Of course, there also wasn't as much you needed to know back then. I look at something like a modern "Roadmap to becoming a Web developer in 2017" [0] and I wonder how anyone is able to get through all of that.
PG-13 movies are allowed two uses of the word "fuck." The Martian had Matt Damon use them fairly early on, first, when Watney yanks the piece of the antenna out of himself ("FUCK!"), and second, when he makes up his mind to survive ("Fuck you, Mars"). They allude to its use in many other places, though, such as the memorable shot from outside the Rover where you can clearly see his lips saying "What the fuck? What the fuck?" Then there was some "censored" text in the chat logs, a reference to Watney telling the botanists to "have sex with themselves," and so forth.
"I would Make America Great Again by forcing the medical monopolies to break up, by prosecuting them under 15 USC (the Sherman, Clayton, and Robinson-Patman Acts), which the President can direct to be done on his own, without input from Congress. This would cause prices of medical goods and services to drop by 50-80% or more, solve many of our economic problems, and usher in a new era of prosperity. See the writings of Karl Denninger for details, www.market-ticker.org."
I'd have expected Hillary to send in the Federal troops and shut down marijuana sales, simply because she's been in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry and they're already complaining about how cannabis is cutting into their sales and profits. [0]
But Trump? Maybe not. He's a businessman, after all, and marijuana has proven to be some big business indeed. [1]
Compaq later created similar promotional license plates with the number "LINUX," and yes, they still said "Live Free or Die" on them. I managed to wheedle one out of a trade show representative, knowing the history of the original "UNIX" promotional plates.
Besides the motto and the big number, the plates carry the Compaq logo, "1999" (the year they were made), and the statement "LINUX is a Registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds."
Back when Steven first stopped writing USS Clueless, I was concerned that the content would go away. He sent me, at my request, an archive of the site, which I hosted at Electric Minds for a time. That archive is now available on my site [0].
He was a great influence on everyone who read him, including me. He will be sorely missed.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, look for Wendy Carlos' album Switched-On Bach 2000. She revisits the material of her classic electronic music album with modern synthesizer equipment, and uses authentic Bach tunings for the pieces as well. The liner notes for the album explain the tuning systems used, and how they differ from the modern, mathematically-perfect equal temperament. She notes that Bach was himself a first-rate tuner and theorist, and was not above retuning "on the fly" to improve the sound of various compositions. Of course, with synthesizers, a tuning is just a block of data, which can be reloaded as needed.
(As a "bonus track" on the album, she included a realization of "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor." Especially appropriate for the season!)
He'd probably appreciate it more if you made his science fiction books hits, as he's been trying to get back into SF writing recently, and has joined the indie publishing revolution (after getting talked into it by Sarah Hoyt).
Available on Kindle Unlimited: his novel The Cunning Blood [0], a newer novel, Ten Gentle Opportunities [1], and his collection Souls in Silicon: Tales of AI Confronting The Infinite. [2] More to come, too, stay tuned!
(Disclaimer: I've designated myself as Jeff's "#1 fanboy.")
I posted a link to the Foundation's Web site to Jeff's Facebook page. (He's been busy getting his house in Colorado Springs ready to sell, as he and his wife are moving to Phoenix for health reasons. Facebook is about all he has time to check these days.) I'll also link this HN comment thread to him.
Jeff's blog is at http://www.contrapositivediary.com/ , and he updates that more frequently than his main Web site. (Which is to say, pretty infrequently at the moment, though I expect that to change once his big move is over.)
Like it or not, options are basically Monopoly money. You can't get your landlord to accept them, or the grocery store, or the credit card companies.