I always thought Pascal was better for most purposes than C and its offspring.

Ok, has anyone ever written an OS kernel in Pascal? How about bare-metal code which tweaks registers?

What you are missing is that a warrant for something un-Constitutional is invalid even if issued in accordance with unanimous decisions from the SCOTUS., therefor actions taken to execute said warrant are illegal and are criminal acts carried out under color of law. Dred Scott comes to mind, though hardly the only example of the SCOTUS ruling contrary to letter and/or intent of the Constitution.

Courts are not the final arbiters. People are. What can the government do if most of the population (including a large percentage of workers within said government and members of the military) refuses to comply?

There are already laws on the books regarding citizen rights & responsibilities pertaining to dealing with agents of the government committing criminal acts under color of law. I would refer you there.

Strat

Really? So, you'd be in favor of the government making sure they know who is and who isn't gay in order properly run skewed elections and referenda? How about simply having a clause in your constitution that says (as ours does) that everyone is treated equally under the law? Isn't that simpler than getting the government involved in keeping lists of who is on which part of a given spectrum of sexual orientation or skin color, etc?

So you would accept it as Constitutional if the courts rule that police randomly entering & searching your home without a warrant or probable cause to believe a crime is or is about to be committed is not a violation of the 4th Amendment?

No US court has the power to overrule the US Constitution, secret or otherwise. Any such rulings are by definition unlawful and un-Constitutional. An un-Constitutional law is no law at all, and it is the duty of every US citizen to ignore and/or disobey/violate it if/when it conflicts with the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.

Strat

"Calling theories"... Hypothesis was used in the quote. In fact "theory" doesn't appear at all. So you're arguing against some other statement.

"... the simple fact is that much of the modern world would simply not work if the words "hypothesis" and "guess" were equivalent." Incorrect. Reality doesn't give a crap how words are used. You apparently do and are taking umbrage. Fine, just don't act like what you're writing is fact. It isn't.

"... rather than mysticism and magical thinking." Or hypothesis.

So they can restore the denaturated proteins to their original state... which basically is a step towards reviving the dead, however weird that sounds.... Undead chickens will take over.

Nope, Beta was not far, far superior. You're totally forgetting that Betas could only store 1 hour of video. (They later fixed this, but by then it was far too late.) Who wants to change tapes in the middle of a movie? VHS tapes could store a whole 2-hour movie, so they easily took over. Not having Sony's stupid licensing costs helped too. And by the time Beta was on the way out, VHS had caught up to it video-quality-wise too.

In the news recently are rumors that Carter, Anderson and Duchovny will reunite for new X-Files episodes. Fox has sorta confirmed this.

I own all the DVDs, a couple years ago I rewatched them. I may come off as a rabid fan at times but the background music was atrociously horrid. Also the story arc plot became overly convoluted and impossible to explain at times. That said, one of the most convoluted characters (Krycek) was my favorite. Aside from several minor valid criticisms like that, I really think it's a great platform for modern storytelling.

I do have to ask myself, at times, if there is some level of insane conspiracy theory today that we owe at least in part to those people watching X-Files when younger. I have to admit that the 9/11 inside job truthers movement claims could have been ripped from the pages of an X-Files script.

My biggest concern, of course, is whether or not it could still be fresh. With recent high quality additions to television canon, we'd have to be prepared for Chris Carter coming back at us with a 90's angle when episodes like Home really aren't as shocking anymore. The bar has been raised (thankfully).

Right now, The X-Files is going to occupy a contextual place in television history like The Twilight Zone. A revival could very well tarnish that. On the other hand, I've never felt like I really received closure on the whole story arc ...

Really? You equate our constitutional system of checks and balances to terrorism? Terrorism is the simple majority deciding that they can tell you what to do. Are you OK with 51% of the population deciding that you no longer get to speak freely, because they don't like what you have to say? That's democracy. A constitutional republic (which we are, that's not really open for debate, even when you confuse it with something else, like a monarchy - and you're very confused, here) has tools in place to prevent people like you from rallying 51% of the people who vote to do things like have the other 49% enslaved, or killed, or whatever you'd like to see done in the name of your having the majority of simple votes on the matter.

The majority is not always right, and the people who wrote our constitution knew that. It's why the country isn't run like one bit PTA meeting or a dog club. We have three branches of government, and the legislative branch is broken up in to two houses specifically to blunt the tyranny of the majority. You either haven't ever studied the basics of how the constitution is structured, or you have, and your pretending you haven't so that you can make your really bad analogies. Please try to get it straight.

Yes, it is. Which is why the very smart people who wrote the US constitution chartered the country as a republic, not a democracy. And a good thing, too.

Government bureaucrats & officials, and the innumerable laws, rules, and regulations at local, State and Federal levels at their disposal to interpret however they wish unless/until there's enough public attention and outrage to force the issue.

The same government that prevents Tesla Motors from selling cars directly and also in many areas limits the choices available for domestic home high speed internet services. The same government that completely ignores the US Constitution and shits all over the 4th Amendment with NSA bulk surveillance.

You know, the guys you help elect and vehemently defend because "he's your guy" and you don't want those other guys to get in even though they agree on everything except carefully focus-group tested and selected wedge issues designed to keep the electorate divided.

Strat

But there are a number of times where explicit copy/paste is much nicer.

I don't know what DE you're using, but in KDE, both modes work, and they go into different buffers. So if you feel the need to do the explicit copy/paste with Ctrl-C/V, it works fine, and you can even highlight something else afterwards, then paste the two separately with middle-click and Ctrl-V.

No, having one buffer is not better in any way. It's stupid in fact. Better is KDE's Klipper, which keeps a history for this buffer and lets me choose things I previously highlighted or copied.

Yes. For people who use real computers, middle button = "paste selected text".

Yep, that's exactly what I use it for too. I make very frequent use of this function.

However, I have no problem just pressing on my mouse's scroll wheel to do this. I'm using a Dell laser mouse I picked up on Ebay for $6 and it works just fine this way. My previous Logitech G5 worked fine this way too (unfortunately I had to stop using it because the laser part stopped working for some reason).

IMO, the *real* reason for commercial licenses was the concept that commercial drivers are driving much larger vehicles that require special training/skills to operate safely on the roadways. (Your average licensed driver can't just hop into an 18-wheeler and operate it.

Exactly. That's the same reason people should be required to have commercial licenses to drive pickup trucks. They're much larger vehicles than regular cars, and need more training to drive properly. From what I've seen of most pickup truck drivers, they obviously lack the necessary training and skills for driving 6000-pound vehicles, especially ones with dual rear wheels.

A vehicle anyone buys at a regular car dealership and uses as a "daily driver" for things like commuting or trips to the grocery store should NOT require a commercial license.

Yes, it should, if it's a large vehicle. If someone buys a Kenworth and uses it for grocery runs, should they not be required to get a commercial license? It's no different for a Hummer. If you want a vehicle for getting groceries and commuting, get a 4-door sedan like everyone else.

This is an idiotic comment.

C, C++, and PHP are still very popular languages. Perl is not; it's largely faded away except for a few niches, for various reasons, and has been replaced mostly by Python.

Pascal has been mostly dead for a long time. However Python (which you obviously favor as "clean") is hugely popular these days, and Java is still holding its own in the enterprise space.

Obviously, your opinion of what is "ugly and unreadable" or "clean" has absolutely nothing to do with which languages are popular.