Slashdot Mirror

Interestingly enough, the original version was wrongly assumed to be short because the men of his Imperial Guard, with whom he 'hung out,' were very tall, creating the illusion that Napoleon was short, so it's quite understandable that the current garden dwarf wants to avoid similar misunderstanding. It's bad enough already with all the 10 year olds spitting on this head...

Lopsided? You mean like famous NFL star Lawrence Taylor getting probation for statutory rape while this kid gets a couple years?

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-lawrencetaylorindicted

No chance the Tea Party changes anything. They all agree with torture and don't care about anyone's rights except their own. Beck likes to claim he's a modern Thomas Paine, but Paine endorsed defending your enemies rights as a way to defend your own. That's a pretty significant difference with Beck who only cares about himself just like the rest of the Republicans (I can't tell what the Democrats care about).

HI MR AC, or may I call you coward? Apparently I know more than you do coward, or you wouldn't think 1+1=3. Allow me to explain in a way you may be able to understand. You have three browsers on Linux, we'll call them Web 1 2 and 3. Now Web 1 and 2 run as a normal user with normal user rights, whereas web 3 demands root to run and the ONLY work around offered is to make root look like a normal user would you HONESTLY use web 3 over web 1 and 2?

Because that is EXACTLY what you are advocating cow, because both IE and webkit are running and much lower permissions which thus minimize ANY possible damage that could be caused by any drive by malware when compared to Firefox. Since you obviously don't know anything about the subject, allow me to point you towards some reading material on the subject.

As for everyone else, please don't be as uneducated as cow here. Running an application directly exposed to the Internet while having to run third party code like a browser does everyday in a higher level of permissions than necessary is an EXTREMELY BAD idea and yes it IS punching a hole when you have a choice of running in low permissions or high permissions and choose high, because you are purposely exposing yourself to needless risk. If you really don't think that is the case cow, then why don't you explain to us here at /. why running as root is a good idea, hmmm?

"Because ... we don't have jurisdiction in China"

At which point, may I ask, Does the United States of America have juristiction over an Australian, living in the UK, whose website is hosted in Sweden?

I also do feel it important to mention that the New York Times had access to all original documents before they were ever posted anywhere at any time. The agreement is that the newspapers and the website publish together.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20101128/ts_yblog_thecutline/nyt-worked-several-weeks-on-leaked-cables-wikileaks-wasnt-direct-source-for-docs

As you can see, 4 European newspapers and the NYT and wiki all post at the same time. I fail to see any difference that would indicate a greater or lesser degree of guilt.

The Assange bashing bit at the end is just 3rd and 4th party opinion. Its got no place in the middle of a legitimate arguement, it detracts rather than adds to the point you are trying to communicate. Assange is not a US basher, Manning worked for the US army, hence the cables deal with America, hence the lions share of the Embarrasment is ours. It is ultimately irrelevant either way, assholes abound, and being a douchebag does not preclude one from being right, or in the right ( morally, not politically)

Other than that your post is factual and well reasoned. It is important to note (as you did) that we are waiting to find out what exactly happened.
 

"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
        Terry Pratchett, Hogfather"

AI, in general, isn't what most people think it is. You can make a stupidly-hard-to-beat game where the opponent plays "perfectly" against you, with perfect timing and unencumbered by the physical constraints of a controller, and you get what happens in most of the Street Fighter series (or about any other fighting game), where the "hardest difficulty level" or end-boss is unbeatable, seems to always get off the perfect shot, block, tech hit, avoidance roll, etc, until you start abusing a game-breaking technique or bug yourself to beat the game. That's actually pretty easy.

What's harder is making a game AI that acts somewhat seemingly like real opponents, that makes real mistakes and leaves openings for the player to work with while not feeling like you're just handing them the game.

Of course, on most systems (Nintendo's underpowered consoles most of all), the designers don't even bother, they just code in whatever the AI they want and the altered difficulty levels give the enemy bigger guns, more health/armor, or just drop even more enemies in a level to chew through. Or else the difficulty levels leave the enemy alone, but screw with the player's health bar and damage output to much the same effect.

