From TFA which you so obviously didn't read:

Not exactly because the vast majority of windows programs aren't written with command line usage in mind. So you've got a powerful shell but no tools to use from it, still useless. And yes I could get ports of most of the unix tools but then, I'd rather use *NIX and have them all there or available from a single repository :)

Well, as long as you're a gamer you can't be Intel, nVidia and windows free. ATI drivers are still really shitty on linux, getting better though.

How did that get to +4 interesting?

First, you may have a point with the warranty issue, however they can simply take the route google does with the Nexus One => You can unlock the phone but it voids your warranty, I'm pretty sure official software that unlocks the phone along with saying that is easier and cheaper to accomplish than attempts to make the phone un-hackable.

Second, how does hacking your phone give you the ability to "steal software" ? From where would you be stealing it? Software-wise you can pretty much install anything you want, rooting the phone is only useful to load custom firmware not software.

Third, "I don't think we want to know". Security through obscurity? If there are are any security issues with the cell towers then yes we want to know and we want them to be fixed. Having your head in the sand doesn't make the problem go away. And the problem *will* be exploited by malicious users wanting to cause harm(say, terrorists wanting to take down the cell network).

Fourth, that's debatable but I won't go into that particular one now as it's a whole other discussion and your point of view is a valid one even though I may not agree with it.

But what about friend classes?

You mean that hiring someone to write a program that will generate truly random polls and paying at most a few hundred dollars and then just clicking a button every week is more work than doing them by hand?

Well, I'm the middle east(Lebanon to be specific) and no internet censorship here. Granted, the internet connections are extremely crappy, but they're not censored.

Also, for a language that does have object comparison I find it extremely odd how some functions in the standard library tend to implement comparison. For example, check out the manual for array_intersect. The interesting tidbit:

I find such hacks in the standard library a turnoff from using PHP. However, as a poster mentions below, ubiquity is its major strength.

WHOOOSH?

Lebanon? I'd really like to see some sources for that

How about python? It's an "easy" language, and yet I've seen plenty of really good applications written in it.

Is that really what you think? Third world countries do not produce people who are highly skilled? I myself am Lebanese. Seeing as you think all third world countries are Bonga-Bonga land where everyone lives in the jungle and hunts animals with sticks to survive, Lebanon is a small country just north of Israel and south-west of Syria. It's definitely a third world country having recently come out of a civil war that completely trashed its economy. It's not exactly stable right now either, we still have assassinations of political leaders, usually by means of car bombs(the most famous of the recent ones if the assassination of a former prime minister in 2005). We also like to have regular skirmishes with our neighbor in the south.

I could also go on a tangent here and state that most of the problems in the middle east were caused by the way the colonists(you, my British friend, and the French) handled things and divided up territories back in the early and mid 20th century: We feel very guilty about killing/causing the death of/watching passively the slaughter of so many jews, let's make up for that by giving them their own country! To hell with all the regional problems that this will create, what with displacing entire populations to make room(The Lebanese civil war was for the most part caused by the presence of Palestinian refugee camps) and begin hostile to all the neighbors. But I digress...

Yet, even with things as they are, our prime export as a country is probably highly skilled people. I like to think I'm a good programmer. I enjoy learning and playing with new languages. Currently exploring the functional programming world, though I'm still way too attached to python. I draw immense satisfaction from making things that others would find useful which is why I try to contribute as much as I can to FOSS projects and most of the software I use is FOSS. I've been running linux exclusively on my laptop for three years now(currently a happy archlinux user). My older brother graduated with high distinction in electrical engineering and is currently pursuing a master's degree at Imperial College in London. A friend of mine, a recently graduated computer science student is a Chiite Muslim(Who would thus be associated with our very own terrorist organization, Hizbullah). He's actually taught me all I know about user interface design. He went off to Parsons in New York where he'll probably stay and work once he's done studying.

I could go on and on with examples of skilled people who are born here and move off to greener pastures(I could also mention the fact that most people I know speak at least three languages fluently, which is more than can be said of British or American people). Money has nothing to do with intelligence or skill. It's actually specifically the type of people who are poor yet have enough wisdom and perseverance to work towards getting a proper education and a better standards of living for their children whom you want in a society.

I really like how people keep attributing religious wars to religions. They should be attributed to politics, religions are only one of the means used to influence the masses and almost never the cause.