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Hmm. The court ruling glosses over this friendly sparring.

After the decree was approved, no major developments occurred in the case for the next several years. Until 1981, the entries in the court record[16] concern primarily the patent licensing provisions.[17]

139*139 This was the status of the Western Electric suit when the government filed a separate antitrust action on November 20, 1974, in this Court against AT & T, Western Electric, and Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. (Civil Action No. 74-1698).[18] The complaint in the new action alleged monopolization by the defendants with respect to a broad variety of telecommunications services and equipment in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act. In this lawsuit, the government initially sought the divestiture from AT & T of the Bell Operating Companies (hereinafter generally referred to as Operating Companies or BOCs)[19] as well as the divestiture and dissolution of Western Electric. While the action was pending, the government changed its relief requests several times asking, at various times or in various alternatives, for the divestiture from AT & T of Western Electric and portions of the Bell Laboratories.[20]

US v AT&T 552 F Supp 131 (1982)

Perhaps "Civil Action No. 74-1698" offers a clue?

If this post is accurate:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4339417&cid=45133031 ...which simply links here: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://analogaddiction.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/ps4-controller-03.jpg%3Fw%3D604%26h%3D402&imgrefurl=http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/179714/ps4-it-only-does-everything-for-399/p40&h=403&w=604&sz=17&tbnid=BKnH1bQnw-W1vM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&zoom=1&usg=__QVMeRlB5thbd6WBd0-p4eg4PDvE=&docid=sE8G7y1O1GNOjM&sa=X&ei=GWZdUoS3H4q0kAeamIDYCA&ved=0CD8Q9QEwBQ

Then it actually has a standard 2.5mm earphone/mic jack, very much like the xbox 360.

So, while I have no faith in Sony, I also think it's unlikely that it'll be difficult to support most headsets. They sell a lot of standard headsets too... why would they shoot themselves in the foot? And if it does need an adapter, then there's their money, and who cares what headset people use. It's all speculation at this point though.

Personally, I've found more fugly code turds in various closed source projects than I've touched than in the open source world.

Is code the only aspect of note in an open source project?

How is the project named? Is it something reminiscent of the function (like PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, Internet Explorer) or something entirely random, forcing more cognitive load on an uninformed user (Gimp, Firefox, Juice)? Does it have a newish, edgy name to give it that extra sizzle (pantyshot, upskirt).

How is the project configured? Is is a list of poorly-written technobabble? Does the installation instructions begin with the history of the project (of which I am not interested), require other packages which I have to research and choose, does it require cryptic installation actions and complex setup that has to be done by hand?

How does the project look? Are the panels laid out with ease-of-use in mind, or they just show everything and "let the user arrange them as they like"? Is the text font and color scheme appropriate, or is it default, the user can choose the one they like?

Are there lots of icons for every little action, no matter how small (the "kitchen sink" philosophy), or is there a well-chosen subset that balances functionality with ease-of-use? Do the icon shapes bring the function to mind, or are they more-or-less random shapes that rely on popups to tell the user what they do?

Is the documentation well-written by people who are good at explaining things, or is it just a wiki editable by anyone, maintained by the users, with no real structure?

Has the code been tested by someone who is not the lead coder (and not the users)? Does the project use regression tests?

Yeah, nice code you've got there. If that's all I wanted in a product, yours would be a slam dunk.

At least their advertisements say so: http://books.google.com/books?id=gzAEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false

See this image

A repost of a Google+ post I wrote a year and some change ago:

---

From today forward, all federal government expenditures will be priced in "Iraq War Days" (IWD) or "Iraq War Years" (IWY). For quick reference:

