Personally I find them rather aloof

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Time to promote Frankenstein from fiction to academic text book.

Soon a software update might let it drop you off at home then drive itself to the charging station, and return to you when summoned.

Google Contacts can store relationships, which can be used to build up a family tree.

Yes, and I remember being somewhat confused upon hearing some English folk discussing what they had eaten for their tea the previous evening...

My mind filled in the blanks and made me read the authors name as David E Coli

That's why I'm really looking forward to the thick-client version of slashdot. This web browser nonsense is rubbish, I really want to install a separate app for each website that I use, and I hope all of these thick clients implement the same features in a consistent manner such as back button browser tabs etc.

The MBA is a tough course, it is commonly referred to as the "divorce course".
The reason being that there is so much work to get through that it has a negative impact on the home life of the student.

For basic computer literacy starters you could look at the International Computer Drivers Licence ICDL or open ICDL.
Google "open ICDL" or see http://www.icdl.org.za/products_detail.php?id=6&PHPSESSID=ubu69pnfotj76ecs6vsogfabm1

ICDL uses Windows XP, Internet Explorer & MS Office
open ICDL uses Ubuntu Linux, Firefox & Open Office

Both office suites include a mini database (Access or OO Base), which is used to explain some DB fundamentals.

Neither course attempts to introduce any sort of programming.

A lot of ATM's run on Stratus HA infrastructure, I don't suppose that counts...

Since when is the icon for a Microsoft story a boring business suit?

Here in South Africa copper wire has been a country wide problem, some areas being hit time and again 1 week after the lines have been restored.
I definitely agree that fiber is the way to go, especially once you've replaced the same line more than 6 times....

Problem is that they go after the electricity cables too, and those can't be replaced with fiber.
Occasionally they end up self fried, but it doesn't seem to be a long term deterrent.

Well ... in the investment banking world, BSD has a very different meaning to what we're used to over here in technology.

AFAIK Confluence is open source but not free, I recall Atlassian providing source code with their enterprise licences. I'm completely unfamiliar with Plone, but I've investigated a fair number of Wiki's and CMS's. From what I learned a while ago when looking into this, there is a distinction between a wiki and CMS, with CMS being a bit more complex. One of the basic CMS requirements was workflow publishing, i.e. content is changed but not made available for public consumption until the necessary parties had reviewed and authorised it. I was very impressed with XWiki and Alfresco