• Valve's business depends on platforms controlled by Microsoft and Apple.
• Microsoft and Apple have both expanded into the app distribution market, in direct competition with Steam.
• Both companies have implemented code signing policies in their operating systems that could theoretically be used to lock Valve out of their platforms. In fact, these technologies have already been used to lock Valve out of iOS and WinRT.

By supporting Linux, Valve is able to (partially) mitigate the risk of being locked out by their competition. Also, by supporting Linux early, they will be a step ahead of the competition (Origin, Uplay, etc) in the unlikely event that Microsoft does lock them out. Finally, if Valve decides to start manufacturing their own hardware, then they won't have to rely on continued support from Microsoft (who sells their own Xbox console).

What part of that is silly from the business perspective?

Why? They seem to be making a lot of money selling consumer-focussed devices directly to consumers.

Yeah, but in Amazon's defence, every single novel written in the last eight years has been a "bestseller", according to their blurbs. By that logic, how could the Fire not be a bestseller?

"Customer hostile" is not correct either. It implies that users are also customers, which we are not.

So who are the customers? The customers are the advertisers who buy aggregate customer data, or advertising space. The customers are the people who actually pay for the service.

The users are the product.

Screenshot from CS:GO -- http://i.imgur.com/PMAqD.jpg

FIFY.

Yes, supersampling will always look better than filtering. The biggest advantage of MLAA is with the low-end graphics hardware such as mobile phones, netbook, integrated GPUs; anything without enough grunt to perform "proper" AA. Or in situations where the processing power is better used elsewhere, MLAA might be used to free up resources for other tasks.

Obviously, the image quality is going to be worse than multisampling or supersampling, but much better than no AA at all.

Insightful comment. Older currencies were based on precious metals, or coins, or beads... whatever; anything relatively scarce could be used as currency. Modern currencies are based on trust. Trust that a bank will not lose your money. Trust that someone will repay a debt. Trust that the central bank will not devalue the currency to the point where your money is worthless.

Modern currency is trust.

At the other end of the spectrum, my GF's kindle usually lasts about 2-4 weeks. But she just got 7 weeks out of it; she's been very busy at work lately and hasn't been using it much. (FWIW, that's the Kindle 3 WiFi model, not the 3G model).

Either way, it lasts long enough that you don't need to worry about the battery at all.

I think the OP's point is that, in the n900, there are actions which are consistent across applications; but with Android, actions will be different depending on the application.

I rarely use Android, and I've never used the n900, so I can't really comment on either. But as an iOS user, I can say that there are a few applications which behave differently.

For example, in iOS, most apps place a "back" button in the top left of the screen. Also, most apps will autosave a text field as soon as it is modified. So the usual workflow is: open a menu item, make modifications (which are saved automatically), tap the back button. This workflow is very common among third-party applications.

However, one app doesn't autosave; instead, it has a "save" button in the top right. It also replaces the "back" button with a "cancel" button. The result is that I often cancel changes that I wish to retain.

Most iOS apps behave consistently, but when they don't, it causes problems. And inconsistencies will cause problems within any platform, even Android.

Life getting you down? Bash.
Boss riding your ass? Bash.
Spouse getting on your nerves? Bash.
Co-worker won't shut up about pet llama? Bash.

Hell. The answer to EVERYTHING is Bash!