From Wikipedia:

"Poverty in India is widespread with the nation estimated to have a third of the world's poor. According to the criterion used by the Planning Commission of India 27.5% of the population was living below the poverty line in 2004-2005"

Perhaps those funds earmarked for space exploration might be better spent on helping people not starve ?

The ipad is not a computer, it's a digital media appliance, as is most every modern phone, gps, e-reader, digital media player, and dedicated gaming platform on the market. This class of function-specific digital devices is about reliability, user experience and performance. A controlled operating environment attempts to consistently deliver those things by restricting the entropy induced by random user code. Boiled down, unbounded tweak-ability = break-ability. Do most consumers want to debug an appliance every time they add a feature? If you want a general purpose computer, use a general purpose computer. I want my game box and my phone to just work, as the iPhone does. I want some simple customization THAT DOESN'T BREAK ANYTHING, which I get now from the app store. It's exactly the right model for 95% of the user base who just wants the d@mn thing to work. GPS units proved it. The ipod proved it. The iPhone proved it again. If I can get a fast web browser and digital media player on a cheap, reliable, gorgeous large-screen internet appliance that works through an entire trans-continental flight, without the liabilities of a conventional 'open' operating system, why the h3ll not? Sign me up.

I use both a dell D630 running XP and a MacBook running Leopard on a daily basis. Both have 2Ghz processors and 2GB of RAM. The hardware differences are so minor as to be all but irrelevant. I tried Vista and rolled back to XP for many reasons. The MacBook offers a far, far better user experience with far less administrative grief. This is due IMO to their tighter integration of hardware and Operating system. Frankly their OS just works better. All these years of copying Apple and Microsoft still can't get it right. That's not surprising, just disappointing.

..and apparently he's got four of them, so that's four charges against him right there. Perhaps he'll meet a mule in prison?

I believe we employ a few in management.

I submit that owners should beat least as legally responsible for their PC's actions as they are for a dog's actions. If the dog gets loose and attacks someone, it's on your head. If the crime is severe, the dog is put down. Crippling a bot's OS is digital dope slap so the owner wakes up. It's a reversible, mild punishment. It's not evil; it's a rap on the knuckles with a digital ruler. Arresting of fining you as a co-conspirator in the botnet would be the extreme position. Pointing out your Pet's bad behavior with a citation is not. Impounding your Pet after multiple grievances is not overly harsh. Putting it down for good if it can't be controlled is a real-world consequence of unacceptable behavior. The consequences need to be real or the victims remain ignorant and the criminals win. Ignorance of your Pet's actions does not excuse you from the consequences of said Pet's actions. Apologies to any Commodore Pet owners out there ;)