I've been thinking these new laws should be called Jim Queer laws, whaddaya think?

They're just trying to compete on their strengths.

I can't help but think the recent attention to the gender wage gap is a convenient political distraction. It's a real problem, but the timing is very suspect. To explain, I'll repurpose a joke I once heard about unions...

A CEO, a politician and a male and female worker sit at a table. There are 302 cookies on the table. The CEO rakes 300 over for himself. He gives one of the remaining cookies to the male worker. Then he breaks the second remaining cookie into 6 fragments, gives 5 to the female worker and keeps the last fragment for himself.

Then the politician says to the female worker, "Hey, isn't it unfair that the male worker got more than you!? We gotta do something about that!"

Exactly! Came here to say this. Perhaps the giant robot program could be led by Japan's agriculture ministry.

My phone runs a GNU/Linux-based OS. I got an Android tablet as a gift last year, but I only use it as a "carputer" and it has no Google account connected. I get my apps for it from the F-droid store, which is a thing I was free to install after changing a few options. That was nice wasn't it?

I think Apple is one of the top threats to computing freedom simply because their walled garden was the first to be successful on a general-purpose computer and has created a trend toward more curation and less freedom. All previous attempts at walled gardens on anything but dedicated videogame consoles failed horribly, and such attempts were considered a suicide plan for any business. The trend in computing before the iPhone came out was toward greater openness and freedom, and the success of the iThings made that trend do a quick about-face.

There's some circular logic here. How much value would the platform have without the apps? And the distribution system that you think they deserve credit for is the only method they allow for getting apps onto the OS! It's like giving East Germany praise for building the wall. Furthermore, companies have done the same in the past without locking down the platform - Atari, IBM and even Apple in the past come to mind.

No I'm not, that's why I framed the argument as a problem from the users' perspective. It's not their problem if developers don't make money. They should have access to any free apps anyone wants to make, or be free to make their own free apps and distribute them for free. And the costs involved in hosting apps in the App Store actually spur the creation of shovelware - there's no incentive to make them if not to make money, that's why they have ads and premium features in them. They're not creating shitty software as a charity.

I'll diss Apple publicly anywhere, anytime. Their walled garden represents easily one of the top 3 threats to computing freedom, and if you're a developer they're nothing but bad news - a nasty middleman who will dictate what your app can do and take your money for the privilege of doing it. For developers, the app store is a microcosm of the American dream, they'll tell you that you can make it on merit, but only a tiny minority will, the rest will just tread water and only enrich Apple in the process.

For users, it's the worst of '90s computing powered by the latest technology - a store full of shitty shovelware that you have to pay for or be annoyed by ads or restricted by a "trial version." And now you can suffer the latest shovelware technologies such as "freemium" gaming and rampant privacy violation! But because it's on a tablet this time, they think it's OK for some reason...the dumb fucks.

You sound like a horse

Furthermore, human accomplices only need to be tricked into helping, which is easy with superhuman intelligence.

Is this close enough?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Nobody told that to Google or Lockheed-Martin...

Good to see that RMS is now backing libre hardware, I remember the last time Slashdot interviewed him he seemed completely unaware of it and thought that he was being asked about drivers.

The data logger in my sports car is libre hardware & software B-)

This. We've modified the human genome in most imaginable ways already, most often with no real aim, but the moment we do it intentionally and purposefully it's a big ethical problem?

Reminds me of the idiots who are categorically opposed to all geoengineering.

Hey there are lots of talented and dedicated people who end up settling for shitty jobs - we aren't all privileged hipsters with flawless resumes living in big US coastal cities with hot startup scenes.

Yes, because we know that the deniers can be swayed by an overabundance of evidence, and that they always seek to find answers for themselves instead of blindly parroting conspiracy-blog talking points!