I would hardly classify ethernet as "necessary"; wifi serves the same purpose in most situations, and more conveniently. I honestly can't remember the last time I actually used the RJ45 port on a laptop (other than loading a software image as part of my tech support job).

And how often would you want to connect an external drive at the same time you need to connect the laptop for charging? I'll grant that only having a single multipurpose connection point (like the new 12" MacBook) could be a bit of a bother in situations like that, but I can't see it being an obstacle.

When the Acer guy says "PC" I'm pretty sure he's talking about the category of "computers that come with Windows installed". That's how consumers use the term.

I measure my altitude in reference to Lake Michigan-Huron, you insensitive clods!

Meanwhile, another person has dropped two different weights from the Tower of Pisa, and observed that they landed at the same time.

And this just in: high-resolution photos taken from the International Space Station appear to confirm that the Earth is approximately spherical in shape. Experiments intended to determine whether objects in motion tend to stay in motion, are underway.

I support this idea, for the simple reason that it will help keep Californians from trying to suck the Great Lakes dry instead.

The first step was pulling my head out of my ass. Let me know when you've finished that, and I'll walk you through the rest.

"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." – Wallace Stanley Sayre

Wikileaks performs an important public service ... and does it badly.

The U.S. Constitution recognizes that it is necessary to violate privacy to expose wrong-doing, but places limits on the government's authority to do so "unreasonably", because the very act of doing so can be harmful to those who are not guilty. We shouldn't applaud when a private entity violates others' privacy even more irresponsibly than the government.

One thing we've known for a long time is that a good half of them are sons of bitches.

I fail to see how forking GNU would help.

init? Why not systemd?

It would be nice to see a petition that instead makes a cogent, fact-based, reasoned argument against the COS's legal eligibility for tax-exempt status, rather than a rant consisting of a bunch of unproven allegations, unspecified accusations of government corruption that sound like they come from conspiracy nuts, some borderline libel, with a couple facts thrown in. It wouldn't be that difficult to do, and it might actually make it awkward for the White House to dismiss, rather than making it easy by inviting them to defend their tax status as an example of how the U.S. defends "oppressed" religions.

Only %1% can replace %1%.

Introduce him the same way I was: set him down in front of a keypunch machine with a big stack of blank cards.

"Unbiased and Honest" sounds like "Fair and Balanced".