The problem with focusing on the fringe like this is that the fringe rapidly becomes a straw man argument for environmentalists. If you actually go to the Greenpeace web site and read their policies they don't suggest any of the stuff you mention, but every debate on Slashdot about environmental issues claims that they do.

Maybe the reason C has more is that the specific string "ugly hack" is more commonly used by C programmers. Languages like Javascript are really ugly and full of nasty hacks, but that's normal for them so no-one comments on it.

Of you read the full quote it's clear he means that geo-blocking is unjustified, not that some of it might be justifiable.

The principal in the Common Market is that goods and services flow freely between member states. Trying to subvert that is not acceptable.

I wholeheartedly agree that US government is very inefficient. I'm an immigrant in US, and before that I was one in Canada, and dealing with government services in two countries is night and day. Just to give a simple example: in Canada, I was issued a SIN (the local equivalent of SSN) on my second day of arriving to the country, and it was all done in about 2 hours in the local government office. In US, it took almost a month from request to issue, and two trips to the local SSA. And when I asked why, they told me that they needed to send a request to USCIS to confirm my visa validity etc, and that takes over a week - seriously? They actually push papers around, instead of having automated query handling directly against the database? This is a recurring theme, by the way... US seems to have a lot of government organizations, which are very much disjoint in how they operate, and whenever anything needs to cross the boundary between the two, there are copious amounts of red tape (and, I would imagine, the associated expenses).

But I think a big problem with the government in US is that people are kinda expecting it to fail to begin with, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even worse is the "starve the beast" crowd who are basically saying that because it is likely to fail, not only we should let it, but we should actively encourage that.

I think it would be more productive to operate from the assumption that government should be doing certain things, and that it should be doing them well (seeing how other governments are perfectly capable of doing so) - and if it doesn't, then it's the problem with this particular government rather than the general idea of having it do those things, and the fix should therefore be on the government side.

Wow, you couldn't possibly be more wrong.

I don't even know where to begin explaining basic science to someone so hopelessly misguided. I'd normally suggest some readings to clarify some misconception, but I can't even begin to guess how you came to such an absurd understanding.

I don't find it funny at all. It makes me very sad. Non-credentialed science cheerleaders, like yourself, have done little other than harm to the public understanding of science.

You're causing harm. Please stop.

Your notion of "optimizing for the hardware" is something that isn't real. According to your theory, Linux also shouldn't perform well because it also is hardware-agnostic.

As for what OEMs have to do, a modern mobile device is immensely complex, consisting of dozens of processors, many on the SoC (system on a chip) but many not. All of them have to be configured, which is a complex and tedious operation, and easy to get wrong -- and every custom board requires a custom configuration. In addition, there are drivers for all of the bits and pieces that have to be assembled and tested together. Plus there's also typically a complex, multi-stage boot process that has to be orchestrated to bring up all the bits and pieces of the hardware in the right way and in the right order. And other stuff that I don't know about because I'm not a hardware systems guy.

Some of the above doesn't depend on the OS, and can be done before it's available. But much of it does depend on OS requirements and has to wait.

And then if the OEM decides to customize Android they have to do that, with whatever skin, and default apps they want, plus whatever changes they need deep in the system to support the hardware and their changes to the software. Finally there is lots and lots of testing, because such complex, custom devices always expose new interactions between components that have to be debugged and fixed. Oh, and lots of hardware testing as well, including endless burn-in tests to validate that the stuff not only works but that some subtle design flaw doesn't stop it from working.

And I'm sure there's still more that I don't know about at that level as well.

Then they have to run Google's compliance tests, to find out what they've broken with all of their changes, or what they missed in configuring their device for proper support (actually, this is something they do throughout, not at the end), and then go back and fix what's broken until it passes... or else negotiate with Google for waivers on things they think should be okay.

Then comes carrier validation and testing, more rounds of fixes, etc.

Little or none of this has anything to do with "optimization". That's mostly the compiler's job, and it does that job well.

Tell that to Henry Ford. The KISS system has a lot going for it, and that includes removing useless eye candy bloat that makes the screen appear more cluttered.

Carbon Dioxide. It's got what plants crave.

Now if we could just raise the level of electrolytes in the atmosphere, we'll have a veritable paradise.

So you're an Intel troll now, too? Goody for you.

"When four sit down to conspire, three are government agents, and one is a fool."

The plan is to misuse it. Apple don't do DNA analysis themselves, they sell the data to other companies who use it to offer you services and connect it to other marketing data. Getting your DNA checked for inherited diseases? Time to spam you with adverts for baby goods on every site you visit.