You realize you can still do all of those things right? You can still go doing CGA poking in Windows command prompts, it'll still emulate it.
A PC is still a PC. It may not be a C64 or Amiga, but thats irrelevent. Nothing that was being done back then CAN'T be done today from a software perspective... unless you feel that you must write for hardware that no longer exists, in which case you've probably got a reason and real hardware to work with.
There are also plenty of SoC solutions and microcontrollers that allow you to do this kind of stuff.
I'm not writing bits to a CGA display anymore, now its done over SPI to a 4" LCD from an AVR microcontroller. Neat part is, everything to do so, the dev kits, and hardware... all cost me less than my first TRS-80... Sadly, I have a couple AVRs that are more powerful too:/
Since the NDA can't prevent them from meeting the requirements of GPL... which would make it obvious they are working on the kernel... making the numbers match up.
Unless you're implying there are a whole bunch of people writing Linux kernel code that they are never going to distribute outside their company.
A developer, as it a real developer and not some perl dweeb, doesn't touch server admin.
The best C developers I know, are or were admins at one point.
Writing software for servers is a fuckton easier when you actually understand what a server does and what goes on from the admin point of view.
A decent developer that understands administration if FAR better than some hot coder that doesn't have the security insight of a gnat.
You know at those 'BIG' sites you see on the Internet... facebook, wikipedia, myspace, google... guess what... All of their senior level developers... regularly play admin as well to deal with large problems.
I'm going to have to wager that you are a developer with no admin experience and little actual development experience since you don't recognize something thats pretty common.
Linus was able to start the Linux kernel because he was bright and nobody else was doing it.
Linus was able to start because he started from the beginning.
Building a system from scratch is almost always easier than working on an existing system if you ignore the time lost (which of course you really can't ignore).
When Linus started, he was writing pretty simple code. Basic 386 based multitasking and memory management is REALLY easy. The initial Linux kernels weren't the finely tuned beasts of today where every little detail gets scrutinized by lots of people and tweaked so that its very very integral to everything else.
I could do the first few years of the Linux kernel in a few months (not because I'm special, just because copying it from scratch is easy for those first few years) because there was a lot of nothing happening as Linus was figuring out what he was doing (that is after all one of the reasons he started in the first place). I've got the advantage of already having already learned what he (and a few others) worked on and gathered the first few years.
I agree with your post, but I think the fact that he was starting from scratch made it a whole hell of a lot easier for a younger less experienced developer to get the task done. I'm by no means capable of working on current generation kernels at this point. It take me months to feel comfortable with them if ever... but I'm done my fair share of the initial crap that goes into a basic kernel, its not that hard when you're working on the individual bits and don't have to worry about their interactions with a seemingly unrelated million lines of code elsewhere, or worry about the effect of that change on applications that run under the kernel.
Starting is easy.
Polishing is a bitch, as is obvious as this is were 99% of most OSS projects fail. The fun easy part is over where you turn out a bunch of cool code every time you type. Now there is a bunch of code that has to be written before you even get to start thinking about a new implementation of something in most cases.
Yea, especially considering theres big bold letters on the box under the requirements that state that it requires an always on connection to talk to Ubisoft to play.
You'd have a really hard time taking back an open box with that excuse since you didn't need to open the box to read the notice.
Try again with something better than the tired EULA arguments.
If you bought it and were unaware of the DRM, you're a moron and don't really deserve to get your money back. Maybe next time you'll read the requirements.
Good luck with your chargeback, what are you going to tell them? 'I knew I couldn't return it after it was opened and I didn't bother to read the requirements on the box so its their fault!'
No, you're going to have to lie about it if you actually want them to do something about it.
Still haven't played Forza yet, but Zeed is hardly a special character. I played my entire second time through on the hardest level without ever using the codes simply so I could make sure my saves would work on installs without him.
First time through I used him once or twice and then realized there were 2 other chars that are virtually identical to him.
So far I've not seen anything done with the one time codes that bothers me other than I know its going to get worse and that their just being pricks to renters/used buyers.
I'm about to go on vacation and figured I'd redownload Farcry 2 again and play it some while I was idling... Thank you for reminding me that it sucked ass compared to one and... I too stopped playing it about 2 hours after I started.
And suing for what exactly? Suing Ubisoft because you bought something without reading the bold print on the requirements portion of the box?
