Slashdot Mirror

a la Google

Which would require each customer to maintain mobile phone service.

2-factor authentication is optional at most places that use it.

I was referring specifically to Google. In some countries, one can't create a Gmail account without a phone number. See for example this help page: "If you don't have a phone, you can use a friend's number"

Stop being stupid.

Y u no assume good faith?

I actually went to see "the tool" and it looks like Twitter is giving us the same old two choices (non-choices, in my opinion, but that is evident from my .signature ;-) ).

It would be much more interesting if it were launched a bit earlier in the season, or, at least, include all candidates remaining, including third parties.

At least Google Trends can give us a bit more interesting picture, e.g., this one: http://www.google.com/trends/?q=mitt+romney,+barack+obama,+ron+paul,+gary+johnson&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=ytd&sort=0

Paul B.

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_Q?id=nexus_q

"Phone or Tablet running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) or higher with access to Google Play"

So pretty much anything running Android at this point.

Ah. Thanks for the correction.

Well, as someone with 33 years of living here, allow me to retort.

It is over 100 degrees for a significant amount of the year. If you go for a walk at night, it is still in the high 90s.

Instead of saying "significant", let's put a number on that (from Wikipedia):

The temperature reaches and exceeds 100F (38C), on average for 110 days of the year, including most days from late May through to early September. Highs top 110 F (43 C) an average of 18 days during the year. ... Overnight lows greater than 80 F (27 C) occur frequently each summer, with the average July low being 81 F (27 C), and the average August low being 80 F (27 C). On average, 67 days throughout the year will see the nighttime low at or above 80 F (27 C).

I would say a third of the days in the year could be considered "significant". It's not a huge problem though, the main thing that the heat dissuades me from doing is going on runs through the desert in the summer. That's a tradeoff I'm willing to make for the ability to go on runs through the desert during the other 8 months.

It has no semi-cool counter culture like nearby Tucson.

It does, but nothing is centralized. For example, there are similar bands that play in North Phoenix, Mesa, and Tempe, but they all have different audiences. The same types of people going to the same types of shows, but everything is so spread out that the different pockets never join up into a larger cultural influence. Downtown hosts the art walk once a month as well (this Friday in fact, which I may go to if it wasn't for the fact that I'll be at the Fear Factory show at the Marquee).

the idea of people flocking there for hot tech jobs is insane

It's not so outlandish when the cost of living here is 40% or less compared to other major cities.

Would you raise your children in a city where the only place you see grass is golf courses and cemeteries?

C'mon now. My neighborhood, for instance.

Would you jump to move to a city with no distinctive downtown, but rather 4 million people living in uncontrolled desert sprawl, completely devastated by the housing crash?

Yes, a lot of people would jump into a city with a very low cost of living which also happens to have a ton of low-cost homes currently available. The housing crash isn't bad for everyone, just bad for people who bought houses they couldn't afford. It didn't affect me at all, my home price shot up by about 250%, went back down to about 80% of where it started, and has since risen to just above what I paid for it before the bubble.

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_Q?id=nexus_q

"Phone or Tablet running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) or higher with access to Google Play"

So pretty much anything running Android at this point.

Please point out where Apple's patent describes anything but a rectangle.

Since you didn't do it for us, here we go. She's been dead longer than the average /.'er has been alive & she was a comedian, not someone in the tech field. I'm sure most of us had never heard of her. Now leave me alone, I'm playing on MickyTheIdiot's lawn!

This is just Clive Palmer's way of deflecting press coverage. Palmer is one of several Australian mining billionaires, and the Treasurer is expected to talk soon about their opposition to mining tax. Clive would rather have http://google.com/search?q=clive+palmer+news link to anything else, e.g. dinosaurs and his new resort.

Mitt has a bad track record with phone apps.

I wouldn't get too excited about that, the people most likely to notice are in the 51-57th states.

You can't bicycle here (one of my favorite outdoor activities) because of the heat most of the year

People bike here year round, Facebook posts from other people doing just that are proof. You choose not to, that doesn't mean other people don't do it also. There are people enjoying the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, Dreamy Draw, and South Mountain year round.

Any city is going to have die hard cyclists that are willing to ride in anything. However, if you think that a place with inconsiderate drivers, scarce bicycle lanes, spottily maintained sidewalks and 100+ degree days is pedestrian friendly, you're delusional. Even Santa Clara is practically a paradise compared to Phoenix.

