I have a Motorola Xoom that's probably four years old. It's running KitKat now. I had to update the firmware myself, since the last official update it got was for 4.1, but I even have the option to move to 5.0 if I wanted to do so. I also have a Galaxy Tab 8.9 of similar vintage that's completely fine at its advanced age, though I did take the time to replace its battery a few weeks ago.
  I'm not sure I understand what issues are preventing the Nexus 7 from being a decent Lollipop device, but my Nexus also became significantly worse even after a fresh OS install of Android 5.0. Apple doesn't have a patent on decent hardware. It simply appears that a deliberately low-cost, high capability Asus device might've had to cut some corners in the quality control department.

I'm ok with the Tax Gas -> Why spend it though, we already spend more than we take in... Why not just use the extra money to reduce the deficit instead.

Why do we have this, oh lets raise taxes to spend more money mentality, it is short sighted and stupid. We should raise revenue or cut spending until we have paid off our debt, and then spend the extra money on programs that will raise the prosperity of the country more than not taking the money from individuals can do it. Trust me that is a pretty high bar.

QuakeCon's Bring Your Own Computer area can reach 2500+. 170 is nothing.

Can we all at least agree that the sorry excuse for a motherfucker who made the default iOS keyboard that doesn't change the case of characters with the state of the shift key needs a good shanking?

If there's any single developer that needs a stabbing, it's that guy.

That's even worse. The iPhone is immensely more powerful than the watch. I can excuse the watch being slow, but the iPhone?

QED, AC.

I like AMD, I really do. They've gotten the short end of the stick over and over again. But even I have to admit that the Tek Syndicate benchmarks are poor proof of value right now, and for 2 reasons.

1. They were specifically structured to make the AMD processors look good by running a high CPU load H.264 encoding task (XSplit) while also running a game, which leads us to...
2. XSplit has been rendered functionally obsolete by newer software that uses the on-board H.264 encoders provided by AMD/NVIDIA/Intel. H.264 encoding is now a virtually free operation (with a 5% perf hit), which means that specific scenario isn't applicable in 2015. And that's about the only reason you'd ever want to run a game and a high CPU load alongside a game

There are still some things AMD does well at, but they're few and far between, especially at the high-end since they haven't introduced a new FX processor architecture since Piledriver. Things are far more interesting towards the low end with Kaveri versus Haswell thanks to AMD's much better GPU, though they still lose in a CPU fight.

How would you share data between two apps if both developers didn't support that?

On Android, data sharing is fully handled by the OS, not unlike the copy/paste buffer in most desktop OSes. This means the list of applications with which one can share data is consistent both in terms of content and capability.

Something I've observed to be true is that iOS applications seem to be specifically coded to share data with other iOS applications. A lot of things can share data to Dropbox, but fewer seem to be able to share the same data to Google Drive or Onedrive. Data sharing seems to be a one-way street where the application developer has to support whatever hooks were provided for the target app. At the very least, the list of supported applications for sharing does not appear consistent from app to app, even within the context of a particular data type. I suspect this is in large part due to the iOS security model, but I take issue with that for other reasons anyway.

Everything you mention is fine but I'm not sure there's some killer user story or use case that justifies it in light of the security issues. I don't think any 3rd party app developer should be able to see any of your file system ever, not on your phone. It's just too dangerous, the thing is always on the network, it knows where you live and you can't unplug it.

"I can't think of a reason someone would want to to it, so it must be a bad idea."
There's a 128GB iPad sitting in my office. I have no particular use for a 128GB iPad, but it's still 128GB of flash storage that I could potentially use for something-or-other (yes, I am aware that I can get 128GB flash drives for under $50 but that's what a 128GB iPad is worth to me). Putting that aside, it's storage. On the iOS device, I have to associate everything with a particular application. I can't even use the stupid thing to transfer inert data (that I already had to add through iTunes since the device can't meaningfully interact with SMB, FTP or NFS) that for one reason or other doesn't match up with file size limits on my cloud storage provider's service.
Likewise, I don't have any control over arrangement of data under iOS. I have to accept whatever the device does and like it. That sometimes means making multiple copies of the same file (on a device that's specifically sold on the basis of its storage limitations) for different apps in cases where those two apps can't share data. It also means potentially jumbling a lot of data together that I don't really want to have view that way. Should I really be forced to reorganize my data to conform to the limitations of the device?
Whether or not applications are granted the ability to access a filesystem, the system owner should be able to do that even if it's just an infrequently used option.

Honestly I just spent about 30 minutes trying to find a website where I could even try to download an MP3

Ahem. This is a thing that people do. This is a thing people do all the goddamned time. Yes, you can get an app on iOS that can sandbox those particular downloaded MP3s on internal storage, but look at how ridiculous the workflow is to move those files out of that sandbox and in to the default music app so you can add them to your normal playlists.
Even speaking of podcasts, haven't you ever been browsing on your iThing and wanted to snag a one-off episode of something? "Oh, I want to download the rest of that episode of Fresh Aire that I heard 10 minutes of in the car. Should I open a podcasting app and then the Fresh Aire feed so I can find that one episode that was a rerun originally recorded in 2007 and therefore buried in the feed or should I just search for it from the web?"

