how a prize named after Andrei Sakharov is gonna go over with Snowden's landlord, a veteran of the KGB that tormented Andrei Sakharov.

The "conference call" story was bullshit. http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/anatomy-of-an-al-qaeda-conference-call/

Quelle surprise.

Using Mint 13 LTS with Mate -- I had been using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, but they stopped updating it in any useful way. Mate is like an improved version of Gnome 2: not beautiful, but no drama, and it lets me easily put things in the panels. Most of what I do is writing, so I figure I'm good until 2015 or whatever.

I was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis one year after I dumped Windows XP for Linux. Coincidence, or punishment?

I am also allowed to make New Jersey jokes because I was born there.

Thanks. I think the Gnome developers should get together for a group picture. They'd sell a million dartboards. I'm just gonna stick with MATE.

We get 360 Kbps on a good day with Frontier DSL, the only choice aside from satellite. Frontier bought Verizon's rural operations a few years ago and they refuse to upgrade. You can pay more (~$60-70/mo.) for a "high-speed" tier, but people report that your speed actually drops. Frontier is scum, the poster child for crap internet service.

" In Linux or free unix desktop land you're a slave to software dependencies and chasing down half-assed solutions to common desktop application type tasks."

Name a few. Seriously. I've used linux for ten years and never spent time "chasing down half-assed solutions to common desktop application type tasks."

Drivers for obscure novelty items don't count.

by every lawyer she encountered. Swartz's family pleaded with her not to talk to them. She was an arrogant fool.

Wow. It's like Gnome 3 for keyboards. On the bright side, it will now be possible to drop your keyboard in the toilet.

They've actually been messing with the definition of a ThinkPad. The SL510, a decent consumer-grade machine that looks and feels like a ThinkPad, doesn't have ThinkPad firmware -- it's actually an IdeaPad under the skin. So the Thinkfan fan control utility in Linux doesn't recognize it.

Two words: scroll bars. Seriously, I write on it. For money. That's it. There's nothing 12.04 does that 10.04 doesn't that I really need.

I'm sure there are people out there who think M-series Leicas are ugly cameras, too.

I have two IBM Ultranav standalone PS-2 keyboards I use with desktops. They're essentially T43 keyboards with feet and cables. The lack of a solid base makes the feel considerably different from the real thing, but I like 'em. Lenovo makes a newer USB version without the trackpad, but I've never used one.

Oh yeah, I also replaced the LCD, which was insanely easy as long as you don't take the hardware manual seriously (they want you to disassemble the whole machine, including removing the keyboard -- why?).

Ubuntu 10.04 on a T60 runs fine, and it's the last decent version Ubuntu produced. I got my T60 refurbished, w/ a docking station, for less than $200. Clean, only moderate wear, upped the RAM. It's a dream to type on.