As we start dropping "AI" into other frontiers, it doesn't get much better. Translation AI is still relatively poor, able to handle some word-for-word translations passably but being lousy the moment you come across colloquialisms, figures of speech, neologisms, parallel synonyms, malapropisms, simply typos, failures of homonym (there/their/they're, our/hour, its/it's, principle/principal). There's a reason it's so easy to tell when you get a tech call response that's outsourced to somewhere in Asia - most of them know just enough Engrish to try to translate word-for-word what they want to say, and so they come up with constructions like "Tech support welcomes you, may I please know the problem you have today" that could just as easily come out of Babelfish or Google Translate.

For pure problem-solving and pattern-matching, AI's proceeding slowly. Maps and GPS routing have their benefits but are certainly not perfect yet. "Automatic response answers" chat stuff is best tossed in the garbage bin, usually right next to a company's crappily written FAQ page.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/ Between 36% and 93% of guns recovered by Mexican LE are traced to US sources.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081116211345AAiwdoQ How to make a AR15 into a M16. Seems to be pretty easy.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/charged-121070-connection-grenade.html Does this mean there were successful attempts? IDK, but it's been tried in USA...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-arms-race15-2009mar15,0,229992.story This article says that many of the grenade launchers and rocket launchers come from south of the (Mexican) border, but note the gem in par. 5: "Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said."

Yep.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080627143201AAUfXM3

This just popped up in yahoo news. There are conflicting reports on whether she's dead or in surgery.

Maybe the "Trusted Identities" concept can allow Americans to think of other topics than obsessing on paying their bills? A few U.S. Businesses are setting on top of 2 trillion dollars, and their not investing it; I guess their needs have been met?

PE is really dependent on growth potential, WSJ has some stats comparing 2008 to 2009 for facebook, http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/535780/FACEBOOK-DETAILS-LEAKED%3A-Company-Is-Much-More-Profitable-Than-Everyone-Thought
that shows a 3* increase in sales and 2* increase in revenue from one year ago. If that could be maintained, it would grow into that PE within 3 years. With the last 2 years being relative down years in general a PE of 100 wouldn't concern me. However a Price/Sales ratio of 25* (to justify $50 B.) Personally if compared to other tech stocks, even with big growth optimism, I would think more around 25 Billion could be justified now. For $50Billion justification I would need confidence they could grow 4* current within 5 years, but that is definitely not outlandish )(they doubled last year, if they double next year, and the year after that would be 4*.

If "developers will hand over 30 percent of the purchase price to Apple," what will consumer prices be?

Have you ever worked in the end user software development business? 30% going to distribution, credit card processing, and managing updates isn't bad. When you add in the amount of publicity it generates by being in THE searchable software database for end users, well, likely prices will drop as advertising will drive more sales, more price competition, and larger volumes.

It should be said that Apple is closing down their previous marketplace because of this, though. :p

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20101221/tc_zd/258336

It was hardly a "marketplace." At best it was a less-frequently-updated cousin to MacUpdate or VersionTracker, except with the Apple brand.

MacUpdate is still a much more comprehensive list of FOSS ports, freeware, shareware, and commercial updates. Versiontracker is now owned by C|Net and now sucks.

If "developers will hand over 30 percent of the purchase price to Apple," what will consumer prices be?

It should be said that Apple is closing down their previous marketplace because of this, though. :p

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20101221/tc_zd/258336

I disagree. Facebook is essentially today's AOL (but without the ISP feature). Another older example is Geocities. Its a big walled garden. When it becomes old-hat or unfashionable it and all its data will disappear from the world just as completely as did AOL's and Geocities. Perhaps there will be an archive somewhere, but even that may be defeated by Facebook's access control.

and their market cap is down to a little under $500,000.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCOXQ.PK

Apple will never replace Microsoft in the workplace, because they don't want to, there's not nearly as much money in it as replacing Microsoft in the home.

