Hmm, I've been on UNIX since SunOS days and Solaris was the new kid on the block. I've written a device driver that shipped in a commercial UNIX kernel. That said, I chose as my desktop a hybrid BSD/Microkernel architecture with POSIX compliance and a modern GUI. Or in other words, a Mac.

Macs are not stupid, they are made to be simple to use. That external simplicity hides a deep complexity underneath. I think people who don't understand that making something complex to be simple to use is one of the hardest things in Computer Science. A good size for desktop computers now is about 8GB of RAM or more. At any given time, 8GB will give you 2^(8*(2^23)) states, which of course will change in a nanosecond. Mac OS tries to, as much as possible, hide the states that don't mean anything to you. It's not that the MacOS guys don't know they exist. They just feel YOU don't need to know they exist. Maybe they're wrong, but it's a conscious decision where they know the states that exist and they feel that showing the states is less helpful than the confusion it would engender.. Not stupidity.

The main issue (and where you have a point though you exaggerate it way past its validity) is sometimes things are complex, and if you hide that complexity, you actually cause a disservice. Apple hides a lot of its security notices. As Macs become more and more of a target, they really need to not hide the complexity as much so that people can make valid choices on how to prevent malware infections.

Nah, we keep the space-grade maple syrup for domestic consumption.

What you guys get is just corn syrup and food coloring. ;-)

Well, you can call it a "double standard", but that's how science works. Interpretations of data that contradict the established theory face higher burdens of proof than interpretations that support it.

It's frustrating to climate denialists and perpetual motion inventors that their ideas aren't given equal dignity with the scientific consensus, but that's because by in large they're ignorant of the effort that went into forging that consensus. It took fifty hard fought years for AGW to become the scientific consensus, and as a result it enjoys a privileged position: it gets to play the null hypothesis. To do otherwise isn't fair to the people who fought that fight for decades, and won. You can overturn the scientific consensus, but it's an uphill battle, as it should be.

On the one hand, anyone who gets it now will get the best medical care physically possible on the planet, though the currently available treatments don't have a high enough success rate to give me the warm-n'-fuzzies.

On the other, we have three (known) pharmaceutical companies busting their butts to bring a cure to market, and I'd expect quite a few more putting huge resources into "fling everything at the wall and see what sticks" R&D. So in six months, we might actually have a high-success rate treatment for it. But, in six months we might have 1.5 billion people in who need it.

Really a tough call... Better to get it now, or wait until it becomes a pandemic in the hopes a better treatment will exist.

Profiles for pets, WTF? Can teddy bears have profiles too? Are the pets allowed to have political opinions?

"My" Facebook page exists solely for my pets. And yes, they have political opinions (they favor absolute monarchy justified by the doctrine of the Divine Right of Cats).

See, I have zero interest in what my 6000 closest "friends" do. I have zero interest in sharing details of the texture of my morning bowel movement with half the planet (or even just with those 6000 "friends"). I have zero interest in seeing targeted ads based on my preferred types of breakfast cereal or cars or sex toys.

Far, far too many people (and even many small businesses), however, have Facebook pages as their primary online presence. Seeing their "public" pages doesn't require "friend"ing them, but it does require having a Facebook login. As a result, I do have use for a functional Facebook login; I just have no interest whatsoever in the entire fad of "social" networking.

Thus, my cats / teddy bear / couch has a Facebook page. If Facebook really decides to crack down on the 80% of users with fake profile info, hey, they own the site and can make that decision. And honestly, I would love that to happen, because I would no longer need a Facebook, because they would no longer any content worth remembering yet another password to access.

You could always argue that you forget the key, or that you never knew the key, and it was written on a piece of paper that you lost. Technology could probably also create a device such that if you don't enter your key every 1 week then the data would be lost forever.

Imagine a device as such. A black box with storage and a battery inside. Ever time you attempt to read from or write to the device you need to send it the password. Sending the password keeps the device open for 1 hour (some short amount of time so it's not too annoying, but you can still get stuff done). If you don't send it the password every 2 days, it uses it's own internal power to delete itself. The whole thing could be wrapped in a wire grid and coated in epoxy so that the device could detect intrusion and delete itself at that point. The judge could hold you in contempt for a couple days but after that the data is gone and you could not possibly comply. They might be able to charge you with destruction of evidence, but for some the comtempt and destruction of evidence charges would be less severe than other charges they might be facing if the data was available to the authorities.

Israel is our extra special hand puppet^W^Wfriend and we would never hack them because we own them and we don't need to hack them. They're doing precisely what we pay them for.

HAHAHAHA. There's no way that this went down without the blessing of the superiors. None. They knew what they were doing, and they did it on purpose.

Sure, but by "suspension" you mean dampers and maybe springs, and anti-roll bars are fairly inexpensive and trivial to upgrade. Bolting on the turbo is more work by far. And as stated before, you need a better tire and wheel package. So what, 1-3k depending on provenance? Before you get to the turbo, obviously. Since there's no cars to pull parts from, you do have to buy everything new, not actual Subarus where everything interchanges and they about snap together like Lego. I'd rather have an Impreza, anyway; I prefer my Subarus with AWD. I bought an A8 D2, which is kind of like the Impreza's classy uncle. I suspect that if you put the D2 next to a GC5 the similarities would leap out. Off to go do that in an image.

Pliny is more bitter than hopfather, it says so right on their website, and it also says so in my mouth. And the younger is even moreso, and I can't figure out why anyone would give a shit about the elder any more because it has clearly. gone. down. hill. Last time I actually made it in for the younger (which I only do by accident, because life is too short to make plans around when a keg of beer is opened) it wasn't that good, either. It was missing something important from the hop character. Since they got mobbed, Russian River has lost the ability to give a fuck. They really need to expand, but make bullshit noises about keeping it small and not being able to do the same quality of beer if they grow. But they're not keeping the same quality of beer now, so what do they have to lose?

Is that what happened to your taste buds?

And this is why I debadged my A8. Except the grill, I haven't got to that yet. Or the teeny little Audi ovals on the sides. Gonna black out the grill logo shortly. I don't want it to look like I have bags of money. I don't. I bought the car cheap and I'm restoring it, which was stupid but there you have it.

No way. The Fiero is a sports car. Sure, it was made out of a bunch of amerishit; I've never driven one but I've sat in one and the lack of build quality is typically shocking for American cars of the era.

The Viper is a muscle car. You can get muscle cars around a track, if you're good enough. You can't simultaneously use the power. They make Viper-based race cars, but they're not really Vipers any more. Or you can replace half the suspension, but then why not buy something that handles to begin with? Like, say, a modern corvette.

Yes, yes it is. It's against the law to drive in a manner which creates a hazardous situation. Also, in some states (e.g. California) it's illegal to clog the passing lane. You are correct, however, that most people don't get pulled over for it. I see cops go around people clogging the passing lane all the fucking time.

ITYM their fuel consumption. Overall fuel consumption doesn't even enter into their tiny little minds, which is why they drive like asshats.

Well, we've got them all over here too (SF N.bay and beyond) and if I notice them at all it's because they're in the left lane because they think they're fast, but they're noticeable because I'm having to pass them on the right.