As a computer hobbyist in the 1980s, I tried to understand the deep technical stuff in Byte, but it was probably the Chaos Manor column that kept me going. JP's column was easier to relate to than most of the other articles, and was always my favorite part of the magazine. He seemed to have dozens of different computer systems running, all quaintly named, and was constantly running into problems with them. He would go into great detail about reseating the system boards in his Godbout Compupro CP/M machine and then running some RAM test that took all day to run before finally replacing all the memory chips because it just HAD to be the RAM causing the problem. He was a big-league name dropper and seemed to know everyone in the industry. He tried out all the software packages available at the time and reviewed them all. He lavished praise on Workman and Associates' word processor "Write" to the point that I bought a copy. He constantly reported on the activities of his wife Roberta and son Alex. His writing style was unique enough to engender a parody of his Chaos Manor column, which link I can't put my finger on at the moment. His SF was pretty good, especially when teamed up with Larry Niven. I especially liked Lucifer's Hammer and the Motie books. Regarding his politics, I guess he was somewhat like Heinlein. However I prefer to judge the man by his works than his politics. End of an era.

I'd like a feature whereby my phone actually gets updated to the latest Android version rather than being stuck on KitKat.

I have a similar situation living just south of Denver. Maximum speed with unlimited data available is 3 Mbps from CenturyLink. I am 20 miles from downtown Denver. Multiple complaints to CenturyLink and the FCC have had no worthwhile response. CenturyLink says they have no plans to upgrade the service. I agree we live in a 3rd world country.

I live 20 miles from downtown Denver and the only available ISP is CenturyLink with max download speed of 3 Mbps. This is not just a problem for people who "live out in the sticks."

Misread this as "Pope is banned from the Apple App Store." Seemed a bit odd.

I was 15 years old, watching TV (I think it happened on a weekend day) when they "interrupted this program." I remember it was just a typed graphic saying that an an astronaut had been injured in a fire. I am pretty sure they first announcement didn't say they had died. Shortly after that there was actual new reporting and we found out the 3 had died. It was very sad, because the astronauts were well known (Grissom was the bad luck astronaut who had lost his Mercury capsule when it sank into the ocean, and White had done the first space walk, which I listened to on the radio live. Chaffee was the rookie). Yet somehow, since it didn't occur in space, and given the enthusiasm for the space program at the time, it didn't seem to slow things down that much. If the astronauts had died in space, like with Challenger, I get the feeling we would not have made the decade-deadline to the moon that Kennedy promised. Overall, when you look at the decade of the 60s, when we went from suborbital flight to landing on the moon, all without the benefit of the computation power we have today, it is just astonishing what was accomplished. To wax a little poetic, back then we walked around looking up at the stars. Today we walk around bent over our cell phones. Oh well.

I live within 20 miles of downtown Denver and have as my fastest option 3 Mbps DSL from CenturyLink. About 6 years ago we were upgraded from 1.5 to 3 Mbps. This pathetic situation has remained the same over the approximately the past 20 years despite letters of complaint to CenturyLink and the FCC. I have no other options other than slower and data-capped services like satellite or cell service. I don't live in "the country." CenturyLink has no plans to upgrade the service in the immediate future. They have a monopoly in our neighborhood and charge broadband prices for non-broadband service. There is no cable in our neighborhood, so again, no reasonable alternative. I just wanted to make the point that people with poor internet service don't all live in the middle of Death Valley.

There is an Evernote mode for Emacs. Time to import my Evernote notes, organize them with org-mode, and then say goodbye to Evernote forever.

Make sure you buy your next tractor from the Free Software Foundation.

Not only that, living in a rural area with only 3Mbps DSL internet available, the background automatic download takes hours and during it all other internet access is slowed down even more than baseline (and it sucks baseline). I knew I should have stuck with Vista (joke).

Lemishine in the detergent dispenser plus a Finish powerball in the utensil tray. Keeps the inside of the dishwasher clean and does a great job on the dishes. Doesn't matter what cycle you use.

Sorry to be obnoxious, but that should be "whoever."

BB also came out with authorized editions of ERB's Mars and Tarzan books. Ace published a few of them, but not the whole of each series. On the other hand ACE with great Frank Frazetta and Roy Kernkel covers ended up published most of ERB's other books, such as Venus and Pellucidar series, as well as the books not in any particular series (e.g. The Mad King, Beyond the Farthest Star). The argument as been made that if ACE had not published LOTR, stirring up controversy, the series would not have made such a big splash in the 60s. Those of us who grew up in the 60s have to be thankful to both Ballantine and ACE's Donald Wolheim for publishing great science fiction and fantasy.

I am in Parker, 20 miles from Denver center, and the best Internet I can get is 1.5 Mbps through CenturyLink. Comcast is not even an option as there are no cable lines here. I have contacted CenturyLink (and the FCC) and there are no plans to upgrade. We have been stuck with the same slow speeds for the last decade. It sucks.

Such as the Paris Metro, though admittedly there have been a few upgrades over the years.