Actually you fought to get away from Great Britain, not (just) England. The Union was in place when America declared it's independence (I assume you're US-American).

Other people aren't voting in the referendum, only Scots. So what other people think doesn't matter.

"England" (or more correctly the rest of the UK, or "rUK" as it's become known - there's Wales and Northern Ireland as well) don't have a say in the decision. The decision either to become an independent country (or not) will be made by the voters of Scotland, and the voters of Scotland alone.

As someone in the rUK all I can do is sit back and accept whatever they decide. That said, I cannot help feeling that if the decision for independence will somehow be influenced on how Scotland looks in the BBC weather map, somewhere the plot has been lost!

As to beer, try Theakston's Old Peculier. Ace!

Thanks. Yes, there is the possibility of bypassing the clipboard (assuming some integration). Where there isn't, KeePass (for instance) clears the clipboard after a specified period (default12 seconds).

Thanks. I don't think #a is particularly problematic these days - the modern versions of LibreOffice (and OpenOffice?) use AES-256. Good points with #b.

OK, why not?

(Truly curious as to why a password manager is considered better than an encrypted spreadsheet, using the same password or pass phrase).

I don't think this is unique to Java; the same thing has happened here with Ubuntu/Canonical. Love can easily turn to hate whereas indifference rarely does.

Concerning Java, I don't think it is Java per se that is the cause of the 'hatred', it is more (1) the insecurity of the browser plug-in, (2) the attempt to install the ask.com toolbar when installing the JRE and (3) a general distrust of Oracle.

I don't have a problem with any of these. For #1 this can be disabled, for #2 I just download the JDK .tar.gz for Linux and just unpack it to install, and for #3 there is always OpenJDK in the background to keep Oracle on the straight an narrow.

The only real alternative to Java is .NET, which for me (using Linux) would mean using Mono. Interestingly, open-source Mono seems to generate more hatred here on Slashdot than the closed-source and proprietary .NET does.

I run Windows XP under VirtualBox (host system - LMDE XFCE). Why? For those few times when I need to use IE (for sites that don't work with Firefox or Chrome), or I need to use Office (for documents I cannot amend with LibreOffice, i.e. Office macros).

As I have an old retail license for XP, it fits the bill. It still works - rather like the 25+ year old fountain pen I used when at university. And it's legitimate. OK when XP goes out of support I may have to fork out 100+ GBP for Windows 8.1 (you can't get a retail license for Windows 7 any more) - but I'll object to doing so.

Unfortunately I can't (yet) ditch Windows completely. The sites that need IE or the Office documents with macros are usually sites or documents linked to the company I work for.

I did wonder about this. How does any code get into the release branch of any project (Open Source or not) without some form of code review or understanding of the functionality behind it? How is it tested? (I assume it is tested!). This is not a problem of Open Source, this is a problem of poor Configuration Management!

To compare - I expect nothing gets into the Linux kernel main branch (as maintained by Linus Torvalds) without being discussed, agreed, reviewed by someone, tested, and signed off.

Afghanistan does have the right to tax the goods resulting from that transaction in London as they enter into Afghanistan.

If States (as you say) are independent, then why shouldn't New York have the right to tax goods resulting from any transaction made in Oregon as they enter into New York?

Of course, rather than New York set up physical checkpoints (and have the tax paid at the border as goods enter into New York), they could make a "logical" one by requiring that the tax be paid at the point of purchase for any goods that will enter New York.

(It would make my life easier if Amazon US collected any VAT likely to be due for goods shipped to the UK and passed the collected payment it to the UK government, rather than me having to go the the Post Office to pay it. However I could see Amazon US objecting to this!)

Interestingly, being in the UK and having bought stuff from the US (from Amazon), it is legitimate for the UK to 'tax' the purchase (VAT) as it comes into the country. If not already paid, the item is held (usually by the Post Office) until I (the purchaser) go and pay the tax.

(The fact that the tax was incorrectly applied as by UK law books and such are not subject to VAT, was neither here nor there. I had to apply - and got - a refund, but the principle was that the law applied where I was - the UK, and not where the 'transaction' took place - the US).

Of course, Amazon (US) is not obliged to collect taxes for the UK government on items bought by UK citizens. Then again, unlike New York State, it is possible for government agents (Customs and Excise) to check all items coming into the country.

I suppose the point I'm making is that it is about goods crossing a (state or national) boundary. That is the logical point of taxation. Therefore (according to this principle) Texas can only tax a transaction between a Ohio resident that occurs in Maryland, if the 'result' of that transactions ends up in Texas!

LMDE comes in two flavours - Mate or Cinnamon. It also used to come with KDE and XFCE (I use the XFCE version, haviong installed it when it was available.) You can now get the KDE and XFCE equivalents now from http://solydxk.com/.

Note - there are issues with LMDE. The main one is that the update cycle is infrequent, as in the last "update pack" became available nine months after the previous one. Between update packs there are no security updates. This is what will drive me away from LMDE in the end. I believe Solydxk is better.

I also have Xubuntu LTS on a laptop. Security updates for this every week. At some point I'm going to try (main) Ubuntu in a virtualised environment to see if I can live with it.

I think they believe Canonical was mistaken, not malicious. The issue seems to be over how far you need to defend your trademark before you lose it.

Going to do business with Apple Inc instead? They would never sue over 'i' (as in 'iPhone').

Did Microsoft order all glass companies to quit using the word "windows"? Or, to put it another way, "[citation needed]"!

I believe with trademarks context is everything. I can go to a store and buy an apple (the fruit), but if I buy an "Apple" electronic device, if it isn't made by Apple Inc (the computer company), then lawyers will be coming down hard! (There is also Apple Corps Ltd, owned by the Beatles. There have been trademark disputes between Apple Inc and Apple Corp Ltd, none of which will affect you buying apples (the fruit)),

Interestingly, the article itself said that although it believed Shuttleworth was wrong, it didn't believe he meant any malice.