The problem with working at a job where you can do whatever you like and never get fired is that you are working _with_ people who can do whatever they like and never get fired.

If that still sounds like a good deal then it's only because you have never tried it.

The term that applies here is either "Bad Journalism" or "Bad Science Reporting". Calling it "Bad Science" and leaving it at that is giving the real charlatans a free pass.

Scientist: "Hey, this is weird... We just put together something that shouldn't work but it sort of looks like it did."

Headline: "NEW EXPERIMENT PROVES THAT EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT PHYSICS IS WRONG!"

Scientist: "It's not that... Look, here's a copy of a presentation we just gave to the rest of the department. There's a tiny and barely measurable bias in our results that we should be able to explain away but can't."

Headline: "SCIENTIST WITH TWO ASSES HAS RESEARCHERS BAFFLED!"

Scientist: "Um, that wasn't a press release, just a little paper we threw together to discuss our results. It's for other people familiar with what we're doing, and who know what words like 'bias' mean."

Headline: "LEAKED INTERNAL DOCUMENTS REVEAL NEW LAWS OF PHYSICS!"

Scientist: "I'm just going to back away slowly now and call some nice friends of mine who can show you out of the building. Try not to make any sudden moves..."

Headline: "SCIENTISTS INVOLVED IN COVERUP OF REVOLUTIONARY NEW SPACE DRIVE!"

Scientist: "Well, look at that. I just put a minus sign instead of a plus sign in one of the equations. If you do the math over again the results make a little bit more sense this way."

Headline: "REVOLUTIONARY SPACE DRIVE SCIENTIST WITH TWO ASSES IS A FRAUD! HOW WERE WE ALL FOOLED?"

Whereas non-nuclear power that is run for profit has always been quite trustworthy.

After all, once you can identify a priori who the smart people are, you can make sure that they are in their proper place from an early age. What a brave, new world that would be.

"Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."

It's also the reason that our... er... their dreams so often include world domination.

This may sound a little bit crazy, but murdering people was recently declared illegal in Canada too. All Special Agent Scully would have to do is pick up the phone and call her counterpart with the RCMP (They recently had phone service installed at both of their igloos!) who would then search the cabin for her, looking for evidence of a crime as defined by Canadian law. Once that was found it there would be some discussions at the nearest Tim Horton's over poutine and coffee (double-double, naturally) about just who would be charged and tried under what laws and whether evidence would be canoed across the border to the USA or the suspect extradited to Canada, Eh.

It's almost as if this sort of thing has come up before. The situation gets more interesting when a US citizen does something which is only illegal in the USA but not Canada. Something like failing to volunteer to join the army, supporting an unpopular political party or copying music from CD to a tape.

Don't make me link this here.

Nah. Glue all of the USB ports up and only use safe, secure, wireless solutions like Bluetooth for your keyboard and mouse.

That should solve all of your security problems in a single stroke.

NOTICE: USB DEVICES CONNECTED
The following devices have been connected to USB bus 5:
Device 0, Device ID="0123:4567", Manufacturer="Harmless USB Devices, Inc", DeviceClass="Hub", DeviceProtocol="Full speed hub"
Device 1, Device ID="0123:4567", Manufacturer="Harmless USB Devices, Inc", InterfaceClass="Mass Storage", InterfaceProtocol="Bulk Only"
Device 2, Device ID="0000:0000", Manufacturer="What is this", InterfaceClass="Human Interface Device", InterfaceProtocol="Keyboard"
Device 3, Device ID="0000:0000", Manufacturer="I don't even", InterfaceClass="Communications Device", InterfaceProtocol="AT-Commands", Interface="HSPA+ Mobile Broadband Modem"

The information is already there if you know where to look for it. All that would be required would be to put it into a notification window that attracts a bit more attention. It wouldn't prevent this kind of attack -- that would require user consent for activating any new devices, and be bit challenging if that was your only functional keyboard -- but it would force naughty USB devices masquerading as harmless purveyors of porn^H^H^H^H useful business-related data to tip their hands when they try doing something they shouldn't.

Unfortunately some clients think that "never" only applies to other people.

What's worse is that it can be quite a long time before they are proven wrong.

Sounds like Korn shell. You probably see Bourne-again shell writing to ${HISTFILE} when it exits, but ksh will continually update .sh_history as commands are entered. This can get a bit awkward if you are using a shared account with more than one person logged on at once.