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So how's that merger with Microsoft working out?

Yahoo just let 600 people go in San Francisco:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/12/13/financial/f192043S08.DTL

And now this.

It looks like everything Microsoft touches turns to sh#t these days...

You've insinuated gross incompetence on the part of the researchers. Have you actually gone out and tried to find the answers to these questions? Are you qualified in the field to question the research? Or are you just going off the article, which is a summary of research that was almost undoubtedly much more in-depth than a journalists' summary?

I consider myself a strong skeptic, but one of the duties of a skeptic is to realize their limits. I don't attend a graduate-level lecture and start asking questions - I'd be asked to leave, or at least laughed at. So when I'm confronted with something that doesn't seem right, I seek more information. You're not. You're just throwing out questions. Rather slanted ones.

I see this often, and I suspect it is an actual class of logical fallacy...

1)A slashdotter posts a series of slanted questions and wondering-alouds that are very FUD-ish.

2)The questions aren't (properly) answered, because the audience (jokes about parent's basements aside) doesn't have much knowledge on the subject. Or, the answers that are qualified aren't noticed by moderators.

3)The questions, which are more a challenge to refute a contrary viewpoint to the article than anything else, appear to be valid because there's no response visible. And thus what was probably perfectly legitimate research gets shot down by someone with no background in the subject. Probably not even a mild background in research.

Lastly: the burden of proof no longer rests on the shoulders of the public. After decades of the chemical industry producing toxins and marketing them for uses which were harmful, then doing everything to cover it all up...they are no longer entitled to public trust. If you want to manufacture a chemical and spray it on thousands of square miles of farmland, you better prove first that it doesn't cause problems.

This is especially so, given that research shows that old farming techniques and organic practices are equally or more effective, and cause no permanent damage to people or the environment. Virtually none of the artificial stuff spread on the farmlands of the world are *necessary*, even if one's sole criteria is increased yield.

If anyone wants to see another scary example of this "what, me worry?" attitude, check out methyl iodide, a known toxin, which was just approved for use by California:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fn%2Fa%2F2010%2F12%2F01%2Fnational%2Fa143424S98.DTL&tsp=1

"Hey, it's okay to spread this toxic crap all over the ground, because we'll only use what we think is just enough, and people want pretty strawberries."

Firsthand? No, but I know how to use the Internet: WikiLeaks spokesman quits, blasts founder ... as paranoid control freak.

I always hear that the Democratic Party is as much "in the pocket" of big business as the Republicans. But isn't the FCC part of a Democratic Party led executive branch? Am I missing something? Is Hollywood or some other big Democratic Party contributor pro-net-neturality?

Google.

"Net neutrality" has been perverted to mean ISPs can't charge content providers for allowing their bits to pass their networks.

Because Google and other content providers want that money for themselves.

Google has a private jumbo jet, not Verizon.

No word on what makes Hopper the "Goat Man."

But this article has an interesting excerpt of his "packing list":

said he started out Wednesday morning on the Sacramento River, where he loaded a $300 inflatable raft with camping supplies, two burritos, a bag of vitamins, a Bible and a mannequin of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

hmmm... I wonder whether this "mannequin" was "anatomically correct"...

Canada naïve about terrorism, CSIS head says in WikiLeaks memo

WASHINGTON—Canadians have an “Alice In Wonderland” attitude toward global terrorism, the former head of Canada’s spy service told a U.S. counterpart in 2008, according to a secret American memo disclosed Monday.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director Jim Judd is also quoted as saying that Canadian courts have the security service “tied in knots,” hampering their ability to detect and prevent terror attacks inside Canada and beyond.

Alleged terrorism plot targeted Canada

Toronto terror plot foiled -- Canada

From 2001 - Canada called 'weak link' on terrorism

Mohammed is one of the estimated 350 suspected terrorists living in Canada, taking advantage of the nation's liberal refugee program, which takes in about 60 percent of the people who apply, more than three times the U.S. rate.

