Many Americans have asked the same thing.

Your whole argument is based on this assumption. An assumption neither in the original article nor summary, only in the title. "Beginner" meant "a newbie to OSS" not "a newbie to software development". And your response is exactly what people complain about. You interpreted the topic in a way that allowed you to dismiss the whole discussion without having to think about it.

Hawking? Hawkins died in 1928. [See, annoying, isn't it.]

I've read your comments in this thread and it is obvious that you are precisely the person everyone who has had difficulties with OSS projects is complaining about.

You've got a bunch of people who've had negative experiences and instead of listening to their experiences, instead of asking questions or adding thoughts that create an interesting and informative thread, your only interest is in proving that they are wrong. You twist their words, you pick and snipe, you grind them down until you drive them out of the thread and you "win"!

And that is a perfect example of what people face when dealing with... well, you, in OSS projects. I'd be willing to bet good money that you do exactly the same thing in help or dev forums for projects you think you're assisting. Grinding people down until they give up and leave. You do vastly more harm than good, as you have done in this very thread. I suspect it takes a dozen good contributors to make up for every one of... you. So in effect, you are not only harming newcomers, but you are cancelling out the work of many other existing contributors. Even worse if it creates a culture that encourages the same behaviour in others because of the habits they learn when trying to deal with people like you; until they become people like you. An anti-social virus.

While I know you can't read this comment (I mean actually "read" it, I'm sure you'll see some keywords to pick apart), I don't really write it for you. I'm hoping that it helps others who might recognise your behaviour in themselves and others, help them understand why what you do is so destructive. And perhaps create just a little social pressure in the other direction.

...on Mars.

I don't think so. I've noticed that YouTube (and Google search results page) don't display ads even when ABP is disabled for those sites. But they will include ads when ABP is completely turned off in the Addons Manager. I haven't dug too deeply, but I suspect they detect ABP in the request-header and simply don't display ads for users with ABP - which, IMO, is pretty decent behaviour.

Google made a public gesture of refusing to develop official Google/Maps/YouTube apps for Windows Phone. This is just Microsoft's Tat to Google's Tit; no more "malicious" than Google's public snub.

Why?

They've never bothered with the 5 million or so AdBlockPro users, and (eventually) allowed ABP on Chrome, so why would they worry about the twelve people who buy a Windows Phone?

(If MS wanted to damage G, they would install an official adblocker into IE, all versions, as a "security" update. Instantly kill a third of G's ad revenue.)

I can only assume they did the right thing and cancelled the charges for all the votes that weren't counted? They surely wouldn't profiteer at the expense of true fans.

Paramedics are going to have to get used to saying "Ok Glass, share video" or we are gonna miss out on some epic footage.

Likely no one in the development team took them outside before they released the dev-kit. "Oh right, sunlight." Photochromatic ("Transition") tint on the back of the display lens might work as a quick'n'dirty solution.

The biggest failure, IMO, is their incompatibility with regular glasses. The only option (other then clumsily holding them up with your hand) is to have prescription lenses custom fitted to the GooGlass. In other words, the devs really did assume people will never want to take the headset off.

More details about the case here: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/04/01/2337230/life-imprisonment-for-breaking-google-glasses

The young of many species of mammals have such sounds, yips, pant-hoots, etc, when mimicking adult behaviours (such as challenging/fighting) that might be taken as serious. It's a way of indicating that all parties understand that it is play behaviour. In primates, it's also a submissive gesture, "Heh heh, you wouldn't hurt me, would you Boss? All kidding, right, heh heh?"

[Speaking of: Psychopaths/sociopaths love this instinctive behaviour. "I'm hurting you and you're laughing! Brilliant!" They probably can mimic it, if they know it's a test, but don't think they don't naturally have it.]

"Anything you say can and will be used against you"?

And Article 1, Section 8, permits the government to "suppress insurrection". Specifically, to raise a militia to suppress insurrection. The same militia mentioned in the second amendment. Hence, the purpose of the second amendment is to ensure the supply of men for a militia to put down an armed rebellion. It's not about overthrowing the government, it's about preventing the overthrow of government. Such as almost happened in the Civil War, when traitors seized control of the southern states and tried to destroy the United States.

Indeed, the NRA itself was founded after the Civil War precisely in order to increase the number of trained gunmen (particularly in the north) available to the Union, should a new generation of traitors ever rise up again in those former slave states. There was concern that the urbanised north was losing skills with firearms. Unfortunately, the NRA was hijacked in the 1970s by those same traitors, and now openly serves the interests of America's domestic enemies.

Indeed, the loss of America as a dumping ground for transportees following the American Revolution was the primary motivation behind Australia's settlement.

It's interesting to speculate (since the French apparently had an interest in settling southern Australia, and the Dutch had widespread trade interests in the Asia-Pacific and almost certainly preceded Cook's "discovery" of Australia) on Australia's history had the American colonies not revolted or if the revolution had been crushed.