You can drag and drop files into a Terminal window and it'll type the path for you. So you don't even have to type a path there (though honestly, if you're in terminal it's probably easier to type the path than to find the file and drag it)

You can disable the annoying ad when you leave a game, btw. It's the "Notify me (with Steam instant messages)..." checkbox in prefs under interface.

But yeah, they probably should have pushed a notice through Steam.

By removing these books from their stores entirely, they're discouraging other publishers from giving Amazon exclusive access to their ebooks. Hopefully keeping closer to "any book, any time, anywhere" than just rolling over and letting Amazon get exclusivity.

I'll be on the side of "screw your video, gimmie the transcript"

'course, I'd be on that side regardless of what format the video is encoded in.

The thing that annoys me the most about Android's permissions model is that it's all-or-nothing -- you either grant every single permission in the manifest or you grant none of them and then don't get to install the app.

I'd much much much prefer being able to say "no, this dumb widget does not need to access my location (ads) or know my phone number (ads)" or "no, this 'trojan' does not need to be able to send SMS". But, you can't - you eithe grant access to everything, or you can't install the app. I was very disappointed by that.

Yes, and some people just willfully refuse to pay the illegal tax on interstate commerce that states do not have the power to levy.

Amazon does allow publishers to provide books without DRM, though there is no indication to the buyer of this... I've only noticed it trying to strip the DRM and discovering that there was none to strip.

So, yes, if it's on Amazon with DRM, that's the publisher's choice.

This does work. I successfully got a charge back on Cities XL when it insisted on being connected to the Internet to load.

It's not that we're not interested in the kernel, it's that the kernel moves so rapidly along with the sheer size of the kernel, where's one supposed to start?
I've seen some Google tech talks from Andrew Morton and Greg Kroah-Hartman, they both recommend that patching the kernel is the best way of learning it.

Most universities that I know of either use OS161 [http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~syrah/os161/] , Nachos [http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs162/sp10/] or Minix from Tanenbaum. These kernel's are small enough that a student can know all of it, but is that any good for "real" kernel's like Linux, BSD, etc...?

I don't think systems programming has lost it's "cool", any respectable university still has a low level operating systems course where they either work on simulated hardware like SYS161 or work on actual real hardware where they have to get their hands dirty with assembly for context switches/interrupt handlers/low level IO (UART's and Serial/Parallel) and do Processes/Multiprogramming/VM in C.

And no, we're not given any IDE's like Visual Studio, it is still just a text editor (vi or emacs, pick you weapon) along with Makefiles and gcc/gdb. And yes, we were taught Java/.NET/Scheme, and we know when and where to use these languages/tools appropriately.

Its more about transferring these experience from the "Ivory Tower" world of academia to the real world, and we have no idea how to start that.

How did you experienced developers start? Did any of these academic kernel's help at all?

The problem here is that if you do take them to small claims court there is one of two things that will happen. Thing number one is that you'll pay for filing a small claim (usually around $50 court costs to file) win a default judgment and UBI will just ignore you. Now you're out another $60 but Hey! You have your satisfaction. Thing number two is the same as thing number one, but instead of ignoring you, UBI will appeal the verdict, get the claim moved to a court of their choosing closer to their lawyers and you'll have to do some serious traveling to defend your claim. In which case you are out some serious cash now. THAT is why taking this kind of stuff to small claims just isn't worth it, either way, you're gonna end up being screwed more than you were going in.

The sad part is that the author of that ACM article complaining about bad developers is also the inventor of C++, the impending doom of students who need to learn how to program through problem solving, not fiddle with language-specific configs and compiler BS. Why is it that CS professors feel like C++ should be the very first language students should dive into? Are they trying to destroy their passion?

And no, I'm not recommending VB as a replacement.

Thing is, that is very rare at this stage of Linux maturity.

Hence fewer and fewer young new developers working on the Linux kernel each year. At this point, most of the new kernel developers who actually contribute are going to be experienced developers from other areas who have decided to work on the kernel, and young developers will need to work on smaller, less complicated projects to build experience.

Linus was able to start the Linux kernel because he was bright and nobody else was doing it. He got it to work, and work pretty well, but it was nowhere near as good as it could have been. Every year since then the experience needed to be able to work on the kernel has grown. This is not some arbitrary level they are setting; as the quality of the code improves, the quality needed in order to contribute to the project increases. Quality code generally comes from experience in dealing with the myriad of programming pitfalls one experiences throughout the years. Linus and the other early kernel developers have simply grown with the project; they are much better programmers than they were when they started out, so they move right along with it.

People get all sorts of mad over the "corporations as people" thing, because it sounds terrible on the front of it. The most recent addition to this argument, though, deserves a closer look than most people give it.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was, at its core, about Citizens United being unable to promote and advertise its documentary, Hillary: The Movie. Now, you may not know, but Citizens United is a non-profit political organization. Under the McCain-Feingold Act, they were prohibited from showing this movie on TV or promoting it publicly so close to an election, because it was about a particular candidate. Many people, I'm sure, would not deny that Citizens United had the right to do this.

The Supreme Court ruled that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment. Of course, this brings up horrible images of huge faceless corporations running elections in their favor. However, the ruling was made on the case of a small, politically oriented non-profit. Perhaps the Court overstepped here, but where do you draw the line? There are other corporations like CU where they should have the right to financially support political broadcasts. Clearly something is wrong with the current law. What do we change to make this all make sense?

This Supreme Court ruling was not something evil. It was made to correct something seen as wrong with our current laws. The Court overturned a previous law they saw as unconstitutional; this is in their right. It is not in their right to create a new, better law to replace it, and they haven't. That is the role of Congress.

If you don't like the state of things, don't blame the ruling. They acted according to the rights and role they have. Go write Congress and get them to enact a saner law in the void that is now left.