"Anybody can apply for refugee status. All you have to do is arrive and say,

'I've been persecuted,' and we give them the benefit of the doubt," said Martin Collacott, former director general for security services at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs. "Within days of arriving you can get welfare, free dental and medical. And if you need to, you can just disappear in the country."

The Criminal Intelligence Service, Canada's CIA, estimates there are about 50 terrorist organizations spread throughout Canada, including 350 members of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Tamil Tigers and al Qaeda. Among them is Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian with ties to al Qaeda who was caught by U.S. immigration officials attempting to sneak explosives in the trunk of his car, from Canada, in December 1999.

While awaiting approval of his refugee claim in Montreal, Ressam traveled to an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, where he learned how to make bombs, the CIS has reported. Ressam later confessed his plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

"Canada is our weak link," said Vincent Cannistraro, retired chief of counterterrorism operations for the CIA. "U.S. security is only as good as Canadian security."

People are leaving California. It's not JUST the rotten schools, the traffic jams, the lack of jobs, the rising budget deficit, with no solution in sight, the huge stockpile of underwater homes - it's all of them combined.

A destitute California won't be able to continue to offer state $$$$ (or IOUs, since they won't have any "real" money) for switching to an electric car.

This one was pretty classy. Nothing says "due process" like denying a mental patient access to care, and then deporting him to a country whose language he doesn't even speak, and from which he isn't even descended, despite having evidence that he is a US citizen(and thus not even under ICE jurisdiction)...

This article is rather more general. Cool thing is, immigration violations/deportations are considered to be civil, rather than criminal matters, despite the fact that people involved in them are generally detained in jail-esque conditions. No public defender for you, sucker. And proving your citizenship is a total cakewalk under those conditions...

Googling turns up a variety of similar stories. Perhaps the snappiest is the one that begins with the money quote from one 'James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of State and Local Coordination': "If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear.".

Obviously, if only by sheer statistical probability, ICE does manage to deport a fair number of authentic illegal immigrants every year; but they are about as callous and sloppy about it as you'd expect a bunch of jackboots with broad power and limited oversight to be.

Why hasn't Google been taken offline?

Because they pay taxes^H^H^H^H^Hbribes in the USA. :P

FTFY.

Additionally:

FTC Drops Investigation of Google Less Than a Week After Company Exec Hosts Obama Fundraiser

so 6+million => 1.6 million slide/quote?

Please, p[ease, please, provide a reliable citation for those numbers.
My google-fu is not strong enough.

I promise to use the power wisely and email just about everybody I know with them if they are supportable.

You ask and I deliver,

AAA Thanksgiving travel chart

Let's hope it will be there for a while :)

I try not to bullshit and pull random stuff out of my ass... Good luck.

And, perhaps I'm missing something, but why exactly was he embarrassed? Here's a better article, if anybody else happens to be able to make more sense of this:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/23/BA8N1GFV82.DTL

See my subject-line above, & this -> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/09/08/BU85830.DTL&type=tech_article

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT #1 of 2:

"Linux is a form of Unix"

and also this -> http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/02/letter_writers.html;jsessionid=ZVAVPXEVVZMITQE1GHRSKH4ATMY32JVN

PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT #2 of 2:

"Unix as an operating system is not disappearing because of Linux. Linux is Unix"

APK

P.S.=> Well, "will wonders NEVER cease"... however: I have always wondered IF those are "official", & what-not, though... any takers? Thanks for the info., either way... apk

The defenders of profiling will arrive shortly to tell us how if we just focused on the "right people", we could avoid harassing little girls and little old ladies.

Obviously she should be allowed to just go right on the plane without being checked since she's not Arabic. It's not like anyone's ever tried to smuggle a gun onto a plane in a kid's teddy bear befo... oh wait.

What I would personally like to see is someone with a young child, preferably female that instructs their child to start screaming if anyone touches their genitals.

link... have you called your airline contacts and congresscritters? I sure have.

Government regulation shows up at your door with M-16s. Corporate monopolies don't.

True enough, but only because modern corporate monopolies understand the value of outsourcing.

