...and 'logging code' is no more involved than 'exception code'. You format some kind of message and make a function call - how 'wasteful' is that?

My point is that in a fatal error of the sort "this should never happen, so I'm going to dump to let the programmer take a look", there's no way to format an exception to have the relevant information - you don't know what that info is. And for application (as opposed to library) code to throw exceptions that are never going to be handled other than to treat them as fatal and dump, throwing an exception is a waste of energy and discards possibly useful information. You're better off dumping at the site of the exception than where the caller catches it.

Yep. I've had C++ coders who were not building general purpose libraries, but still insisted on throwing exceptions in cases of fatal errors (because 'that's what you do'?). The caller would then catch the exception and then call a routine to log the error and core dump for later debugging. But dumping at the site of the caller discards all the detailed information and variables that would've been available in the core dump if the damn app just logged and dumped at the site of the error instead of throwing it back to the caller.

So. Do you want to eat animals that are fed crops containing glyphosate? Bad enough that they're full of hormones and antibiotics. And for what? To make agriculture marginally more efficient. Okay, I don't know how much cheaper (or profitable - if they're not sold cheaper) these crops, animals, natural gas, etc would be without GMO, roundup ready, benzene pumped into the ground fracking 'efficiencies'. But I'll bet you don't either. Has it even been studied? I'll bet that even the same approaches could be taken in a less blanket way and provide 80% of the benefits with way less than 80% of the downsides. That last 20% is always the hardest, least efficient to achieve. Why should it be any less so in industrial farming and gas extraction?

A graduated tax with no loopholes would be just as effective in eliminating corruption as a flat tax would. Just fairer. Most flat tax advocates are just advocating this bargain: don't tax the rich in the first place, and then they won't use their influence to corrupt the system. But a simple graduated tax would do the same thing - just do it without the massive giveaway to the rich. A simple system doesn't have to be simplistic - unless your goals are as simplistic as the system.

It's not that the OS is free now. They still get their cut with just about every new PC sold. It's just that Windows - as in 'platform for running WIN32 apps' - is no longer in development. But it's what everybody uses, so nobody needs to upgrade beyond Windows 7 (or even XP - if it weren't for unpatched security holes). So they really can't charge for upgrades anyway.

Microsoft understands that the money they lose by not selling upgrades to Windows 10 isn't worth going after. They need to move everybody to their new platform - which has some serious adoption problems. Free upgrades can help there, and if they can get everybody back onto the upgrade mill, maybe they can start charging for upgrades again someday. But more important is to prime the pump for Windows Mobile and Bing. WinMob, because they're losing badly in mobile. Bing, because they think they need to bring down Google - and because they wouldn't mind taking a big chunk of Google's search advertising revenue stream while they're at it.

The main (presumed) benefit of this is that it will be cheaper than cable TV bundles. But, assuming you get your broadband from a cable company, how long can that last? Sure, today broadband is sold cheap as a loss-leader by the cable providers for their expensive TV bundles. But if they wanted to, couldn't they re-balance the cost so that buying broadband from them without TV becomes much more expensive than it is today? TV+Broadband customers would pay the same, but the itemized costs for each would be different so that the current cable TV bundle wouldn't be much more expensive than what Apple's offering

Or does net neutrality prevent that? I don't think it does, so the only way this would work is if some serious competition were to open up in the broadband industry. Google fiber, perhaps? Then Apple, Google, and yes, Comcast could all compete to sell you TV bundles over your broadband connection that you got in a similarly competitive market. Otherwise, Comcast holds its content hostage, Time Warner follows suit (if they're not absorbed by Comcast).

No, I think the key to amnesty is for Microsoft to decide that getting an upgrade out everywhere is essential to their business plan. I think the primary purpose of 'Windows 10 upgrades free for everyone' is to get Metro everywhere and jumpstart the WinPhone app store. But I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 10 (and their new 'not IE' version of IE) also forces Bing on you in ways they weren't allowed to in Windows 7 - assuming the clock has run out on the EU's monopoly remedies.

In other words, the Windows 10 upgrade is free (even for pirated copies) because Microsoft wants to be able to use their desktop monopoly to help their other failing properties. Business as usual...

Mint's KDE flavor is very nice already. The only problem with KDE these days is it's original 'too much configurability' issue. Yes, it may be hard to believe, but KDE has actually proven that there can be too much configurabilitty (or at least too much to present routinely to casual users).

People complain about certain aspects of KDE - especially the search indexer, but distros don't have to include it all.

As Chrome gains the ability to run Android apps, a touchscreen will be a must. Not because touch is great on a laptop, but because Android apps would be awful with a trackpad. (actually, everything's awful with a trackpad, but I assume you can plug a mouse into this thing)

True, true.

The real story is the wave of reflexive paranoia infecting the free software crowd. First it was "systemd is taking over and destroying Linux as we know and love it". Now it's "Google's really evil... well not evil, but we think it could become evil... well, arrogant and forcing us to adopt new technology before we're ready..."

Okay, the "Google's evil and handing over your SSN to advertisers" meme's been around for a while now. But seriously, folks...

You'll see iPhones and Blackberries. But when it's a windows phone, you get a loving full-screen closeup - showing the transition from the Tiles through to the Conttacts app. Or you'll see the SMS app with animated conversations.

I remember when Under The Dome came out, and every other scene someone was holding a Surface or WinPhone up to the camera. If they needed to show someone a photo, you'd see them navigate all the way from the tiles to where the plot wanted them to go. The most obvious and bone-headed product placement ever.

And if they were really smart, they would include tools in there so that existing WIN32 code could be re-purposed for use in jump-starting an app in the new platform-agnostic toolset. Existing WIN32 code is their biggest asset, and from Windows 8 on, they've done their best to piss on it - and the developers that spent years writing it. Big mistake.

The whole 'bloatware subsidizes your computer' meme may be about to be challenged. I assume Lenovo won't suddenly start charging more for their PC's with the bloatware removed - the industry's too competitive for that. So now we have a major PC manufacturer that could really subtract Windows (and/or offer Linux pre-loaded) and show the true price differential. Will it happen - who knows?