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Please point me at the jury verdict or court ruling that MegaUpload and/or Kim Dotcom was engaged in illegal activities.

There is plenty of evidence, perhaps you're aware of the ~500 servers on US soil which were involved. The mess in New Zealand relating to warrants and seizures is the result of incompetence. The seizures in the US were done with evidence. Nearly every site out there has Terms of Service which forbid certain uses, plus as a business you wont get very far with a defense along the lines of I didn't know it was illegal. Part of operating a successful business is knowing what is legal where you have a business presence. It's a little different when the business model is based around knowingly engaging in these behaviors, especially to the tune of millions of dollars. It's not like Kim is spotless, he's a history of embezzlement and fraud. That's a red flag for any business dealings, were you born yesterday, or did you lose access to some files you didn't make a backup of like their service explicitly told you to?

I know that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing is just so darn inconvenient.

The presumption of innocence is how it works within the courts, where the accused is presumed innocent until the government meets the highest burden of proof known in American law: proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty. As an individual you're allowed right or wrong to think as you like.

Please point me at the jury verdict or court ruling that MegaUpload and/or Kim Dotcom was engaged in illegal activities.

There is plenty of evidence, perhaps you're aware of the ~500 servers on US soil which were involved. The mess in New Zealand relating to warrants and seizures is the result of incompetence. The seizures in the US were done with evidence. Nearly every site out there has Terms of Service which forbid certain uses, plus as a business you wont get very far with a defense along the lines of I didn't know it was illegal. Part of operating a successful business is knowing what is legal where you have a business presence. It's a little different when the business model is based around knowingly engaging in these behaviors, especially to the tune of millions of dollars. It's not like Kim is spotless, he's a history of embezzlement and fraud. That's a red flag for any business dealings, were you born yesterday, or did you lose access to some files you didn't make a backup of like their service explicitly told you to?

I know that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing is just so darn inconvenient.

The presumption of innocence is how it works within the courts, where the accused is presumed innocent until the government meets the highest burden of proof known in American law: proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty. As an individual you're allowed right or wrong to think as you like.

Yes, you're correct.

I was thinking about the A6X, which is in the iPad 4 and has 4 GPUs, specifically the PowerVR SGX554MP4.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/11/the-fourth-generation-ipads-new-gpu-is-a-quad-core-monster/

What happens when the government doesn't have the privacy? They say "oh no, we need the privacy that we deny you"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/minneapolis-police-pushing-for-more-license-plate-data-privacy/

If we shouldn't have privacy from governmnt because "oh who cares it's boring", then neither should any police, fire, rescue vehicle, or any politician from the public. It is not in the public's interest to make governmnt managers a higher class of citizen who can see all but not be seen.

According to Ars Technica, Apple's R&D budget is 3.4 BILLION dollars (3.4x10^9). That's enough money to "explore" all kinds of crazy stuff. Just because they're spending money looking into something, doesn't make it part of their business plan.

"state of New Jersey has taken the unprecedented step of allowing displaced voters to cast their votes by e-mail "

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/risky-business-new-jersey-to-allow-e-mail-voting-in-storms-wake/

"Aware of the problems with the official e-mail system, Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin suggested an alternative option: "Displaced voters can email a request for a ballot at cj_durkin@hotmail.com," according to a post on the Facebook "

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/e-voting-chaos-nj-voters-sent-to-officials-personal-hotmail-address/

"state of New Jersey has taken the unprecedented step of allowing displaced voters to cast their votes by e-mail "

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/risky-business-new-jersey-to-allow-e-mail-voting-in-storms-wake/

"Aware of the problems with the official e-mail system, Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin suggested an alternative option: "Displaced voters can email a request for a ballot at cj_durkin@hotmail.com," according to a post on the Facebook "

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/e-voting-chaos-nj-voters-sent-to-officials-personal-hotmail-address/

My source is ars technica (which I quoted above, but got distracted and didn't paste in the URL):

Our original story incorrectly suggested that Mendoza or Malaga owned the property in question. As the magistrate judge explained in a footnote:

        The government also briefly argues that there was no Fourth Amendment search because neither Mendoza nor Magana owned or leased the Property. The court need not address this argument because: (1) it is arguably underdeveloped; (2) the record does not disclose whether Mendoza or Magana leased the Property; and (3) as set forth below, the motion can be denied on other grounds

That's at the bottom of the page.

