Possible, but unlikely. I'm 37 which tend to be toward the older end of the Slashdot crowd. There are definitely people a decade or more older than me around, but most are my age or younger. It's still fairly immaterial. Our two data points are of no statistical value at all. My parents came of age during the 60s, which were of course notorious as the "free love" decade; but historical analysis of teen pregnancies, what abortion records we have, and other techniques indicate that the 50's were no less randy. They just didn't (and mostly still don't) talk about it.
One very large difference from around the late 50's on is that easy access too/knowledge of birth control meant that you could have sex with more partners before it caught up with you. Before that time, you were fairly lucky to have sex with more than one or two partners without winding up married because you got pregnant. After the 60's it became more and more common for women to have years, even decades, before they were tied down by pregnancy, and often even then it was by choice. This means they have more time and inclination for multiple partners before marriage. You might argue that this means they are having "more sex", but in reality it's more that they have more time for sex.
Your parents were prudes?I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but as has often been stated, the plural of anecdote is not data. I happen to know, both because I was born when my mom way 17 years old, and because the term TMI has no apparently meaning to my parents; that both my parents were sexually active as teenagers. Maybe my parents were sluts? Possible, but my data point is no more useful than yours. Historical analysis shows that while it wasn't talked about or studied, teenage rates of promiscuity probably haven't changed much since the Roman Empire (probably since before then, but the Romans were the first real great record keepers of western history). It's all based on statistical analysis and isn't an exact science, but most studies seem to indicate that (shockingly) teenagers have always been raging little balls of hormones with questionable self control.
Fair enough, I simply don't understand why a particular band wouldn't be there. If you've got the resources to have recorded music, you pretty much have the resources to be on iTunes (and/or several other big online stores)... Why cost yourself sales?
If you've got any contact with the bands ( and for bands with small fan bases this is common) tell them to get themselves there. It's really, really easy, essentially free (30% cut from sales, but honestly that's not a lot more than materials to make a CD yourself, certainly less than even a good indie label would take) and has the double advantage of allowing fans to get paid for copies of their music, and putting them in the genre search lists... Possibly bringing new fans. I'm service agnostic, they should do this with all the big services.
I'm friends with a few musicians, the guy I mention in my example is an extreme case, but even people like my friend Beth (Celtic/alt rock fusion) make as much off iTunes these days as they do off CD sales.
I'm curious. Where can you find a band that is not on iTunes? I know a guy who self-produced an album literally in his garage using his guitar, a performance mike, and his computer. His album is on iTunes. It's literally so easy to be on iTunes that someone with no production equipment at all can throw his self-produced CD-R released "for my friends and family" strumming up there. Why would any band that had any vague idea that they might possibly, someday, perhaps want to make any money at all off their album not put it up?
Guarantee that by the end of the day his original comment will have been modded down at least once, and commented on by at least three people who won't bother to read his correction and immediately fly to refute the accidental notion that "Strong Copyright is about protecting the public." There's already one comment to his correction that seems to have missed the fact that he was replying to his own comment and is misinterpreting the grandparent post. I don't necessarily agree with his initial post, but it was reasonably well thought out and mostly coherent; it's a real shame that one small typo is going to get it a lot of pointless commentary and likely moderation which completely misses his point.
I understand that by disallowing editing they're trying to protect the moderation system, but surely there's another way. I'd be perfectly happy if edits cleared moderation or something.
Assuming you can download the app which allows app downloads, or so GP appears to saying. If, as he indicates, there is a legal problem with loading the Android Market on a CM device than in theory CM (as a usable system, since the applications are what make the OS do anything useful) is also illegal. Now granted that doesn't mean much in a practical sense, Google doesn't seem to be the type of company to hunt down individual modders and sue them; but it's still somewhat philosophically unfortunate given that Google touts Android as an "Open" system.
Hell at least people made a lot of money in exchange for the risks they took selling booze during Prohibition. Bitcoins don't even have that advantage.
