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Just because you have a feature rich, mature, popular, cross platform office suite that costs $0.00 doesn't mean... oh wait.

Which makes a mistake in the number of reported MS Office licenses pretty costly; Dutch police paid nearly 3 million too much when 14000 licenses were listed but unused. linky to Dutch news
Microsoft refused to pay back and now it's in court.

I suspect that there will be information on most countries having some group interested in this.

Dutch police: http://www.nu.nl/internet/4083...
Dutch IRS: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/104...

The Netherlands regulates taxis in order to maintain various standards of safety and fair competition. But Uber is an app that doesn't play by the rules. So they've been busted, several times.

Initially the drivers received warnings.

Then the fines started to increase, which Uber Corp. seems happy to pay. In January the penalties were 10,000 euros, and unlicensed drivers risk a criminal record:
(in Dutch) http://www.nu.nl/internet/3978...
(English, machine translation)

Did that stop Uber, even when they were warned the next time, and subsequent violations would become 100,000 euros. No way!
(in Dutch) http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/...
(English, machine translation)

Uber defends itself by saying that innovation is faster than legislation. Uber says The Taxi Act of 2000, is outdated, and just keeps on truckin'

Expect this dispute to drag out for a while. Steve is dead, and the market for mega-yachts is never brisk. If the contract had a high content of handshakes and winks instead of numbers with signatures, the dispute could get uglier than the yacht, and that's saying something.

Nope. It's already been resolved with the family promising to pay the extra 3 million.

Source (Dutch; google translate doesn't handle it well): http://www.nu.nl/internet/2990610/familie-steve-jobs-lost-geschil-rond-boot.html

Here's the original article (in Dutch): http://www.nu.nl/internet/2968803/minister-wil-ontsleutelplicht-invoeren.html

No... People want to have a murder solved. There is a difference. And if you can't trust your government then you live in a very sorry nation indeed.

The hard part is voting the right people in to be your political leaders. Now I don't say everything is all shiny here in the Netherlands because it isn't. But at least we know we can vote every four years and have a choice of political parties to choose from who are actually -different-. And that an absolute majority is a herculean task to achieve so we always have coalitions. Which is good because it means politics has to care about minorities. So, next time you go to the voting box (if you actually do live in the Netherlands), do not vote for the party(/ies) that try to relax the privacy laws so you can actually put a little trust into the government for not randomly trying to fuck you up.

By the way, just in: nu.nl. The second, minute DNA test (which took 6 hours to perform) also identifies the suspect as the one matching the traces both on the victims body and the lighter found at the scene of the crime.

Everybody in the Dutch talks as if the man is convicted already.

Ok .. this is so untrue...

This is the news article from the major Dutch online newspaper. Put it through Google translate if you don't trust my translations:

nu.nl

AMSTERDAM - A suspect has been apprehended in the 'Marianne Vaatstra' case. The Procesution Councel (PC) confirmed it this monday morning.

...

The Justice dept. will not reveal any details for now. The PC and Frysian police force will hold a press conference 18:00 CET in Drachten.

...

The Dutch Forensics Institution (NFI) is currently performing a minute double-check of the identity of the suspect.
"For both PC and police force it's of major concern we only submit an official statement to the press when it's certain the identity of the suspect is confirmed without question by the NFI."

...

Moreover [the spokeswoman of the PC] emphasizes DNA will 'never be enough', "there always will need to be more evidence".

Yes. Interesting case in point, here in The Netherlands our government banned The Pirate Bay. Now a scientific study was conducted, and the conclusions were that banning TPB did not decrease the amount of downloading going on in the Netherlands. BREIN (the Dutch RIAA) of course is angry about this and calls the conclusions 'irresponsible.' Of course they don't explain themselves.

EC member Anders Jessen, Trade, suggested that the negotiations surrounding ACTA were unfair; not because of all the shrouded-in-secrecy/hidden-agenda stuff, but because of 'threats' against governments (hacks on government websites, threats to release data if governments voted in favor of ACTA) and the focus on the 'digital' section.
He suggested that if that section had not been there, ACTA would have been accepted, and that would have been a good thing with regard to fake physical articles such as clothes and parts (specifically pointing out aircraft parts).

Yet it doesn't dawn on him that maybe they should remove the 'digital' section and re-submit. Or, more likely, it does - but he knows as well as anybody else that the 'digital' part is actually the meat and the 'physical' is just to get major manufacturers and their lobbying prowess on board.