They could have spent the last two years dragging everyone and anyone who was involved with the Bush administration's more questionable policies (wiretapping, suspending habeus corpus, extraordinary rendition, Halliburton, bogus intelligence and so forth) and probably had a PR field day tearing the ethics of their predecessors apart.

First, a correction, the Democrats gained both houses in 2006, not 2008, so they could have started then... and as a member of the right, I WISH THEY WOULD HAVE. Not because the open partisanship would have cost them votes, because I don't think it would have given how reviled the right had become by 2006, but because we need an open an honest government. However, neither party wants that, they both want a closed, powerful government even if it means they take turns owning the keys.

Obama continued the Bush wiretaps, even "accidentally" extending them to domestic only calls and wants to extend it to the internet. Obama hasn't closed Gitmo, he's still practicing extraordinary rendition (which didn't started under GWB), Halliburton is still getting contracts (because they're one of only a handful of companies that does what they do), we still have problems with bad intelligence, etc.

I don't say that out of partisanship, I say it because Obama and Bush are relatively interchangeable in their practice of foreign policy (oh, sure, there are minor differences, but all the major policies are identical).

But oh no. Either they were idiots and thought that, after eight years of dirty pool, the Republican party's powerbrokers would respond well to bipartisanship (you'd think they'd notice how that was going after six months?), or they were hoping to pull some of the same stuff, in which case they pissed away the moral high ground which would have served them pretty well a few days ago.

Again, noting the above, there is one additional reason why they didn't... They were acting like Mark McGwire. Career batting average of .263, but you knew every time he got up to the plate, he was swinging for the fences, looking for that home run, or even better, grand slam. What do I mean?

Democrats have long been in love with socialized medicine... for the political leadership, it's the one thing they're missing in their dependency pie. Again, what do I mean? Every time a Democrat runs for office and is seriously challenged, what do they run on? "My opponent wants to starve your kids, kick your parents out of the nursing home, take away your childcare, etc." A HUGE portion of the Democrat bases votes Democrat on the fear that their precious entitlements would be taken away. By finally getting socialized medicine in place, it would have forced the working stiffs in the middle that traditionally vote Republican to vote for the party that would keep the handouts going.

So, they spent most of the first two years swinging for that grand slam. The bases were loaded - people already hated the Republicans, the Democrats occupied the White House and, most importantly, had large majorities in both houses of Congress. They came up to the plate, pointed to left field, swung and missed. The liberal Republicans weren't going to go along. They came up to the plate again and missed. This time the conservative Democrats weren't going to go along either. Then Ball 1, the Senate passed a bill in the middle of the night before Christmas break. Ball 2, the House would work on passing the Senate bill if they could get some fixes. Ball 3, they promise some meaningless stuff on abortion and to fix the bill's most glaring problems down the road, all while giving the crowd the finger. Democrats are standing at a full count. Finally, a homer down the left line! But wait! Now th

It's pretty sad you believe that. For one, if you'd like a phone that lets you reflash the OS you are welcome to buy a Nexus One [blogspot.com] direct from Google. The nature of open source code means that the phones made entirely by HTC may do things you disagree with. But that's openness for you. Sometimes people will do things you disagree with. It would be fairly pointless to have an open source OS if Google had veto power over every way in which it was used.

I believe you missed the part where the Google trademark is stamped all over the T-Mobile G2. If you do not think that gives Google veto power over evil additional restrictions on the distribution of GPL software, you did not think very hard.

If they were really as cynical as you believe, they wouldn't have ensured Android was open source and the Nexus One was reflashable out of the box would they?

Eric and Larray are plenty cynical by any objective measure. Sorry if you're too tanked up on koolaid to see it. Want another one? How about the posturing on carbon credits in context with their 767 pleasure buggy parked across the street at the air base? How about the blatant nepotism?

I don't really know a lot about Sergy, but I had plenty of occasion to note that Larry and Eric are both pretty "flexible" when it comes to morals versus money versus power. Sad, it certainly did not have to be that way. That said, Google is nowhere near as far gone as Microsoft, or Oracle say. And EMG certainly does recognize the value of getting the open source community to do their heavy lifting for them. It's not like full time Googler's actually have the stomache for hard work any more.