Yeah.. but from the summary:

Perhaps Wall Street is catching on that, despite the discontinuation of their underused Xserve, Apple is in fact becoming one of the key tech providers to enterprise, a position that even a year ago seemed laughable.

That made me actually read the article and it does not really indicate that Apple has anything earth shattering for enterprise at all. I have not really heard anything either, hence the quietly I guess. All it talks about is how enterprise is "figuring out" how to integrate the iPad. I hardly see that as providing key technology to enterprise which is exactly what the summary and article claims.

They have some "earth shattering" stuff, (compared to Microsoft) when it comes to the server market. But, as you noticed, the "underused" part is where the problem currently lies. IBM had hard drives since the 1950's. Pretty earth shattering - but it didn't mean a darn thing in the computer world - not for years to come.

Slowly, Apple makes inroads into various markets, and is largely succeeding in numerous of them (smartphones, tablets) while being profitable (yet making inroads much much slower) into other markets (computers (non-tablet), browsers). There will always be crossover when walking down those paths. And even if that doesnt amount to much (and gains in their smaller marketshare areas remains small), they are working (competing isn't the correct word) in those markets in a fashion that assures them their niche and a tidy profit. In gross sales, they did better than Microsoft last year. In market cap, they are pretty darn far ahead of Microsoft. They've been almost doubling their net income each year (Accounting periods ending in September of 2008: 4.8B, 2009: 8.2B, 2010: 14B). Microsoft on the other hand has been rather stagnant: 2008: 17.7B, 2009: 14.6B, 2010: 18.8B - and Apple is gaining.

AAPL
MSFT

I suspect that Apple will continue to gain in some markets (even if slowly) and retain a growing dominance in the markets they are on top (or close to the top) of. Microsoft on the other hand, has no where to go except where they've been or downhill. They cannot win the gaming market, that is and will remain a pretty even market (at least until the next gen, but not even planned yet gaming consoles come out). They cannot go anywhere in the desktop market: either stay the same or lose marketshare (and honestly, I do NOT think they can come out with anything compelling to help gain the few marketshare points left - much less slow defection from Windows... They've had one real release since XP, namely Vista. Then they released Windows 7, which should have been a Vista ServicePack... I betcha nothing radical will be coming out in Windows 8 to prompt marketshare gains). They are very slowly losing marketshare in the Office Suite arena. They are not (nor will Windows Phone 7 help them) going much of anywhere in the smartphone arena.

That all gives Apple no place to go but up, with their only competition really being other *nix variants. It also provides an opportunity (even if it will take quite some time) to gain footholds in other markets, like the server market. I've only played with Apple's server stuff, but, it is quite nice - and with their other technologies (streaming media and the various other stuff that's seen on iPads, iPhones and Macs), they may just be able to leverage those techs into something that gains a bigger foothold in the marketplace. And again, their only competition will be the other *nix distros, as Windows Server 20** gets slower (or needs more hardware for the same performance - you pick how y

Apple will never replace Microsoft in the workplace, because they don't want to, there's not nearly as much money in it as replacing Microsoft in the home.

Yeah.. but from the summary:

Perhaps Wall Street is catching on that, despite the discontinuation of their underused Xserve, Apple is in fact becoming one of the key tech providers to enterprise, a position that even a year ago seemed laughable.

That made me actually read the article and it does not really indicate that Apple has anything earth shattering for enterprise at all. I have not really heard anything either, hence the quietly I guess. All it talks about is how enterprise is "figuring out" how to integrate the iPad. I hardly see that as providing key technology to enterprise which is exactly what the summary and article claims.

They have some "earth shattering" stuff, (compared to Microsoft) when it comes to the server market. But, as you noticed, the "underused" part is where the problem currently lies. IBM had hard drives since the 1950's. Pretty earth shattering - but it didn't mean a darn thing in the computer world - not for years to come.

