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The Original Cyberpunk shares his digital history in The Ranting Room:

In 1979, I started out with a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 and a program called “Electric Pencil,” I believe. That was soon replaced by an Apple ][+ and a program called “Magic Window,” then “WordHandler,” which was one of those truly great, years ahead of its time, and completely forgotten products. I wrote and sold a lot of fiction using that old Apple ][+ and WordHandler, while simultaneously going through a lengthy succession of other Apples — I believe I have 10 of them up in the loft of the garage — before finally coming to the conclusion that there is nothing as worthless as last year’s Macintosh.

I started out with my Dad’s original IBM PC. He built a small technology empire on the basis of the memory board designs laid out in the appendices, so I have reason to be grateful to that first computer. Unfortunately, the games on that PC were few and far between – what was IBM thinking with giving you those particular three colors, Pink, Cyan and White – and they mostly blew anyhow.

A summer computer course was conducted on TI-99/4As, but there was an Apple II in the back of the room on which we used to play Akallabeth, Castle Wolfenstein and Swashbuckler. I was a pirate from Day One, and assembled a notebook full of floppies even before I had a computer to play them on. The local Radio Shack was great, as they’d let us bring our games in and play them on their display Apple II; they racked up at least one sale as my Dad finally bought me an Apple IIe.

I still love that computer. Some of my favorite memories from high school were down in the basement, playing Wizardry, Autoduel, Ultima III and other games. Getting a second disk drive for Christmas was huge, as it significantly furthered our pirate activities. Elephant Memory Systems! I think Big Chilly still has that yellow poster somewhere, although Chilliette won’t let him put it up in his office.

My parents gave me an original Macintosh when I went off to college. I sold that to Big Chilly’s little brother in favor of a CompuAdd 386/25 once VGA came out, the better to play Wing Commander. After Big Chilly and I quit our jobs to start our computer game company, my Dad bought us a brand new Pentium 90 to inaugurate the auspicious new venture and that was the last computer I bought for years, as our relationship with Intel kept us well-supplied with computers after that.

I scored two 500 MHz Dell laptops from The Perfect Aryan Male, who gave me one for a birthday present and sold me the other one for $200 when his megagargantuan employer went under and left him in charge of shutting down offices around the world and selling off the inventory. But a few years later, I finally broke down and bought a 3.4 GHz laptop with a 256 MB Radeon 9700 when I needed faster 3D performance for a certain technology project on which I’m still working.

Last week’s spill is still rendering my Linux partition inoperable, along with my > key in XP, but I’ve got a new keyboard on order and I’m hoping that will repair things. If not, well, I can always add to the list. And, OC, I have to say that knocking out fiction on the Apple II+ in 2005 isn’t lame at all, it’s MEGA-RETRO!

Hit it baby, one more time.

The White Buffalo is keeping track:

You finally won something! You’re somebody now!

He is, of course, referring to my tournament picks, wherein I correctly selected North Carolina to defeat Illinois in the NCAA championship game. I won’t deny a certain sense of satisfaction, but remembering the way in which the WB leapfrogged Chokechain and I to finish in the big NFL pick-16 money turns the victory to ashes in my mouth.

Nate sounds uncommonly liberal today:

The problem I have with your premise is your claim that the Death Penalty is not a deterent.

Since its never been widely, and efficiently used, we simply don’t know.

It’s not that it doesn’t work, it’s that it hasn’t been applied properly. Now, where have I heard that argument before?

The truth is that the death penalty has been applied widely to absolutely no effect in many places. Possession of a firearm was punishable by death in China for decades, and yet a single month’s sweep by the authorities produced over 120,000 weapons… and that’s how many they were able to find.

Suicide bombers are a significant argument against the death penalty’s deterrent effect. But even more powerful is the stupidity argument, which is to say that most criminals are not the brightest bulbs on the planet. They commit stupid crimes because they don’t believe they’re going to be caught. Someone who doesn’t believe he’s going to be caught is inherently impervious to any deterrent effect based on the consequences of being caught.