And, assuming that the government approves this technology for handling classified materials, this will be included in among those strict conditions. Obviously there are procedural and regulatory hurdles to overcome here, but what you point out is precisely the problem that this technology seeks to solve. In the non-classified world, many of us carry some sort of laptop, tablet or phone with us all the time, and use it to take notes, respond to e-mail, etc in meetings and classes. this tech could give a limited form of that level of freedom in the classified world. I've been out of DoD contracting for less than three months and I'm still rediscovering all the conveniences of not having to deal with classified:-)
Except that there's a lot of question about the environmental factors in many areas of development. Behavior is definitely one area where it has at least some effect. If I'm born genetically predisposed to mild depression, but I have a great family who support me, live a relatively "good" life, and maybe take up some sort of meditation practice, it's less likely that I'll be regularly depressed. I'll still be more inclined to it than someone without the genetic predisposition, but chances are I'll be happier overall than someone with my similar predisposition born into more unfortunate circumstances. The question isn't "do genetics impact happiness", of course they do. The questions are "how much do genetics impact happiness in the normal range of people" and "how precisely do they do so." Other studies focus on the first question, this study seems to focus more on the second.
Most of that makes very little sense. First, these are already published works. They're already associated with her, and are already out there. She's just put them into a new collection. They're also apparently award winning pieces. That tends to argue against them being not up to Pengiun's standards. They're probably at least part of the basis on which they offered her a contract in the first place. As to the advertising thing, again, this is old work. She might mention it while on the radio... but she might just as well mention the collections the stories originally appeared in or one of her earlier novels. We're not talking about some lady who just wrote her first book and is throwing some old crap from college together into a collection. She's an established writer with a long history. She's got lots of published material which she continues to have a vested interest in selling. That's the baggage you get when you chose to sign an established author instead of taking an chance on a new talent.
Actually I think he means that the publishers provide editors and copy-editors to make sure you spelled your main character's name the same way through the whole book. Any reasonable and honest author will tell you that the editing (and fact checking for books where they are appropriate) services provided by publishers are useful and valuable. That doesn't mean you couldn't get those services from somewhere other than a publisher, but it does kind of put lie to the idea that book should go from author to reader. You don't necessarily need a publisher in the middle, but having someone there doing quality control does tend to make the final product better.
Depends how the contract is worded. The author seems to think she gave Penguin exclusivity on her new book, not her old stuff. I've never heard of a publishing company having a fit when you publish old stuff (previously published no less, just bound up in a new collection), while working on a book for them. It's possible that Penguin writes their contacts that way and the author simply misunderstood or didn't read carefully enough, but it seems really odd to me. It sounds like Penguin is interpreting a non-compete clause rather more liberally than is traditional in order to punish the author for going through Amazon. I don't have all the facts of course, she may have legitimately broken faith with them, but from what we have that doesn't appear to be that case.
In addition to the all the other, rather obvious, answers others have given to your question (things like mass transit, passengers using phones, hands free devices...), there's also the detail where most roads are immediately adjacent to well... sidewalks, buildings, cafes, etc. If the truck detects a good signal on the road, chances are good that building situated on that road also have good signals. If the truck detect poor or mediocre signal on the road chances are it's even worse in nearby buildings.
One huge advantage I can see to this is precise location data. While cheap handsets can have their locations approximated, and more expensive ones know their exact locations (assuming satellite LOS), the first is only an approximation and the second is not readily available to the carriers. The trucks are no doubt equipped with GPS, and higher end tower triangulation equipment so they always know precisely where they are. Another advantage would be the capability to measure signals through non-handset equipment, while testing the handsets at the same time. For instance, I could setup a big antenna to measure gain that handset antennas can't detect, then figure out at precisely what point given handset can get a signal.
The other question is: How many handsets actually can collect and send this sort of data? If the answer is most or all of them, then you might be right, even the more accurate truck data might not be worth it given the huge numbers of handsets out there. if the answer is few or none... Well the trucks are a pretty important data point then. The carriers don't build the phones, getting this capability built into handsets is something they can request, but not necessarily just do.
Siri actually does a bit more than just get the jist. You can dictate text messages to it and it will type exactly what you said. On the other hand, while it's pretty good (I have it on my phone and I'm reasonably impressed), there are already stories of some pretty spectacular failures of communication with it, and I've had to repeat myself a couple of times in my experimenting with it too. I'd be wary of using a voice recognition and translation service. Between the fact that voice recognition is generally good, but occasionally hysterically wrong; and the fact that on the fly computer translations are generally good, but occasionally hysterically wrong... Adding the two together, especially when you're trying to communicate with strangers who may or may not be easily insulted by the mistakes seems like a recipe for potential problems.
