You probably want support for applications that were developed against MySQL alone, and only work in MySQL's dialect of SQL. Not all DB apps are DBMS agnostic.

vi uses your muscle memory much better than the MacOS does. You need hand-eye coordination to click a menu, or select a window, and if you move the window, you lose the ability to take advantage of muscle memory anyway. In vi, the keys are always in the same place. (Unless someone plays a prank on you and remaps your keyboard to AZERTY.)

Youngster. I learned to use a phone back when phone dials were circular.

Russia has had fewer astronaut fatailities than the United States, and all of the fatalities Russia has had have been less recent than any of the US's fatalities (those occurring in space, not on the ground). Although it would certainly be a tragedy if people died on a Russian spacecraft, please remember that the reason we now rely on Russian spacecraft is because people died on American spacecraft, and NASA responded by retiring all of the spacecraft involved in the human space program (without developing replacements).

I could think of a worse PR disaster: American astronauts getting killed on an American spacecraft. Russia has had fewer astronaut fatailities than the United States, and all of the fatalities Russia has had have been less recent than any of the US's fatalities (those occurring in space, not on the ground). Although it would certainly be a tragedy if people died on a Russian spacecraft, please remember that the reason we now rely on Russian spacecraft is because people died on American spacecraft, and NASA responded by retiring all of the spacecraft involved in the human space program (without developing replacements).

is this news?

Bazaar allows more different types of workflows than git does (like the Subversion workflow, as you mention). My main problem with bazaar is that when I wanted to convert the SVN repository that holds my whole home directory about 5 years ago to bazaar, bazaar choked and git didn't. Now I'm using git, and even if they fixed my problem (or more likely the problem is moot), I see no reason to change.

You could use rsync to send your releases over the VPN. (And if you're compressing them, you can use gzip --rsyncable first). But if git does what you want, then by all means...

I think you want the link for the paper, rather than the slides.

The truth is that many system administrators prefer the command line, because you can come up with a bunch of repeatable commands that can be put into a script file and replayed on lots of machines, and because you can more efficiently work with a command-line over a remote access protocol like SSH (becuase less data needs to be sent across the network). Of course, the GP's attitude doesn't really help people appreciate the power and utility of the command line, and I certainly admit that crippling or removing the GUI tools could be a hard sell for some of MacOS X's intended audience if they don't have an appreciation of the command line.

This is not surprisingly restrained behavior from the Israeli government. Israel has always been much more restrained in this regard then her neighbors (for example Syria and Egypt) are. Do you know why? Because Israel is actually a functioning democracy, not like her totalitarian neighbors (Iran comes to mind) who just put on a democratic front sometimes when it's convenient.

Maybe you were the only one who didn't get spammed.

The opinion quoted Ginsberg v. New York because it's prior precedent, and did not overturn Ginsberg because it was an inappropriate case to do so. An appropriate case to overturn Ginsberg would be one that dealt with sexual material (not violent material), and expanding this case to cover sexual material would have been judicial activism in the technical sense of the word.

You have two other alternatives to the idea that quantum mechanics causes consciousness and/or free will. (Again, both of these are hypotheses, and need to be proven somehow)

1. Consciousness and/or free will can be simulated on a Turing machine. This would imply that "true" artificial intelligence is possible.
2. Consciousness cannot be simulated on a Turing machine. It needs something more powerful, but that's OK since the human brain is more powerful than a Turing machine (at least in certain respects).