No it's not. First, they never use the word "lightsaber" so it would be an incredibly hard win in court to sue somebody for making others THINK of a trademarked name. Second, TFA quotes the C&D letter, which says that since a lightsaber appeared in their films, building one is a derivative work and subject to copyright law. If they are actually threatening over Trademark, it means CNN put false quotes in their article for some mysterious reason.
You have to be using it as an SI unit prefix. You can, for example, ask "1AU in hellameters" to see that the earth is 1.49598 × 10^-16 hellameters from the sun. However, you cannot ask it in hellamiles, just as you cannot ask in kilomiles. Well, you can, but only because Google automatically replaces "kilomile" with "kilometer". You can also see that 110 degree f is only 3.16 x 10^-26 hellakelvin, so, in fact, 110 f is NOT "hella hot" after all.
The "Voters are Rabidly Anti-Incumbent (tm)" line was trotted out in the primaries, even though only ONE incumbent out of 80 or so elections lost, and he had been arrested on charges of fraud, corruption, and I think also domestic violence. FOX hopes everybody believes them when they say voters are anti-incumbent, because then Republicans will win. The thing they know, which is 100% true by the way, is most voters will vote for whoever they think will win, that way, in a way, they win too!
So somebody's free speech is being violated because a government agency doesn't want people reading Slashdot when they're supposed to be working? Are you utterly against workplaces trying to get their employees to not browse the web? Or just the government?
So? Do you want a rundown of what happened with Amtrack? First event, Amtrack holds a photocontest where you are REQUIRED to take pictures of Amtrack property. Second, Amtrack police (as a part of their storied history, Amtrack has its own private, deputized, federal police force) arrest anybody who actually tried to photograph Amtrack property. Third, Amtrack CEO calls a press conference to say that the security guards are overreaching, and they can feel free to take pictures for the contest. However, in mid speech, the Amtrack Security Chief, who is apparently above the CEO in their hierarchy, cuts the CEO's mic and announces that the guards did nothing wrong, since it is illegal to photograph private property, and they will continue to arrest anybody who uses a camera on or near a train. You can't win, these private police forces think they are above god. If they will cut the CEO off and say he's wrong, and they will arrest anybody, even the CEO, what hope do you think you have? What will likely happen is they will arrest you, beat the shit out of you in a backroom, and if you're lucky, drop the charges after 24 hours. Otherwise, you'll need to wait on the trial. And good luck getting bail as a terrorist.
He didn't change his mind, RTFA. He still stands 100% behind his statement that video games are not art, and can never ever be art. His "backing down" is saying he was wrong to say the truth out loud because people don't want to hear it, and to say he won't argue with all of the wrong people anymore.
No it doesn't. If you aren't married, but are living together and getting spousal benefits, you are considered married for tax purposes. Unless you are gay, then you have to pay taxes on those benefits.
Are you being that dense on purpose? He means that if a law is so broad it includes innocent activities, it's not enforceable. Which is also wrong. If you want to use a murder as an example, it's more like murder laws would be struck down if they defined murder so broadly that it included buying milk.
Yeah, the Amtrack Private Police Force reacts very violently to photography. The CEO tried to say it was a mistake, and that photography is allowed. The Commander in Chief of their private forces, however, cut him and told everybody he is wrong, it's a crime to photograph Amtrack property and you WILL go to Amtrack's prison. (And yes, Amtrack has it's own private police force, and yes they are deputized, and yes the corporation can enact it's own laws for it's forces to enforce).
No, the reports are not exaggerated. They exist. They are out there. Whether directly observed with fancy optics or by red shift because of their stars wobbling around their centers of of gravity, they have been detected.
Nobody said different.
A star doesn't wobble if there is nothing to pull on it, and that means a mass.
We have even observed the spectra of some exoplanets to see what their atmospheres are like because they've passed between their star and ours.
Nobody said different.