There's plenty of point for people who have more than one Apple device, or who want to manage their single devices without the need for a sync computer. I never got the impression that this was intended as a Dropbox killer. It's a remote sync and and device backup utility for iDevices and to a lesser extent music and media from iTunes on your computer. It's a useful way to seamlessly maintain certain devices and software, not a backup system for your computer.
Ehh, apparently you missed a memo or five. iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks for quite a while. I have full e-mail, calendaring, and contact sync from the corporate exchange server on my iPhone. We're talking a Fortune 100 multinational here, not "dude the e-mail server guy totally hooked me up with e-mail on my iPhone!" On top of that I can use the VPN server to direct connect to the corporate network and manage my systems from the wifi in the mall if there's an emergency. Maybe a Blackberry can do that too, I don't know, but there's nothing I need to do remotely that I can't do from my phone. I also happen to know for a fact that this is all true for Android too (the guy I replaced uses a Droid something or other and he had the same setup I do). The days when Blackberry could just say "yeah, but we have all the business clients" are long over. They need to compete on features, because business no longer goes to them by default.
We still have people down. Not sure how many, as I don't deal with phones and many people have switched off BB here already; but I've seen a trickle of people going into the IT guy's office to ask about it.
Yeah I thought underwater might be more difficult and dangerous, but I can't think of any long term deep water habitation projects. I know of a couple of shallow water things (including a hotel or two), but most of them are shallow enough that in a pinch you could swim to the surface. Military subs go pretty deep and stay submerged for a long time, but they're also mobile and can quickly surface in the event of a non-catastrophic emergency. Obviously a catastrophic emergency is going to kill everyone, but that's the case in any of these extreme environments.
Likely successful and even simpler, get a second hard drive. Pack one in your checked baggage (most people check at least one bag flying internationally I think) inside an anti-static bag with your "real" OS and data, put a second cheap one into the laptop with a basic Windows (or Linux to save even more money) install and maybe a game or some non-sensitive work stuff to keep you occupied on the flight. Like you say, I doubt they'd make you install and check a second drive, especially if it were sealed up and looked clean. You could also encrypt it, in case it got lost or separated from you.
I mean, it might be risky if you were flying into Iran or China or some other seriously locked down society, but for the casual security theater of most tourist nations it would probably suffice. I've flown in and out of Europe and the US, generally even when they bother with this sort of intrusive stuff they're fairly half-assed about it.
Still the pie graphs show around 15-20% each for Linux and Mac payments, so the totals for them are well over the $100K mark. One $2k donation probably isn't going to skew the average *that* much. I'm sure it helps a lot and probably helps put the Linux average so high over the Mac average, but both are averaging *way* better than Windows.
That's entirely antithetical to what RMS is trying to accomplish. I see what you're saying, and I don't even entirely disagree with you (there's something to be said for "Linux is a server/development OS stop trying to make otherwise"); but given that we're talking in the context of how RMS contributes to or detracts from his own cause, I don't think your comment is entirely relevant. The fact is that RMS's goal is the widespread adoption and perhaps eventual dominance of Free Software as a paradigm. He wants to see Free Software succeed to the point where companies like Apple and Microsoft either open up their code or become irrelevant. He's not really accomplishing that goal, nor making any real progress.
Most of the progress that FOSS has made in the last 20 years has been in spite of Stallman rather than because of him. The rise of LAMP, Mozilla, etc... All that has been dragging him behind it as much as he's been moving it forward. Don't get me wrong. It's entirely possible that none of it would have happened had he not gotten the ball rolling, and his early contributions were critical (Without gcc and the GNU toolchain Linux would have never gotten off the ground). Unfortunately the type of personality that can have the obsession necessary to found a movement is often not the type personality that can move it forward into widespread acceptance. GP is right, Stallman's lack of social and political acumen are making him his own worst enemy.
I believe not. I'm not sure of the details, but I've read that helicopters can't be used at the South Pole Station. Something about the altitude and temperature making the air too thin for the blades to get lift or something. I might be remembering wrong, but you have to remember that except for the International Space Station these are literally the worst conditions that any humans live in anywhere. By comparison Inuits and Sherpas live in lovely safe climates. Very few "normal" solutions work.
Err... doesn't OSX contain fairly substantial amounts of FLOSS, and isn't Apple known as a reasonably responsible licensee and even contributor for most projects they use? I recall a few instances where they were accused of a license violation, but they seem to respond to most of these accusations by correcting whatever they've done wrong. Granted, not always instantly, but they do fix it.