They used to have Mill Avenue in Tempe that was kinda fun to walk along, which used to have a bunch of quirky little independent shops, but the Tempe government drove all those out of business to make room for a bunch of mall stores and high-rises, which of course went south when the economy crashed, so most of the place is boarded up now.

Really? The main recreational area next to the largest university by enrollment in the country is boarded up now, huh? That's weird.

As an ASU student (spare your derision please) who practically lived on Mill Avenue for four years, I can't agree. Redevelopment has raised property values around Mill significantly, which has pushed out many of the older businesses most people would associate with `local color'. Taking their place are cookie cutter franchises (Mellow Mushroom, Urban Outfitters, Jimmy John's) that thrive on indiscriminate student spending. Things may still be better than the rest of the valley, but with neighbors that add whole new dimensions to the word "plastic" (Scottsdale, anyone?) that isn't saying much.

You can't bicycle here (one of my favorite outdoor activities) because of the heat most of the year

People bike here year round, Facebook posts from other people doing just that are proof. You choose not to, that doesn't mean other people don't do it also. There are people enjoying the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, Dreamy Draw, and South Mountain year round.

Any city is going to have die hard cyclists that are willing to ride in anything. However, if you think that a place with inconsiderate drivers, scarce bicycle lanes, spottily maintained sidewalks and 100+ degree days is pedestrian friendly, you're delusional. Even Santa Clara is practically a paradise compared to Phoenix.

They used to have Mill Avenue in Tempe that was kinda fun to walk along, which used to have a bunch of quirky little independent shops, but the Tempe government drove all those out of business to make room for a bunch of mall stores and high-rises, which of course went south when the economy crashed, so most of the place is boarded up now.

Really? The main recreational area next to the largest university by enrollment in the country is boarded up now, huh? That's weird.

As an ASU student (spare your derision please) who practically lived on Mill Avenue for four years, I can't agree. Redevelopment has raised property values around Mill significantly, which has pushed out many of the older businesses most people would associate with `local color'. Taking their place are cookie cutter franchises (Mellow Mushroom, Urban Outfitters, Jimmy John's) that thrive on indiscriminate student spending. Things may still be better than the rest of the valley, but with neighbors that add whole new dimensions to the word "plastic" (Scottsdale, anyone?) that isn't saying much.

Then you have; https://plus.google.com/u/0/100241261662852079434/posts/12kf2e2BGjn that's 2004 I believe (probably filmed earlier than shown on tv of course) Then before that in 2003; https://plus.google.com/u/0/100241261662852079434/posts/En6cqNeQqDJ There's stuff before that? Probably.

Then you have; https://plus.google.com/u/0/100241261662852079434/posts/12kf2e2BGjn that's 2004 I believe (probably filmed earlier than shown on tv of course) Then before that in 2003; https://plus.google.com/u/0/100241261662852079434/posts/En6cqNeQqDJ There's stuff before that? Probably.

guitars?

Ornamental design patent for a cello.

http://www.patents.com/us-d395912.html

US Patents on the electric violin seem to have started in 1932. And expired a long time ago.
http://www.digitalviolin.com/Patents.html
http://www.google.com/patents?id=cc1DAAAAEBAJ&hl=en&dq=1861717

There's a lot of drivel there that doesn't deserve comment ("very few decent places to eat"? are you old or broke?), but this is ridiculous:

It's been rated by several places as the worst city in America to drive in, mainly because it's so chaotic and because there's no consistent driving style (the frequent road-rage shootings don't help).

What's the problem, does the square NS-EW street grid confuse you? You're going to need to back up that claim, because Phoenix is nowhere near the worst cities to drive in:

http://fillmyemptyblogspace.com/2010/12/24/10-worst-american-cities-to-drive-in/
http://www.businessinsider.com/cities-with-most-car-crashes-2010-10?op=1
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/15-dangerous-cities-for-driving.html
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/22/going-nowhere-10-worst-u-s-cities-for-traffic/

In fact, if you look closely, you can see Chandler listed by Allstate as one of the safest cities to drive in.

violent home invasions are common

Define "common". The police claimed that for 2008 there were "over 300" home invasions and kidnappings (fewer than 1 per day, in an area with 4.2 million people), and that claim was investigated by the feds to see if it was exaggerated to get more funding:

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2011/01/26/20110126phoenix-crime-stats-federal-audit.html

You can't bicycle here (one of my favorite outdoor activities) because of the heat most of the year

People bike here year round, Facebook posts from other people doing just that are proof. You choose not to, that doesn't mean other people don't do it also. There are people enjoying the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, Dreamy Draw, and South Mountain year round.