Some of that shines through in his statement that Google's revenue is now bigger than that of all newspaper publishers together, noting that in this era you can make copies much, much faster and that 'online users have cannibalized offline users'.

He does admit to some mistakes and that this is a time for self-reflection for the EC as the EP critized him and suggested that next time something is put forth to which a yes-or-no vote is to be cast, they should better coordinate and cooperate with the EP.

Source:
http://www.nu.nl/tech/2841489/europese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html

Translated (horribly):
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nu.nl%2Ftech%2F2841489%2Feuropese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html

The Netherlands won't get fined because they ensured Neelie Kroes of the EC they will transpose the rules: http://www.nu.nl/internet/2823753/nederland-ontloopt-nipt-europese-telecomboete.html (in Dutch).

Sorry for the late reply, This is the news article: http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2808729/man-schiet-zichzelf-neer-omsingeling.html
it's in dutch of course.

Because Sony already replied, blamed it on an employee (not implying he did it following her death, just implying that an employee had raised prices at that point) and had repealed the prices.

About a day before this story hit /.
(I actually tried finding the Dutch news source which told me, and I can't anymore -- it's popped off their radar again.
Increase Google-Fu: here it is,
and here is the google translate).
But let's not let that stop us from bemoaning this story as if it's current.

Marco Borsato http://www.nu.nl/achterklap/2163591/marco-borsato-heeft-belasting-ontdoken.html

He settled for about two million euros.

http://www.nu.nl/buitenland/2683905/china-bereid-bindende-co2-afspraak.html

Here's a link to the earlier hack by German reseachers in PCworld , with links to video demonstration and paper of University of Virginia.

A similar hack on the same chip also in 2008 was published by Dutch researchers from Radboud Univeristy in Nijmgen, in the Netherlands. This case attracted additional attention because the company making the Mifare chip, NXP (formerly Phillips semiconductors), tried to block publication of the hack and was denied this in a Dutch court of law (security guru Schneier on this).

Even more recently, the " improved" system, but still using the same chip on the cards, was targeted by Dutch investigative journalist Brenno de Winter who was cleared from prosecution by a judge as recently as three weeks ago. His research showed that hacking was possible by using a freely available windows program (you-tubevideo of his sadly overly-long presentation at DefCon 16).

Last week it became public that the company responsible for the system, Trans Link Systems ( somewhat uninformative site) has silently been introducing cards using a different chip for two months now. It uses the Infineon SLE-66 chip (producer unknown to me; anyone?), that can have software installed. The software that was installed by TLS is to block any tampering. Dutch news site nu.nl has had such a card for two weeks and was not able to hack it with the currently known methods (their article, Dutch only, I'm afraid). Old cards are still in production until he end of the year for subscriptions (linked to personalized accounts) but the new cards are used for the anonymous day cards. Equipment of public transport personnel has been adapted to reveal hacking attempts.

So, the big question to all the security experts hovering around slashdot: how realistic is the claim that this card will prevent fraud? Let's be realistic and assume that it can eventually be hacked in the lab, but that practical application of this hack is not feasible. The interesting case is a hacking method that would make free transport available on a large scale, as is the case now.Can chip-installed software block such tampering attempts?

I would have included links to the original articles if I would have thunk that a significant percentage of /. were competent at reading Dutch.

The PVDA will have an amendment ready on Thursday: original Dutch article

I know they don't do well over there, never have. However, this Dutch news article: http://www.nu.nl/internet/2518951/nokia-ziet-marktaandeel-verder-krimpen.html says Nokia's market share is now down to 25%, the lowest since 1997. 30.6% a year ago. Symbian? 27.4% and in 2010 that was 44.2%. Well, with Windows Phone or whatever it's called, everything will improve. MS last year: 6.8% and now 3.6%. I so loved my Nokias ever since my first one in 1999, never bought any other after that. Except now, I have my Android phone.

I've just been in the Bay Area last week (downtown SF) and prices were less than 4$ a gallon.
in the Netherlands we already pay 1,56 € (2$) per litre. http://www.nu.nl/brandstof/index.html, which is about 7,5$/Gallon. http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=1,56+euro/l+in+usd/gallon&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=/

2 years ago our prices were even higher, at least twice the US gas price. most of this is due to tax.

just saying that your ideas aren't that far-fetched..

Dutch news site says claims that it's China's Great Wall of Fire causing the issues in for example the US and Chile.