Slowly, Apple makes inroads into various markets, and is largely succeeding in numerous of them (smartphones, tablets) while being profitable (yet making inroads much much slower) into other markets (computers (non-tablet), browsers). There will always be crossover when walking down those paths. And even if that doesnt amount to much (and gains in their smaller marketshare areas remains small), they are working (competing isn't the correct word) in those markets in a fashion that assures them their niche and a tidy profit. In gross sales, they did better than Microsoft last year. In market cap, they are pretty darn far ahead of Microsoft. They've been almost doubling their net income each year (Accounting periods ending in September of 2008: 4.8B, 2009: 8.2B, 2010: 14B). Microsoft on the other hand has been rather stagnant: 2008: 17.7B, 2009: 14.6B, 2010: 18.8B - and Apple is gaining.

AAPL
MSFT

I suspect that Apple will continue to gain in some markets (even if slowly) and retain a growing dominance in the markets they are on top (or close to the top) of. Microsoft on the other hand, has no where to go except where they've been or downhill. They cannot win the gaming market, that is and will remain a pretty even market (at least until the next gen, but not even planned yet gaming consoles come out). They cannot go anywhere in the desktop market: either stay the same or lose marketshare (and honestly, I do NOT think they can come out with anything compelling to help gain the few marketshare points left - much less slow defection from Windows... They've had one real release since XP, namely Vista. Then they released Windows 7, which should have been a Vista ServicePack... I betcha nothing radical will be coming out in Windows 8 to prompt marketshare gains). They are very slowly losing marketshare in the Office Suite arena. They are not (nor will Windows Phone 7 help them) going much of anywhere in the smartphone arena.

That all gives Apple no place to go but up, with their only competition really being other *nix variants. It also provides an opportunity (even if it will take quite some time) to gain footholds in other markets, like the server market. I've only played with Apple's server stuff, but, it is quite nice - and with their other technologies (streaming media and the various other stuff that's seen on iPads, iPhones and Macs), they may just be able to leverage those techs into something that gains a bigger foothold in the marketplace. And again, their only competition will be the other *nix distros, as Windows Server 20** gets slower (or needs more hardware for the same performance - you pick how y

> Slashdot gets by because of the moderation and meta-moderation system.

But Slashdot still only needed to delete, what? Two posts? Ever. One from Microsoft and one from the CoS, as I recall. And then wrote stories about the deletion.

> The people who are investigated don't like it and will do anything they can to shut up or discredit Groklaw.

So she has every reason to be as transparent as possible, so that they have no material to discredit Groklaw. We'll know their lies are not true because of that transparency.

> It is also important to note that there has always been open invitations at Groklaw for Darl McBride, and other targets of investigation to post their side of things.

We saw how that worked when Jay Maynard came over. He put his side of the story on http://ibmvshercules.com/

For the record, I'm of the opinion that TurboHercules has sold out to Microsoft, but that doesn't implicate Jay. He was just stuck in the middle of all this, trying to defend his friends who helped him write the Hercules emulator when they formed the TurboHercules company.

> I'm not saying Groklaw is without flaws but I am saying that the deletion of posts that are designed to discredit the site is not one of them.

It's better to fix one's faults than to delete them.

> The deleted posts lack transparency because they are almost always anonymous and they are almost always by someone pretending to be a member of the community who is not.

You lump all the anons together. Some were people who had their accounts deleted for ridiculous reasons. And then came back to help transcribe PDFs and whatnot, anyhow, after the abuse. Thing is, you don't know who they are, so you're treating them like they're all one person.

For the record, I never made an account, even though PJ asked me to once, because she thought I had good insight. But, frankly, you have no idea who the anons are, so I don't know how you can claim that they were "pretending to be a member of the community" when you have no idea who they are.

I note that you never actually consider the fact that they might be or have been members. Did you ever read AllParadox's rationale for leaving Groklaw? Or did you think he was the only such person?

> you start to sound very much like either a stupid friend of FOSS or a sly enemy.

And you start to sound like a conspiracy theorist. Not everyone is either friend or foe. I'm in favor of FOSS and against OOXML, Microsoft, software patents and deleting the posts of people who debate you instead of responding to them. I have submitted many stories to Slashdot over the years; you should be able to verify all of those statements by reading Googling those stories. I've also covered Groklaw. Before Groklaw was well-known, most of the Slashdot stories on Groklaw were written by me, personally.