They used to have Mill Avenue in Tempe that was kinda fun to walk along, which used to have a bunch of quirky little independent shops, but the Tempe government drove all those out of business to make room for a bunch of mall stores and high-rises, which of course went south when the economy crashed, so most of the place is boarded up now.

Really? The main recreational area next to the largest university by enrollment in the country is boarded up now, huh? That's weird.

This place sucks, and I can't wait to move out in a couple of months.

Neither can I. Let me know if you need help leaving.

They may pass laws forbidding the possession of 3D printers that aren't licensed, like unregistered handguns

The only flaw in your argument is that you're extending a regime of licensure for 3D printers from a presumed prohibition on the production of "unlicensed" firearms. It is perfectly legal to manufacture a firearm in your garage. In fact, you can buy what is known as an 80% receiver" and because the BATF established threshold of completion that determines whether an object is considered a "firearm" or "raw materials" is 80%, there is no regulation on the purchase thereof. Turning "raw materials" into a "firearm" is also legal, as the BATF only restricts the sale of firearms to those with a federal license to manufacture firearms.

In other words, there is no comparable precedent for restricting manufacture of legal goods. Automatic weapons and destructive devices are an edge case that's been legislated into near-illegality based largely upon a fictional understanding of their danger gleaned from Hollywood action movies. There is no comparable tide of public opinion to harness on the matter of **printers**.

You probably don't notice them because they're unobtrusive textual ads in the header of mail list. In "Trash" folder you get recycling related ads, in "Spam" you get ads for cooking with spam, and in main view you get ads related to content of your messages (which often shoots off "Google reads my mail!" discussions).

Mitt has a bad track record with phone apps.

Don't forget that they can already arrest tuberculosis patient for not taking their meds

Go do an image search for Microsoft Mouse and tell us that they are only just started thinking about design now.

Go on, keep scrolling the images. It is actually kind of hypnotic seeing all the shapes and colours scrolling by. It would be super freaky to do this if you were high on drugs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUMAuY32Cjc&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNdtb2ZKRU&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCtfTU787w4

http://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=US+Naval+Map&btnG=Search&gbv=1&sei=vNkXUIjuIuq90QHCloH4Aw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wALNWwzERQ4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qx20LA4PM0&feature=player_embedded

Hope the sources are wrong (NASA people, Naval geologists, Google Sky being blocked from the constellation of Leo's direction, US Govt FEMA camps 800 over the USA, US Antarctic viewing stations and IRAS satellites, global warming, gulf stream stalling, magnetic pole shift happening, Gov. Jesse Ventura, John Moore, and others like prophecies by the Hopi Indians, the Book of Revelations, the Chinese IChing, Mayan calendar, Mother Shipton, and Nostradamus which I take into far less stock than that of current scientists and government personnel and what they've seen and told of) and that I am a fool for listening to any of it. Doesn't mean I don't take some stock in warnings and prepare for it. Go on, mod me down, but at least take a look at those. My captcha's neighbor and that's what I am doing: Being a good neighbor is all. I hope this is all total crap, I really do. I don't want it happening anymore than anyone else would.

Naaar! They'd have been knocked over by the whalers!

Just becasue there are issues that it can be used to make a bomb, should not stop countries such as the US developing it for its nuclear power plants. I would agree that the facilities to process it should be licenced and monitored and we should keep it out of the hands of rogue states such as Iran

Gosh, with platitudes like that, you should run for office! It is very easy for politicians, who don't actually live in the same reality as the rest of us, to make such simplistic statements without offering any concrete or realistic suggestion as to how they would accomplish those ends.

Gov. Romney: If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if we elect Mitt Romney, they will not have a nuclear weapon. [Nov 12, 2011, GOP Debate in Spartanburg, S.C.]

Inquiring Media, fellow candidates, anyone with half a brain: How will you accomplish that, exactly?

Gov. Romney: [crickets]

Already there: Google Mars

Can be viewed online or thru Google Earth.

But, the email wasn't posted publicly anywhere by NBC.

Here is the rule in question (I found it in the Twitter Rules, which you also agree to when you also agree to their Terms of Services)

Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.

Already, these rules have been distorted because in my mind at least, "private and confidential" is something that implies a much stronger sense of privacy than the term "non-public". For instance, could you even call the corporate email address on this NBC business card private and confidential? No, right?

And by the way, I did find the part where Twitter does mention the "non-public" thing, but that's buried in an index of 40 different articles, two levels away from the "Twitter rules > Reporting Violations" subheading (which is not even inside the Twitter rules).

