It kind of is. Of course, this excludes the fact that Android Apps are actually portable (unlike iPhone apps), and ultimately, when Google implements ART instead of Dalvik, Android will be significantly more competitive in performance (these benchmarks don't test the hardware exclusively, but the software environment also).

We can also install other Android builds easily on the Nexus phones, and so are able to do things, which are impossible on Apple (without risking completely messing up the phone on upgrades, such as screen recording).

Long term, Android is a better solution, and is is a more open environment, is less hostile to develop for, and I've found that my Nexus 5 is so snappy anyway, that the speed is irrelevent at this time. And yes, I have 3 other people in the office who are iPhone fans and my Nexus 5 has helped convert 2 of them, who are sick of all the small annoyances by Apple, such as getting cut by the broken glass backing of their iPhone (and the fact that on HSDPA/Wifi iPads for a very long time, we found they kept prioritising the HSDPA, making it painful for automation).

If everyone brings a roll of tape, and tapes over all the cameras, no ads might be shown, and the system will become unprofitable very quickly. Hopefully the cams need to be close by...

I definitely hope 4.0 is a bug-fix only kernel..

It opens up the possibility of providing support for the kernel for sufficiently longer periods, and essentially, it could act as an LTS kernel for distributions. Linux is not that stable at this time, and the experience is still very much a hit or miss on systems. Whilst things are certainly better than they used to be, there are still many cases where I come across systems which should work, but don't (ie, they might stutter a lot, sometimes occasionally kernel panic or in one case, I suspected it lost data).

Furthermore, fixing some of these existing bugs may significantly aid Linux development further down the line (ie, fixing some bugs may actually eliminate many other intermittant ones unknowingly simultaneously)

This is a great idea.

The local police don't decide that (the local court does), and, you can have trouble proving sometimes that the action taken was appropriate (which is one reason why Australian Police no longer carry around guns, and they need to defend themselves against criminals far more than yourself). Even worse, in a lot of incidents, people may catch you off-guard (as they did one of my mates in China), and, if they see you have a gun when they are kicking you on the ground, they might pick it up and kill you with it.

There are plenty of equally effective alternatives out there, which eliminates these risks.

The problem is, how do you know that the people using weapons to defend aren't actually the type of people who may end up getting so angry that they use it in an offensive manner?

And, defensive weapons such as Capsicum spray and Tasers are far better defensive weapons with the additional benefit that it won't kill another person if a mistake is made. They are far better defensive weapons because they almost completely eliminate the risk of accidentally murdering an innocent person, and can still incapacitate an enemy. If you can explain some reasons why semi-automatic guns are more effective that non-lethal alternatives, then feel free to let me know.

It's one thing to defend yourself with a pistol. It's another proving that you were acting in self defense, and its another entirely different case to prove why it wasn't manslaughter. Gun's are an extremely risky option to use for defense.

Yes, but, it would have been much harder for him to find an assault rifle, and his mental health would have been possibly evaluated before he was provided with a rifle.

This is one case where Gun control laws would actually be highly beneficial, as nobody is allowed to bring a weapon into an airport, so the self defense argument falls apart.

Since we've had gun control laws here in AU, such events have become not-so-common

Not sure if it is a common issue, but I have an atheros wifi card in mine, and I always found routerOS to be terrible for Wifi performance (we were getting 2MB/s over Mikrotik in bridge mode on wifi, compared to a cheap TPLink which was giving us 12, and less dropouts). Sorry, I wouldn't recommend the Mikrotik for Wifi. The software is really cool though (and, it might be better for PTP than as an AP).

And, I wouldn't recommend a computer either (its a maintenance nightmare at the end. Its really cool having stuff like Etherape, but, in practice, a router is better). Honestly, unless you really need the management features, you'd be far better off getting a cheap router, and an AP..

One of the tests is related to rendering speed (#69) not design faults. That's because it wants the test to be completed fast enough to achieve 30fps.

Under system load, or browser load (such as extra stuff being done in the rendering thread whilst the test is running), a browser may not always pass this test. Whilst its an OK test, there will be no way to reliably pass it 100% of the time, and as CPU's become faster and more efficient, its likely browsers will pass eventually regardless of if they optimise their code or not.

Its also one example of why the ACID tests are quite overrated.

I meant Darwin, not OSX darwin... OSX sits on top of darwin though.. If Windows can be an operating system, so can OSX. Explorer isn't just an application for accessing the rest of the operating system. So Aqua and the libraries sitting on top of Darwin can be considered its own operating system. And my point was, if it mattered so much, there would be a lot more developers hacking at the Darwin code and changing it.. There isn't.

It wouldn't make any sense for Microsoft to go open source at this time. Firstly, the only people who should care about open source should be developers. You hear a lot of people whining in linux about how everything should be open, but barely any supporters (companies and individuals alike) look at the code. And if people aren't going to modify or analyse the code, what's the point? Secondly, developers can already do everything they need to in windows without seeing the source code. What do you guys honestly think developers can add, that they can't now? Windows is quite extendible...

I think most people misunderstand the difference between freeware, and open source. Microsoft may possibly make windows much cheaper one day to eliminate the competition (Mark Shuttleworth himself said, its difficult to compete when windows is free). However, Microsoft has enough developers, they certainly don't need community help. I don't mean to call the author of this article an idiot per say, but he clearly doesn't understand the benefits/cons between open source and freeware. Windows is already extendible enough these days to not require it being open sourced.

Furthermore, OSX Darwin is open, and nobody cares! The only reason Apple cares about open source is because they essentially take a lot of code from the community, but give very little back.

Microsoft isn't going bankrupt anytime soon so its not as though you will be making a risk by purchasing windows, and be unable to maintain it in the future!

Theres very little reason people would need to look at the source code.. Must go Open Source?? HAHAHA. NO! There is little point, both for Microsoft and users. Maybe it will go freeware though...

I tend to agree.. The flight models on X-plane tend to be a lot better, but unfortunately, its plugin list is quite limited, and so is its graphics capabilities apparently :(

Also, in Australia at least, X-plane unfortunately doesn't seem to have anything to compete against Orbx's "Full Terrain X" except Auspak (which doesn't go far enough in my opinion for VFR flight). Its a pity, but I hope X-plane eventually does get a lot better, because it not only runs a lot smoother then FSX, but if you buy a copy, it runs on OSX, Linux and windows!