I think the difference here being that AMD, Motorola, GM, Ford and others don't proactively find ways to patent shit that any child could have come up with given a touchscreen phone (or other assorted technology).

It's not about parroting what others say, it's about the fact that Apple is patenting trivial garbage, on top of proactively seeking lawsuits to stifle competitors and force themselves into a pseudo-monopoly.

Maybe if you stopped hastily generalizing everything you could avoid looking like "some idiot that like(s) to parrot what others say without actually thinking". There is more to the problem than a broken, trivial, meaningless patent.

Also, one more thing: Goddamnit America! Fix your damn patent system! Canadians don't get many new phones and this is only making things worse.

Except for the fact that there's no Web Enablement and as far as I can see his new sensor doesn't follow any OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) Standards, so the data itself isn't really that valuable outside his own application.

It might be something they'll add in the future, but I'd be interested to see how this data could be used, as opposed to how it can be collected. Quite frankly, LiDAR has been around for a long time, and attaching other sensors in conjunction with it isn't something entirely new. I will admit though that being able to get to an inaccessible place and map it is good, but the data is generally only as good as the application it is used in, and vice versa.

Just my 2 cents.

I ask my rich family members to purchase HDDs for me.

That said I tell them to stick to USB 2.0 Hard Drives, but I don't buy that stuff for myself.

We're all loud speakers. One might even say we're shouters.

I was excited to think they were talking about Geomatics Engineering, which is my major, but apparently we still get no love.

Except the job market. Jobs seem to love Geomatics Engineers, at least from what I've seen.

I propose that we oust Hollywood and then change the copyright system so you have two choices.

Apache.
Creative Commons.

BAM. Piracy doesn't exist anymore. Problem, Hollywood?

It's not like you really need to ever touch that sort of thing. I'd vote your post for FUD, because even with carrier locked apps, you can still use the phone for the purpose you bought it. You know.... the phone part? Even the browser and GPS will work out of the box, and it's not like you need to make carrier installed apps go away, if you don't touch them they often don't cause troubles.

Also keep in mind that rooting, partitioning and swapping between memory are pretty much things of the past. There are tools available that will root a phone in two minutes with just a click. Installing a new ROM on top of that is absurdly easy.

Try Ghostery. I believe this is exactly what it is intended to do.

Of course it'd be the last toy. You'd never be able to afford more after HP gets into this 3D ink business.

For that matter, who wants their kid printing off shit without supervision. I never let anyone get near my 2D printer, much less a 3D one that could produce velociraptors.

I'd like to see it merge with DuckDuckGo. It's a fools dream, but dammit a fool can dream!

They're forgetting you can't use any DRM protected materials in an igloo anyways.

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Just so you all know, I am Canadian, and I mean every word I said.

You think this is sudo?

This is su, and that means they can do what they want for as long as they want, until we nuke the system.

At least not in most parts of mid/northern Alberta.

It goes Winter for 8-9 months, rain for two, and sun for the last month or so.

Occasionally you get a day where the snow melts or rain clears but it's still not sunny, summer weather yet.
We usually regard this as a catastrophe, since we don't know whether to wear winter coats or shorts.

I prefer my bludgeons to not be soft, but thanks anyways ;)

Let me go get my bludgeon. It's not part of the operating system, and I'm sorry, but you mustn't go un-punished.