The correct term is "pedantry". :P

That's actually still simple to deal with if you prepare right.

What I do with unpackaged s/w is manage it with GNU Stow. I've got a directory /usr/local/stow, and if I want to compile foo v2.05 I'll extract its source, say "./configure --prefix=/usr/local/stow/foo-2.05 && sudo make install", then "cd /usr/local/stow" and "sudo stow foo-2.05". Now I've got the program installed into the stow folder but with symlinks to /usr/local/bin and elsewhere in the /usr/local hierarchy.

You have to use a separate partition mounted to /usr/local to make sure this doesn't get blown away by a distro's installer, of course.

LMDE's problem so far IMO is its infrequent updates for anything but web browsers. Usually you wait several months in between updates for anything else, no matter if it's got a known security hole or not.

Logically we should keep copies of each copy of each copy, then. :roll:

Seriously, though, you should have more than one backup /anyway/ given how quick, cheap and easy it is these days. Thank Hastur I don't have to use 40-odd 1.44MB floppies to back up a hard drive anymore like I did in the mid '90s.

Slashcode ate that second code invocation, sorry.

sudo dpkg --set-selections [lessthan_sign] selections

Already got backups? Jolly good, then the shortcut would be to say:
sudo dpkg --get-selections > selections
to save your package selections, and then when you're reinstalled & copied your data back, say
sudo dpkg --set-selections and then
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -u dselect-upgrade

I'm not 100% sold on this idea, having been spoiled by Ubuntu and Debian supporting in-place upgrades, but it does have the advantage of avoiding breakage if the package maintainers didn't consider your particular edge case of dependencies or whatever.

You're supposed to use the backup utility to save your data and package choices, then do a clean reinstall and re-run the backup utility to restore everything.

Per Westegg's inflation calculator, $3.70 in 1970 would be worth $20.54 in 2010.

FWIW adjusting for inflation (and why didn't you?) means your 1970 person would make $35336.47/yr or ~$17/hr today, giving an inflation-corrected increase of $4/hr.

source: westegg.com

Saturn failed because its executives didn't know how or were unwilling to play internal GM politics. Chevrolet and Pontiac kept getting new models while Saturn was left with old stuff and became uncompetitive.

By the Great Old Ones, have you the misfortune of trying to push out Flash Player using AD group policy? Have you seen the contortions you have to do to make it /work/? Ugh.

That thing about FDR's certainly what conservatards like to tell themselves, yes.

Check out the Kansas/Missouri border. We've got a couple second-tier state universities here that'll do you for maybe $10k/year with everything.

You really shouldn't be surprised. There are people who still blame Carter for various random things, after all, and even at the end of Bush the Lesser's admin one could regularly see certain people blaming Clinton for other things.

Water is wet, shit stinks.

ELinks, for instance, supports tabs.