Yes. If I have a Linux VM, I can be sure it will run somehow, even if I have to run it through an x86 emulator on a 128-bit 256-core ARM (though that introduces issues of its own). If I have a Windows VM, who knows whether, in twenty years, it will announce that it's no longer activated and won't run?
1. The odds of any of my Android devices getting an upgrade to that version are roughly zero.
2. As I understand it, only apps written for the new OS will have real permission controls.
That would probably have prevented the annoying bug I ran into a few years ago where someone copied a 64-bit time_t to a 32-bit int, did some arithmetic, and then copied it back to a 64-bit time_t, requiring us to update firmware at all customer sites to fix it. If they had to explicitly convert, they'd almost certainly have realized they were doing something wrong.
That bug alone probably cost us more money than the time required for programmers to always explicitly convert types.
And Apple apps don't spy on you?
How can you prove they don't?
Well, for a start, you can deny them permissions when they try to do something you don't expect. When the Happy Kitty Screen Saver wants to access your camera and contacts on an Android tablet, you can't. You already had to accept 'let this app do random crap' when you installed it, or you wouldn't have been allowed to install it.
As far as I'm concerned, Android isn't much use for anything other than a mobile web browser until it gets proper per-app permission controls.
I don't buy Android apps because they all want to spy on me and sell advertising.
Indeed. I can't understand why people carry these things if they don't have to. Do you really need to check Twitterbook every two minutes, wherever you are in the world?
If I didn't need a smartphone for work, I wouldn't have one. If I didn't need to be available for support calls, it would be turned off when I'm not using it. If you're going to carry a tracking device everywhere you go, you can't be too surprised that people track you.
Oh wait... you can't do *any* of those things on it. That's what the extra $500 is for.
If you want to do those things, why would you pay an extra $500, when you can buy a decent laptop for $500 which will do all those things?
Do you really think the upstart will have a man-rated launcher in less than 2 years????
I think they already have a launcher at least as safe as a Soyuz is likely to be, if the Russians' recent launch debacles are anything to go by.
Sending an unmanned cargo capsule is way different.
Why?
ISS is a hundred billion dollar investment. Astronauts are cheap.
If Congress actually cared about ISS, they wouldn't worry about losing a few astronauts to save it. Nor would they have a hard time finding volunteers to fly in a Dragon tomorrow.
The whole 'but we can't fly if it's not HUMAN RATED!' thing just demonstrates how little they really care.
The way the GOP has veered into the insane right
If you think Republicans are 'insane right', then you must be far to the left of Stalin.
the nordic countries and canada have more government than us and far less corruption. the people are happier, more socially mobile, and pay far less for healthcare and education
Canada had this idea that most of the laws would be made in what they call 'Provinces', and only laws that had to be made at a nation-wide level would be made by the national government. This means you have different laws in different parts of the country, which can be tailored to what the people who live there want. Quebec even has its own immigration policy.
If only America had tried something similar, it probably wouldn't be in such a mess.
That's right, the actual same Shuttle engines that they had to refurbish after every flight.
But this time, they'll be cheaper, because they'll just dump them into the sea rather than refurbish them.
The problem was that nobody thinks Space X can really do it before the currently contracted seats with the Russians run out.
SpaceX could fly astronauts tomorrow if Congress actually thought it was important. Just stick them in a cargo Dragon in space suits, and go.
Sooooooo... no offroading for your SUV?
It's not designed for serious offroading like a Jeep, and the stability control automatically brakes individual wheels when you put it in off-road mode.
You mean, people accidentally mashing both pedals at the same time?
Possibly. But there was a published third-party analysis of Toyota's ECU software which made me reluctant to buy one:
http://embeddedgurus.com/barr-...
I was glad to see that my new SUV automatically cuts the gas if it detects you pressing both pedals at the same time, even if due to a bad sensor or crashed throttle-monitoring process (yeah, I know, that means no left-foot braking, but if you're doing that in an SUV, you're probably doing it wrong).
Logic is a pretty flower that smells bad.
