to say it to them online. For example, a death threat.

"No Brainer" was a nice touch for a zombie suggestion :)

In what way is a $1000 bill more anonymous than a $100 bill?

What advantage can you think of that a $1000 bill has over 10 x $100 bills?

I can dream up a few, like if I want to bribe my congressman maybe I don't need as many envelopes, or on those days where I need to shift $20,000,000 in cash it's a few pounds lighter so the shipping is cheaper.

But none of these would make me "strongly favor" bringing it back.

"How can they stop to individuals that have agreed to use these notes doing business with them?"

That seems pretty unlikely - why would criminals want to set up their own currency (which is effectively what this means). Currencies operate entirely on trust, and there's no honour amongst thieves...

I could imagine them using something that has intrinsic market value and is fungible, like gold or cocaine.