FTFY. You don't live in California, do you?

To the OP, I knew a COBOL programmer that didn't show up to work one day at 74. He died suddenly in the night. While that was sad for all of us, I can tell you that he was really happy and thought he would be depressed if he retired (probably true). I definitely lean more this way.

So, H5N1 was responsible for 1% of deaths... Why are we so scared of this flu again?

But the current software (us) is FAR MORE BUGGY. Traffic accidents are the most common cause of death in the US. Autonomous cars could take that down from #1, but human drivers never will.

Cops are not allowed to be color-blind. I have a friend who is not allowed to join the force because of very slight colorblindness, even though he is unbelievably accurate at naming colors.

To do that, we would have to reduce the inevitable accidents that happen every day. If only we could come up with a way of eliminating most accidents...

Yeah, but I won't have a bum who just vomited on himself and is currently shooting up heroine in my car... (A vivid memory from riding a bus as a kid.)

But California scientists always say, "A major earthquake is a definite possibility." Still, I can't believe a Californian would go over to Italy to put people in jail for 12 years over a missed prediction. Is this guy paid? It's hard to come up with any other explanation.

I have an 8MB SD card from the first camera I bought (in about 2003). Because of the small size, we immediately replaced it. I found it the other day (late 2011) and I was able to read a couple test pictures just fine over 8 years later. I can read my first CD-R's still too. I don't believe any of this digital media rot stuff. I haven't seen it happen at all in anything that supposedly rots.

One time, my wife's cousin (who was studying RAM at MIT and is now a brain specialist teaching at Stanford) said that "you will never be able to put more than 40MB on a PCMCIA card."

I replied, "Within 5 years, we'll be carrying a GB around in our pocket the size of a postage stamp." I was right. Sometimes smart guys are so focused on their area that they fail to see the realities of supply and demand combined with Moore's law.

Easy: Lawyers get involved.

(I'm happily married to my first wife, so I have only the experience of others to draw on.)