As usual, XKCD to the rescue:
Possibly the best advice I've ever heard about passwords. The problem is that people are so concerned about following the rules you discussed, they're actually making their networks less secure.
typical 512kb which sucks
Don't feel bad. I've got 10Mb down but only about 250k up.
On the other hand, sea levels have not risen
You'll have to give us a reference for that, since my sources say otherwise:
The 2000 results have been the most studied in US history, and guess what the studies have shown Bush really did win.
I'm just some guy on the Internet, so I don't really expect you to believe me, but here's an interesting data point for you. Not long after the 2000 election, my parents went on a cruise. For dinner, they were seated with a Republican couple from Florida who, as it turns out, were two of the vote counters for the election. During dinner, they bragged about how they had saved the country from President Gore, and thank God the judge didn't make them count the votes again, that last time. If he had, they would have had to admit that Gore won.
Nor does anyone else.
Generally true, especially when it comes to mail sent over SMTP. However, I work for a health insurance company and any email that contains private information must be encrypted. To make that happen, we have a special "secure email" server, accessed via web browser, much like Gmail.
But what Unixes are still around? Tru64 is effectively dead, since HP bought Compaq; Solaris' future is questionable, since Oracle bought Sun; I've only even seen one HP/UX machine in the last decade, and we're only keeping that around for legal reasons. I'd like to say AIX is still going strong, but we just decommissioned our last AIX server a month ago, and we probably won't be going back to IBM.
Pretty much all of our Unix servers have been replaced with Linux, and the main reason is that it runs on commodity hardware. All the other Unixes, pretty much require vendor lock-in - one of the best ways to increase the cost of running your data center.
Slightly off topic, but I read a book, a long time ago, about a space station in low earth orbit. In the book, there were a few paragraphs that discussed what might happen to a fire in micro-gravity. When a teacher lit a match, it burned with a spherical flame, and put it self out quickly, because there was no place for the CO2 to go. If you wanted the match to continue burning, you had to keep it moving.
The book was science fiction, but it would be interesting to find out if they were correct.
It was meant as a joke. Though I hope you'll share what you use more than 256 GB of RAM for.
I don't know what he uses it for, but we have a (HP) server with 384GB, and we use it to run a terminal-based application for about 250 users. The application does a lot of disk access, and having that much cache has really made a difference. Jobs that used to take 12 to 16 hours can now be done in about 1.
I'm responding to agree with you on #1 and #2. Maybe if you get enough replies, they'll listen.
Like it or not, the fossil fuels are going to run out, someday.
Not sure if that's true. Abiogenic petroleum represents an alternative view that puts the assertion into question.
C'mon, seriously? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
You could be improving efficiency technologies, instead of trying to do basic research on alternative energy sources, for example.
I certainly wouldn't argue that, but most global warming deniers would.
Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%. And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a blazer.