A hosts file is a method of blacklisting hostnames of servers with which you desire not to communicate, such as malware-infested servers and the servers that host social recommendation ("like") widgets that track you and slow down page loads.

You could use Wine. But I guess part of the tool's functionality is to manually cache the IP addresses hosts you access most, at the top of the file, so that the operating system's resolver doesn't have to do so much work.

The next generation can more easily afford the generic knockoff of the cure once the patent has expired.

A cure for cancer would make the patient a potential user of more drugs for conditions acquired later in life, such as drugs to control erectile dysfunction, drugs to increase bone density, drugs to control autoimmune arthritis, etc.

The difference is that a treatment with ongoing costs is more like life support than like a cure. Insulin is not a "cure" for diabetes mellitus caused by pancreatic failure (type I). Nor is metformin a "cure" for diabetes mellitus caused by insulin resistance (type II). But I still agree with you that an upgrade from a horrible disease to a condition managed through life support is worthwhile.

I dunno how paying the admins he was complaining about is not continually paying for installation.

and really, if we're realistic, they weren't running realibility tests on it..

Around the time crash safety standards rose, if rally2xs is to be believed. Or when CAFE was instituted and automakers found they could comply by reclassifying their station wagons (called "estate cars" in some markets) as light trucks, creating the minivan and SUV.

Not that a senior citizen especially needs sideloading, but last time I had a Kindle Fire in my hands, there was an option to "allow installation of applications from unknown sources" just like on stock Android. It's apparently still in the HD models.

his only fault was that he didn't incorporate in France and didn't have NSA as a client.

see, if you have offices and suits and your customers wear suits then the business is legit.

Preventable in what manner? If both coal power and wind power kill birds as a byproduct, what are humans supposed to do to generate electric power?

I'd say eBay it, buy a Nexus 7/10, and explain it like this: "It's like buying an Xbox game for someone who has a Wii." Or if they're too old to know game consoles, they might be familiar with a past format war: "It's like buying a Beta tape for someone who has a VHS deck."

Saruman, Saruman, does whatever a Saru can, but how will that be enough?

So did the writing reform that came out of Beleriand, where vowels were promoted from tehtar (points) to full letters. Remember Durin's gate on the west side of Moria, noted for the weak default password that Narvi set and Celebrimbor leaked? The inscription on that was written with vowels as letters.

Not all the devaluation need happen at once because not all the conversion need happen at once. Mr. Nakamoto could just go on a BTC-to-fiat exchange once a month and withdraw enough to live on for a month. Few people would care.

We can. It's called Dwolla. And at the current exchange rate, its 0.25 USD transaction fee isn't that much higher than the 0.0001 BTC transaction fee of Bitcoin.