I am a fairly active linux contributor. I have patches all over the kernel tree. I also review drivers/staging code.

Most of the patches that I send are things that I cannot test because I don't have the hardware. Even though I'm careful, there are still a few times where I have introduced bugs. The most recent example was code like this "if (!attributes & 0x4000)". That has a precedence bug so the condition is always false. Unfortunately changing it to "if (!(attributes & 0x4000))" disabled certain graphics card. The correct thing was to delete the condition.

Breaking stuff is just a part of development, you try your best but don't let fear of breaking things stop you from applying patches.

Probably over 5% of the 10,000 patches in every new kernel are cleanups. We're always merging API changes and unlike Microsoft we don't care if it affects out of tree drivers. There isn't any subsystem where the owner says, "This code is stable now and I'm only accepting actual bug fixes."

The other thing that helps is the short release cycle. If something does break, it's easy to fix.

Some people find linux development frustrating. One developer told me, "Ever since XXX took over the YYY subsystem he has been constantly changing the API and re-writing my code. Does he ever sleep? I don't know how anything works any more."

It's hard on reviewers as well. I have reviewed literally over 3000 cleanup patches to the comedi subsystem. I have mornings when I feel lazy and it doesn't fill me with joy to see 40 new cleanup patches in my inbox. The process is expensive.

But I do feel a great deal of pride in the work.

I set up a computer lab in Uganda 3-4 years ago.

We bought second hand computers locally. They came with 256 MB of RAM and we upgraded them to 512. It was good enough to run Gimp and Firefox. That's what most of the internet cafes do too.

The computers were networked so we set up apt-cacher on the teacher's computer. The other software tip is that you will want to be able to block high traffic websites because internet access is so expensive and bad.

One thing which you might want to think about is if you'll have to pay tax bringing computers into the country. Uganda allows computers to be imported duty free. But for a while Uganda started banning people from bringing used computers into the country.

My sister-in-law's NGO is setting up a computer lab as well. They are bringing laptops from the US. Laptops are good because they have a battery built in so power fluctuations aren't such a big deal. The problem with laptops is that they can be stolen easily.

If you're bringing stuff from the US then bring a bunch of cheap USB keys for the kids. They will be very expensive locally.

> 1) What does promoting domestic energy entail?

One thing it entails is using the Canada oil sands. A lot of people don't realize how much oil there is right here in Canada... The only bad thing Romney doesn't realize is that Canada is still claiming to be an independent country.

iPhones have 19% market share in China. Windows phones are NOT probably outselling iPhones.

Congo is, of course, a complete mess. You're taking the worst, most difficult example and trying to extrapolate from there. The situation would be far better in Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda or other surrounding countries. Even in the Congo, I doubt that the numbers are that over 50% of the mosquito nets are used for fishing as you claim.

People do study the effectiveness of different approaches. It doesn't take a genius level intelligence to go through a year later and check that there were fewer reported cases of malaria.

Obviously nets can be used for fishing. It may be news to people watching TV documentaries in the US, but it's not news to anyone who has visited Africa.

There are other approaches such as spraying the inside walls of every house with insecticide. People are doing this in some areas. It's probably more effective and there is nothing to steal. The advantage of mosquito nets is that you can do it one person at a time. But with the insecticide approach you want to try get every house.

I think you mean a cashier. The cashier is the person who rings up the purchase. The sales person is the one to tell you which phones are good and which ones are rubbish.

Don't feel embarrassed, it's an easy mistake to make.

Only idiots made fun of the Xbox. Windows has always been the best platform for games.

Also Nokia is not getting enough money from Microsoft to collapse the way that they have. Nokia is a publicly traded company so if Microsoft was paying them for all the customers they are lost, that would show up in their financials.

You would think if the human body can block the radiation from the scanners then the fuselage would block it as well. One theory that I've heard is that radiation that goes through you is potentially less dangerous than radiation that doesn't. I'm not an expert so I can't say if it's an apples to apples comparison or not.

It's interesting to think about people starting to caring about their country's online reputation. The article is right as well that the internet has created classes of online vigilantes.

I don't think it's going to change policy at all. America has the most defense of any country and doesn't worry about vigilantes. Also America has a sense of self rightness as well. Americans believe that the wars are God's work so practical considerations come second.

But your approach would bankrupt the company.

It would be hard to hurt the company more than Elop has. He has set a historic world record for destroying market share. RIM would have set the record by just muddling along without a good strategy but Elop managed to outdo them. They deliberately didn't sell the n9. How stupid is that?

Actually it's pretty common that governments liberalize a little and the standard of life improves and then people overthrow the government. The collapse of the USSR is an example. There are tens of thousands of large scale protests in China every year and the number is rising.

We're entering an interesting period of history. The US is on the brink of a new great depression. The EU is about to collapse. China is about to experience a revolution. Fascinating stuff.

People default to the iPhone because it is the best phone available.

Before the iPhone came out Nokia used to sell the best phone available and it cost twice as much as the iPhone. When the iPhone came out, Nokia freaked out and killed their high end products. Now their best phone costs the same as an iPhone and has roughly the same hardware as the iPhone, although Symbian sucks so it's not as good over all.

If the password is a four to six digit number that is not 1234 then it's probably an ATM card number as well. Actually if it's 1234 then it's still probably an ATM card.

All the money is really at the high end. Nokia went from owning 29% to owning 24% of the smart phone market. Everyone predicted that they would lose a lot of the market, but I don't think anyone predicted it would be that bad, that quickly.

When Nokia decided to switch to Windows, they knew that they would have to limp along selling their old phones this year. People were obviously going to buy fewer phones and they were going to want them at a cheaper price because they're EOL. Hopefully next year when the first Windows phones came out, they'd be able to make money again.

It was a huge gamble to throw away a year for something that wasn't tested. It seems like customers aren't willing to wait a year for a Windows phone.

The article conflates 2 things that make the URL bar suck.

1) It's basically the output of /dev/urandom which is ugly and a waste of space.

2) It's pretty stupid. It should be able to tell the difference between searches (words that form an invalid URL or that don't resolve) and searches. For example, if I want to find the time in San Francisco, I open a new tab, type google.com into the url bar and then enter "time: san francisco". That should all be done straight in the URL bar.

The article makes those two issues seem like one issue, which they're not. But at the same time both are real annoyances and it's good that someone is thinking about it.