How does a mobile device paired to a Bluetooth keyboard suck for editing text? (Without such a keyboard, I agree with you.)

A lot of people complain on Slashdot about perceived violations of the WP:OWN policy on Wikipedia. Yet I rarely if ever see links to diffs of edits that got reverted by an editor accused of exerting undue control over an article's text.

That depends on where the judge chooses to draw the line in each particular case between what is idea and what is expression. For example, judges have drawn that line in different places for APIs (Oracle v. Google) and business software user interfaces (Lotus v. Borland) compared to video games (Tetris v. Xio).

My point remains: some wireless carriers still think it proper to continue to sell old phones. So what affordable wireless carrier should U.S. residents patronize instead of Virgin Mobile? And what should someone who still has a 2.3 phone but doesn't yet qualify for a 2-year replacement do?

True, Apple and many local PC builders offer pleasing cases. But do the majority of people think to buy a PC from Apple or from local PC builders? Among PCs sold in Walmart and Best Buy and the like that aren't laptops, most are Big Honkin' Towers.

Most people do not care whether the hardware next to the TV is "open". They care whether they can get a particular title and how easy games are to install. People who care about open hardware are a niche.

Have you any recommendations for good platform fighters (like Power Stone and Smash Bros.) and karaoke games (like Rock Band) on the PC? Let me clarify something up front: Street Fighter series does not count as a "platform fighter" because tactics in a platform fighter involve seeking advantages on uneven terrain.

Then let me be more explicit, phrasing my answer as a complete sentence that quotes part of the question: Someone didn't "get an already available Linux tablet" because he bought a tablet prior to the wide availability of Linux tablets and didn't want to buy a second tablet.

I can't think of a better way to have both an open tablet and a tablet that runs the one must-have application that's exclusive to a not-open tablet.

A visitor to a web site using a self-signed certificate or other certificate from an unknown CA may be behind a man in the middle. A key continuity management tool could compare the key fingerprint from this visit to the fingerprint from past visits to make sure a man in the middle has not been introduced since the last visit. But if it's the user's first visit and there's a man in the middle, game over.

It's a video, and a transparent div is overlaying the Flash player, preventing me from clicking the Flash object to start it. Is there a transcript?

So how do you pick up parcels that you have ordered through the web?

How do you know that the machine is the right one if it's not in the same room? Your Internet connection might be behind a transparent proxy feeding all connections to a given IP address through a third party called a "man in the middle". SSH and unknown-CA SSL provide what is called "key continuity management", alerting the user to changes in a machine's public key since the last visit, but that doesn't help if a connection to a server has been MITM'd from day one. This is especially likely in the case of a national firewall. One mitigation to being MITM'd from day one is route diversity, checking the public key as seen by several notaries spread throughout the Internet that you already trust.

And this implication is exactly why popular browsers are allergic to unknown-CA SSL certificates unless a route-diversity extension like Perspectives has been installed.

A web of trust is fine for communicating with people who live within walking or public transit distance. But to extend the web beyond that, someone has to get his key signed in more than one city. This involves getting groped at the security gate and then getting on a plane owned by an airline who probably already shares your info with the government. So the web of trust between cities and especially between countries will end up having bottlenecks where trust must flow through people who routinely travel internationally.

They need date of birth because some individuals are by law ineligible to vote.

His state/province has to subsidize farming to an extent because he and other farmers in his state/province has to compete on price with producers in other states/provinces and in other countries that are subsidizing farming to a similar extent. Besides, it's in the tax collection body's interest to have a uniform mail service to reach households that owe tax.

But then you'd have to get your key signed. And to extend your web of trust outside your hometown, you'd have to fly to a key signing party elsewhere, get your junk touched, and still worry about what information airlines share with the spooks.

Then why hasn't Dick's estate sued?

Who do you think grows the food sold in the market 3 blocks from your apartment? Why should they miss out on mail and Internet access just because they grow the food that you eat? And no, children don't choose their parents' lifestyle.