Where does that leave me with respect to Groklaw? (Stupid?) friend or foe?

"50 cent party" is an important arm for China's Internet Censorship effort and we take this very seriously. The members of "50 cent party" are popularly known as "50 center" because they were paid equivalent to 50 Chinese Cents for each post that they made.

These 50 centers are required to look out for postings that are critical of China and swamp the Internet Forums with pro-China, anti-western postings.

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100420071422AABar3E

Erm, apparently there was physical trauma (see here and here). They're still guessing, but leaning towards stress from fireworks, although lightening or hail haven't been ruled out.

This is far from the first time anything like this has been recorded.

Version 5 should have resolved any teething problems and there is a long way to go for Google to reach that point of maturity in its mobile OS.

And by version 5 it's probably cost you what? 3000-5000 US$ ?

No, I'm not kidding. I live in Sweden and normally you can buy the phone with no subscription.

Katshing.se sell the iPhone 4 16GB for 6000-6400 depending on which contract provider you choose, so even more without locking it in I guess.

6000 SEK = 890 USD

I know the USD&YEN&GBP&Euro are all weak ATM and sure we've got 25% VAT.

The first version was something like 10-15.000 SEK if you counted in the subscription you had to get because back then you couldn't buy it without one.

4000 USD would mean 800 USD / phone which may be pretty correct. Maybe more, maybe less. Higher valued dollar = less, but on the other side the first models where probably even more expensive. So..

Or you could had bought Apple stocks for those 4000 $ 4 years ago instead ..
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL&t=5y&c=

As someone who lives in Delaware and had some part in covering the election, I'd like to point out a few things about the O'Donnell / Coons election.

First, I have a strong feeling that the only reason she won the primary at all is because the push to turn out Republican voters unhappy with Castle's centrist position (he was generally regarded as a 'Republican in name only') wasn't recognized by his supporters until it was too late. O'Donnell has done nothing of note for the past several years but run for office and failing to gain traction in the primary. As such, she wasn't seen as a threat to Castle until late into the primary when it was realized outside influences (e.g. Tea Party) were pushing her candidacy forward. The 'anti-incumbent' attitude may have played a large part in her primary win, particularly considering Castle would probably have easily beaten Coons in a general election (plenty of Democrats have crossed lines to support Castle before)

Second, I would hardly characterize Coons' win as a 'landslide' - considering just how astonishingly incompetent her campaign seemed to have been run, a mere 14%-16% win for Coons was hardly what a lot of people I know were looking for - including many Independents and Republicans. And now that it would seem the FEC is taking allegations of fraud on the part of her campaign seriously, I would like to think we've dodged a bullet.

To be honest, no one gave a damn about the Delaware elections until O'Donnell was on the general election ballot and it's easily understandable why - it just didn't matter for most people. But even though the Democrat won, I think the Delaware election is still an excellent example for why trying to gerrymander in an opposing candidate who is easily 'beatable' is a terrible idea: you simply don't know how it's going to end up - the primary showed that plenty well enough. How many of Castle's supporters didn't get out and vote because they though he was already a surefire primary win? It's a question the Democrats need to take very seriously lest they end up asking themselves a very similar one about Obama and Palin.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-to-go-after-Internet-apf-78040210.html

Wonder how things will play out there.

China doesn't want them competing with state run telecoms, so they are being "asked" not to expand in China.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-to-go-after-Internet-apf-78040210.html

I recall seeing an actual article, but then again not everything published is true... anyhow this is the best I could do to get to the truth: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081104002820AAKoxtP

  I tried to find the one about the woman trespassing with the purpose of seeing him naked, and I am pretty sure I read it on Slashdot as well as somewhere else. But I often can't find articles I am looking for on Slashdot...

Fox "News" viewers are the most misinformed people when it comes to pretty much everything, so it's hardly surprising that they have no fucking clue what they're talking about on this either.

