Asbestos brakes are basically all off the road now. Surely today's brake dust is not as bad as asbestos. And cars, including diesel cars, produce MUCH less tailpipe emissions than they did 60 years ago. And tires last much longer, so tire dust is reduced. Some people need to quit complaining.

I grew up in the 1970s. No electronic systems in your car the except electronic ignition and the radio. Manual focus cameras. Battery-powered radios. "Flat-head" lawnmower engines that ran forever. As of this date, I still drive a manual-gearbox plastic Saturn with manual, hand-crank windows. What is wrong with being self-reliant and continuing to use what works?

Besides, some humans have enough natural stupidity (driving with a flat tire, etc) that the rest of us have to "make up for them".

Another boring story on slashdot.

Someone got the license plate "4 NIK 8".

It took the state a couple of weeks or months, but they figured out what it meant.

The state recalled the plate.

This year, I went to a church get-together. I was basically ordered out at the end, over nothing (I wasn't mean or drunk, and I got out physically okay). Aspies like me don't do well here, and things often get worse in a hurry.

So next year I promise to stay home. It seems like a pattern with me. Every few years, I think I have a place that fits me, and I plan to have a good time. And something always goes wrong.

Maybe I should just resign myself to staying home every new year's eve, and watch movies or read a good book (I have no family that can stay up that late and enjoy activities with me).

Perhaps in the future I'll volunteer at a soup kitchen (maybe on the holiday or on a different day, it depends what the charity's needs are).

On Cowboy Neal's sound system. It saves on my electric bill!,
Or, better yet, I enjoy Cowboy Neal singing live, in his shower. He has such a wonderful voice!

Check out this fellow:

www.trachtman.org

He built on the efforts of two others to scan old player piano rolls and use software to re-constitute the information as MIDI files. If punch cards can be considered files, player piano rolls can too. He has scanned and converted almost 7000 such rolls.

The MIDI files can be printed out as sheet music on paper or backed up to the latest computer format going forward.

I am not sure when the vintage piano rolls were cut (that people have sent him), but player pianos have been around for decades, and a lot of the files on his site are U.S. public domain (before 1922) music. Check it out!

The article (I read it) said "around 30 MPH", but the car had "35 KMH" printed on it (which is approximately 22 MPH).

Are the reporters bad with numbers or did they forget the metric system?

Number 5 is "a beowulf cluster of these" if I remember correctly. Or number 7.

Norbert Wiener. No question about it.

He survived life despite being the typical "absent minded professor". Official accounts don't give any anecdotes -- consult old editions of Russ Walter's "The Secret Guide to Computers" (current editions might not talk about him much).

I cannot relate to his work in mathematics and cybernetics, since I really don't understand it. But surviving life as a thoroughly absent-minded person? That is what I can relate to and respect. It is a monumental achievement to me.

"Rhetorical trick?" No. Microsoft has earned (and deserves) a poor reputation for security, and I am exposed to it often here on /. The truth repeated often enough meets my personal definition of bashing.

I don't have time to (and I don't care to) quote examples and specifics. The themes I quoted tell my state of mind about their software -- it will probably continue to be insecure.

Security is a reason to upgrade. If I think it is not likely to get better, my statement stands.

"I don't see a reason or a need."

Nice try. Thanks for playing, though.

For quite a while, IE 6 was Microsoft's flagship browser. We knew it was insecure. Somebody (Secunia?) even recommended that we *_strongly_* consider switching away from IE6 to *_any_* other browser.

But important sites like my bank standardized on it. Several years after Firefox came out and Netscape became SeaMonkey, I still got warning pages that "Netscape is not really supported on our site" or similar. Did my bank's web developers fall asleep and miss the name change? Did AOL give the outdated Netscape broswer to their users and this warning was directed at them?

Then Microsoft came out with IE7. Even larger and more complicated (just like the bug-fixes that MS had to follow up with). Then IE 8. More of the same. Microsoft talked about the improved customer experience, but I was more interested in the security settings, and after years of Netscape/Firefox, I barely understand some of them ("medium-high" security, "third-party" cookies, "zones" and so forth).

I don't visit questionable sites, I use the hosts file at hosts-file.net and I don't click on every random e-mail attachment (open it first in linux to verify the audio/video/pdf or whatever), and I use Firefox 99 percent of the time in XP (and 100 percent in linux). And banks don't *_require_* MSIE anymore.

Now, add the usual Microsoft bashing on slashdot ("Seven is just as insecure as Vista", "MS played a role in the SCO affair", "IE is still insecure", "activation/WGA is a hassle", "security features are easily defeated").

Why don't I upgrade? I don't see a reason or a need.

I have a bachelor's degree and some other credentials (also learned HVAC at night school), but not a lot of experience in either field.

I don't "sell myself" well at interviews, but Amazon (and partners) have the web presence (and logistics) to sell stuff efficiently. I'm happy to be here.

If I get more confidence, and the right opening comes along, well....

Oops, sorry. I drive 45 minutes each direction from a HOUSE. And 6 PM until 2:30 AM five nights a week (until 4:30 AM in the busy season) suits me quite well.