Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones in the latest-reported quarter, which is 91% growth over the previous years' quarter. So, it doesn't look like the antenna issue was an issue at all.

Your alternative is having Apple develop a version of XCode for Windows. Given how iTunes and Safari are on Windows compared to their OS X versions, I'll just say "no thanks."

If you're serious about developing for the iOS platform, getting a Mac isn't that large an obstacle. Although, I do think it sucks for the "hobbyist" programmer who'd just like to mess around with writing their own apps.

You make a valid point concerning the troubling state of the court system and their position on the 5th, but you're misinterpreting US v. Boucher 2. I'm not sure where you got the statement you quoted, but it doesn't appear anywhere in the Sessions opinion. The government's appeal hinged on whether or not the government could compel Boucher to produce an unencrypted version of a drive he'd previously provided access to before the Grand Jury:

Boucher accessed the Z drive of his laptop at the ICE agent's request. The ICE agent viewed the contents of some of the Z drive's files, and ascertained that they may consist of images or videos of child pornography. The Government thus knows of the existence and location of the Z drive and its files. Again providing access to the unencrypted Z drive "adds little or nothing to the sum total of the Government's information" about the existence and location of files that may contain incriminating information. Fisher, 425 U.S. at 411.

You mean, except for his having killed his wife by driving his Cadillac into a tree, and the subsequent "suicide" of his girlfriend which he covers up by having a prostitute write a suicide note before he kills her, too?

That deus ex machina in the ST universe has been implemented right through the modern series. I call it the "plotyon device" - whatever they need to do in the last 5 minutes to resolve the issue.

To be fair, sci-fi is about a lot more than hard science. I share your love for the hard stuff, however, some of the best sci-fi to be written, televised, or shown on the silver screen has little to none of it to claim.

The Next Generation had a lot of what I'd consider excellent sci-fi over the years, which really is all about asking "What if?" Their habit of activating the "plotyon device" to get out of a jam wasn't part of it.

It's true that iRacing uses real names (I play both iRacing and WoW), but one significant difference here is that you know that going in to iRacing - you never have had a pseudonym for it. For Starcraft 2, the same is true - the game isn't out yet, and you're being made aware that the official forums will not be anonymous. But World of Warcraft is a different story; if they do in fact apply these changes to the official forums, it's changing how they've worked for the past five years.

I think the reactions here are overblown, however. RealID is 100% opt-in in the game itself, where it replaces an avatar's name on your friends list with their real name. You have to accept an invitation from someone to exchange RealID information.

As for the forums, I think posting under your real name might just have the effect they're after - people being a little more thoughtful about the words they're using to discuss what happens in a game. It certainly works for iRacing.

No, RealID is required to use RealID names in the in-game friends list. You can also have the original style of friends on your list, which refer to people only by their avatar's name.

You can create the filesystem from OS X, too:

newfs_udf -v /dev/diskX

I'd suggest the man page for newfs_udf for the many options.