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A bit of MIT/LCS lore here.

RMS used to live on the 7th floor of LCS. That's where he used to have his office before he resigned in protest over the commercialization of something or another. But they let him keep his office, and he lives there, because he refuses to have an apartment. (Given the rent rates in Cambridge, the assholeness of most landlords, I don't blame him. Rather than live in my office, I chose to move to Texas, and the change in rent rates and lack of state income tax resulted in an immediate %25 pay raise. RMS doesn't have that option because we have the death penalty for people like him down here.)

Anyway, RMS has or had a number or geek chick groupies. I wouldn't call any of the ones I've seen "hot", really -- well except for this one little psycho jewish undergrad from NYC. He would sleep with them on the sofa in his office. That's why he got kicked out off floor 7, and down to the 3 floor, is that the cleaning staff complained about pulling used condoms out from behind the sofas. No joke. You can use this information for trolling if you wish, but it's all true.

RMS has a phobia of water that prevents him from showering. This is part of this post I know from first hand experience, because I myself have observed him taking a sponge bath in the 3d floor mens room in LCS. Apparently once he had a girlfriend who he was totally in love with, and she convinced him to take one shower a week. It was a traumatic experience for him each time.

RMS also has a phobia of spider plants. When RMS starts bothering a grad student and going to his office and talking to him constantly and getting him to spend all his time writing free software, the grad student will complain to someone on the floor, and they'll let them in on the secrete -- get a spider plant in your office. The next time RMS drops by, his eyes will bulge a little and he'll say " Umm. . . I wanted to talk to you about hacking some elisp code . . . why don't you stop by my office sometime ?" and make a hasty exit.

One of his more nasty habits is picking huge flakes of dandruff out of his hair while talking to you. At least he doesn't eat them, like some people I know.

Now, I know everyone loves to make fun of RMS, and I'm feeding that a bit here, so I'd just like to say that I think he really is a genius, on the order of Socrates (another filthy slob who couldn't keep a normal living arrangement, and lived in a barrel) or Ghandi or Ezekiel. Everything he has ever said to me, while sounding naive and idealistic and stupid at the time, turned out to later be correct.

The only thing I fear in his philosophy is his interest in reducing population growth. Everyone else I know of who was obsessed with that "problem" turned out to have facist or totolitarian tendencies, and I think that the problem will solve itself as more and more of the world moves into a middle class type existence.

But on everything else, bitter experiences have taught me he is right. I will not use any non-GPLd or lGPLd software, and I look forward to being able to buy only "open" hardware. I would like to see software patents completely eliminated, and with the development of digitial communication, I see no reason why shouldn't simply repeal all of Title 17 and do away with all copyrights. They just aren't needed. I expect to spend much of my life being paid to write software, and I just don't see copyrights has helping me in anyway.

Source: StallmAnus

You haven't seen a bad website unless you've looked at this one. (No, it's not a picture of a gaping anus.)

One of the first banks to use Linux was Banrisul, that is running thousands of ATM with Linux since 2001. I found a picture of the guys behind the project. There is a small embossed picture of Tux in the welcome screen.

"Planet X orbits between our sun and its dark twin. A diagram from the 1987 New Science & Invention EncycLopdedia shows our dead twin sun & the 10th planet. X's mass, magnetism & density is such that it disrupts the surface of every planet it passes. In fact, history shows approximately 7 years prior to its passage its far reaching eletromagnetic/gravitational influence changes earths core flows triggering weather, volcanic & seismic activity.

Since early 1996 traditional weather has changed dramatically, breaking all time records regularly. The up-tick of quakes, volcanic incidents & changes in electromagnetics are being kept out of the media as much as possible. Weather alone can falsely be blamed on global warming & sun cycles but not earths rumblings at the same time...

Even the majority of the earthchange intuitives prophecies are tied into or name Planet X. ALL OTHER NEWS PALES IN COMPARISON TO THIS IMPENDING MEGA WORLD WIDE EVENT OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS."

Christopher Ecclestone is the the best living British actor.

After seeing him as The Second Coming as an unwilling messiah and in the powerful adoption-drama Flesh And Blood, you can not deny that this is the best actor of our generation.

He's also had small parts in enjoyable crap like 24 Hour Party People and Existenz and was one of the main characters in Shallow Grave.

We should be honoured to accept him as Dr Who - his talent and choice of roles is way beyond such enjoyable (Sci-fi) fluff.

