In soviet russia, 6 digit Slashdot accounts still have Linux fanboys...

I'm sorry but no, the few female coders I know are probably more competent than the many male coders I know. They have to be, and what's more, they have to want it more in order to put up with the stereotypical nerdrage(/nerdlust/nerdmysogyny/nerdetc...) which is all but inescapable in tech circles. Usually the girls that survive the circus are the ones who really have that davinci-esque mindset necessary to out-think everyone around them just to make their unacceptable [female/insightful/whole-brained]-ness juxtapose successfully with our [male/self-obsessedly/single-mindedly] driven tech worker society. Given a change of scenery, we might find that women are better at coding, as it requires deep and multi-faceted insight which is difficult to come by for the mouth breathing, leg humping portion of the geek scene.

Just to be a pedant, as that seems to be the prevalent mode of thought in this discussion thread, you clearly intended your first sentence as the interrogative:
"You do realize that poor grammar makes you sound juvenile and uneducated, don't you?"
Clearly the poster you were referring to didn't understand that, and you were asking the question. In latin:
"Nonne scit, mala grammatica facit ineruditus et praetextatus sonas?"
There. I hope you're all satisfied with the level of ridiculous over-reaction and mindless self-appreciation I put into this post. Grins!

Interestingly enough, as an exercise in boredom, I have recently been having all of my text message conversations, with certain qualified individuals, in reverse. .yaw siht nettirw eb dluow ecnetnes siht ,ecnatsni rof ,oS Pedantic, yes. Waste of time, yes. Utterly hilarious when you get good at it, also yes.

when sapiens, fraught with entropy\ began to stop, and die and bleed\ up from the muck, no kings did rise\ the ratfrog, maddened, claimed its prize\\ large, nocturnal, semi-aquatic\ ratfrog overlord, not bionic\ gnashing teeth, by night they swim\ kill people coming from the gym\\ if only human kind had done\ what nature wrought them to and run\ they might have had athletic thigh\ and claimed the wicked ratfrogs prize!

qui homo libertarian est?

Unfortunately it is the "slack-jawed, mouth breathing rednecks from the hinterlands" who tend to make the most noise and get the most attention. If smart people ran around yelling at (and/or threatening personal violence towards) people they disagreed with perhaps they would get more traction. On the other hand, you are correct, people should lay off the theist-bashing. Just because someone holds one or two unfalsifiable personal beliefs does not by proxy mean that their other, more scientifically rigorous claims should be dismissed.

I understand not junking up lagrange points with non-functional space junk, but if we leave it orbiting the sun or crashing into the sun or a dozen other possibilities aren't we a) just cluttering up the wider solar system, or b) eliminating our chance at recouping and reusing the materials onboard? I think a giant pile of junk satellites on the moon would be pretty anyway. Future tourist attraction/place for disenfranchised lunar youth to go scavving.

Speaking of very expensive, don't we spend lots of money to build these complicated telescopic and other satellites? Don't we use quantities of rare materials to create the sensitive instrumentation onboard? Why, then, are we sending them off into a graveyard orbit whose FINAL DESTINATION (hahemm, scuse me, didn't mean to shout, too much hollywood) is destruction? Shouldn't we try to find some way to stash all the defunct satellites somewhere in space for future (as in when we have facilities set up to do so) recycling of the rare component materials? This just seems like more of the arrogant human "Gimme all the resources, me use once then throw away forever" attitude that gets us into trouble ON the planet. (singing): 'In the year 2525, if man is still alive, he'll be wondering, why did I have to go and fire all those grams of neodymium into the sun? Now we can't build any more sentient teddy bears.' Call me a hippy, and flame away for my lack of concrete knowledge about the subject, but it just seems like a waste.

I know when people ask me questions in a survey, there comes a point in time when I begin to get bored, and another point in time very near to that when I begin to answer questions either randomly or in an intentionally absurd manner just so I can get some revenge over having them waste my time. If the writers of the survey know something about how to incur that attitude hey could be intentionally skewing the results by placing the questions in the portion of the survey guaranteed to have the most people answering randomly. Then again, maybe I should just not take surveys...

I miss the good old days, before these newfangled wax cylinders. Back then you had to go find a group of musicians if you wanted music. Back then the only ones making any money were the ones selling booze. Maybe those days will come again...

Once there were parking lots, now its a peaceful oasis.
This was a pizza hut, now its all covered in daisies... etc.

I manage a team of network admins at a university that uses the same software as CMU. The software does have agents available for Mac and Linux too.

Here's the problem. The IT staff has a number of conflicting expectations for the network. There are N-1 other students at the university also paying tuition and they also expect the network to work. School administration expects it to work, with priority given to academic purposes. While it isn't ideal to require that students trust our software to run on their computer, it allows the school's IT staff to ensure computers comply with policy (current AV, anti-spyware, etc), and that computers that are causing network problems can be quickly identified and the problem mitigated. (And believe me, a comprehensive network access system greatly speeds problem resolution, both for the network and the student.) Keeping bad computers off the network lets the network keep working for everyone else that didn't mess up their computer with malicious software. It'd be nice to somehow exempt students that know what they're doing from this intrusive, annoying process. But like many things, a few bad apples ruin it for everyone.

The software allows policies to be set for AV existence and version, anti-spyware, and OS version and updates. It also allows custom scans to be written to check for files and registry keys. No other info gets sent to the administrators other than if you have failed or passed such a scan. No one is spying on you, or cares that much about what's on your computer. They just want the network to work.

There are agentless NAC solutions available, but they are more annoying for the user and less correct for the administrators. Having no NAC really isn't a feasible option anymore for schools of any decent size, as they need to comply with CALEA and respond to RIAA, REN-ISAC, and other internal/external complaints. If you don't trust your school, and are that concerned about running untrusted code from a vendor picked by your school, then don't. Don't use the network, and have fun with your protest. The administrators aren't forcing this upon the students because they're unsympathetic to their concerns. But rather, because they need to serve all students well.