GH writes:

In your article on the death penalty, I can’t believe you even compare killing someone who has taken the life of someone else with killing “innocent” people as with abortion or tyrannical governments have done. There’s a huge difference between killing someone because they have devalued human life enough to murder someone else and killing innocent people who have not murdered someone else. You can argue about the right to take someone’s life who has murdered, but don’t actually compare the killing of two different categories of people in your argument against the death penalty…. I won’t even go into your arguments about confusing morality with human legislation (are all laws amoral then?) or whether the Bible sanctions government to take a life which show your deep ignorance on what many Christians and theologians believe about how God sanctions the government.

Right, my deep ignorance. The point, my dear GH, is not that I am ignorant of how many Christians and theologians believe how God sanctions the government, but that I suspect they are wrong. If God sanctions all governments, then the answer to the following questions should be clear:

1. Is one morally obligated to obey a legal government order to send a Jew to the gas chamber? To prevent food from being delivered to a region?

2. If one is not morally obligated to obey an immoral government order, has that government lost the sanction of God upon issuing an immoral order?

3. How many immoral orders must a government issue and how many immoral acts must it engage in before the sanction of God is lost. Can a government ever lose the sanction of God?

The thrust of my argument is that since the government is capable of arbitrarily deciding guilt and innocence, it must not be permitted to kill anyone. Once the principle of capital punishment is ceded to the central power, it is simple a small matter of redefining previously innocent classes of individuals as guilty in order for the government to legally kill them. This has been done in the past, it is being done now and it will be done in the future. No amount of airy theosophizing will change this reality; in case it has escaped your attention, the United States of America is not a Christian theocracy.

Right now, only the criminal, the unborn and the cognitively inoperative can be killed with the approval of the US government. Is there anyone who doubts that the cognitively and developmentally disabled will soon be added to that list? Conservative Christians can continue to wring their hands about this while clinging to the death penalty if they wish; if they truly wish to push back the recent advances of the Ahrimaniacs, they would be wise to give it up and embrace a position that is 100 percent pro-life and is built around the principle of defanging the democidists.

They won’t, of course, because if they did, my whacked-out noir prediction would be turn out to be off base. And that just doesn’t happen very often, the S&P 500 aside.

Fecalicious empathizes with an abortionette saddened by an unexpected encounter with reality:

I’ve just started a new job, as editor of coolwomen.ca. As such, I’ve set up a Google news search for any item referring to feminist or feminism.While I expected to receive a fair number of stories that were anti-feminist, I have been saddened by how overwhelming the ratio is. I’d say at least three attacks for every positive or neutral story.

Is there any way to turn this around?

Short answer? No. What’s amusing is that feminists are such mindless herd animals that they have no idea how completely and utterly their foundational ideas are dismissed by most WOMEN. And they have nothing whatsoever to offer men who have not been neutered, which is why they find it so hard to find dates, much less husbands.

Worst of all, they are still, despite their best efforts, women, so they find themselves sexually drawn to the very Alpha males they despise ideologically. Only the supremacy of biology over belief explains how feminist freaks can happily become subservient members of cults with leaders that make Stalin look like a management-by-consensus guy without ever noticing the irony. For a more mainstream example, consider NOW and Bill Clinton. With this constant interior struggle bubbling beneath the surface, it’s no wonder that so many of them come off as total lunatics who can barely complete a sentence without spinning wildly out of control.

No matter how well-reasoned, opposition to their society-killing, scatter-brained ideology is always put down to personal inadequacies, usually a failure to score with women. In fact, every single time I write a column mocking feminism, I’m informed that I’m only bitter because women don’t wish to share their bodies, themselves, with me. Right, because women just loathe Lamborghini libertarians… one self-professed feminist even sent me a picture of herself “to prove that she wasn’t one of those ugly feminists”. (And she wasn’t, she was maybe a six. Maybe.)

That being said, Fecalicious is dead-on with regards to Professor Adams unconventional interpretation of readership as well as his ungainly attempt to segue into a fundraising appeal. And something about Worldview Weekend Branson Family Reunion gives me the shivers as well….

Still, we can forgive the good professor his failure to execute flawlessly in light of the fact that publishing that Canuck’s little hissy fit was good humor.