Dutch version: http://www.nu.nl/internet/2212625/firewall-china-filtert-amerikaans-verkeer.html

Google translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nu.nl%2Finternet%2F2212625%2Ffirewall-china-filtert-amerikaans-verkeer.html&sl=nl&tl=en

http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2151360/terreurverdachte-onderging-controle.html for some background.
Obviously the Dutch are not to blame. We did all the USAsians asked for....
And yet they demand more.
See what suffering that will cause to innocent passengers.

The flu is either incorrectly refered to as the "Swine Flu" or correctly refered to as the H1N1 flue. It is not refered to as the "Mexican Flu" by anyone other than yourself.

Actually this is a common name for this flu in .nl.

Brinkman hasn't been a Member of Parliament since 15 years or so. The other members of the committee aren't MPs either, but journalists.

in this interesting (Dutch) column, with such beauties as "laagsteactieprijsgarantie" or "Fransekaasliefhebber". We don't like spaces in our words...

Taxing ISPs specifically, seems ass-backwards. If you're going to subsidize an outdated industry (which, hey, is done all over the place) why not fund it out of tax revenue generally, rather than putting a brake specifically on the internet? How about a new tax on cigarettes? :-)

I have two more questions:

1. Every day, 3 or 4 completely free newspapers are being spread in every trainstation (and many other places) here in the Netherlands. If "news cannot be free", as the commission claims, does this mean we need to raise an extra public transportation tax to compensate for this free news as well?

2. If the newspapers are being hurt so badly by free news available on the internet, why do they put their own content on the internet? And given that this pain is apparently self-inflicted, why would everybody need to pay for it?

The claim that "news cannot be free" is bogus: news on the internet is paid for by advertising. It is hard to believe that a website such as nu.nl would exist for so long without any revenue. The existence of free newspapers furthermore proves that paid subscriptions are not a necessity for running a newspaper.

Also, the claim that quality journalism is a necessity for democracy is laughable. Well, actually it isn't - it's just that I see too many cut'n'paste jobs of ANP news in too many newspapers every day. This quality investigative journalism of which they speak seems to be a mythological ideal, rather than reality.

Back in 2003 I saw this article on NU.nl, a very populair and trustworthy online news outlet in The Netherlands: http://www.nu.nl/internet/174435/half-life-verfilmd.html

You'll have to run it through Babelfish though, as it is written in Dutch.

Surely the first case would have revolved around the attack by the two boys, using the knife, threats and all that. I mean, that's a pretty straightforward criminal act right there without going further to look at the proceeds of crime (data).

They were also charged for the violence, conditional jail-time of 1 and 2 months. Source for the dutchies.

In The Netherlands the IPhone was introduced July 11, a day later the following news reported that the 3G was already cracked: http://www.nu.nl/news/1653274/51/iPhone_3G_binnen_een_dag_gekraakt.html The article also reports that July 12 the first cracked 3G's were offered on http://iphonehelpdesk.nl/ and were sold out almost instantly. The site only offered IPhones without a subscription.

According to this article from may 16th

http://www.nu.nl/news/1569649/36/rss/RSI-klachten_weer_op_niveau_van_10_jaar_geleden.html

(sorry it's in dutch) our RSI numbers are down to the same as ten years ago. So we don't see to have the problem that MS is warning us about.
I wonder why that is?

The Dutch police have prior art on that idea, I'm afraid, they're trying to lobby for it, so no mention of an upcoming law yet. Remains ridiculous.

In holland a website says they close it is due to the announced movie from one of our politicians 'Geert Wilders' with no mention whatsoever about the danish cartoons. see nu.nl

So i find it kind of funny to see that the media probably gives a 'national' twist to it to spice up the stories... Afghanistan will probably say that it's done because of the anti-pakistan content found online made by afghanistan etc etc.

Anyways, i think they never learn that withholding information from the public only works up to a certain point, but in the end people find other ways to get access to the information their covernments tries their best to keep it from them.

Wide roads and just over 100Mph? Please!

Here in the Netherlands we DO drive fast! Check out this guy, who drove 280Km/h (175 Mph) last night.

http://www.nu.nl/news/1277034/10/Man_raast_over_A4_met_280_kilometer_per_uur.html

Sorry to see a nice BMW being abused by not unleashing all of its power, 100Mph is childish.

http://www.nu.nl/news/1268232/50/Webwinkel_verkoopt_iPhone_in_Nederland.html ;-)

The dutch equivalent of "the consumerist" (de consumentenbond) recently started a program where consumers can send in their Vista-related problems, which they are going to urge Microsoft to fix or ask for money back (or perhaps, to give free copies of XP instead). To quote de consumentenbond (article in dutch, relevant part translated here):

"A power user will be able to solve most of the problems that Vista confronts him with, however the average consumer will run into serious trouble. The [operating] system contains so many mistakes that we want to investigate this in detail."

