No Clue indeed. No clue from almost anyone reporting on this piece of news. (it is dissapointing that the BBC headline is so wrong)
Have a read of the Euro Parliament's Press release or (unbelievably better than the BBC) Tech Crunch.
Its a general resolution about online search engines bundling services & about the need to enforce European Competitions laws in the online space.
It's obvious to me he is talking about GPL and not Linux itself.
Its obvious to me that he is deliberately conflating GPL & Linux to scare companies. That's the way MS operates.
You are twisting his words. Ballmer was not talking about Linux, but about the GPL and it's 'viral' nature.
No. You are totally incorrect. Here's the quote, from it source in the Chicago Sun-Times (via the internet archive):
Q: Do you view Linux and the open-source movement as a threat to Microsoft?
A: Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative. It will force us to justify the prices and value that we deliver. And that's only healthy. The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
Imagine... a phone you can steal tiny little parts out of, rather than the whole phone. It might be minutes or even hours before anybody even notices.
Are you serious? You think your little armchairy-10-seconds-of-analysis thought on the security of this device hasn't been covered by google's team of engineers?
Oh, it has:
Google says that there will be a “manager” app on the smartphone that controls some kind of locking mechanism, which keeps the modules from popping out when the phone is dropped or twisted.
Because Legos are made out of pixie dust, not oil.
Thanks for your insight AC. Because anyone opposed to drilling for oil in the artic of course, must be opposed to use of all oil products, produced anywhere in the world for any reason.
To the Indian government though, I suggest the next project be here on planet earth:
That is, to make public toilets as easily available as every other space power.
1) China is a space power. Not exactly know for the quality & quantity of rural public toilets.
2) If everyone waited to solve every domestic issue before becoming a space power, noone would have developed rockets yet. I think you would be astonished by the poverty that existed in Appalachia or other rural isolated areas in the US when their space program started. Ditto for Europe (portugal / greece) and Russia (almost everywhere).
The Golden Compass is considered as dangerous by Christian parents as Narnia is by Atheist parents
So... not dangerous at all then? I'm an Athiest. I loved the Narnia series aged 7-11. I'll get my kids to read them. I know many Athiest parents who have allready bought The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe for their bubs before they can read.
I want my kids to be as wideley read as possible Most Athiest Parents I know feel the same way. Knowledge is something to be embraced. Not feared.
the developer was OK with the App Store, but a 3rd party threatened to sue Apple so Apple pulled the app.
This statement is bogus. 3rd parties cannot sue under copyright law. VLC is developed by multiple parties, some of whom wanted VLC in the app store & others who didn't.
Portraying this as Apple & VLC vs the FSF is a misrepresentation of the situation.
Pfffft, screw chipped squirrels, I want Squirrel Chips!
and they were filed because Amazon pays a hell of a lot more bribe money in Washington than Apple ever will.
It is unclear what you mean by 'bribe' money, but both Amazon and Apple spent huge sums of money lobbying over the last 15 years or so.
Amazon spends more, but not 'a hell of a lot' more. Both organisations do their absolute best to influence policy in their favour. The idea that Apple is somehow pure in this way is fantasy that could only come from the most delusional fanboy.
The trick is that you use the Mac as a proxy, so all traffic from the device goes through the Mac
The real trick would be to put your unix-like box behind your gateway, routing all traffic through it. This has the massive advantage of not requiring you to go around, reconfiguring all suspect devices to use a proxy server (if they even can).
I assume this is possible with a mac, its certainly relatively easy to do with linux.
Every once in a while an auto playing video comes up. I didn't even knew it was possible, first time it ever came to me in an ad, many years, several iterations of IOS and slashdot was the first site to show me an auto playing video ad on mobile. On a limited plan 3G connection!
I think you should seriously consider using an ad-blocker. In instances like this where a site is both being abusive (showing ads after you've paid to block them) & knowingly wasting a limitied resource (mobile battery & bandwidth), there is no moral quandry. Block them.
* white label tablets. Presumably built and sold in China, elsewhere.
White label tablets are sold in China, but also everywhere else. Rebranded as Aldi / Staples / Wal-Mart or what have you.
We need to recognize that premium android might as well be a different OS than white label android. The apps will be different, the languages will be different, the monetization will be different, the fragmentation will be different.
What are you talking about? I have a white-box Chinese Android tablet. It came with Android 4.2, gmail, Play store, google maps, etc. All of the no-name (Aldi Branded / Walmart / etc) tablets I've seen are the same.
For all intensive purposes premium android is as removed from white label android as it is from kindle.
Totally incorrect. The cheaper manufacturers actually provide a better android experience as they're using 'pure' android rather than putting shitty touch-wiz / sense style overlays & attempting to sign you up for a million stupid Samsung / etc services.
Oh - and you say "for all intents and purposes". Think about it. Intensive purposes makes no sense in the context this phrase is typically used in.
As for Tasmania, almost 50% of the entire state is currently world heritage listed.
Are you sure about that? Closer to 20% it would seem.
I don't think de-listing a fraction of a percent of that
A fraction of a percent? They're de-listing ~74000 hectares of 1.4 million. Thats closer to 20%.
...is going to cause much damage.
You can't even get basic facts right & you expect people to believe your assessment of what will cause much damage? Even by slashdot standards, you're a fuckwit.
I can't see how Wiki has all that much leverage.
Looking at the list of most popular websites, I think only facebook & youtube would have more influence on video-standards settings.
When did you last see someone turn down one Smartphone for another because it couldn't play a wiki video?
Never, but it can add to a list of small frustrations, getting a user to switch manufacturers next contract renewal. You don't have to be the sole reason for a change to have leverage over manufacturers.
This restaurant was advertising breakfast any time. So I ordered french toast in the renaissance. - Steven Wright, comedian
