Standard LAMP server for my environment monitoring, shared Calendar (davical, sync'd to Android gadgets, desktops, etc), data storage, web applications, email (getmail, postfix, dovecot, roundcube), etc.

Backup server (in another room from the first server), switched on by WoL each day, slurps data from server with rsync w/archival backup, waits a few minutes then shuts down.

10/100/1000 Mbps switch
ADSL modem
802.11n Access Point

That's about it from the top of my head. The server is over 12 years old and still going strong. And it draws about 50 watts. The backup server is a much more modern machine, but its power draw is negligible since it's only on for about 20 minutes per day.

What you say may well be correct, but not necessarily relevant. You always have a choice to turn off your phone, or at least turn off GPS and other location services.

These insidious "connected" vehicles will not give a choice. Want to travel by car? Get tracked or get out.

No thanks.

With respect, that's a very selfish position and an incredibly naive justification (that you'd probably find a second way to cure cancer).

Not all of us come with a price.

The star in question is Barnard's Star, a red dwarf.

Pulsar PSR B1257+12 was credited in the summary as an example at the start of the modern explosion in discovering extrasolar planets, not the one that was mistakenly thought to have planets.

So with the slow yet inevitable leakage of helium, what will be the estimated lifetime of these drives?

Planned obsolescence, anyone?

Don't forget the awesome single-player three-monitor gameplay experience that was present in early versions of Doom 1. Sure you needed three computers to do it, but AFAIK no other PC game could do that.

Why do these successful companies allow themselves to be bought up by behemoths who almost never improve upon them? Is it just so the current owners can retire?

Especially Microsoft, whose modus operandi has been shown again and again to be embrace, extend, extinguish.

We could somewhat control the effects of global warming with a large array of satellites that unfolded large solar panels like big umbrellas to divert sunlight otherwise destined for Earth, controlled to keep the Earth within a desired temperature range.

I'm not saying it's practical at all, but it is within our means.

It's where all your stuff is.

I guess to test it you would do just what you described, but with an added control - three points chosen randomly (on a map, preferably by a computer RNG). After enough repetitions you could build up a confidence interval to determine whether you could reject the null hypothesis (that the spots marked by dowsing lead to no more water than the random ones).

That is to say, precedent.

Precident.

Car carrier? Were they like buggy whips?

The cars will be manufactured with a full tank and when you order one with your credit card online it will drive itself into a shipping container and then over roads to outside your house, stopping to refuel as needed.

I'm only half joking.

Most automatics have a manual release button somewhere that lets you shift into any gear you like when it's held down.

Apparently you'd wait fr your authorized service agent to come and tow it for you. You *did* get that extended service contract didn't you?