You're right; anything critical of Google is obviously biased. It's just a big coincidence that Google dodges millions in taxes, has Obama over for dinner, and gets a stamp of approval from the FTC in the span of a week.

Here are left-leaning media outlets reporting the exact same things as Brietbart and the Washington Examiner:

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39784907/ns/business-bloomberg_businessweek/

San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/21/businessinsider-googles-marissa-mayer-to-host-president-obama-for-30000-a-head-fundraiser-2010-10.DTL

Washington Times (reprint): U.S. secrets aboard latest Chinese sub
http://www.taiwandc.org/washt9908.htm

Popular Mechanics: How China Steals U.S. Military Secrets
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/3319656

San Francisco Chronicle: China's war on the U.S. economy
http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-15/opinion/17828392_1_security-review-commission-china-s-internet-currency-manipulation

Wired: Good Old Fashioned Espionage
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/07/good-old-fashioned-industrial-espionage/

Good thing he's not pushing Judo-Christian mores on you then, right? Indications are he is Buddhist, not Christian or Jewish. But I guess you feel better equating over-bearing, pushy salesmen with your biased preconceptions of a particular religious philosophy than making a comparison with his actual belief system.

Nielsen: Android market share eclipses iPhone

Another Apple myth tossed out.....

In the US, and not iOS but just iPhone. Worldwide iPhone outsells Android phones, and even in the US, iOS outsells outsells Android. And overall market share, iOS is far ahead at 120 million devices sold.

It's sad that Slashdot is so ill-informed that something so woefully false is so widely believed. Fanboyism is funny that way. It doesn't only apply to those you disagree with, you gotta watch out for it in yourself.

Android provides choice.

Yes it does. Not as much choice as some people like to pretend, but it certainly offers more choice in hardware.

With iPhone, your choices are .... how much memory do you want. Wow .. thanks for understanding exactly what I want in a phone Steve. But your ESP is off, I like using memory cards and having accessible batteries and keyboards.

Given the exceptional success of the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, I'd say his "ESP" is spot on. It failed for you, and that's fine. But it certainly has succeeded far beyond the competition.

The rest of the crap you talked about being the 'strength' of Apple doesn't mean diddly squat. My HTC phone worked out of the box, always has. It has never frozen up. I've never been 'confused' about apps.

I never said any of those things.

And I like sorting out all the different phone options.

Hooray for you.

In fact, I DEMAND to have the choice.

And I "DEMAND" quality. Fortunately there are products that cater to both of us.

Oh wait .. I did...

I didn't pick an iPhone.

Again, hooray for you. As long as you like the product you bought, what's it to me? Unlike the Android fanboys, I don't get all worked up if someone else decides they like the phone system I didn't buy. I won't put you down for it, I won't make fun of you or your phone. What I *won't* let go unchallenged, however, is all the bullshit you fanboys spew forth. You get simple facts like market share wrong, and wildly exaggerate things like "openness" and "choice". I'm glad those things have such great meaning for you, but any pretense that the market cares even half as much as you do about these things is delusion.

I rarely read replies, so don't assume you won your argument just because I don't respond....

Wow, what a douche.

Nielsen: Android market share eclipses iPhone

Another Apple myth tossed out.....

Android provides choice. There are many different models out there, some with keyboards, some with fancy organic screens, all kinds of features.

With iPhone, your choices are .... how much memory do you want. Wow .. thanks for understanding exactly what I want in a phone Steve. But your ESP is off, I like using memory cards and having accessible batteries and keyboards.

The rest of the crap you talked about being the 'strength' of Apple doesn't mean diddly squat. My HTC phone worked out of the box, always has. It has never frozen up. I've never been 'confused' about apps.

And I like sorting out all the different phone options.

In fact, I DEMAND to have the choice.

Oh wait .. I did...

I didn't pick an iPhone.

I know this is a foreign site and only one sample but there were (and are) left-wingers who believe Obama is the Messiah, or ever better: http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article868683.ece

Also, check out the first photo here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Photostream-Business-and-Pleasure-in-August/ - that's from the White House's official photostream.