It seems there's some confusion about this issue.

They also have private backing, apparently around 10 million USD total at the moment according to article on ars: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/star-citizens-chris-roberts-discusses-upping-the-ante-on-pc-gaming/

That said, for a project of this size, that isn't that great of a budget. We're either looking at something rather mediocre in the genre that has been stale for ages (so even mediocre will look great), or they will go looking for more funding at some point.

That said, I was a huge fan of freelancer, and I'd love to have a sequel to that.

Windows is still very insecure. After all it has that whole list of software exposing it to danger.

Salshdot: where left-over MS haters from the 90s still have a voice.

Windows 8 is the most secure OS on the market

> Solar - uh, who said we can't mine stuff? China just shut down it's production so US production can at least for a bit start back up (obviously not immediately)

Mining those materials releases lots of radioactive (yes, radioactive) waste. Molycorp's US rare earth mine (which was recently reopened, I think) was actually shut down for this.

Sources:

* Molycorp
* Molycorp's Mountain Pass mine (This doesn't appear to be linked to Molycorp's article right now, oddly enough...)
* Ars article on the restart of US rare earth mining

I'm sure they'll try to do better this time and I hope they are better.

I would agree about the selfishness thing is insanity if you define insanity as 'outside the norm' (which I believe is the actual definition). But I would ask why should this be the norm, and if that is the case why would you want to be normal. If the majority of people were psychopaths wouldn't you prefer to be the insane person and go against the grain? I agree with you whole heartedly in your proposition that if there was no personal benefit then no one would be altruism. Now that may seem counterintuitive, but I'm pretty sure people would not donate money to causes if it on some level did not make the donator feel good about themselves, or at least less shitty about themselves (which is still an overall net gain in the 'feel good' equation). But just because this is true doesn't necessarily mean people can not also be 'selfless' when it comes to giving because I believe giving is not a zero sum equation. Ie. you may lose physical possessions someone else gains when u donate, but you do get something in return, a feel good factor or goodwill (of the accounting kind) or a better economy or what have you.

But getting back to the topic I find this article that alludes that humans are predisposed to cooperation and generosity, and only become selfish when they take time to think about the situation. interesting. How I would interpret the article is that a person would normally be cooperative but rationally acting in light of social pressures and realities we tend to arrive at a 'we got ours screw everyone else' attitude. (I personally find this a very predominate theme in most social structures such as politics for example).

Now my question to you is why should this be so. Why should we cultivate our society in a way that everyone is only looking out for themselves and not care about their neighbors. How I would describe the current societal system is that it's similar to an endothermic chemical reaction. Everyone grabs whatever they need and the reaction stops. How I would idealize society to be would be similar to an exothermic reaction. Everyone looks out for everyone else, I produce something they need they can have it, because I know in turn someone else will have my back when I need something, everyone is more productive and produces more, those who can't produce as much will still be taken care off.

Now people will start to think about problems such as if such a system is even logistically viable etcetera and I wont pretend I even have an ounce of knowledge in relation to answering that question, but my thoughts will turn to robotics and automation. When you introduce robots into the work force, people will be up in arms because they are out of the job and can no longer 'get theirs'. Why is this the case? If a small human work force can maintain a large robotic work force sufficient to produce the societies needs in terms of goods and similar services why do we need to be up in arms about losing our jobs. It's because of what I feel is an endothermic society where 'I got mine' is the norm and there is no other way to survive hence cultivating selfishness. Not because people a selfish per se, but because in order to survive the current structure of society demands it.

