How is spending 3-4 days hacking at a demo party spending hours for your employer ? Are we talking about the same kind of demoparty ?
Demo parties are, well, parties. There is music, drinks, people socialize, etc... that's closer to burning man than work if you ask me.

In metric countries 1/2" is called 15/21 and 1" is called 26/34 but othewise they are the same.
The two numbers correspond to the approximate interior and exterior diameter in mm.

MicroUSB :
- Upside : round
- Downside : flat with protuding springs

Unlike standard USB type A connectors, it is actually easy to tell orientation. Even in the dark.

Is supporting multiple conflicting paradigms really a bad thing ?
It reminds me of discussion about programming languages. For example, C++ supports both procedural and object-oriented programming and is often regarded as ugly but not as much as perl which supports even more conflicting paradigms. Yet both languages are very good at getting things done.

Quake III Areana was clearly a 'killer' game. One of the best FPS of all times, still being played today, 14 years later.
It was realeased for windows and linux almost simultaneously, and it changed almost nothing about the status of linux for gaming.
Ok, it wasn't a linux exclusive but it actually ran slightly better on linux.

If someone can leak how the NSA conduct surveillance, maybe it also means that the surveillance data can be leaked too.
This time, it is just a whistle-blower but next time, it may be someone with different motivations, like selling data to identity thieves or whatever criminal organization. In fact it probably already happened. And note that beside "illegal" surveillance data, there are plenty of legal data you probably don't want to be leaked (such as criminal or tax records).

So yes, the hole definitely have to be fixed.

To learn flaring on small aircraft, you need to practice with an instructor in a real plane. There is a lot of feeling involved that most simulators can't replicate.
Filght simulators are good when it doesn't involve sensations, such as learning how to operate the instruments, or when things are too dangerous to do for real.

Right. Infinite precision means infinite memory, you need to set a limit.
For BTC, the limit is currently a hundred-millionth.
Also, because of all the issues with floating point values, financial calculations are usually done in fixed point.

Don't you have some law in the USA where people can restrict the diffusion of pictures where they appear, porn or not.
In France we have "droit à l'image". It is a form of copyright that protects the subject of a picture.

Indeed, the lack of a certain type of non-ionizing radiation has a dramatic effect on some organisms. On humans, it can cause disorientation, clumsiness and even fear, especially in small children.
Note that most cell phones can be used as emitters of these vital radiations.

I assure you that the US, like other "great powers" don't help other countries by altruism.
For example, a third world country may have cheap labor, natural resources, a heavily polluting industry, etc... that can be exploited by the US. But a country that is starving or at war isn't productive, so the US sends "help". The worst part is that the third world country may actually do very well by itself but the more resources the country spends sustaining itself, the less are available for the US to exploit.
There may be other reasons, such as using other countries as buffers to keep conflicts out of our own territory.

You can get an Ubuntu minimal CD and don't select any package at install time.
Then you'll have a barebone system that allows you to install any package from the Ubuntu repositories (using the "apt-get" command). This way, you can have your distribution exactly as you like it. The only difficulty is knowing the package names, all the details are handled by the package manager.
In fact there is very little difference between Debian and Ubuntu when used this way. And Arch is probably similar too, except that it uses pacman instead of apt.

UK has the red+yellow combination to allow drivers to prepare before the light turn green, it probably helps.

Why would the NSA deliberately weaken crypto algorithms ?
Sure, that makes spying easier but it is also quite dangerous. Because if the vulnerability is found anyone can access the encrypted data, including the enemies.

Think about it : the NSA releases a "recommended" crypto package. Obviously, US companies will be much more likely to use it than, say, the Chinese. If this package happens to be weak and that the Chinese find out, US companies will be the most affected. Also, to spy on its own citizen, it is more effective to use the legal system than relying on broken algorithms.

To use broken algorithms as a weapon, I think it is much more effective to distribute it undercover as something that is "definitely not from the USA".

If there is an evolutionary reason it may be simply because the brain have things more important to do than recording the incoherent mess that our dreams are made of. Especially if we consider that dreams are the result of various thoughts and memories that may be available in other, much more coherent forms.