Also, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/06/notes060608.DTL

There are many more. Yes, there are some conservatives that are calling Obama Messiah (or at least implying that liberals think he is) but there are plenty of liberals who actually believe it.

This made me chuckle: "the oil at a solar thermal plant".

Not sure why that made you chuckle? The oil I was referring to is the medium at that plant which got heated. That is, the particular plant I remember reading about had the mirrors concentrate sunlight on a pipe with some sort of oil in it that is designed to get extremely hot, then transfer that thermal energy in a heat exchanger, to convert wather to steam to drive a turbine.

They didn't burn the oil in normal operation, but some of it set on fire in a mis-hap.

That's not to say that I think solar plants are actually very dangerous - I think that an occasional oil fire like that at a solar thermal plant is probably no big deal (I mean, it's a big deal if you work at the plant, and might get burned in such an accident, so it's an occupational safety issue, but from a larger *public safety* issue, I don't think there's much risk - it would seem to be much less risk than, say, a Gas-line explosion). Unless the particular type of oil used releases a lot of toxic fumes or something. If it burns fairly cleanly, then I think it's a very reasonable risk.

I think the recycling business is where the problem should be addressed.

For instance, the police in Santa Clara set up a recycling business, and they found that out of 278 people who came
in, only TWO people actually brought in legitimate recycled stuff.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-01-24/bay-area/17148400_1_copper-thieves-santa-clara-county-burglary-tools

Maybe it's for a 'Receiver having concealed antenna that suffers poor reception when held the wrong way'?? That would be a little more specific (and a touch less obvious) ;-)

Good thing that Apple avoided that with the iPhone 4 then.

In denial are we?

Falcon

Gee, why did I know that there would be at least one Apple Hater who couldn't help but show us that he doesn't know what "concealed" menas. Somebody should mod you up "Insightful", because that's what your little post is.

Maybe it's for a 'Receiver having concealed antenna that suffers poor reception when held the wrong way'?? That would be a little more specific (and a touch less obvious) ;-)

Good thing that Apple avoided that with the iPhone 4 then.

In denial are we?

Falcon

When people troll on about "Faux News" and Murdock I simply point to the problems with other "news" organizations that don't report certain news stories because it doesn't fit the narrative of the left.

This is true to an extent, but the popular left-wing media outlets generally don't LIE about what's going on. They have a liberal bias, but while they may try to lead their audience in a particular direction, they don't deliberately try to deceive their audience. I've seen several examples of Fox News doing just that.

Obama on taxes
Nuclear proliferation treaty
Video footage of protest
Ground Zero mosque funding

Then of course there's this:
Funding the GOP

And then there are other Republicans lying, not necessarily through Fox News:
Alan Grayson lying about his opponent (more)
Jan Brewer lying about decapitated bodies
Andrew Breitbart quotes Shirley Sharrod out of context

Please, show me where Democrats are lying this blatantly. Am I just not aware of it because I only get my news from liberal biased sources? If that's the case, then show me.

Not sure about experimental but if you were able to get these bee businesses to give when and where they let bees out, that'd be a puzzle piece.

Trying to pin point origins of the fungus and virus would be harder but maybe they could do something similar to DNA tracing of migration patterns.

Or it could be that where that they never were in truly distinct areas and the only thing that kept it in check was the severity of their one-two punch. If bees get infected, they die out in that area but now with our "help", the bees can travel much further and much faster than before, increasing the chance of running into bees with one or the other disease.

The company that ran this promotion (Consumer Watchdog) has been using Google Analytics. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/09/03/businessinsider-anti-google-privacy-group-consumer-watchdog-is-tracking-your-clicks-with-google-analytics-2010-9.DTL Hypocrite, much?

With that kind of money they could replace their infrastructure a few times over every year

But you forget that the gov't department needs to pay all those pensions, medical, insurance, and incentives. And don't forget all those $150/hr IT contractors, their product upgrades and their $250/hr tech consultants.

