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Yup. You made two contradictory statements in adjacent posts.

That's exactly the misunderstanding you had I was trying to help you with - looks like I haven't done a very good job of communicating your error to you clearly.

Perhaps this will help you: http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/can-one-sharply-separate-forcings-and.html

Nothing can be known because there is always a chance that some unknown is the only correct explanation.

Almost, but not quite - nothing can be deterministically known about non-deterministic systems. Simply asserting an explanation that always works (i.e., CO2 did it, or God did it) and that can never be falsified is pseudo-science at best.

There was a previous case involving BMG that was stopped because CIPPIC intervened and showed that you can't plausibly identify an individual based on an IP address, and that there were huge privacy violations involved in just handing over subscriber information. http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2011/09/hurt-locker-lawsuits-about-to-detonate.html We have a Privacy Act here in Canada that is supposed to prevent these sorts of things.

In this case the Voltage (movie production company) moved so fast that there was no chance for anyone to intervene, and the ISPs didn't put up any kind of fight, so the court process was mostly a formality. On top of that, Bell, Cogeco, and Videotron provided all the subscriber info within two weeks of the ruling.

Two weeks is a very short time. With the same situation in the US, I think Comcast and Time Warner said that it would take them months and months to find all the information.

My guess is that Voltage approached Bell, Cogeco, and Videotron much earlier and made sure they would not be putting up a fight. And possibly even got them to start collecting the information early. By making sure it moved quickly they minimized the chances that CIPPIC could get involved and block it as they did before. This is why they didn't include other ISPs, they wanted to make sure the ISPs they were dealing with were just going to just go along with it, and smaller providers like Teksavvy would have very likely stood up for their customers and drawn CIPPIC into the battle with them.

Now that they have all the information they need, I'm sure that individual suits will start. But the situation in Canada is a little different than the US, and the suits may not work as well. Here we have something of a precedent showing that this information should not have been provided in the first place. Furthermore, if the defendant is able to win, Voltage will be forced to pay the defendants legal fees so it's not quite the same extortion racket it is in the US.

This will cause utilities everywhere to raise rates so that they can cover fixed costs

To anyone thinking the above poster might need to adjust their tinfoil hat: This is not theoretical. Nor is it isolated. Nor is it even particularly new.

For those looking at the energy crisis, it should be abundantly clear that we need to look at cheap carbon-free energy generation, and nuclear is the only feasible way to do that. Unfortunately, conventional nuclear technology has many problems from safety and inefficiency to cost and lack of scalability. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors address these issues and more, and every industrialized nation needs to look intently at this technology. It is the only way out of the conundrum of water shortages, Peak Oil, Global Warming, and all of the other energy related issues we now have. Ignoring reality is to embrace lower net energy, and therefore higher costs and the decline of civilization.

http://www.energyfromthorium.com/

http://reserveenergy.blogspot.com/

Want to save all the carbon emissions created when you search? Hold your breath.

The irony is, of course, that rain is caused by sunshine. Sunshine is what causes water to evaporate, which is a prerequisite for rain. Of course, nobody is suggesting to abolish sunshine, because sunshine has plenty of inherent benefits. And so does rain, by the way. So your analogy is pretty flawed, because neither depressions nor government surpluses have any inherent benefits (for a monetarily sovereign government, that is).

To go back on the correlation vs. causality issue though, there is a solid causal theory for how government surpluses create depressions based on sectoral balances. The government surpluses have the effect of squeezing cash out of the private sector, causing spending and aggregate demand to collapse, which is what leads to the depression.

Given that there is a plausible theory of cause and effect and a pretty strong empirical observation, you'd be a fool not to consider the possibility that the government surpluses really did cause the depressions. In any case, you'd have to come up with a better rebuttal.

The developer of AWN actually works for Canonical in "Desktop Experience" http://njpatel.blogspot.com/

There is nothing to imply, here are the facts. Now hold me.

