I've been developing Android since 1.x and there is a pie chart in the dev console which shows market share. The majority platform always lags behind the cutting edge but it changes over time. New versions of Android start as tiny slices and then grow to be the majority until the next version takes over. It's hardly surprising if a version from a year or so back is dominant. It's always like that.

I don't see it being a big deal though since the general rule of thumb of developing on Android is you choose the API level which supports what you want to do in your app. Most apps don't need proximity payment services or fingerprint reading APIs so they'll use a lower API level and they'll work across any device that supports that level.

There are obvious advantages to what Apple does, but it is a monoculture and there are disadvantages to that too. The biggest one for handset owners is once you're cast into the darkness by Apple you're pretty much screwed. Android devices might not get so many firmware updates but they tend to still get the latest apps from Google and updates for other apps that already work on their platform.

1) Because Anonymous Coward is a moniker on Slashdot that anybody can use 2) this moniker is mine and has been mine for the ~14 years I've used it here. Real name or not, I still have a history of posts that are distinct from other people's posts, a consistency to comments and a reputation to uphold.

I'm not "glossing over" anything. It's a hard problem. It doesn't make the mindless drivel of an AC correct however.

Your dumb arguments could apply right here on earth. After all, how can we possibly live under the water without a breathable atmosphere? Are we we expected to wearing a driving suit all the time? What about the burning the diesel? Blah blah blah. Oh wait someone invented a thing called a submarine and developed the means to heat, pressurize and provide oxygen and fresh water to people living inside of it.

There is nothing to "gloss over" since it is obviously hard. Perhaps it boggles your mind but people tasked to do it would break it down into small manageable problems and would come up with practical solutions and contingencies.

It is likely that any human landing to Mars would make extensive use of robotics, possibly with missions beforehand to prepare a site, drop supplies etc. It is likely it would require water but that a nuclear reactor could produce the O2, distilled water and power for life for humans, plants etc. It's likely that the persons would live in a pressurized structure which could be partially or fully buried to shield it from radiation. It is likely that suits would contain extra shielding and humans would only venture outside when the sun was low in the sky and that there would be covered trenches / walkways to travel between any structures.

Perhaps it's all mind boggling to you. I suggest other people see it as a hard but surmountable challenge.

I imagine in much the same way as you dig in a field with sweet fuck all in it. You transport the tools to the site and start using them. Logistically hard when the site is on another planet, but hardly inconceivable and there are a number of ways the initial base might be prepared and improved on.

These creationist idiots pay for ads by the click. So get clicking.

The irony is that the UK is a net beneficiary of immigration. Immigrants work in the UK, pay their taxes and then return to their own countries before they burden the UK for services that those taxes pay for - benefits, pension, NHS etc.

That isn't to say that all immigrants are welcome of course and some of them are decidedly unwelcome (trafficked slaves, criminal gangs etc.). But it's overblown by the media, particularly those adept at pushing the fear button on their readers like the Daily Mail, Telegraph etc.

Bizarre. The EU has a European parliament with directly elected members from each country with legislative powers. And it has an executive European Commission where each country is represented by a commissioner that they appoint that sets policy (to be voted upon). Plus of course every country has national governments. And local governments. So yes it's a democracy.

It's also clear that you're skipped set theorem and logic when you leapt to the wrong conclusion about what I wrote.

Scotland's independence vote was another example of rationality going out of the window. The SNP wrapped a saltire around a bunch of lies about oil reserves and the standard of living that independence would bring when the reality was it would have been economic and financial suicide. The same applies for the UK and leaving the EU. It might feel good to leave but it sure as heck isn't rational and many studies conclude that the UK's GDP would be permanently reduced if it did.

Ironically the SNP are pro-Europe which makes it all the more bizarre. How can union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland be bad but union with France, Germany etc be good? Same for Sinn Fein. So it's likely if the UK left Europe that Scotland would break from England and become part of the EU. I could see Northern Ireland doing the same. What fun that would be.

Most rational people recognize Britain should be part of the EU. Unfortunately UKIP spooked the Conservative party and they made a bunch of promises about negotiations and a referendum to leave.

Leaving would be economic suicide so I expect Cameron will extract some concessions to persuade people to stay in and dodge that bullet. Because if he doesn't it's likely that the UK will leave the EU and Scotland and Northern Ireland would leave the UK. That would be Cameron's legacy and he knows it as much as anyone. It's probably why the Conservatives are already trying to take the bite out of some of the pro-exit talking points by tackling illegal immigration at the moment.

Just learn a popular language and framework or two and become proficient at them. Jeez...

The conference rooms tables in AOL used to have busted up AOL CDs set into them. So a few of them found some lasting use.

TinTin could certainly be used for cheating but it also had some useful functionality - hilighting useful info, aliases, command history etc. I expect most people who used it did so in a relatively light manner. They probably had it set to flee if a battle proved too much, had aliases to loot, wear all, hilights for whispers etc,

I don't know what constitutes bot use in WoW but if the bot is designed to enable automated levelling then it's a big no-no. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the gold farmers have such bots running on an almost factory-like basis.

But only under duress. And by implication it means that in other circumstances they're not put first.

You only have to look at Obj-C code snippets for trivial things like string concatenation to realise what a horrible experience it is. So it's no wonder that Swift is so popular given that it resembles more high level languages like Typescript, Ruby or Python. That said, it's still as proprietary as its predecessor. Nobody but OS X devs will want to touch it unless it becomes a cross platform tool.