YouTube didn't have an agreement with the federal government to provide free services that it violated at every stage of the tax paying process. Intuit did. That agreement was in exchange for the federal government not providing its own free service.

I saw Microsoft being an evil piece of shit back in 1995, and only kept Windows on my computer until 1999 because some of my college classes required it (such as the VB5 class). I had used Linux off and on since 1993, but had to remove it to make room for Windows due to required degree classes.

After I cleared the MS-only classes out of my degree requirements, and coincidentally lost everything on my hard drive due to a Windows virus at the same time, I reformatted and reinstalled Slackware as my only operating system. All of my class work was saved on 3.5" floppies, so what I lost was mostly personal programming projects I'd done between 1984 and 1995 (which was a lot, but was almost entirely obsolete by that point and existed mostly for sentimental reasons). I copied the floppies back onto my hard drive, and still have them on my current RAID.

It's still funny to me that I told Microsoft to piss off when a recruiter called me to schedule an interview during my senior year. I told her that I could never work for such an evil company, and she was shocked that I wasn't jumping up and down in glee at the prospect of working there. After a few more attempts to get me to change my mind, she gave up. Looking back on Microsoft in the tech press over the decades, it quickly became obvious that I had made the right choice.

Most Windows users don't even know that's possible, much less how to actually do it.

Ubuntu is a complete operating system, and has a desktop component and a server component. Qualcomm makes hardware that can be used for both.

You're right that it's not a contraction. I have no excuse, and hang my head in shame.

I had read it as, "...had obtained passwords and other secret material [through other insecure/Microsoft software] that might allow them to breach multiple U.S. agencies."

I guess basic math is not a requirement at Fortune.

It's a contraction, which calls for an apostrophe.

During WW2, automakers not only produced consumer vehicles, though at a much smaller rate than pre-war, they also started producing tanks and other products for the war effort. Without the automakers, the U.S. would have been at a severe handicap to fight the war. The auto industry is critical infrastructure that we cannot afford to lose.

U.S. automakers favored larger vehicles because the U.S. Government required mileage and emissions targets for smaller cars to be met or the automakers would face significant fines. Certain trucks were exempt from the fines, and it was straightforward for automakers to meet the definition of what constitutes such a truck by making smaller cars bigger. No one likes paying fines, so the SUV was born.

All three software patents should have never been granted, as they don't pass the test of being tied to a particular computer (at the very least).

The correct words are "console" and "consoles", not "consul" and "consuls".

We already have a "good as physical" streaming service. It's a local RAID array of movies ripped from the physical media you bought. I rip every single DVD I buy (I avoid Bluray like the plague it is) to my NFS server, and watch it from any computer in my house.

Active Directory is a big blob containing LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, DHCP, and a few other services. To the best of my knowledge, Linux has everything Active Directory has, but does it better.

I find Reddit's tech channels to be surprisingly good, so it does have value. I don't know if the value coincides with its share price, though.

I was thinking about all the tech companies I didn't invest in because I had some personal grudge against them. Most of those companies became highly priced, and I regretted not investing in them early. I was tempted to not miss out on yet another one, but I resisted the urge. Only time will tell whether it was a good decision.

I can easily see the possibility a large dip being followed by an even larger increase later, but I have no real investment skills or talent. Even if I bought now, there is a real possibility that the share price will rise above its current levels. But I refer you back to my investment skills.