That sort of leaves about $-50K to spend on the infrastructure within a year's budget.

linky

Teacher gave students an assignment to compose an email with the words "kill the president". Huge fuss about that as well.

Off-topic, but he suddenly died a year later...

I agree that Trap-Neuter-Release is the way to go with feral cats. However, in my urban, cat-loving neighborhood, the constraints on cat population OTHER than TNR include: 1. Traffic. Cats get hit by cars. 2. Coyotes. A cat makes a nice snack for the whole family, or a full meal for one. 3. A pair of hawks--those birds of prey you think don't figure into the predator/prey balance in cities. They loves them some tasty kittens, just like the coyotes, do, and they also directly compete with the cats for the cats' preferred prey, rodents. 4. Foxes. Also direct competitors with cats for the same prey. 5, Disease. 6. Failed litters--kittens born dead or deformed or otherwise weak. Also, your comment that "left unchecked [cats] will decimate a bird population---sorry, but that's another phony, widely-circulated statistic. From the "Damn Lies and Cat Statistics" article that this references: "Take the estimates of how many birds are killed each year by cats," he said. "A 1993 article usually called 'the Wisconsin study' is constantly being cited, with an estimate that between 8 and 219 million birds were killed by free-roaming rural cats in that state." But 15 years ago, study co-author Stanley Temple told the Sonoma County Independent, "The media has had a field day with this since we started. Those figures were from our proposal. They aren't actual data; that was just our projection to show how bad it might be." Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fg%2Fa%2F2010%2F08%2F18%2Fpetscol081810.DTL#ixzz0xek8PyCj You can't use one bad statistic to support another bad statistic.

First, in regards to the campaign contributions: based on that list you cited, it looks like one should be more concerned about tribal gaming than the NEA. While NEA was #1, the various tribal gaming donors were #2, #3, #4, #8, and #9. Combined, they squash teacher interest.

Now think about this for a moment, because I think this is incredibly important. What do you consider more important to our society, gambling or public education? What should we be fighting to preserve more? A little news for you: Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of our country, fought tooth-and-nail to establish a public educational system in this country, as he understood that it was one of the most important methods of preserving our form of government. "I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1810. ME 12:393. And that's just one quote. You can read another whole fist-full here.

Considering how vital education is to our country, I think a national educators union deserves to spend whatever it needs to preserve the interests of public education, which sadly has been under attack from various businesses, philanthropists, and other institutions over the last few decades. Which leads me to my second point...

You do get what you pay for, and the teacher's union (NEA) are the single largest campaign contributors in the United States.

Then explain to me why No Child Left Behind is so vehemently opposed by teachers at large? It received widespread, bipartisan support when it was passed and renewed in Congress, so why were teachers and the unions so against it? If we were truly getting what we paid for, then I think you would see legislation that was more supportive of unions, rather than trying to undermine them and work against them. (And while NCLB was bad, it doesn't hold a candle to what Duncan and Obama are trying to push through the pipes with the latest "Race to the Top." And remember, the NEA backed Obama during the election, so why such opposition?)

Rather, I believe the NEA is spending that much money to do the best that it can to fight such radical undermining of public education.

I'm a teacher. And I will admit, there are problems with public education. Some of those are coming from outside, and some from within. Long has the unions ignored the problems with permitting poor teachers to stay on the payroll and do nothing to help them improve in their teaching skills, it has created a subgroup of individuals with no motivation to improve. But creating a punitive system that stands to bring down an entire school due to poor performance of a student population at large on invalid assessment methods is no way to fix the system. Replacing elected school board officials with unilateral tyrants who are not accountable to the public is no way to fix a the system. Teachers know better than anyone what makes a student learn, and we're so overwhelmed by all these biased and/or misguided individuals, politicians, and businesses who all fighting to take charge of a system that they have no idea how to operate, it's like letting a three-year-old into

"Childs eventually handed over the passwords to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom" is very different from the claim that he refused to give them to anyone else.

Are you serious? Seriously? What, exactly, do you think the holdup was? Do you think he was waiting on pins and needles for someone to wander by his cell, and Newsom just happened to be the first person he found?

