I'm sure that you're right. All I'm saying is that it's going to take more than that to get everyone to shift. There's no reason to for developers to change their workflow to accommodate anything special for x86 right now, because there's no compelling design or business reason to do so.

Intel needs to provide that reason.

All of the above, as well as a web server, file server, VPN, and other miscellaneous oddities. Yes, I would get a power savings from upgrading the hardware, but not enough to be worth the hassle of doing that. The existing boxes work just fine. When the day comes that they fail, I'll upgrade.

But my underlying point is that these machines have more than enough horsepower to do these tasks. They're far from worthless.

Intel has to do more than provide parity with Arm, though. They have to provide a compelling reason to use their chips. "As good as arm" doesn't cut it at all, since arm is the defacto standard and developers will just continue to target that. What benefits do Atom chips bring that offsets the cost of supporting them?

I use several PIII machines, and one PII, regularly as servers in my LAN. They perform very well in that role.

Since we're all playing the age card, I'm 50 and have been actively developing software since I was 12 (using punch cards and the ultra-fast and modern paper tape!)

The x86 is a fine architecture, despite its numerous warts. However, so is arm. Each has distinct advantages and disadvantages -- and being able to operate in power-starved situations (such as with smartphones) is one of the main strengths of arm and one of the main weaknesses of x86. If my experiences has taught me anything, it's that there's no such thing as a single approach that works well in every situation. If all you have is a hammer...

"Intel designed the best architecture"

What is "best" depends on what it's used for. There's no such thing as a single architecture that is the "best" in every situation. Arm is hardly the "current fad". It's been around and going strong for a long, long time -- and it's being used in smart phones because it happens to be the best solution for that application currently on the market.

"to do a good job, it is often advisable to do everything in your legal power to accomplish that job"

This is rarely actually true. But it is never true for law enforcement. To do a good job there means that you must not to everything that you're legally empowered to do.

I couldn't disagree more, for a bunch of reasons -- but here's the one at the top of the list: lawmakers are always passing laws that give the police far too much power (at the urging of the police), but then explain to us that it's OK because the police will exercise good judgement and won't actually do the abusive things that the law allows.

I blame lawmakers for passing those laws, and I equally blame law enforcement failing to exercise good judgement.

Trademark, not copyright. Different rules apply.

Yes, as TFA says, if you are running in developer mode you can install anything you like. Of course, it comes with all the downsides of developer mode (such as annoying warning dialogs).

The problem with being required to use the store isn't the cost of doing so. Even if it were 100% free, it would still be a bad thing.

For the time being, but Mozilla keeps making Firefox worse and worse. If that trend continues even a little while longer, then FF won't be a viable alternative anymore.

According to TFA, you won't be able to do this anymore. Any extensions that aren't in the store can't be installed, and any already-installed extensions that aren't in the store will be permanently disabled.

So they're just collateral damage, then?

...and yet another good reason to avoid using Chrome.

That he cannot release top secret information in a public forum doesn't mean that the only other option he has is to lie. He could also say "I can't discuss that in a public forum." If he'd done that, he might have a shred of credibility left now. However, that he is fully willing to lie to Congress means that it's unwise to believe a single thing he says.