Shouldn't matter at all here, as both use the same driver. Difference in desktop environment, though, can mean a lot. Then again, Ubuntu seems to suck at 3d, also when compared to other Linux distros.

It's consistent with DAMA and Cogent in the sense that it's ruled out by those experiments at only a few sigma. It's "near" Cogent in the sense that 8 is "near" 25, and it's "near" DAMA in the sense that 35 is "near" 10; that is, it's not near at all. It's ruled out by Xenon by many orders of magnitude. My favorite theoretical model to explain these results is IDM (Italian Dark Matter), which consists of dark matter that only exists in Italy. Presumably similar particles are responsible for whatever makes Guinness taste better in Ireland.

Florian Mueller, is that you? http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/09/shocker-for-android-oems-google.html

Everyone who wants to discuss Marx should read this first: http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2010/07/debtors-and-savers.html

The author identifies the fundamental flaw with Marx's theory--he used a false premise. The author here starts a corrected premise and proceeds to give a very interesting history lesson, one which applies quite strongly to today's economic environment.

I'm holding out until I can be inserted into one of these bad boys upon death.

I completed my enrollment the other day and am extremely psyched to have the opportunity to participate. Opted for the 'Basic' track as I don't have the time/energy for the whole enchilada. If they want to use my feedback to help develop a monetized version, that's fine with me; I get to learn cool stuff from smart people, and the provider of the service gets to improve their product.

Personally, I'm kinda tempted to use their course to beta test my own software... I've been teaching a course this semester with a social semantic learning platform I originally came up with during my PhD. But it'd be interesting to go from 80+ of my own students using it for a course (there was an educational reason we needed it -- I didn't just foist it on the course for my own benefit) to seeing whether it also works for study groups on someone else's 80,000+ student course. (We're using a local server -- the public demo link on the blog is down at the mo but I'll put it back up in the next few days)

It looks a little like KnowIt are betting on the idea that if Stanford could offer 80,000 students a course why would you go to your local lesser-known uni. But a class of 80,00 is rather different from a class of 80. Universities have never differentiated themselves by having the best content -- they're more than happy to use someone else's textbook. So I still prefer my model at the mo -- where smaller classes intelligently share content, and where it's made simple for teachers to turn their existing materials into social semantic content, rather than need special interactive videos.

But we'll see. It's going to be fun.

Google doesn't actually want "Google" to be a verb.

Unfortunately, Desktop Search was not killed by Google, but by Microsoft. They decided that only Windows Search should be able to traverse the oh-precious Outlook. So now us users are left with a useless Windows Search that is both slow and hard to use.

I know people will state something else, but I'm sure the real blow was when Google learned that they would be blocked out of Outlook. The team stopped developing around the time Outlook 2010 came around.

Good comments! IMO, the issues is not with a public ltd company making money with little or no care to privacy issues, the issue is more on lack of regulations on the use of private date for financial gains. Do read an old post of mine on similar issue at http://lalchandran.blogspot.com/2011/03/2020-b2b-business-model-protecting.html; comments are always welcome.

Since you're continuing with the pedantry, English is descriptive. "Very unique" means "contains lots of unique characteristics and/or characteristics which are markedly different rather than just slightly different". This image may apply to you.

And beat them to it as well. The Google Translate Blog notes that G+ has had this ability from late August and has been at the crowdsourcing translations game a lot longer, and offers more languages.

The freedom to be who you want to be by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering, Google.

Youtube and Blogger already have a large amount of users with pseudonyms already, so they couldn't do anything there.

However, it seems its easier for them just to apply their "real name policy" to new products, like Google+ and Google checkout ...

I think the primary indicator for a student's success is the value his or her parents put on education.

Im not going to argue that particular point, and I dont think it can really be controlled for. However GP is dead wrong if hes going to complain there the same; every test in the US ive ever seen has homeschoolers beating public schools soundly, and for substantially less money. This article has some good insights; and if you dont like that source, "public schools vs home school statistics" on google will turn up a plethora of articles.

