Sure, if you are playing label music. There's plenty of good music out there that's not attached to the RIAA.

Huh? No, technology has advanced such that good musicians/songwriters/performers can become good acts without a middleman. That's all. The Labels are not becoming decentralized, they are becoming deprecated.

Six feet? Nah, just dust them over. They deserve to have their bones picked at.

Darwin will quickly show you the error of your ways.

What do you mean "was all about?" I think you mean "is all about."

They have not given up, they have just been using different acronyms.

When components like the motherboard start flaking out is when it starts getting expensive to do. Someone has to pay for the work - it may not be you, but the organization certainly pays those people and purchases the parts.

Failed hard drives happen to new machines. Failed motherboards should not.

Big wins? Everyone I know who's touched either hates them. The PHBs might love them, but the people who have to touch them certainly don't.

The original Sidewinder Precision Pro was awesome. The others, not so much - and MS dropped gameport support after XP (and the USB adapter did not use standard/HID protocols)

Thanks, MS. Thanks.

Sure, if the port was naked and hanging outside of the case, and there was no screen etc nearby. How about flash drives? Bluetooth dongles? I'm sure you've seen those tiny wireless mouse/keyboard connectors who have a casing at all (not just the port itself) simply to give you something to grasp for handling?

Come to think of it, I can't come up with a real reason either, only fuzzy things like "innocence" which are rooted in culture as well.

That, exactly, is what gives.

I like to point people at this nifty bit of reading.

Yes, because the same rules that apply to ending someone's life should apply to inconveniencing a website for a few minutes...

Even if they are morally right? I'd have a problem with that.

... and this is why people have been trying (unsuccessfully) to get the legislature to do something about the CFAA and such for years. It's massively abused, but nobody wants to fix it.