Northern VA (at least) has both computerized machines and paper color-the-dots ballots. I did paper: I like having an audit trail of my vote. 150 or so people in front of me at 5:45 AM: was done and driving away at 6:15 (still AM).

In this world where people are not allowed to bring thumb drives or cell phones into intelligence agency / military secured rooms...and the agencies want to have absolute control over the computers in use...the desktop will probably stay in demand for a long, long time. After all, these agencies really don't care how inconvenient it is for you to work in their offices: security is their only concern, period. So arguments of "I'm much more productive using my wearable computer" probably won't fly. And it'll be a long time before a wearable computer would be cheaper than a desktop. Even the spook agencies have budgets to meet.

The importance of high resolution in these applications shouldn't be forgotten, either. No small physical display could trump a large monitor. A virtual heads-up type of display might get there, but they're difficult to share.

I expect the desktops will still be around at least until I'm gone.

...the bathroom. 'Cuz nobody said how long it'd take to get you there.

Now when I go to Mapquest and type in "Hottah" they're going to prompt me "Earth or Mars?"

Actually it's nitrogen, not CO2, according to their website. I'll let the OP update w/r/t whether CO2's thermal characteristics are similar to nitrogen's. Or perhaps CO2 was just a brain cramp.

Lots of organizations donate old cell phones to the underprivileged. The point is that the telcos are required to accept calls from cellphones dialing 911, regardless of whether they have a plan or not. As long as the old cell phone has a charge and a signal, it provides security to folks who might have (say) a problem with spousal abuse, or...

Absolutely right. A friend of mine is at one of the California universities doing and teaching brain research. The brains they get...well, remember that checkbox on your driver's license about "organ donor"? So the pool of volunteers for brain research is made of people who are either very recently dead, or suffering from "borked bits".

The posters on this thread risk becoming illiterate.

When I went back to school for my MS, one of my instructors (from a major think tank for the US Gummint, DC 'burbs) got this question during class one day. He suggested that two Masters degrees - say, an MBA and an MS - were much more useful than a PhD in terms of finding a job.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily get you into a skunkworks, if that was your plan. But if you're expecting to work in a business (vs., say, a scholastic or purely research setting), the combination of two Masters degrees could open a lot more doors than a PhD. Businesses like tech staff who understand business.

And I suspect most of us /.ers are working in some sort of business setting. But that's just a guess.

The OP is alright in the head. He just wants to take us higher. He's a sly fox though.

It could be difficult to buy a truck from Craigslist as the firestorm approaches. Then again, I suspect that UHaul and Ryder occasionally sell their used trucks for pretty cheap. I agree though, it doesn't have to be a new truck.

And remember, even new, a truck's only going to cost about the same price as a mid-range *nix server or a handful of commodity x86 servers. In the grand scheme of things it's just not that big an expense, compared to the loss risks. But ymmv.

If there's a wildfire coming your way, everybody who owns a Civic is going to be at the truck rental places ahead of you in line. Your facility will burn before you even get to the counter.

Buy a truck and park it on the facility property. Or buy two small vans (which would probably have more computer-friendly suspensions) and keep them there. They'll be useful every time the company needs to evacuate ahead of a fire...or move from one office to another...or help the CEO move when (s)he buys a new home...or help relo new employees from out of town.

Anytime there's hardware that can't be replicated in advance in an offsite disaster recovery facility, you really need to be able to move it 24x7. And without the truck, your entire disaster recovery plan goes down the toilet. The truck is the critical path, and needs to be treated as such.

"they'll likely be killed anyhow"...

"Your post was not of any assurance..."

You seem to be assuming that they'd be killed...and then placed in a landfill, or ground up for fertilizer, or undergone some other non-destructive disposal. I would think that they'd be sent to a biohazard incinerator and burned at high temperature for a long time.

God bless all the nerds working on Wikipedia! Her name's Margaret Calvert and she has her own page, although they don't mention the uppercase / lowercase discussions. But yes, she talked on Top Gear about shape recognition and uc/lc issues.

Both the optics and the sensors are at risk. The optics heat up with direct exposure to the Sun's rays. The heating can cause them to crack.

From Jamey L. Jenkins, "The Sun and How to Observe It":

"A catadioptic telescope should never be used for solar projection because of the risk of damaging the internal components of the telescope from the heat of the sun."

Catadioptric = optical system with both mirrors and lenses. Hubble has lots of mirrors, built to be lightweight, but probably more susceptible to cracking as a result.