See my post here:

http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2412564&cid=37307402

Or enjoy reading through things like this, of which Google searches will turn up many:

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2005/07/andrew-orlowski-is-a-hack/

http://paulfwalsh.com/why-andrew-orlowski-from-the-register-is-a-twat/

http://www.texttechnologies.com/2007/03/26/andrew-orlowski-berners-lee-spam-semantic-web/

http://blogs.computerworld.com/16711/why_andrew_orlowski_is_wrong_about_net_neutrality

http://ktetch.blogspot.com/2011/05/andrew-orlowski-drunk-unethical-or-just.html

But ignoring Andrew Orlowski there's countless issues with their other authors too. Lewis Page is more reasonable in allowing dissenting comment in response to his articles, but his articles are time and time again completely ignorant. He for example often criticises British defence projects citing American options as being much cheaper by pure monetary, but despite having it pointed out to him time and time again he fails to realise that a $10bn UK defence project for say, some new helicopters is still cheaper than buying the helicopters for $8bn from the US, when the UK project brings back $5bn in eventual tax, whereas the $8bn US project it's just money straight out the British economy.

Another example is the Eurofighter typhoons ground attack capabilities- he constantly derides the project because it wont have proper air to ground capabilities until 2020, but he's wrong because it wont have proper bombing capabilities until then- it's had Brimstone missiles added to it throughout this year. He ignores AGMs and focusses on bombing capability and then extrapolates that to say it can't do air to ground at all until 2020. This is complete and utter outright FUD.

He's similarly criticised the armament of Type 45 destroyers, claiming they only have two weapons or similarly, but a quick look on the Royal Navy's own website and the specs of the ships confirmed that yet again, he's completely wrong.

You can see this pattern with most of their staff- their articles are just often outright false. Where they're not false, they completely miss fundamental points. Where they don't miss fundamental points, they just outright lie.

So that's really why they have the reputation- they're just too agenda based. Their writers all vehemently pursue their own political agendas without care for facts, without care for reason, and worst of all- without care for the truth. That's not journalism, that's propaganda.

All of them? Dollar for dollar? No, Sir, the bailouts have not been paid back.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/12/no-big-banks-have-not-really-paid-back.html

Didn't our government sell off GM at a loss? No, Sir, I'll say it again. The government has NOT recovered the investment it made when it decided to bail out all those failed businesses.

Did you bother to read either of the two links in the summary about that very topic?

Basically, the nature of Git makes it very unlikely that someone could insert malicious code into the kernel via kernel.org without someone noticing.

So, I suppose all that talk about our notebooks being safe and always available and respecting the time and work we'd invested in their use was just a lie? This, combined with Chrome's increasingly "We're Google--we can do whatever we want" functionality, is edging me closer to abandoning Google completely. I, years ago, was initially hesitant to begin using Google's products. Really, the tipping point was that there weren't many alternatives to the services that Google was providing. THAT IS NO LONGER TRUE, GOOGLE! You would do well to remember that!

even the best cellphone camera is a toy compared to what a pro or semi pro would be using

I agree, but we should be careful not to underestimate cellphone cameras, they can be surprisingly good:

iPhone @ New York streets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonatasluzia/6103884318/
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1382010.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2882011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2382011_24.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2082011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1782011_17.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/07/1872011_18.html

even the best cellphone camera is a toy compared to what a pro or semi pro would be using

I agree, but we should be careful not to underestimate cellphone cameras, they can be surprisingly good:

iPhone @ New York streets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonatasluzia/6103884318/
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1382010.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2882011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2382011_24.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2082011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1782011_17.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/07/1872011_18.html

even the best cellphone camera is a toy compared to what a pro or semi pro would be using

I agree, but we should be careful not to underestimate cellphone cameras, they can be surprisingly good:

iPhone @ New York streets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonatasluzia/6103884318/
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1382010.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2882011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2382011_24.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2082011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1782011_17.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/07/1872011_18.html

even the best cellphone camera is a toy compared to what a pro or semi pro would be using