She may only live another 6 months, 6 years, 30 years, whatever .. who knows ? Maybe she will fully recover in a few years time, and then get run over by a truck - who knows ? The world is an odd place indeed.

I met a girl not too long ago who by all rights should never have survived, and who's whole life could be seen as a drain of resources to the people around her.

But then again, she managed to write a way controversial film script, and convinced enough people to produce the film.

The film went into production, and made it to the Cannes film festival, where she was hauled up the steps and taken along the red carpet.

After the screening of the film, the stunned audience wiped away their tears and gave a standing ovation.

Her name was Heather Rose Slattery. ACPA Site Here

Or you can read my small contribution Here

RIP Heather .. Im sure you can read this where you are now.

So ever since meeting Heather, Ive learned that there is no relationship between someone's physical condition, and their productive value to the rest of society. Its all pretty random really.

Indeed they were.

Here is a detailed comparison between The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell. IMHO, page 6 is the one that shows the fact The Matrix was heavily based around Ghost in the Shell. Watermelons exploding from bullets during a marketplace chase scene? Hmmmmmm...

Indeed they were.

Here is a detailed comparison between The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell. IMHO, page 6 is the one that shows the fact The Matrix was heavily based around Ghost in the Shell. Watermelons exploding from bullets during a marketplace chase scene? Hmmmmmm...

I'm not sure, but I don't think the US extradites US citizens to other countries.

Extracted from the US to:
Ireland

Hong Kong

Yugoslavia

I am by no means an expert on this, these are just some google results.

because I wonder how many musicians today can actually read music

All of them.

Dave Brubeck can't [duke.edu]. Django Reinhardt couldn't [playjazzguitar.com]. Paco de Lucia can't [geocities.com] (he learned the notation when he wanted to record Falla's classical pieces and Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, but it was laborious). Not all musicians need to know to read music, and not all musical cultures use western notation even when they write music (eg, India).

tvnjzevxafei

Yes, but it's actually called Jesux:

...function calls and features suggesting evil and otherwise pagan ideas would be changed.

abort(3) kill(1) references to "daemon"

NOTE: we do not believe words are inherently bad. We simply do not like these words because of their connotations in different contexts. You do not have to agree, but you will not change our minds.

Although they don't specifically mention fsck...

An Analysis of Film grosses

Do film ratings effect the box office success of a film? Theoretically, the impact should be minimal. Strictly based on the size of the potential audience, G, PG, and PG-13 rated movies should have an equal probability of success, while R rated films should be slightly less (due to the portion of the audience that is cut off), while X rated films should be the least successful. On the other hand a 'carnal nature' analysis would indicate that the most obscene movies would attract the greatest audiences, with people desiring to see the 'forbidden fruit' of R and X rated films, while wanting to avoid the child play of G rated films. Furthermore, since the price of adult admission is higher than that for children, the adult films have another advantage in the quest for the box office dollar. In the first ten years of the modern rating system, it was found that from the implementation of the modern rating system that as a whole, more R rated films were produced than any other film type.[7]However, these restricted films were much less successful than their unrestricted counterparts. The G-rated films, though viewed as "box-office poison" were produced in the fewest number, yet enjoyed very high success ratios. The theory of movie ratings and their impact on the success of a film were analyzed to determine the success of the ratings system. Does the system appear to produce the films that the public desires? Does the system allow the motion picture companies to maximize profits? Is artistic freedom enhanced by the implementation of the rating system? In order to determine the conclusion to these problems, the ratings of films were compared with their box office gross. Furthermore the trend of the ratings were analyzed over time. The analysis led to a system similar to that found earlier[8], in which the number of restricted films, while enjoying a lower level of profitability were being produced in increasingly greater number. The most popular films continue to be those that are not restricted.

The Soundex-algorithm can be used for English names, but of I guess no such algorithms exist (or are even appliccable) for Ararb or Chinese names).

besh-lo (iron fish): submarine
dah-he-tih-hi (hummingbird): fighter plane
atsah-besh-le-gai (silver eagle): colonel
tsidi-ney-ye-hi (bird carrier): aircraft carrier

(laxative medicine): hotfix
(soccer ball): support request
(durian): in-house helpdesk staff
(mongoose trap): upgrade program
(Jesuit missionary): Microsoft Sales

though '...customers must buy a $99.95 set-top device to decode the channels.

So those channels are going to come through the antenna, uh?

