It isn't just slashdot either. Extraordinary claims + no extraordinary evidence = BAM front page of major news site + accepted as fact by 1/3 of our facebook friends.

This story is far fetched and is definately not the simplest possible explanation. I call bullshit. Slashdot should know better.

This pic says it better than I can.

IANARS*, but 40 didn't mean "new Integer(40);" in biblical times, it was equivalent to when we say "a million" today; it means "a hell of a lot".

To me, 40 - 1 means to beat someone within an inch of their life.

*I am not a religious scholar

There is a 3rd choice that is usually ignored in these discussions: support the feature if it's present on the device, but do not require it. Continue running the app without the functionality if it is not available on the device. The term is graceful degradation.

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-feature-element.html#required

I've found that they do correct map errors eventually, especially if given quality error reports. It usually takes a few weeks.

For your safety I recommend you make the correction yourself using Google Map Maker. There is still a human approval process but it should expedite your correction.
http://www.google.com/mapmaker

Ask anyone who has dated around enough and they'll tell you that the circumstances under which you first meet don't matter for much. Sure, for a few weeks she'll be "my new OkCupid girl" or "my new Barnes and Noble girl" to you, but that fades. At that point I typically don't think too much about how we met and think more about what's going on in the present moment.

I have this vision of the scientists keeping the cell cultures separate by placing them into separate waffle holes. Square waffles make more sense because they form a simple grid, which makes recording the data easier.

Clearly I'm thinking about this too much.

I'll go ahead and assume that you're the same AC.

That all makes sense, I personally have purchased apps just to remove the ads. I had gotten the impression from the first post that you wanted free services with no ads, ie something for nothing.

If this is the world you want, it sounds nice from a user perspective. The problem is that stripping ads destroys the revenue model for the free services. How do you expect businesses to monetize it?

If they can't monetize it, they won't play the game. Who then is going to provide these services at the scale we enjoy today? How do you expect them to remain free if you reject the only viable revenue model?

We've accepted this model because it's the best one available for free. Are you willing to pay for services like YouTube instead? Do you have a better suggestion for encouraging businesses to give us free stuff?

Bacon acts as a catalyst in this process

Windows Phone is both new and shiny, but the adoption has been slow. There's more to it than that.

As a consumer buying computer equipment, why on earth would you care how much money Apple has? Once you're past the low-bar threshold of "this company isn't going out of business and has enough cash to do R&D", how do their cash reserves really affect your experience in any tangible way?

I like OS X and have used it for years, but I've never experienced any personal benefit from Apple's pile of cash. It simply doesn't matter, and I've never read any convincing argument that it does. Got one for me?

Counter intuitive? Yes, it most definitely is at times. Buggy? Not in my experience, it actually works quite reliably.

Maybe you just don't understand git. Or you're a troll.

I'm going to assume you're not trolling, and you truly believe your compassion based argument against double-blind trials. I'll start out by saying that I'm sorry that my offer of a differing viewpoint seems to have been taken by you as an attack on your values and beliefs. It is not meant to be an attack, and I'm sorry to have provoked an emotional reaction in you.

I don't know how or why you came to have a strong belief against double-blind trials, but I suggest that it does not hurt to consider an alternate viewpoint, even if you are not convinced by it. This is why I suggested you look at Goldacre's book.

Anyway, it's my view that double-blind trials make the world a better and more humane place. My reasoning is that they provide us with more reliable information about the effectiveness of treatment. They fight against data distortions from the placebo effect by "blinding" the patient. They also fight against confirmation bias, sample population manipulation, cherry-picking, and other distortions by blinding the researcher to which treatment each patient is receiving. It's a two-fold data protection system.

The result is that we have more effective medical treatments through better medical data. Although perhaps a few hundred people receive the placebo treatment, millions more will benefit because we would have a better idea of which treatments are more effective. This gives doctors a more accurate view of the world, which undoubtedly helps when treating patients. This is why I see double-blind trials as having a greater benefit to the world than any negative effect that placebo treatment may have.

The patients receiving placebo knew that they may or may not receive a placebo treatment. They also knew that the actual non-placebo medicine may or may not be effective, and could even be harmful. They freely decided to be a part of the study anyway, and sometimes get paid to do so. Besides, even if they do unknowingly receive placebo, their health tends to improve anyway because they believe the placebo treatment will work.

Okay, your turn. I look forward to your response.

If you wish to understand why we do double blind trials, I suggest you pick up a copy of Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Mac OS X is arguably much more open than Windows. I base this argument on Mac OS X's open Mach kernel, BSD components, and GNU command line utilities included in the system. Although it also has lots of proprietary code, much like Windows, the difference is that Windows doesn't have as many open components as Mac OS X.

Also, both systems are equivalent with respect to the ability to install programs downloaded from the web, and I hope this never changes. If it does, I will throw a fit and deliver a pie to the face of the relevant executive officers. That restriction would be enough to make me go back to a Linux desktop. YMMV.

It goes without saying that most forms of Linux are way more open than either system.