You aren't a lawyer, thats clear, since you don't get very far when you try to sue someone because you are an idiot. They labeled the box, you don't get to sue. If they hadn't labeled the box, you'd have an argument.
Its rather retarded how your first instinct is to sue them for not doing what you want. This is an outstanding example of the sense of entitlement people seem to have today.
Linux is to IBM what 'FreeCreditReport.com' is to Experian.
They've been using it for years to hook people into their hardware so they can then switch them up to proprietary software to actually get the job done. They pretend to be wildly open source and all about doing it cheap... and once you get roped in you find out to actually do what you want, you gotta pay for it.
Unless you were born sometime in this year (like the last 4 months) I find it hard to believe you are unaware of IBMs Linux advocacy... They seem to do more for Linux than Redhat does, Canonical is the only company I can think off thats more visibly Linux centric than IBM.
The concept isn't new to Windows, VMWare or FreeBSD I know for a fact (though none of them work exactly the same as this).
I would have presumed this wasn't new to Linux either, just different from the existing implementation (I know its blasphemy here, but I'm not a Linux person).
Its certainly been done in the mainframes for god knows how long.
I doubt this is as groundbreaking as its being promoted.
If your OS isn't sharing duplicate memory blocks already, you're using a shitty OS. (Linux already shares dup read only blocks for many things, like most modern OSes).
These are just extensions to help deal with virtual machines rather than actually fix the problems that make the need to run a virtual machine. Not unique to Linux in any way, all the big boys are riding the VM fad until people realize your OS is supposed to do that for you already. Prolly take a few years before all the young'ns realize that VMs aren't new and theres a reason people having been using them all the time for the last 3 decades (at least, my age is showing, but the 70s era computing was just before I started:)
Then I take it you've never bothered to look at msdn.microsoft.com or developer.apple.com in depth have you?
Contrary to popular belief, most of us who actually have a clue have been dealing with far better documentation from MS and Apple than Linux has ever had. And no, the source doesn't count if no one knows what you intended to do, which is effectively what you get from it.
Standard barcodes hold suprisingly little info. 5-20 digits. Thats its.
That information (generally) represents a unique ID, if the rules are followed, which will not collide with any other companies.
This number can be unique per product or per item, or whatever the company that owns the prefix wants.
Thats it.
No times. No email. Nothing else.
What happens, is when you use one of these special coupons is that its linked to a entry in a database that knows all about you.
The point to this is... by the time you print the coupon, you've already given them all the information (how do you think they could 'print it in the coupon' anyway.
The only value this provides is a confirmation that you used the coupon you printed. Nothing else.
If you're using one of those retarded little 'discount' cards, you've already given them enough info to confirm it even without unique IDs on the coupons.
So that brings up the real question, if you're worried about being tracked, why are you doing things that intentionally make you trackable? Why are you creating accounts on websites and then telling them what you like to buy (by using the coupons). Why are you getting the little rewards cards?
A biggest question is... WHY THE FUCK DO YOU CARE?
Seriously, little hint guys, no one really cares that much about what you do, they just want to sell you more shit, stop being such irrational fear mongers when it comes to privacy. You'll get much further if you pick your battles rather than ranting on about something every time you realize whats been going on for 100 years.
Its open in the sense that its open, as in public domain, you know, actually open.
GPL'd OSS is open in the sense that someone calls it open, but its got a massive nasty virus in the form of a license known as GPL attached to it that isn't very open at all really.
Yes, mark me as flamebait, but if Math had the GPL attached the world would be a really shitty place indeed.
And you don't see the pattern yet, do you? Stop trying to use Linux as the perfect reference model. Its not, its shitty, why? Because everyone else just about does better. Its the best OSS contender, sure... but its still not much of a contender and its beat the fuck down by closed source pretty much everywhere except cheap ass server farms.
Umm, you don't have to pay software licensing costs, you get bug reporting and work on the project from others for free, you can charge people support fees if they want you to do any work on it, if they don't want support it costs you nothing. How is this not a win?
Just for reference, the same thing happens with closed source software too, AND they get licensing costs. THAT is a win for them.
Oracle gets the bug reports and a lot of times fixes from customers for free already, that carrot isn't going to move the horse and its a really shitty argument. People will report bugs for closed source software beaver, just for reference, there were bugs and bug reports before the OSS movement was a stain in mommies drawers, so lets not try and pretend that its something unique or new.