Slashdot Mirror
Possible, but unlikely. I'm 37 which tend to be toward the older end of the Slashdot crowd. There are definitely people a decade or more older than me around, but most are my age or younger. It's still fairly immaterial. Our two data points are of no statistical value at all. My parents came of age during the 60s, which were of course notorious as the "free love" decade; but historical analysis of teen pregnancies, what abortion records we have, and other techniques indicate that the 50's were no less randy. They just didn't (and mostly still don't) talk about it.
One very large difference from around the late 50's on is that easy access too/knowledge of birth control meant that you could have sex with more partners before it caught up with you. Before that time, you were fairly lucky to have sex with more than one or two partners without winding up married because you got pregnant. After the 60's it became more and more common for women to have years, even decades, before they were tied down by pregnancy, and often even then it was by choice. This means they have more time and inclination for multiple partners before marriage. You might argue that this means they are having "more sex", but in reality it's more that they have more time for sex.
Your parents were prudes?I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but as has often been stated, the plural of anecdote is not data. I happen to know, both because I was born when my mom way 17 years old, and because the term TMI has no apparently meaning to my parents; that both my parents were sexually active as teenagers. Maybe my parents were sluts? Possible, but my data point is no more useful than yours. Historical analysis shows that while it wasn't talked about or studied, teenage rates of promiscuity probably haven't changed much since the Roman Empire (probably since before then, but the Romans were the first real great record keepers of western history). It's all based on statistical analysis and isn't an exact science, but most studies seem to indicate that (shockingly) teenagers have always been raging little balls of hormones with questionable self control.
Fair enough, I simply don't understand why a particular band wouldn't be there. If you've got the resources to have recorded music, you pretty much have the resources to be on iTunes (and/or several other big online stores)... Why cost yourself sales?
If you've got any contact with the bands ( and for bands with small fan bases this is common) tell them to get themselves there. It's really, really easy, essentially free (30% cut from sales, but honestly that's not a lot more than materials to make a CD yourself, certainly less than even a good indie label would take) and has the double advantage of allowing fans to get paid for copies of their music, and putting them in the genre search lists... Possibly bringing new fans. I'm service agnostic, they should do this with all the big services.
I'm friends with a few musicians, the guy I mention in my example is an extreme case, but even people like my friend Beth (Celtic/alt rock fusion) make as much off iTunes these days as they do off CD sales.
I'm curious. Where can you find a band that is not on iTunes? I know a guy who self-produced an album literally in his garage using his guitar, a performance mike, and his computer. His album is on iTunes. It's literally so easy to be on iTunes that someone with no production equipment at all can throw his self-produced CD-R released "for my friends and family" strumming up there. Why would any band that had any vague idea that they might possibly, someday, perhaps want to make any money at all off their album not put it up?
Guarantee that by the end of the day his original comment will have been modded down at least once, and commented on by at least three people who won't bother to read his correction and immediately fly to refute the accidental notion that "Strong Copyright is about protecting the public." There's already one comment to his correction that seems to have missed the fact that he was replying to his own comment and is misinterpreting the grandparent post. I don't necessarily agree with his initial post, but it was reasonably well thought out and mostly coherent; it's a real shame that one small typo is going to get it a lot of pointless commentary and likely moderation which completely misses his point.
I understand that by disallowing editing they're trying to protect the moderation system, but surely there's another way. I'd be perfectly happy if edits cleared moderation or something.
Assuming you can download the app which allows app downloads, or so GP appears to saying. If, as he indicates, there is a legal problem with loading the Android Market on a CM device than in theory CM (as a usable system, since the applications are what make the OS do anything useful) is also illegal. Now granted that doesn't mean much in a practical sense, Google doesn't seem to be the type of company to hunt down individual modders and sue them; but it's still somewhat philosophically unfortunate given that Google touts Android as an "Open" system.
Hell at least people made a lot of money in exchange for the risks they took selling booze during Prohibition. Bitcoins don't even have that advantage.
