Yeah, every *novice* race driver claims that they can stop faster without ABS.

This has been debunked even on 20 year old ABS systems. In Finland - with professional rally drivers. Yes - on perfect conditions when the driver has the power to start whenever he likes - the non-ABS braking distances were a little bit shorter. But when you introduce even 1 unknown variable (not knowing when to start braking, unknown traction below the wheels, distraction during braking) even the professionals failed to stop faster on non-ABS car.

Thank you for the Washington Times link - the comment section is pure entertainment. I particularly like the piece about Obama being gay whose male lovers were shot before he was elected.

You are mixing causes and effects. I'm sorry for your friend, but I guess the biggest problem was not that 3-way he saw, but that his mom was not an responsible adult. And mixing sexual behavior is not the right way to assess that. It is an easy way, yes - calling somebody a "slut" is among the first thing teenage girls learn on how to insult others.

Ok, now we have established equilibrium - fucking strangers == bad. Yes, it can be, but don't put that on women. (I might disagree, because having sex can be done in a responsible way and there is nothing wrong with that...).

I was with you right before "just fucking everything with a dick". Because how is that harmful to children? Ok, even your first reason "if the bitch cheated" - is it still illegal in US to cheat in some states?

It is sad if the great dads lost custody, and yes, it is problem - females tend to get custody over males in many nations more easily given the same circumstances. But getting into sexual behavior as a deciding criteria...please, go back to 19th century.
 

N9 was moderately successful, but would Maemo have taken off as a competitor to Android and iOS markets? Hard to say - and Jolla might still give it a shot.

But Maemo was far from ready, Nokias HW partner on Maemo (Intel) was (and still is) far from ready, and the whole thing was a management mess. Yes, it could have been fixed - maybe, but frankly Windows Phone was not that bad choice compared to Maemo at the time. The only thing that made N9 come out at all was because Maemo was axed, and the team got "let's show them" -attitude after the fact.

For a nice (but long) history about Maemo / MeeGo read:

http://taskumuro.com/artikkelit/the-story-of-nokia-meego

Cell broadcast is the delivery method (although parent suspected that it was *not* used but they used regular SMS instead, for an example on my Android device (JB) the default is to disable cell broadcast, disabling incoming "normal" SMS is much harder), flash SMS is the name for the "instantly appearing" message.

Why? More work for them... And you forget that this is Comcast, a huge entertainment conglomerate, not some streaming video startup or small regional isp. So they have the muscle and can "negotiate" with other content providers and lobby groups. If an anti-porn group raises an issue with them they will happily comply with filters, maybe even create a nice portal only accessible at night and with opt-in where you can buy safe adult content from Penthouse and Playboy - and maybe get a nice funding from somewhere for the filters because they are progressive and innovative on protecting children and a cut of the Penthouse / Playboy revenue because they are driving customers there. They do not care how they will get their money, and the worst customer is one who just wants a "dumb pipe".

It is still Samsung who is providing the updates. Sure, you can unlock the phone more easily and put Cyanogenmod on it, but if you want "supported" OS it is still yet to be seen if Samsung updates the Play Edition or not. But choice is good, from reading reviews; would I buy an "Play edition S4" - probably not (battery life is actually worse, getting rid of TouchWiz doesn't give any real peformance boost, extra camera goodies are gone), and when the manufacturer version reaches it's end-of-life and you have to put Cyanogenmod on it to get to the newest stuff there probably exists an unlock hack for the bootloader anyway. If you wan't to unlock the phone from day 1 of course the story is different.

No, Ahonen is not fun. He is bitter ex-Nokia worker who has now self-promoted himself as an expert Nokia-analyst. His every blog post keeps repeating (in very boring and long way) the same old song - how strong Nokia was in 2010 and how badly is has been since, but he really doesn't offer *any* insight on what should have been done.

He completely (on purpose) forgets that Symbian was in really deep shit. Everyone else had abandoned it, developers generally hated it and Nokia devices were famous for their cost-cutting (too little RAM, slight differences on Symbian releases making cross-device development a huge pain, crashing built-in software) while Apple and Android were offering superior tools for developers and superior devices. Sure, going with Microsoft may have been a mistake, and it can still prove to be a catastrophe if MS does something nasty like decides to ditch WP in the failure bin. But just taking an arbitrary point in time (the end of 2010) and pretending that everything was fine and implying everything would have been fine and rosy also after that (without telling on what strategy) is just delusional.

This,

I do not live in the US, and we do have here (an evil and communist) centralized SSN system.

Still, companies and even government agencies sometimes (although they are getting wiser...) use SSN's as passwords when they should not - SSN should be public, your "GUID", and just identify that "I am this person", but not verify that identity. It is stupid - because once the SSN leaks out it is extremely hard to change, and you can't manage your identification method on per-service basis (on some less important cases you could resort to no authentication at all, on some use passwords, and decide that on the really important ones you have to be present and provide biometric proof).

Your address and name - well, it might not be wise to yell them out loud on every occasion, but they are not secrets either. I can imagine that the original poster shreds all his snail-mail thoroughly, but majority of people do not and that information is readily available in the trash for any passer-by.

Unfortunately these people are experts in hiding their tracks - more skilled than the ones they are suing.

Sure - eventually they will be barred but until that they can just make up new shell companies and name a hobo as a CEO for the price of a wine bottle - or better yet, just use someones name without their knowledge instead. One the judges get pissed, deny everything and refuse to testify, repeat and get a fee hundred thousand each round - keeps a few people employed.

I would not be surprised at all even if the producers they claim to represent are not aware of what is done using their products - I would guess that in the industry today you have to be nice to the customer and offer options, and that is what most are doing, not name and shame (because the competition is fierce, and there are free legal alternatives).

Let me guess - Macbook - $1000+, the Win8 PC $500+ with built-in crapware. Win8 installer doesn't require your email or name, just like Mac doesn't. But Windows really, really would like you to register for a Microsoft account, and the Mac really, really would like you to register for an Apple ID.

I do not defend the crashing installer - customer experience should not be that, but I strongly doubt that all those virus scanner trials and add-on try-before-you buy media players cheap PCs are cramped with do play a role here a manufacturers don't care to test enough.

Sure - anecdotes are not evidence so this is not complete analysis of the situation:

When travelling to US (from Europe, from a Visa Waiver country) the reception has been...bored. The most hassle has been on the EU side, where US destined flights are treated "specially" with the nude scanners and all that - but on the actual border, it has recently been "How long long do you plan on staying in the US - ok, 3 weeks, I will stamp you for 5, here, scan your fingers." Really, really bored. Ten years ago on my first visit they actually talked to you on what you are going to do and when you are going back.

Another anecdote - I just traveled to UK a week ago, the airport was full with "You are checked more carefully for your own safety" -posters, the guy at the passport check smiled, no queues.

I would not say Orange is insignificant and there are others, some national or operating in a small area with a large market share and grand plans for expansion (the Sonera part of the last company I linked is the former Finnish national post & telecom office, which was split up as a several private companies in 1990s - the "Telecom" part then became Tele and further Sonera which spent billions of euros on auctions for an example in Germany for 3G licenses, which never did anything and both Sonera and Telia still being minority-owned by Finnish and Swedish governments their actions have spurred a lot of discussion on how to handle "taxpayers money").