"Printer friendly" URL isn't correctly redirecting; use this URL instead. (Sorry about this.)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080918170357.htm
Solution To Global Fisheries Collapse? 'Catch Shares' Could Rescue Failing Fisheries, Protect The Ocean
A third of open fisheries have collapsed. A sixth of privatized fisheries have collapsed.
Even with privatised fishers, instead of a staple, fish becomes a luxury as "the per-pound price has increased significantly."

On top of that,
http://www.healthcastle.com/fish-safe-eat.shtml
Fish are contaminated with mercury and industrial chemicals.
It's okay to eat low mercury fish-- just limit it to 12 oz per week.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080911234836AAEic4K
Since 1945- almost 11% of the earths land area degraded for raising crops. 70,000 sq k. abandoned annually.
While food production has risen, the rate of increase has been dropping for decades.
"If the trend towards soil exhaustion and degradation continues, food production will not keep pace with population growth; this is already the situation in Africa."

http://www.unwater.org/wwd10/faqs.html
Water quality is declining.

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/gradual-decline-in-suffolk-s-drinking-water-1.2570399
Suffolk's draft water management plan found "a continued gradual decline in water quality" since 1987.

---

Up to about 1960, you could pollute and the earth had enough excess capacity to handle it.
After that we started having pollution outbreaks and tighter laws. The laws will need to get tighter.
Once you have enough people. you reduce the earth to lifeless soil and the water to mud. Their urine and wastes are coming in large enough quantities that it's increasingly difficult to keep up.

---

What could we do now? Well, we could remove the tax deduction for having a child. That's not killing anyone, right?

But as i posted elsewhere-- I don't think we fix this one. The folks who breed will come to dominate the population. I know three ladies who each had 4 kids. All of modern industrialization didn't do anything to slow them down.

There are more than enough resources left on earth to reach that goal but our great civilized cultures would rather see the starving masses die off than elevated to our own level if one is to believe people like you.

I agreed until I got here. Besides thinking the planet's ecosystem would not survive if everyone became as wasteful as the average American, many person could actually die. As has happened in the past, US hunger for coltan, used in cell phones, DVD players, video game systems, and computers has fueled fighting and massacres in the Congo.

Falcon

They explode just after lift off!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20101225/tsc-indian-satellite-rocket-explodes-aft-0a57eaf.html

With (as per link) all kinds of exceptions -- Tort Claims Act, Tucker Act, discrimination, suit by U.S. vs. state, suit by state vs. another state, "stripping doctrine", abrogation doctrine, certain contracts with government, etc.

Example news from today -- "Judge orders feds to pay $2.5M in wiretapping case": http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_warrantless_wiretapping

I'm a little confused as to where this "force" comes from, if it is not, perhaps, a "law"?

Oh yah. The FCC calls them "Rules".

WASHINGTON – A divided Federal Communications Commission has approved new rules meant to prohibit broadband companies from interfering with Internet traffic flowing to their customers.

You want me to disprove something that EVERYONE ON THE PLANET already knows? How about the fact that EVERY SINGLE VIRUS in the free world can trivially change the HOSTS file dipshit. Want examples? Here are 18 billion of them.

You're like the idiot that thinks your computer is a "magic box" and by saying the right incantation you can protect yourself. Well I hate to break the news to ya kid, but this isn't your MMORPG and buffs don't actually work in real life. You trick actually worked for about 4 weeks in 1997 and after that every virus and his retard cousin blows through your precious HOSTS like you blow through tissues reading Master Chief fan fics.

But of course such things are beyond your tiny immature brain, because then you would have to learn about things like layered security and least permissions instead of blinding hanging onto HOSTS as a woobie to protect you from the big bad world out there. But please, keep insulting the paper degree I had to get to get the bank to approve my business loans (which BTW my shop is doing VERY well, thanks) while thinking a HOSTS file, shit everyone with a brain dropped in 1998, will protect you. The spammers I'm sure have already made your PC their bitch. May I suggest your local repair shop? They'll have to charge you extra because of the ID10T error, but I assure you those are VERY hard to fix.

