"Lame Duck" in politics means they're on their way out. Either they've already lost an election or, in this case, in his final term and can't run again. It has nothing to do with what he's done or what his goals are/were. It basically means he can do as he pleases and doesn't need to worry about what the voters think anymore.

Man, here I was hoping helm's deep would reinvigorate LOTRO. And yes, I had even pre-ordered it.

Maybe I'm not understanding this agreement, but to me it sounds like they just agreed not to actively recruit from each other. I've never seen anything indicating that, for example, an Apple employee couldn't apply for a position at Google (and vice versa).

Actually there is an easy way to do this. an INDIVIDUAL from the project invoices. they act as an independent contractor. They invoice for "support". You don't need a COMPANY to send an invoice and bill someone. An individual can do it. (Companies exist to take advantages of tax and ownership as well as separation of obligations vs the individual). In this case there are no obligations (or shouldn't be).

So now the individual has gained $5000. sure - they must pay tax on it. let's assumed 30% that's $1500. Put the $1500 aside, then give the $3500 to the project - if it has an existing legal non-profit entity. There is no laundering here. You do it in the open. you use fully documented bank transfers. This wouldn't trigger any money-laundering laws I know of. At the end of the tax year, declare the $5000 as "extra income", pay your $1500 in taxes and the project has $3500 now to spend (on a new server, storage, equipment, bug-bounties etc.).

Even better if the project has members who are ex-pats. I know that where I live, only money earned IN the country I am in (Korea) is taxable by Korea, *OR* if i remit money I earn outside Korea back to Korea. If I earn money somewhere else, Korea LEGALLY makes no tax claim over it. As I am not a US citizen... I'm not beholden to the US govt for taxes, regardless of my location, So actually... I can legally earn that money tax-free, so long as it never comes into Korea... so I wouldn't have to put aside $1500 (actually in Korea the tax rate for me is more like 16% - complete flat tax, not 30%). So it's possible and easily done. An invoice is easy to do. I have templates for them...

I think the issue here is that the projects contacted don't have enterprising members who have done contracting/consulting before... etc. etc.

Not entirely true.

If someone cuts in front of you and immediately slams on the brakes, there's not always enough space to avoid a collision. I've had that happen multiple times in the DC area (luckily no actual collisions, but many close calls).

There's also people who intentionally get themselves rear ended for insurance/lawsuit claims. Supposedly, the reason everyone seems to have a dashcam in Russia is because this is so prevalent there and I've seen vids of it being done in California, too.

That being said, in normal driving conditions, the person doing the rear-ending is generally at fault.

Perhaps they reversed the policy after 6 months, but they kept selling phones based on it for a while after. I know people who bought phones later that year (Oct-Dec time frame) that were still locked down and never got an update unlocking it.

For a long time, AT&T was blocking the option to sideload apps on their Android phones. No Amazon Appstore or Swype for you!

And I'm convinced that Samsung is trying to work their way to having their own Android-based environment, separate from Google, including their own app store.

Yes, but that doesn't make Facebook Home uninstallable. It will almost certainly be a system app that cannot be uninstalled unless you root the phone. And some of the apps in the suite may be set up to start automatically even if you don't actually use them.

Thankfully Android 4.1 (or was it 4.0?) added the ability to disable apps you don't like but can't uninstall.

The same could be said of Amazon's Android Appstore, the iTunes App Store, and the Windows Phone Store. Or how about Kindle vs Nook vs iTunes? Or OSX vs Windows? Or Xbox 360 vs PS3 vs Wii?

Your complaint is meaningless.

you can put imagery into your prompt indeed.. as long as the imagery is only of green phosphors! :)

people did think about it before, but it has pretty much become forgotten, and hasn't been slickened up and polished and shipped in a modern terminal. it hasn't been demoed or shoved in peoples faces to get them to think "wait a sec.. if THAT is possible... what could i DO with it?". this is not an end. it's a beginning. it's trying to say "hey people. you don't HAVE to JUST do text. what if you wrote your shell scripts or other cmd line tools to assume such capabilities... what would YOU do with it? would you make an mc that has thumbnails and inlined image display? would you create a smart find/locate that displays thumbnails? would you add thumbnails to grep -r? what about a text irc client that used this and when someone posted imgur links it translated them into thumbnails right inline - no need to click. just see (ok could be nsfw sometimes).

my point being.. it's a START to make ideas roll. without the FEATURE, the ideas don't start rolling. so make the feature. show it works, fill in the missing blanks/gaps as people start to explore and push it, then add more. run with it. why should my terminal be stuck in a text ONLY world? why shouldn't modern datatypes (media for example) be part of it too, if i so desire?

correct. what is the hostname that is visible FROM one system TO the other? who knows. you may ssh through several natted gateways into an internal network. i do this all the time actually. it simply wont work then (the sftp:// idea). i am not fond of the configuration idea. oh and it handles uri's but not sftp - http/https/ftp sure, but that doesn't solve the issue here. to work right it needs to transport via the terminal stream, and that's where i haven't decided on a sensible solution. i've given it some thought, but if i'm going to bother, i'm going to "make it right" so it works not just over ssh, but over telnet or anything else and goes through hops (ssh to a, then from a ssh to b, then ssh to c - and b and c are inside a nat behind a).

bingo. it's a terminal at its core and does all the things a regular terminal does. it ADDS things you CAN use. you CAN set a background to an image fine - most terms can since i added that to rxvt many years ago and started the trend (rxvt-xpm became eterm and then everyone copied). there is nothing wrong with ADDING some bonus features. the libraries already do all the work. the code and features are there. it's generic code. there is no good reason to specifically disallow such things just because it's a terminal. if its possible to add and you spend a little effort on it, then why not?

it's no more dangerous than a filemanager that automatically displays thumbnails too.

it's a demo for crying out loud. it's meant to show off as much as possible in a short space of time, NOT show you how you MUST use it every day. a looping video of a dark night sky with clouds drifting by etc. would be perfect. doesn't obscure your text BUT provides a nice "pattern". i don't happen to have such video content with me right now. imagine:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopics/118890688/

but without the people, (and the pool right at the bottom, not the middle), with the video edited to loop seamlessly.

the point of features is to make it POSSIBLE, with visual content. given the logic of "don't have features because gasp. someone may not provide perfect content" would imply we should not ever set wallpapers on our desktops because.. GASP.. it may clash with icons/text content there and may make it hard to read! just create/find appropriate content.