If you have any interest, you ought to look into getting a pilot's license. More fun and freedom than airline flying, faster and more direct than a car, usually an airport closer to your actual destination and the trip can be a unique part of the adventure (which may make up for the likely extra cost, though at four passengers it might about break even).

Any pilot. Many pilots train and barely ever talk to a controller until they go for their Instrument rating. Some go out of their way to avoid airspace where they have to talk to a controller (under 18,000 feet most airspace doesn't even require a radio). Sure, commercial flights on IFR plans require the communication and rely on it for separation and such, but it is not like they suddenly fall out of the sky; even today there are commercial flights that land at nontowered airports where the pilots announce their position to other pilots, as was done in the case where the controller fell asleep. Those small, nearly empty airports movie stars prefer for their charter jets are another perfect example.

Although, even with the FAA shutdown, controllers were still at work.

You're forgetting the timeline. MS was already in trouble with the US DoJ. Litigation to get someone out of business was not in their best interests, nor was the IP theft case. Apple still had some cash to burn. Not a ton, but enough that the $150-million investment was not needed to continue operating.

I forgot to mention, you can also view all of the Diagnostics and Usage data on the phone itself, to see exactly what is being sent to Apple.

You opt-in to any tracking and performance logging. It's one of the first options when you turn on the phone, and the preferences for it are pretty robust in what they allow you to enable or disable. Find My iPhone is a different feature, completely opt-in and triggered on demand, and you can use it separately from the built in logging.

The "bailout" was a payoff to cancel IP infringement cases that would have been damaging to Windows, and no, not "look and feel" but actual stolen code. Along with it came the promise of Office for Mac. Apple needed Office, they didn't need the money; Microsoft DID need Apple to drop their lawsuits.

That whole situation, including the decline of MacOS, came from mismanagement of Apple and not from consumers rejecting the products outright. We're at a position where Apple could once again be mismanaged, but it they do their do their job correctly there should be no repeat of history.

One of the things Apple does uniquely is creating a relatively unified platform on all of the carriers they support. There are very few examples where Android OEMs have the same hardware on multiple carriers. Of course the carrier-exclusive hardware is caused by the carriers themselves, but it results in a situation where the OEMs have to support all sorts of devices for the various carriers, and it's not just a different case but in most cases very different hardware. Apple has no similar situation to the Motorola Bionic/Photon/Atrix that are very similar hardware but with just enough feature or software differences to force a reinvention of the wheel every time.

And looked like Blackberry, nothing like the iPhone or modern Android.

Out of curiosity, what is Apple not giving back? Other than the core user interface and windowing environment which is not surprisingly quite proprietary, most of OS X is available for download on their open source page, and if you work at it you can build a working Darwin system. I always get the feeling that people saying Apple doesn't give back have never actually looked.

There are numerous third party authorized service centers who will come to you. Because they are authorized they have the factory parts and tools, and the warranty is respected, just like if you sent it in to Apple. Going to the Apple Store or calling the number is not the only option.

There is an Omnibar extension for Firefox which will combine the url and search bar into one, just like in Chrome. It even supports the search suggestions.

Firefox's equivalent to Recently Closed is in the History menu, there is a Recently Closed Tab list. To open the most recently closed tab is Control Shift T.

Woah woah woah, a torrent?

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me. No, you cannot speak to a lawyer.

Of course I do. The Fridays waiters actually use the credit card!

The best part is Remus wasn't personally affected, other than possibly getting a new credit card. I could understand if Kevin Mitnick drained his checking account or stole his identity, but this is all based on a letter saying his account details were compromised, very possibly by somebody other than Kevin Mitnick. I've gotten multiple similar letters in the last year, most of them involving Anonymous and Lulzsec, and yet I really don't have an axe to grind against them either.

I would think 20 years later "Kevin Mitnick stole my credit card number" is a bragging right anyway.

You see wrong. Linus has already said, when kernel.org is back up completely, github will be just a mirror.