Furthermore, the article notes that "The consumentenbond dislikes the fact that new computers are delivered with the Vista operating system by default".

Yup, Vista seems to be doing great...

...that they punch and strangle a police officer.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/1038914/14/rss/Jongen_probee rt_agente_te_wurgen.html

Once masses of people get in a destructive uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from the police and decided an electrical housing was a dandy place to do so.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_ France

Once a smaller mass of people get in a, thankfully, more peaceful uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from police on their moped, for the relatively minor offenses of not having a license plate and not wearing helmets, and wrapping themselves around a tree.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http:/// dammit, can't find it right now

Once there's several incidents where there's people taking their vehicle and purposefully trying to run into cops (rather, expect them to get out of the way as a means to escape whatever check (alcohol, speed, whatever) is being performed.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/740197/14/rss/Tilburger_rijd t_met_scooter_in_op_agenten.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/849457/13/rss/Scooterrijder_ rijdt_met_hoge_snelheid_in_op_agent.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/726139/14/rss/Automobilist_r ijdt_agent_aan.html

Don't get me wrong, people don't have to just take *everything* authority, in these cases the police, are doing. A certain level of 'contempt' is sane. But keep in mind that the slope of contempt for authority is a very slippery one.
  Take the riots in France.. if I were a kid there now who committed a crime and I'm being chased by the police, I might be more inclined to flee as well - after all, a large portion of the population will stick by me should something go wrong - they'll tell the police that they shouldn't chase me at all, thanks to their new level of sheeple-contempt for authority. Heck, the police may be less inclined to chase me at all in fear of this contempt, and I could get away with whatever I was doing.

You and I may be able to keep our footing on it, but you and I both also know that plenty of people can't or even won't; regular news reports being ample evidence thereof.

...that they punch and strangle a police officer.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/1038914/14/rss/Jongen_probee rt_agente_te_wurgen.html

Once masses of people get in a destructive uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from the police and decided an electrical housing was a dandy place to do so.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_ France

Once a smaller mass of people get in a, thankfully, more peaceful uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from police on their moped, for the relatively minor offenses of not having a license plate and not wearing helmets, and wrapping themselves around a tree.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http:/// dammit, can't find it right now

Once there's several incidents where there's people taking their vehicle and purposefully trying to run into cops (rather, expect them to get out of the way as a means to escape whatever check (alcohol, speed, whatever) is being performed.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/740197/14/rss/Tilburger_rijd t_met_scooter_in_op_agenten.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/849457/13/rss/Scooterrijder_ rijdt_met_hoge_snelheid_in_op_agent.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/726139/14/rss/Automobilist_r ijdt_agent_aan.html

Don't get me wrong, people don't have to just take *everything* authority, in these cases the police, are doing. A certain level of 'contempt' is sane. But keep in mind that the slope of contempt for authority is a very slippery one.
  Take the riots in France.. if I were a kid there now who committed a crime and I'm being chased by the police, I might be more inclined to flee as well - after all, a large portion of the population will stick by me should something go wrong - they'll tell the police that they shouldn't chase me at all, thanks to their new level of sheeple-contempt for authority. Heck, the police may be less inclined to chase me at all in fear of this contempt, and I could get away with whatever I was doing.

You and I may be able to keep our footing on it, but you and I both also know that plenty of people can't or even won't; regular news reports being ample evidence thereof.

...that they punch and strangle a police officer.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/1038914/14/rss/Jongen_probee rt_agente_te_wurgen.html

Once masses of people get in a destructive uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from the police and decided an electrical housing was a dandy place to do so.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_ France

Once a smaller mass of people get in a, thankfully, more peaceful uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from police on their moped, for the relatively minor offenses of not having a license plate and not wearing helmets, and wrapping themselves around a tree.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http:/// dammit, can't find it right now

Once there's several incidents where there's people taking their vehicle and purposefully trying to run into cops (rather, expect them to get out of the way as a means to escape whatever check (alcohol, speed, whatever) is being performed.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/740197/14/rss/Tilburger_rijd t_met_scooter_in_op_agenten.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/849457/13/rss/Scooterrijder_ rijdt_met_hoge_snelheid_in_op_agent.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/726139/14/rss/Automobilist_r ijdt_agent_aan.html

Don't get me wrong, people don't have to just take *everything* authority, in these cases the police, are doing. A certain level of 'contempt' is sane. But keep in mind that the slope of contempt for authority is a very slippery one.
  Take the riots in France.. if I were a kid there now who committed a crime and I'm being chased by the police, I might be more inclined to flee as well - after all, a large portion of the population will stick by me should something go wrong - they'll tell the police that they shouldn't chase me at all, thanks to their new level of sheeple-contempt for authority. Heck, the police may be less inclined to chase me at all in fear of this contempt, and I could get away with whatever I was doing.