I agree, but we should be careful not to underestimate cellphone cameras, they can be surprisingly good:

iPhone @ New York streets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonatasluzia/6103884318/
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1382010.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2882011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2382011_24.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2082011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1782011_17.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/07/1872011_18.html

even the best cellphone camera is a toy compared to what a pro or semi pro would be using

I agree, but we should be careful not to underestimate cellphone cameras, they can be surprisingly good:

iPhone @ New York streets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonatasluzia/6103884318/
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1382010.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2882011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2382011_24.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2082011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1782011_17.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/07/1872011_18.html

even the best cellphone camera is a toy compared to what a pro or semi pro would be using

I agree, but we should be careful not to underestimate cellphone cameras, they can be surprisingly good:

iPhone @ New York streets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonatasluzia/6103884318/
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1382010.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2882011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2382011_24.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2082011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1782011_17.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/07/1872011_18.html

even the best cellphone camera is a toy compared to what a pro or semi pro would be using

I agree, but we should be careful not to underestimate cellphone cameras, they can be surprisingly good:

iPhone @ New York streets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonatasluzia/6103884318/
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1382010.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2882011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2382011_24.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/2082011.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/08/1782011_17.html
http://365iphone.blogspot.com/2011/07/1872011_18.html

It's already completely banned in CA and most other states with takeback systems. Europe is actively trying to enforce its bans on used computer exports, and Europol just announced a crackdown on "criminal enterprises" which are Africans sending back computers to their families and associates.http://resource-recycling.com/node/2036

New national legislation has been filed recently by Rep. Thompson and Green. http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2011/06/planned-obsolescence-in-hindsight-green.html It kind or works like this: 1) Exaggerate risk, 2) Prohibition. Will work as well as it did for alcohol and marijuana - growth of internet in nations earning $3K per capita is ten times growth of internet in USA.

CBS 60 Minutes, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, a lot of journalists have fallen for the trick of bringing cameras to the landfills (not the remanufacturing). It's like taking cameras to the morgue and drawing the conclusion that hospitals must be criminalized. http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/07/60-minutes-wastelands-missing-minutes_17.html

It's already completely banned in CA and most other states with takeback systems. Europe is actively trying to enforce its bans on used computer exports, and Europol just announced a crackdown on "criminal enterprises" which are Africans sending back computers to their families and associates.http://resource-recycling.com/node/2036

New national legislation has been filed recently by Rep. Thompson and Green. http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2011/06/planned-obsolescence-in-hindsight-green.html It kind or works like this: 1) Exaggerate risk, 2) Prohibition. Will work as well as it did for alcohol and marijuana - growth of internet in nations earning $3K per capita is ten times growth of internet in USA.

CBS 60 Minutes, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, a lot of journalists have fallen for the trick of bringing cameras to the landfills (not the remanufacturing). It's like taking cameras to the morgue and drawing the conclusion that hospitals must be criminalized. http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/07/60-minutes-wastelands-missing-minutes_17.html

You mean the Corporate states of america where nVida just got the crap kicked out of them in a class action lawsuit about a year ago? To the tune of having to give all affected brand new laptops?

You mean laptops worth $1,000 less than the laptops they were replacing?
"Milberg LLP, negotiated that they could only receive an entry-level Compaq CQ50, often worth over a thousand dollars less than the computer they would be replacing. "

If I total your Porsche and have to buy you a Kia I don't think I "got the crap kick out" of me, in fact I'd say I won.

For one, you'd better have appropriate documentation before buying or selling anything made out of wood.

It's really very unfair. Here we were, just defending our rightful monopoly over all things rectangular with screens on the front, and these uppity bastards with their "patents" on "foundational RF technologies" that they supposedly "invented" are getting all touchy about it. WTF?