Professor Mike Adams teaches that electronic information is for sharing:

Hi there! It’s Mike Adams – the guy you were just talking about in your Canadian feminist chat room….

“What can you do to fight such a thing? Townhall’s Doctor Professor Mike Adams, PhD is an inveterate liar who has been accused of making up correspondence from his supposed readership to advance his patently women-hating views (…there is some scuttle-butt going around that he’s in fact a self-hating homosexual who goes on ‘hunting’ trips with another suspected closet case and former-drug-dealer-turned-anti-feminist-mall-preacher/whacko Doug Giles).

I really wish that country had some respect for ethics in public discourse, but it obviously doesn’t.”

Well, now that you are reading the full text of your remarks – remarks you never expected to see broadcast in an internationally-read column – you are becoming painfully aware of the fact that I am not guilty of “making up correspondence” from a fictitious readership. Since anti-male feminist whackos really exist, there’s no need for fabrication.

I found it very interesting that once I started replying publicly to my hate mail, the volume dropped dramatically. People will still occasionally snipe around the perimeter, usually some clueless loser who doesn’t grok the nametag and is nearly wetting himself in his hurry to “out” me. But despite the increasing readership of both my column and this blog, the amount of hate mail is down more than 90 percent from before the first Mailvox appeared on WND.

And on a tangential note, is there any male columnist on the right who HASN’T been accused of being a secret homosexual by leftist lunatics? The inescapable conclusion is that outside of the realm of politics, where one is forced to make alliances where one can find them, the Left regards homosexuality as something extremely undesirable. No doubt this is why left-wing governments have historically placed gays up towards the front of the line for Schiavozation.

I mean, if they’re not going to breed and do their bit in creating the next generation of New Soviet Man or the Aryan master race, then where’s the benefit to society in keeping a bunch of evolutionary dead-ends around?

Larry Kudlow writes of Pope John Paul II’s influence on his life:

It was sometime in 1993 when I first read the great papal encyclical “Splendor of Truth,” written by Pope John Paul II. The slender book was recommended by Fr. C. John McClosky while he was counseling me during the worst personal crisis of my life: Alcohol and drug abuse were dragging me down. The problem got much worse before I finally surrendered to God, literally on my knees, and began a new life of faith — and sobriety.

John Paul’s book had no direct advice on drugs or alcohol. But, then again, as I came to realize later, it had everything to do with these things. The book is about the need for spiritual and moral courage in choosing good over evil in our daily lives. It is about being personally accountable for our actions. It is about abiding by our conscience so that we may hear the voice of God and follow His direction.

As a full-fledged member of a twelve-step fellowship, I later learned that the biggest problem facing all those who suffer from chronic addiction is “sickness of the soul.” That’s exactly what John Paul II talks about in “Splendor of Truth.” He tells us to “be not afraid” in pursuit of the life of faith. Be not afraid to trust God. Be not afraid to stand for the right values. Be not afraid to be faithful to your spouse, or unselfish to friends, or diligent in work and the many duties of everyday life.

As the subset of readers who follow my economic writings know, I disagree with Mr. Kudlow on almost everything with regards to what has happened in the economy, what is happening now, what will happen and the reasons why. But despite my vehement opposition to his rosy-viewed interpretations, I have always respected the man’s forthright Christianity.

It takes some courage to insist that we are still in a bull market. It takes even more to confess how one’s past failings have led one to accept Jesus Christ. I have to respect that in the man, regardless of what I think of his cheerleading for Wall Street.

From WND:

Police in Malaysia are hunting for members of a violent gang who chopped off a car owner’s finger to get round the vehicle’s hi-tech security system. The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system…. The attackers forced Mr Kumaran to put his finger on the security panel to start the vehicle, bundled him into the back seat and drove off.

But having stripped the car, the thieves became frustrated when they wanted to restart it. They found they again could not bypass the immobiliser, which needs the owner’s fingerprint to disarm it. They stripped Mr Kumaran naked and left him by the side of the road – but not before cutting off the end of his index finger with a machete.