You and I may be able to keep our footing on it, but you and I both also know that plenty of people can't or even won't; regular news reports being ample evidence thereof.

...that they punch and strangle a police officer.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/1038914/14/rss/Jongen_probee rt_agente_te_wurgen.html

Once masses of people get in a destructive uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from the police and decided an electrical housing was a dandy place to do so.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_ France

Once a smaller mass of people get in a, thankfully, more peaceful uproar over two kids dying because they knowingly fled from police on their moped, for the relatively minor offenses of not having a license plate and not wearing helmets, and wrapping themselves around a tree.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http:/// dammit, can't find it right now

Once there's several incidents where there's people taking their vehicle and purposefully trying to run into cops (rather, expect them to get out of the way as a means to escape whatever check (alcohol, speed, whatever) is being performed.. yes, yes it is a bad thing.
    http://www.nu.nl/news/740197/14/rss/Tilburger_rijd t_met_scooter_in_op_agenten.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/849457/13/rss/Scooterrijder_ rijdt_met_hoge_snelheid_in_op_agent.html
    http://www.nu.nl/news/726139/14/rss/Automobilist_r ijdt_agent_aan.html

Don't get me wrong, people don't have to just take *everything* authority, in these cases the police, are doing. A certain level of 'contempt' is sane. But keep in mind that the slope of contempt for authority is a very slippery one.
  Take the riots in France.. if I were a kid there now who committed a crime and I'm being chased by the police, I might be more inclined to flee as well - after all, a large portion of the population will stick by me should something go wrong - they'll tell the police that they shouldn't chase me at all, thanks to their new level of sheeple-contempt for authority. Heck, the police may be less inclined to chase me at all in fear of this contempt, and I could get away with whatever I was doing.

You and I may be able to keep our footing on it, but you and I both also know that plenty of people can't or even won't; regular news reports being ample evidence thereof.

1The notion that *only* USA companies would be sued for that is totally bogus and plainly untrue. It may be that USA-ones *seem* to happen more because:

1)It gets a higher profile when one is sued, because they make more fuss about it (together with the 'look, it's the EU against USA' attitude)

2)USA corporations are more prone to anti-competitive behaviour (maybe due to the inherent strong corporatism in the USA where one easily buys politicians)

3)EU-corporations are as bad as USA ones, only they can cover it up better


You're very close with number 1, but the biggest reasons (IMHO) are:

1) US news only reports when the EU fines a US company.
2) Slashdot only reports when the EU fines an IT company and most of them are from the US.

For those who truly feel that the EU is specifically after US companies: do some searching on European news outlets on companies fined by the EU for anti-competitive behavior. Many, if not most of them, are from the EU itself. For instance, in the past year Siemens (German) has been fined 397 million euros, Akzo Nobel (Dutch) has been fined 25.2 million euros, Solvay (Belgian) 167 million euros, Total (French) 78.6 million euros, Edison (Italian) 58.1 million euros.

And those are just from the first 2 cases I found on a quick search. Hardly a month goes by that I don't read about another big case.

Sources (in Dutch):
http://www.nu.nl/news/955922/32/rss/EU-boete_drukt _winst_Siemens.html
http://www.nu.nl/news/725210/32/rss/Akzo_krijgt_ka rtelboete_van_EU.html

1The notion that *only* USA companies would be sued for that is totally bogus and plainly untrue. It may be that USA-ones *seem* to happen more because:

1)It gets a higher profile when one is sued, because they make more fuss about it (together with the 'look, it's the EU against USA' attitude)

2)USA corporations are more prone to anti-competitive behaviour (maybe due to the inherent strong corporatism in the USA where one easily buys politicians)

3)EU-corporations are as bad as USA ones, only they can cover it up better


You're very close with number 1, but the biggest reasons (IMHO) are:

1) US news only reports when the EU fines a US company.
2) Slashdot only reports when the EU fines an IT company and most of them are from the US.

