Now the IAU is going to declare that the Earth hasn't cleared its orbit and demote it to dwarf-planet.

The current best-case scenario for GPS tracking is within 3 metres. 4–6m is probably more likely in practice. It's possible if most of the satellites are near the horizon your accuracy will drop to about 15m. Obviously, that's not as accurate as a system that tells you you're within 30–50m of some random static wifi access point </sarcasm>

The email I got from Google 10 years ago is below. You'll notice that it doesn't "warn" people to move to the "new version", even if it does present an "upgrade" option.

Hello from Google,

Here's some important news about Google Apps—but don't worry, there's no need for you to take any action. We just want you to know that we're making a change to the packages we offer.

Starting today, we're no longer accepting new sign-ups for the free version of Google Apps (the version you're currently using). Because you're already a customer, this change has no impact on your service, and you can continue to use Google Apps for free.

Should you ever want to upgrade to Google Apps for Business, you'll enjoy benefits such as 24/7 customer support, a 25 GB inbox, business controls, our 99.9% uptime guarantee, unlimited users and more for just $5 per user, per month.

You can learn more about this change in our Help Center or on the Enterprise Blog.

Thank you for using Google Apps.

Clay Bavor
Director, Google Apps

It is telling that iOS has such bugs more than Android does. Perhaps Objective-C/Swift make such mistakes easier than Java/Kotlin. (Or perhaps their bugs are just considered more news-worthy; for whichever reason you prefer.)

Apple should really implement something to prevent an app from causing a reboot loop, though.

There is a difference between a limitation because someone hasn't done something and a limitation because someone has done something.

I lock my car to prevent its theft. But I have a tree that's probably worth as much these days, and nobody takes it despite the lack of a lock. The effort required to steal a tree passes its value. The effort required to steal a car does not; until you add the lock.

It is unreasonable to expect Apple or Google to honour the app purchases made on the other's app store. But if Apple didn't prevent competing app stores from being installed on your phone, Google (or Amazon, or F-Droid) could create a cross-platform app store. That could allow you to buy an app once and install it on either device (assuming there are both iOS and Android versions, of course).

Android is evidence that third-party app stores aren't too costly to be worth it. They're worth it despite having lower popularity compared to the Play Store. So the lack of third-party app stores on iOS is entirely due to the restrictions Apple implemented. And the lack of Apple's app store on Android is similarly due to Apple's choice, not technical limitations. But maybe you think it's a fair call by Apple to not spend effort on selling other people's apps on Android. Don't you think that would change if Amazon's app store became available on both platforms and gave people the choice to buy apps for both?

You can't change the system to stop people whining. All you'd do is change who is whining.

Honestly, the only problem I have with daylight savings time is people publishing nonsense articles like this one. The only previous difficulty was changing the clocks, but that's not a big deal anymore.

As to the research, such as it is: it says that there are both pros and cons to daylight savings time. Given that, if we get rid of it, there's just going to be articles complaining and suggesting we bring it back.

So how about, instead of getting rid of it, we just stop the pointless bi-annual whining?

I didn't say that rich people had no problems. I explicitly stated that they do. The point of the quoted text is that you can't dismiss someone as lazy because they don't succeed. Of course wealthy people have struggles. But their struggles aren't likely to cost them as dearly in financial terms.

When your the exceptional one, its easy to believe that the reason others fail is because they didn't work as hard as you did. Our own efforts and struggles are easily seen. Other people's efforts and struggles are hidden from us.

The 'opportunities' argument isn't just talking about that, though. It's talking about the fact that a rich person who lacks work ethic and 'gives up' not only can still end up in a better person than a poor person who works hard and 'succeeds', but is also more likely to. Temporary setbacks which would cripple a poor person's ambitions are barely roadblocks to rich families. It is significantly easier to make another million dollars when you already have a million than it is to make the first million.

Consider identical good situations:
Existing money: "I made $50k flipping a house."
Loan: "I made $30k flipping a house."
Both came out well, but having money at the start had clear advantages.

Now consider identical bad situations:
Existing money: "I flipped a house at the wrong time and lost $5k."
Loan: "I flipped a house at the wrong time, lost $5k on the sale, plus the interest, and so I defaulted on the loan."
The first circumstance is easily recoverable. The second circumstance is a killer blow. In both the good and bad cases the people made the same choices with the same chance it could have gone bad the same way.

My point is that sure, all of the disadvantages of being poor are easily surmountable. But they're not all so easy to surmount if you hit them all. And life is a whole lot easier if you will never face any of them.

- A fellow escapee

Don't worry. As good as the rendering of cars, roads, and buildings are, as soon as there's a person in the scene it goes back to looking like a computer game.

Anti trust rules disallow things for big players that have the ability to affect markets that would otherwise be allowed.

Companies are allowed to set the price that they sell things for, and negotiate prices with other companies. Apple has been in trouble in the past because it used its size to dictate the prices of eBooks sold by other people.

In particular, one thing that anti trust laws disallow is product tying. That is, saying "if you use product X, you must use product Y." Plenty of people are arguing that Google and Apple tie their payment systems to their app stores. Epic et al. are also arguing that Apple is tying their App Store to their phone OS.

To make sure I'm clear, I'm not arguing that Epic is right. I'm arguing that there is a case to be made against Apple. Which side will be deemed valid is still unknown.

Absolutely. And the judge will likely take that into consideration. How much weight it has, I'm not sure.

Being removed from the app store denied them the ability to sell iOS apps. If Epic can convince the court the iOS app market is distinct from a smartphone app market, Apple might be found to be in the wrong by virtue of exploiting their position.

If, maybe, perhaps. Nobody yet knows how this will come out. Doesn't matter what you or "Slashdot" think the outcome should be.

Apple has argued that it isn't a monopoly because iPhone users can simply switch to Android.

Epic has counter argued that cost (repurchasing apps) and lock-ins (iMessage, FaceTime) mean the switch is not simple. Further, it has argued that Apple has cultivated this situation (see emails being discussed).

Whether the judge will side with Apple or Epic is still in the air.

In the lead up to an election in Australia, one party proposed getting rid of the generous negative gearing benefits given to property investors. The other party was committed to keeping them. So they tried a "Think of the children!" argument: they found a family where the "investor" was a young couple buying a house for their baby.

The media tore that to shreds: why should Australia care about a family buying a house for an infant when adults are struggling?

The party favouring keeping negative gearing won the election.