This is wrong. The grocery store are only responsible if the food they sold was toxic because of something they did to it (such as left it on a shelf after its expiration date). An issue like allergen contaminants in your favorite snack is definitely not something the grocery store would be liable for.

And in-app purchases are not toxic. They're perfectly reasonable. People who like them include developers. If Apple didn't give this ability to developers you'd probably be hearing more people complaining about how awful Apple's walled garden is to content makers, further restricting what their apps can do. Furthermore, while some users don't like in-app purchases, many other users enjoy them because it allows them to get additional content without having to get a whole new app. Each app has its own overhead. What takes up more space on your phone? Multiple versions of your favorite game, or 1 version of your game with some in-app purchased plugins?

Your grocery store "vets" what foods they allow on their shelves. If you're allergic to nuts and the cookies contain nuts but have no label indicating such and it makes you ill, you don't get to sue the grocery store. You sue the cookie manufacturer for medical bills.

A "walled garden" does not suddenly change the rules about who's responsible for what. Responsibility always goes to who manufactured/designed the product regardless of middlemen. Walled gardens are not game changers. Their App Store is no different than any other physical store out there.

Apple doesn't force developers submitting iPhone apps to have in-app purchases. It's up to the developer of that app. If people aren't happy with how their kid raked up a huge bill buying smurfberries, they need to 1) take personal responsibility or 2) if they must sue, sue the game developer. Suing Apple for simply giving developers an option to code something easily doesn't make sense.

A solar sail wouldn't accomplish what he was proposing. The CMB is (as far as a solar sail would be concerned) pretty much the same in all directions. In a universe with no stars and only the CMB, a solar sail would go nowhere.

Also, a Crookes radiometer isn't a good example, as it requires a partial-vaccume to work. They don't work in the hard-vaccume of space.

When you say "Phong shading is wrong", isn't that just with respect to visible light? Are you sure "Phong is wrong" for thermal radiation?

I think you're saying could mislead a person to overestimate the ability of mercury to escape landfills. In the 80's we set about ensuring that new landfills have 1) flexible plastic liners and 2) are surrounded by clay. If you know your soil science, clay is good at great at catching any would be leeching contaminants. A toxic leechate accumulates at the bottom of the landfill, but it's piped to treatment ponds.

I just felt like pointing out that modern landfills are not simply holes in the ground that easily allow all contaminates to escape. If the landfill was constructed and maintained properly the mercury can be treated.

Yes, like Dell also does. Was there a point you were trying to make?

The throw-away issue isn't an Apple one, it's a laptop issue in general. It's not like CPU/Graphics on laptops have had a history of being an easy do-it-yourself job, regardless of brand. Laptops have always been inherently hard to upgrade since they're attempting to be as compact as possible. And at least Apple attempts to mitigate the damage of a throw-away society by putting a checkbox on the order form that gives you an option of mailing in your old computer so they can recycle it.

They found a bad apple. So that makes our sample size is n=1 so far. Can anybody cite evidence of additional issues, or is this being hyped up like the iPhone 4 antenna story?

They didn't just support it. From what I remember, Firewire (the original Firewire 400) was actually invented by Apple. And it was open for everyone to use. The only thing restrictive about Firewire which Apple might be guilty of is their ownership of the logo for it.

The word theory isn't limited to just a scientific context. For example: Game Theory, Chaos Theory, Probability Theory and yes, String Theory. It's okay to refer to mathematical frameworks as a theory.

I'm sorry, but it wasn't Apple who violated anything. It was Applidium who ported VLC code to an iPhone app.

And Apple can't fix anything by modifying an agreement, as it's not their license that's in question, it's the GPL. They'd actually have to restructure how their content distribution system works.

When a company's actions lack any financial motive, chances are they're doing it out of principle. When Apple exercises control over something (like a closed iPhone App Store), it has a financial motive. Refusal to sell personal information has no financial motive.

Got an example you can link to?

For what it's worth, immaculate conception isn't unheard of in humans: http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Abstract/1979/03001/Pregnancy_in_a_True_Hermaphrodite.14.aspx