I, Steve Wozniak, did not participate in the theft of the BASIC. It was funny to me to see others enjoying doing this. I had never used BASIC myself, at that time, only the more-scientific languages like Fortran, Algol, and PL-1, and several assembly languages. I sniffed the air and sensed that you needed BASIC to sell computers into homes, because of the book 101 Games in BASIC. I loved games and saw games as the key. It was the [MS] BASIC that inspired me to write a BASIC interpreter for my 6502 processor, in order to have a more useful computer.

It's hard to find people with Tim Berners-Lee's integrity. We should 'own' our own lives. It's a lot deeper than just being watched.

Who says I didn't have the money to do so? I didn't go into that at all. But since you're curious I'll explain: Yes I had the money to buy one outright, but an interest-free loan was available and I took advantage of it. Had I purchased it outright, then had an expense outside of that like a car-repair, THAT would have had to come out of my interest-charging credit card and ... while I didn't actually check on it, I'm pretty sure Apple/Goldman would not have given me a similar payment plan for the car repair.

I went to an Apple Store purchase an iPad with an Apple Card last year, I wanted to take advantage of paying it off within a year no interest. At the moment of checkout Goldman declined me and wouldn't tell me why. After two days and several scattered phone calls they claimed that it was unusual activity on my account. I pointed out to them that I had successfully purchased and paid off 3 other items on the same payment plan, and that their assertion that my activity was unusual was absurd.

I'll spare you the blow by blow because I know it's boring, but ultimately Goldman Sachs held to their position that they did the right thing, and Apple had to come to the rescue. They talked to each other a bit and I finally got my device on the payment plan I wanted.

I'm greatly looking forward to Goldman getting out of the picture. They really did try to spin it to me like the inconvenience they caused me was somehow something I should be happy about. "This happens because we're diligent about catching fraud!" "But, you didn't."

For 20 years, plus or minus, personal computers reversed that idea.

Even when their motivation to suddenly redraw electoral maps is to distract from shielding high-ranking sex-traffickers from justice? Okay, Groomer.

I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.

I'm not. I'm saying it's being sabotaged. You've acknowledged that, too, so it's not like we're in disagreement. Am I supposed to appreciate what hasn't been damaged/destroyed, or should I be advocating against doing that damage?

Have you been paying attention to the news this year?

Heh. Admitting.

Not really sure why this was -1, it's a pretty good play-by-play of what happened. Was it a day out of date, perhaps? Maybe they should have added an extra step: "...announce AI girlfriends to distract the news cycle from MechaHitler...."

Um, kay, you have a brain. Please continue to surpass us with your super-human Elon-assessing powers.

My FB feed is full of anti-solar, pro-petroleum memes. "Wind Turbines use oil, that somehow means they're worse than gas-cars!", "Solar panels give babies cancer!", "Mining vehicles destroy entire mountains to produce a sugar-cube's worth of rare earths!"...that sort of thing. A lot of the memes are fairly obvious trolls, but lots of dum dums fall for them anyway. I wouldn't go as far as to say these are protestors like you're thinking of, but are there those that oppose anything? Yep, just like you said. I'm pretty certain this is the sort of thing that has affected how people vote.

My favorite troll-meme on this topic features an EV on the side of the road being recharged by a gas-powered generator. Sure enough people come along, pointing and laughing at the EV needing gas to proceed. Then the trolls come out asking those peeps if their car is diesel, like the generator. Heh. I'm not saying it's never happened, but I personally haven't seen anybody go "yes, my car is diesel" yet. Again, this is FB, not the best-of-the-best at attracting reasoned debate.

You know what, I'll grant you that. I was thinking "post" and not "assertion", but that's not what I wrote so you can have that. Note that the sky didn't fall on me when I admitted to being wrong and that I didn't need to blame you or Biden for it. ;)

I'll correct my remark: "You made an assertion about Biden causing 'real damage' and used a claim from Alberta to support it. Yadda yadda yadda.