• - MSL mission w/ Curiosity rover: 3.5 IWD
• - Cost of giving $10 to all 312M US citizens: 4.33 IWD
• - 2012 "General Science, Space and Technology" budget: 43.04 IWD
• - Cost of giving $100 to all 312M US citizens: 43.3 IWD
• - 2012 Welfare budget: 210.3 IWD (0.6 IWY)
  • ~ Computed as 26% of the 2012 "Income Security" budget
  • ~ Includes TANF (22%) welfare, SNAP (70%) and WIC (8%) food stamps
  • ~ All ratios from 3rd party analysis of 2010 data; see "How much do we REALLY spend on Welfare?"
• - 2012 "Medicare" budget: 672.9 IWD (1.8 IWY)
• - Cost of giving $2250 to all 312M US citizens: 975 IWD (2.7 IWY)
• - 2012 "National Defense" budget: 994.9 IWD (2.7 IWY)
• - 2012 "Social Security" budget: 1081 IWD (3.0 IWY)
• - 2012 Total budget: 4986 IWD (13 IWY)

Source: "United States Federal budget, 2012" and "Mars Science Laboratory" pages on Wikipedia for budgets, google.com/publicdata for US population, National Priorities Project via "Cost of War" Wikipedia page for IWD exchange rate.

---

Something I didn't note in my original post that's probably worth mentioning in passing: Social Security is huge, "bigger than the National Defense budget" huge, but it's basically self-funding because it's a retirement investment paid for by payroll taxes (modulo population bumps, e.g. the post-WW2 "baby boom"). Person A pays in, person A cashes out, theoretical net cost to taxpayers $0.

A repost of a Google+ post I wrote a year and some change ago:

---

From today forward, all federal government expenditures will be priced in "Iraq War Days" (IWD) or "Iraq War Years" (IWY). For quick reference:

• - MSL mission w/ Curiosity rover: 3.5 IWD
• - Cost of giving $10 to all 312M US citizens: 4.33 IWD
• - 2012 "General Science, Space and Technology" budget: 43.04 IWD
• - Cost of giving $100 to all 312M US citizens: 43.3 IWD
• - 2012 Welfare budget: 210.3 IWD (0.6 IWY)
  • ~ Computed as 26% of the 2012 "Income Security" budget
  • ~ Includes TANF (22%) welfare, SNAP (70%) and WIC (8%) food stamps
  • ~ All ratios from 3rd party analysis of 2010 data; see "How much do we REALLY spend on Welfare?"
• - 2012 "Medicare" budget: 672.9 IWD (1.8 IWY)
• - Cost of giving $2250 to all 312M US citizens: 975 IWD (2.7 IWY)
• - 2012 "National Defense" budget: 994.9 IWD (2.7 IWY)
• - 2012 "Social Security" budget: 1081 IWD (3.0 IWY)
• - 2012 Total budget: 4986 IWD (13 IWY)

Source: "United States Federal budget, 2012" and "Mars Science Laboratory" pages on Wikipedia for budgets, google.com/publicdata for US population, National Priorities Project via "Cost of War" Wikipedia page for IWD exchange rate.

---

Something I didn't note in my original post that's probably worth mentioning in passing: Social Security is huge, "bigger than the National Defense budget" huge, but it's basically self-funding because it's a retirement investment paid for by payroll taxes (modulo population bumps, e.g. the post-WW2 "baby boom"). Person A pays in, person A cashes out, theoretical net cost to taxpayers $0.

fiat: a formal authorization or proposition; a decree.

Since the delay of the employer mandate was literally done via a formal decree from President Obama, I'm not sure why you're objecting to the OP's language choice...

NSA bribes a Brazilian IT worker involved in the Brazilian Federal Secure Email System.

...but lawyers say as one of a series it confirms there is no longer any debate about the benefits of the vaccine.

No, it doesn't. The question of the benefits of the vaccine is a scientific question best left up to science, not lawyers, to decide. What this series of cases confirms is simply that people no longer have a right to opt out of vaccination.

New Hampshire recognizes a right of conscience to opt out of vaccines. It's in statute as a religious exemption (RSA 141-C:20-c, II) and backed up by our state constitution, Part I, Arts. 4 and 5. There's a well-organized movement here to improve the law to allow people to opt out of vaccines without resorting to the "all-or-nothing" religious exemption, for example, with HB1555 (2010). Perhaps this family ought to immigrate here and seek asylum like that homeschooling family from Germany.