The only exaggerations here are those of peoples' expectations. People want to see at least Voyager quality photographs. Well, it's not happening. Not until we go out there ourselves.
Nobody said anything about the images being low resolution, and thus, not as cool as the headline made them sound. Except you, I mean.
There is a lot about the universe that we have to measure indirectly because of distance and time scales. It doesn't mean that the methods are bogus. To say that not measuring up to popular expectation means "hurr there really isn't much evidence for exoplanets hurr" is bullshit.
Nobody said this. Honestly, what on Earth were you reading? You have nice points if ANYBODY at all was saying that there are no such things as exoplanets because inference is invalid, or if anybody said this direct image wasn't convincing because it's so small. Nobody said that, so you're just complaining about your fictional stereotype of what the average reader thinks in their head, without any sort of factual basis.
What the actual complaint about "exaggeration" is is that technically this isn't the first exoplanet to be directly imaged, it is the second. However, since the first was not confirmed as an actual image of an exoplanet (as opposed to just a nearby body, or an image artifact) it technically is the first confirmed image. The "exaggeration" is that the original headline said that the first image has been confirmed. However, I think the headline was just fine. The headline was "First Direct Photo of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed". I read that not as meaning "The first direct image that was thought to be of an exoplanet has been confirmed" but rather, as "Scientists have, for the first time, confirmed a direct image of an exo planet". To use an analogy, if I saw the headline "First AIDS vaccine finally enters human trials" I would read that as being the first time an AIDS vaccine has reached that stage of testing, not that this is the first AIDS vaccine ever developed. (It could BE, but the headline wouldn't be stating that it is, per se).
Actually, isn't Slashdot the perfect place for such a warning? You put "Watch for crossing deer" signs near places where deer cross frequently, not where it seldom happens!;)
youTube has ads on them. You may have noticed, those annoying boxes that float up from the bottom, that you instinctively click the X on? If you get a certain number of views, Google starts paying you a portion of the revenues that your video is pulling in.
Well, much like it's leveraging their OS dominance by having Internet Explorer pre-installed, having their app-store pre-installed would also be a huge advantage over other app stores. So, I expect that at least in the EU, MS would be force to not install their app store by default, though there's nothing wrong with them putting it on their website. I think technically they should be required to do the same thing in North America, but who knows if they would be.
I have no problem with either Microsoft or Apple creating an app store for their Operating System, so long as they don't then block other methods of software installation, or block competing app stores. The problem with the Apple Store is that it's the only way to install software on your Apple device. So, Apple declining to host an app is the same thing as Apple forbidding the app on all of their devices. Unless Windows 8, or OS 10.? blocks unsigned programs from being installed, then it's just fine by me. They can refuse to carry shit for whatever arbitrary and capricious reasons they want, because you can always install it yourself.
On the other hand, they get a huge advantage compared to other app stores, because they will have it installed by default with big instructions "use this to buy software!" This is an anti-trust violation. Even worse than browsers, since browsers are free, and don't make you spend money. App stores are also free, but are used to buy things, so I would think it's even worse. I would expect that the App Store would not be installed by default, but merely available, just as MS has made many previously built-in apps not installed by default, but available for free download from their website. (MSN messenger, for one). If not, I imagine Steam, Impluse, etc. will raise a stink over being shoehorned out of the Digital Download market.
