It doesn't matter, because you don't need to send much up. We can do almost everything via telepresence. We're still dicking around doing "pure science" when every dollar on space should be spent on commercialization and exploitation. Yeah that's a bad word, but nobody will miss some asteroids, unless you miss a catch and they hit the planet.

Except down-market is Oracle too. Oracle owns MySQL and Berkeley DB.

...which is all about setting an example, so that other apes know you will react ruthlessly when confronted with difficulty.

Bullshit. The American People have always had access to their representatives' voting records, and the majority of people say they want change, but virtually everyone votes for the incumbent which proves they don't. The American people can be exceptionally well-informed as to what their representatives are doing, but they just don't care.

Consider that these misbehaving editors are likely misbehaving just as much on other articles. If "going through a drawn out diplomatic process" stops these editors from camping articles, they'll stop camping not only the article that you're editing but also other articles that they had been camping. Then edits to the other articles that these editors had been camping will be more likely to go through.

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.