Don't forget the G5, which was updated every year before that since 2003.

Or the Power Mac G4.

Or the Power Mac G3.

And by not voting you're electing not to be a slave just to the system, but also a slave to everyone around you. You think you've made some point. You have not. You've only surrendered the little power you have to take none at all.

And you've done so voluntarily, which is the real kicker. You think you're standing up to anyone? People who don't vote is exactly what corruption wants. You've voluntarily given up your rights to those you claim to stand up against. And you don't even realize you're playing right into their game.

You give consent by not voting in elections. Not voting is a decision that gives consent to whatever happens as a result of your apathy.

Not making a decision is still making a decision.

And that attitude is one of the problems. I'm more likely to run into a loose screw than I am to be shot. Yet I don't carry a screwdriver everywhere with me.

True, that is not life threatening, so let's change it up a bit. Statistically (and if you ask I can cite), one is more likely to die of food poisoning than to be shot in a crime. Do gun owners carry ipecac syrup on them to guard themselves against a poisoning? Yet they carry a gun, which is statistically less likely to happen. It's that sort of illogical emphasis on guns is part of the problem. America has taken a problem that is statically unlikely and blown it out or proportion.

So we get a bunch of scared people carrying guns around, and every so often they get frightened and shoot someone. Or, even worse, they don't know how to handle or store a gun and leave it in a place where it is either stolen, or someone has access to it who shouldn't.

The societal problem again boils down to: We have made something that is almost statistical noise seem like a huge threat to society, illogically over things that are more likely to harm us. We convince people the world is a lot more dangerous than it statistically is. We tell them they all need guns. And then people go around shooting other people and our response is "Gee! How did that happen?"

Meantime the Swiss keep guns around only for national defense. They don't get their panties in a wad over statistically possible but unlikely scenarios and overcompensate, causing societal drama along the way.

Because:
1) As someone else noted, if guns are used to prevent government tyranny, this is an easy one. The next revolution is not starting at the Froyo stand in the food court.
2) For self defense beyond defending one's home, the ability to distinguish friend vs. foe seems to be broken, and honestly, people aren't trained to shoot in public. How many gun owners have had training on how to handle firing a weapon in crowds? I haven't met one. Even police need specialized training for that, and they screw up pretty often. And as I noted above, this scenario isn't very likely either.

While that's true, the behavior that sort of thing is encouraging leads to this sort of thing. If you want to look at the emotional/mental/person component of gun crimes (which most people against gun control insist they want to do), we live in a society where a gun is a condoned method of solving a problem. Self defense? Gun. Feeling unsafe? Gun. Black kid walking around in a hoodie? Gun.

By making guns so accessible, they've been trivialized. Guns are tools? Maybe. But no one walks around the general public with a hammer or chainsaw on their belts. Other tools in society have an appropriate time and place, and we're communicating to our society that the appropriate time and place for a gun is every time and place.

The point that the Swiss accept guns in households but not in public makes this point to their society very clear: Guns are for defending your home, not for shooting people out in public.

I remember when the internet was pretty open, until Microsoft got their grubby hands on it with IE. At first everyone was happy because Microsoft was giving away a decent web browser for free. But then they got greedy... What did they do again? Ah right, they created their own "standard" language that was only adopted by their web browser.

How quickly people forget the past.

A web monopoly is never good, even if people think Google is friendly. Remember, Microsoft was once held in as high-ish regard is Google was. But they changed from progressing internet standards to impeding them as soon as their game changed from an offensive one to a defensive one.

If you want the real scoop, check out what our local newspaper wrote:
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2013/12/oregons_health_exchange_woes_s_1.html

TL;DR: Someone thought control should be handed over to private industry, Oracle was signed up to create the website, they totally screwed it up, and now the website is basically useless and for a long while wasn't even able to sign people up.

So while the public/Democrat finger pointing is good and all (and I don't know who wrote up this summary, they're totally ill informed, outside of Portland Oregon is mostly conversative, in fact here is a map http://bluebook.state.or.us/facts/almanac/almanac10.htm ), it's really that Oracle screwed everyone over. That's the real story, and the state is looking for a way to get their money back.