Android isn't designed to run Eclipse

It is, however, designed to run AIDE.

On the other hand, I suspect its as likely to be host-dated Ass Covering as anything else.
When they start looking back that far, the finger of blame will fall on the CIA, because everyone from then on forward will point to the CIA, and say we relied on them.

Meanwhile, the CIA's own former employees have Awarded Snowden with a Sam Adams "Integrity in Intelligence" award, indicating more than a little dissatisfaction with the methods of the Agency among some of the people who know it best.

The US and UK would have been happy to let it die, but the Russians and Chinese won't let it.

China and Russia spying at Cold War levels : US spy chief
Number of Russian spies in the UK back to Cold War levels, say security services

You must be kidding. Microsoft Word has far more formatting capabilities than any HTML + CSS content I'm familiar with. Try creating text with a multi-coloured gradient fill and a drop shadow.

That'd be the linear-gradient and box-shadow CSS elements, respectively.

Try representing a complex mathematical equation.

You mean like MathML? That one's not quite as supported, I'll admit, mostly because nobody really wants it in their browser in the first place.

Try inserting a pie chart.

Okay, now you're really losing track of the concept of a "document". You're also being a bit of a dick by jamming in really specific use cases most people don't care about. But regardless, that's what things like Google Charts is for.

Try inserting a date field that updates automatically.

That'd be pretty simple in the domain of JavaScript, yes. If you start complaining that HTML documents should be static and shouldn't be running code in their presentation, I would counter that neither should office documents, but you seem to consider THAT to be a STRENGTH of MS Word for some reason.

Try rotating a block of text by an arbitrary number of degrees.

Sounds like you want the transform CSS element; rotation is one of its simpler tools. Others include skewing, vector transformation, scaling, and arbitrary matrix transforms.

Then consider that fact that many people using word processors in business today are capable of doing all these things without knowing a single thing about coding.

...people using word processors in BUSINESS have need to dump hideous multi-color gradients, rotated text, and drop shadows in their BUSINESS documents? That, sir, is not an endorsement of MS Word. That is an indictment against the current state of business, a state for which MS Word is to BLAME.

But anyway, here's a few WYSIWYG editors to do just that. Note that some of them are even Microsoft products! How 'bout that?

No, I'd say that the problem isn't HTML + CSS's limitations. As implied in your second sentence, the problem is that you just plain and simply aren't familiar with much HTML + CSS content.

The facts that I mention are straight from the papers, Russian involvement at various points is clear. The only real question is, was it planned ahead of time, or were the Russians simply nimble enough on their feet to exploit an incredible opportunity when it fell into their lap? Either is possible. For what it is worth, Russian spies are as active as they were during the Cold War.

China and Russia spying at Cold War levels : US spy chief
Number of Russian spies in the UK back to Cold War levels, say security services

You are quite right about the wobble effect used to help find candidates. It's extremely difficult to get direct pictures, however we have done it. Since it sounds like you have some interest in the subject I'll provide some links for you to read on. Interestingly enough the planet first planet we directly pictured had been captured by Hubble and overlooked for years as we didn't have the technique for combing through the data at the time!

http://www.universetoday.com/26353/new-technique-allows-astronomers-to-discover-exoplanets-in-old-hubble-images/

I like the list of habitable exoplanets, as this is where the future of humanity has to go someday.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/bad_astronomy/2012/11/exoplanet_pictures_astronomers_have_photos_of_alien_planets.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2452217/A-lonely-planet-Giant-gas-world-sun-orbit-floating-space.html

http://www.google.com/imgres?biw=1920&bih=963&tbm=isch&tbnid=kjlHVn7dUiT4lM:&imgrefurl=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3453478/First-direct-pictures-of-planets-outside-our-solar-system.html&docid=WY-uZHkJtvY5FM&imgurl=http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01113/HR_8799_1113907c.jpg&w=460&h=288&ei=qp5aUonvOYnM9QTa1IHICw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:89,s:0,i:354&iact=rc&page=3&tbnh=178&tbnw=284&start=76&ndsp=38&tx=85&ty=84

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/nov/13/first-bona-fide-direct-images-of-exoplanets

Looks like Merck as well.