I guess what I am getting at is the idea is I acknowledge humans being selfish for whatever reasons is because of reality. However I question does reality need to be this way. I would guess people are going to bring up communist and socialist arguments etcetera and I do think those arguments will be valid (though what I'm suggestion doesn't really have to land exactly on either or both, I'm just acknowledging it has similar themes). However I would also suggest clarifying to yourself if you truly understand the concepts (I wont pretend I do) and if what you're arguing is whether it wont work because the system suggested is flawed, or if it won't work because while the system fundamentally sound, but humans are shitty a

Again, none of the quotes say it was installed on curtilage!

Again, that's the point. The cameras were installed outside curtilage but still on the property. It's right there in the third quote, "...a location that allows law enforcement to record activities outside of a home and beyond protected curtilage..."

Dude you are on crack ... you would think they would say that it's on the property. What you quoted could be referring to ... wait for it ... public property off of your premises! From another article:

Update: Our original story incorrectly suggested that Mendoza or Malaga owned the property in question. As the magistrate judge explained in a footnote: The government also briefly argues that there was no Fourth Amendment search because neither Mendoza nor Magana owned or leased the Property.

Mendoza and Magana asked Callahan to throw out the video evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds, noting that "No Trespassing" signs were posted throughout the heavily wooded, 22-acre property owned by Magana and that it also had a locked gate.

Interesting. That directly contradicts this update from Ars Technica:

Update: Our original story incorrectly suggested that Mendoza or Malaga owned the property in question. As the magistrate judge explained in a footnote: The government also briefly argues that there was no Fourth Amendment search because neither Mendoza nor Magana owned or leased the Property.

So ... someone's lying.

To elaborate on the other posters, the term curtilage refers to a very small area around your house (like a typical suburban yard), and doesn't include other private property like farmland, etc. These people had a large wooded plot of land with a house on it. They had large fences and no trespassing signs all around the property. The police set up cameras on the private property, but away from the house.

Here is a better article that also links to the full ruling, and has some very informative posts in the discussion.

A few companies are doing that:

Code think

Calxeda

Dell

Ars also has a piece on this, here.

The Ars Technica reviews points to problems using multiple monitors: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/windows-reimagined-a-review-of-windows-8/5/

Where? That article discusses issues with Metro/Desktop integration, the store, and wishes that cloud support was better. The only thing it says about multi-monitor support it:

If you're a multimonitor user, I would think long and hard before upgrading; as welcome as the new taskbar is, the ease of use of the new interface is a severe problem with multiple monitors.

Which doesn't really clarify anything at all.

Wait how the hell did this get voted +5? Microsoft astroturfing out on a grand scale?

The Ars Technica reviews points to problems using multiple monitors: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/windows-reimagined-a-review-of-windows-8/5/

How the hell is the Windows store an advantage?? Programs like Chrome update just fine by themselves. The store is an excuse to close down the ecosystem and earn Microsoft more money, there is absolutely nothing about it that's good for users. I use Google for software discovery, I have never in my life wished there was an app store where I could find applications to try out jsut for the heck of it. You want an application to perform a specific task, you look up what's avaialble, try trial versions. Don't need no damn app store for that.

Microsoft Security Essentials is free and works just fine on Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Not a reason for upgrading.

The ability to use an account tied to Microsoft and their services for Windows? No thanks.

All changes that basically clamp down the ecosystem and tie you to Microsoft's services, now that anti-trust is off chasing Google.

Touch screens on desktops and laptops? Useless. Look up Gorilla arm. How many touch screen laptops and desktops did Apple, the pioneer of touch based devices, launch? None.

If I get a tablet someday I'll look at Windows RT/8, but not at the current price. No way in hell is it getting anywhere near my primary work machine.

If it hits the wrong target, no civilian casualties.

You killed my World of Warcraft! You bastards!

We already did that. And we kept the money too.

Man I really want AMD to win!

I am typing this on a phenom II which is a better chip in my opinion and fast at the time in (unfortunately in 2010 standards). But these things run well over 130 watts, are loud with huge freaking fans, 4.4 ghz, and it seems AMD is trying to pump out as much speed as possible to beat intel's lowest end chips.