Well, how's this article work for you? (It summarizes Newsom's testimony.) How's this article? It features this passage:

On Monday afternoon, he handed the passwords over to Mayor Newsom, who was "the only person he felt he could trust," according to a declaration filed in court by his attorney, Erin Crane.

Childs isn't a hero. He was a putz who was drunk on power and his own (inflated) sense of self-importance.

And it's only marginally about Android. It's not about any intellectual property Oracle acquired from Sun.

It's about the launch of Windows Phone 7 coming up in a few weeks. Bill and Larry are co-billionaires for charity now. They're playing on the same team - for the children, for their legacy. That doesn't mean they've given up playing dirty. Far from it: it gives them a moral certitude that they're working toward a worthy end that justifies almost any means. Bill may not be CEO of Microsoft any more, but that's where the bulk of the billions he's giving to charity come from so that's the lever he's got to work.

Microsoft needs to sow some Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the mobile and tablet markets so that they can market their products as being free of that taint and so gain an opening that frankly isn't there otherwise. If they can't get a leg up here they're facing barriers to entry that are insurmountable. People Luurve their iPhones and iPads - 95% of owners would recommend the product and they sell them as fast as they can make them. Android is swinging up with a market share growth that defies gravity and owner satisfaction ratings that are nearly as high. Android is utterly crushing everything that isn't an iPhone - partly because it's got a diverse manufacturer base that's spread out so people have choices and it's harder to block the supply chain for diverse hardware platforms. Without a rash of IP suits against iOS and Android, some legitimate security disasters there, a puppet press that takes minor antenna issues hyperbolic and so on, Microsoft has just got almost nothing going for it with WP7. It's just a product that on its face would have been really cool four years ago, that doesn't have any apps or developers, that lacks features that are not optional on a modern device.

The Virtnet lawsuits are about the same thing, by a different route. Given a near certain loss in the lawsuit but the potential for a long delay, it's easy to see the negotiating team work out a settlement that goes something like "Look, we could tie this up in the courts with appeals and whatnot for another decade or so... or we could settle for a decent figure NOW as long as you agree to go after our preferred target next." The settlement was probably cheaper than their ad budget for Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft is not one to shy away from pouring money on the bonfire in the name of strategy. So now we have Virtnet suing block Apple and Android from using VPN over wireless - and so preventing them from being enterprise worthy.

There will be more of these suits filed from every angle. And the puppet press will cover each one from the same "Evil Google, Evil Apple" point of view. They're all bunk. Larry will of course get some reciprocal backscratching in return, though of course it will likely be indirect. An Oracle optimized Windows Server cluster with special flex licensing? Who knows. At least Virtnet is already paid in full.

Windows Phone 7 is still crap. None of these lawsuits change that. Most everybody who buys it will regret it. But because of these suits more people will buy it than would have otherwise.

In the interest of fairness it is probably worth noting that in the Chevron Niger Delta incident the activists took hostages inside the facility. Chevron was later cleared of all charges by a unanimous jury verdict that took under an hour to deliberate.

It seems to have prompted a response from Oracle, which is too sue Google over infringements in the Java platform.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/08/12/financial/f164801D40.DTL

Good Heavens to Mergatroid...!!!

-Hack

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/10/LIBRARIES.TMP
"In Santa Cruz, where library officials are trying to stir up patrons about the Patriot Act, chief librarian Anne Turner has found a more subtle way to sidestep the gag order, if she ever faces one.

"At each board meeting I tell them we have not been served by any (search warrants)," she said. "In any months that I don't tell them that, they'll know."

There isn't any leeway, especially at the top.

And this is why kids get kicked out of schools for having a butter knife in their lunch box.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/08/10/businessinsider-backlash-against-hewlett-packard-grows-it-seems-mark-hurd-fired-because-company-scared-of-bad-pr-over-bogus-sexual-harassment-allegation-2010-8.DTL

you apparently missed the comments in the threads above; things have still snuck by the apple store folk. the only real way to catch this stuff is be conscious of what you're installing, and report suspicious items.

from user -kyz:
Apple is doing an equally bad job of protecting its ecosystem.