And even if it was in the Twitter Rules (which it isn't), it isn't reasonable for a user to read the Terms of Services + the Twitter Rules, and expect them to click on the link to find out how to do "Reporting Violations" -- when they have no such need. In other words, the Twitter legalese is a huge bloody mess that has grown too much over the years. Someone really needs to clean it up.

The question isn't the difficulty of determining the email, but whether the email owner chose to publish it or not. Since they didn't, then Twitter did the right thing here.

That being said, even if for some weird reason, you did consider these "Reporting Violations" guidelines, that the user didn't even agree to, to be applicable. Then your assumption would still be completely wrong about its underlying meaning in this case.

"Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy. "
source [emphasis in bold is mine]

Clearly in this case, Twitter even violated its own policy (whether it did it knowingly, or unknowingly). Now I doubt there will be any legal repercussion because of this. It's not like the journalist was even a paying customer of Twitter (at least, I don't think that he was). But this is clearly a bad Public Relations move for Twitter, and it's one that is inconsistent with the self-image Twitter had of itself of being a champion of freedom. So hopefully, someone at the top of Twitter will reverse this decision quickly and issue a statement that they won't let this kind of thing happen again.

You could ask yourself, could life be made worth living for you? Also, you could look into vitamin D deficiency, iodine deficiency, phyto-nutrient deficiency, omega-3 deficiency, sleep deficiency, and so on (and avoiding refined carbohydrates like sugar and white flour). More info on heath issues here:
http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823

A life is like a growing tree. What keeps a tree from toppling over in the storms of life is deep roots. To reduce the risk of toppling over in a strom, grow your roots -- friends, family, community, neighbors, hobbies, recreations, communing with the infinite, nature, music, and so on.

See also:
"Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals"
http://books.google.com/books/about/Dark_Nights_of_the_Soul.html?id=EG1E8boPodQC
"Every human journey is filled with emotional tunnels: the loss of a loved one or end of a relationship, aging and illness, career disappointments, or just an ongoing sense of dissatisfaction with life. Society tends to view these "dark nights" in clinical terms as obstacles to be overcome as quickly as possible. But Thomas Moore's extensive career as a psychologist and theologian has taught him that honoring these periods of fragility as periods of incubation and opportunities to delve into the soul's deepest needs can provide healing and a new understanding of life's meaning. Dark Nights of the Soul presents these metaphoric dark nights not as the enemy, but as times of transition, occasions to restore yourself, and transforming rites of passage. Moore shows specific ways to engage life more deeply through particular challenges and shares a powerful new outlook. With the soothing, accessible tone and practical philosophy that have made Moore an internationally beloved author, Dark Nights of the Soul will help you tend to the deepest needs of the heart and spirit in a modern world full of life's challenges, and is sure to be a comforting companion during your most difficult times. Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Care of the Soul comes the long-anticipated sequel, an uplifting and groundbreaking approach to life's darkest hours. Moore shows specific ways to engage life more deeply through particular challenges and shares a powerful new outlook on such topics as: The healing power of melancholy; The sexual dark night and the mysteries of matrimony; Finding solace during illness and in aging; Anxiety, anger, and temporary Insanities; Linking creativity, spirituality, and emotional struggles; Finding meaning and beauty in the darkness."

Or, as Howard Zinn said:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm
"In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy? I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning.
To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world. There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is its utter unpredictability. This confounds us, because

This I can attest to. A while back I got a pretty deep large cut on one of my fingers enough so that it did a fair amount of nerve damage and now have no feeling on the top part of that finger. I don't feel when things touch it, hot, cold, etc. Because of this I have accidentally gotten some bad burns and not known about it. Granted this is nothing compared to those stories that come up every so often of the poor kid who doesn't feel any pain that really would be hell.

Well, I did copy it from the book. You can find reprints on Amazon, it's still quite popular.

I'll bet if you dig around you can find a PDF. You might check google books, you can usually read large portions there. The quotes I used are from Chapter 2.

But who in the hell actually NEEDS Windows support? the ugly truth, the one the Linux guys will NEVER admit, is that there ain't a single thing stable in Linux land, not one. Everything from the kernel on up is like the shifting sand and thus its a LOT more likely to break.

With Windows its one kernel per decade, one set of internals, things just don't change there. Win2K drivers work on XP, Vista drivers work on 7, that's 14 fricking years of driver support right there!