And, assuming that the government approves this technology for handling classified materials, this will be included in among those strict conditions. Obviously there are procedural and regulatory hurdles to overcome here, but what you point out is precisely the problem that this technology seeks to solve. In the non-classified world, many of us carry some sort of laptop, tablet or phone with us all the time, and use it to take notes, respond to e-mail, etc in meetings and classes. this tech could give a limited form of that level of freedom in the classified world. I've been out of DoD contracting for less than three months and I'm still rediscovering all the conveniences of not having to deal with classified :-)
Except that there's a lot of question about the environmental factors in many areas of development. Behavior is definitely one area where it has at least some effect. If I'm born genetically predisposed to mild depression, but I have a great family who support me, live a relatively "good" life, and maybe take up some sort of meditation practice, it's less likely that I'll be regularly depressed. I'll still be more inclined to it than someone without the genetic predisposition, but chances are I'll be happier overall than someone with my similar predisposition born into more unfortunate circumstances. The question isn't "do genetics impact happiness", of course they do. The questions are "how much do genetics impact happiness in the normal range of people" and "how precisely do they do so." Other studies focus on the first question, this study seems to focus more on the second.
Most of that makes very little sense. First, these are already published works. They're already associated with her, and are already out there. She's just put them into a new collection. They're also apparently award winning pieces. That tends to argue against them being not up to Pengiun's standards. They're probably at least part of the basis on which they offered her a contract in the first place. As to the advertising thing, again, this is old work. She might mention it while on the radio... but she might just as well mention the collections the stories originally appeared in or one of her earlier novels. We're not talking about some lady who just wrote her first book and is throwing some old crap from college together into a collection. She's an established writer with a long history. She's got lots of published material which she continues to have a vested interest in selling. That's the baggage you get when you chose to sign an established author instead of taking an chance on a new talent.
Actually I think he means that the publishers provide editors and copy-editors to make sure you spelled your main character's name the same way through the whole book. Any reasonable and honest author will tell you that the editing (and fact checking for books where they are appropriate) services provided by publishers are useful and valuable. That doesn't mean you couldn't get those services from somewhere other than a publisher, but it does kind of put lie to the idea that book should go from author to reader. You don't necessarily need a publisher in the middle, but having someone there doing quality control does tend to make the final product better.
Depends how the contract is worded. The author seems to think she gave Penguin exclusivity on her new book, not her old stuff. I've never heard of a publishing company having a fit when you publish old stuff (previously published no less, just bound up in a new collection), while working on a book for them. It's possible that Penguin writes their contacts that way and the author simply misunderstood or didn't read carefully enough, but it seems really odd to me. It sounds like Penguin is interpreting a non-compete clause rather more liberally than is traditional in order to punish the author for going through Amazon. I don't have all the facts of course, she may have legitimately broken faith with them, but from what we have that doesn't appear to be that case.
In addition to the all the other, rather obvious, answers others have given to your question (things like mass transit, passengers using phones, hands free devices...), there's also the detail where most roads are immediately adjacent to well... sidewalks, buildings, cafes, etc. If the truck detects a good signal on the road, chances are good that building situated on that road also have good signals. If the truck detect poor or mediocre signal on the road chances are it's even worse in nearby buildings.
One huge advantage I can see to this is precise location data. While cheap handsets can have their locations approximated, and more expensive ones know their exact locations (assuming satellite LOS), the first is only an approximation and the second is not readily available to the carriers. The trucks are no doubt equipped with GPS, and higher end tower triangulation equipment so they always know precisely where they are. Another advantage would be the capability to measure signals through non-handset equipment, while testing the handsets at the same time. For instance, I could setup a big antenna to measure gain that handset antennas can't detect, then figure out at precisely what point given handset can get a signal.
The other question is: How many handsets actually can collect and send this sort of data? If the answer is most or all of them, then you might be right, even the more accurate truck data might not be worth it given the huge numbers of handsets out there. if the answer is few or none... Well the trucks are a pretty important data point then. The carriers don't build the phones, getting this capability built into handsets is something they can request, but not necessarily just do.
Siri actually does a bit more than just get the jist. You can dictate text messages to it and it will type exactly what you said. On the other hand, while it's pretty good (I have it on my phone and I'm reasonably impressed), there are already stories of some pretty spectacular failures of communication with it, and I've had to repeat myself a couple of times in my experimenting with it too. I'd be wary of using a voice recognition and translation service. Between the fact that voice recognition is generally good, but occasionally hysterically wrong; and the fact that on the fly computer translations are generally good, but occasionally hysterically wrong... Adding the two together, especially when you're trying to communicate with strangers who may or may not be easily insulted by the mistakes seems like a recipe for potential problems.
There's plenty of point for people who have more than one Apple device, or who want to manage their single devices without the need for a sync computer. I never got the impression that this was intended as a Dropbox killer. It's a remote sync and and device backup utility for iDevices and to a lesser extent music and media from iTunes on your computer. It's a useful way to seamlessly maintain certain devices and software, not a backup system for your computer.