Hmm, their inactivity deletion policy is new to me. Thanks again. I had an old account I hadn't used for 6 months to a year without any loss or warning, IIRC --this probably was too long ago to count, since you now know I'm an old user. Apparently 4 months is good enough that I profiled their policy as "unlimited."

My alt accounts are at hotmail (1 month limit) and Google. I have the impression the average slashdot user chooses google out of shiny geek necessity more than trust, and I hope you have noticed that since the economic downturn more posts are coming forward passing new judgement on Google's supposed "do no evil" motto. I don't care so much for technical competence as for non-technical bad decisions. The moves from people at the top made me choose to drop Google Buzz almost the same day, to ignore Google Latitude, to restrict my sharing on all other sites, because of how well Google indexes useless real life details that I'd rather not lower my professional signal-to-noise, and other moves.

If Google does become the next Apple, IBM or even MS, then my remaining ownership of personal and private data will be gone, by the slow-warming-boils-unsuspecting-pan-frogs proverb. In choosing security over convenience, you respectfully disagree with me, and I choose what I think is safer. My OP concern is that Yahoo will disappear altogether, and its services that I trust today will go away when the fortress crumbles.

Back to my backup, Yahoo's policy seems to rule out Thunderbird and normal POP3 clients --it refuses connections done outside of their subscription paywall. Google and others have agreements getting around it, or just data scrape my Y! data into their inbox. I won't have a problem using TB to access my giant frozen archive if I end up foregoing the Google fix. It does look attractively accessible, though.

* I must advertise my location to just see a friend's willing disclosure of his --the all or nothing is the model used by dating or social media sites that want to lure you into joining / sharing / paying.

If we take a look at an ADSL provider like Comcast you can see they operate with a profit margin of 20%, to maintain this amount of greed they must get us consumers to use the service as little as possible whilst charging us the highest rates.

Got this notice in my Yahoo email inbox on Dec. 15:

Dear Yahoo! Video user,

After careful consideration, we will be removing all general user-generated content upload capability and user-uploaded video from Yahoo! Video. As a result, your videos, user profiles, ratings, favorites, and playlists will no longer be available after March 14, 2011. User video content from Yahoo! Video that remains embedded on third party sites will no longer be playable after March 14, 2011.

Available on your profile page is a software utility that will allow you to download the videos you have uploaded to Yahoo! Video to your computer through March 14, 2011. You can find your profile by clicking on the 'My Video' tab or going to http://video.yahoo.com/mypage.

Once you download your videos, you may choose to upload them to another site such as Flickr, which now allows video uploads. You can find out more here: http://www.flickr.com/explore/video.

Thanks for your understanding and thanks for being a part of Yahoo! Video.

If you have any questions about this change, please visit our FAQ section, or contact Customer Care.

The Yahoo! Video Team

It's logistical support. In fairness, the original zdnet article is not particularly well written either; but if you read it carefully, it's clear enough what's going on. Here are the most important three paragraphs from the article.

The NSW Police said in a statement that the reason the assistant commissioner opposed the march in his correspondence was due to the organisers of the event failing to submit complete paperwork in a timely manner.

"The group gave one day's notice before the march saying that they intended to march on George Street to Martin Place in peak hour, but this was not acceptable to the police," the service said in a statement.

The police offered alternatives including holding a static protest, marching an alternate route or holding the march at another time.

Get that? The protestors gave one day notice that they were going to march down crowded city streets during peak hour. That is clearly not something you can just set up on a whim. The police responded that, with insufficient notice provided, they were concerned about being able to ensure the safety. Try doing a search on map george street sydney to get an idea of where they want to march.

The Australian police is not for or against the protest politically. They don't care if these people protest, but they do care that it's done in a safe manner (both for the sake of the protestors and for the sake of the general public).

Which is a long way of saying - total non-story except that the protest organizers are not especially organized, and so instead of doing things properly decided to start whining.

http://careers.yahoo.com

Looks like it is in the works: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_wikileaks_assange LONDON – A British judge granted bail to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday, but he remained in custody pending a possible appeal.