Just call it pentium IV 2.0 while we are at it? I am not a fan of intel because I run vmware and hate that intel cripples its chips and the bios to exclude virtualization on all but the most expensive units. I hate the cost of a high end icore 7 which in 2010 was only 10 - 15% faster than a Phenom II but cost 400% more where I can buy a whole system for the cost of a single intel core 7 extreme.

Well gentlemen. Expect dark days ahead and a return to $1000 desktops, $500 chips, and virtualization only available on xeon chips by next year. :-(

With AMD junk status it is bound to happen now since these chips can't match intels offering.

Uhh read this and maybe you wont be so ignorant
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appeals-court-wrecked-the-patent-system/

What the linked article doesn't mention, but this one does is that one of the prior art patents that invalidates the "rubber band" patent is owned by the same Apple employee that owns the "rubber band" patent.

At least in the US, it isn't entirely clear that the mobile vendors want to decimate the old school ISP model except where it fits their existing business interests.

If you are a wireline ISP, and already have sunk costs(quite literally) buried in the dirt, it only makes sense to 'decimate' the old school model if you can make more money by selling cut-price wireless access, rather than selling your already-amortized wireline services comparatively cheaply and bleeding the business users and/or compulsive smartphone crowd for their data use.

It has been argued that Verizon is actually doing this to their DSL and copper POTS phone services, in order to rid themselves of their gradually decaying copper infrastructure and its unionized linemen. They are still competing in areas where they already have fiber laid; but their DSL pricing and plans have actually gotten sharply worse, with apparent indifference to the fact that this is handing those customers over to cable, where it has a presence. The cable guys, for their part, tend not to have a wireless service that they can work with directly; but they very aggressively bundle cable 'content' packages with internet service' and have been pretty clear about their desire to restrict video-over-IP that competes with cable content exclusively to cable subscribers as much as possible(note, for instance, all the cable company ads that feature somebody streaming on their smartphone/tablet, on the go(ie. not on the internet service they are selling; but thanks to the 'content' service they are selling) rather than the "Cable is a fuckload faster than DSL, switch now you peons!" message from a few years back..

There have been a few attempts("Clearwire" comes to mind); but that road seems littered with skeletons and desperation.

After that anti-trust investigation and suit in the 1990s, Microsoft has been waiting for other companies to take innovative steps so that it can adopt them later. The Apple "app store" was a boon to Microsoft, as they couldn't have done it on their own without ending up back in court.

What's come of this is an intelligent strategy. They are essentially reviving an older strategy for making a standardized interface, which will allow developers and users more ability to mix-and-match interface components.

It's also intelligent to sneak away from the venerable win32 and make a gift to developers, which is one platform for mobile, desktop and any other form of computing (knowing Gates: smart house and smart agents) that will arise.

While I have my doubts about the Fisher-Price interface as well, I also felt this way about the "new" desktop in Windows XP. It'll be great to see Microsoft restoring some competition to the world of computing with this new strategy.

How about this http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4596/125/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/12/artists-lawsuit-major-record-labels-are-the-real-pirates/

and the end of the line http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5563/125/

First claim is the big investment houses expect it to fail. It is not investment grade anymore which means they can't get loans to cover debt. The big investment houses made that call and the data shows an upcoming bankruptcy.

Keep in mind companies like Apple got this bad before. It is possible but highly unlikely they can make up the revenue enough to give their books a more positive outlook in an accounting sense.

Second, if people can run Office and all their apps on a tablet with a keyboard cover they will do so. Why carry 2 things? As of now the IPAD lacks a keyboard and productivity software. But for general use they are superior with a better OS, longer battery life, higher DPI, etc. Will Metro catch on? I do not know. I do know pro Modern UI crowd is correct that people hate change and I remember hacks on geting file manager and program manager for Windows 95 because using the start ->all programs was too scary.