Close source OpenSolaris and try to get people to pay you when they can just use Linux instead (or Windows or OS X)?
Except they'd go use FreeBSD instead, since its actually got the features that people want from OpenSolaris rather than a license that prevents it from including other projects. Linux isn't an option for Solaris users, try again.
Before Solaris got to the point that it went open, I would have taken it over Linux without the blink of an eye. By the time it had got to the point of being 'OSS' I had long since migrated to not so shitty OSes. The reason Solaris was opened is because Sun was fully aware they had lost the OS battle because they sat on their ass for several years and jerked off to Java rather than putting effort into what they were good at.
They spent too much time competing to beat Microsoft down anyway they could and lost. Its roughly the same thing as the cold war. MS being the US, Sun being Russia.
MS and the US are far better bullshitters and both managed to run the other into financial ruin from competition.
Most of Redhat's income comes from investments they made with all the money idiots gave them at their IPO.
Before you fanboy it up for Redhat, it might actually be useful if you understood why they are still in business.
If you'd like to compare Redhat and Oracle as far as profitability... well Oracle makes more profit in a month (2 if its a slow month) than Redhat will make all year.
I seriously doubt they give a flying fuck what you think since you clearly have no clue as to what you're talking about in this instance.
If you require beancounters to add up direct income from the product itself, that's a non-starter.
Beancounters have been dealing with this sort of thing longer than solid state computers existed (I'm not going to count the abacus for what should be obvious reasons;). They have methods to account for indirect income, all you have to do is provide them justification for it.
If you can't provide justification, then it really isn't worth the companies time.
Oracle said we're going to have to get some proof the OSS is profitable before we by into it.
You can evangelize all you want, and they'll still sit back and say 'proof it'. If you want to continue making a living I suggest you actually pay attention to their question as the general consensus that companies take from this in the end will most certainly effect your future if you are in one of the groups you listed.
It may not be your job, but it is your life that gets effected.
It is not uncommon at all for companies to take a look at themselves and say 'WTF, why are we doing all this crap? You guys better give us a reason to keep you or your gone'
Thats what you have here. They are a company looking at it from a companies perspective. They see expenses and no income. All they want is for someone to show them how it benefits the company rather than hurting it.
Its really not much to ask if you stop acting like your entitled to a job.
But they didn't by the database that more or less does the job. They didn't buy PostgreSQL. They bought the database that doesn't even come close to doing the job, so stop making the argument that this has anything to do with Oracle killing MySQL. They don't compete with each other on any level. No one who knows anything about the subject matter would be so retarded as to even imply such a thing.
On OSS software? No, not really. They do make money from it, but more of their money comes from financials than the software side. In short, RedHat isn't loosing money on it, but they'd probably not exist if all they did was support Linux.
Whats that mean? It means that RedHat makes money because people went stupid and bought tons of their stock at IPO, giving them money to invest. The investments are very profitable.
So unless you are implying OSS is profitable because stupid people went and bought shares like complete idiots allowing them to do something entirely abnormal to stay afloat, then yes, OSS is very profitable to Redhat. If you put the same thing in front of an accountant, I think you'll find much more worry on their faces.
Redhat isn't impressive, it is simply surviving (comfortably mind you, they aren't hurting or anything at th moment), and doing so because of things other than OSS.
If you did not know your card code be abused, you are beyond any doubt a complete and total moron, as is Timothy for posting this story.
Putting a warning like you're talking on every card would be just like the cancer warnings in California. You'll still be retarded and ignore them anyway.
Now, lets get down to facts and things that can help you.
All bank cards in America require that the proof of sale be on the seller. Your bank should immediately halt the funds at worst, and in general should return them to you until the seller proves you bought the items. It doesn't have to be a Visa or a MasterCard. Don't get me wrong, if you go by a prepaid visa or something from some random refill over the phone place, good luck getting your money back. With a real bank however, its generally a lot easier to just threaten to call the feds and report them.
You've probably already seen it, but here is an excellent comment with proper links to what you want:
Slashdot Mirror
You realize you can still do all of those things right? You can still go doing CGA poking in Windows command prompts, it'll still emulate it.
A PC is still a PC. It may not be a C64 or Amiga, but thats irrelevent. Nothing that was being done back then CAN'T be done today from a software perspective ... unless you feel that you must write for hardware that no longer exists, in which case you've probably got a reason and real hardware to work with.
