I'm pretty sure he was making a reference to Rep. Mike Rogers' comment on opponents to CISPA.
http://www.google.com/search?q=mike+rogers+cispa+14

I think he is saying that upgrading to a newer version of MySQL could possibly be more difficult than going to MariaDB. If MariaDB forcuses more backwards compatibility than MySQL (I don't know whether it does), then that would not be too surprising. Of course, if you are not otherwise planning to upgrade your DB version, then doing nothing will be easier than changing.

I almost never use IE and I haven't found a site in years that required it to work well (barring some internal corporate crap).

I do agree that Firefox went through a rough spot by jumping into a rapid release cycle without preparing enough for the challenges that brings. However, they seem to have gotten things working pretty smoothly now. There are frequent updates, but I no longer see things breaking like I did when they first started it.

From wikipedia...
"Eich is best known for his work on Netscape and Mozilla. He started work at Netscape Communications Corporation in April 1995, working on JavaScript (originally called Mocha, then called LiveScript) for the Netscape Navigator web browser. He then helped found mozilla.org in early 1998, serving as chief architect."

Since Eich both invented the language and helped found Mozilla, it seems like a pretty fair statement to say they (the Firefox/Moziilla team led by Eich) invented javascript.

Also note that he actually INVENTED javascript. He didn't just write an implementation of it. He is the original creator of the language itself.

I'm not sure exactly how much of your statement is sarcasm, but for anyone claiming that biological differences justify this, you should be careful what you say lest someone hold you to it. Do biological differences really mean a father should not be given equal opportunity to spend time with his child? In the reverse case, how readily should we accept "biological" arguments for giving women lesser treatment? Also remember that a policy like this creates a perverse incentive to favor employing a man instead of a woman-- he's less of a financial liability.

You silly person. Real gamers don't go to work. :)

Maybe not, but their standard weights do. Darn things just can't get enough bacon and cheese.

Right! And you can only assume they will pass those savings onto the consumer. I expect movie prices to drop dramatically any moment now...

any moment now...

hmm...

That's easy enough to say until someone declares your home a war zone.

I agree with your general point, but non-smartphones do not have overall longer talk times than smartphones. They do have long standby times though.

Wireless signals travel extremely well over water. Getting a signal 6 miles out is not too surprising.

Then you've missed the point. The value in an SD card is not just doubling the storage on the phone. It's the ability to swap out the card. With micro SD cards being so small, someone could keep a virtually unlimited amount of storage in their bag, purse, etc. It also allows easy sharing of large amounts of data across devices. I don't know whether many people really take advantage of that, but it's a good reason someone might not be satisfied with more storage instead of an SD card slot.

In the world of opensource any user can also be a developer, so when the GPL favors freedom for the user, that means it favors freedom for downstream developers. Think of it this way. BSD gives the initial developer that extends your code more freedom but does not guarantee that developers wanting to extend that developer's code will have any freedom to do so at all. The GPL gives less "maximum" freedom in order to ensure that downstream developers have the same freedom. Since BSD guarantees freedom for only one level of extension and the GPL guarantees freedom for unlimited levels of extension, it can be argued that the GPL gives more freedom. That is also why many free software advocates favor the GPL. They are looking at the long term.

However, the requirements of the GPL do make it messy to use in conjunction with some other licenses or proprietary software, so there may be good practical reasons to use something like BSD licensing. I just wouldn't list "more freedom" as one of those reasons-- at least not in the big picture.

I suppose that's a possible interpretation of freedom, but in a more practical sense I think your confusing freedom with anarchy. Anarchy says "do what you want, no matter what harm it causes others." Freedom means "your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins." In a world of shared resources, freedom is a balance, not an extreme. GPL and BSD just take different stances on that balance. BSD gives those that extend the code more freedom to limit their users. GPL limits the extender's freedom and instead gives more freedom to users down the line.

Cons and scams don't require brute force, but that still doesn't make them right.