Like it was hard to see this coming. Chipping children to “protect” them from kidnappers and whatnot is only going to ensure a little ad hoc surgery is performed. You would think that somewhere within the giant Mercedes organizatio, there would be one person who would stop to think through the obvious implications of their new “security” system.

Mr. Kumaran is lucky that his car didn’t have a retina-scanning system. Even if it didn’t work for the thieves, that would be little consolation.

After a state employee nearly has the vapors about the possibility that the dozens of shots he is trying to force on parents might be bad for their children, St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist Craig Westover kicks him while he’s down:

So, what is Dr. Hull’s evidence that my sources are not objective and unbiased? They have looked at the facts and drawn a conclusion. Is that the new definition of biased? To make a judgment?

No, I have not looked at all the information, but I have looked at the boxes full of information that litter my office — information on both sides of the issue, for, as I wrote, I was very skeptical going into the research that there was a connection outside the mind of a few conspiracy theorists.

No, not all, but I have looked at enough to know that there is good science that has forced even the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to admit there is “biological plausibility” for a connection and there is virtually no hard scientific evidence and certainly no overwhelming body of scientific research that disproves a connection between mercury and childhood vaccines and autism. What there is are a plethora of denials and studies attempting to discredit the science of honest researchers painstakingly working along the path from hypothesis to theoretical justification to hard science plausibility to (and not there yet) definitive causal connection.

Westover is apparently on the verge of becoming an anti-vaccine convert, as I have been for years. The fact that the pro-vaccine lobby absolutely refuses to look at the facts but instead waves its hands and shouts louder makes anyone with half a brain extremely suspicious as to what they are trying to hide.

But that’s not why I am absolutely radical on this subject. To discern the truth, you need only follow the money. Have a look at how difficult it is to prove that a vaccine damaged a child, then look at how much money the organization set up by the US Congress to compensate the parents of vaccine-damaged children has paid out. Furthermore, if these little polls of scientists assuring all and sundry that vaccines are actually healthier than spinach actually meant anything, then there would be no reason at all for Congress to protect vaccine manufacturers and those administering the shots from being liable for their products and actions. The money trail never lies.

And let’s face it. Since the government insists they’re good for you, what are the odds that they’re actually right for once?

Some kudos from a fellow columnist:

Especially brilliant piece today. You are a visionary and an overarchingly original rational thinker who goes beyond labels to arrive at great truths nearly no one else has the courage to articulate. and that’s a good thing. I mean that. I hope this piece gets circulated widely.

While, unsurprisingly, a number of regular readers disagree. SM writes:

I contend the death penalty serves at least two purposes:

1. It removes a dangerous element from society (never to be paroled)

2. It brings closure to the bereaved (justice has been served). Without this closure the bereaved become lifelong living victims.

When the State or a corrupt judiciary supplants God’s higher moral authority then forced abortions, mass starvations and gas chambers occur. Our Constitution and its implementation by Government will only be just and upright when the people practice Christian morality and virtuosity.

Both purposes are irrelevant. As for the first point, there are approximately 16,000 murders per year in the United States. 70 of those murderers are executed annually. Removing less than half of one percent is neither a deterrent nor a safeguard. With regards to the second, the bereaved are ALREADY lifelong victims. Even punishing the guilty with fifty years of the most sadistic torture will not bring back their beloved nor will it prove much of an emotional palliative.

Washington has already supplanted God’s moral authority, at least in its own eyes. Therefore, every opportunity to strip it of the means of visiting the usual devastation on the populace must be pursued.

Meanwhile, WF manages to argue my own case for me in an email entitled “WRONG”:

No, death penalty proponents in the Christian camp will go to the command given to Noah in Genesis, when Noah was the only civilization there was. God felt that it was important enough to give that command before there was any government to enforce it. The defining factor (for people like me) is innocence or guilt, not legality, not statistics, not anything else. Schiavo (and the unborn) was innocent of any crime, Ted Bundy (for one example) was guilty. The innocent should be protected, the guilty slain.

Hmmmm, so the command existed prior to the government… reasonable minds should therefore logically conclude that the death penalty exists outside the apparatus of government and may very well not be a legitimate power of government at all.