You're not very old, are you?

There were a lot of Sun people who celebrated the demise of Digital Equipment Corporation.

Well, what goes around comes around eventually. Sun got theirs, let them rot in pieces. They never made the impact that Digital did.

(and no, I'm not bitter about Sun. I'm waiting for HP's turn. It's coming...)

I was in Detention in 7th grade.

My teacher had a book "101 Basic Computer Games" on her desk. I was bored. I opened the book. I read the BASIC source code, and I thought "I can do that."

That was in 1975 or 1976. The rest is history.

not fiber. point to point laser and microwave links.

I believe you are referring to ultra-low-latency trading.

They prefer microwave links to fiber because the microwave signals propagate faster through air than light does through a glass fiber. Light travels through glass fiber at about 65% of c, which is also pretty comparable to the velocity of a electric signal in a transmission line (.65 to .75 c) (which is where Admiral Hopper ties in)

Microwave signals propagate though air at damned close to the speed of light, and the microwave signal paths are direct by necessity. That means the path can be significantly less than half the distance a cable (electric or optic) and the speed about 50% faster.

Optical paths are also used, they are by laser through the air. This has the same direct path, near c speed advantages as microwave.

I saw the Killer Robots. They opened for the B-52s at the House of Blues in Orlando.

They were... interesting. Why does the UN want to ban them? I've seen many worse bands.

systemd is best avoided. Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!

(pulseaudio, avahi, systemd. Why are these things all such a f*cking bear to deal with? Why, oh why?)

CentOS might work for you, if you don't feel the need to be completely modern. No systemd in Centos 6. I expect to see in in RHEL 7 / CentOS 7, though.

I'm just happy to hear other people had those issues and found a solution.
Nearly every person I see now with a Mac is so rabid, I don't know if the problems have been fixed, or just glossed over.

I constantly feel bad when the future I hoped and dreamed of as a kid becomes a shabby second-hand sort of reality.

This new UX fashion is like skinny jeans - it's not something I want, it's not something I get, and I just want everyone off my lawn :D

This is an article about "hearing loss." Much hearing loss is preventable.

Use hearing protection now.

Use hearing protection when running your leaf blower, weed whacker, power sander, lawn mower, and especially when making like a war-mongering imperialist at the shooting range. Use hi-fi hearing protection at rock concerts and loud clubs.

Once your hearing is damaged, it is not recoverable, unless you become The Bionic Woman -- and for about 50% of us, that is pretty much completely impossible.

Hearing protection is cheap. I like the Etymotic ER20 for rock concerts. Maybe I look silly wearing them. But... I can still hear after the show. I really don't care if people think I look silly. I've been to some literally deafening rock concerts, and my ears have suffered for it... Now I always bring (and wear!) my ear plugs to shows, And I use hearing protection when running noisy power equipment.

You can replace the batteries - I bought a little wrench off amazon to re-do the batteries in my Gameboy carts - worked great.
I think you can have it done to them for like $10 if you're not handy with solder.

The 12" Powerbook G4 was the end of my love affair with Apple. Every time I got an MBP, the dang thing would have some mechanical issue (catch fire, lose DVD inside, you name it). That G4 laptop though, it's still going strong with one simple keyboard replacement.

My wife wrote 5 books on the dang thing, too!

The one I use is gray, has a tiny bump connecting a mouse/keyboard PS/2 port, and cost like $20 at Fry's. No brand name, but it works like a champ.

Same here. I have three of these - the one I'm using right now I've used it daily since 1994. Got a 1997 at home, and a 1990 model in the closet waiting for one to die.

Apple receives patent #999666 for "power adaptor allows handheld device to be charged from AC mains" and patent #666999 for "Handheld device User-interface buttons".

I hope this is an April Fools joke. How long have cameras had a bayonet lens mount?

this "does not matter". it is sad, yes, but it does not matter. there are many worse things that happen every day. I do not visit slashdot for this kind of news. Samzenpus -- **you suck**. Thanks for wasting my time.