One app to play all your music is 1990s thinking; modern apps are meant to brand content and service experiences, instead of them all launching the "native music player" they all call the same native sound API. The mechanics of how the media moves across the internet or across the filesystem is invisible to the user.

My personal tastes are sufficiently niche (contemporary classical music) that I am not well served by music-as-a-service. Nor can one assume that mobile devices have ready access to a high-speed data connection. Many people have bandwidth caps or spend the majority of their time in places where data services are too slow, unreliable or unavailable. That being said, on other mobile platforms I am familiar with, adding music or playlists to a device makes that music or playlists accessible to all audio players on the device. Amazon or Play Music that is copied locally is exposed to each app in turn as well as other player apps that might be installed such as Doubletwist or WinAmp.
As far as I can tell, the only ways to add music to whatever the hell the Apple players are called is through either the iTunes desktop application or from the iTunes store. It's possible to get a third party music application, but that application will be sandboxed so that music used with it is simply not available to the rest of the device. Nothing outside can share music to the native apps, not even convenient tools like Safari and Dropbox. You HAVE to plug the device in to a PC, export and import.

These are more than legitimate issues. I understand that you see them as defensible and that you've adapted whatever personal mobile device workflow you have to Apple's anointed path, but there really are common usage scenarios where iOS is somewhere between moderately unfriendly and actively hostile to user needs.

I think you may be working with old information.

Can I store an arbitrary file on an iOS device yet? What if I want to download an MP3 using Safari or Chrome and play it with the native iOS music player? Can arbitrary apps share data without specific developer support yet? Can I do those things without rooting the device?

As far as I can tell the workflow for every single non-intended use of an iOS starts with "Step 1. Get a Dropbox account" and that by itself represents both a clear inadequacy of the platform and a worthwhile acquisition for a company that already has more money than it knows how to spend.

Honestly, Microsoft applications for Android are credibly useful. If you're in favor of software choice or you want to segregate personal data between services, it's nice that the option exists. I don't really use any stock Android Apps at all anyway. I certainly don't see the harm in letting Microsoft in, so long as I still have access to the Play/Amazon App stores that otherwise give me the broadest selection of all available Android software.

If the Cyanogen people want to ditch Google licensing completely so that devices won't be able to run the Google Application framework (this is a problem for Kindle Fire devices as well), that's a decidedly consumer-unfriendly direction for their software to take.

I respectfully submit that Android is substantially more functional with its core set of applications than iOS. Android device owners need fewer apps because the stuff that their devices come with do the things they need a mobile device to do. Android can share data freely among applications and is much less picky about data formats, so there's no need to resort to some of the weird fuckery or workarounds iOS users have to deal with to bend, fold or mutilate their needs into something that iOS can actually do.

Android as a platform has an ad-supported revenue channel more available to developers and the tools for developing and deploying on Android are free, so it's easier to be modestly sustaining without having to charge $1 for every fart keyboard or flappy bird application you want to put in the app store. There are drawbacks to that approach, but I really do not care if some software dev is getting rich because I needed an RDP client or somesuch.

You must work for very piss poor companies. Most of the companies that I have worked for make 400-500K per employee. Yes, at that level most of us can be paid enough to live on.
Burger flippers may only make 100K per employee - but then that is a minimum wage job that pulls down 20K a year, plus fees/expenses/overhead etc. no wonder they can't make it at 15 dollars an hour.
If you think your salary is the most important part of the equation - you are mistaken, COGS, buildings, benefits are a significant cost there. 100K per employee means 50K in profit per employee (If you have a 50% gross margin)... Think about that.

A lot of school districts in California either bought iPads or Chrome Books for every student. It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of weird priorities (and weird bureaucracy).

The issue is usually due to the source of the funding. These devices are purchased using one-time funds, often in the form of grants from the federal government. They either cannot be spent on teachers, or while allowed it would be silly to do so because you'd just have to fire that teacher next year.

Teachers and really big ticket items like buildings are recurring costs, and therefore need consistent funding. To get more of them you need similarly consistent funding and not one-off grants; not all money is equal.

The fight choreography is wonderfully deliberate and brutal. They ramped up the audible component of it as might befit a character with super-human hearing while eschewing the shaky-cam (e.g. Bourne Ultimatum) style and using the excuse of poor lighting. I got a sense that most of the people doing the fighting we actually reacting instead of responding in some programmatic fashion and I very much liked that evidence of injuries sustained remained, even several episodes later.

I did take exception to the idea that Daredevil said that he did not kill. I saw a lot of things that would result in pretty serious head trauma or internal injuries and I'm thinking not everybody made it to the nearest E.R.

reproduce that billion+ dollar facility in their production fabs around the world - Costa Rica, Philippines, Malaysia, etc

Quick point of clarification: there are no Intel fabs in any of those countries. All of Intel's leading-edge fabs are located in the US and Israel. There is a single fab in China, Fab 68, but it's purposely well behind the rest (currently at 65nm).

Costa Rica, Philippines, and Malaysia are all "Assembly Test" locations where finished wafers are sent for testing, packaging, and assembly into completed chips.

Otherwise you're spot on about how Intel replicates their new processes once they're up to production quality.