Become brutal about tossing/shredding/recycling any bit of paper that's not ABSOLUTELY needed. Even my packrat girlfriend ends up with an entire year of tax and business related stuff in one 4" binder. Most of the paper that people hang on to (and e-docs as well) is entirely disposable.

Just as the very brightest criminals are the ones that are never caught, I tend to assume that there are many people poking around in just about any system of consequence. Anonymous, Wikileaks, and similar operations are just the tip of the iceberg.

I expect that we're heading for something that resembles John Brunner's Shockwave Rider, where one day a clever hacker will make all governmental data banks miraculously be wide open. The kind of thing that will make Wikileaks seem like a trifle.

As for hacking a transportation system? I kind of assume that various governments are already doing to each other.

Perhaps the problem is that our corporate profit driven economy and government have created a culture that only values - read: hires and pays well - careers that directly benefit the bottom line. If, as many expect, we're diving into both global warming and a global financial crash, we may regret that choice. We may need people who can think creatively and tangentially, not a thousand more MBAs.

Behind the old lady counting out $49.63 in exact spare change.

Ok, so Demi and Ashton have split, and Miley Cyrus Got Liam Hemsworth a Puppy for 22nd Birthday, but I'm still left wondering what the hell is a "Kardashian" - is that like an Elbonian?

There's nothing "intuitive" to drop down menus, mousing or mouse clicking, cut and paste (even with CTRLC and V), minimize and maximize, the Dock, Unity, or Windows 3.1.

They're all learned behavior, and only make sense within a specific context.

Why oh why do you post them! Another half an hour lost to "random"...

This just HAS to become an infomercial! Who needs to buy distressed real estate for no money down when you can just become a coder in a few short weeks!

The government is holding a public consultation with the chance for Canadians to speak out to save the public domain."

Tee hee. It's so cute when people think that they can make a difference. The Tories have majority, which means that they will do exactly what they want, when they want, and only what they want.

This thing is a done deal, and no amount of punditry and internet petitioning is going to change it.

I'm still using XP on the family's computers because replacing XP would take effort, and there is no real reason to do so yet. My own personal computers all run Debian.

Same here - well Mint, but yeah. It's not just that XP is adequate, it's that MS Office 2003 (I think?) which works fine on XP, is adequate. The last big upgrades were from IE to Chrome, and Outlook Express to MS Live Mail. The former at my suggestion, and the latter because OE was developing serious issues with a gigantic inbox.

At the end of the day though, reinstalling Mint takes about 20 minutes, whereas reinstalling XP on a new drive took a couple of days what with upgrades, drivers etc.

Agreed that this is hardly earth shattering news. I have to ask though, does anyone actually use the google.com start page? I'm either using Gmail, or search from the URL Bar in Chrome, or from the dedicated Google box in whatever other browser I'm using. The only time I see Google's start page is when I do a fresh install.