Exactly. Of course, if Erickson had patented that idea, success would have been pretty much guaranteed. :-/

Of course pi-based music is copyrightable. TFA even states explicitly: "That doesn't mean Erickson's copyright is invalid." Both Erickson and Blake retain copyright over their respective songs, which (other than both being based off pi) are distinct. What is not copyrightable is the idea of basing a song off pi. The title should have read "Judge Rules Pi Is Non-Copyrightable."

Not necessarily. If people tend to lose their inhibitions when communicating via a keyboard (as opposed to in-person communication), then they will either be more honest or more dishonest â" i.e. more of what they would have been anyway. So the Internet can make the population in general both more likely to tell the truth and more likely to lie.

Actually, 3.6.x gets security updates to this day.

Every add-on worth installing has long since adapted and anticipates several versions in advance. I've never had a problem.

Yes. Like I said, it's silly. It's also not a big enough thing to make this huge fuss about, much less to stick to old and buggy versions. In my experience, FF has been getting much better and faster.

You know, if only you could get rid of your fixation on the version number and just keep up with the latest version, it would be so easy to make yourself happy because the latest release has all those bugfixes you're looking for. What is it with this silly fixation that some people have on the silly versioning scheme? Yes, I know the new versioning scheme is silly, but it's just a fucking versioning scheme. Get over it already.

Yes, and? "Redacting" a PDF by changing the text colors is not a computer maintenance issue, it's a basic failure to understand the fundamentals of using a computer. It's the equivalent of driving into a house because you don't know how the steering wheel works.

The toaster or TV analogy only works for computers that are restricted to walled gardens, such as the iPad. A real computer is more analogous to a car. You have to know how to drive it in order to use it safely. You have to build up experience in order to use it effectively.

Cut it out with the reactionary rhetoric already. It's an opt-in filter that allows people who so choose to read about "controversial" subjects without being confronted with graphic images of hardcore blood, gore, pornography, etc. - and there will be categories of filters, so it may even allow Muslims to read about their prophet without having to see depictions of him, without depriving others of access to those images. This seems like a good thing.

Other methods of communication become irrelevant if everyone you have reason to communciate with uses Facebook or Google+ exclusively, which is already the case for many, many people.

That is not correct. The Skype proxy actually punches holes in the NAT on both ends so they can talk directly. See http://www.h-online.com/security/features/How-Skype-Co-get-round-firewalls-747197.html.

I did pretty much exactly this, starting in 2004. It looks like you have the opportunity to make this fun for yourself. Show some initiative and try something new. Off-hand, my advice would be:

1. Keep it simple, stupid. For a network that small, consumer-grade routers in combination with a few medium-grade switches will do fine.
2. Screw the cloud; host everything yourself. You don't want confidential company data on computers managed by strangers.
3. If non-Windows desktops are acceptable, I've had great success with Linux in combination with Linux Terminal Server Project. Saves boatloads on licensing costs and desktop hardware. You get to centralize all the management for free. LTSP comes integrated in Debian and a few other distros. There's a learning curve but it's very much worth it. XFCE makes for a good lightweight end user desktop environment.
4. Even where Windows desktops are required, have all the network services run on Linux. No hassle with licenses and restrictions.
5. Become fluent in Linux/UNIX shell. It's convenient and very powerful.

You claim to be aware of the existence of MacPorts, yet it never occurred to you that you can just use nEdit (or any other "Linux" editor) on the Mac?

Actually, Apple has been allowing that since April 2009.

This reflects a common and unfortunate misunderstanding about spam. The vast majority of spam does not forge the sender and has no need to. Most spammers want responses, after all. Besides, email has already solved this problem (SPF, DomainKeys) and it did nothing to deter the spammers. Phishers now simply register domains that look similar to the real ones. Spammers register domains in bulk so they don't care if they get blocked or shut down. Wave would do nothing to solve any of this. Spam is a social problem, not a technical one, so it can only have a social solution.

That is not a problem with email, but a problem with blogs. Besides, what is the difference between "notify me when someone responds" and "all comments would appear in your inbox"? Nothing is stopping blogs from sending all comments to your inbox now. There is a reason why they don't usually do that, and that reason would apply equally to Wave.

Mailing lists fixed this in the 1970s. Even simple mailing lists are more efficient for discussions than Wave and blogs combined. All you need is a decent email program with threading and filtering. The recipient is in total control, and it's simpler to learn than Wave.

You bought the hype. But even if this were true, it would have put Google in total control of all our communications. No thanks.

Yeah, that is precisely my point. Hilarious or not, user friendliness is all about presentation. Linux software repository = impenetrable, only for geeks. iPhone app store = your mom can use it. It's a fact. Linux is not succeeding on the desktop because programmers fail to understand this.