You're both right. Because a normal vendor likes it when third parties redistribute their patches for them, and that's what's going on here. But since Oracle is now charging for those updates, because as it turns out they don't actually like being an OS vendor and all that entails, it's also illegal activity in just the way you describe.

My solution was to buy an Android device. I initially considered one of the old Google TV devices which will play AIS video but I decided it wasn't that important, I don't really need prime anyway since so much of the stuff I order is cheaper on eBay with or without free shipping, which is often available. I had two Rikomagic MK802 devices (a MkIII and a MkIIIS) which were both garbage; the first one seemed to have a short across the power connector and the second one was just flaky in every way and nothing really worked. Then I got an Ouya, which is a total lemon, crashing and hanging even at the launcher and with abysmal bluetooth range. Now I have a Tronsmart MK902 which seems, at first stab, to be a much better effort than any of those others. WiFi and bluetooth both seem to work correctly, and you can use the device on displays with resolutions other than the ideal. At least, it works on my 1440x900 LCD that is currently sitting on my desktop for my Raspberry Pi. I have a small adapter to convert the HDMI to DVI. Netflix works. I can stream video from Plex with the included software. Mission accomplished I guess, until I get XBMC going at least. But that's reported to be kind of flaky right now.

There's nothing contradictory about that. No one has yet disproven the soul, nor an afterlife. For the record, I do not particularly believe in either, but am willing to be pleasantly surprised.

Socialism can be used as a boolean, but that's not the only way. All government is inherently socialist. It might well be building societies harmful to its members, but a government is a social institution.

Er... if you compare US to other countries with similar historical background and level of economic development, then it was actually rather lagging behind. Go here and find the entry for US, then scroll down and see who abolished it after that date (it's easier, because that list is much shorter than the one before it). Basically, by the time US did it, Europe has already had it abolished everywhere except for Ottoman Empire, and in most of its colonies. Most other states that were formed from European colonies that declared independence also abolished it by that time.

Well, the Russian society in many respects is still acting like it's Cold War and things (have you seen what Russian state-backed newspapers write about US and the West in general?), so I would say that turnaround is fair play.

On international arena, states are actors, and their governments are the ones representing them, not the people.

So saying that "Americans want ..." or "Americans did ..." may be inaccurate here, but saying "US wants ..." or "US did ..." is perfectly accurate. That you Americans are not in charge of the country that claims you as citizens is unfortunate, but not really relevant for those outside of it. In any case, this is something that only Americans themselves can fix.

It also gives a lot of material for Russian government propaganda to recycle internally, especially if US actually follows up on this.

Of course Russia wouldn't resort to nuclear power in response to an attempt of some US spec ops team to extract or assassinate Snowden. It would just scramble its fighters and shoot down the helicopters used in such an operation, as well as any fire support planes. It's not Pakistan.

Do you seriously think that those guys didn't realize that NSA is likely wiretapping any communication channels that they might be using that go through US?

You just gave an example of signed wraparound being non-standard across platforms, which is a well-known fact (hence why C99 does not require it in the standard). I was asking for an example of unsigned wraparound behaving differently.

In any case, if the decision to exclude unsigned from Java was done for the sake of portability, then they should have excluded signed as well (first, in fact) on the same grounds.

His noodle is strong in this one.

Russia is already in process of providing Snowden with the necessary documents etc for his stay, it's just a matter of a lot of red tape there.

And yes, Russia has leakers and political refugees, too. And a lot of them go to US or other free(er) countries, and Russia generally doesn't raise much fuss about it, at least not to the point of threatening sanctions.

Heck, Europe and US have a bunch of guys from Chechen government-in-exile, and some other people who participated in either or both Chechen wars, whom the Russian government considers terrorist - and they have far more grounds for that (we're talking about guys who actually killed people).

The only strange part of that story is that US is whining so much about Snowden. It all sounds very personal, as if he has a private video of a Congress group masturbation stashed away or something.

So what? Unsigned wraparound is extremely portable. It was, in fact, sufficiently portable that C89 required it for unsigned chars, and C99 required it for all unsigned types (because the committee couldn't find any living platform which did not allow for highly efficient, single-opcode unsigned arithmetic).

I can assure you that Russian government would be absolutely ecstatic about a full-scale trade embargo from US against Russia. This would mean that they get an indulgence for anything that goes wrong, since now any and all economic problems can be blamed on Americans, whom the populace already doesn't like much. It would also give credence to their "sovereign democracy" theory, and validate the existence of external threats against which the government is calling people to rally around. It would spell the death knell for all liberal (largely Western-oriented) opposition in the country.

If you want to ensure that Russia transitions to a full-fledged dictatorship and remains that way for as long as possible, harsh US sanctions against it over a political issue is probably the best way to achieve that.