Well then, the South Africans should have no problem extracting the water, given their recent history.

Not so; the book itself cured Mr. Trudeau of poverty.

Those issues can be addressed by particulate filters and urea injection, as the current diesels from VW/Audi, BMW and Mercedes demonstrate. I'm familiar with the VW/Audi technology, having just bought an A3 TDI -- their 2.0l TDI engine uses a particulate filter & is 50-state legal. Their larger engines use urea injection, as do the BMW/Mercedes -- the urea reacts with NOx to produce CO2 and NH3 -- the NH3 is subsequently catalytically reacted to produce N2 and H2O.

NOx can be handled the same way it is in the newer "clean diesel" engines -- either through particulate filters or selective catalytic reduction (SCR -- basically injecting urea into the exhaust stream to convert the NOx into CO2 and NH3, which is then converted catalytically to N2 and H2O).

In truth, the NSA is hundreds of years ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to cryptography.

He's absolutely right. Women are too smart for careers in computers. Most intelligent women take a close look at the unrepentantly fucked-up culture that surrounds computing careers, and run like hell.

It's men who are dumb enough to tolerate the aspy-programmer types, the sneering arrogant IT guys, the mailing lists full of flaming personal attacks leveled by closet bullies empowered by semi-anonymity, the phallic-compensating gadget consumerists, constantly "helpful" types who manage to insult while trying to rescue, and the sexually inept who use pinup wallpaper and leer at any woman in eyeshot. Membership in (or at least tolerance of) a repellant boys' club is an almost-mandatory feature of our industry.

Men don't have to be passionate about computers and programming to do well in our field. It's possible to be a day-job geek who never plays video games, doesn't own an iphone, and doesn't read xkcd, yet still thrive in high-tech. They get flamed them for a few newbie questions and they'll just think you're an asshole. But brilliant women who are not passionate about the field are smart enough to tell us all to go fuck ourselves after the first serious flame, because they know nobody should have to put up with that shit.

So yes. Women are in fact generally too smart for careers in computers. He nailed it.

Most teenagers already have bacteria kits -- their bedrooms.

Great; it's not like we don't have more than enough bogons as is.

When are we as a country going to learn? We gave these shitheads municipal monopoly power, and now they want to radically expand their control. What we need is a law that states this: You can own the pipe, or you can deliver through the pipe, but you cannot do both.

More likely an alien invasion.

Just get her on Seasonale or an equivalent.

This. My 60-year-old father can tell the make and model of any car manufactured before the catalytic converter, just by hearing the sound of an engine. As a career veterinarian with 30+ years of experience and an interest in staying abreast, he is intimately familiar with the latest in small animal medicine. But when it comes to anything with transistors, he knows only the basics. He's always found them frustrating and irritating, and only started using email about 6 years ago when forced into it by an extended vacation my mother took alone. He only got a cell phone 2 years ago. I used to spend hours each month helping him maintain his slow-because-he-bought-a-P4-with-SDRAM Windows computer.

After being fed up with years of parental support, I convinced him with much prodding this past spring that instead of an HP, he should spend a bit more to buy a refurbished aluminum iMac with a full extended warranty and a Time Capsule. I was done with limited Windows profiles, spyware,Firefox with IE skins and changed icons, and all the rest. The Mac was a great decision. He's in love with it, and my Mom is now plotting her own mac purchase.

I spent the largest part of the two hours of setup copying files via thumb drive, configuring his Safari Top Sites page, and getting Skype turned on so he can talk to my brother in Italy. Haven't really thought about it since, but after years as a reluctant computer user, he's blossomed with the Mac. The iPod he never used to use is suddenly full of podcasts and music, and we'll talk about the Writer's Almanac show a couple of times a week. His digital camera no longer stores all of his photos for viewing on the little screen, and he doesn't go to Walgreen's to get help make prints anymore. - instead, they're in iPhoto with face tags, organized into events, and he uses his own inkjet with photo paper now. He never has to futz with the mic or camera when he's doing a video call with my siblings. He's an avid skier, so we put the snow reports for his season ticket resorts on his Dashboard, as well as the weather reports and clocks for various places around the world where we have family.

This is turning into a Mac ad, and I didn't mean that. Clearly all of these things can be done with Windows/Linux. My point is that the right combination of technology, in my case an iMac, managed to excite my father into an interest in my own passions, while simultaneously opening up all the really cool parts of the internet to him. And in the process, I no longer have to do any tech support for him. I don't have to worry about backups, I don't have to worry about viruses, I don't have to worry about email attachments, I don't have to worry about "How do I..." phone calls.

Instead, we have more things to talk about, and he's able to finally use these fantastic tools from which I've made my career. So: if the technology your family is using doesn't work for them, whether they're currently on Apple, Linux, or Microsoft OS's, try a different one. It's made all the difference for me.

Caveat: I really can't recommend buying a computer without a user-serviceable hard disk unless you also buy the extended warranty. Apple wants $450 to replace the 320GB hard disk on an out-of-warranty iMac with another 320GB. I found out the hard way on my own iMac. To replace the disk in an iMac you have to remove the glass and the screen. Get dust between those two during the repair, and it's game over. This is the rare case where the warranty is money well spent.

Beginnings? It was first done almost 25 years ago, as this excellent documentary demonstrates.

Someone didn't watch last night's Family Guy -- Miley Cyrus is an android, not a clone.

Where are you getting 85W for the Mini? Maybe under load it's that high, but at idle it's much less. Apple publishes power consumption numbers on all their consumer systems, and the mini pulls 13.5W at idle load (aka. "apache, imap, ssh and some nfs."). Not to say you couldn't do even better with some other lower-power ARM- or ATOM-based options on busybox, but for your specs the Mini is certainly a contender.