Our student at work has a plan that is like $30-40/month or something that is unlimited data (I don't remember how much high speed, they throttle at some point), 400 talk minutes and unlimited text. It's a prepaid deal.

Since I doubt that this sub-question will get through the editor, I'll give you my answer now. My objection was to the use of bitkeeper due to its license. This is not the same as being in favor of violating the license. What Tridge did (invoking the "HELP" command on a TCP stream connection to the bitkeeper server) was not a license violation.

It's up to the editor when they run the replies. But I promise to answer mine.

Yes, I will answer the interview questions as soon as the editor gets them together.

If you have a specific question, you can always reach me via email to bruce at perens dot com or phone 510-4PERENS. Email usually works better.

I mean yes, there are expensive Android devices. You can have a nice, premium, phone or tablet if you wish. I loves me my Galaxy Note 3 but it certainly costs a lot, more than an iPhone even. However there are also cheap Android devices. You can get a smart phone for $100 or less (talking full price here, not subsidized). So Android phones are an option on most budgets.

Until recently, all you could get with Apple was the standard iPhone which is like $600-700 full price. Even the new "c" model is $550 full price. That puts them out of range of most people who want prepaid phone plans, which is often what people with lower incomes go for.

Well those people are also likely to spend less on apps. After all, if your finances are such that you wish to buy an economical phone, you probably don't want to ruin it with spending a ton of money on software.

So ya, that will push the average down on Android phones. Personally, I see that as a big positive to Android. There's something to be said for a thing that can be available to a wide segment of the population. Exclusivity to the affluent isn't something I consider to be positive.

I know a lot of people, my sister included, who have a big issue with taking drugs prescribed by a doctor, but no issue with taking drugs purchased from a dealer. The logic can be pretty strange. For example I was talking with her about looking in to trying an anti-anxiety medication. My family all has issues with that, but she is far worse than the rest of us. My parents and I take low doses of SSRIs for it and it seems to help a lot. Thus it would probably be worth a try for her, since we have a great deal of genetic commonalities so the chances it works on her are high. Her response? "I don't want to do that, I only want to take the drugs I choose." I pointed out to her that it was completely my choice to take an SSRI, I could stop any time I wished, they aren't addictive, there is no court or medical order that requires me to take it, I continue to take it because I find it useful. Same reason we all take allergy medicine in the spring: It is useful in dealing with that, not because there is a requirement of some kind. She didn't like that though, to her it is different, though she could not articulate how or why.

I'm not sure why it is such an issue, perhaps because of the stigma associated with mental health issues, but I've seen it in numerous occasions. People who have no issue with recreational drugs that alter your brain chemistry but think that prescription drugs that do the same are evil or bad or something. It is, as you point out, a very silly position. I can respect, though not agree with, the position of taking no drugs that alter brain chemistry for whatever reason. However it is silly to be ok with THC and LSD and the like, but not with an SSRI.

Now please don't anyone mistake me for saying "Everyone should take SSRIs." No, not at all. However if a professional suggests they, or another drug, may be useful to treating a condition you have, you shouldn't say "No I won't take drugs," but then go out and smoke a joint. That is just silly. That would be like then refusing to use marijuana if a doctor prescribed it.

Where I live, you can get cable Internet that is 150/20mbps. It has the backhaul to support it too, you really get those kind of speeds. I've a friend on the other side of the US with FIOS who has even faster, 150/65mbps again with the backhaul to support the speed.

This is in the US too. There are other countries that claim better.

I mean sure, they have fast FTTH. Fair enough, but that doesn't do you much good if the backhaul to the rest of the Internet isn't sufficient to support the speeds.

This is something that always gets left out of the "OMG t3h fast internetz!!!" articles on Slashdot. A lot of the "really fast" Internet in the world is basically a big WAN where you have a fast line, and thus fast speeds to your neighbors and ISP, but then lack the backhaul to get those kind of speeds to the wider Internet, since that's the really expensive part.

Not saying that's the case here or not, but it is the kind of info that needs to be included to be useful. Along with, of course, the actual speed.

I was showing a situation where Apple products were used, but Apple wasn't paying for product placement, so the logos were covered. 30 Rock is then an example of where they did pay, and the logos are visible.

I'm all for new safety standards... if they are useful. I mean we've made great strides in reducing car fatalities. They've been dropping in absolute and per captia numbers since the late 60s, and in deaths per million vehicle miles traveled since 1921, when we started keeping statistics. That's a really good thing, that while driving more than ever less people die. The major reason is better safety standards, things like mandatory seatbelts, cars that deform and crumple to absorb the energy of an impact and lessen the acceleration shock to the occupants and so on.

