What is it with the "obsessive" and "irrational" labels? Since you seem pretty charged about this, it's clear to me that you do have strong preferences and probably are just as "obsessive" and "irrational" as anyone else here, just maybe not about this particular issue. For example, you certainly didn't "just ignore" this argument. I'm sure there are plenty of software features that you don't like as well as some that don't exist but you wish were available. Instead of just whining about the way things are, with an open platform, you can roll your own and remove the features you don't like and add ones you want. You may not want to make such modifications, but other people certainly do.

The intended functionality of the application doesn't matter. If he didn't want the application on his phone, he should be able to remove it -- this is the reason rooted in reality. What may seem obsessive to you is tinkering and customization to others. In fact, most of the comments here discuss exactly this: customization and tinkering are things a relatively small number of people wish to do, but because the number of people who want that is small in and of itself doesn't justify locking down a hardware or software platform.

I've never heard of "Layar" before, but it could consume quite a bit of system resources, reducing both phone responsiveness and battery life. It could also nag the user with random toasts and dialogs while other applications are in the foreground. The GP paid for the phone; he should have every right to modify its behavior to his liking. Either that or buy another phone and sign with another carrier that doesn't push crapware.

The meatspace analogy is an uninvited houseguest eating your food, sleeping in your bed, and making a mess. You could tell him to leave or force him out. Or, you could just ignore him.

I've also used HostGator for several years for both domains and hosting. My experience has been great with few problems.

When I'm on a road with a high speed limit, a light ahead of me turns yellow, and there's someone right behind me, I definitely consider going through the intersection. My car has good brakes, but I can't say the same for the car behind me. I'm paying attention, but I can't say the same for whoever is behind me. In fact, I can't make any assumptions about other drivers and their behavior. In a case like this, where the light is in the process of changing, the risk of a rear end collision at high speed is much greater than a collision with intersecting traffic. Avoiding an accident trumps following the letter of the law.

This is also what I remember from my high school driving course (Virginia). Some places go a step farther with the Pittsburgh Left, but that's more of a custom, not the law.

It doesn't even matter whether or not there's a few seconds of red in all directions -- traffic in the intersection always has the right of way over traffic entering the intersection. Anecdote: I had a friend who went through an intersection on a green light and was hit by someone who blew the red light while turning left. I don't remember what happened with the other guy, but the police gave my friend a ticket for not yielding.

I saw a TV show about this a year or two ago where analysts for each team would pore over years of footage of opposing teams. I'm sure franchises quickly scoop up anyone with a background in data mining. Real time analysis, however, is probably exactly why computer equipment is banned.

It would not surprise me if the "cheap entertainment" you speak of soon comes to an end. With legislation like SOPA, this only encourages broadcast media corporations to engage in tit for tat patent-style quibbles over copyrights.

This sounds like the same argument for extending patents and copyrights indefinitely. Except in this case the medium is in the public domain from the start and there's only a finite quantity of it. A time cap of _appropriate_ length will incentivize the licensees to maximize the use of the medium rather than let it go to waste.

I hope you're right.

UMG probably didn't want the public to know. If they took down everything, people would find out, protests would ensue, and ultimately Google would remove this "feature". However, my making it appear that the takedowns were a result of DMCA claims, nobody would be the wiser. Of course, they would have to selectively remove content, but they were probably removing a lot more than they could get away with using only the DMCA.

It's like the codebreaking that went on during World War II. The Allies had gobs of actionable intelligence but they couldn't act on everything because the Axis would know the codes were broken and switch to something more secure. The Allies resorted to stuff like planting a guy floating in the water with a suitcase full of secrets as a cover for how they learned what the Axis doing.

I'm sure it would be possible to spoof the timestamps sent from different satellites so that the position is spoofed. However, are you sure that you would need to know the true position of the drone? If you know the spoofed location, then you can send signals to the drone with the correct timestamp offsets so that the spoofed position will be computed. The differences of the satellite clocks are what's used to compute the position; no clock on the drone is used at all.

Inertial navigation systems need reference points to prevent huge drifts over time. This is especially a problem if the aircraft flies relatively straight at the same speed for a long time -- accelerometers won't be able to detect slight changes in course. Like you said, GPS is often used to provide the reference points to attenuate drift. If the GPS system is wrong, then the inertial nav system is also going to be fooled.

I know your comment is in jest, but manual transmissions actually increase driver attentiveness. I have one in my car and I never use a phone while driving because I don't have a free hand. I also get a decent insurance discount -- I pay only slightly more than my wife who has a 4 banger sedan while I've got a RWD V8 coupe.