How long do you think it'll take to adapt certain programs to decode more than Nagravision?

In Europe, there's a channel called Canal+ that's been software-decoded for years, and they can't really do much about it. I would think people would get cracking on the code even faster when 35 channels could be available.

I think I preferred the low-budget version on PBS they aired in the 70's. It seemed to have more heart, plus I missed the aliens at the end.

Does anyone else think it looks like a Cyberman from Dr Who.

Di-Hydrogen Monoxide isn't the proper name for water. That would imply a H2 ion bonded to a O ion. IIRC, this is not correcct.

hmm it appears you are correct according to the script but I still remember hearing it the other way as filmed - I could be wrong tho.

You might not be happy with the results

The term "Android" was introduced by Albertus Magnusin the 13th Century. Another automaton was a chess playing automaton called The Turk in the 18th Century.

What's next? I'm going to get a free song with a Happy Meal?

There's precedent. I seem to remember that a LONG time ago, McDonalds offered Happy Meals with these little crappy records (that you had to tape a coin to in order to get it to play well) and this Music Happy Meal site seems to verify that I remember correctly.

Why have it collect dust when I can be useful again? I had a dead Mac Plus that I transformed into a home for a pair of cory cats. And I'm not the only one that has done this particular case mod

Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe is definitely in its ancestry.

It's called steampunk, neo-pulp and retro-futuristm.

I just went looking for a few of my favorites from when I was a kid:

The Fantastic Journey: Weird adventures in the Bermuda Triangle

Ark II: Keeping technology alive in a post-apocalyptic Earth.

Run Joe Run: A german shepard who could put Lassie to shame

And we can't forget the pretty much forgotten Andy Griffith in space show, Salvage One: Using the trans-linear vector principle to build a rocket out of junkyard parts. (An early concept of Junkyard Wars?)

And a whole bunch of other shows from what used to be known as Cartoon Day (Back when cartoons were only on saturday morning, before Cartoon Network.)

I just went looking for a few of my favorites from when I was a kid:

The Fantastic Journey: Weird adventures in the Bermuda Triangle

Ark II: Keeping technology alive in a post-apocalyptic Earth.

Run Joe Run: A german shepard who could put Lassie to shame

And we can't forget the pretty much forgotten Andy Griffith in space show, Salvage One: Using the trans-linear vector principle to build a rocket out of junkyard parts. (An early concept of Junkyard Wars?)

And a whole bunch of other shows from what used to be known as Cartoon Day (Back when cartoons were only on saturday morning, before Cartoon Network.)

I'm not sure, but I don't think the US extradites US citizens to other countries.

Extracted from the US to:
Ireland

Hong Kong

Yugoslavia

I am by no means an expert on this, these are just some google results.

because I wonder how many musicians today can actually read music

All of them.

Dave Brubeck can't. Django Reinhardt couldn't. Paco de Lucia can't (he learned the notation when he wanted to record Falla's classical pieces and Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, but it was laborious). Not all musicians need to know to read music, and not all musical cultures use western notation even when they write music (eg, India).

Older intel CPUs used a performance metric named iCOMP which was stamped on many CPUs. A bit of googling suggests this is still around. Perhaps this is another case of reinventing an old idea?

Sherwin Gooch's Account of John Bardeen's Lecture (Score:1)
by Baldrson (jabowery@netcom.com) on Tuesday December 28, @08:58AM EST
(User Info) http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery

In any case, I'll check with Sherwin Gooch to see if he has any more direct evidence from Bardeen himself to support the controversial account of the hide-away experimental stand.

I did, and here is Sherwin's response:

Jim,

Thank you for alerting me to your discussion.

To provide a more solid foundation, one should be aware that I heard this story from the horse's mouth.

John Bardeen himself gave a talk one evening at Altgeld Hall on the University of Illinois campus, circa 1978, in which he related various experiences surrounding his inventing the transistor. At the time, people suspected that the scheduling of this presentation may have been related to Bardeen's health.

Professor Bardeen showed us the B&W 16mm film BB&S had made at Bell Labs immediately after they got the first transistor to work (and, presumably, before Bardeen's boss got to work the next morning...) I have seen individual frames and out-takes of this film since, but I don't know if the entire film still exists. The "rolly-cart" with their experimental set-up is plainly in evidence on the film.