There are also plenty of SoC solutions and microcontrollers that allow you to do this kind of stuff.
I'm not writing bits to a CGA display anymore, now its done over SPI to a 4" LCD from an AVR microcontroller. Neat part is, everything to do so, the dev kits, and hardware ... all cost me less than my first TRS-80 ... Sadly, I have a couple AVRs that are more powerful too :/
Does not compute.
Since the NDA can't prevent them from meeting the requirements of GPL ... which would make it obvious they are working on the kernel ... making the numbers match up.
Unless you're implying there are a whole bunch of people writing Linux kernel code that they are never going to distribute outside their company.
In which case, I'm gonna have to call bullshit.
No ... 160 files to support ext3 ... thats not really manageable to 'figure out'. The very idea means your time is far less valuable than mine.
The best C developers I know, are or were admins at one point.
Writing software for servers is a fuckton easier when you actually understand what a server does and what goes on from the admin point of view.
A decent developer that understands administration if FAR better than some hot coder that doesn't have the security insight of a gnat.
You know at those 'BIG' sites you see on the Internet ... facebook, wikipedia, myspace, google ... guess what ... All of their senior level developers ... regularly play admin as well to deal with large problems.
I'm going to have to wager that you are a developer with no admin experience and little actual development experience since you don't recognize something thats pretty common.
Linus was able to start because he started from the beginning.
Building a system from scratch is almost always easier than working on an existing system if you ignore the time lost (which of course you really can't ignore).
When Linus started, he was writing pretty simple code. Basic 386 based multitasking and memory management is REALLY easy. The initial Linux kernels weren't the finely tuned beasts of today where every little detail gets scrutinized by lots of people and tweaked so that its very very integral to everything else.
I could do the first few years of the Linux kernel in a few months (not because I'm special, just because copying it from scratch is easy for those first few years) because there was a lot of nothing happening as Linus was figuring out what he was doing (that is after all one of the reasons he started in the first place). I've got the advantage of already having already learned what he (and a few others) worked on and gathered the first few years.
I agree with your post, but I think the fact that he was starting from scratch made it a whole hell of a lot easier for a younger less experienced developer to get the task done. I'm by no means capable of working on current generation kernels at this point. It take me months to feel comfortable with them if ever ... but I'm done my fair share of the initial crap that goes into a basic kernel, its not that hard when you're working on the individual bits and don't have to worry about their interactions with a seemingly unrelated million lines of code elsewhere, or worry about the effect of that change on applications that run under the kernel.
Starting is easy.
Polishing is a bitch, as is obvious as this is were 99% of most OSS projects fail. The fun easy part is over where you turn out a bunch of cool code every time you type. Now there is a bunch of code that has to be written before you even get to start thinking about a new implementation of something in most cases.
Please stop using the term 'developer' when refering to flash monkeys.
Artist, sure. Developer? No.
Yea, especially considering theres big bold letters on the box under the requirements that state that it requires an always on connection to talk to Ubisoft to play.
You'd have a really hard time taking back an open box with that excuse since you didn't need to open the box to read the notice.
Try again with something better than the tired EULA arguments.
If you bought it and were unaware of the DRM, you're a moron and don't really deserve to get your money back. Maybe next time you'll read the requirements.
Good luck with your chargeback, what are you going to tell them? 'I knew I couldn't return it after it was opened and I didn't bother to read the requirements on the box so its their fault!'
No, you're going to have to lie about it if you actually want them to do something about it.
Still haven't played Forza yet, but Zeed is hardly a special character. I played my entire second time through on the hardest level without ever using the codes simply so I could make sure my saves would work on installs without him.
First time through I used him once or twice and then realized there were 2 other chars that are virtually identical to him.
So far I've not seen anything done with the one time codes that bothers me other than I know its going to get worse and that their just being pricks to renters/used buyers.
I'm about to go on vacation and figured I'd redownload Farcry 2 again and play it some while I was idling ... Thank you for reminding me that it sucked ass compared to one and ... I too stopped playing it about 2 hours after I started.
Saves me several gigs of downloading, heh.
And suing for what exactly? Suing Ubisoft because you bought something without reading the bold print on the requirements portion of the box?
You aren't a lawyer, thats clear, since you don't get very far when you try to sue someone because you are an idiot. They labeled the box, you don't get to sue. If they hadn't labeled the box, you'd have an argument.
