This device uses a Broadcom chipset, and needs a Linux 2.4 kernel with a binary blob to work properly.
Linux 2.6 was released in 2003. That's *six years* ago. What kind of bizarro-world are we living in where modern hardware still requires 2.4?
"But my customers want it to work in their browser!" is not an argument when better browsers are freely available.
Really? When your customers contact you about this or that not working right in IE, all you tell them is to use a different browser? Don't you think that's a bit lazy?
Many users have no choice about the browser they use. Corporations lock down desktops and prevent users from upgrading or installing any software. I know organisations that haven't upgraded from IE6, leaving their employees stuck with poor quality browsers. The organisation is lazy - especially as they have locked their employees into browsers with inferior security - but that is not the employees' fault.
So it is not just lazy to tell your users to use a different browser - it is very unfair: it is often blaming the victim.
Well, a decent techie probably costs them about 150 grand a year if you include related overhead. Thus, they figure the yearly "loss" by *not* having such an employee is less than 150 grand a year. It may not actually be true, but they have no way of knowing.
A lot of times a company ends up with a stupid or shifty IT employee that causes more problems than their worth. If the bank is technically ignorant, then they don't have a good way to filter. Techies raise almost as much ire as auto-mechanics. Both may charge 10 grand to "fix" the Flux Capacitor.
Except we aren't talking about software development.
We are talking about simple preferences.
"I don't want to have to hibernate to swap batteries" can't just be answered with "it's easy you close the lid and wait for it to hibernate and then swap the batteries" by anyone wanting to provide a useful answer.
"That will add far to much complexity so you are stuck with hibernating" is a perfectly fine answer (though the fact that older laptops managed makes it seem an unlikely one). But just disregarding the only requirement is stupid.
"I'd like chocolate ice cream, please". "Here you go, have a scoop of vanilla, and you will like it!".
Stargate and Star Trek both talk about plotting courses to destinations;
I don't find it unreasonable to use "navigate" to mean "dead reckoning" or the like.
one would assume that they're doing this to avoid obstacles.
In the episode "Fail Safe", SG-1 extends a cargo ship's hyperspace window around an asteroid that is approaching Earth and drag it through the planet. It would seem that carefully choosing your exit point is more important than what is in your way.
Will home insurance be more expensive with these things installed, considering roof replacement is one of the most common claims?
You mean that if a character doesn't proclaim he's gay in the pilot, he can't be one? Something like "Wait, I'll use my gay powers to repair the life support".
Where there's a will, there's a relative.