Ah...Ground Launched Cruise Missiles...BGM-109. Played with them in Belgium in the USAF in 1987 & 1988 until the INF treaty sent me home a civilian.

Plus ca change, plus c'est les meme choses indeed.

After 12 years of trying to get cable service 5 power poles up my road via 3 diff companies (Adelphia, Time Warner, and now Spectrum), there was some hope this March. On a whim I called the # for Spectrum I just saw on TV, the CSR says "Oh yeah, we just opened up that service area to new orders and you are the first!". "Great, Let's do it!" I said. "2 weeks....blah blah blah". 3 weeks later, no return call, so I call... "Oh, your address is un-serviceable," they say. "Three weeks ago you said I was," I reply. Unfortunately it was on a weekend, got transferred to 2 other CSRs, the last of which attempted to be helpful as he could, but still no real answers. I just wanted them to keep to their word.

Off go complaints to the Attorney General's office and the NYS Rural Broadband Commission (especially appropriate, I thought, because Gov Cuomo announced that Phase 3 was 100% successful (how could it be, I still don't have this "broadband" they are speaking of)).

Got a phone call from the Rural Broadband Commission in May explaining that the TWC/Charter/Spectrum deal wasn't part of the Rural Broadband Initiative. Great. But if we are absolutely unservicable, by the end of the year, they will make a deal available from Hughesnet (which we currently have, at 1.5mbps at best...albeit gen3 if it's called that). Ok, not ideal, but something a _little_ better (same abysmal latency but theoretically faster, still not all-you-can-eat).

Then we get a visit from one of Charter's construction/survey dept reps in late May, sees what needs to be done, and says you'll have service in Dec/Jan. Woot!

I've been carrying around and bragging about 2 letters I got around June 6, in the same envelop. One from the Attorney General, saying Charter's response to my complaint is enclosed. Charter's letter says construction will be completed in Jan 2019, but the timeline is subject to change. Yay! I have it in writing!!!!

Yeah, right. Thanks. Heard the news yesterday on the radio, and immediately knew those letters were now null and void.

How about those cross-country water pipelines?

Oh, not as valuable as oil yet?

Saved up the $500 from my first summer job after my freshman year in high school in '80. Just looked it up on oldcomputers.net and learned more than I knew. Installed the RS232 card by unplugging the 8080, plugging it into the card, and plugging the card into the empty processor socket. Game controllers were funky...digital direction and an analog knob at the top of the stick. BASIC was a little like the CoCo, especially the graphics (x,y,color,something...or was it x,y,fg,bg?), but different enough to find it painful to convert. I think it overheated due to the very solid metal box the mainboard was contained in. Was forgotten when family for a ][e in '83. WHEE!!!

I for one, look forward to be electrocuted in loyal service to a totalitarian new world order. This way, they can exert a greater control over their treasonous subjects!

I certainly hope the recent slander from Snowden will not stop the NSA and other semi-autonomous government organs around the world from keeping a full record of all traces of substances which are found on my body, each time I travel. That will be great in case someone in power is ever questioned and would need to put the offending party in prison or at least character assassinate them!

BTW "Anakata" is the handle that he usually goes by.

According to friends who have visited Svartholm, he is being held on terrorism charges not related to TPB, but still on the request of Sweden:
https://twitter.com/brokep/status/243609656126230528
https://twitter.com/brokep/status/243611708386574336

Peter Sunde, a TPB founder, seems to think that it is related to the fact that Svartholm's company used to host WikiLeaks.

I am sure that Ubuntu is the largest distro among Linux professionals too. Where I work, everyone run Linux both at work and at home with 10-15 years of Unix experience, and we still run mostly Ubuntu. Our servers run Ubuntu too. Just because I have compiled many a kernel in my day, worked with IRIX, Solaris, FreeBSD and at least once installed Linux From Scratch does not mean that I enjoy fiddling with X11 config, driver issues, etc.

I don't think any of us run Unity though ;).

Is there really a "Microsoft tax"? When I looked at laptops, the same hardware was actually cheaper with Windows than with Linux. I suspect that Dell et al pay so little (because of volume) for the license and in turn make enough from the shocking amounts of crapware that they preload Windows with, so that it evens out for them.

In short - don't expect these to cost less than the equivalent Windows laptops.