85% of the PC market on Windows still means there is an active need for Windows software. I could see that the Windows development sphere might be saturated with developers (Windows or .Net developers are honestly the most common type of developers I run into, and I'm on the Apple stack side of the fence), but I don't think we're in a climate where most devices are running Linux. And Android is really a Java platform, not a Linux development platform for most.

You might have 2 Linux workstations, but as of right now, that's not the market. It could be in the future with Windows 8 the way it is, but there is still a lot to be seen if Linux will take the desktop or phone (and again, I'm not really counting Android in since Android development != Linux development generally.)

The White House supports, and 130 Dems voted for the bill. True, more Dems voted against than Republicans, but 27 Republicans voted against and 64 Dems voted against.

My guess is that voting against this is going to be more aligned with who's getting the most money in the Senate, regardless of party lines. I could imagine both corporations and education throwing money at this, which means Republicans and Democrats will support and oppose in nearly equal measure.

Anything with Chrome gets a "half truth" from me. Chrome is based on WebKit, and as such had a lot of stuff that was copied from Apple. I would say collaborated on, but Google put an end to that, so I'll use the word copied, even though it was a legally allowed copy.

V8 is Google's original contribution to WebKit, yes, but it was very similar to WebKit's JavaScript engine (which leapfrogged V8 within public release in months, so V8 didn't really even bring anything unique to the table), and if you'll notice from the V8 license...

https://code.google.com/p/v8/source/browse/trunk/LICENSE

"Strongtalk assembler, the basis of the files assembler-arm-inl.h,
        assembler-arm.cc, assembler-arm.h, assembler-ia32-inl.h,
        assembler-ia32.cc, assembler-ia32.h, assembler-x64-inl.h,
        assembler-x64.cc, assembler-x64.h, assembler-mips-inl.h,
        assembler-mips.cc, assembler-mips.h, assembler.cc and assembler.h.
        This code is copyrighted by Sun Microsystems Inc. and released
        under a 3-clause BSD license."

They didn't even write the assembler, it's Suns.

So their contribution to V8 was to bring a lot of things together, but it wouldn't have been possible with, again, outside companies and acquisitions.

I don't have much sympathy for Google in the patents arms race. Google was aware what the rules of the game were, they were aware Apple had patented the wazoo out of the iPhone ("And BOY have we patented it!" - Steve Jobs, iPhone Introduction), and yet they copied anyway. You can complain about the rules, but Google can't say they were ignorant about the rules, and boy, these patents were unexpected. They very directly released something in conflict of patents, that's on them. I don't have much sympathy for companies that go out of their way to incur legal wraith and then complain they get sued. There is no "not playing the patent game." That's like playing soccer but saying you're "not playing the no hands on the ball game." It is what is it. Ignorance isn't a legal defense, nor is it a sound corporate strategy.

Oh boy...
- The name and the DRM key are linked. New name = new DRM key.
- As a developer, you can also assign multiple DRM keys to the same name.

And neither one changes the outcome of benchmarks. Even if you change the DRM key, nothing changes. And, in case you don't remember, developers don't have to go through the iOS store to run apps. Non-app store benchmark matches app store benchmark matches entirely unsigned un-DRMed benchmark on a jailbroken phone. Which implies no cheating.

And just in case that's not good enough for you, I happen to get beers with the guy who wrote Geekbench, and he says Apple isn't cheating either.

Wasn't it Apple-Control-Reset required to reset? I seem to remember learning that in school, and Macs definitely still used that combo.

I'm not quite sure yet if I support what the article is talking about... but this one seems like an easy one to answer. Education isn't free. Those with money can get a better education. Those with little money get less or no education. It's all the same thing.

You want to give Ayn Rand credit because all she did was describe Communism in a country in a continent next to the continent Venezuela is in? I'm not seeing the insight here. Ayn Rand neither invented Communism or alternate history.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure Venezuela is a parody of real life.

I also don't think Ayn Rand was talking about Venezuela, or that most of her detractors would support a government take over of Best Buy, but you know, shades of grey and all that.