I've been wondering how the iceweasel fork is doing in Debian. It could be the thing that makes me switch back from Ubuntu.

Debian actually distinguishes between security fixes and UI changes. That's sounding better to me all the time.

I don't trust the EPA, and anyone who does is ignorant at best.

And anyone who ignores them completely based on this sort of tribal prejudice is worse than ignorant.

And stopping to RTFM (from arstechnica):

The copyright scholar (and sometime Ars contributor) James Grimmelmann called one of Posner's recent opinions in a copyright case "astonishingly slipshod, even by Judge Posnerâ(TM)s relaxed standards."

And not just anyone. RIchard Posner is the most-cited appellate judge in the USA.

He's also a really problematic "public intellectual" who, for example, was strongly in favor of the Iraq war, and has launched a number of what look like politically motivated attacks, often rather empty ones with just enough complex detail to confuse the unwary.

He's incredibly influential, and most of all on topics relating to law and the economy. To give you an idea, he has almost single-handedly convinced the antitrust bar that there is no such thing as monopoly power,

And this actually sounds like a good case in point: he's a free market ideologue who appears out-of-touch with most of the rest of us would recognize as "reality".

It's nice to have this guy on "our side" for once, but that also makes me stop and wonder if we're on the right side.

"Like most environmentally friendly alternatives, it's not even close to ready for mainstream."

I sometimes wonder where electric vehicles got the reputation for being environmentally friendly. That electricity comes from somewhere, you know? If your power is generated by something as nasty as burning coal (as is about half of the power in the US), then you're really better off burning gasoline.

(On the other hand, if you've got regenerative breaking as part of the deal, then there's some hope you've got an improvement there...)

...if ever, that you punched someone in the face? Was it a bar fight?

I think you have Woz confused with Gary Kildall... (you know, the guy who's code got pirated by Bill Gates, in Gates first step toward world conquest).

Last year there were 20,000 surveyed users of NetMason and 9,000 of OpenMason. Today that number has dwindled to just 200 and 90, respectively.

But on the other hand, Mason 2 is out, and it's being actively maintained: Mason. I don't have usage stats for you, but I'd seriously consider using it on new web projects, possibly via the Poet framework.

(You can be the first on the block to start the MVC-backlash. )

You need windows that open.

And/or ventilation systems that actually work (as opposed to ones that are *supposed* to work, as in all other buildings constructed after WWII).

Some bike parking would be nice.

Think about where the trash is supposed to go.

A roof that doesn't leak is a good idea, too: that means you keep it simple, and probably don't try to do stuff like install skylights. Flat roofs are an extremely bad idea, but you're going to use them anyway, so pointing that out was a waste of time.

how about electric engines, which is available NOW, and that will solve your little pollution problem with or without drafting each other Actually, of course, electric cars don't solve pollution problems, they just transfer them to wherever the power plants are. If the power is relatively clean (e.g. nuclear) than this is a win, if the power is dirty, i.e. like the half of our power that's still generated by coal, you'd be better off burning gasoline.

I wish the delusion that electric==clean was only confined to slashdot trolls like this, but it's clear that it exists in the wider populace as well. The electric buses they use in San Francisco proudly display "Zero Emissions" decals...

The "Alt + Home" keyboard command will jump you straight to your home page, without mousing around.

I've started disliking the "firefox experience" since everything has become flashed up... a page with a flash window always steals the keyboard controls, so I can't, for example, kill it with a control W.

The trouble with them is that they'll take the sting out of long commutes. You already have people who think it's a good idea to spend four hours a day driving for the sake of cheaper real estate. What if they up it to six hours a day when they don't have to stare at the road?

Note: cutting a problem (pollution, car-deaths) would do no good if you double the miles.

I'm sure that they, like me, read through all five free books before voting for best novel.

Have con-goers stopped drinking beer? They used to be famous for voting for whoever did con parties with free kegs of beer. But I guess if everyone does that, the advantage is lost.

No need to do that. Women are included in human.

Yes, but it remains ambiguous as to whether women are included in "men", and if you don't think it's necessary to make that clear, your knowledge of English is several decades out-of-date.

I'm conservative about changes in language usage, too, but don't be ridiculous about it.

You may not like the fact that the feminists won this one, but they did, so get over it and embrace standard usage, because that was the one and only argument against this politically correct change in the first place.

Inclined to agree about Sturgeon... I sometimes call him one of the "secret masters of reality", with influence in many odd little corners of the world, though most people don't know who he is. Example: he invented the phrase "the prime directive" (for an unused Star Trek script).

There was a period there when "More Than Human" had almost as much "underground" influence as Heinlein's Stranger...

For underappreciated, try Sam Delany.

Yes... in particular, try starting with "Babel-17", a proto-cyberpunk space opera with some of the flash of a Star Wars, but based on some speculative ideas about linguistics...

Some of Delany's books-- notably the strange and perpetually controversial "Dhalgren"-- have sold well enough that it's not clear he qualifies as "underappreciated", though.