It does, but there are some legitimate uses for a modern embedded x86 board.

Orbit is just an extreme example of ballistic flight, so you could say that the ISS is flying.

So how does "specially protected devices that can be used to work with confidential information" translate to "open source"? Products with that many qualifiers tend to be extremely proprietary.

As to the paranoia, the Android in question was designed by a very close US ally and runs an OS designed by a US company. I wouldn't rule out the presence of "hooks" in their devices.

The software delivered on Samsung tablets isn't entirely open source, either. Anyway, iOS is built on Darwin (among many other open source components), which is open source, too.

None of Google's non-OS apps, including the Play Store, are open source. The words "open source" are not a complete explanation of this situation.

Maybe you can help me understand this because I can't seem to find it stated clearly anywhere...

Aren't the fees payed to the original miner of a specific block in exchange for continuing to validate transactions derived from that block? What happens to the transactions derived from a block when the original miner stops validating transactions (which is sure to happen by 2140) and what incentives do others have to validate transactions if the fees will just be going to the long dead original miner?

(If that's what happens to fees, then the end result will be a slow condensation of all bitcoins into the unspendable wallets of the long dead original miners. But first, people will stop wasting electricity validating transactions which only benefit them by keeping the whole system from collapsing.)

If that's not true and anyone can collect fees by validating transactions, and if the fees aren't tied to mining difficulty, at what point does it make more sense to just validate transactions in exchange for fees than to actively look for more coins?

There is a table for consistent transliteration from Western and Cyrillic alphabets. It does seem like a shame that the original script isn't at least stored in the contactless chip, though.

Have you? They don't type in and search the names on passports. Any passports in use have a standardized machine readable section (with transliteration conducted by the issuing state). Automatically testing other transliterations wouldn't be that hard of a task.

Are you sure that they're trying to produce the Metaverse and not just the anarcho-capitalistic dystopia part?

Or that some of the other manufacturers are cutting their production costs to the point that the product is starting to suffer and they are losing customers because of it.

There's no fixed cost for the production of a computer. Quality of components, design, materials, etc can be varied over a very large range and the quality of the final product is dependent on these inputs. Apple is certainly getting quite the profit margin, but I've used many computers over the years and their products fare very well in fit and finish and longevity (especially for the price).

Chinese factories are capable of making goods of high or low quality, depending on what you pay. Most of the stuff we get from China is crap because the management of most the companies that move their manufacturing overseas are already in aggressive cost cutting mode and want the product made as cheaply as possible. Of course, if your schtick is quality, you can't cut production costs to the bone and still keep your customers.

Anyway, much of the profit difference is based on how the different computer companies are structured. Other companies that make high quality computers gouge on those models as well, they just sustain themselves with cheap disposable junk (that has a lower profit margin).

If they move, but travel along consistent paths, those will become apparent after enough data is collected. Similarly, given enough time you could tell where the never travel or where they tend to dwell longer.

Does Facebook?

Recent history is littered with interesting start-ups getting bought out and abandoned because of a misunderstanding of the start-up's core concept.

Or maybe there's a patent that Facebook wants for leverage in some other area and everything else will just be dropped...

I'd argue that if you're going to eat meat, it's also more ethical to kill and eat animals who've lived free in the wild than encourage people to keep animals penned up in cages being pumped full antibiotics and hormones.

Technological advantages come in two different classes wrt hunting...

The first, which covers a high powered rifle and scope, is about increasing the likelihood of a clean, ethical kill. Using primitive technology, like bows (or muskets!), is more likely to leave maimed or horribly injured animals or leave you to have to track and kill an animal after a long time of suffering. That's not cool.

The second, which covers drones and baiting, is about increasing the likelihood of encountering an animal to kill. If you're hunting in order to not starve I can see the argument, but otherwise you're cheating and another creature is paying for that with its life. Where's the sport in that? (Along that line of thinking, the Predator was a fucking loser.)

The take limits are based on past seasons and surveys. Not every hunt is successful and not every hunter takes 100% of their limit (especially not all in the first couple of trips). If drone-assisted hunting eliminates (or decreases) unsuccessful hunts or allows all hunters to take their limit on the first trip, then the limits may not be adequately well defined and there could be damage to the game populations.

Hunting access in general is operated from a "default deny" perspective with regard to time of access and technology allowed. It's perfectly normal to expect drone assistance to be disallowed before it is studied and specifically allowed. (If it ever is... "perfectly normal" doesn't mean "not debatable".)

What about five years down the line when neither of them are in their retail packaging and all of the logos have worn off the cheapo imitation. Are you too dumb to use a meter when you pick this up off of a bench and trust that it can actually handle 600 V without bursting into flames?

Without the SparkFun logo, anyone who has used a Fluke would look at the meter and say that it's a Fluke. This case has everything to do with trade dress:

Trade dress is a legal term of art that generally refers to characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers.

But the styling is obviously worth something if the knock-off company went out of their way to make their clone have exactly the same styling.

Knock-off manufacturers deliberately making their poor quality imitations mistakable for high quality products is exactly what trademarks and trade dress laws are for.