People spend a lot of time worrying about information security when their physical procedures are like a colander.

M$ is a child of IBM and slew them in true Oedipal fashion. But like many of these comedy/tragedies, there are unintended side effects to their behavior. Just think of the posture M$ could be in now, if they had concentrated on having a worthwhile product instead of screwing everybody with market manipulation an licensing games. Hoist by their own petard, down they go. It is interesting to compare the decline with the ascent.

who funded this exercise and why?

As has been said: Asking if machines can think is like asking if submarines can swim. And the answer may not be what you expect.

Adapters are even funnier, unless you step on one. Not only are all these plugs and mating jacks bad, but the combinations in adapters are truly sick, look like alien babies, nescafé?

SE has little to do with software. It has become mainly software project management. Software projects are disaster areas because inexperienced people look for gimmicks instead of putting in the 10,000 to 20,000 hours to become proficient. Just look at the job ads looking for "Senior developer with 3 years experience." Software used to be built by some brilliant people before CS and IT degrees existed. Most had degrees in physics and math or sometimes oddly enough - music. A few had no degrees st all. As computing has become more of a mainstream industry, most recent programmers have little knowledge of CS issues relating to simplicity, languages, algorithms, race conditions, etc. they get "certifications" from vendors! They just chase fads, throw everything in a pot and hope OO will organize it. They also seem to have little knowledge of basic engineering such as minimizing part and technology counts, orthogonal structures, neatness in design, etc. Now, I often do projects where I beat teams of 20 or more by myself. What's wrong with this picture?

If it ain't broke - don't fix it. -- That's because most system failures occur after PM [preventive maintenance].

FYI, The Internet is the successor to arpanet, beginning with Honeywell IMPs, etc. over 30 years ago, NOT with Tim Berners-Lee and his www app that ran over the net, which he did at CERN in the 80's. There are also many other protocols besides http using the foundation of the Internet. Most people did not have access to the Internet until it was opened up to the public for domains in addition to university and military in the 90s.

If you don't know what you are talking about, be quiet and listen. You may learn something.

Most of you are so young you think MS is the source of evil. In actual fact MS learned at the feet of the master - Big Blue. That is where most of MS' bad behavior comes from. The saying was: you could sell shit if you could paint it blue. BEWARE - Big Blue awakens !

Don't forget that the data has to be encoded/decoded to retrieve its information. Until the decoding of the rosetta stone, the rocks were just gibberish to us. And, yes, there is a difference between data and information. Obviously most data we see contains very little information, including this article.

Lincoln gets the credit for saying you can call a cow a horse but it is still a cow. Or as another source said: calling a pig a pineapple doesnâ(TM)t make it sweet and juicy and finally - how many people even know what the word scientia means?