Citation needed on the insanely high profit margins bit. Comcast's last income statement shows a net income of 10% of revenue which hardly seems like a pound of flesh to me.

Not that that makes them saints, but I get a little irritated that everyone tries to make people that they disagree with into monsters.

But what are you using now? I tell myself I want to start using http://search.yahoo.com/ more, but I keep plugging queries into the addressbar/searchbox in Chrome going to Google.

Oracle's attack on The Apache Foundation and Harmony is basically a worst case scenario for Java. Microsoft would have to sue the Mono project and start clubbing baby seals to top it.

So we're just waiting for the suit now? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101206/ap_on_re_as/as_new_zealand_seals_clubbed.

Very true. The concept of value investing has been long lost to the market. If any of you are traders, or if you are looking at getting into trading, I recommend checking out the book Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor by Seth A. Klarman.

I read this book, and after was astounded with how true it rings, not because of the money I earned (I don't even invest), but because of the insights it provides into the greediness and irrational nature of the market.

To summarize the book, buys stocks based on what you think their value is, which actually requires doing a value analysis on the stock and buying when it is undervalued, and selling when it is overvalued, as to just getting sucked into the latest get rich quick stock or bond at the height of its balloon, only to have it pop.

Good luck finding a copy under $500 dollars. This is a rarity. It was once deemed the most stolen book from libraries in the world by the NYT.

But I may have seen it available on torrents before :)

Here is some more complete information on this subject if anyone is curious. Interestingly
it looks like Republicans are largely responsible for this.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/47-Percent-Dont-Pay-Taxes-No-Big-Deal-3230

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/business/economy/14leonhardt.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2010-04-16-editorial16_ST_N.htm

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1

Who makes money from the current patent system? Lawyers, on both sides. We should change the laws.

What kind of people get elected to Congress?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071025191741AAnHym8

Oh crap.

Because today's megacorp does in fact have 100 BILLION dollars!

Of course they don't - but that is what they are valued at, which of course takes into account likely future earning and not just cash on hand.

So, somebody looking to do industrial sabotage isn't trying to get a payment from the company that they're taking down. Instead they probably work for a government that wants to see the company go down so that some other company can take its place (think nationalism). They wouldn't ask for a ransom - they're not doing it for a payout - they win if the company goes bankrupt. The programmers themselves of course don't win big - they're just collecting salaries like anybody writing software for a living.

I think I could get a $100 BILLION dollars if a couple of these guys chip in.

Some from these people

And of course these people could cough it ALL up as well as
these guys

Just say'in.

Because today's megacorp does in fact have 100 BILLION dollars!

Of course they don't - but that is what they are valued at, which of course takes into account likely future earning and not just cash on hand.

So, somebody looking to do industrial sabotage isn't trying to get a payment from the company that they're taking down. Instead they probably work for a government that wants to see the company go down so that some other company can take its place (think nationalism). They wouldn't ask for a ransom - they're not doing it for a payout - they win if the company goes bankrupt. The programmers themselves of course don't win big - they're just collecting salaries like anybody writing software for a living.

I think I could get a $100 BILLION dollars if a couple of these guys chip in.

Some from these people

And of course these people could cough it ALL up as well as
these guys

Just say'in.

Because today's megacorp does in fact have 100 BILLION dollars!

Of course they don't - but that is what they are valued at, which of course takes into account likely future earning and not just cash on hand.

So, somebody looking to do industrial sabotage isn't trying to get a payment from the company that they're taking down. Instead they probably work for a government that wants to see the company go down so that some other company can take its place (think nationalism). They wouldn't ask for a ransom - they're not doing it for a payout - they win if the company goes bankrupt. The programmers themselves of course don't win big - they're just collecting salaries like anybody writing software for a living.

I think I could get a $100 BILLION dollars if a couple of these guys chip in.

Some from these people

And of course these people could cough it ALL up as well as
these guys

Just say'in.

Perhaps you should look around a little more. Here's a link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101209/lf_nm_life/us_china_nobel_confucius
I suppose its possible this is also wrong, but the accompanying picture suggests otherwise.