We were told, back when, that CDs had an indefinite lifespan -- essentially permanent.

I remember having talks with the University of Illinois' preservation librarian at the time. He had a much dimmer and less optimistic view of digital media.

Started at the Ms Magazine blog, ended, IIRC, at Huffpo. Notable for the heavy handed moderation protecting and defending Ms. Heidi's recounting of her fears and anxieties. (And ignorance.)

"The reason for the outage is not yet known, "

That's when they patched in the NSA's new tap.

Winter keeps the riff-raff indoors. Summer drives them outside, to prey upon each other and other, relatively more innocent, folks.

We need Globular Cooling. For the Children.

it would mean that a NATO ally had attempted to spy on a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, presumably without the knowledge or approval of U.S. authorities

Why in the world would anyone think this?

The solution to inadequate IT for the gun control effort is, to say no to the new gun elimination effort.

Or maybe just issue us all little yellow stars to wear, to aid in tracking us.

Our best prank was what we did to his computer. We wrote a small program that ran in the background and drew a dot in the center of the screen on top of whatever was running. This dot grew bigger over time; at first it was just one pixel wide, but after a week it was over twenty.

That's evil. Can I have a copy?

A site that allows anyone but U.S. citizens vote seems to indicate that the rest of the world hopes these numbers are accurate. "

So, if these folks like BHO so much, they're welcome to him.

but it displays "one hell of a laser show in an attempt to scare potential crooks into thinking that they have no chance of breaking in without triggering the alarm.

Hmm. I'm thinking something from Crimson Trace or one of its many competitors might be better for this.

I run a small indie game company,

You're a game company. That stuff is an amusement -- it doesn't matter.

Every hope is dashed.

In the end, Ish has done well to get his children a good start on a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. All remains of the old culture are lost.