Problem with your thinking is....no tablet looked anything remotely like the ipad until the ipad came out. Look at the picture at the bottom of the link to see the blatant copying Samsung did. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/08/30/apple_accuses_motorola_samsung_of_monopolizing_markets_with_patents.html

http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/03/crunchpad-the-launch-prototype/

http://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2011/08/samsung-digital-picture-frame-2006-is.html

So your one of those who think Big Oil is just sitting on a carburetor that would let a land yacht like an early 70s Cadillac Fleetwood with the 500 c.i.d. engine get 100 mpg (or 2 to 5x that much). Or are you one of those people who believe in the water powered car?

Either way you are wrong (a link to my blog where I cover the magic carburetor you seem to believe in). Truth is energy companies don't care what you use as your source of energy so long as you buy stuff from them.

http://tjsdaily.blogspot.com/2011/08/steve-jobs-cancer-picture-fake.html

Simon.

Where in the world did you get the idea that it's only a matter of time?

Math.

If you have a monogamous relationship with someone

That's the problem. Everyone claims to have a monogamous relationship, yet somehow this virus keeps spreading. Save belief for your religion. Reality is reality and there's no arguing: Most people cheat but don't admit it to anyone. Therefore we go back to my previous point: math.

Perhaps I don't understand the disease well enough

I do, since I'm a physician. If the virus is undetectable that means there is no free virus or viral particles detected in the bloodstream. However the virus still exists - as a retrovirus it splices itself to your DNA. You will never be rid of it. The medication prevents the production of viral sub units or their assembly. However this only happens while you take the medication. If you forget your medication and skip doses, you go right back to being infected again.

Now in theory if your disease is inactive then it's hard (but I won't say impossible) to infect someone else. However the people with inactive disease are the people who a) can afford the medication all the time, at $1000+/month; b) have the stamina to put up with the side effects all the time and c) have the willpower to never, ever forget a dose. This is not most people. This is a very select group of people we're talking about that fit in all of the above categories.

Bearing that in mind that you have HIV for life whether it's active or not, and bearing in mind that not everyone is rich enough and strong enough to maintain the optimal medical scheme for the rest of their natural life, then necessarily there will always be a pool of infected individuals out there ready to infect the unwary. Once you're in the HIV pool (no pun intended) the only way out is by dying. So as this pool grows its ability to infect others also grows, until eventually almost everyone has it because you are more likely to hit an infected partner than a non infected one. If the pool shrinks then the disease is no longer viewed as a threat and people fall back to irresponsible behavior, which causes it to grow again.

Hell there are many diseases that are far easier to cure than HIV (example gonorrhea - no one walks around for months with gonorrhea active because it hurts like hell and produces an obvious, embarrassing discharge (possibly not safe for work, gonorrhea infected penis) - people usually come running to see the doctor pretty quick. One shot or a couple pills later and you're cured. Yet we still have gonorrhea and we will always have gonorrhea. Now imagine HIV, where you can walk around with it for years without even knowing you have it.

Even people here in Minnesota people don't know how to drive in the ice and snow at the onset of winter. It usually takes 2 or 3 good storms before people figure out how to drive in it again, or we get all the bad drivers off the road since they wrecked their cars. I can't wait for the first storm since I like to go and practice driving in an empty parking lot at the high school near my house. You do need to re-learn how to start, stop, turn, and recover from a spin (shouldn't happen, but it is nice to know) and an empty parking lot is the perfect place since there isn't anything to hit.

Learn to take care of your car

Sounds like when I was in Portland Oregon for work. Living in Minnesota my whole life snow and ice are nothing, but there was one night while in Portland when the overnight low was going to be near 27F and the news made it seem like the end times were coming. They used words like dangerous, bitter, and frigid (try -30F to -40F and I know there are places where those temps seem warm) and I just laughed. Also they were going to get some rain snow mix that amounted to about a quarter inch. They shut the whole city down the next day, me I went out in my car and did some doughnuts in the intersections since no one was out. The most interesting part is that everyone out there has studded tires and/or tire chains, but few people in Minnesota have tire chains, and here studded tires are illegal but people in Portland can't handle a wimpy storm like that. Up in the mountains is is different story as there is some hairy conditions that happen up on Mt. Hood, but nothing like that in town. I went over Mt. Hood one day and had to take a different route back because shortly after I made it over they closed the road. I had the chains on my car and made it though but was plowing snow up and over the hood as I strove. It probably wasn't the brightest thing I had ever done but I was prepared and could have spend a couple of days in the car without issue if I did get stranded.