In fact, Merck is trying to sell the place (stock not doing quite as well as AAPL). I'm sure Apple could clean up the place for considerably less than $5B.

If only there was some way you could go horizontally without investing in crazy building-wide single-point-of-failure infrastructure like a mile-long moving walkway.

It's also not like this is the world's first long building. The USAA building in San Antonio is one of the longest buildings in the world. I hear that new employees get a guide assigned to them for their first week so that they don't get lost in the twisty maze of hallways that all look alike.

Maybe, if they got my clear, express consent by some means other than obscure fine print buried in a multi-page TOS.

In this case, they're getting your consent by putting a big blue notification bar on every single Google page you visit, until you click on it to see the terms, which are presented in a single page of clear English, with a nice three-bullet summary at the top, with a sub-bullet that gives you a direct link to the opt in/out.

Really, I don't know how it could have been made any clearer.

Don't worry, Android has been crashing for years. It's so common it doesn't get a slashdot headline.

Aereo has no right to profit from the significant money spent and effort made to deliver the broadcast signals in the first place. Not without compensation.

The courts have so far, begged to differ. In the now-famous CableVision case, the court concluded that Cablevision's offer of a 'cloud DVR' product was legitimate: although Cablevision's hardware was making what would (otherwise) be illicit copies, it was operating as a direct extension of the customer's record and playback requests. Just a DVR; but with the hardware offsite rather than in a set top box.

Aereo specifically designed their service to follow the same model: Aereo operates banks of antennas at their facilities, each customers is allocated(possibly dynamically; but always 1-to-1 at any given time) their own antenna and their own DVR/buffer storage, effectively creating an OTA set top box, just with the video being transported over an IP link, rather than a meter of HDMI cable, and user inputs also going over the internet rather than over IR.

So far, the courts' response has been favorable (if sometimes bemused), in the various markets that Aereo has expanded into. They've been sued in every venue, and prevailed.

Android 4.3 has a form to turn permissions on and off for individual apps; it's just hidden. Install App Ops Starter.

Chill out, dude.

Switching search engines because of HTTPS is a completely 90s thing to do. In 2013 it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Really?. A lot of those hits are quite recent. I'm not stricly blaming https necessarily either. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm slinging everything through a HOSTS file, NotScript, and Flash blocker. Once again, I don't care about the bloody NSA or even some wanker who might want to say, "look at all that dudes gay searches" because I can't do anything about somebody who is really, Really, REALLY determined to frame me or embarrass me. Those are political issues, not technical issues. The Internet is a postcard. I care about performance and not having my machine bogged down with scripts, Flash, exploits, ads, etc. If not blocking those things makes the web unusable, and blocking them makes the web too slow, then I'm drawn towards a sad conclusion: The web is dead to me. Anyway, I digress. It's not stupid. The https may not be the actual problem; it might be the combination of https, Chroms, plug-ins, and Google's search pages. I don't care that much. Just because I'm a geek doesn't mean I find *all* technical problems interesting. If switching off https fixes it for reasons that have nothing to do with https itself, then fine. Now that that's settled, we can all get on with our lives.

On top of the corrections that the others have heaped on here, you've got some misconceptions about QM and chemistry.

the new electrical interaction with the other atom would cause the electrons' WF to collapse and molecules wouldn't form.

Uh, it's not like molecules can't form if there's not some QM going on. "Having a waveform" isn't, like, a requirement for forming molecules. I'm not sure that sort of idea even makes sense. But say you're measuring how many molecules there are. The waveform definitely has to collapse once you know how many molcules there are. Or a version of you knows a discreet number in one of the worlds that was spawned.

as the electrons' wave functions immediately collapse and the electrons spiral into the nucleus.

