Eliza helped me through some serious shit back in the day.

*1980s and early 1990s. But yes, excellent series.

I agree that bitcoin is built to be scarce, and therefore valuable, but that sort of thing is the opposite of what you want in a currency. If the currency constantly increases in value, then the best option is to obtain as much as possible and stuff it under the mattress. Only an inflationary currency encourages investment, because you actually lose money by hoarding it rather than investing it. If everyone hoards the stuff instead of spending it, it becomes useless as a medium of exchange.

Sure, first you can control the cell phone with your brain, then the cell phone can control your brain, and before you know it the Cybermen are invading.

"Fucking awful" is a bit strong, but they definitely weren't up to par. I'm not surprised it was cancelled, and at this point I'd be much happier if they put the series to bed instead of continually trying to bring it back, as it will inevitably get worse every time they do.

Not to DoD standards. Several (usually 3-7 passes with /dev/random (or /dev/urandom) followed by /dev/zero will erase data well enough for any standard out there other than those that specifically require physical destruction, though.

Yes, but in that case you're running on a virtual computer with its own virtual hardware layer, not on Windows itself. If your only goal is to run 16-bit applications, and you have a copy of Windows 3.1 laying around, then that would be one way to do it, though.

You don't ask them their age, you just ask them if they are over the minimum required age for the job. That's a yes or no question.

Just so you know, asking an older person for their retirement plans in an interview or at any point during the hiring process can open you up to a very costly age discrimination lawsuit. Not hiring people over 40 because you think they'll ask for too much money will do the same. If you're simply reporting that people that age tend to ask for too much money that's one thing, but if you're proactively screening out older applicants because you think they might ask for too much money, that's against the law.

I would approach it from a standpoint of professional curiosity on your part rather than the "what if you got hit by a bus tomorrow" thing or the "you don't really want to do this forever" thing. No matter how sincere you are, people often recognize those as code words for "what if we want to get rid of you" and will be reluctant to cooperate.

That's old Web-2.0 thinking. We're in the era of the cloud now, and the cloud is magic. Trust the cloud.

I've been on a jury, and you'd be amazed at how easy it is for the entire jury to fall in line behind someone who seems to know what he's talking about, especially if the trial involves something few people have experience in (such as patent law). If the rest of the jury trusted him as the resident expert on the issue at hand, they would likely go along with whatever he said.

Agreed. Driving out west involves vast distances on straight roads. Sometimes the scenery is cool, sometimes it's flat and boring. I'd love to be able to drive through and admire the scenery when it's nice instead of having to pay attention to the boring stretch of asphalt I'm on, and be able to nap when the view sucks. If I wanted an adrenaline rush with my driving, I'd go to the race track.

I was too young to come up with that. I think my first BASIC program just repeated "hello" or something similar.

I also had a TRS-80 Color Computer as a young child. I mostly played games on it, but my father apparently did actual work on it as well. I can't imagine how much it cost him (he didn't make much money), but his willingness to spend that money fundamentally altered the course of my life. The TRS-80 was the first computer I ever used, and it sparked a passion for technology that's still with me today.