He's making a joke about how it's regarded as incorrect. However, he doesn't really know what's he's talking about;) The Brontosaurus is widely held to not exist, by the non-paleontologist community. There are two reasons: The first and most commonly held reason is that the original Brontosaurus reconstruction was a composite, and got the head pretty wrong. However, this was resolved a long time ago, so unless his tattoo from the 90's is from the 1890's, I'm sure he got the head right. (Besides which, creating composite reconstructions when bones are missing is an acceptable practice in the field, so long as you acknowledge this fact when you publish! Brontosaurus is not the first, nor the last, dinosaur to have inaccurate reconstructions at some point. Many dinosaurs even today are best-guess composites). So, though the Brontosaurus might not have looked like the earliest drawings (from 100 years ago!) it still existed. The second is an issue of taxonomy. Brontosaurus's original scientific name was Brontosaurus Excelsus. However, in 1903 it was argued that it's not different enough from the Aptosaurus genus to get it's own genus. So, the scientific name was changed to Aptosaurus Excelsus, instead. However, Brontosaurus was already in the lexicon. So, that became its common name. Within the field, Brontosaurus is an accepted synanym, though the scientific name is preferred (as always). Nobody would laugh at my ignorance if I claimed to own a cat, rather than the "correct" term "felis cattus", though in a scientific paper the scientific name would be preferred. In 1989 there was a bit of a stink over the USPS putting a "Brontosaurus" on a stamp. People said it promote scientific illiteracy to put the wrong name on the stamp. However, this is no more incorrect than putting a Bald Eagle labeled "Bald Eagle" (rather than "Haliaeetus leucocephalus") on a stamp. Outside of a scientific settings, there's nothing wrong with using the common name of a species. (And, in fact, Brontosaurus Excelsus is still an accepted synonym for the scientific name). Even in a scientific setting, it's usually not frowned upon to use the common name, once you've used the scientific name to make it clear what species you are writing about. One might put "felis cattus (cat)" and from then on refer to them as cats, without complaint.
Who cares what T-Mobile said? Verizon told this woman that there were no termination fees if she moved out of service. They lied, and T-Mobile lied, too. See, the contract might SAY there is no fee. But the contract also says that all terms, fees, and agreements are subject to change without notice. So, she signed a contract that says no fee, and when she canceled, they said "We have altered the deal, pray we do not alter it further".
The important part isn't the death. The important part is that the contract she signed didn't have an ETF if she moved to an area without coverage. In April, Verizon announced they were reneging on their contracts and would no longer honor that clause. Their reason: "We have perfect coverage so not honoring our contract should not make any difference". This woman is moving to an area without coverage, which her signed contract says is allowed with no ETF. Verizon is refusing to honor the contract and sending collections agencies out for blood.
Well, TFA doesn't say anything about punching. But it does say that companies will be made to comply by the government making compliance a requirement to receive government contracts. Additionally, they are planning an ad campaign to convince the public not to patronize non-compliant companies. So in THEORY you won't have to participate. In practice you will have to tie your hotmail and gmail accounts to your bank accounts, cell phone, ISP, and utility bills.
The apps didn't do anything. They were an experiment to see if users would allow a strange, free, app access to their address book and all of their other information. The answer is yes, lots and lots of people will install an app and let it do anything it asks for permission to do.
Imagine it like this: Somehow, a trojan gets into the Canonical repositories. It doesn't break Linux security, it just gets installed because the user asked to install it, and entered their root password. Once there, it starts key logging. People who realize "hey this stupid program doesn't seem to be working" and then remove it are OK, but some people might just have shrugged and let it run. People objecting to Google should, if they are not hypocrites, also object to the idea that Canonical might force the removal of this software. To be "free" what Canonical should do, I suppose, is let the trojan run rampant, and do nothing to stop it. Not a completely fair comparison, since these apps, while "trojans" in that they tricked the user into installing them by pretending to be something else, weren't actually causing harm. But, they weren't doing anything useful, either. They were just dummy apps, no more than a hello world that first prompts for permission to access your address book and the internet (amongst other things).
People are making slippery slope arguments. There may be a slippery slope somewhere. Say, in my above example, that Linux app didn't do nothing. Sure, it was keylogging, but it was also a fun game to play. Then you might have an argument that it shouldn't be removed. The user should be alerted to the fact that it has some malicious functions, but shouldn't be removed...maybe they like it and don't care about being keylogged, I don't know. But, this isn't that sort of case. No user lost any functionality because the Apps didn't do a single thing. You run them, they prompt for permission to access your address book and the internet, then they close. They don't do anything. Google should remove them. Just as Microsoft does the right thing when it pushes updates that (by default) are installed automatically, and which function to remove trojans and rootkits when possible. Nobody gets upset at Microsoft for removing viruses without permission...
