My favorite Windows alternative back in the early 1990's was Wayfarer, a freeware replacement for the Windows v3.x Program Manager. Long before Microsoft figured out how to do tabbed and nested windowing, Wayfarer did both.

My favorite trick as to post a screenshot of the Windows Program Manager as the screen background and then turn off Progam Manager completely and replace it with Wayfarer, which would minimize to a single desktop icon. People would click on what looked like Program Manager icons with no result.

(Including the tech support guy who showed up unannounced at my desk one day to install software while I was out and was five minutes away from wiping and reinstalling my entire PC because he couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I told him the next time he wanted to hijack my PC during the work day he needed to schedule an appointment so he didn't interfere with my work day.)

Ah, those were the days when we could still have some fun with customization. Now it's all "safe choices" or lock-downs, depending on how you look at it.

If it can be proven that a student has plagerized someone else's work to write a paper, can they then really turn around and claim copyright on their paper? Doesn't the author they "borrowed" from really hold the copyright?

...to buy an iPod. Those cunning devils at Apple have found a legal way to sell portable incendiary devices! Who wouldn't want one now?

You can't just use one of these options and expect to be secure. You need them all.

Two inches of water, with an oil slick on top. Wiring attached to the doorknob and metal window frames with a ground wire under the water. When the current arcs, either that or a separate sparker ignites the oil slick. Between the electric shock and the oil lighting the offender on fire, that should be enough to make them slip, trip, or otherwise fall on the sharpened stakes lurking just under the water.

Add a couple of overprotective German Shepherds and you'll never see a Jehovah's Witness at your door ever again, though it could cut down your access to pizza delivery, too.

Or just put up a sign that says, "This House Protected by Chuck Norris." It worked for these guys: www.nuffy.net/cool/articles/this-store-is-protected-by-chuck-norris.html.

I have two masters degrees, one of which is in IT, and I work for the Federal government.

I can't say what the environment is like in other than the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security, but when we get surveyed for our job qualifications we are always asked for information on specialized certifications (e.g. Project Management Professional, Contracting Officers Technical Representative, Acquisition Level 1, etc.) than can be earned or awarded through work experience or taking short training courses. No one for the last eight years has asked about advanced education.

My suspicion is that most of the people in civil service who deal with workforce management and job classificaion do not have advanced degrees and do not understand the amount of work and rigor that goes into earning a masters or PhD in relation to targeted training that fills a niche. While a PhD may get you a GS-11, a Bachelor's degree combined with a PMP Level 1 certification can get you in as a GS-13, which is a big pay and status boost.

The opposite is true in acedemia. If you don't have a PhD, don't even both applying for a college teaching job, and in some states one of the requirements to get public school tenure is to have a masters degree plus continuing education credits.

Business doesn't care as long as you can make them more money than they pay you.

Most people seem to hire people who resemble them. So, figure out where you want to work, find out how the people who run the system were trained, and get yourself trained so you look like them.

Normally, the last option would be considered the "joke" answer, but not in this poll.

If the brain, heart or liver malfunction, a person may die.

You can live without fingers, eyes, or ears, though life would not be pleasant.

Without genitalia, however, our entire species would eventually die out regardless of what happens with the other listed body parts.

If you take the strategic view, genitalia rules.

Maybe the Red Spot is a timer, and when it finally disappears something really interesting will happen, like:

- God (in his Flying Spaghetti Monster incarnation) will appear and prove Its existence once and for all
- Jupiter will emit a cosmic alarm announcing that our solar system is finally finished
- Jupiter will ignite and become a small star
- Mankind will achieve true enlightenment (as every nuclear weapon on the planet goes off simiultaneously)

Any other ideas?

I haven't noticed any new pop-ups lately, but that could be because I use Firefox with NoScript set to allow only those scripts I explicitly approve.

Yes, it's an anal-retentive control freak approach. But it keeps most ad crap from cluttering up my browser and has the added bonus of probably annoying many of the people who might try to use Web scripts to monitor my Web browsing. If I find I need to use a script on a page for functionality, I give it temporary permission that goes away once I close the browser.

I browse this way because they really are out to get me.

I think AFCyber may just be on hold because a new Chief of Staff of the Air Force started work yesterday and he want to see what this is before it goes any further. It's likely this may be part of a larger review of all the services cyber-warfare programs to make sure they don't overlap or compete in the same space.

Also, this new CoS isn't a fighter pilot like the last 20 years of AF leadership, he's a special ops guy who flew cargo aircraft. He's probably more interested in business management than flash and, with a special ops background, may belive that if you're going to build a secret ninja hacker cyberforce, you might want to do it with a somewhat lower public profile.