I sell computers 6 days a week, to actual normal folks, so I know about support and the simple fact is once Vista got rid of the braindead "must run as admin herpa derp" problem Windows runs solid as a damned rock. I have plenty of customers that have been running Win 7 since RTM and frankly the only calls i get from them are on the order of "Can you recommend a printer? What's a good software to do X? I need more room for videos, can you get me a bigger hard drive?" because with a decent AV a fully updated Windows is frankly so simple it takes care of itself.

I'll bet my last dollar the reason the guy couldn't keep Linux running was every 6 months here comes "the forum dance". You all know this one, updates come out, take a giant dump on one or more drivers, so you get to spend a couple of days looking for "fixes". That is if what broke didn't leave you in single user mode or with no Wifi when that's all you have to hook up with and then you be boned.

There is a good reason why one of the Red Hats devs says we are paying for mistakes made 25 years ago and that is because the Linux system? Doesn't scale. When it was designed we are talking a few dozen drivers, a few dozen software packages, it was manageable by a team of less than 20 guys...it just isn't that way anymore. Now you are talking billions of lines of code, thousands of drivers, tens of thousands of software packages...you just can't have ANY kind of quality with that much code with a top down dev team approach friend, you just can't.

In the end if you want to be a viable competitor to Windows and OSX (and if you don't then don't bother replying, just be happy to be a niche like BeOS and go on) then you have to learn from your competition. Windows does it by only changing internals once every 5 or 6 years and having a decade of support, Apple does it by locking everything down and making sure they control the hardware so they only have to support a MUCH more limited hardware set, the current system where you try to have Windows levels of hardware while having the guts constantly changing? It just don't work friend. it works on servers where the hardware is ancient and limited, it works in embedded where the hardware never changes at all, it just doesn't work when you are talking tens of thousands of hardware drivers friend, it just don't.

Well, our government does have a history of spying on Americans.

Giving diseases to Americans

And then there are the countless accusations of spying against peace activists.

And the whole thing about warrants - there is no oversight or transparency. All an agent has to do is go to a judge and say that they are a suspect and need to be under surveillance - especially if they have an Arabic name.

Basically what you're saying is, you'd prefer to believe, without proof, allegations that the NSA is illegally dragnet-spying on ALL Americans, and has been doing so for more than a decade, which would involve at the very LEAST hundreds, and more likely thousands, of civilian and military NSA employees, all of whom don't mind that they're directly violating the Constitution, but only one guy who hasn't been at NSA in over a decade is telling you "the truth"? That really seems plausible to you?

Absolutely it is plausible. Google (almost )does it. All the NSA has to do is order ISPs, cell phone companies, google, amazon, yahoo!, etc .... to hand over their data. Your storage is free. Computing power? Dirt cheap.

It would be nothing to do what folks accuse the NSA of doing.

The burden of proof is on the Government -NOT its citizens. Period.

Lastly, I don't believe you. You have no proof and you just posted links to speeches - BFD.

If the NSA or their representatives say something; it's a lie until proven otherwise - that's what spies do: lie, cheat, and be subhuman douche bags.

The "problem" is that the FOSS community is split right down the middle. On the one hand you have those that want things to "just work" and to have a true "third way" instead of only Windows and OSX, and then you have the "free as in freedom above all!" types that frankly don't give a shit how big a royal PITA the OS or software is as long as they get the source, your RMS faction.

Personally I predict that unless steam or somebody high up, say Canonical, simply forks things away from the devs you simply won't have Steam functional for very long because there are too many "source above all!" types in the kernel team. look up the ONLY major argument you get from a member of the kernel team about hardware ABIs and you'll see its a religious argument, with him going so far as to say "I hope everyone who uses binary blobs have their drivers break often!" which if that isn't religious dogma I don't know what is.

In the end as one of the Red hat devs points out the current system is completely broken and will only get worse because the current Linux philosophy simply doesn't scale, why? Because a handful of devs simply can't provide QA or QC for tens of billions of lines of code, tens of thousands of drivers, and thousands of programs in the repos, that's why. That is why you get half baked software in the repos, drivers that work in foo but not in foo+1, its not because the devs want to break shit its that there is no way in hell to test everything before release.

I just hope things like Steam on Linux will bring about real conversation and change, because I too would like a third way but at least for me and my customers Linux just isn't there yet. But if things don't change I have a feeling Valve is gonna find they need a huge dev team just to keep Steam running, much less add any new features, because it is simply too easy for someone upstream to make a change and break everything downstream.

The sample of EA flatly contradicts you.

No it does not.

The "safe" money is on doing the same thing over again. This includes porting Angry Birds to a new platform versus trying something new and interesting that could also fail to find a market.