There have been several customer-data-grabbing iPhone apps, and these have only been yanked after members of the public alerted Apple to them.

Pinchmedia: http://i-phone-home.blogspot.com/2009/07/pinchmedia-anatomy-of-spyware-vendor.html

Storm8: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail??blogid=150&entry_id=51077

MogoRoad: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/30/iphone_security/

Smuggling tethering past the censors: http://top10.com/mobilephones/news/2010/07/app_smuggles_tethering_onto_iphone/

the moral of the story is, it doesn't matter if it's closed or open-source. the end user is still the difference maker.

Apple is doing an equally bad job of protecting its ecosystem.

There have been several customer-data-grabbing iPhone apps, and these have only been yanked after members of the public alerted Apple to them.

Pinchmedia: http://i-phone-home.blogspot.com/2009/07/pinchmedia-anatomy-of-spyware-vendor.html

Storm8: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail??blogid=150&entry_id=51077

MogoRoad: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/30/iphone_security/

Smuggling tethering past the censors: http://top10.com/mobilephones/news/2010/07/app_smuggles_tethering_onto_iphone/

Apple don't look at the source code of apps, they just test the binary and scan it for badness.

Provided the binary encrypts its strings, and does nothing dodgy during the short testing window (less than two weeks), Apple approve it.

Apple's custodianship doesn't protect you from determined data thieves, only the incompetent ones.

Android market, while just as bad as Apple, at least gives you the opportunity to decide if you want an app based on what permissions it demands. If it demands too much, you reject it. Once you give it the "OK", it can't turn around and demand more. I'd prefer that Apple added that (telling you what permissions the code has, not letting it have more), even if they keep their approval process.

Robert Uomini of Kensington CA already won a $22 million dollar lottery in 1995. And yes, it's the same person, because the patent application's name and city matches and this article says he's a mathematician and his linkedin says he has a Ph.D in Mathematics. Here's his real software website, notice anything familiar? Yep, the design is exactly the same, no doubt about it this is our guy.

Here's his facebook if you want to leave him a message

This is crucially important, big guy.

Agreed it seems pretty obvious. At least not "really, really weird at best" like the article says. A more reliable source says it better.

Well, obviously now they do it, that the Russian president got an account with them and Obama said that from now on that's how they'll communicate!

See, for example: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=64864 or http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/02/2010-06-02_the_hidden_death_in_the_gulf.html

I am sure BP is doing everything it can to stop the oil gushing out, despite what all the (sometimes idiotic, very amusing) armchair engineers are saying is the "obvious" thing to do.

However, it seems the real battle that will have the greatest impact on the future of this is over who controls the media now, and that's where BP needs to get its hands tied.

Okay, wild, but stay with me here. Aspartame is a known
neurotoxin (i.e. mildly toxic to brain tissue) and previous studies
have shown that damage
to certain areas of the brain reduces empathy. Personal
experience with two friends who became addicted to diet pop and
suffered significant personality changes including a major loss of
empathy first suggested this. Okay, this is anecdotal
but what's a better theory?

Troll? Well, at least I'm not an anonymous coward, bitch.

The guy insulted me for no reason. Am I a troll for disagreeing or for saying the F-word?

I'm making a point that the right to privacy is less explicit in the US constitution than it is in the Alaska constitution. The right to privacy of the Alaska constitution allows people to smoke pot legally in their own home because as interpreted by the courts privacy is based on the sanctity of the bond between man and women in the privacy of their own bedroom.

That's WAY DIFFERENT than the protections the US constitution affords us.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-06-23/opinion/17379611_1_peta-s-web-animal-cruelty-dead-animals
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134549

and so on and so forth.

Fuck PETA. I feel my money and time would be better spent supporting the ASPCA. At least they don't make me want to cringe every time I hear or read about them.

I've pretty much reached the point where I equate PETA to Scientology. They're both a bunch of loonies with more money than sense.