The what shut down, exactly?

I went with the first computer I actually owned, which had 16MB if I remember correctly - however this iPad has 32GB, and there's no 2000 option...

But I used personal computers for school and work earlier than that. First one was a Trash-80 of some sort; but it was pimped out with a whopping 64K! (again, IIRC)

The very first computer I ever used, though, was a PDP 11/40. I have no idea how much memory it had - but It handled Star Trek just fine.

Except for Root, of course. Like all high-functioning sociopaths, she started out on Windows but moved on to Linux.

Most of my wife's cop shows seem to exclusively show fictional hardware that has the Microsoft logo cut into the back of the desktop monitors and the laptop displays, along the lines of Apple's "apple". And when they use a phone, it's always a Windows phone.

Finch and Reese are both using Mac kit, though, while their nemeses are on Windows - that's good enough for me.

Taking my tongue back out of my cheek... It used to be said that Apple refused to pay for placement, but got a lot of free exposure anyway because TV and movie folks just liked Macs. However lately I often notice a lot of obvious Mac hardware where the show producers/directors went to some pains to make sure there's no glowing Apple...

Maybe they're afraid they'll take a further PR hit if a few million of these sit on eBay with a "Buy It Now" price of $29.99... and still nobody is buying them.

Problem is you've got it backwards. The problem wasn't from the point of view of Apple's license... it was from the GPL end. It was a VLC developer that requested it be removed.

There is lots of GPL licensed software on the iOS App Store - Apple doesn't care at all.

Now if you believe the GPL is incompatible with Apple's licenses AND if you think somehow that is Apple's problem... well, then, Ballmer had a point when he referred to the GPL as a "cancer".

While I don't disagree with your statement, I think "reeling from Watergate" was a much bigger problem for Gerald Ford than for Jimmy Carter.

Looking back, I think Ford actually deserves far more credit than he's been given for helping the country to start trusting its leadership again... Which is a funny statement to make, since we now find ourselves in another era where we can't trust our leaders to act in our best interests.

I was just entering adulthood when Carter became president, so I have some recollection of that time... and I've got to disagree with your use of the word "unfortunately".

I voted for him back then; I greatly respect his work with Habitat for Humanity; and I think he's spot-on with his comments about this particular topic. That said, he was a terrible president. He was a very intelligent man, but had absolutely no idea how to be a leader nor how to get anything done.

The submitter is looking for a code-based solution to a sociological/psychological problem, and it's just not going to be effective.

The real solution is to educate and train your users so they don't fall prey to these sorts of attacks. I know a lot of IT people aren't comfortable dealing with people, and I know it takes quite a bit of time and doesn't look as snazzy on your résumé - but, really, it's the best long-term approach.

After the PATRIOT act passed, one of the first attempted invocations was by Texas state Republicans attempting to track down Democratic members of their state congress who'd left the state in order to prevent the state senate and house from reaching quorum (They had to leave the state because otherwise Texas law enforcement personnel could compel them forcibly to return to the capitol).

Politicians will always misuse broad authority if given half a chance to do so.

How does that actually improve the situation, since we now know (from the leaked secret order to Verizon) that these court orders can and will make demands such as "give us the entirety of your traffic for the next three months"?

And I'm not picking on Microsoft - this question stands to ALL of these US-based companies.

That is one of the big issues with devices that, by design, freely offer up information to you rather than wait for you to retrieve it.

No, Apache ignores DNT from IE 10 basically because the head of Apache works for Adobe, and Adobe doesn't like the idea of users not being tracked by default.

FWIW I use Firefox on a Mac, and I disable third-party cookies and run Ad-Block Plus.

People who constantly blame everything on climate change - even events like hurricanes, where there is no scientific consensus on the matter - are as big a problem as the "I don't believe in global warming" crowd.

"The Rouge Rogue" sounds like a supervillian from the 1950s!