It was John Bardeen himself, at Altgeld Hall, who related that his boss had said that the "solid-state amplifying device" which they wanted to develop was "not feasible," and that, "even if it were possible, it would have no practical application." Dr. Bardeen related that sometimes, when his boss stayed at work past 5 p.m., the three of them would become very impatient waiting for him to leave so they could roll their setup out of the coat-closet, and get busy on what they, apparently, thought was the greatest "cool hack" of the day.

I wonder who Bardeen's boss was. His boss should be immortalized in history next to the NASA manager who advised the last engineer withholding approval of the Challenger launch to "put on your management hat!"

One of the anecdotes John Bardeen related was how he had left his set of photographic slides in the taxi which took him to the ceremony to collect his Nobel prize, and all the trouble to which he and the Swedish government had gone in trying to recover them. But their efforts were unsuccessful; the slides were never recovered. Professor Bardeen was extremely apologetic that he didn't have them to use in his presentation, and so we would just have to make-do with his relating the incidents to us.

With my background in computer music, I found one of the pieces of supporting paraphernalia that Dr. Bardeen didn't lose in Sweden quite interesting. He brought along a transparent plexiglas box, approximately the shape of a 6" cube, with randomly distributed 3/4" or so holes (apparently for cooling?) in the sides. On the top were a number (6 or so) of black SPST N.O. push buttons. A small loudspeaker was mounted inside. (There must have also been a battery of some kind, but I don't recall it.) The box contained a collection of electronic components, their leads soldered to one-another ("tacked together"), and hanging in "free space." (He hadn't bothered to use a prototyping board or connecting strip.) There were resistors, capacitors, possibly some coils, and these ~1" long bar things (which were the transistors), of which there were 3. Dr. Bardeen explained that he had had chosen to build this device because it em

Sherwin Gooch's Account of John Bardeen's Lecture (Score:1)
by Baldrson (jabowery@netcom.com) on Tuesday December 28, @08:58AM EST
(User Info) http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery

In any case, I'll check with Sherwin Gooch to see if he has any more direct evidence from Bardeen himself to support the controversial account of the hide-away experimental stand.

I did, and here is Sherwin's response:

Jim,

Thank you for alerting me to your discussion.

To provide a more solid foundation, one should be aware that I heard this story from the horse's mouth.

John Bardeen himself gave a talk one evening at Altgeld Hall on the University of Illinois campus, circa 1978, in which he related various experiences surrounding his inventing the transistor. At the time, people suspected that the scheduling of this presentation may have been related to Bardeen's health.

Professor Bardeen showed us the B&W 16mm film BB&S had made at Bell Labs immediately after they got the first transistor to work (and, presumably, before Bardeen's boss got to work the next morning...) I have seen individual frames and out-takes of this film since, but I don't know if the entire film still exists. The "rolly-cart" with their experimental set-up is plainly in evidence on the film.

It was John Bardeen himself, at Altgeld Hall, who related that his boss had said that the "solid-state amplifying device" which they wanted to develop was "not feasible," and that, "even if it were possible, it would have no practical application." Dr. Bardeen related that sometimes, when his boss stayed at work past 5 p.m., the three of them would become very impatient waiting for him to leave so they could roll their setup out of the coat-closet, and get busy on what they, apparently, thought was the greatest "cool hack" of the day.

I wonder who Bardeen's boss was. His boss should be immortalized in history next to the NASA manager who advised the last engineer withholding approval of the Challenger launch to "put on your management hat!"

One of the anecdotes John Bardeen related was how he had left his set of photographic slides in the taxi which took him to the ceremony to collect his Nobel prize, and all the trouble to which he and the Swedish government had gone in trying to recover them. But their efforts were unsuccessful; the slides were never recovered. Professor Bardeen was extremely apologetic that he didn't have them to use in his presentation, and so we would just have to make-do with his relating the incidents to us.

With my background in computer music, I found one of the pieces of supporting paraphernalia that Dr. Bardeen didn't lose in Sweden quite interesting. He brought along a transparent plexiglas box, approximately the shape of a 6" cube, with randomly distributed 3/4" or so holes (apparently for cooling?) in the sides. On the top were a number (6 or so) of black SPST N.O. push buttons. A small loudspeaker was mounted inside. (There must have also been a battery of some kind, but I don't recall it.) The box contained a collection of electronic components, their leads soldered to one-another ("tacked together"), and hanging in "free space." (He hadn't bothered to use a prototyping board or connecting strip.) There were resistors, capacitors, possibly some coils, and these ~1" long bar things (which were the transistors), of which there were 3. Dr. Bardeen explained that he had had chosen to build this device because it em

Locate the plant where the waste is being treated, like they do already in Lithuania Germany and Oregon.

