Yuck. Guess I'll just kill them all in future then.

They can't really do anything about you downloading the stories, only uploading.

Writing your story posthumously is the best way to keep it secret.

There are no poisonous spiders here in the UK, or probably anywhere in Europe. Lots of girls still are very scared of spiders, even though they know they can't hurt them. I don't particularly like them either, but I know that they can't harm me, so I deal with them when necessary. There is no rational reason to be afraid of them here.

I didn't think he meant rationalise as in "explain why they are scared", I thought he meant give valid reasons to be scared. Some people are actually terrified of peanut butter clinging to the roof of their mouth.. and Doctors haven't found an explanation for it.

How do you rationalise the fear of a small, non-poisonous spider? Or a friendly little dog with no history of violence?

Someone who bricks their phone.

Topcoder is maybe worthwhile in the short term if you're unemployed, but it's not an ideal solution.

Side note: even if you're on a phone, when you're posting such a short comment to Slashdot, you should make some effort to type like an adult.

I half agree with you, but things like this

Operating systems have been shielding consumers from the depths of their computers since the late 80. If their car breaks, the average person will take it to a garage to get fixed. Same with a computer. People are shielded from things. You might complain that Ubuntu is harder for a techie to get into the underpinnings to fix things, but it's probably fine for consumers who just want something to "work". For "power user" types who want to be able to configure their interface (ie most traditional Linux users), it's not really a nice interface (well, it's not to me). But you can actually still get into everything, remove the parts you don't want, install parts you do, etc.. so I don't really agree with you about it being any more or less transparent than other distros yet. When they get rid of X it will cause more issues, but you can still install it again yourself. That's the beauty of Linux, and why we already have distros that cater to both of the user types that you mention, as well as many others.

I studied Computer Science myself, but in day to day work and life, I'm not usually looking for "close to the metal". I think you're getting a bit confused and basically suggesting something along the lines that the ideal way for someone to eat their breakfast cereal is with a hammer and screwdriver..

It's not "disingenuous", we're talking in the context of non appstore apps. I didn't even consider that someone might take my words so literally. Your last sentence answered my question though.

The quote is:

Tantamount means "equivalent in seriousness to; virtually the same as." So they didn't actually directly say that these files are on paper. Though there isn't any other explanation for why it would require a manual search. Either way, how can we actually trust that they're telling the truth there?

So, pay $99 a year just to install apps on your device? Can you actually install any app, or only your own apps? I think a much better option would be to root it.

Because it's not easy to untick "official sources only" and download from the Cyanogen mod website? Compared to going through the process of flashing a new ROM to your phone, that is very, very easy. It's not using an "iron fist", it's more they're like waggling a finger in a token gesture to placate the service providers. It's just as easy as before to put a new ROM on your device (which is to say: not always simple, but usually possible somehow).

Are you talking about for iOS, or Android? It seems like you're making a joke because of the Wireshark thing, but I'm afraid don't get it, because Wireshark doesn't work like that.. :p

Because there are a lot more "average" than "highly technologically literate" type users out there. That's kind of the definition of average. So, if you want to make a lot of money, you cater to the average person.

That's an awful example. Look at iOS instead. The "average person" loves iOS. Just because MS's poorly thought out UI in Windows 8 isn't catching on has nothing to do with whether its users are "average" or not. Hardly anybody likes having a mobile-type, simplified, less functional UI forced onto their desktop machine - whether it's Metro, Unity or Gnome 3 (sans plugins).

Well, that is how things work I guess. Apple bought Siri, which was funded by DARPA, etc. I didn't actually know that though, thanks. I'd never heard of Android before Google made it mainstream.