> To each his own, but for me Palm offers a > product that nothing else today can compete with.
The problem, historically, is that Palm will continue to offer this same product with minor cosmetic tweaks for a few years after their competitors have adequately competed and the entire market has subtly changed to the point that Palm's products don't really fit in. Palm will respond to this by changing their branding.
Palm's had some real hits over the years, but between hits they stagnate like no other major company I can think of...
More likely he's going to put "invented Java" on his resume, and HR is going to screen him out because "invented" isn't a number greater than or equal to 15 years.
At least, that's how it works in the federal government...
> In one case, a 9-year-old girl accidentally shared her contact > list in Gmail with a person who has a "sexually charged" username, > the lawmakers said in the letter.""
> What is it, that people honestly see in this distribution?
The short answer? Jaunty was the first Linux distribution which, out-of-the-box, wasn't pure shit on a modern laptop. Now, admittedly Ubuntu may not be unique in that sense... I guess I could try Fedora again. No, wait, I couldn't.
I don't like Gnome functionally, aesthetically, or philosophically, but since the only really reasonable alternative right now is KDE4, I'm seeing it as the lesser of two evils...
> A average table saw would be able to cut right through chainmail.
At the same time, it would pull the hand inside the chainmail deeper into the blade...
If there's a situation where a glove might make you safer, it's in helping keep a grip on the wood you're feeding the saw and helping keep nasty splinters out of your fingers.
> They pay a copying tax every time they buy media. > It seems to me this implies copying is then legal.
Yep. The problem for the record industry is that the rules were created when people actually bought blank media in order to copy music. Portable players like the iPod pretty much eliminate the "buy media" part. The way it works now, most people who buy blank media aren't bothering to put music on it.
>... and somebody else will gain a virtually monopoly as > the "default" search engine - namely Microsoft.
I agree with the "somebody else" part, but if you think the chinese gateway to the Internet (which is what a search engine is these days) is going to be any company not directly under the thumb of the chinese government...
> Don't give an unwanted animal to PETA. Give them to the Humane Society.
But _not_ to the Humane Society of the United States, who are to animal welfare what Scientology is to religion. Find a credible shelter or rescue.
Better yet, grow a pair, _learn_ how to deal with your animals issue(s) yourself, and stop being part of the problem.
> They'll try.
Well, some will try. The unfortunate truth is that giving up an unwanted pet to many overcrowded shelters is an instant death sentence. Shelters are _legally_ obligated to hold strays to be claimed for a minimum period (3-7 days, usually), but they have no such obligations for owner surrendered animals. So when they're completely out of room and deciding to euthanise... you do the math. Heck, many rural shelters don't even bother to run adoption programs... the only options are return to owner, send to rescue, or kill.
Is this like if, say, the spring on my irony meter broke off and hit me in the eye and instead of suing the company that made the defective device, I sue the person who made the excessively ironic statement?
> Anything you create, including shopping lists, notes to your spouse, and your > diary is copywritten. Automatically. Without needing notification of the gov't > or on the article itself.
Probably not shopping lists unless you live in one of those stupid jurisdictions which allow copyrighting collections of facts. Facts like, as another commenter has pointed out, a price list of services to law enforcement or some kind of procedure manual.
I'd also point out that in many places, registration is necessary if you want to bring legal action over the work.
There's copyright, and then there's copyrighted enough to justify a take down, and unfortunately the laws are tilted towards protecting dubious works and claims.
> And what of the people that had already paid for reMail? > They won't be getting any updates or support for their product.
True. Nor would they if the author just got bored of the whole thing and went away, or got hit by a bus, or got a job doing something completely unrelated to e-mail, or Apple decided the app violated some obscure and unpublished rule about the evaluator having an off day, or... anything. Just one of the risks people take with buying software. Even open source suffers from some of those concerns, although in this sort of situation there'd be a chance someone would take over.
> Hardball with Apple, lol.
I don't see "don't be evil" to mean skipping along the beach holding hands with the competition...
