Let's not forget the two-way video wristwatch invented in the comic "Dick Tracy" by tech support guy Diet Smith in 1964. Many of us grew up dreaming of the day when we'd get to wear one of those things.

We already have Web organizations that do a pretty good job of cutting through BS -- Snopes.com and Factchecker.org to name two. The problem is not that we don't have objective arbiters of the truth, but that many people don't want anything other than confirmation of their existing biases and will label any group that doesn't do that as "biased" against their "truth."

Having the government sponsor the Truth Police will not give it any more credibility and may just make it less credible depending on who does the appointing.

Best example: the Supreme Court, which is supposedly the ultimate arbiter of justice. Justices used to get confirmed by huge bipartisan majorities until someone decided that controlling a majority of the Supremes was a way to achieve political control. The Web Truth Board would likely suffer a similar fate, only much faster..

It's a pretty much a catch-all area that, due to its nature, will also expose most corporate malfeasance and tax/banking fraud because the Big Players with $$$ spend it buying Congress-critters to support their schemes.

It will also expose a fair amount of military issues, though mostly in the contracting and acquisition area as DoD tries to do its job despite lots of Congressional meddling. And, frankly, most of the big problems in the military are as a result of political meddling more than military leadership. Generals and admirals go through a rigorous gauntlet to get where they are; Congressmen just need to sell a lot of used cars (or car alarms) and then froth at the mouth a bit over some wedge issue to cajole people into voting for them.

My favorite Windows alternative back in the early 1990's was Wayfarer, a freeware replacement for the Windows v3.x Program Manager. Long before Microsoft figured out how to do tabbed and nested windowing, Wayfarer did both.

My favorite trick as to post a screenshot of the Windows Program Manager as the screen background and then turn off Progam Manager completely and replace it with Wayfarer, which would minimize to a single desktop icon. People would click on what looked like Program Manager icons with no result.

(Including the tech support guy who showed up unannounced at my desk one day to install software while I was out and was five minutes away from wiping and reinstalling my entire PC because he couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I told him the next time he wanted to hijack my PC during the work day he needed to schedule an appointment so he didn't interfere with my work day.)

Ah, those were the days when we could still have some fun with customization. Now it's all "safe choices" or lock-downs, depending on how you look at it.

If it can be proven that a student has plagerized someone else's work to write a paper, can they then really turn around and claim copyright on their paper? Doesn't the author they "borrowed" from really hold the copyright?

...to buy an iPod. Those cunning devils at Apple have found a legal way to sell portable incendiary devices! Who wouldn't want one now?

You can't just use one of these options and expect to be secure. You need them all.

Two inches of water, with an oil slick on top. Wiring attached to the doorknob and metal window frames with a ground wire under the water. When the current arcs, either that or a separate sparker ignites the oil slick. Between the electric shock and the oil lighting the offender on fire, that should be enough to make them slip, trip, or otherwise fall on the sharpened stakes lurking just under the water.

Add a couple of overprotective German Shepherds and you'll never see a Jehovah's Witness at your door ever again, though it could cut down your access to pizza delivery, too.

Or just put up a sign that says, "This House Protected by Chuck Norris." It worked for these guys: www.nuffy.net/cool/articles/this-store-is-protected-by-chuck-norris.html.

I have two masters degrees, one of which is in IT, and I work for the Federal government.

I can't say what the environment is like in other than the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security, but when we get surveyed for our job qualifications we are always asked for information on specialized certifications (e.g. Project Management Professional, Contracting Officers Technical Representative, Acquisition Level 1, etc.) than can be earned or awarded through work experience or taking short training courses. No one for the last eight years has asked about advanced education.

My suspicion is that most of the people in civil service who deal with workforce management and job classificaion do not have advanced degrees and do not understand the amount of work and rigor that goes into earning a masters or PhD in relation to targeted training that fills a niche. While a PhD may get you a GS-11, a Bachelor's degree combined with a PMP Level 1 certification can get you in as a GS-13, which is a big pay and status boost.

The opposite is true in acedemia. If you don't have a PhD, don't even both applying for a college teaching job, and in some states one of the requirements to get public school tenure is to have a masters degree plus continuing education credits.

Business doesn't care as long as you can make them more money than they pay you.

Most people seem to hire people who resemble them. So, figure out where you want to work, find out how the people who run the system were trained, and get yourself trained so you look like them.

Normally, the last option would be considered the "joke" answer, but not in this poll.

If the brain, heart or liver malfunction, a person may die.

You can live without fingers, eyes, or ears, though life would not be pleasant.

Without genitalia, however, our entire species would eventually die out regardless of what happens with the other listed body parts.

If you take the strategic view, genitalia rules.

Maybe the Red Spot is a timer, and when it finally disappears something really interesting will happen, like:

- God (in his Flying Spaghetti Monster incarnation) will appear and prove Its existence once and for all
- Jupiter will emit a cosmic alarm announcing that our solar system is finally finished
- Jupiter will ignite and become a small star
- Mankind will achieve true enlightenment (as every nuclear weapon on the planet goes off simiultaneously)

Any other ideas?

I haven't noticed any new pop-ups lately, but that could be because I use Firefox with NoScript set to allow only those scripts I explicitly approve.

Yes, it's an anal-retentive control freak approach. But it keeps most ad crap from cluttering up my browser and has the added bonus of probably annoying many of the people who might try to use Web scripts to monitor my Web browsing. If I find I need to use a script on a page for functionality, I give it temporary permission that goes away once I close the browser.

I browse this way because they really are out to get me.