So, you're wanting to build and compile code on your phone? Or an iPad mini? If so, you're just nuts.

Why not? I was able to compile QBasic code on a 286; surely a smartphone should be at least as capable. The only important thing my 286 had that an iPhone does not is a physical keyboard, and Bluetooth (or a drag-and-drop graphical development environment, like Apple's own Automator) solves that problem.

More to the point, I'm not sure where you're getting this whole "build and compile" idea -- I wouldn't be planning to develop some huge application on the phone (although I see no need to restrict someone from doing so); I just want to be able to write scripts to glue stuff together. Stuff like "when my GPS says I'm at location X and app A is in state Y, tell app B to do action Z." Is that too much to ask? I don't think so.

As for the "ethics", you're just flat making that issue up for the rest of the world.

The purpose of a computer -- as opposed to some other tool -- is that it has the flexibility (by being programmed) to do many different things, including things conceived of by nobody but the user. A computer that can't be programmed is fundamentally not fit for purpose. Apple is selling devices that they have intentionally broken.

The necessary foundation to make scripting work would break process and application isolation.

BS. OS X applications prove this isn't true. The point is not to be able to twiddle with an application's state arbitrarily; the point is for the application to expose a scripting API.

I've yet looked at my phone and went, "Gee, I wish I could just do this with curl instead of safari."

You've never looked at your phone and went, "Gee, I wish I could script the damn captive portal to this Wi-Fi hotspot so I wouldn't have to log in manually anymore?" Or, "Gee, I wish I could make my phone automatically do X upon condition Y" (where X might be "set the ringer to vibrate" and Y might be "when I arrive at work")?

Of course, those are simple examples, which Apple programmers could conceivably think of and write an ad-hoc solution for. But Apple's never going to write a solution for anything sufficiently unusual or personal; scripting is the only thing flexible enough to accomplish that.

Problem is of course that everyone already has the mobile phone number. This would require getting everyone to change it. Which is hard enough if ever your mobile phone number has to change. Given that your existing mobile phone number will still exist, good luck trying to get everyone to call this other number instead.

Well, what you do is port your existing number to Google Voice and get a new number for your cellular service. Admittedly, it's most convenient to do this concurrently with when you'd be changing plans anyway.

Also, who would really want a command line on their *phone*?

I was using "command line" as a proxy for "scripting." An iOS version of Automator might be good enough*, but of course even Automator would include a call-a-shell-script Action, so it amounts to the same thing.

If you can't understand why scripting is important, then you don't understand what computers are to begin with (and an iPhone is a computer; it just happens to have a modem, microphone and speaker too).

(* On a Mac, Automator scripts are more cumbersome to use for ad-hoc things than the command line, but maybe in the absence of a physical keyboard the situation would be reversed.)

Let me get this straight: after already having spent money to buy the iDevice itself, a user is required not only to spend more money to buy a Mac, but to then spend even more money on top of that (not to mention, the hassle) to replace the OS? So that even in the best-case scenario, a user with a $250 iPad Mini has to spend an additional $520 (for a Mac Mini + OS X Server) just to be free of the goddamn App Store?

Forgive me if I remain unconvinced.

And of course, let's not forget the fact that all of this is beside the point since providing a computer without the ability for it to be programmed is fundamentally unethical to begin with!

From the summary:

OS X is finally a full-fledged peer to iOS; all aspects of sibling rivalry have been banished."

Excuse me, but the only way for OS X to become a "peer" to iOS would be for iOS to become a whole lot better (e.g. to gain better multitasking and multiuser support, the ability to freely install software without a walled garden, a command line, etc.) or for OS X to become a whole lot worse!

In other words, Google Voice requires you to have a separate telephone number, that's not your mobile phone number. Depending on what services they want, people have to contact you on the two separate numbers. (Google Voice has limitation on SMS, international calling etc.)

No, Google Voice requires you to have a Google Voice number [full stop]. It doesn't matter whether you have a mobile phone number or not. Even if you do have a mobile phone number, nobody ever has to know it or call it, because they can reach your cellphone anyway (either by you setting up Google Voice to transparently forward to your mobile phone number, or by using a [VoIP] data connection with Hangouts). If you continue telling people to call your "real" cellphone number after signing up for Google Voice, you are proverbially Doing it Wrong.

You could cancel your cellular service entirely and use your phone with Google Voice over wi-fi, or get a plan where you only care about the data part and the "voice" minutes are irrelevant. For example, my T-Mobile plan costs $30 and has 5GB of 4G data (which is equivalent to about 4000 minutes of VoIP) and a measly 100 actual-voice minutes. But that's okay, because I use exactly 0 voice minutes because all my calls are routed over Google Voice. Since I don't come anywhere close to using all 5GB each month, I could probably even switch to a provider like Ting, select a data-only plan, and pay even less.

And by the way, Google Voice does in fact have SMS and international calling (the latter has some non-zero per-minute cost, though). I don't know how you imagined it didn't.

Hello, Mr. Strawman. Are you going to start singing "If I Only Had a Brain" now?

(BMW should have theirs out by then)

They're apparently out now; I saw one on the road this morning.

I'd expect it to work more like Google Voice, where instead of having a phone line for your cellphone that gets forwarded to your computer, you have a phone line for VoIP that gets forwarded to your cellphone, computer, and whatever else you want.

Yes, there most certainly is a reason to do so--to affect the balance of power between the parties.

If the election has runoffs (rather than immediately awarding the win to a candidate with only a plurality of votes) then voting for a third-party accomplishes that just as well.

What does being sick about the Republican party have to do with voting straight-ticket Democrat?

The answer is, "nothing." There is absolutely never any excuse whatsoever to vote "straight ticket" anything, except coincidentally because you independently evaluated the candidates for each office and your favorite candidates in each case happened to all be from the same party.

No, silly, they don't buy "cable service," they buy stock and politicians and end up with more money than they started with.

Why is it a big win for Intel? Regardless of how cool it is (and I think it's cool, and am maybe considering getting one -- especially if I can put normal Linux on it), Google isn't going to sell enough of them for anybody to care.

(I know this because no Nexus devices sell well enough for anybody to care... even things as comprehensively awesome as the Nexus 5 aren't marketed well enough to the dumb [m]asses to outsell the contract-carrier schmuck-phones like the Galaxy Note and iPhone.)

FYI, the Nexus 5 is GSM & CDMA, and works just fine on Sprint's network. The only reason it doesn't (or didn't -- maybe it's changed?) work on Verizon's network was because Verizon decided not to allow it, not technological incompatibility.