I like justified text. I like making something I look at every day "pretty." It's my page; I can do as I please. You don't have to agree with me. It's a preference. In other news, I probably like foods and movies and books and music that you don't.

If there are any studies that show that justified text is harder to read in general, I'd be interested in a pointer to them out of curiosity; but in my own experience—and I read a lot—I haven't noticed any difference in reading speed or retention, or in eye strain, between justified and ragged text.

But I am trying to "sell" it someone: me. I want it to look attractive for me. Doesn't seem to be much point in using a customized solution if I don't actually customize it the way I want.

Ha, no. :)

But it was very easy to set up just by following the directions—took about an hour, most of that being me looking up CSS syntax. I just used the included "basic" template (tweaked slightly), with my own CSS.

Actually, it had more to do with a desire to simply focus on the text than anything else. Most feeds give the full text of the post/article which means once the page is generated, I just scroll down—no jumping back and forth between browser tabs—and since the design is my own it looks the way I want it: one column, justified text, plenty of whitespace.

I recently migrated away from Google Reader. I have a cron job which runs Planet to generate an HTML page from my feeds. Then I just pull up the page in my browser and read at my leisure.

Your #1 is not entirely true: as long as the derivative work isn't distributed, people or companies can make fixes/improvements/forks all they want, and it will never help the original kernel.

On #2 you need to make up your mind: is using open source code sharing, or is it stealing? In addition, it's perfectly legal for Microsoft or Apple or any entity to use GPL code, provided they comply with the license. That Apple and Microsoft are unlikely to use GPL code due to business reasons has no impact on the potential legality of their doing so.

I think you're looking for Org-Mode, though in the end it's simply text files, not a database.

Zarafa is supposedly most of the way there, though I haven't used it. I wonder what (if anything) they're missing.

True, though only sort of. In my—admittedly dated (last I used regularly was etch)—experience of Debian, if I'd had a dollar for every package of which the "man page" was simply a placeholder because policy required the packager to have something, I could have bought us both dinner, to say the least.

Or, worse in my view, the man page just says "This man page isn't kept up to date—see the info page."

Please explain. I'm under the impression that IBM sells a C/C++ compiler. And even failing that, doesn't gcc work?

Because there is very nearly never "no other activity" in a modern OS, and certainly not in a default install; there are always background processes—update checkers, DHCP client, mail checker, even the window manager, etc.

In all honesty, why should we care about Stephen Hawking's views on nuclear weapons? I mean, sure, if there were a weapon that harnessed the destructive power of black holes, definitely Hawking would be on the list of people to consult. But on stuff that isn't his—or more generally, any individual scientist's field? Why is that desirable?

In any case, Krauss is barking up the wrong tree. The solution to nuclear proliferation is not for scientists to have some greater voice. It's for scientists to convince the populace that nuclear proliferation is an issue worth bothering about. So far, they have failed.

I have AT&T's cheapest (read: slowest) residential DSL offering at home (it's all we need to check email and watch a little Netflix). They turned on IPv6 sometime between March (when I bought a new router) and December of 2012. No hiccups whatsoever—the only reason I even happened to notice was that I was fiddling with router's web interface because I was bored one day.

Whoa, there. I'll be as glad as the next guy if this really does pan out. But this is a prototype.

Apparently, you didn't actually check un.int, which says (at the bottom) "This web site is maintained specifically to meet the information needs of delegations working at UN Headquarters in New York. The site includes links to essential information resources and delegate-specific tools and content from iSeek, the UN Secretariat's award-winning intranet." As opposed to un.org, which seems to be resources for the public. US military branches do something similar, with, e.g., army.mil actually for Army personnel and army.com as a recruiting tool.