...But IMO this is one of the best aspects of trick-based card games, and part of the overall strategy. By rotating the dealer every hand everybody gets the chance to be the first and last bidder.

I like linux, I run linux exclusively at home, but I don't believe that this could be purely Windows' fault. If the computers truly are identical, swap hard drives and see if the 'good' computer now suddenly develops faults while running windows, or if it's a hardware problem.

1. I had to fix a script to unattended write a CD of data every day. The script was being run on a computer literally in the middle of a gold mine in Papua New Guinea. I wrote the script in the same location, which was a small (1mx2m) hut plonked right in the middle of the gold mine, with the acquisition system and 2x computers (one linux file server, one MS-DOS acquisition controller) running off a generator. This was for a system designed mid-late 90's and deployed in this instance in 2004.

2. We had borrowed a different acquisition system to acquire some data for a research project in an underground coal mine in NSW, Australia. We had some of the data in the supplied format we'd taken that day, I gave it to my boss and he then started to convert it into the format he could use for analysis. However, it was taking a minute to process each file using the supplied dos-based utility to convert the data, but each conversion needed a user to type the input file name, output file name, file type etc. Then wait for the conversion to run. Note that we had in the hundreds of files, so it would have taken hours to convert the data manually. I wrote a bash script to generate a keystroke-input file which I fed into a keyboard simulator running under dosbox to convert the files in one process. It worked first time, so instead of sitting there feeding the conversion program with input, my boss was able to go out to dinner instead...

3&4. Probably not so unusual, but the above was a strange combination: writing a bash script under linux to write a program to run under a keyboard-emulator in dosbox.

Well, technically out of business in a week plus five years, but I get your point.

Medicine.

Have you looked into a serial-to-ethernet converter, like the ones made by Moxa?

Reminds me of the Tim Minchin line: "You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine."

The best way to reduce overpopulation on the planet is, rather surprisingly, to educate and provide clean water for the third world. See Hans Rosler on TED.com.

OTOH, exactly how many hands do you have??

In Soviet Russia, first post gets you.

It's often more telling what is not on the reference than what is on there. Similarly, it's often more pertinent what is omitted in a reference than what is actually said.

...Except that you need the wifi switch to be able to use the laptop on most flights.

I recently had my eyes tested, and still have 'better' than 20/20 vision, something like 20/16 or so. The doc said that we don't lose our long vision as we get older, but we do lose our close up vision, so I may need glasses to read as I age further (I am just about 40), but should still retain that long vision for as long as I can still see.

I don't write java, but I have a standard set of bash scripts I use to generate boilerplate for a new set of c,h files from a template. Writing boilerplate in any language is just plain dumb, if it can be scripted (it often can IME).

I would argue that by lengthening the round trip time you're encouraging them to think about what they're doing rather than just try random things and see if it works.