Doing the same thing over and over again equates to reselling on the same platform. EA can afford to port because they're huge, but their falling market cap won't allow them to tank forever. They had a spike in 2011 resulting from the Star Wars: The Old Republic hype (a PC-exclusive title), but once that was revealed to not be a worthy competitor to World of Warcraft their shares returned to their falling tendency.

Is it really so hard to identify the characters that cause problems and outlaw them?

Yes, because a future version of Unicode may introduce more such characters. Google blacklist vs whitelist for the security principle involved.

Google, Facebook, 100 advertising sites, are all busy trying to gather as much information about me as possible, and not giving me any control over it.

Um, really? Really? and if that's too much trouble, you can probably hire somebody on mechanical Turk to do it for 10 cents.

Design patent just covers drawings and nothing else. I dont know if it is essential to have a working prototype in order to patent a design (although I think it is not required).

Example: The design patent for the iPad
http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889

The only text in the entire design patent is this:

"We claim the ornamental design for an electronic device, substantially as shown and described."

Effectively, this is exactly what the Star Trek TNG tablet was. An electronic device no different from the class of devices that iPad is a part of.

I am not sure if a digital photo frame can fit into the same class of devices because the patent just claims an electronic device. Technically a digital photo frame is also an electronic device.

two things to say about this:

You have kids? You Damn well better make sure they know how to swim. You're the parent, that's your job!

You have a pool? All the places I've lived in, here in the US, local laws required you to have a fence around the pool.

TEN people die from drowning everyday (USA). Many times that number are rescued, BUT - require further care for severe brain damage that result in long-term disabilities and permanent loss of basic functioning (e.g., permanent vegetative state).

1 IN 5 who die from drowning are CHILDREN. For every child who dies from drowning, another five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.1 (from http://www.cdc.gov/HomeAndRecreationalSafety/Water-Safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html )

Even if the local laws don't require a fence, having one lowers your liability against lawsuits when a drunk neighbor (teenager?) decides to go swimming one night while you're away. (Concept of "attractive nuisance?, maybe)

Anyone ever heard of the Wegmans grocery store chain? Based in upstate New York? Family owned, Great store's, great family, great people. How many companies provide health care and child care for cashiers?

Wanna see the family compound that holds the pool they lost one of their kids in? Nevermind. The water in a pool, lake, stream, river or ocean doesn't care how rich, smart, or pretty you are. once you go in, you better know how to get yourself out.

Water safety: Make sure your kids know how to swim. Make sure the pool is fenced, If above ground, keep the outside ladder off, and the inside ladder, in. (Just in case a kid does get in, so they have a chance to get out).

Think of the children. Really.

(someday I will tell y'all the story of how my brother used Wegman's Stores to intimidate the commies back in the 1970's. Also, the 'garbage plate')

(I listened to a noise outside one night, had no idea what it was, next morning, found a squirrel floating in the pool. Ever since then, inside ladder stays in. )

[[ Squirrel's are the tiny terminators of wildlife, nothing stops them. I had one chew through a 1/8 in steel cable once, to take a bird feeder down! If they ever get organized, human life in suburbia will be over! ]] .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_(1971_film) >

Also - for your perusal:
https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=child+drowning+pool

I used to program the Apple II. All you had to do was turn it on. You didn't have to buy a second, unrelated, $1000 computer just to write programs for it, nor pay $100 per year to the company that makes it. You didn't have to submit to sudden, arbitrary and anticompetitive censorship of the programs you could RUN ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER.

And just in case anyone is thinking that this is the situation with Android as well, not so much.

There's currently a huge problem on Android which makes it a bad platform for a lot of games (and multimedia apps): missing low-latency audio. The issue is old and well documented but still not solved. If you shoot and the sound is played 100ms later you'll notice it. Lots of people will even notice it if the delay is 20ms, but Android is nowhere near that. By comparison, on iDevices, the latency is just 5ms. Google really needs to do its homework here if it wants to become a viable gaming platform since this is a major issue that has a huge impact on the experience.

What's left of Rocketdyne still exists, and there's an actual F1 engine in front of their offices on Canoga Avenue, just north of Victory. https://maps.google.com/?ll=34.190997,-118.597948&spn=0.00041,0.000603&t=h&z=21

Piracy is not as big a problem as some devs are making it out to be. The vast majority of Android users wouldn't have the slightest idea of how to pirate an app. The main group involved in piracy is young, techie gamers, but even then it is not a huge portion of users, and I believe that these users buy some games too.