Yeah, the collapse doesn't really have that sort of effect on the atom. The waveform is a collection of everywhere the electron could be. When it collapses, it chooses one. I mean, I guess one of those possibilities could be the start of... what is that? Lowering it's energy state? Yeah, that's possible, but there has to be a reason it does that. Like, if it's an atom in the middle of a lightning strike. The vast majority of the waveform is going to have the electron jumping to a higher energy state, on account of all that energy around it, but there's a chance it'll go lower.

Anyway, there's a question out there about how big the system can get before a collapse. You seem to think that individual electrons have to collapse because they're interacting with the nucleus. But no, the waveform can encompass the entire atom. It doesn't matter how the electron interacts with the nucleolus, the whole thing is in superposition until it interacts with something. How big does that go? if a whole atom what about molecules? What about people? Planets? Answer: I dunno. But it appears that QM effects are constrained to small things. But, since all larger things are made up of smaller things, those effects propagate, we see the butterfly effect, and the whole world cannot be considered to be deterministic. It's more like probabilistic. Life is a pachinko game.

but we have observed quantum behaviour in things as big as a virus

Huh, really? That's neat. Got a link? I mean, news about the physicists gearing up to do that experiment made the rounds around 2009. But I can't seem to find out their results. Indeed, this article from 2012 seems to imply that the German and Spanish guys failed. Still, in 2012 they showed QM effects on a molecule of 100 atoms (a far cry from the billion of atoms that a virus has) which is something.

God, I need to read more about this. Apparently this is one of those points of contentions that has been around forever:
QM observer
Mind-body
Wigner's Friend Which, as a thought experiment, includes a separate person in the system existing in quantum superposition (IE, it has a waveform to collapse).

But I think it's put to rest by the many-world interpretation. It offloads the question of "which one happens when?" to "well if they all happen, which one do I/we experience?". You know, I really don't have the math or physics chops to really understand all this, but the many-world interpretation feels to jive more with the rest of what I know. That's kind of the definition of a bias, but meh.

https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Awrong

Your links back up everything he said. An optimistic estimate puts break even at 10 years. To be realistic you'd need to be prepared to go over that estimate.

I assure you, ANYTHING could improve this scenery.

https://www.google.com/maps?q=32%C2%B055%E2%80%B2N+112%C2%B058%E2%80%B2W&ie=UTF8&t=m&z=13

There's a long term cost here which isn't just measured in lives ... likely to hit hundreds of billions of dollars

Funny, I usually hear this meme the other way around. Try and google measured in dollars:

Not all that matters is measured in dollars
Success is not measured in dollars
The true cost of war is not measured in dollars
Our lives are not measured in dollars
Benefits cannot be measured in dollars
College value is not measured in dollars

Now Fukushima. Of Fukushima, you say "the cost isn't just measured in lives. Think of the dollars."

Why is that, Serious Callers Only? Too few injuries for your liking? Not enough dead? 15000 people died in a tsunami. Thousands die annually from coal mining. From skin cancer from sunburn. From lung cancer from smoking. But only two people got beta burns at Fukushima, got treated at hospital and went home. And now probably do non-nuclear work back at TEPCO. And all over the world, slashdotters and bloggers are crying "OH NOES! THE FACTS DOES NOT SUPPORT MY WORLDVIEW!"

Well if the facts don't support your worldview, one of them must be wrong. And you know what? It ain't the fucking facts.

So GET A GRIP. ON REALITY. Sometime. SOON.

I don't know about therapy in general, but I did find some interesting material about pseudoscience in mental health.

Anecdotally, my parents sent me to a child psychologist when I was about 8, presumably because I wasn't handling their divorce the way they expected (I wasn't bothered by it because I knew everyone would be happier that way, which is apparently considered quite an odd attitude for a kid that age)... While I question the validity of sending a rather well-adjusted kid to such a professional, it was nice to have someone outside the family I could talk to about stuff.

I will say, though, the increasing prevalence in diagnosing children with previously unheard of conditions does seem to be an excuse to avoid taking responsibility by doping the poor little buggers out of their brains. Considering that most of the mass killings in recent history has been performed by people who have prescriptions for mood-altering drugs like Zoloft, it's fair to question the validity of today's mental health diagnosis, as well as the system in general.