Its rather retarded how your first instinct is to sue them for not doing what you want. This is an outstanding example of the sense of entitlement people seem to have today.
There was a time when newspapers ran birth and death announcements for free ... as a community service.
Now they charge?
Its no wonder they are going under, its always good to kick people when their down.
So if you disagree, why did you go ahead and point out examples for me?
Aside from all the places that memory is shared between processes, theres no sharing between processes ... yea, I totally get you ...
Yes, if you exclude everything else, this is new and exciting.
Have you been living in a box?
Linux is to IBM what 'FreeCreditReport.com' is to Experian.
They've been using it for years to hook people into their hardware so they can then switch them up to proprietary software to actually get the job done. They pretend to be wildly open source and all about doing it cheap ... and once you get roped in you find out to actually do what you want, you gotta pay for it.
Unless you were born sometime in this year (like the last 4 months) I find it hard to believe you are unaware of IBMs Linux advocacy ... They seem to do more for Linux than Redhat does, Canonical is the only company I can think off thats more visibly Linux centric than IBM.
The concept isn't new to Windows, VMWare or FreeBSD I know for a fact (though none of them work exactly the same as this).
I would have presumed this wasn't new to Linux either, just different from the existing implementation (I know its blasphemy here, but I'm not a Linux person).
Its certainly been done in the mainframes for god knows how long.
I doubt this is as groundbreaking as its being promoted.
If your OS isn't sharing duplicate memory blocks already, you're using a shitty OS. (Linux already shares dup read only blocks for many things, like most modern OSes).
These are just extensions to help deal with virtual machines rather than actually fix the problems that make the need to run a virtual machine. Not unique to Linux in any way, all the big boys are riding the VM fad until people realize your OS is supposed to do that for you already. Prolly take a few years before all the young'ns realize that VMs aren't new and theres a reason people having been using them all the time for the last 3 decades (at least, my age is showing, but the 70s era computing was just before I started :)
Then I take it you've never bothered to look at msdn.microsoft.com or developer.apple.com in depth have you?
Contrary to popular belief, most of us who actually have a clue have been dealing with far better documentation from MS and Apple than Linux has ever had. And no, the source doesn't count if no one knows what you intended to do, which is effectively what you get from it.
Get a clue fanboy.
Standard barcodes hold suprisingly little info. 5-20 digits. Thats its.
That information (generally) represents a unique ID, if the rules are followed, which will not collide with any other companies.
This number can be unique per product or per item, or whatever the company that owns the prefix wants.
Thats it.
No times. No email. Nothing else.
What happens, is when you use one of these special coupons is that its linked to a entry in a database that knows all about you.
The point to this is ... by the time you print the coupon, you've already given them all the information (how do you think they could 'print it in the coupon' anyway.
The only value this provides is a confirmation that you used the coupon you printed. Nothing else.
If you're using one of those retarded little 'discount' cards, you've already given them enough info to confirm it even without unique IDs on the coupons.
So that brings up the real question, if you're worried about being tracked, why are you doing things that intentionally make you trackable? Why are you creating accounts on websites and then telling them what you like to buy (by using the coupons). Why are you getting the little rewards cards?
A biggest question is ... WHY THE FUCK DO YOU CARE?
Seriously, little hint guys, no one really cares that much about what you do, they just want to sell you more shit, stop being such irrational fear mongers when it comes to privacy. You'll get much further if you pick your battles rather than ranting on about something every time you realize whats been going on for 100 years.
Its open in the sense that its open, as in public domain, you know, actually open.
GPL'd OSS is open in the sense that someone calls it open, but its got a massive nasty virus in the form of a license known as GPL attached to it that isn't very open at all really.
Yes, mark me as flamebait, but if Math had the GPL attached the world would be a really shitty place indeed.
And you don't see the pattern yet, do you? Stop trying to use Linux as the perfect reference model. Its not, its shitty, why? Because everyone else just about does better. Its the best OSS contender, sure ... but its still not much of a contender and its beat the fuck down by closed source pretty much everywhere except cheap ass server farms.
Just for reference, the same thing happens with closed source software too, AND they get licensing costs. THAT is a win for them.
Oracle gets the bug reports and a lot of times fixes from customers for free already, that carrot isn't going to move the horse and its a really shitty argument. People will report bugs for closed source software beaver, just for reference, there were bugs and bug reports before the OSS movement was a stain in mommies drawers, so lets not try and pretend that its something unique or new.