With a hybrid it is certainly possible a cheaper WIndows RT device that has a keyboard and the top comes off as a tablet that can run IE 10 (a decent IE for once), angry birds, and Office then the PC turns into a niche.

I would like to agree with you, but, ouch, ...,

We admitted we had a hand in the Stuxnet virus. see here

most of the openoffice devs are now libreoffice devs, so most of the recent development happens there. libreoffice is working on an android version.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/libreoffice-for-android-advances-document-viewer-is-on-the-way/

A good argument can be made that particular judges are the problem.

The Zune service / software is still better than iTunes but dedicated mp3 players were a hard sell once smartphones started taking off.

Like the iPod Touch, which has over half the sales of iPhones? The MP3 player market is still huge. It's just that there's the iTouch on one end, and the cheap Sansa-type stuff on the other. Microsoft went for an iTouch price point but with Sansa functionality. Anyone's surprised that didn't go over?

"it's far too hot to be habitable."

That's an understatement. From the ArsTechnica article on the alpha Centauri planet:

"But don't start building the colony ship just yet. With a 3.3 day orbit, the planet is only 0.04 Astronomical Units (1 AU is the typical distance from the Earth to the Sun). That makes this planet blazingly hot, at about 1,500 Kelvin."

Note: I don't go to church because I don't like organized religion. It's not to my liking... so I don't participate. Simple.

See, that's where you're wrong. You participate. I participate. Every American taxpayer is forced to participate in organized religion, as long as things like this are considered acceptable. Civilization itself is at stake, or soon will be, and the option to "live and let live" has been taken away from us.

Religion fucks up everything, starting with the government. They evidently don't teach history in public schools anymore, or people wouldn't have forgotten that.

You're forgetting the insanity in the UK, this stupidity has been going on for years, a lot longer than people realise. Take Kwik Fit (UK vehicle maintenance franchise) for example...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/10/the-next-copycrime-making-hearable-rings-up-200000-copyright-suit/

I was bemused as a kid, when they started all this shit. "Home taping is killing music". My arse. Yeah, I'm sure *I* killed the Bay City Rollers because I put them on a mixtape for my gf. Or mmmh, dontcha think maybe they just went out of fashion?

Now, decades later the whine is louder than ever. Sad.

"When SOPA-PIPA blew up, it was a transformative event," said Dodd. "There were eight million e-mails [to elected representatives] in two days." That caused senators to run away from the legislation. "People were dropping their names as co-sponsors within minutes, not hours," he said.

Depends... What's your definition of a negative frequency? A frequency out of phase with a positive one might qualify. I'm pretty sure you can make one of those... and Ars Technica had an article on negative frequency photons a while back too.

Well since it's our greed (does the consumer desire for cheaper products count?) that's responsible. You shouldn't have a problem with stricter laws then?

It's not just verisign, certificates from any CA can/are being used with the likes of this device.

"If it worked for our founding fathers..." is a terrible argument. Even when you're trying to say that things get old faster so they same time period is effectively longer.

I take the opinion that most of the copyright-based industries are actually false economies. They have built up a business model based on the scarcity of a tangible object (vinyl or paper), and expect to continue that via artificial scarcity. It doesn't make any sense.

The duration argument has already been made. Optimum length for a copyright for both the owner and society as a whole is 14-17 years, depending on who you ask. It has nothing to do with the circumstances long ago. We adjust as times change.

http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/07/research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years/

A simpler version http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/04/farm-fresh-infringement-can-you-violate-a-patent-by-planting-some-seeds/

Just a quick FYI: for those of you still assuming that D-Wave is a bunch of snake-oil salesman (like I did for a long time), take a look at this bit from Ars Technica. Basically what they've built is not a genuine quantum computer, but a sort of "quantum optimizer" that delivers speedups for some kinds of problems. Their crime might be that they just use too much marketing hyperbole, instead of being complete frauds.

Ars Technica got a call from the scammers today.

