I can only hope the strategic reserves of Kraft Dinner are safe!

First off, I'm now 37 and I've been in IT for over 15 years. I can also say that I had similar feelings when I was 16 and first starting with PCs. For instance, I stuck with old MFM/RLL drives for awhile because I knew that technology but didn't know IDE, which was already a few years old. I later started learning to move with technology and have continued to do so.

I presently work at the Federal government and have had similar frustrations. It really has little to do with age and more to do with mentality. People get stuck in their old ways and are reluctant to change. My boss was that way in the beginning but, fortunately, he had an open enough mind where when I started slowly introducing newer technologies, like virtualization, he came to accept them. He also saw the wisdom in standardizing such things as backups and operating systems so that we weren't having to juggle 5-6 different platforms to get stuff done.

That said, standards and procedures exist for a reason. Someone like the OP is likely to be a lot more reckless when it comes to poking around and changing things. Just because something is newer doesn't necessarily mean it will fit the environment and/or application. Also, there are numerous other factors to consider such as vendor support, upgrade paths, downtime, etc. In a typical environment you will see not see newer technologies (outside of maybe a lab environment) until they've been tried and tested in the industry.

Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself.

I know a lot of people who's contracts were up and jumped ship on the news that AT&T was going to buy them. I don't know the percentage but every T-Mobile subscriber I know all moved to other carriers when they heard the initial announcement.

What about Ben Affleck in the "How to eat with your butt" episode?

Finally, someone worthy of carrying on the torch of totally confusing the jury!

Wouldn't that be more something like this? This is how we do it, when we do it
Like we just wanna tear the club up
We do it like there ain't nothin' to it
The way we do it, now everybody put your fuckin' hands up!
Lets Go!

I like to sit back on the couch with my 92" screen across the room. I'm not going to get up every time I want to do something on my TV, that's what remotes are for.

Or maybe, since "karate" means open hand, he didn't want to rule with his l33t fighting moves.

That was my first thought reading the summary. I mean come on:

The Ides of March
Colleague "Robert E Lee"
Low bandwidth attack that can take down large servers?

I suppose we should all beware the Ides of March. Et tu, Bruce Schneier, et tu?

While you're at it, what is the capitol of Assyria?

Another OS From which we have to choose from Why do we need this? Seriously, why hasn't BeOS (and OS/2 for that matter) just disappeared. As if the numerous Linux and BSD distros didn't make the market confusing enough. I'm constantly reminded of the scene in Caesar's Palace in Monty Python The Life of Brian. You know, where Brian tries to separate the People's Front of Judea and the Campaign to Free Galilee. When he says they need to unite against the common enemy they all shout "The Judean People's Front!" Then Brian has to say "No, no...the Romans!" That is what these OS wars are about. We need to unite against Microsoft, the dominant power. We already have several OS alternatives out there, Mac, Linux, BSD. Why throw another in the mix which will never be supported mainstream?