But you see you are in the Windows CE embedded niche. Your vision is clouded.

I'm not in a "windows CE embedded" niche and the grandparent poster is right.

It's not an issue with the target. It's an issue with the platform(s) supported by the development tool vendors and the chip manufacturers.

For instance: With Bluetooth 4.0 / Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), two of the premier system-on-a-chip product families are from Texas Instruments and Nordic Semiconductors.

TI developed their software in IAR's proprietary development environment and only supports that. Their bluetooth stack is only distributed in object form - for IAR's tools - with a "no reverse engineering" and "no linking to open source (which might force disclosure)". IAR, in turn, doesn't support anything but Windows. (You can't even use Wine: The IAR license manager needs real Windows to install, and the CC Debugger dongle, for burning the chip and necessary for hooking the debugger to the hardware debugging module, keeps important parts of its functionality in a closed-source windows driver.) IAR is about $3,000/seat after the one-month free evaluation (though they also allow a perpetual evaluation that is size-crippled, and too small to run the stack.)

The TI system-on-a-chip comes with some very good and very cheap hardware development platforms. (The CC Debugger dongle, the USB/BLE-radio stick, and the Sensor Tag (a battery-powered BLE device with buttons, magnetometer, gyro, barometer, humidity sensor, ambient temp sensor, and IR remote temp sensor), go for $49 for each of the three kits.) Their source code is free-as-in-beer, even when built into a commercial product, and gives you the whole infrastructure on which to build your app. But if you want to program these chips you either do it on Windows with the pricey IAR tools or build your own toolset and program the "bare metal", discarding ALL TI's code and writing a radio stack and OS from scratch.

Nordic is similar: Their license lets you reverse-engineer and modify their code (at your own risk). But their development platforms are built by Segger and the Windows-only development kit comes with TWO licenses. The Segger license (under German law), for the burner dongle and other debug infrastruture, not only has a no-reverse-engineering clause but also an anti-compete: Use their tools (even for comparison while developing your own) and you've signed away your right to EVER develop either anything similar or any product that competes with any of theirs.

So until the chip makers wise up (or are out-competed by ones who have), or some open-source people build something from scratch, with no help from them, to support their products, you're either stuck on Windows or stuck violating contracts and coming afoul of the law.

Just like when a cop gets right up on your bumper to read your license plate before pulling you over. If you had to stop quickly due to some emergency in the road ahead and the copy smacked into you, you will be charged with driving too close to the officer.

If it is military, then they would be idiots to shoot it down. They'd probably get shot down in retaliation.

The FAA says that model aircraft flights should be kept below 400 feet above ground level (AGL), should be flown a sufficient distance from populated areas and full scale aircraft, and are not for business purposes. I'm pretty sure two out of three of those rules were busted. One for certain.
The Police also violated FAA regulations by approaching within 500 feet of a person, structure or aircraft.

It's not legal. Nor is it legal to fly your helicopter in the vicinity of the other illegally operating vehicle. An illegal act does not justify another illegal act.

Yes, and where I live the paramedics are more likely to get to the scene of an accident, homicide or assault before any cops. Our paramedics wear bulletproof vests.

Wow, I can't believe the guy is only demanding that the officer be fired. If anyone else had done this, he would be in jail and PETA would be throwing blood on him.

I agree with you, with the caveat that breaking the law is not the correct response to breaking the law. Hopefully, the idiot drone pilots and the idiot NYPD pilot will both share a jail cell.

It looks like 6 people worldwide and 0 people in Pennsylvania. So they should also remark that it is not just sending them out to people who were born in the 1800s but also that it is sending out to people who are no longer alive. Kind of like a Chicago voter registration.

Bitcoin is money when the government wants it to be so they can take it from you or accuse you of money laundering. Bitcoin is not money when the government doesn't want it to be such as if you want to use it to pay taxes.

But one large dome probably contains 100 times the volume of the individual buildings it encapsulates.

The regulatory agencies prevent the per kwh prices from going up, but the billing fees, line item fees, paper statement fees, non-paper statement fees and whatnot are able to be adjusted at a whim. Also, the local electric utility is only regulated on their delivery charge. They are allowed to pass the cost of fuel directly to the consumer. The cost of the fuel is passed on at cost to the consumer, so there is no profit. But they don't need to make a profit, since they buy their fuel from their parent company, which is a fuel company and not a utility, so their prices are not regulated.

I remember this "war on dead batteries" starting as far back as 1996, after some sort of bomb threat or something. They forced you to fire up your laptop, but only if it wasn't rush hour, and then after about two or three weeks, they stopped doing it because it wasn't worth the effort.

That won't work. They will just subpeona that copy as well.

Not store specific, but there were pre-order bonuses of 15th anniversary cars. In order to play some of the seasonal events, you have to have one of these cars. Under no circumstances should one ever be forced to buy aftermarket (or premarket) content in order to play a game. If they want to sell content to make it easier, to add bonus missions, to put stupid costumes on your character or whatever, that is fine. But I bought the game and I should be able to play it to completion with spending an extra penny.