any project or developer that uses it is going to need that backup repository at github anyway

You should have backups of all your projects to media that you control in any case. Google has a track record of winding down stuff it doesn't want to continue (Reader, anyone?), but if you're betting on any source-code repo to (1) not go tits-up (as Google Code might) and (2) not jump the shark (as SourceForge has), you're putting your code at risk. Git, in particular, makes it dead simple to clone a repo and all its history in a relatively compact form, so spare a few GB on a server you control for a mirror of everything you put on GitHub (or whatever).

....and not a word about TrueCrypt? is there any commonly used alternative or people just don't care?

I migrated to FreeOTFE right around the time that the TrueCrypt developers said people should stop using it, about a year ago. I haven't had much reason to migrate back (though TrueCrypt's hidden volume feature was nice to have).

Why does my Slashdot look exactly the same as it looked six months ago? I've been reading the outraged comments and I still see comments under the summary as always.

I don't know. Only my front page looks different, in the same ways people are complaining about

I almost never go to the homepage. I monitor /.'s RSS feed (used to use Google Reader, switched to TTRSS when Google Reader went bye-bye) and go directly to articles that sound interesting. A bunch of other sites are also configured in there, so I can quickly see what's new there as well.

As I've seen things, /. Beta fscked up page formatting for a while, but the "?nobeta" hack took care of that. Then at some point, it no longer became necessary when article pages started looking more or less like they previously did without manual intervention.

That's only if they were sealed correctly and stored right. There was an article a few years ago about how a lot of discs were coming up unusable after only 6-12.

My oldest CDs are somewhere on the other side of 20 years old now, and not one of them has gone bad. I reripped them all a few months ago as part of a transition from AAC to FLAC. They've spent most of their time on a shelf indoors, though they've been in a box in the garage (dry, but subject to the temperature fluctuations typical for Las Vegas) for the past four years.

I suspect that as long as your CD collection never spent time in a flooded basement, it'll be good to go for decades to come.

What API would you use?

WebRTC, IIRC. I recently rolled out a webapp at work that case workers can use to help determine eligibility for potential clients. One minor capability within it is photo capture. Along with a slew of questions about demographics, disabilities, and such, it'll also take a picture and stash it in the database. If someone is then accepted as a client, that photo is then available so that (for instance) our delivery drivers can compare the photo on file to whoever answers the door to make sure the client's at home to accept delivery. We could've just had the user take a picture with the phone's camera app and then upload into our webapp from there, but this is a seamless approach that's easier to use.

There's not much to it, either. The page that handles the capture is 28 lines of HTML and 114 lines of JavaScript, a fair bit of which was cribbed from examples I found with a few seconds' googling. It provides a live view of what the camera sees, lets you switch between front and back cameras, and lets you preview the capture before it's sent to the server.

So you will have to 'structure' it into smaller pieces.

...and if you try doing that and end up getting caught, the feds'll send you away to PMITA prison.

Now, take a teenager, and try to explain punching holes in a 360K 5.25" floppy so you could flip it and get 720K.

360K is already double-sided. A more typical use case was to double capacity from 140K to 280K when used with an Apple II.

I want to know why Putin fucks goats and why all evidence has been erased

Because they were MALE goats and we all know Putin's stance on all things gay.

Wide?

Plex’s lack of extensibility, scraper support, and local storage support drive me up a goddamn tree, but Plex works and XBMC doesn’t. I’m not a linux person, but I am a nerd - code is not my day job, but I’m teaching myself at night. Sweet baby Jesus, I tried XBMC so many freaking times that eventually I just gave up.

The easiest way to get XBMC^H^H^H^HKodi working is OpenELEC. It's pretty much an appliance that just works; the only part that remains slightly tricky (and not by much) is setting up a shared database if you want more than one. I have it set up on an Acer Aspire Revo in the living room and a Raspberry Pi in the bedroom; each is set up with a Playstation 3 Blu-ray remote control (about $20 each, plus a Bluetooth dongle).

I also have Plex up and running, but it's mainly for remote access. Automatic transcoding is a big win. Around home, though, there's more than enough bandwidth to just let OpenELEC grab files straight off the server.

On the very, very rare occasion a longer trip is needed; just rent a car.

That's handwaving the problem away. Why should I have to rent a car if I want to hit the road? Even the Chevette I had as my first car (purchased used in 1989 for $400; sold new for about $5k in 1980) had no problems getting me to my first year of college 1900 miles away. It's been 25 years since I've gone that far, but I live in a part of the country where 250-300 miles (one-way) to get somewhere is nothing. If you're going to spend the kind of money the average electric car costs, it damn well better be able to do everything the car it'll replace can do, or else you're wasting time and money.

Yep. I havent seen a fixed code DIP-switch remote for 20 years.

Maybe not for garage doors, but the gate remote for my neighborhood has a block of 10 DIP switches inside. IIRC, the first two or three are flipped one way and the rest are flipped the other way (wow! such security!). Mine was issued in 2000, but the system probably was installed in '97 or '98.

Even in California where we're paying $0.15 - $0.20 per kWh of electricity, electric vehicles save so much gas that they almost pay for themselves.

Only because you're getting ass-raped on gasoline as well. When I topped off the gas tank here in Vegas before driving down to LA last weekend to visit my nieces, I paid $3.04. I pulled over in Baker for a snack. The gas station next to the jerky place wanted somewhere around $4.50! Granted, Baker's never been the cheapest, but gas in Barstow was still around $3.70. I think it was $4.something around LA, and by the time I was running on fumes Sunday morning (driving down to San Diego to make everything worse), I ended up paying right at $4 per gallon ($3.999, if you want to be pedantic) for a full tank in Carlsbad.

Gasoline is sent to Las Vegas from California by pipeline, so how is it we're paying considerably less for the same fuel after it's been pumped through ~300 miles of pipe?

You are generally safe with Nexus devices, since you have the best chance of upgrading to the latest OS.

A device with an unlocked bootloader is also more likely to be more future-proof. I have a newer version of KitKat running on my Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (4.4.4) than on my considerably newer Moto X (4.4). The tablet's running Cyanogenmod...have no idea if Samsung ever got around to spinning a KitKat build for it, and don't particularly care at this point as the only thing that doesn't work under Cyanogenmod is the IR blaster. My phone, OTOH? Motorola has pushed newer versions (maybe even Lollipop now), but the bootloader is locked and you can't even root newer firmware versions (rooting 4.4.4 requires an unlocked bootloader first).

That new phone that Asus introduced earlier this week sounds interesting, and there's already an unlock for it. The only downside is the ginormous, almost tablet-sized screen. The Moto X is barely larger than the iPhone 4 it replaced, but it seems hardly anybody wants to build a full-powered phone that'll still fit in your pocket anymore.