Seems like a different type of "kill" switch, in fact more like "mute" than "kill" - more sinister one at that too. From the article you linked it seems a bit unclear if this can be used for specific devices only or if it's a general "Mute" All Phones In 100m Radius only.

...even the less sinister use case examples of it sound unacceptable to me, for example: I'm generally against phone use in movie theatres, however I can stand a person who's work demands him to be "on call" (provided it's closer to "in case of emergency" than "I work on sex-line) to be in movies, phone set on vibrate, and excuse him-/herself in case there is a call.

It doesn't have to be one extreme or another, and I feel very strongly about missing information (such as who attempted to call at what exact time. Or perhaps SMS messages, which get delivered later but are easy to peek at without bothering others) because a movie theatre decides to ban phone use but are too lazy to actually do any work on it and too nazi to cut everyone's connection instead. Throw out people who disturb other customers (there's more to it than just phone use, and cutting the network still leaves those problems to be) and I'm all for it, but stay the fsck away from network connectivity of the silently active phone(s) in my pocket. Heck, I could be using it for a big download I didn't think of at home, expecting to have it finished by the end of the movie - even the strongest "do naught at movies or go home" purists should have nothing to say against that. Luckily where I live disturbing the network connectivity isn't something a private business can legally do to others - also the police aren't currently allowed to do anything like cutting off the network on area of police bru... I mean, riot, but these days such "rights" can be given to authorities and taken from people no matter where you live - or what your constitution says about it - unless people get/stay informed and active.

One would think that just by being able to prove you had invented (and implemented, although at least with software patents it's not required at all, and even the patent claims are less useful than just knowing the idea itself) it before the time patent applicant claims for inventing it to at least give you the same rights for the patent (but that's not how they grant patents) and maybe even cast a doubt to whether the patent claim even is anything novel and innovative enough to merit a patent....

But then one would think that filtering wikipedia description of internal combustion engine filtered through patent lawyers would ever have a chance of getting a patent, but it does seem to work for software patents - and a second one for "internal combustion engine for two-wheel transport apparatus". Off-topic, I know.

Thanks for correcting my interpretation and clarifying your meaning so well - indeed your reply may well provide extra insight for even others who didn't misunderstand you to begin with :)

Anyway, I apologize for my error.

So your use case still boils down to Mac Pro users, which while selling alright, comprises a smaller portion of the PC sales market than desktops with Linux pre-installed.

I this really true? If so, can you please give a link for info about this? Thanks :)

Just out of curiosity, since there's little more that would justify replying,...

Until then, it will remain what it is: Just another scare tactic to advance leftist causes.

...what cause is there in the idea of global warming that could in any way advance causes of "leftist"? And what is that cause?

And you are claiming that, if perfected, meteorologists could "predict" weather of future decades? What does this have anything to do with meteorology? (and if the word is wrong, sorry, it's probably because it''s "meteorologia" in my native language but it's "borrowed" from foreign, probably english word).

Don't feed him. Those replies show so clearly that his agenda is only taking what you say and pretending you meant something silly that you only need to think: "obvious troll is obvious". It's annoying to just read that I wouldn't waste my time on replying him at all at this point.

Where the frell did you get that from, trollboy?

A less environmentally religious person might ask: "In what way does this pollution affect my (and my family's, and my neighbors') survival, comfort, security, longevity, and prosperity? What are the tradeoffs? How do I know for sure?"

Might. Or they might ask "does it have significant negative short term cost to quality of my life, and if not then why should I care?". Or "does this contribute too excessively to suffering of sentient life of any kind on earth to be right thing to do for me?" - putting different amount(s) of weight on different values does not in itself imply "religion".

Why am I writing this for though? I'm pretty certain what type of person I'm replying to when they write of caring about environment and comparing it to religion... Oh well, might just as well post this anyway.

I don't know who are thought to be profiting from this nor how exactly but you and your ilk got it wrong: It's not going to profit them, it's gonna cost us (including you and most likely the mysterious "them") a lot - the longer we take to act, higher the price.

Sure, I admit that someone is going to gain money, obviously (otherwise it would not cost, economically at least), however given that the costs are likely going to affect globally on economy it might end up being just reduction of the cost for them too...

It sounds stupid because being equally good&gifted as your mate doesn't equal to ending up with same outcome. Not saying that your mate took stupid route, only that no matter how good you are there are more things to account for when trying to choose your own way than what someone else somewhere and sometime else did. Those cheering that one or the other is stupid for you "because someone else" are the last people you should listen for.

Also, if the schools on that side of the globe really adjust their teaching speed (and therefor how much they are able to teach and require you to learn to pass on basis of predefined percentage they "wan't to pass", well... the thought baffles me to no end).

I agree that most of what good programmers have learned when they graduate did not come from the school though - and many probably know most, if not more, of the stuff when they're going in too. I think it's something you learn out of passion, unless you're just average code monkey with no love for it.

Sounds awful - but if you like growing to be bitter old man with awful companion of wrecked union because out of inexperience you made even more wrong choices later, go for it :P

Even if you're not going to "settle down" until at least 40 (if ever), it's still likely to be *one of the best* in life for most. It's also the last time your having fun at that particular age, which you understand later in life, and you don't want that understanding to come in form of "why didn't I... when I was younger", no matter how much fun you have or can't have later, because you can't have the same fun later.

You and the AC below have the most insightful posts I've read on /. in this type of discussions/subjects for a long time (if not ever), and often I've been on the edge of posting about importance of knowing how to program over knowing specific languages.

Various different kind of languages (close to iron, like C, static/dynamic typing, pointers & taking care of memory management vs. automatic garbage collector, heavily OO (java being good example, as much as I dislike coding with it), etc. etc.) are good to know, which ones they are specifically doesn't matter that much. Common Lisp can't hurt though, and for the record I personally think Perl is probably a great source of learning. But in the end all that really matters is learning how to program and learning the very basic logic behind it that in the end is all that every bit of it comes to - if you take the languages I listed, it's unlikely that anyone here would mention those exact ones I did anyway.

After getting frustrated seeing dozens of ignoramus comments like your having nothing else to do than parrot their view of what it is like to live in "Africa, The Country", while apparently not even bothering to check which *country* are they doing this in and how things are there. But nooo, "this be Africa, here be warlords".