And that's the real problem - how do you properly draw the line between apps that are legitimate but happen to be similar because one inspired the other, and apps that are pure scamware and trying to undermine the original developer?

That's what trademarks are for.

I'm an Apple user. I can accuse Microsoft of a lot but yes they are substantially more open than Apple:

a) Their hardware base system is extremely open. Apple provides very limited hardware choice
b) Their driver selection is 2nd to none. Incredible. Apple is far worse than Linux and might even be worse than other BSDs.
c) Azure (their cloud offering) is probably the most open cloud out there. Certainly among the big players. Apple's cloud is completely tied to their platform and they don't allow other clouds.
d) Their enterprise apps tend to play well with others and allow you to mix and match.

etc...

Microsoft sells computers without the crapware: www.microsoftstore.com/signature
On the one hand they hate what the crapware does to the entire experience. OTOH $75-90 in subsidies per machine per OEM translates into about $150 to the end customer in savings. At an ASP of $550 an increase to $700 would be a 27% increase in price which would definitely harm sales. The value trap is a disaster for Microsoft. One of the points of the new interface is to drive up the price of PCs by making better interface hardware worthwhile and thus cut that number down to a level where they might be able to get rid of crapware.

I completely fail to comprehend why most Slashdotters seem to push everyone towards DRM'ed iPads and Chromebooks that put Palladium to shame instead of more open Windows PCs.

They don't. This generation of /.ers pretty much hates everything except for grey market hardware distributors. They hate Linux for failing on the desktop. They hate Apple for being vertically integrated and expensive. , They hate Microsoft for not being innovative while ignoring Azure and enterprise apps where Microsoft has been innovative. Then when Microsoft brings out their biggest innovation for home / small business they trash that because it runs badly on Windows 7 machine.

They've gotten bitter. Of course it was easier to be positive when /. started and we were in a tech explosion with salaries rapidly rising and jobs plentiful.

In a very real sense, she is a preacher of hate. Some people take exception to that to the point of losing rationality. On the other hand, lets wait and see whether her story actually pans out. This may still be a publicity stunt, and it actually has all the characteristics of one.

Question: can I repackage Firefox binaries and distribute it along with my other files? I made a php application and wanna make it a turnkey WAMP stack. It will be called "MyCool PHP App" and the word Firefox won't appear anywhere.

You are overlooking the question of consistency of your chosen axioms with reality. That is very much a part of rationality. In fact, it is the basis. Deriving things from axioms is just a tool that usually comes in handy and is required in basically all practical applications of rationality, but it is not strictly necessary if you get axiom consistency with reality in some other way (which is not practical, hence reasoning is usually regarded as a part of rationality).

Sorry, but all mathematics and all theory, including the scientific method are "discovered". They cannot be "invented". Read up on the philosophical basics if you do not believe that.

This may be fake. We only have her word. And we know that she has gotten a lot less attention lately than she wants...

Obviously if Intel were to substantial cut prices that changes things. But at least the Power8 prices I saw were competitive. Their entire pitch is that Power8 is moderately better especially for virtualization. They have to know that moderately better doesn't cut it if they are way out of range on price.

Yeah, I can see you do great on statistics, too.

Death stopped being binary some years back (suggest you read medical news) but this isn't about that. This is simple numbers. If device X kills N times out of 100 and device Y kills M times out of 100, where N != M, the lethality of the devices is not the same.

Cops are not doing a good job. Estimates range from 400-1000 unjustified deaths a year. To put it into context, since 9/11, there may well have been 4 times as many unjustified deaths by cops in America as unjustified deaths by Al Queda.

That isn't acceptable by any standards.

Or perhaps if you'd like, I can put it another way. There have been three times as many incidents of manslaughter and murder by American cop per capita of population than there have been incidents of manslaughter or murder in Britain in total.

That number is WAY unacceptable.

Cops carrying guns confer no benefit to those in the area (80% of bullets fired by police handguns miss their target, they don't vanish and they do hit passers-by, sound crew, hostages, etc).

Cops carrying guns confer no benefits to law and order, since alternatives from stun guns to pain rays (microwave stimulation of nerve endings, if you prefer) to teargas (which isn't great but is less lethal than a lump of lead) already exist and criminals are less likely to carry when running is a more practical option than a shoot-out. That has always been the British experience, which is why you now get regular shoot-outs where British cops are stupid enough to carry where you'd previously have had maybe one a decade versus an armed response unit.

Cops carrying guns confer no benefits to the cop, since dead weight can result a cop becoming dead, accidental shootings are very likely to produce retaliation, and "utility" belts stop utilizing when they terrify locals, intimidate visitors, but bolster thugs who gain greater mobility and dexterity from not wearing them.

Look, this is all very simple. Too simple for nutters, perhaps, but simple nonetheless.

First, preventing crime by eliminating prime environmental and psychological causes is a good start. If there's no crime, there's nobody to shoot and nobody shooting back.

Second, preventing cops turning bad by preventing them developing a "them vs us" attitude is essential and you don't achieve that by giving them scrutineering powers and not those they are scrutinizing. It has to be a two-way street to prevent that kind of mindset.

But that requires one additional ingredient to work properly:

Third, preventing cops turning bad by preventing them from being have-a-go heros. They should work with the community, be a part of the community, guard it from within. And, like all good guards, they should NOT be on constant alert. They should be constantly engaging on a social level, not a paramilitary one. If a crime happens, let the criminal go somewhere where there ISN'T a huge danger to others. Inanimate objects can look after themselves, people need a bit more effort.

It is better to let a gang "get away" from the scene, with no bullets fired, be tracked safely and then be apprehended INTACT when it is safe to do so. Going in there guns blazing will cause excessive damage, risk the lives of those supposedly protected and served, and for what? Some carcases. No trial, no determination of the chain of events, no proof even that the dead body is the guilty party. It can't exactly answer questions in the dock, can it?

No, disarm the cops, give them high-res cameras (and maybe girls gone wild t-shirts, I dunno), and let them be what cops should be - good citizens. They are NOT the army, they should NEVER be allowed military-grade weapons, they should deal with matters calmly, quietly and sensibly.

If they're not capable of that, they're incapable of good. Of any kind.

Then it wasn't an accident. Simple as that. People seem to forget that you can build these devices to withstand any force a cop's skull is likely to take, and more besides.

Storage is a non-issue because you don't need to store a lot locally. Local storage can be limited to the time the cop is outside of radio contact plus the time to clear enough buffer that no information is lost. So unless the cop is riding a motorbike in a cage, it's just not enough to create serious issues.

Battery will be a bigger issue. It'll take a lot of batteries to keep transmitting at a decent resolution. However, as cops with guns cause more trouble than they prevent, that's also easy to fix. Sufficient batteries will consume no more weight than a sidearm plus extra ammunition.

Actually, it might not be that bad. With the proposed mandate for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, a cop radio could turn the entire road network into a gigantic adhoc wireless network. You don't need as much power for a short-range transmission. Might as well get some value out of these stupid ideas.