For persons using screen readers to read web content (Apple VoiceOver, for example) the option to simplify the content of an article and automatically pull it together as a single page is wonderful.

Try closing your eyes and reading, via a text to speech system, a typical Forbes article broken across five pages packed with links, for example. This option or the Firefox Readability extension speeds things up something wonderful.

Gawker doesn't suggest that "every iPad owner in the US" may have been exposed. It says every iPad 3G owner may have been exposed. I don't think that's splitting hairs, either, given the short time the 3G model has been available. Things are bad enough without making them seem worse.

We have announced that our upcoming Mono release (2.8) will default to 4.0:

http://www.mono-project.com/Roadmap

For the first time in Mono's history our C# compiler and its supporting engine and core libraries were done before Microsoft released the product, we were usually one to two years behind. This time we are some five months ahead of time:

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Dec-09.html

There are still a handful of loose ends here and there, but luckily, nothing major.

.NET was released in July of 2000.

And Google uses a mix of languages and tools: different features require different tools and all that. Had there been no legal problems, it would have been a no-brainer to use .NET over other technologies.

It did not have to be Mono, it could have been a third party .NET implementaion.

Rather, submit patches to replace System.Data with Sqlite-net and you have protection from Microsoft patents on .NET

You are mixing two different things.

Microsoft claims that they have patents had a chilling effect on Mono adoption.

That does not mean that I do not stand 100% by our position in the Mono project regarding patents. To begin with, we think it is a bullshit argument, since everything you use is infringing on someone else's patents (Microsoft included).

Microsoft like any other corporation will do a cost/benefit analysis of suing someone over patents. So far the kernel has been a juicier target than Mono has.

I provided some context to the SD times article on my blog today:

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Mar-25.html

Miguel.

Yes, I am a card carrying member of the nerd set. I would never be totally without a more "open" computing device, but that doesn't mean I never want to trade tinkerability and "control" for appliance-like reliability and consistency. Sometimes I do. And I think it's just fine--progress, even--if a few internet devices make that tradeoff. it's not like we're looking at the death of open computing.

You're missing the point entirely. Many people find it more freeing to use a device which does only a few things reliably and well instead of traditional PC with its impressive list of features, non-uniform experience, requiring more knowledge, etc.

Slashdot is largely populated by a tech elite who, if they had their way, would always choose a phone with a command prompt and who wonder why the rest of the world isn't building robots in their basements. But there's a big world out there and sometimes it's okay for the technology to go to them instead of making them always come to it.

I don't think anyone much cares what it's called. Give people something fun and useful with features that are easy to discover and use, something that works as expected every time and doesn't require you to have a bachelor's in software engineering to keep working... they are going to want it and enjoy it. And good for them, I say.

I don't see a future for me where I have no "open computing" device. Like everyone here, I'm too old school for that. But would I get an iPad? Hell yes. I can't recompile the kernel of my television, either, but I still want one.

Oh dear! Nerds have a device or two that isn't for them! That IS a shame.

Perhaps we could aim a few products at the non-technical people out there for once? Computers haven't gotten any easier to use in the last two frickin' decades. Maybe, just maybe, we could allow a few products for them without declaring that the goddamn sky is falling? Hmm?