Uh.. yeah.. you really need to get out of there. I wish you the best of luck! Oh, and DRM bad indeed.

Fuck FAT! Hmm.. never thought I'd reverse those two words and it would actually mean something not related to lipids. Interesting..

Where did RobbieThe1st say Linux was ready for the masses? You're frothing at the mouth for all the wrong reasons here. My take? I use Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD -heck- even IRIX still. I'm not the slightest bit interested in "the masses" or what they need or want. I value the freedom to build and manage my own computer the way I see fit. This has nothing to do with feeling 'leet' or any other juvenile excuse for misplaced feelings of superiority. Windows has no place on my systems but that's not because I think Microsoft is somehow inherently evil. It's just that on Windows I feel like I'm forced to use my computer with one hand tied behind my back. That's nothing more than simple personal preference built on -most likely- sub-optimal habits learned in a past when GUI's weren't even available, and you're welcome to have a different opinion. Funny that you should mention and disqualify Haiku, though. If there's any OS that would fit your preference for being usable without a CLI it'd be BeOS and its free Haiku sibling. Sure, it still has a CLI if you want it (much like Windows and every other OS under the sun except MacOS Classic), but it's not needed. When it comes to "the masses" I'm always surprised by the ease with which 1% of computer users is dismissed as 'next to nothing'. Have you ever stopped to think about how many individuals you're talking about when you say 1% of all computer users in the world? That'd be enough people to fill a small to mid-sized country with and it's certainly enough -as decades of steady development, growth and improvement have proven- to sustain free software as a viable choice in computing. You should also understand that the ecosystem that forms around free software is not (nor was it ever intended to be) a single entity with a clear direction or even any kind of unifying goal. Sure, some commercial entities have emerged and made money using free software. They are welcome to do so and their contributions are very much welcomed, but making money or conquering percentages of market share is not the purpose. The only unifying aspect to the free software community is the combination of freedom and software, nothing else. Anyone who attempts to use free software as a stick to beat some other interest, is pushing an agenda of their own and is not representative of the loosely-knit group of people who love their freedom in computing. You're just as welcome as any other to simply take it or leave it, no questions asked. The rest is up to you.

As long as you have a true SPP parallel port on your system you should be good to go. Admittedly, these are becoming quite rare and it'd probably be cheaper to scavenge an old 486 from a dumpster somewhere than to try and find an actual PCI board that has such a port. Most on-board parallel ports theses days tend to do ECP and aren't 100% SPP compatible anymore. The good part is that moving your precious old files off those flimsy disks will be a one-off operation and you can put the sticky 486 back into the dumpster you found it in as soon as it's done.

Of course a Linux or other OS user might be able to disable this "feature" but that would *SERIOUSLY* tarnish the reputation of said OS. If it can not use "Secure boot" -for whatever reason- that implies it boots insecurely.. oh the horror!! It will put the adoption of any kind of grassroots OS at a major disadvantage. For us tinkerers here it's an absolute outrage that the freedom to tinker will come at a premium in the near future, but we've always been the minority.

Etch into gold disk, shoot into space.

One of my colleagues is set to retire next year. He still has a big square plate of magnetic core memory in a frame on his wall. The state of the bits -which can be seen with the naked eye- is still the same as it was in the 1970's. Oh, and it's actually quite aesthetically pleasing as well.

Better quality as in lower capacity and lower density. If you chisel the bits in stone by hand it'll be readable thousands of years from now. From the 100 5.25 disks I still own from the '80s there were around 10 that had developed some sort of defect. That's when I soldered a cable to hook my CBM 1541 disk drive up to a DOS box and transfer all the remaining disks to image files. For all intents and purposes they take up no space at all on my multi-terabyte NAS today and my personal computing history is very conveniently part of my regular backup regime now. Running my stuff through an emulator just doesn't bring back the original sensation though, but neither does hooking my actual C64 up to a 42" flat panel TV (where I used to have a small CRT as a "monitor" back in the day).

So why even bother with gods at all if they're utterly beyond comprehension? For all intents and purposes they are not there, it's exactly the same but a heck of a lot simpler.

You're being quite dogmatic by saying "See, the truth is".. and presumptious as well there yourself dear minister. Scientist #6 would disqualify your "scientists" #1, #2, #3, #4 on the grounds of not understanding of deceitfully subverting the scientific method and #5 on the grounds of answering by proxy, thereby not answering the question at all. Religious #4 is a misnomer in that it reflects what scientist #6 would say without needing religion of any kind. But hey, I'm not an ordained scientist so what the heck do I know? That little bit about your religion welcoming atheists sounds interesting if a little paradoxical, though. How does that work for you?