The Nokia purchase has fuck all to do with this, but even if it were somehow relevant, that happened under entirely different management! Microsoft under Nadella is practically a new corporation. There is quite literally zero reason to suggest that they want to get involved with Linux for anything other than making Linux better. You know why? Because improving Linux, in this era - NOT the 20 years ago era you can't same to move on from - benefits Microsoft financially.

They don't have any problem with it because they aren't perpetually stuck in the laughable mindset that Microsoft is a pantomime villain incapable of change. Making an enemy of Microsoft for no reason other than "they were mean to us in the 90s" is an idiotic and childish suggestion.

Wouldn't this just result in replacing on-call rotations with shift rotations? Like, if you can't call me for a 2am emergency, doesn't that mean a representative from my group needs to be in the office at all times? That sounds awful.

They're not selling any phones at present. It makes zero sense to cater to their current users, an irrelevantly tiny group, rather than attempting to appeal to the billions of people who don't own a Windows Phone.

They didn't kill Windows Phone, they laid off their former Nokia staff. The Lumia specifically is dead, not Windows Phone as a whole. Their next phone will be the Surface Phone that their in-house team is working on, makes no sense to keep the Nokia folks around to compete with themselves. And I suspect that project will be flying under the radar for a while until they figure out some kind of app strategy.

iMessage is encrypted end-to-end, is it not?

*sigh*

I don't know why I thought I could have this conversation on Slashdot, of all places...

I understand being wary of Microsoft, but every indication is that the company today is a heck of a lot different than the one you're referencing.

I don't honestly know where I stand on this debate, but for Wikileaks to suggest Snowden is just angling for a pardon from Clinton is a comically childish response. Tons of respect lost for that group. I've seen higher levels of discourse in a local newspaper comment section.

An hour to show up? Where I live, Pittsburgh, you could be anywhere in the city and be unable to get a cab. You could be in the middle of downtown, call a cab, and it would never show up. Or you'd find another way home and the cab company would call you three hours later wondering where you were. Everyone I know who lived here before Uber has some story about spending four hours walking home because they couldn't get a cab. That's why I take issue with this study, particularly this line: "They also suggest that the tipsy riders who now call Uber are the ones who formerly would have called a taxi." Guess what? That wasn't always possible. Uber and Lyft gave us something we didn't have before, and in Pittsburgh specifically, there is a clear decline in DUI citations since 2013/14, when the ride sharing companies arrived. Looking only at country-level data is going to obscure Uber's impact in markets where cab service did not exist.

I worked fast food in high school, and apparently there was a rule in our restaurant against having your cell phone out during a shift. No one knew this because it was never enforced and people were on their phones constantly (not talking, just texting and what not during down times). I pulled out my phone to read a text from my mom (actually, her phone had gotten a virus or something, and that text was a picture of a gummy bear with a penis) and my manager asks, "Oh can I see that?" and just takes my phone and puts it in the office. I thought he was joking at first because it seemed so ridiculous. Our "team leader" tried to convince him to give it back but he wouldn't do it, finally I just told him he could either give me my phone or I could quit and he'd have to, he chose the latter option. It felt fantastic, to be honest, and I heard later that the manager felt like an idiot for being responsible for me quitting.

P.S. There are a few comments itt suggesting that doing this could put a "black mark" on your resume forever. Be aware of your company's reference policy. Both there and my current employer, which are vastly different places, prevent managers from providing any official reference other than confirmation of start and end sates of employment.

You are on the wrong site if you wanted to avoid MS-bashing, my friend. I agree, though. I don't think there is anything Microsoft could ever do to get me to buy a Windows Phone, but I desperately hope they find a way to make the platform work eventually, because the Google/Apple duopoly isn't doing it for me.

Well yeah, it was blocked in the 90s because they would have vertically integrated the entire market. It's allowed today because there is actual competition.

It's gotten to the point where the anti-Microsoft FUD is damn near worse than Microsoft's anti-Linux FUD ever was.