http://xkcd.com/678/

The difference between this case and a murder is that while it is almost impossible to prove you didn't kill someone (the body could be anywhere), it is quite easy to prove that there is no child porn on your computer. You just give them the password and let them have at it.

Obligatory

Companies that create chips like this usually have a system in place for running built in test that do test all the registers and functions of the chip.

The methods that they use to do this are actually quite complex involving creating test patterns and seeing if the correct result is generated. This is often on a much smaller scale than "does each core work" and it could test just the ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit).

The problem with a consumer trying to access this is that the test mode is usually hidden from the user intentionally so they can't break their chip. The way that you get into test mode varies from chip to chip, but can be any thing from a hidden instruction to pulsing the memory CAS and RAS backwards.

These two links go into greater detail.

I think the argument that many of the people who call it a monopoly are trying to make is this:

If I have a Ford truck, I can put non-ford replacement parts in it if they fit (compile for that architecture).

However the the apple app store would be akin to your truck not starting if you don't have all Ford branded parts in it.

Its not a monopoly in the actual meaning of the word as there is no-one forcing you to buy a Ford, but it comes back to the "I bought a physical thing, I want to do whatever I want with it" argument.

I live in Edmonton, not only would you be able to pull the cold air in from the outside in the winter, you would probably have to heat it too (it got below -40c this year).

I work for one of the cable companies(I shall remain nameless in that regard). The amount of customers that fly off the handle when there's a box update and the box reboots to channel 1, when they have set to previous channel, is amazing.

Developers making $$ on iPhone apps are few and far between. The odds are pretty slim that you can recoup your investment.

http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/most-iphone-developers-dont-make-money/2009-06-17-0

No, the scarcity comes from one entity buying all available resources and hording them. That's artificial.

Having seen memory leaks in every nontrivial Java program I've used (which, admittedly, is not many), I'm not certain about this. In C, memory management is hard, but that means that people think about it. In Java, memory management is implicit (which is not the same as easy), which means that people don't think about it. They don't think about the correct times to use weak references, and they end up leaking memory.

Java also has the distinction of being the language used for the only program I have ever seen with a CPU leak: Start it and watch the CPU usage slowly climb over the next few hours (while not actually doing anything, or taking any use input), until it's at 100% about 3 hours later.