I'm outraged that half the posters think Google should let malicious apps run on their phones, and not do anything about it. Where was YOUR outrage when Microsoft put out updates that removed trojans without your permission?
This was a 100% non-functional program that was installed due to misrepresentation. It had no function. Basically, you are making the same complaint as when google filters and removes spam message that contain trojans. "They deleted it from MY INBOX, what ever happened to being able to receive any email I wanted, what if I wanted a virus? Huh, did you nazis ever think of THAT?"
Personally, if I wanted to make a slippery slope argument that soon Google will be retroactively removing apps that they politically obejct to, I'd wait until they at least nuke an app that does ANYTHING AT FUCKING ALL.
Microsoft got in hot shit from the/. community when an update bluescreened computers that had a rootkit trojan running. "They should have known somehow!" But when they fixed this by having Windows Update find and remove this malicious program, did you spaz your little retarded ass off about how EVIL Microsoft was for deleting software from YOUR COMPUTER WITHOUT PERMISSION? No. Because that would be the most retarded thing in the world.
So, just to repeat, Google acted "evil" by deleting a program that does nothing, and was only in the app store because some researchers wanted to see how many people were stupid enough to say "Yes that's fine, this program can have full access to all aspects of my phone" if they promised that it would do something cool. Apparently it goes beyond that, and not only are there people stupid enough to do it, but there's at least 1 AC and 4 mods stupid enough to think that their god given rights are being trampled on because Google removed malicious software that had absolutely ZERO functionality, and was useless in every way.
Slashdot Mirror
No it's not. First, they never use the word "lightsaber" so it would be an incredibly hard win in court to sue somebody for making others THINK of a trademarked name. Second, TFA quotes the C&D letter, which says that since a lightsaber appeared in their films, building one is a derivative work and subject to copyright law. If they are actually threatening over Trademark, it means CNN put false quotes in their article for some mysterious reason.
The C&D letter, as quoted by CNN at least, cites copyright law, not trademark law.
How can it be a non-elected post, if the appointment is made by popular vote? ;)
You have to be using it as an SI unit prefix. You can, for example, ask "1AU in hellameters" to see that the earth is 1.49598 × 10^-16 hellameters from the sun. However, you cannot ask it in hellamiles, just as you cannot ask in kilomiles. Well, you can, but only because Google automatically replaces "kilomile" with "kilometer". You can also see that 110 degree f is only 3.16 x 10^-26 hellakelvin, so, in fact, 110 f is NOT "hella hot" after all.
The "Voters are Rabidly Anti-Incumbent (tm)" line was trotted out in the primaries, even though only ONE incumbent out of 80 or so elections lost, and he had been arrested on charges of fraud, corruption, and I think also domestic violence. FOX hopes everybody believes them when they say voters are anti-incumbent, because then Republicans will win. The thing they know, which is 100% true by the way, is most voters will vote for whoever they think will win, that way, in a way, they win too!
So somebody's free speech is being violated because a government agency doesn't want people reading Slashdot when they're supposed to be working? Are you utterly against workplaces trying to get their employees to not browse the web? Or just the government?
So? Do you want a rundown of what happened with Amtrack? First event, Amtrack holds a photocontest where you are REQUIRED to take pictures of Amtrack property. Second, Amtrack police (as a part of their storied history, Amtrack has its own private, deputized, federal police force) arrest anybody who actually tried to photograph Amtrack property. Third, Amtrack CEO calls a press conference to say that the security guards are overreaching, and they can feel free to take pictures for the contest. However, in mid speech, the Amtrack Security Chief, who is apparently above the CEO in their hierarchy, cuts the CEO's mic and announces that the guards did nothing wrong, since it is illegal to photograph private property, and they will continue to arrest anybody who uses a camera on or near a train. You can't win, these private police forces think they are above god. If they will cut the CEO off and say he's wrong, and they will arrest anybody, even the CEO, what hope do you think you have? What will likely happen is they will arrest you, beat the shit out of you in a backroom, and if you're lucky, drop the charges after 24 hours. Otherwise, you'll need to wait on the trial. And good luck getting bail as a terrorist.