You are already moving the sewage around as it is, so that expense is already there. The waste output of the biogas fermener is much safer than the sludge that existing sewage plants produce, and it can be further composted to produce safe, high quality, organic fertilizer.

There are also existing farm waste facilities (as was previously discussed here on /.) and existing technology to tap land fills in the same manner. It's energy that can be easily converted to a usable, transportable form (electricity) that wopuld otherwise go to waste. The gasses that are being converted are greenhouse gasses (mostly methane) that are not readily sinkable, and the waste products from the fuel cell are only (easily sinkable) CO2 and water.

The other implication of this technology that is less spoken about is that it decentralizes the source of energy away from the fossil fuel companies and spreads the profits closer to the community where the energy is being produced, either through lower costs for waste treatment, or through direct profit from the sale of the electricity if the facility is privately owned. This means lower costs for energy and lower trade deficit.

It's a winning situation for those who live in communities that take advantage of this, and the only people who lose out are the energy companies.

'Fairness' is not a useful way of determining right or wrong (or correctness, if you don't like the terminology).

Well, if by "fairness" you mean the "sniff test", I agree.

However, it is possible to try to create a definition of fairness that can be used to create criteria of the rightness and wrongness of actions. Jowhn Rawls" constructed one such theory, which is at its heart very simple. One way of explaining it is to imagine that we are about to sit down to play a game, and have to agree in advance on the rules governing each player's role. The rules are fair if we would agree to it not knowing in advance which role we are going to be assigned.

This is actually a lot like the Jewish concept of tsedaqah, which is usually translated as "rigtheousness" but could also be construed to mean "objective". Objective in this sense: you should remove the overwhelming effect of your subjective stake in the outcome of an action from deciing on whether it is right or wrong. For example you should assist the poor because their condition objectively requires assistance and it won't really hurt you that much to help.

Of course taking this approach means that you then get to argue about whose definition of "fair" is correct. However it's an intrinsically more honest process, because you have to accept the consequences of your definition, whereas the sniff test doesn't put any constraints on you.

One of those universe/solar system simulations - I forget the name.
Possibly because there's more than one name to forget... (=

Let's see, for general touring around the Solar system and neighborhood, there's nothing quite like Celestia. Hours of fun, and very pretty to look at.
Noctis is also similar, but set in a fictional universe.
For more pretty pictures, but less interactivity, see The Solar Journey homepage or the Solar System Simulator. Also The Nine Planets for Kids.
Naturally, kids aren't that interested in just flying around. Well, Orbit lets them blow each other up in space, but with realistic physics and visuals. Once that gets boring, you can let them fly a space shuttle to the ISS with Orbiter. Beware, though. Orbiter is no simple game - you actually need to know how space flight works. There's also the Microsoft Space Simulator, which Orbiter has more or less superseded.

If you're not looking to get that far off the ground, FlightGear's an excellent flight simulator in which you can fly everything from the original Wright Brothers' craft right up to concept superplanes.

More links, mainly astronomy related, here, here, here, here, and here.

Finally, you might wish to try browsing the Tucows Games site and Freshmeat's game section (you'll need to login to make full use of Freshmeat).

Good luck, have fun searching.

Sopwith 2 + Instructions... Get it while the Geocities bandwidth lasts... ;)

My handwriting sucks too. I really do intend to improve it though...and I have been.

You can't do it by willing yourself to write better. You've transferred your letter-forming skills into your cerebellum already...you aren't even a conscious part of the letter-forming process anymore. You had to go back to the basics: back to penmanship. There is no way around this other than to practice and unlearn your poor penmanship.

Roll back the clock to first grade. Now, here's some good material:
D'Nealian Practice Pages

Remember to scroll down that page to the manuscript pages with guides. Print those out and go to town. Fill up a set of those pages every day, and your handwriting WILL improve.

I'm not sure you know the meaning of word anarchy. How can a union of 25 governments passing laws which limit freedom be considered anarchy, when anarchy is the absence of government and laws? More information in the Anarchist FAQ.

Yes, I know that people (ab)use the word 'anarchy' when they actually mean 'chaos', but using fancy words does not make your point stronger if you don't know what they mean. If you mean 'chaos', then say 'chaos'.

