Actually, it sounds more like the complete system to put on top of HURD, once that project has a stable microkernel. How's that going, btw?

The web browser that Emacs now includes - is it linq, or is it epiphany/GNOME web? Or is it Stallman's wet dream of an offline browser that one can't use while online for one's own good & protection from Snowden's NSA?

And Mageia, Mandriva, Scientific Linux and other RedHat variants, not to mention Arch, Gentoo & Slackware based distros. Incidentally, wondering what RMS' own pet distro - gNewSense, does, since it's a Ubuntu i.e. Debian derivative?

Do either Sendmail or Postfix have the ability to recall emails, like Exchange Server?

I have PC-BSD, which is FreeBSD made easy, and none of my installs have ever evoked a dependency issue, unlike w/ Linux - namely RedHat. I'll grant that distros that use apt-get are better than those that use yum - no idea about Pacman or other choices. But now, FreeBSD, PC-BSD and TrueOS all come in the same DVD, so one could install FreeBSD just as easily as the rest. With the packages.

Freescale (Motorola's) only market for the PowerPCs were Apple: they didn't usually go into RS/6000 workstations. So when Apple wanted a low power roadmap, how did Freescale think that it had any option other than to give them that? If they had followed an Intel like strategy and developed a whole spectrum of Power chips - ranging from low power chips for mobiles to multicore MIMD chips for the top of the like POWERservers, they'd still be around as a powerful competitor to Intel. Those CPUs, rather than ARMs, would have gone into first the iPods and then the iPhones and iPads, as well as Airbooks, Macs and others. And since Apple doesn't make cheap computers, their margins would have been pretty good as well.

Yeah, somehow I can't see GlobalFoundries build POWER chips. Heck, they struggled to make AMD chips, for crying out loud!

Apple, MS and....?

I think the other way. They'll have the watch in colors that only women will prefer - lime, yellow, cyan, red, and for the men, the watches would be like a Ford Model T - any color as long as it's black

The watch band is a ribbon

Given that Microsoft's initial Surface and Surface Pro II were ARM based, I don't get your point. None of the Lumias are x86 based - why do you think their watch would be?

But I agree - it will be no more successful in the market than the Lumia is

How are China & Russia ancient foes? Before the Cold War, the 2 hardly had any contact with each other. Rather, it was the Mongols who had a lot of interaction with both, but not of a nature that would bring Russia & China together.

China today has the same policies as Russia on Iran, Syria and North Korea: how are they not allies? In China's case, they have a lot more to gain by supporting their biggest trading partner - the US, than antagonizing us over these 3. In Russia's case, I understand their desperation - Iran and Syria are the only markets for their Soviet era weaponry, but in China's case, it's a lot broader.

As for Russia-China's border today, their only border is in the east, in Manchuria. Otherwise, Russia, Mongolia, China & Kazakhstan have a common point where their borders meet, ensuring that there's no border b/w Russia and China west of Mongolia. If you are referring to China's borders w/ the 'stans', China has a good reason for having them closed: they have a restive Uyghur population in Xinxiang, which has ties to Jihadi campaigns in the stans, particularly in Kyrgyzstan.

In case of India, few Indians notice these things when they come up in the news: people are a lot more interested in events within the country. India's reason here is legit - absense this, they'd have Jihadis cross the borders into India via Kashmir, and would have little control on intercepting them

So one would still have a unique ID for identification and authentication, but entities that have that same thing would only have access to particular pieces of information? How exactly would that be implemented? I thought something like a smart card with an interface to a database that has various pieces of information, of which only some are easily obtained (say age) vs having to get a warrant for some others.

Except that today, China is very much an ally of Russia (or maybe even vice versa). That famous Sino-Soviet split of the 60s is long over - one country is no longer communist, and the other is no longer ruled by Communists. Russia currently doesn't have geopolitical interests - it's just gathering all the allies that it can find. It's a pity that they aren't more discriminating about it, and even giving support to countries like Iran, Syria and North Korea.

Similarly, China was once a major ally of Pakistan, but due to Uyghar jihadis getting their support in Afghanistan and even in Pakistan, that friendship has become lukewarm. Even though Pakistan remains a major market for Huawei outside China

Part of what I suggested above is that they scan the card, which would give them your name, ID number (SSN# for the US), and then you'd by scanning the tickets enter the date they're leaving/entering the continent/country and their source/destinations. All that goes into an online record, which any police official in any country can run up if that person goes on to later blow up a dock in Oakland, or lands up in Syria in ISIS rags and is shown on TV beheading some Infidels.

What's even worse is the idea of using Driver Licenses - that's why you have the problem in some border states of proposals of wanting to issue DLs to illegals so that they don't compound the crime of being here illegally with doing hit and runs, since any discovery would require their instant deportation. But I digress.

Right now, that ship has sailed - social security is already used as identification, but since it doesn't have a photograph, one is required to show a passport or a driving license in addition to the social security card (which is still required if you're say, applying for a job, which will need it sooner or later for doing your I9 forms.) This is annoying. Just make the changes I suggested above - nobody's asking the US to be EU - and use only the social security card for official ID purposes. Get rid of the practice of requiring DLs for that, and even for passports, have them electronically linked so that one's whereabouts, if one is travelling abroad, is known. (Yeah, yeah, I hear all the screams of 'Snowden, NSA, privacy, blah blah blah, but like it or not, as Scott McNealy once noted, privacy is dead)

Conservatives don't like national ID cards because of a mistrust of big government. Liberals don't like them for similar reasons. However, fact remains that in today's world, like it or not, they are needed. Put it all in ONE place, and let other things be restricted to their domains - like one's driving record tied only to one's DL (unless any manslaughter cases are involved).