He didn't change his mind, RTFA. He still stands 100% behind his statement that video games are not art, and can never ever be art. His "backing down" is saying he was wrong to say the truth out loud because people don't want to hear it, and to say he won't argue with all of the wrong people anymore.
No it doesn't. If you aren't married, but are living together and getting spousal benefits, you are considered married for tax purposes. Unless you are gay, then you have to pay taxes on those benefits.
Are you being that dense on purpose? He means that if a law is so broad it includes innocent activities, it's not enforceable. Which is also wrong. If you want to use a murder as an example, it's more like murder laws would be struck down if they defined murder so broadly that it included buying milk.
Yeah, the Amtrack Private Police Force reacts very violently to photography. The CEO tried to say it was a mistake, and that photography is allowed. The Commander in Chief of their private forces, however, cut him and told everybody he is wrong, it's a crime to photograph Amtrack property and you WILL go to Amtrack's prison. (And yes, Amtrack has it's own private police force, and yes they are deputized, and yes the corporation can enact it's own laws for it's forces to enforce).
No, the reports are not exaggerated. They exist. They are out there. Whether directly observed with fancy optics or by red shift because of their stars wobbling around their centers of of gravity, they have been detected.
Nobody said different.
A star doesn't wobble if there is nothing to pull on it, and that means a mass.
We have even observed the spectra of some exoplanets to see what their atmospheres are like because they've passed between their star and ours.
Nobody said different.
The only exaggerations here are those of peoples' expectations. People want to see at least Voyager quality photographs. Well, it's not happening. Not until we go out there ourselves.
Nobody said anything about the images being low resolution, and thus, not as cool as the headline made them sound. Except you, I mean.
There is a lot about the universe that we have to measure indirectly because of distance and time scales. It doesn't mean that the methods are bogus. To say that not measuring up to popular expectation means "hurr there really isn't much evidence for exoplanets hurr" is bullshit.
Nobody said this. Honestly, what on Earth were you reading? You have nice points if ANYBODY at all was saying that there are no such things as exoplanets because inference is invalid, or if anybody said this direct image wasn't convincing because it's so small. Nobody said that, so you're just complaining about your fictional stereotype of what the average reader thinks in their head, without any sort of factual basis.
What the actual complaint about "exaggeration" is is that technically this isn't the first exoplanet to be directly imaged, it is the second. However, since the first was not confirmed as an actual image of an exoplanet (as opposed to just a nearby body, or an image artifact) it technically is the first confirmed image. The "exaggeration" is that the original headline said that the first image has been confirmed. However, I think the headline was just fine. The headline was "First Direct Photo of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed". I read that not as meaning "The first direct image that was thought to be of an exoplanet has been confirmed" but rather, as "Scientists have, for the first time, confirmed a direct image of an exo planet". To use an analogy, if I saw the headline "First AIDS vaccine finally enters human trials" I would read that as being the first time an AIDS vaccine has reached that stage of testing, not that this is the first AIDS vaccine ever developed. (It could BE, but the headline wouldn't be stating that it is, per se).
Actually, isn't Slashdot the perfect place for such a warning? You put "Watch for crossing deer" signs near places where deer cross frequently, not where it seldom happens! ;)
youTube has ads on them. You may have noticed, those annoying boxes that float up from the bottom, that you instinctively click the X on? If you get a certain number of views, Google starts paying you a portion of the revenues that your video is pulling in.
