Priced authentic 1911s. Ouch. I'll probably go with a replica.

Cheers,
Dave

M-2 (Dream big)

Cheers,
Dave

Couldn't agree more. That's why I only use my guns for non-violent things like target shooting, destroying old hard drives (there is a certain satisfaction in this application), etc. I will not initiate violence with my guns but the nature of these weapons means that I am in a position to reply very violently to someone who initiates violence against me.

BTW, I live in Colorado, USA and we have what has become known as the "Make my day" law. This law here says that I can legally use any and all means including lethal weapons to defend my household against unauthorized entry. I consider breaking into my house to be a violent act and would respond accordingly.

Cheers,
Dave

I have read an interview couple of years ago, where Russian(?) reporters have grilled local Samsung rep about the updates. He was trying to avoid any direct answers, but as far as I have understood the source of the problem is the Google itself. Google has basically no predictable H/W platform roadmap and decides on the H/W requirements for every version separately. That's why many older devices didn't get the Android 4 update: the version was improved specifically for low-power and low-memory devices, yet at the same time the minimum memory requirements of the OS were increased. And as such the OS version couldn't be installed on them since that would violate the conditions of the license from Google.

A number of Google's apps are actually services with front-end.

Some 3rd party apps are using the services and as such require the apps to be installed.

Well known example is the maps/location service.

That way, Google can update the service, while updating the apps, regardless of the Android version.

I wish they were...

The problem with Google apps is that they are basically on "rolling release" schedule. In real life that means that pretty much all of them (the commercialized services to lesser extent) are "work in progress" and always slightly unfinished, have problems and bugs, occasionally reset settings or have stupid battery-draining bugs. The QA of rolling releases is pretty much impossible. By the time you get anywhere with a long-term test, it gets invalidated because... - oh, look! we have a new release!! For a device which is expected to run 24/7 non-stop, this is just a moronic non-strategy.

That's why I have stopped updating Google apps altogether. I got tired that I can't even rely on my phone mid-day to have the charge. I got tired to, after every botched update, wait for another update which fixes the problems.

Now, almost a year without updating Google apps, experience is quite good, actually. Though few month after that I have realized that Google apps can also become broken on the server-side. Twice in the last year+ (often shortly after an announcement of big feature release) I had Google servers constantly "pinging" my phone and preventing it from going to sleep. Was pretty bad experience: first time it took me a night of (uninstalling everything) hugging for hours the wireshark before I have localized the problem to the Google itself (and then reinstalling everything.) Problem disappeared few days later, as unexpectedly as it had appeared in the first place.

Back to the "crapware" remark. In my experience, the quality of Google apps if pretty low and as such they fully qualify for the "crapware" moniker. The lack of the usual features doesn't help.

I do not require audio applications, I do not listen to music that much, don't need it but I do not mind it. However if it is an 'audio application' it should be standalone and not tied into any 'platform' whatsoever.

Agreed.
Here is what I either want to have or can tolerate on the phone:
1. Phone.
2. Address Book / Phone Book.
3. Maps.
4. SMS.
5. Text notes.
6. Camera.
7. Voice recorder (very useful if can also record phone calls).
8. View of images / movies.
9. Browser.
10. Alarm clock.
11. Daily planner.
12. Calculator.
13. File manager.

That is what I think a smartphone is for and I do not want anything else on it.

Very unlikely. Most CGI engines have built-in support for gzip compression, since it could be used for compression/decompression of the content.

Also, most "CGI" nowadays is only "CGI" by the name. Zend/PHP, RoR, mod_perl - are all either FastCGI or Apache plugins, and do not use the environment to pass information around.

absolutely.

At the time when an average /.er writes another meaningless statement as to how to use more government violence to steal more money from individuals to create more monstrous government monopolies, Switzerland stands its ground and votes against such notions.

Business in USA naturally follows the guidelines set by the government, which itself puts an overwhelming emphasis on 'improving' numbers and it does it by redefining the scales and de-emphasising absolute values.

The so called 'GDP', the so called 'CPI', the so called 'core inflation', the so called 'unemployment rate' and various other measures are used to manipulate the perception of the economy by the markets and individuals to the great detriment to the actual economy and thus those very individuals.

The real numbers are not taken into account. Destructive inflation is now touted as an economic imperative and falling prices are the 'dreaded deflation'.

In the world where everybody lies to everybody, just another lying set of numbers at Dell is not a big deal until it too leads to destruction.

But that is so idiotic.

Why would anybody in their sane mind do it??

Most of the software will not fail.

Commercial *NIXes, BSD, MacOS and most recently Debian do NOT have /bin/sh symlinked to /bin/bash.

Pretty much everybody who uses the shell seriously in production environment is acutely aware of the differences between /bin/sh and /bin/bash. Distro packagers even more so.

Guns. Specifically, WWII era U.S. infantry weapons. Good for making old hard drives unreadable; good for defending the household. I can probably find other uses should the need arise.

Cheers,
Dave

Left wing politics of freedom, as in the original idea behind liberalism, not left wing politics of theft - the socialist/communist/fascist version.

I have nothing to thank your politics except for hundreds of millions of dead people, billions of poor people and the economic collapse.