Is it really a deus ex machina if a central theme of the story is Deus?

Telephone lines in the USA are 48VDC, 90VDC when ringing.

Not if you're legally required to use some power from the grid or face an immediately levied tax (it's not a fine!). I could even see some rationale behind it: something about national emergency preparedness, keeping the grid working, and jobs. Battery banks beyond a certain size could be made illegal for home use (just like rainwater storage in the western USA) to encourage uploading excess to the grid and require pulling from the grid in dark hours (the electrical companies become flywheel companies). Everyone pays more to the utilities. That's nature's way.

I have to pre-wash clothes in the mud sink before they go into the HE washing machine else they don't really get cean. I use more water this way than with the old style washing machine.

Sure they do.

Oh, you mean by default. Sure, it doesn't run by default, but see below. Now, these 3rd party web servers that people install. Let me guess what one of the most popular might be (due to ease of install). MAMP? They'd be better off using the httpd provided in the OS from Apple since that *might* get updated by Apple (but people tend to ignore running updates).

I think you'd be surprised.

Not since 1995, and if I did I wouldn't do it on OSX. *shiver*

I think you might be wrong. I'm looking at a Mavericks install in front of me. Only thing installed other than the base OS is ARD. /usr/sbin/httpd is there, and when run it attaches to port 80.

On a lot of systems, even OSX, /bin/sh is bash, just named differently. I don't know if running it with a different process name changes the "shellshock" behavior or not, but why take chances?

But they do. And worse, they're usually MAMP, which rarely gets updated, and there's a culture of not updating with both Apple and its userbase. I'd be surprised if Apple has a fix for this yet, and they won't provide one for older machines. Not that the users will want to update anyway...

POUND! BANG! SLASH! bin SLASH! BASH!
#!/bin/bash

Fry-hole.

First they're invading Georgia, then Ukraine, now the Moon!
But seriously, Putin, if you leave Earth, don't come back.

I used to have a gnome fetish, but I gave gnome the boot when the developers put a boot on the users' necks.

No duh. I was quoting a standard racist vet from WWII.

Grumbling at a Japanese car because "We beat the Japs, now you won't buy American cars!" isn't quite the same as "I manned a US nuclear silo during the Cold War, and now the USA is refreshing the nuclear weapons stockpile". Maybe "we beat the Ruskies, and now you order brides via mail from Russia!" or "I manned a US Flying Fortress during WWII and now the USA is refreshing the Air Force with new bombers" might be closer to the two expressed sentiments. One is "I've been trained to hate a particular enemy", the other is "War. War never changes."

And for those who really are obsessed with mental puzzles and exercise, it's not about extending life, but instead extending the quality phase of life. This has a side effect of extending life in some people.

It does. And the annoying thing about the "Other" folder (which collects messages sent from non-friends) is that Facebook neither notifies you via email nor by the little red "new message" icon. You have to explicitly open up the Other folder to see if a non-friend might have sent you anything. Want to have a conversation with a friend of a friend (invite them to bachelor[ette] party, et al) without "friending" them? Good luck!

And now because of this judge, everyone must check their FB Other folder regularly or be subject to summary judgment for failure to appear in court. (I am not a lawyer)