Try the "Let's Print Droid" app. It works great for me printing to my Brother HL2070N wireless laser printer.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackspruce.lpd&hl=en

There has been similar experiments in some tough neighborhoods in France. Some security providers such as GPIS are hired to patrol and prevent violence. They don't carry guns, but I'm not sure about nightsticks.

I'm curious to see how well it's been working.

Here's a translated article on the topic.

Also, there is an interesting TED talk by Gary Slutkin which talks about experiments in solving violence problems with peaceful interventions (interrupters, mediators). If it works, this could be a valuable effort to crowdsource for some neighborhoods.

I just had to google for "Spiegel raid" and found this newspaper article from 1962:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19621107&id=vMAtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Cp4FAAAAIBAJ&pg=7169,1419811

Attacks against freedom of the press can stay in people's memory for a very, very long time.

My answer is: Apple doesn't have a design patent on rounded corners and never claimed to have one

D670,286. Dotted lines are not part of the claimed patent. The only solid lines in that patent are: 1 rectangle with rounded corners. 1 rectangle inside the rounded one for the screen.

They simply show a diagram of an iPad and claim a design patent on anything that could be confused with it. "Rounded corners" does not appear in the claim list at all. One could create a new device whose corners were a different radius and it wouldn't infringe. (Plus, this patent has never been tested in court-- the Samsung trial used much more complete patented renderings, and claimed software similarities while this is a hardware design patent.)

Which is why I mentioned photons and brightness. And YES you can have a microwave energy "camera" https://www.google.com/search?q=microwave+camera

I'm reminded of Kelly F in this post http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/Qly1p2sE394 Shall we take the 10, one by one? 1. Please why can't I have "search within results"?

It is called a Faraday Cage and it works very well at blocking RF signals. Pix....

I helped assemble one many years ago. There was an FM radio inside the cage that would receive the local campus station quite well...until the cage door was closed, then would just hiss.

My answer is: Apple doesn't have a design patent on rounded corners and never claimed to have one

D670,286. Dotted lines are not part of the claimed patent. The only solid lines in that patent are: 1 rectangle with rounded corners. 1 rectangle inside the rounded one for the screen.

Mostly because I used to work on Chrome but I like gyp. It will generate projects for XCode and Visual Studio so developers on those platforms can use the tools they're comfortable with. It will also generate projects for Ninja which is much faster than Make.

You don't suspend laws by refusing the fund the government.

How do you feel about Obama suspending laws by refusing to enforce them? Hmm?

I'm not sure which stock you're looking at. Although not doubled, it's gone from around $17 to $27.

"Any idiot can solve 100-(20/(37-5)*100) especially if they have a calculator."

What are these slash and star things? How do I do parentheses on my calculator?

My point being: You're more right than you know. Even in a raw algebraic manipulation, reading & writing the individual symbols carefully is a required skill, and beyond the capacity of a surprising number of people. Given that grammar is frequently no longer taught or assessed in language courses, math class becomes the only place where careful attention to written detail is necessarily practiced.

Well, maybe not with a calculator, but with google even I can solve it.

This was done in Canada, and it worked just like you described. I always wondered why the US didn't do it the same way.

The usual reason: lobbyists for companies who sell materials to make paper money paid Congress more than the lobbyists for metal mining companies did https://www.google.com/url?url=http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_114/Dollar-Fight-Is-Paper-Vs-Metal-213304-1.html&rct=j&sa=U&ei=7rBUUuz3Nu2p4APt8YDYAw&ved=0CBwQFjAB&q=senate+house+paper+money+lobby+&usg=AFQjCNEHaDp5HF3HZdzbXy5GpjA5ZTrONQ

Since two Paneras* in a row were "unable" to connect me to the Internet for hours on end (spare me the peak hours jazz, even then you are supposed to get 1/2 hr. and I was able to connect to other nearby networks) I stick to Starbucks when I want to work away from the house.