Hacker News has "News for Startups". Many /. articles show up there first. The community has, generally, far fewer commentators and much less humor. Expect to see a lot of stories about new javascript libraries, and blog posts from random idio^H^H^H^H"entrepreneurs". Tag it "RTFPressRease"

People tell me good subreddits exist. I'm not sure I believe it. Tag it "RTFImageCaption"

Linux Weekly News comes with a free neck adjustment to facilitate looking down on things with fewer freedoms. Tag it "RTFLKML"

Ars Technica, and Wired are both brought to you by their corporate overlords. Hard to complain about the reporting, it's sanitized but not awful. There's no community to speak of at either. It gets tagged for you.

Or you could DIY TFA with a custom RSS feed. But unfortunately I don't think what you're looking for exists outside slashdot, even in its supposed decline. You may get better answers, though, by defining what kind of nerd you are.

I'd say that the jury is still out on Posner:

A couple of his equally straightforward comments(this one from the bench), during a case appealing an Illinois wiretapping law: "But I'm not interested, really, in what you want to do with these recordings of peoples' encounters with the police." and "Once all this stuff can be recorded, there's going to be a lot more of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers,"

that no one mentioned the very well written article posted on ArsTechnica yesterday about the patent system and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. As expected, a very US-centric view on the problem, but it does raise some obvious issues. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appeals-court-wrecked-the-patent-system/

Here's a crazy idea or two ...

1. You know, maybe they could stop wasting money on an inanimate object called "terror". And/or stop trying to kill people who think different.
http://freemarketmojo.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/dat2010mint.jpg

2. Or maybe stop wasting money on undeployed and under-developed tech ...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/how-to-blow-6-billion-on-a-tech-project/

"cost growth and execution problems were based on the fact that no GMR radios were ever even tested by potential users until 2010. After 13 years in the pipeline, what those users saw was a radio that weighed as much as a drill sergeant, took too long to set up, failed frequently, and didn't have enough range."

Nah, that's just crazy talk ...

"And then how he tried to muddy the waters by adding the iPad numbers to claim iOS' superiority? "
How so? When Google talks about "Android activations" do they leave out tablets?

Generally when one makes a prediction, one sets out the conditions by which the prediction will be measured at the time the prediction is made. e.g. If you make a prediction about phone OS share, then it's a prediction about phone OS share. If the prediction turns out wrong, you don't get to retroactively change it to include other data to make it arrive at the result you want.

Within those confines, you're free to compare and predict whatever you want. If you want to make a prediction about phones, you make it about phones. If you want to make a prediction about phones + tablets, that's what you predict. If you want to make a prediction about iOS taking over the world and displacing Windows, that's what you predict.

"After even that failed, he(and his chums like Siegler) resorted to calling the Apple winner over Android because it takes 80% of the mobile profits! "
As a profit seeking entity, isn't profit the most important measure of success? How can a money losing company - i.e. every Android manufacturer except for Samsung and HTC (barely) be considered "successfully"?

There are thousands of different metrics which one could use to measure success. If you're free to pick and choose which one to use after the fact, it's almost a statistical certainty that there will be some metric which supports your hypothesis. That's why all the investment firms advertising their "top-performing funds" are bunk. Whether or not they have some funds which out-performed the market by 40% last year is irrelevant. What matters is how likely a customer was to have picked one of those funds before they out-performed the market.

That's why you need to set the conditions of a prediction at the time of the prediction. e.g. Investment firm predicts that their funds A, B, and C will outperform the market by 40% the following year. If you don't establish these conditions ahead of time, you're just cherry-picking data which fits your hypothesis.

That's the criticism being leveled against Apple supporters. First it was all about the UI. Then when that was matched it suddenly became about size (screen size and thinness of the iPad). When those were surpassed, it suddenly became about market share. Since iOS is a distant second now, it's suddenly about profits. At this point it's obvious to pretty much all unbiased observers that Apple supporters are just cherry-picking whatever stats support their argument that iOS is superior.