I think the piracy problem is over-blown by game developers who are dissapointed with their Android sales, often due to (a) their game just isn't that good, or (b) Android users are more cost conscious then iOS users and generally spend less online, or (c) they are coming to Android late and the apps that got their earlier have the advantage of incumbency (which I find to be a huge advantage, though less so with games).

Moving away from games (where the Android test suite does better) to general apps the big problem is bugs. Android has tons of bugs (and a very lacking test suite). Since phones don't get update regularly, developers must work around old bugs indefinitely. Look at the average Android app and you will see various users complaining that the app simply doesn't work on their platform. That's the bugs.

Check out the Android bug list
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list
and you will see an astonishing # of bugs, and lots of comments from frustrated developers who are shocked that important bugs can take years to even be acknowledged by Google, let alone fixed (sorry for the bad grammer).

The most recent release (4.1.1) still has lots of bugs, but it appears to be much more solid then previous releases (like 4.0 and 2.3.0 which were shameful, in my opinion), so I hope this is an indication that Google is moving to get the bug infestation under control.

Finally, let me add that this problem has nothing to do with openness, open-source, or fragmentation. If Google would just start focussing on killings bugs, and extend the Android Compatibility Test Suite (the official test suite) so that manufacturers will stop introducing so many new bugs, then fragmentation would become diversity, developers would become more productive, and users would have a better experience.

this experiment is derived from one flown on the Shuttle a few times already

In particular, goldfish and newts flew on STS-65 (1994). Not sure if complete life-cycle experiments have been done before. Some quick searching turns up this speculation (Google Books preview) as of 2003 that fish will soon become the first vertebrate to live a complete life cycle in space.

If you take the martial arts trained dog option, I would recommend the accompanying cat for maximum effectiveness

> Energy consumption per GDP has decreased when the price of oil increased.

Not globally.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=eg_use_pcap_kg_oe&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=global+energy+consumption

> Also, the trends on population growth are pretty clear - we'll be leveling off

10 billion people + consistent economic growth will in fact be a global warming nightmare.

If one looks at similar statistics by state in the US, murder-by-firearm also does not correlate with gun ownership. Rather, it slightly tracks population density. I recently updated my murder and firearm statistics spreadsheet with the FBI's 2010 murder data.

http://code.google.com/p/openvirgle/wiki/SpacePod People need space pods instead (like in 2001). Why would anyone want to put on a space suit in space? If you need something in an emergency, NASA has a big bag people can go into developed for the shuttle. If you need to go into a confined space, use a tele-operated small robot. Can anyone cite any reason to put a person in a "space suit" suit other than for generating "people in space" publicity? Shirt-sleeve pods are also much more comfortable than space suits.

From the link:
====
The "shirtsleeve" utility space pod is probably common to all space efforts. It is a self-contained and portable/drivable container/ship that allows for the operator to work in the field, but in an environmentally controlled space that requires no special equipment for life support (working in nothing more than your "shirtsleeves").

Any project that is attempted in space will require extended periods of construction or repair in a Zero-G environment. This is especially true in terms of space stations and space shipyards.

Spacesuits, while advantageous in tight environments, are ultimately inadequate to jobs lasting more than a few hours. This is because they are rather inadequate protection from micrometeorites and other spaceborne debris, and the maneuverability requirements of a suit limit the oxygen supply size that can be attached.

The space pod allows for a larger and more rigid protective shell, room for greater air supply, as well as room for a more numerous and varied assortment of tools. Ultimately, this allows for the opportunity to take jobs further from base, and to tackle larger and more complex jobs that require many different types of tools or large scale tools that would be otherwise impossible to carry around and/or utilize without mechanical assistance. The pod also has the added advantage of completely eliminating the operator specific customization requirements that spacesuits pose - pods do not need to be sized or tailored for the operator, and can be handed off from one worker to the next at shift change time with no modifications.

Is that life a normal safe only: 1) it's labelled as "'specially for guns!";

a normal safe is used to hold anything of value that will fit inside, including weapons that may fit. a "gun safe" is TYPICALLY a rifle cabinet.

Are all my friends already on Jitsi

As Jitzi just use plain standards, the correct question isn't that, but :
"Are all my friends already on SIP or XMPP/Jingle ?"

