That's actually a really excellent point about being a part of a community. One of the crucial parts of being a scientist is being aware of what has come before, and what others are doing - aka literature reviews and reading. Things like arxiv.org are great resources for being able to access this material without having to pay the traditional expenses with getting access to various journals etc.

Because it's [Flash] on every darn page on the web - for adverts - it'd be running almost constantly as the user uses Safari...

No problem. We'll just load Firefox and Flashblock - Oh wait...

I hate Apple for their anti-consumer politics and demeaning advertising. I hate Adobe because their software is bloated, buggy, and insecure. Now that you know I'm not partial to either company, why should Apple be able to block Adobe's media platform out of their hardware? Isn't this just like Microsoft bundling IE with Windows, leaving other browsers at a huge disadvantage? Isn't this worse because Adobe isn't even getting a chance to gain iPad customers? This is also companies deciding how their customers use their product, and that is bad. It may not be illegal, but it is very bad and I really wish this community would get past their fanboi-ism and on to the actual topic.

If Apple gets away with this then they will set a sort of precedence. It could start a trend where any hardware company could block a software company from their product, or the other way around, or with any combination of industries/products. Capitalism is great and all *cough* but the quest for a higher bottom line seems to remove all morals and justice from business and Apple's behavior represents just one of many slippery slopes.

One of those stories that everyone takes credit for, but appears to have some basis in truth:

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1244-defining-the-problem-of-elevator-waiting-times

http://www3.sympatico.ca/karasik/GF_evolution_of_legend.html

http://www.shmula.com/384/on-queueing-and-elevator-mirrors

Getting the definitive source will be neigh on impossible, but those are rough pointers. Either way its illustrative of requirements engineering/user perceptions/problem analysis.

Nor should MythTV support either of those. The LinuxTV project provides hardware support. MythTV will use (with a couple exceptions) any card supported by one of the V4L, DVB, or IVTV APIs.

> "The latest and most interesting recording hardware"? You know there are plenty of tuner devices
> out there that have Windows support but not Linux, right?

        Redundant ones.

> Most people don't want their recording hardware to be "interesting", they just want it to work.

        Well MCE fails in that department too.

        This idea that just because it's Microsoft, "it all just works magically" is a big lie.

> Just because somebody thinks Windows is the appropriate tool for the job does not mean they're a shill

        No. You're a shill because you insist on fixating on the OS Vendor product when
there are other better options. This is the whole problem with the Lemming whole mindset.
You have a platform where there are a plethora of options but you get one monopoly option
pushed at you.

        You're a shill not for pushing Windows in general but MCE in particular.

Yes, because increasing user satisfaction shouldn't be an objective for a browser which is constantly trying to increase its market share...

Much like the story of people complaining about elevators taking too long to arrive, and the installation of mirrors stopped the complaints, this is much the same. If users perceive the browser to be faster, then that is just as important as it being faster from a user satisfaction point of view.

doh - fixing post.

I also read this as well, and agree with your sentiments. How exactly any of these is an alternative browser to IE is beyond me when they are using the trident rendering engine.

Actually the summary is awful - of the 7 lesser known browsers - Avant, Maxthon, Slepnir are using trident (MSHTML). Appreciate that they may well be individual legitimate projects and not meaning to cast any aspersions on them, but having an additional 3 options which are how MS renders the web and whatever fobiles that entails, just seems wrong.

In his Glitter and Doom tour, Tom Waits pioneered an effective anti scalpers scheme.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitter_and_Doom_Tour#Tickets

SQL parser/generator in the database driver

You don't need a full SQL parser: you just need to keep track of quoted strings, and you can do that with a four-state DFA.

They didn't rob the bank.

They didn't print fake dollar bill.

Every single dollar that they paid good money for purchasing the tickets are REAL money.

What's illegal about what they have done??