Well, much like it's leveraging their OS dominance by having Internet Explorer pre-installed, having their app-store pre-installed would also be a huge advantage over other app stores. So, I expect that at least in the EU, MS would be force to not install their app store by default, though there's nothing wrong with them putting it on their website. I think technically they should be required to do the same thing in North America, but who knows if they would be.
I have no problem with either Microsoft or Apple creating an app store for their Operating System, so long as they don't then block other methods of software installation, or block competing app stores. The problem with the Apple Store is that it's the only way to install software on your Apple device. So, Apple declining to host an app is the same thing as Apple forbidding the app on all of their devices. Unless Windows 8, or OS 10.? blocks unsigned programs from being installed, then it's just fine by me. They can refuse to carry shit for whatever arbitrary and capricious reasons they want, because you can always install it yourself.
On the other hand, they get a huge advantage compared to other app stores, because they will have it installed by default with big instructions "use this to buy software!" This is an anti-trust violation. Even worse than browsers, since browsers are free, and don't make you spend money. App stores are also free, but are used to buy things, so I would think it's even worse. I would expect that the App Store would not be installed by default, but merely available, just as MS has made many previously built-in apps not installed by default, but available for free download from their website. (MSN messenger, for one). If not, I imagine Steam, Impluse, etc. will raise a stink over being shoehorned out of the Digital Download market.
He's making a joke about how it's regarded as incorrect. However, he doesn't really know what's he's talking about ;) The Brontosaurus is widely held to not exist, by the non-paleontologist community. There are two reasons: The first and most commonly held reason is that the original Brontosaurus reconstruction was a composite, and got the head pretty wrong. However, this was resolved a long time ago, so unless his tattoo from the 90's is from the 1890's, I'm sure he got the head right. (Besides which, creating composite reconstructions when bones are missing is an acceptable practice in the field, so long as you acknowledge this fact when you publish! Brontosaurus is not the first, nor the last, dinosaur to have inaccurate reconstructions at some point. Many dinosaurs even today are best-guess composites). So, though the Brontosaurus might not have looked like the earliest drawings (from 100 years ago!) it still existed. The second is an issue of taxonomy. Brontosaurus's original scientific name was Brontosaurus Excelsus. However, in 1903 it was argued that it's not different enough from the Aptosaurus genus to get it's own genus. So, the scientific name was changed to Aptosaurus Excelsus, instead. However, Brontosaurus was already in the lexicon. So, that became its common name. Within the field, Brontosaurus is an accepted synanym, though the scientific name is preferred (as always). Nobody would laugh at my ignorance if I claimed to own a cat, rather than the "correct" term "felis cattus", though in a scientific paper the scientific name would be preferred. In 1989 there was a bit of a stink over the USPS putting a "Brontosaurus" on a stamp. People said it promote scientific illiteracy to put the wrong name on the stamp. However, this is no more incorrect than putting a Bald Eagle labeled "Bald Eagle" (rather than "Haliaeetus leucocephalus") on a stamp. Outside of a scientific settings, there's nothing wrong with using the common name of a species. (And, in fact, Brontosaurus Excelsus is still an accepted synonym for the scientific name). Even in a scientific setting, it's usually not frowned upon to use the common name, once you've used the scientific name to make it clear what species you are writing about. One might put "felis cattus (cat)" and from then on refer to them as cats, without complaint.
Who cares what T-Mobile said? Verizon told this woman that there were no termination fees if she moved out of service. They lied, and T-Mobile lied, too. See, the contract might SAY there is no fee. But the contract also says that all terms, fees, and agreements are subject to change without notice. So, she signed a contract that says no fee, and when she canceled, they said "We have altered the deal, pray we do not alter it further".
