ochs

So if that trackpoint issue happens sometimes (every couple of minutes or so, not on every movement), then that's AFAIK inherent to the technology. It recalibrates itself if you let go of it for a second or two.

BTW, having only ever used thinkpads with disabled trackpads (I agree they suck on thinkpads), how do people not touch these with their palms all the time by accident?

I like the winner-take-all hypotheses best. A lot of people are employed in advertising, marketing, PR, sales, lobbying, law, etc. and even those who are not might be required as part of their job to do some of those things from time to time.

The problem is that it's more lucrative to manipulate people to buy things they don't need or to trick them to pay more. Note that there are industries where marketing costs are outrageously high, sometimes higher than production and/or R&D. A company that doesn't spend the same amount on marketing or lobbying might make less profit (e.g. due to network effects, other scaling effects, special protections or subsidies) and thus seem like a bad investment.

This leads to a sort of arms race: everybody needs to hire more and more marketers, patent lawyers, etc. and donate more to political campaigns.

Solution: Heavily regulate advertising and lobbying. Some kinds of advertising could just be outlawed, and the rest could get (time or space) limits. Anonymous electronic cash would also help to make internet publications independent from corporate advertising money. Tax money could be used to support independent institutes or publications that try to spread actually helpful consumer advise.

I think some winner-take-all mechanics might also be at play on a personal career level. Note that there are actually lots of people with nothing but free time, though usually not by choice. Many governments deny those people a decent standard of living (some even a home, food or medical care), forcing them take shitty, low-paying, insecure jobs. The constant threat of losing your income to someone else who will work harder or for less money kind of naturally creates a situation where you either work long hours or not at all.

I don't think that's true. Phone systems are standardised. There is also free telephony software (like asterisk). The cell phone stuff is more secretive, but it's still more open than Skype, which is completely obfuscated, proprietary and centralised.

I live in a very small apartment and only have a very small freezer inside of my fridge. I suspect that many poor people may not have enough space for a big freezer, not enough money to get a decent efficient one and/or not enough money to pay for the electricity.

How where they false? The PRISM program is real. There is a way for the NSA to automatically access Google's databases, with Google's knowledge under secret blanket (not case-by-case) court orders. They where clearly lying when they denied any "direct access".

A kernel of information in a sea of free-market propaganda.

I couldn't even see the "close" link because my font was too big and there was nothing that indicated that something was hidden.

The solution is easy: if you fork a project and it becomes incompatible with the upstream, rename it. How is anyone supposed to discriminate between the two versions if they have the same name?

Also, I'd say, if your software needs lots of modified dependencies, you're not communicating with those projects properly.

If every single project were to fork every one of their dependencies, the result would be maintenance nightmare.

I'm currently using viper-mode (a vi mode that ships with Emacs). I haven't tried evil, and I'm interested why you choose it over viper-mode.

It makes no sense for references at all. But references are of course C++, so blame Stroustrup.