Since I’m too simpleminded to describe anything to better precision, I rate pretty much everything using the Binary Scale. Basically, it’s a scale from zero to one, integral.

To my amusement, it confuses people that aren’t familiar with it when I say of something, “I give it a one.” It usually confuses them even further when I explain that it’s one “out of one.”

Sometimes though, even for me, the binary scale proves inadequate. In those cases I use the “Extended” Binary Scale.

If something is not good enough for me to honestly give it a one, yet not bad enough to condemn it with a zero, I just give it a .5 and forget about it.

Likewise, if something is so extraordinarily good that a 1 doesn’t give it justice, I’ll give it 2. And if it’s so utterly without merit that it’s an insult even to 0, I’ll give it a -1.

Apparently it’s called a carabiner, and not a carabinder as I originally thought.

How could I have forgotten Vim on my Software I Can’t Live Without page? (Warning: Unix text editor, and strictly for the most hardcore users)

Also added iTunes, Exact Audio Copy, 7-Zip, AVG, OpenOffice, and Perl. Even though some of these aren’t quite in the category “can’t live without,” sooner or later they get installed when I need them for something.