The important part isn't the death. The important part is that the contract she signed didn't have an ETF if she moved to an area without coverage. In April, Verizon announced they were reneging on their contracts and would no longer honor that clause. Their reason: "We have perfect coverage so not honoring our contract should not make any difference". This woman is moving to an area without coverage, which her signed contract says is allowed with no ETF. Verizon is refusing to honor the contract and sending collections agencies out for blood.
Verizon does, too. They reneged on all of their signed contracts in April when they announced that they would no longer honor that clause.
And Verizon is the heartless one.
Well, TFA doesn't say anything about punching. But it does say that companies will be made to comply by the government making compliance a requirement to receive government contracts. Additionally, they are planning an ad campaign to convince the public not to patronize non-compliant companies. So in THEORY you won't have to participate. In practice you will have to tie your hotmail and gmail accounts to your bank accounts, cell phone, ISP, and utility bills.
The apps didn't do anything. They were an experiment to see if users would allow a strange, free, app access to their address book and all of their other information. The answer is yes, lots and lots of people will install an app and let it do anything it asks for permission to do.
Imagine it like this: Somehow, a trojan gets into the Canonical repositories. It doesn't break Linux security, it just gets installed because the user asked to install it, and entered their root password. Once there, it starts key logging. People who realize "hey this stupid program doesn't seem to be working" and then remove it are OK, but some people might just have shrugged and let it run. People objecting to Google should, if they are not hypocrites, also object to the idea that Canonical might force the removal of this software. To be "free" what Canonical should do, I suppose, is let the trojan run rampant, and do nothing to stop it. Not a completely fair comparison, since these apps, while "trojans" in that they tricked the user into installing them by pretending to be something else, weren't actually causing harm. But, they weren't doing anything useful, either. They were just dummy apps, no more than a hello world that first prompts for permission to access your address book and the internet (amongst other things).
People are making slippery slope arguments. There may be a slippery slope somewhere. Say, in my above example, that Linux app didn't do nothing. Sure, it was keylogging, but it was also a fun game to play. Then you might have an argument that it shouldn't be removed. The user should be alerted to the fact that it has some malicious functions, but shouldn't be removed...maybe they like it and don't care about being keylogged, I don't know. But, this isn't that sort of case. No user lost any functionality because the Apps didn't do a single thing. You run them, they prompt for permission to access your address book and the internet, then they close. They don't do anything. Google should remove them. Just as Microsoft does the right thing when it pushes updates that (by default) are installed automatically, and which function to remove trojans and rootkits when possible. Nobody gets upset at Microsoft for removing viruses without permission...
I'm outraged that half the posters think Google should let malicious apps run on their phones, and not do anything about it. Where was YOUR outrage when Microsoft put out updates that removed trojans without your permission?
This was a 100% non-functional program that was installed due to misrepresentation. It had no function. Basically, you are making the same complaint as when google filters and removes spam message that contain trojans. "They deleted it from MY INBOX, what ever happened to being able to receive any email I wanted, what if I wanted a virus? Huh, did you nazis ever think of THAT?"
Personally, if I wanted to make a slippery slope argument that soon Google will be retroactively removing apps that they politically obejct to, I'd wait until they at least nuke an app that does ANYTHING AT FUCKING ALL.
Microsoft got in hot shit from the /. community when an update bluescreened computers that had a rootkit trojan running. "They should have known somehow!" But when they fixed this by having Windows Update find and remove this malicious program, did you spaz your little retarded ass off about how EVIL Microsoft was for deleting software from YOUR COMPUTER WITHOUT PERMISSION? No. Because that would be the most retarded thing in the world.
So, just to repeat, Google acted "evil" by deleting a program that does nothing, and was only in the app store because some researchers wanted to see how many people were stupid enough to say "Yes that's fine, this program can have full access to all aspects of my phone" if they promised that it would do something cool. Apparently it goes beyond that, and not only are there people stupid enough to do it, but there's at least 1 AC and 4 mods stupid enough to think that their god given rights are being trampled on because Google removed malicious software that had absolutely ZERO functionality, and was useless in every way.