Yikes. That sounds like FOD-city to me.

In which case why don't you start with the one closer to what you want?

I'd rather install Mint and rip out the, well, three things or so I don't want, then try to do the same thing with Ubuntu and find out that "ubuntu-desktop" DEPENDS on $RANDOM_BULLSHIT_I_DONT_WANT and has no reason for being an absolute dependency instead of a suggestion or recommendation.

That I have to use equivs or remove the metapackage and stay on top of updates manually is... dumb. Incredibly, ridiculously dumb.

I don't use Ubuntu. I don't use Windows 8. Why? Because they are doing that, and I want no part of it.

Do not want.

I ask: why don't you just use slackware? You'd probably be happier, there.

No, quite sure it was deuterium. I had read about it mucking up metabolic processes, but the concentrations required for that apparently had flown over my head back then.

"Before trapezohedral dice became available, players used twenty-sided dice to get random digits, either by dividing by two or by discarding the tens digit." (from wikipedia on "Pentagonal trapezohedron")

I think you overestimate the education required for script kiddies to run their scripts.

I was going to bring up concerns about deuterium leaking into the water table, but on further research it seems you'd have to replace 25% to 50% of your body's water content (eg drink nothing but it for days on end) with it for ill effects. Far safer than I had (for some reason) thought it was.

I'm afraid I don't understand how this compares at all.

How much earth do you need to move to find an ore like pitchblende, though? So long as the difference isn't made up here...

That sounds like some interesting reading/wiki-surfing/time-wasting. What's that nerve called so I can commence?

Devil's (yes, that was intentional) advocate: that was supposedly included to provide an illusion of free will.

In my (not so) humble opinion: if there is a deity in charge, free will cannot exist - so the whole thing is pointless and falls apart anyway.

Basically you are stating (correctly, IMO) that there's a big difference between mere observation, and active searching.

You forgot:
4) Aggressive denial; physically damaging, vandalizing, or disabling recording devices/systems.

Which brings me to think about those red-light cameras. How many replacements/cleanings would they go through before they just give up? Assuming the vandal was intelligent enough to not get caught.

I'm not sure I understand how a webserver is supposed to know what your SSID is, or even that you're using wifi.