MacOS *is* Linux. Debian, to be precise.

Next time you have an xterm open on your mac, type "uname -a".

Uh - a substantial fraction of Linux distros out there are derived from Slackware: http://futurist.se/gldt/wp-content/uploads/12.02/gldt1202.png

An oldie, but a goodie: http://www.ibiblio.org/lunar/alien.html

When amateur photographers gather, they talk about cameras. They all have their favorite tools, they all have the "best" gizmos with all the buttons and functions and they know exactly what they all do.

When professional photographers come together, they talk about light. Composition. Art. The tool is uninteresting - a mere means to an end. And any one of a large number of them will do.

... or you could bring strippers instead of Ferraris or car analogies. You can never have too many strippers.

There is, of course, the possibility that the man was just a good coder who was handed jobs that were bid as "six months of a full-time programmer" which he then slapped together in an afternoon of wild hacking and then just billed for the rest of the time while sitting in a bar. Pulling this off at two different employers at the same ime is impressive, but since employers don't exactly talk to each other who's just hired on I can easily see how one could fly under the radar like this.

I do, indeed, have a blackberry. I can't say I consider the BB (9800/Torch) the end-all be-all of phones, but I sure seem to find daily reasons to hold on to it until the various iphones and androids and winphones and similar such toys have given way to some real smartphone standard.

No, it hasn't.

Just curious what made you pick this one item. Yes, landing on Mars is hard. Then again, just getting TO Mars is hard. Then again, launching off Earth is hard. There's a whole string of events that all have to work to make this a success, and I'm slightly confused why you'd point to the landing stage as the important (or "critical" or "worrysome") one. From what I can gather, Mars probes have failed at launch, on transit, on approach (that's where Lockheed's screw-up with imperial units comes in) but once you're at the right speed in the atmosphere I'm not aware of any failures with descent/landing. I'm not saying there never were any, I'm certainly no expert, but I can't remember hearing of a Mars probe that made entry into the atmosphere at the expected angle and speed and then failed to make proper landing. Was there ever such a thing?

Carnegie/Stanford tell you right there on their web-page what they're looking for. Pot is not amongst their targets.

Of course they don't say how many of these kinds of instruments exist and who the other customers were...