For more details on Low Saxon, see this page. There's even a link to a map of the areas where it is spoken.

Absolutely assuming you have the money to drop on it duplications houses are the way to go definately. However if you are a small band like Factories => Shameless plug for my friends band then you can't get 200+ disks done at a time becaus eyou can't pay for it ... of course then you couldn't afford the printer and cfs either but think of it as a one time cost.

yeah its geocities :(

Some interesting notes on those you who shoot guns...

The habitual use of alcohol, coffee, tobacco and various drugs is harmful to the average person and in no way promotes better body function.

Enjoy!

Anyone seeking more free math textbooks should definitely check out this and this.

If you are looking for Textbooks, I think its worth giving this site a mention. It's the most comprehensive free mathematical textbook listing on the Internet, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Some people also find the resources offed by 'Got Math?' useful.

You mean one of these? You can't shock people with them but you can give them a nasty burn :)
Lighting candles with this thing isn't easy, unless you know plenty of campcraft as it only produces a glowing ember, like flint and steel or rubbing two sticks together.

My all time favorite videogame, Killer Instinct came with a warning sticker about the possibility of causing seizures in people who had certain medical conditions. That game was released nearly 10 years ago.

Nintendo may not be perfect, but come on now. People who have seizures know the risks of playing video games.

LK

Ok, you win. This has to be a terminology problem Let's reformulate: There is no GSM network in the US, because according to your specs they would have to provide SIMS, and none of them does. So those AT&T phones we're talking about are not GSMs. End of argument.

You're either incredibly foolish or a troll (my money is on the latter), but I'll reply anyway: YES there ARE GSM networks in the U.S.A. and YES every single one of them sells phones that require SIM (subscriber identity module) cards. As other posters who are actually clued in have noted, it's part of the GSM spec for a phone to have a SIM card.

There were two types of SIM cards: the original, old Type I cards, which looked like a credit card, and the newer Type II cards, which are the thumbnail-sized cards. You can see pretty pictures here. Type I cards haven't been used since the mid-90s. The last Type I-accepting phone I remember seeing was (IIRC) a GSM Motorola StarTac.

The only major GSM carrier in the U.S.A. until 3 or 4 years ago was Voicestream (Western Wireless), which became T-Mobile after the Deutsche Telekom buyout. As part of the upstart of 2.5G services here in the U.S., other companies such as AT&T and BellSouth started building up GSM networks.

You can see the "proof" that they're GSM networks by Googling for "BellSouth GSM" or "AT&T GSM." Other proof that there are GSM phones: I just took the battery off my Sony Ericsson T68i and...suprise! A GSM SIM card! Just like the ones I used to put in the back of every customer's phone back when I was a VoiceStream dealer. Just like the GSM SIM cards inside every single "next generation" AT&T phone, and every single T-Mobile phone. So forth and so on ad nauseum.

In related news, I've blacklisted you for making repeated stupid statements without taking 10 seconds to STFG.

Real Mode support was still in the OS, but turned off. See Real DOS-Mode Patch for Windows Millennium By Reines [MFD] (that's for dos booting), and Overview of Real Mode Removal from Windows Millennium Edition. Apparently Windows ME also used a VM to run DOS programs. (See second link.) Incidentally in my experience NT 3.51 was more reliable (on appropriate hardware - it did get left behind) than NT 4.0 because they merged two of the memory spaces in it in order to improve speed. Windows 2000, of course, is one of the best Windows(tm) OSes yet, and IMO Windows XP is just as good (there's some new bloat, but you can shut it off, and lose only disk space)

How long before the petrol lobbyists get governments to make electric cars illegal?...

It will probably go the way of the GM and Ford electric cars or the ceramic engine...

"since when was "using a computer to commit a crime" a crime?"

It was news about a year ago (maybe less) -- it's just an excuse to treble the punishment for no good reason. At the time, people noted that pretty much everything uses a computer (paying by visa, etc.), but others noted that the U.S.' main industry now is prisons, so they can only benefit from inventing stupid "crimes".

The question that's going to bug you is, is it a crime if you use a computer to commit a crime, when that crime is of using a computer to commit a crime?

Imagine the "$PREVIOUS_IDEA...using an internet" method of inventing things for a patent, then extend it to "$PREVIOUS_CRIME...using a computer"

If that's not enough of a circular argument for you, then see the story about the girl being arrested for "resisting arrest"... nice one if you can get away with it?