(The software component itself isn't important. As long as the software supports SIP or XMPP you can communicate with them.
As long as both software ends support ZRTP/SRTP, you can secure the communication. As long as both software ends support OTR, you can secure the text chat. Whichever software is used isn't relevant.
Jitzi is just cited because a Tor's developper did recommend it and thus brought some publicity to it. But any compliant software could be used as an example:
Jitzi (SIP, XMPP/Jabber, ZRTP/SRTP, OTR), Twinkle (phone only, so SIP, ZRTP/SRTP, but obviously no OTR), Purple-based like Pidgin and Adium (SIP/SIMPLE, XMPP/Jabber, multiple other including a wrapper for skype, OTR for text but lacks ZRTP for now), Ekiga (SIP but no ZRTP nor OTR, XMPP planed in the future), and countless others...)

Now back to the question:
"Are all my friends already on SIP or XMPP/Jingle ?"

Surprisingly: Yes, they might.

As said, Jitzi (and countless other software) use standards like SIP and XMPP.
XMPP is very popular and several systems use it under the hood (including high profile like Goolge Talk), or provide a XMPP gateway to their own chat system (several social networks, even Facebook).
Also a full XMPP implementation can route message between different XMPP networks. So you don't even need to be on the same XMPP network as long as both your servers accept to exchange message (most do, Facebook is a notorious exception).

Google's GTalk runs on plain XMPP/Jingle (they even played a part in creating the Jingle part of the standard). So any of your friends already having a google account they can use it to log into Jitzi and will see all their Google contacts in it, and start communicate with any other GTalk user, even those using the web interface (although the web interface's video/audio plugin only works on Windows, and for very obvious security reasons doesn't support encryption).
(Note: Google's own FAQ isn't up to date, for example Pidgin also supports audio/video call since version 2.6.x)
As Google implements the full XMPP protocol you can even communicate with people on other XMPP-powered networks. (You can chat using your Google Talk @gmail.com account with people having a Jabber account @jabber.org).

Another possible candidate is Facebook. Facebook also come with a huge network of contacts. And Facebook does provide a XMPP gateway to interface their own proprietary chat. Users can log with their Facebook credential into any XMPP compliant client and they will see all their facebook contact (although due to Facebook's TAG-like approach to list, the group-mode view can be messy) and can chat with them). Now for Video/Audio, the situation is slightly less bright:
- Facebook's audio/video chat web applet, only works with other user of the web applet.
- Skype audio/video call to other facebook users only works with skype (it uses only FB for chat and friend discovery, the video/audio is still handled by skype).
Now it might be possible that friends connected through the XMPP gateway may attempt to Jingle-call each other. I haven't test it yet. But if it works, their call will be segregated, as it's already the situation between Skype and Webapp users. (Currently Facebook doesn't convert and route audio/video streams between skype and webapp user, and is very unlikely to introduce it for their XMPP gateway either).
As it is only a XMPP gateway and not a full XMPP implementation, they don't provide "server federation" and you can't chat with users on other XMPP networks (a @facebook.com account can't chat with a @gmail.com account. It's limited to other Facebook users only)

do I need to

Which doesn't really look that similar to the first generation iPhone apart from the fact that it is a rectangular touch screen phone. It doesn't have a curved metal back like the first gen-iPhone, doesn't have similar side buttons, doesn't have a similar front panel design. The side and back appearance of the two phones are night and day different. The experience when turning on and interacting with the device is not similar to the iPhone.

Of course, you're insinuating that Apple scrambled with one month before announcement and redid their entire design to rip off the Prada, which I'm taking from you involves redoing the iPhone to be a touch screen based product. And, of course, this was a blatant copy, but LG never bothered to sue.

Although it is an oft repeated meme on slashdot, Apple did not sue over a curved rectangular design. I know that you've read that here a number of times in highly moderated comments, but that doesn't make it the case. I also know that you've read a number of times that the iPhone was ripped off from the LG Prada, but if you look at front, back, and side profiles, plus screen shots of the GUI, it will be obvious that this wasn't the case.

What Apple sued Samsung for was the fact that the Galaxy lineup copied the iPhone experience as a whole - the appearance of the device beyond a simple front profile, the user interactions, the general feel of screen layouts and icons. Any of these items on their own wouldn't be worth suing over. It is the combination of all of these elements together to create a user experience that is essentially identical to the iPhone that Apple is suing over.

Of course, why wouldn't you make a comment about the iPhone copying the Prada, or Apple suing Samsung over black rounded rectangles? The first visible comment in any story mentioning these items is guaranteed a +5 mod.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aclunj.policetape&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsIm9yZy5hY2x1bmoucG9saWNldGFwZSJd description: Citizens can hold police accountable in the palms of their hands with "Police Tape," a smartphone application from the ACLU of New Jersey that allows people to securely and discreetly record and store interactions with police, as well as provide legal information about citizens' rights when interacting with the police.