This has nothing to do with the conclusion of the argument - Apple products could very well be the best thing since sliced bread. But if the arguments supporting that assertion are this mutable and fickle, their reliability as an indicator of the strength of the conclusion is highly suspect. Statisticians, scientists, and people trying to be unbiased do not simply morph their argument every time it's disproven. They first question the validity of the hypothesis around which the argument was based. Failure to question the initial hypothesis is a pretty strong indicator of bias. Which was OP's point.

"For proof of his partisanship see his analysis of Apple's forced 30% cut of in-app purchases over which it kicked out a number of apps."
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/new-android-market-rule-prohibits-apps-that-use-third-party-in-app-payment-services/

The key difference here is that Apple's App Store is your only way to get binaries onto an iOS device. If you don't like Google's Market/Play policies, you can use any of the countless other markets for Android. Heck, you don't even need a market. Just put your Android app binary on any old web page and give people the URL.

"You mean read his stupid crap snarky sneering comparisons on Amazon's earnings vs. Apple's ?"

Is it not the truth?

No, it's very misleading because Amazon is investing the profits into expansion which is way different from a company struggling to make money which Gruber wants to portray it as, comparing profit like the way he did is ridiculous. And it looks like it worked, with people like you thinking profits mean everything. Check the stock market reaction to earnings and you'll know why it is misleading.

As a profit seeking entity, isn't profit the most important measure of success? How can a money losing company - i.e. every Android manufacturer except for Samsung and HTC (barely) be considered "successfully"?

Because marketshare also matters, and Android is clearly winning there. Picking the metric that best suits Apple because Apple's losing on other metrics is a pretty lame tactic. By that metric Microsoft is winning over Linux and Apache in the server and web server market.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/new-android-market-rule-prohibits-apps-that-use-third-party-in-app-payment-services/ [arstechnica.com]

Ah, the classic technique of showing Android is just as bad? But sorry, your own link says this:

By comparison, Apple also prohibits the use of third-party payment systems in applications sold through its iOS App Store. A key difference, however, is that Google offers exceptions for retailers of physical and virtual goods (including ebooks). It's also worth noting that Android's support for application sideloading and alternate distribution channels will mean Android application developers have the option of not complying with Google's new rules, assuming they are willing to sacrifice the advantages of having a presence in the platform's standard marketplace.

Which means you can buy ebooks from the Kindle app on Android, but you cannot on iDevices. Read it later was kicked out because of Apple's policy (which was ironic given that Apple used their OSS code in Safari for a similar feature).

http://readitlaterlist.com/blog/2010/08/version-2-2-rejected-new-rejection-reason-from-apple-may-have-major-implications/

Also, your link fails to address the fact that Microsoft allows third party payments in the Windows App Store. Perhaps you should try reading some other sources of news instead of living in the Daring Fireball bubble.

"You mean read his stupid crap snarky sneering comparisons on Amazon's earnings vs. Apple's ?"

Is it not the truth?

"And then how he tried to muddy the waters by adding the iPad numbers to claim iOS' superiority? "

How so? When Google talks about "Android activations" do they leave out tablets?

"After even that failed, he(and his chums like Siegler) resorted to calling the Apple winner over Android because it takes 80% of the mobile profits! "

As a profit seeking entity, isn't profit the most important measure of success? How can a money losing company - i.e. every Android manufacturer except for Samsung and HTC (barely) be considered "successfully"?

"For proof of his partisanship see his analysis of Apple's forced 30% cut of in-app purchases over which it kicked out a number of apps."

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/new-android-market-rule-prohibits-apps-that-use-third-party-in-app-payment-services/

Or it could be that this mistake was entirely on the side of the NZ government and has exactly jack shit to do with the US's case against Dotcom, as the Ars Technica article states:

Key told reporters he did not expect the illegal GCSB surveillance to affect the fight over extraditing Dotcom to the United States, because none of the evidence the United States planned to use against Dotcom in those proceedings were derived from GCSB surveillance.

So, no, thats not going to happen because of this. The US's case may be wrong/illegal for other reasons, but saying they should drop it because the NZ government made a mistake is... rather ridiculous.