Ehh, apparently you missed a memo or five. iPhones and Android phones have both been able to integrate into corporate networks for quite a while. I have full e-mail, calendaring, and contact sync from the corporate exchange server on my iPhone. We're talking a Fortune 100 multinational here, not "dude the e-mail server guy totally hooked me up with e-mail on my iPhone!" On top of that I can use the VPN server to direct connect to the corporate network and manage my systems from the wifi in the mall if there's an emergency. Maybe a Blackberry can do that too, I don't know, but there's nothing I need to do remotely that I can't do from my phone. I also happen to know for a fact that this is all true for Android too (the guy I replaced uses a Droid something or other and he had the same setup I do). The days when Blackberry could just say "yeah, but we have all the business clients" are long over. They need to compete on features, because business no longer goes to them by default.
We still have people down. Not sure how many, as I don't deal with phones and many people have switched off BB here already; but I've seen a trickle of people going into the IT guy's office to ask about it.
Yeah I thought underwater might be more difficult and dangerous, but I can't think of any long term deep water habitation projects. I know of a couple of shallow water things (including a hotel or two), but most of them are shallow enough that in a pinch you could swim to the surface. Military subs go pretty deep and stay submerged for a long time, but they're also mobile and can quickly surface in the event of a non-catastrophic emergency. Obviously a catastrophic emergency is going to kill everyone, but that's the case in any of these extreme environments.
Likely successful and even simpler, get a second hard drive. Pack one in your checked baggage (most people check at least one bag flying internationally I think) inside an anti-static bag with your "real" OS and data, put a second cheap one into the laptop with a basic Windows (or Linux to save even more money) install and maybe a game or some non-sensitive work stuff to keep you occupied on the flight. Like you say, I doubt they'd make you install and check a second drive, especially if it were sealed up and looked clean. You could also encrypt it, in case it got lost or separated from you.
I mean, it might be risky if you were flying into Iran or China or some other seriously locked down society, but for the casual security theater of most tourist nations it would probably suffice. I've flown in and out of Europe and the US, generally even when they bother with this sort of intrusive stuff they're fairly half-assed about it.
Still the pie graphs show around 15-20% each for Linux and Mac payments, so the totals for them are well over the $100K mark. One $2k donation probably isn't going to skew the average *that* much. I'm sure it helps a lot and probably helps put the Linux average so high over the Mac average, but both are averaging *way* better than Windows.
That's entirely antithetical to what RMS is trying to accomplish. I see what you're saying, and I don't even entirely disagree with you (there's something to be said for "Linux is a server/development OS stop trying to make otherwise"); but given that we're talking in the context of how RMS contributes to or detracts from his own cause, I don't think your comment is entirely relevant. The fact is that RMS's goal is the widespread adoption and perhaps eventual dominance of Free Software as a paradigm. He wants to see Free Software succeed to the point where companies like Apple and Microsoft either open up their code or become irrelevant. He's not really accomplishing that goal, nor making any real progress.
Most of the progress that FOSS has made in the last 20 years has been in spite of Stallman rather than because of him. The rise of LAMP, Mozilla, etc... All that has been dragging him behind it as much as he's been moving it forward. Don't get me wrong. It's entirely possible that none of it would have happened had he not gotten the ball rolling, and his early contributions were critical (Without gcc and the GNU toolchain Linux would have never gotten off the ground). Unfortunately the type of personality that can have the obsession necessary to found a movement is often not the type personality that can move it forward into widespread acceptance. GP is right, Stallman's lack of social and political acumen are making him his own worst enemy.
I believe not. I'm not sure of the details, but I've read that helicopters can't be used at the South Pole Station. Something about the altitude and temperature making the air too thin for the blades to get lift or something. I might be remembering wrong, but you have to remember that except for the International Space Station these are literally the worst conditions that any humans live in anywhere. By comparison Inuits and Sherpas live in lovely safe climates. Very few "normal" solutions work.
extreme censorship against FLOSS
Err... doesn't OSX contain fairly substantial amounts of FLOSS, and isn't Apple known as a reasonably responsible licensee and even contributor for most projects they use? I recall a few instances where they were accused of a license violation, but they seem to respond to most of these accusations by correcting whatever they've done wrong. Granted, not always instantly, but they do fix it.