It's an analogy.

Taiwan is an island. It wouldn't matter if the People's Republic of China, Republic of China, United States, and United Nations all deny it is one; it clearly is surrounded on all sides by water. "According to who?" is a pointless question; it's an observable fact. If the PRC, ROC, US, and UN all denied it, it would simply mean they're all denying reality.

Similarly, Taiwan is a sovereign nation. It doesn't matter if the People's Republic of China, Republic of China, United States, and United Nations all deny it is one; it clearly is not actually under the control of China or anyone else and just as clearly is not in control of the mainland. "According to who?" is a pointless question; it's an observable fact. That the PRC, ROC, US, and UN all deny it simply means they're all denying reality.

Possible, yes, it just seems less likely than the existence of WIMPs.

The trouble is the Bullet Cluster lensing pretty much requires non-visible matter, even with the theories that assume relativity is wrong at large scales. It seems you can reconcile TeVeS with the Bullet Cluster using lots of neutrinos instead of WIMPs, but then when you plug that sort of neutrino abundance in TeVeS, you apparently get other inconsistencies elsewhere.

(Now, apparently STVG manages to handle the Bullet Cluster and galactic rotational curves without WIMPs . . . it'll be interesting to see what happens when people poke at that a bit more.)

Maybe. Physics does have people working that line (TeVeS with massive neutrinos to explain the Bullet Cluster, Moffat's STVG). But WIMPs still are considered the most likely candidate.

Even if the PRC, ROC, US, and UN all declared Taiwan a peninsula, it wouldn't change the fact that it is an island.

Wait, you want to abolish the police?

Or, you know, just not give a shit at all, because the current strategy is doing fine, thanks, which is why Google just had a major stock price spike.

"You want me to give you different paper for your paper? Not a problem. I've got the Bureau of Engraving & Printing all set up."

The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking, Tracy LaQuey, 1993, p.122.

Apart from in one of Ballmer's wet dreams, when on earth was WinCE (or its descendants) ever en route towards monopoly status?

In 2004, Windows Mobile (CE) had 11% market share in "smartphones". In 2005, this increased to 17%. In 2006, it moved up to 37% (tied with Blackberry, well ahead of Palm's 17% and Symbian's 9%), and in 2007, it hit 42% (while Blackberry lost share).

That flattening of the growth of Windows Mobile marketshare in 2007 may have been inevitable . . . but it may have been the iPhone. Nobody in late 2006 should have considered Microsoft taking an absolute majority in 2007 and then grinding down Blackberry into a niche by 2013 particularly unlikely. If the iPhone had flopped as bad as the previous "iPod phone" (the Motorola Rokr E1) . . .

One thing to be noted is that all three episodes of the original trilogy had an excellent editor (whose other credits included the critically-acclaimed Taxi Driver) who was sleeping with George.

The casino is specifically prohibited by law from paying out if the machine is broken.

Now, you then obviously would wonder, why is it prohibited by law?

And the answer is, because it makes money laundering incredibly easy. A drug cartel lord sends a bunch of minions into your casino with his in-cash drug profits, they lose it on a whole bunch of bets all over the place. Then he personally walks in uses the broken machine the two of you set up, and walks out with a whole pile of legitimately-won-from-a-casino-on-the-dollar-slots money.

Apparently it's some fork by people who didn't like GNOME being renamed to MATE.

Yep. That's what they were saying 25 years ago, too. And if you want one, GNU HURD is ready and waiting.

Sure, the fifteenth century lacked sophisticated capital markets, requiring Columbus to pitch his project to people with crowns until he found one willing to give him the money. And that's relevant to today, with angel investors and venture capital how, exactly?

Yes, you're not going to get large bureaucratized businesses that resemble government in their structure and operations to open frontiers. That tells you exactly zero about what risks private capital is willing to take.