I, too, am a Westerner. I have spurs on my boots, ten-gallon hat, bolo tie, and horns on my Cadillac.

This sounds like the same sort of attitude that software writers have had for ages. Just write bloated, inefficient code and let processing power eventually catch up to run the software. I think that this needs to be a legitimate concern or we will wind up back to the point where a new version of Windows would come out and barely be able to run on the technology available. Yes, this may not add much to a computer running a Core i7 with 6 gigs of memory, but that sort of system is pretty rare in the real world. Most people use computers that are a few years old.

Did you watch the movie? After the aliens are defeated, July 4 becomes a worldwide holiday.

I have been using this too. I used to use AVG and ZoneAlarm, but I got tired of all the nags to purchase. At one time, I actually gave ZoneAlarm money, but switched back to the free version since I didn't really see much difference. Since Comodo includes both antivirus and firewall functions it really seemed to be natural to replace both. I also switched my parents when they switched from dial-up to DSL last year. I haven't noticed much of a performance hit, but it does tend to update (and require a reboot) at the most inopportune moments.

Well, we're certainly not in Kansas anymore!

That's kind of funny. You didn't really move from Fort Wayne; you just moved to the west side. I went to school there. It was kind of fun back in the late 80s and early 90s. I haven't been back, though.

Did anyone else click on this thinking it was a story about a "shadow BIOS"? I thought that "California Lake" must be some sort of software company and "Arsenic" was the name of the program they developed to detect a "shadow BIOS".

I really enjoyed this show and it seemed that it got canceled just when it was starting to get good.

So where can one find this Debian-based distro? I Googled for it, but only found one blog posting and a bunch of articles about canned fruit. I also checked on Distrowatch and they have nothing. I'd kind of like to play with it before I buy one of the machines.

Decades? If you think that DVDs have been around for "decades" then you are too young for that sig!

At one time, I build a device that would keep the mouse moving so that if I walked away from the computer would not lock automatically. Back in the Win98 days, we had software that had problems if the no activity timeout got activated. The easiest solution was to keep the mouse moving.

A lifetime of being in a nuclear power plant has left me with a healthy green glow.

I'm not sure why it would make one ill. It's not like it generates bacteria and viruses. Personally, I'd rather be comfortable at home so I use the A/C whenever it is too hot and/or humid for comfort.

Did you think that Microsoft was going to allow people to be European for free? Seriously, though, I tend to think that Microsoft probably has an insiders view of what the central banks are planning. If this is the case, I suspect that the euro and the pound would probably weaken faster than the dollar in the coming months. The pricing just plans for this weakening that they already know will happen.

No, but it would act as an actual deterrent to future judges that might get similar ideas. The problem with capital punishment is that it is applied incorrectly to act as a deterrent. If someone thinks that the world would be better off without someone in it, one might think that it would be worth one's own life to rid the world of such a person. I doubt that many people would think that it would be worth risking their own lives to receive a kickback. Public officials need to be held to a higher standard. While I don't normally believe that the death penalty is effective, perhaps it should be used for public officials who abuse their authority.