Except they'd go use FreeBSD instead, since its actually got the features that people want from OpenSolaris rather than a license that prevents it from including other projects. Linux isn't an option for Solaris users, try again.
Before Solaris got to the point that it went open, I would have taken it over Linux without the blink of an eye. By the time it had got to the point of being 'OSS' I had long since migrated to not so shitty OSes. The reason Solaris was opened is because Sun was fully aware they had lost the OS battle because they sat on their ass for several years and jerked off to Java rather than putting effort into what they were good at.
They spent too much time competing to beat Microsoft down anyway they could and lost. Its roughly the same thing as the cold war. MS being the US, Sun being Russia.
MS and the US are far better bullshitters and both managed to run the other into financial ruin from competition.
Most of Redhat's income comes from investments they made with all the money idiots gave them at their IPO.
Before you fanboy it up for Redhat, it might actually be useful if you understood why they are still in business.
If you'd like to compare Redhat and Oracle as far as profitability ... well Oracle makes more profit in a month (2 if its a slow month) than Redhat will make all year.
I seriously doubt they give a flying fuck what you think since you clearly have no clue as to what you're talking about in this instance.
Beancounters have been dealing with this sort of thing longer than solid state computers existed (I'm not going to count the abacus for what should be obvious reasons ;). They have methods to account for indirect income, all you have to do is provide them justification for it.
If you can't provide justification, then it really isn't worth the companies time.
Oracle didn't ask you to do their job for them.
Oracle said we're going to have to get some proof the OSS is profitable before we by into it.
You can evangelize all you want, and they'll still sit back and say 'proof it'. If you want to continue making a living I suggest you actually pay attention to their question as the general consensus that companies take from this in the end will most certainly effect your future if you are in one of the groups you listed.
It may not be your job, but it is your life that gets effected.
It is not uncommon at all for companies to take a look at themselves and say 'WTF, why are we doing all this crap? You guys better give us a reason to keep you or your gone'
Thats what you have here. They are a company looking at it from a companies perspective. They see expenses and no income. All they want is for someone to show them how it benefits the company rather than hurting it.
Its really not much to ask if you stop acting like your entitled to a job.
But they didn't by the database that more or less does the job. They didn't buy PostgreSQL. They bought the database that doesn't even come close to doing the job, so stop making the argument that this has anything to do with Oracle killing MySQL. They don't compete with each other on any level. No one who knows anything about the subject matter would be so retarded as to even imply such a thing.
On OSS software? No, not really. They do make money from it, but more of their money comes from financials than the software side. In short, RedHat isn't loosing money on it, but they'd probably not exist if all they did was support Linux.
Whats that mean? It means that RedHat makes money because people went stupid and bought tons of their stock at IPO, giving them money to invest. The investments are very profitable.
So unless you are implying OSS is profitable because stupid people went and bought shares like complete idiots allowing them to do something entirely abnormal to stay afloat, then yes, OSS is very profitable to Redhat. If you put the same thing in front of an accountant, I think you'll find much more worry on their faces.
Redhat isn't impressive, it is simply surviving (comfortably mind you, they aren't hurting or anything at th moment), and doing so because of things other than OSS.
This was posted in another comment: http://saviorodrigues.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/is-red-hat-a-software-firm-or-financial-institution/
The risks with cards are 'common knowledge'
If you did not know your card code be abused, you are beyond any doubt a complete and total moron, as is Timothy for posting this story.
Putting a warning like you're talking on every card would be just like the cancer warnings in California. You'll still be retarded and ignore them anyway.
Now, lets get down to facts and things that can help you.
All bank cards in America require that the proof of sale be on the seller. Your bank should immediately halt the funds at worst, and in general should return them to you until the seller proves you bought the items. It doesn't have to be a Visa or a MasterCard. Don't get me wrong, if you go by a prepaid visa or something from some random refill over the phone place, good luck getting your money back. With a real bank however, its generally a lot easier to just threaten to call the feds and report them.
You've probably already seen it, but here is an excellent comment with proper links to what you want:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1620370&cid=31866498
The iPad is as worried about a Android tablet as the iPhone is about all the Android phones.
Android is performing about like Obi-Wan in EP4. Wise and smart, but irrelevant.
Seriously, get some perspective.