I don't think that robots will make things worse.

The idea is that even if the 1% own all the means of production they won't just sit there and let the 99% starve.
They expect top class service and goods, and for this they need highly skilled people. And these people don't come cheap, they need education, enough comfort to concentrate on their assigned task rather than in survival and a good pay to keep them working for you instead of your competitor. They will become the 5%.
Now the 5% also want their little comfort too. They won't be able to get top class service like the 1% but they can still get moderately skilled people to work for them, which, in turn, can create work for the lower skill people, and so on...
You'll end up with a pyramid, exactly like we have now, and like we had in the past. The jobs will change, but the idea is still the same.

Don't forget the underground economy.
Many construction workers declare themselves as unemployed while they are actually working under the table.

Samsung manages removable batteries quite well.
Also, while most batteries can last for more than two years, they gradually decrease in capacity. Interestingly, people often blame software updates for the resulting decrease in battery life. By providing user replaceable batteries, it is possible to get back to full capacity and use the old battery as a spare. I did this for my last two phones.
As for Li-ion batteries that actually wore out and got replaced, it happened on 3 devices : an MP3 player, a laptop and a phone.
As for the safety argument, I don't buy it. Battery explosions are extremely rare and happen on genuine models as well.

I agree with you that most people don't bother with tearing down and fixing anything. But some others do, even if it is just for fun, and for these people, iFixit is great. Don't call something useless just because it is only useful for a limited audience.

Solar works in Germany because it is supported by coal, gas and a bit of hydro.
In fact Germany have a high peak power capacity mainly due to their fossil fuel power plants. As a result they can easily absorb the fluctuations of their solar and wind plants, they can also buy nuclear electricity from France when it is cheap.

AFAIK it is not an attempt at censorship.
Yahoo just don't want to pay for bandwidth and be associated to a website promoting suicide. They probably don't care about the contents of the website being leaked all over the internet.

There is enough data in these files to hold like 1000h of average quality 480p video plus the full text of the english wikipedia.
If this file is made of sensitive information, why not get a bit more selective and only keep the good bits. It would have made the sharing and usage easier.

What's the point of firing you ? You will quit anyways.
Anyways, the burden of proof is on your employer. So unless you clearly write "I quit now", sign it and date it, if he decides to fire you, then it's just that, he fires you.

In the case of Webkit / KHTML it is relevant.
Because KHTML is LGPL they are required by law to let Webkit be used by others.

I think the reason why there are competing systems (both in computers and human languages) is that both have their advantages.
- little endian simplifies addition (and most arithmetic as a result)
- big endian simplifies compairson (and searching, sorting, routing, etc... as a result)

At work, I witnessed a heated argument about a "VMS". It took several minutes before they realized they weren't talking about the same thing !

In fact there are 3 divx :
- "DIVX" : the time-limited DVD alternative that never took of, not a video codec.
- "DivX ;-)" : a hacked version of Microsoft's MPEG4-ASP codec that works with AVIs
- "DivX" : a completely rewritten and proprietary MPEG4-ASP codec that is compatible with "DivX ;-)", with many improvements
- "XviD" : an opensource alternative to "DivX", also written from scratch

Three possibilities :
1 - It's a lie
2 - It's true because they have a super-secure system in place
3 - It's true because they are incompetent (I'm talking about their administration, not their researchers)

Considering the recent turn of events, I'd go with #3.
What Snowden discovered didn't surprise me. Spying is part of the job after all. But the other part is keeping it secret, and they failed miserably.

If you are using NiMH, it is suggested that you switch to NiCd if you can still find them. This is an older technologiy and they are generally worse than NiMH but for this specific case, they are often better due to their robustness. And if you are buying NiMH, avoid the highest capacities as they use thinner parts (to maximise electrolyte volume) and are often less robust.

They don't.
But the copied material has to come from somewhere. And legitimate subscribers will be less likely to share their copies with the rest of the world if it contains personal information.

It may be encrypted to prevent someone entering the datacenter from stealing data directly from the hard disk.
But if your data can be recovered in any way without the original password, then Google can access it as well as if it was plaintext.