Learn to take care of you car

http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2011/08/29/fraudulent-google-com-certificate/
http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/08/update-on-attempted-man-in-middle.html
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/2607712.mspx

You call that mess minimal ? Compare this screenshot of the Windows 8 explorer to the OSX Lion Finder, now that's no nonsense minimalism.

Isis aims to get ahead of its rivals by relying on its ... customer relationships.

Yup, because most people have a great relationship with their mobile providers right?

Additionally I'm not so sure I want these people responsible for my "virtual wallet".

Minecraft harkens back to the nostalgia of Lego (incidentally, http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Cl1OHhsao3A/TbkenaqJq1I/AAAAAAAADMo/lInbKf814Z8/lego-minecraft-1.jpg is a minecraft scene, in Lego. No less).

The combination of light gameplay (there's a grand total of 4 hostile - and horrendously stupid - critters that pop out of the dark to annoy you) and the liberty of placing blocks however you want them have proved a massive hook.

It took me about one hour. And while I'm not the most imaginative of architects, making some stuff on the fly after seeing one of the thousand of videos where aspiring architects (most of which cheat anyway) showcase their massive e-block... I do enjoy.

Regarding redstone circuitry, I think it hovers on the razor-thin edge between ease and complexity. It's simple (the base element is the universal NOR, meaning you can make any digital boolean circuitry), quirky (which is important if you make a game rather than a dumbed down electronic simulator), and that's what fuels the creativity. And, unlike other games, it's all there in basic form. While a few modders have added "what they felt was missing", in fact, there's relatively little missing. A few sensors, a few actuators, but the whole is enough.

No. http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2011/08/cnn-interview-reveals-more-from-eric.html has the perfect first comment.

Google is building Microsoft Passport (equivalent) and then forcing you to use it. *THAT* is evil.

I'm curious how the fuck that perfect first comment guy reached the conclusion you're being forced to use a product you can't even sign up for yet. I'm sure Google would like people to use G+, there's no way in hell they would ever force anyone to use it. Google don't follow Microsoft, it's always been the other way around.

On one hand, I cannot believe Google is doing this.

Good call. That's because it's a fib.

See in the summary where it says "Google has admitted that deleting a G+ account will seriously downgrade your other Google services."?

Here's what the quoted link actually says:

But if you cancel your Google account, is your ability to comment on Picasa photos still intact, for example?

Google: There are two scenarios. In the first scenario, you elect to disable Google+ by downgrading your Google+ account. Products like Picasa, Reader, and Buzz will revert to the same state they were in before you upgraded to Google+. So yes, you can still comment on photos in Picasa.

In the second scenario you elect to disable Google+ by downgrading your Google+ account while your your Google+ profile is suspended due to a common names violation. What should happen is the same as the first scenario: you should be able to use Picasa, Reader and Buzz as before. We're aware of a bug that currently prevents the use of some social features in those products and we're working to address it soon.

In both scenarios, downgrading from Google+ will have no effect on other Google services like Gmail, Docs, etc.

Quite different, aren't they?

As for the "identity service" thing, I rather suspect that the writer of the blog (who spelled "billed" as "build", which should give you some idea of his level of care) has mistaken "identity service" for "identified service", as described here

It's worse. http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2011/08/cnn-interview-reveals-more-from-eric.html had the perfect first post.

Google is building the Microsoft Passport. I DON'T WANT THAT SHIT.

Does anyone else see the irony.

Google owns Blogspot/Blogger.

No. http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2011/08/cnn-interview-reveals-more-from-eric.html has the perfect first comment.

Google is building Microsoft Passport (equivalent) and then forcing you to use it. *THAT* is evil.