However, costs and benefits have to be kept in proportion. How many deaths will something likely prevent, vs what will it cost? This is not many deaths, particularly compared to the number that occur, and I have to imagine the cost will be a fair bit. Particularly in lower end cars. Not only do you need a camera, but you need a display system for it, which probably means a digital instrument cluster. That's a fair bit more up front, and more expensive to maintain.

Look at Better Off Ted. There they use Macs, presumably for aesthetic reasons, but Apple didn't give them any money or products. So there's no logos. Where the Apple logo is, instead a big sticker of a different, generic, logo has been placed.

Maybe you didn't realize Apple did it, but they did it. Look further down this thread for one example. Hollywood is greedy and they know they can get money for product placement. So they charge for it. If nobody pays, they remove logos or make generic coverings. Sometimes it is even as simply as just putting tape over the logo (you'll see that on Mythbusters). They aren't going to hand out freebies. It isn't always money directly, sometimes it is discounts (or free) products, but Hollywood gets something for that logo being shown. For consumer electronics, often it is free devices for directors, producers and so on.

Maybe your boss told you that to help reinforce the Apple RDF that everyone love Apple for all things or whatever, but it is blatantly untrue and it doesn't take much research to discover that.

Ever notice that you tend to see a lot of Apple products in TV shows and movies, and the the logos are visible? that isn't coincidence, nor is it because Hollywood likes Macs, that's because Apple paid them. If you see a product logo, money changed hands. Otherwise it'll be something generic, or the logo will be removed, or what not. They don't give freebies on that sort of things because they can, and do, make a lot of money on it.

Apple isn't the only company that does product placement, but they are by far the most common computer company that does it. Most others rarely, if ever, do it. The only recent example I can think of for another one is Dell in V for Vendetta.

So why does Apple do this? Because they want to create the image in people's minds that apple are what all the cool, good looking, people (who actors in shows invariably are) use. It is an image thing with the brand. They want people to see it all the time, used by the hero characters. That leads people to form the opinion that they might want to own one.

They wouldn't spend the money doing it if they didn't believe it was effective.

That wouldn't stop someone fro suing and dragging along an expensive case. Their shady lawyers would argue gross negligence and keep fighting and fighting. Eventually, a settlement would probably be the cheapest, though still expensive, option.

Costco has deep pockets, meaning that they'd be a tempting target for a suit, even though it would be a bullshit one. Particularly since the lawyer could play the PR battle. Roll out the crying mother who's child had been killed or given a debilitating condition by the evil corporate scumbags who had pushed out that tainted peanut butter. Doesn't matter that it is bullshit, matters what the public hears. Costco's business takes a major hit for no reason and there's fuck-all they can do about it.

So better to just avoid it entirely.

There are a lot of things you could easily do right now that you don't, and not because of laziness. Like power generation. You could generate your own power, right now. No new tech is needed, everything is on the mass market. Generac will happily sell you a generator sufficient to power your entire house. You can even get them so that they feed off of the natural gas line, and thus you don't need a separate fuel contract. What's more, this isn't rare. Generac sells these all the time as backup generators to people who live in areas prone to power failure. People drop 4-5 figures to have everything set up so that when line power dies, they stay powered. On the bigger side of things, data centers buy huge ones to make sure their computers never go dark.

Ok well these places already have generators. They are installed, ready, and capable of providing power. So, they go off the grid right, generate their own energy? No, basically never. Well why not? Why spend the money for the backup and not just use it all the time? Because it is cheaper to buy line power. Those generators, impressive as they may look, cannot compete with the behemoths that produce line power. The massive plants with multi-stage turbines just do a much more efficient, and thus cheaper, job of generating electricity.

This holds true for just about everything. You find that the cost to produce something at home, using equipment of that size, is just not near as cheap as producing it in large quantities using big industrial equipment.

So perhaps we will see the day when 3D printers truly can print anything (I'm somewhat doubtful, it would really take a technology advancement so much as to be a completely different thing) but it is likely to then be a luxury, not the way everything is done. You would be able to have your 3D printer/replicator/UC/whatever print you something and have it right away, but the cost in doing so in terms of materials, energy, and so on would result in a product more expensive than if you ordered the same thing from Amazon. So those that have money might use it for convenience, or to get things more to custom spec, but mass production is still likely to be the thing.