Nobody seems to have mentioned cryptology. Surely every programmer (or more general IT type) is going to be asked sooner or later, "Is it safe?", "Can the NSA read my code?", "What are the chances of that random() call giving the same answer twice?". It seems to me if you don't have reasonable math you are just going to regurgitate something you have read somewhere.

I think Minix was much better than Linux at the time - it was better written, cleaner and well-documented. I'm pretty sure Tanenbaum just got tired of the hassle of running the project. He wasn't good at collaborating with subordinates - basically, he wanted to do everything himself. One of Torvald's merits - perhaps the secret of his success - is his ability to get a team round him and share out the work - somewhat surprising since he can be so rude. In practice Tanenbaum refused to extend Minix to 386's, on the grounds that there were enough 286's (and less) in the world to fulfil the needs of Minix.

All cars should be automatically restricted to the speed limit. At the very least, some sound or visual warning should come up if the speed limit is exceeded. This should have been implemented years ago.

What hard disk is this?
I haven't seen one that uses less than 5 watts.