For those who truly feel that the EU is specifically after US companies: do some searching on European news outlets on companies fined by the EU for anti-competitive behavior. Many, if not most of them, are from the EU itself. For instance, in the past year Siemens (German) has been fined 397 million euros, Akzo Nobel (Dutch) has been fined 25.2 million euros, Solvay (Belgian) 167 million euros, Total (French) 78.6 million euros, Edison (Italian) 58.1 million euros.

And those are just from the first 2 cases I found on a quick search. Hardly a month goes by that I don't read about another big case.

Sources (in Dutch):
http://www.nu.nl/news/955922/32/rss/EU-boete_drukt _winst_Siemens.html
http://www.nu.nl/news/725210/32/rss/Akzo_krijgt_ka rtelboete_van_EU.html

Google's method of listing and delisting is fundamentally flawed, as it is based on individual actions from google. This already in the case of BMW and now this newspaper leads to many false unlistings, while many search word harvesting websites are still littering the google search index. Instead of these idiotic single-instance actions they should improve their search algorithm. Furthermore, any 'rules' that google has to exclude search index harvesters from their list will be avoided eventually. Well, google will find out if they're going the right track or not, as competing indexes might just find a way that is more satisfying to the web searcher and therefore for the companies that will pay for the advertisements. As the quality of the current competition is still pretty behind, this will take a long time, though.

According to this Dutch news site Air France and KLM said they were not aware of such a deal with them.

It looks like the Dutch national bank agreed on the CIA using this information without informing the public.
If a puny Dutch national bank knows it the rest of our governments are probably aware as well.
Please start putting blame on America only after blaming your own leadership please.

Link in dutch Nu.nl "Dutch National Bank knew of CIA tapping bank data"
http://www.nu.nl/news/763087/22/rss/DNB_wist_van_c ontrole_CIA_op_geldverkeer.html

Get your facts straight there killer...

-It's got a keyboard when the mobile computing industry in increasingly moving to keyboards - check.

-It's basically a small laptop at a time when small laptops are selling like hotcakes - check.

-It's not a when is - Well, yeah but who cares?

Either you didn't do your homework, or... aw who am I kidding, this is Slashdot, we KNOW you didn't do your homework...

http://www.nu.nl/news.jsp?n=689884&c=134

Apparently, it has a rotatable back, revealing a small size keyboard. This would make it interesting for me. And I'm also interested in the hardware issues, might be a nice thing to run linux on, I'd buy it instead of a laptop. What also would be nice is a USB port to connect a real keyboard to it.

In the Netherlands we can put entire private computers stashed with ongoing police investigations at the trash. Especially if they do not work because they are stacked with porn and spyware (it was "broken").

http://www.nu.nl/news.jsp?n=422656&c=14 [dutch]

Or what about memory sticks with military intelligence without any encryption?

http://www.computable.nl/nieuws.htm?id=1088404 [dutch]

No careers were harmed during these operations. Email is for loosers!

[warning: do not try this if you earn less than $200.000 a year]

Well, in real life, loosing your flash drive may not be so funny, for example if it's a memorystick with secret Defense information that has been lost (link in dutch). Happened in the Netherlands a few weeks ago.

No it's not: http://www.nu.nl/news/628269/10/Analoge_tv_nadert_ einde.html
Postponed till at least first of april. Not that most people would care with over 95% being hooked up to cable, it's just that there still is no DVB-T available for more than 80% of the population.

In the Netherlands.
This news item will give you names and links: http://www.nu.nl/news.jsp?n=423176&c=50

...Pakistan really dodged the bullet on that one, huh? Not only did we tolerate their proliferation and sale of nuclear systems and technical knowledge, but we spared their regime too.

Not only that: the CIA ordered the Netherlands Intelligence Services twice to let Abdul Kadeer Khan walk in the seventies, even though it was completely obvious that he was copying everything there was to know about URENCO classified centrifuge technology (which is the most complex part of the process of making nuclear weapons). This is claimed by the former Netherlands prime minister, and apparently by sources in the Netherlands and US intelligence community. The latest development (in Dutch, unfortunately) is that a judge of the Amsterdam courthouse accuses the CIA of taking the file they compiled on mr. Khan in the eighties.

Is it possible that the CIA wanted the Pakistanis to have nuclear weapons to counterbalance India's newly acquired 1974 nuclear superpower status? Or is it just a decade of monumental incompetence by everyone involved in the CIA.

These events should also make clear, by the way, that the Netherlands (and for instance Germany, likely Japan, etc.) do have and maintain the means - including stockpiles of fission material - to produce nuclear weapons quickly, but defer the actual production of them as a matter of foreign policy doctrine.