Starbucks? Hell, I go to McDonalds, a buck for a coffee (that's before my geezer discount). OK, not really, I go to a a redneck bar in the ghetto whose motto is "Got Guts?" ($1.25 drafts) Caddycorner from an Outlaws motorcycle club headquarters. I wrote most of Nobots there (out soon, need cover art and it's done).

WiFi? I know the owner and have the password.

You guys need to learn how to stop wasting money. I need to get the password to George Ranks from them, I think I'm in range here...

(495/128 and the spoke roads...93, 2, 3, 90, etc are why Boston is referred to as "The Hub")

No they're not.

It's from Holmes' "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table":

"Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar."

Bostonians have long been known for their provincialism, and why not? Everywhere else just isn't interesting, important, or worth going to.

And has exciting-but-not-yet-fully-proven correlations with a variety of nasty human psych disorders! No overt mind control; but Team Epidemiology has given us some reason to suspect that rodents and crazy cat ladies aren't the only mammals it infects...

I recall reading that there's some evidence that certain varieties of schizophrenia are essentially the symptoms of toxoplasmosis infection, to such an extent that treatment with drugs designed to kill toxoplasmosis cures some patients of schizophrenia.

See Google for more.

Where does this myth come from

Since the late 90s there have been mumblings ("Someone I know who works at MS said they knew someone who said...") that code from BSD TCP/IP stack was in Windows but there was never any proof. Some speculated that because they were susceptible to some of the same vulnerabilities they must share common code but there were some vulnerabilities that affected the Windows TCP/IP stack not the BSD one (and vice versa) so this seems unlikely.

In 2001 the FreeBSD folks decided to search for proof but other than utilities nothing much was found. You can even see them correcting the "Windows uses the BSD TCP/IP stack" misconception years later.

Around the same time an article saying Microsoft uses open source code was published in the Wall Street Journal. Here's a quote:

Software connected with the FreeBSD open-source operating system is used in several places deep inside several versions of Microsoft's Windows software, such as in the "TCP/IP" section

This assertion is somewhat broard but it was enough to kick off a new round of speculation and rebuttals with regard to the Windows TCP/IP stack but everyone loves a good tale so the counterclaims are less well known. Perhaps this would qualify as a Snopes urban myth.

[H]ow did it end up being passed of as fact on wikipedia?

Who says Wikipedia only consists of facts? :-) Nothing saves you from having to use critical analysis on sources, especially since anyone can edit Wikipedia but I will note there is a citation needed link further down on that page.

All the above sources were found via a Google Windows/BSD stack query so with these starter links and a quick search you're now well armed to correct Wikipedia and anyone else who repeats this rumour. Welcome to the club!

1GHz arm of some sort,

Specifically a cortex A8.

512MB RAM, 2GB flash storage onboard, more through SD slot.

Correct

Ethernet that isn't a hackjob attached to USB

Though there were some teething problems with the driver when I tried it, not sure if they have been sorted yet.

USB (host and device)

Indeed and unlike the original white beaglebone there isn't a stupid hub sitting between the device port on the IC and the connector.

HDMI

It does but the capabilities of that port are somewhat limited compared to the one on the Pi, some discussion at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/4vge3Zs8dYE

an asston of i/o compared to pi.

Much of which conflicts with either the EMMC (the onboard flash you talk about) or the HDMI framer.

mounting holes aren't a fucking afterthought.

Indeed

has two microcontrollery type peripherals (on die) for delegating low level IO stuff to. I haven't played with that, but it sounds like it could be pretty useful.

Indeed though when I did a quick search it seems you have to program them in their own assembler :/

You must not know about go pills.

Your link doesn't paint a full picture. Miley Cyrus isn't even searched as much as minecraft.

Miley Cyrus vs Minecraft Vs Fusion

Let's correct what you wrote -

It was designed by the copyright industry so that they can control everything. It has an encrypted signal.

It really is that simple. The people that would be offering the content designed the spec for the cable and port for the express purpose of restricting and preventing you from freely using it. Instead of bitching about something, research it and look it up. Your hypothesizing if something that was designed by the media cartels and the tech companies for the express purpose of preventing fair use might have been designed for this purpose!