> So not evil in the way they treated the developer, but evil > that they are preventing innovative competition.
If they are, which depends on their intent. If they hired the developer mainly to get his expertise on Android, then screwing Apple is just a nice side-effect.
Besides, one can argue that they've _increased_ innovative competition by highlighting a market which people care about and which Google cares enough to buy out. Surely that'll spur competition? Unless they pull this "buy and kill" trick again, or take active steps to make gmail hostile to similar apps, it's tough to conclude that preventing competition is really the main goal.
So at this point, I'm finding it tough to see any real "evil".
> So much for _that_ motto... as if they lived by it > in the first place.
You'll need to explain why playing hardball with Apple counts, in some way, as "evil". The developer got a nice permanent job and a pile of cash, existing users still get to use the app they bought. Potential users are out of luck, but I don't see how Google owes them anything...
Seriously, folks, is this really news? I'd imagine that when Microsoft does a takeover these days, one of the criteria they're using is "are we going to have a repeat of the Hotmail clusterfuck?" They were planning on doing this before they bought the company, and the only question was when and what excuse they'd be using...
> What's really fun about these two comments is that each > contain the sort of error that TFA references
But not disruptively so; most people wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out. It's not like we're looking for errors in every written piece.
The brain will overlook the odd grammatical failure as long as it flows more or less the way we're wired to anticipate. But combine poor grammar, spelling, the use of "lol" and "rofl" as punctuation, and a complete lack of a coherent theme in every sentence... all in a completely inappropriate context... the brain just shuts down. And weeps.
I work with people where I just trash most e-mail longer than a sentence because of this nonsense. Gamer chat != professional communications, period.
> Rogers is no longer the only GSM carrier. At the end > of '09 Telus and Bell launched their own GSM networks. > So counting Fido (owned by Rogers) there are now four > Canadian GSM based carriers.
Plenty of choice, Canadian telecom style.
Now, instead of having to share my cell with a burly psychotic rapist axe murderer, I can choose from four of them. If I'm lucky I'll pick the one who uses the most lube...
I'll just stick with a dumb voice-only phone until someone beats some competition into these assholes.
Actually, no. The appeal decision makes it clear that setting a price and everyone raising it at the same time isn't the issue so much as there being no good reason for raising the price.
If a major resource for an industry goes up in price (i.e. oil) then it's perfectly normal that the entire industry is going to adjust prices to compensate, probably at around the same time, and just knowing that everyone else is going to do it doesn't make it collusion. But in this case, it's been clearly pointed out that costs were decreasing significantly, but they still all jacked the price at the same time. That's the collusion part. Well, that and the part about industry insiders being on record as saying their contract procedures were intended to avoid anti-trust scrutiny. That's pretty bad, too.
> The difference is probably that Google can easily do > without the Chinese market.
Yep. Google probably doesn't make much in sales in China.
But can they do without Chinese hardware manufacturers for Google-branded gear? And hardware supplied by vendors with a strong relationship with China? Because if I were pissing of a totalitarian government with what amounts to a tech gear manufacturing monopoly, that's the sort of thing I'd be worrying about.
> If you think about it... a single bang would be even more impressive > than one with two, three or more. That would mean that you had an > account on a machine like cbosgd or ucbvax.:)
It's a tough call. On one hand, access to core resources counts for something. On the other hand, bouncing your communications through a myriad of nodes from some godforsaken net backwater...
Extra points for a one-way bang path. Those were... fun.
> But even drawn pictures can have a sexual or erotic > intention. A full body scan isn't in any way sexual.... unless the viewer is a pedophile.
Which makes this whole issue even more hilarious; if you think about it, these various security orgs are basically telling the public that a significant chunk of airline security screeners may be pedophiles and that it's far too dangerous to allow an exception to the child porn laws for them.
At least, if I were conducting an anti-body-scanning PR campaign, that's the angle I'd be taking.
Slashdot Mirror
> To each his own, but for me Palm offers a
> product that nothing else today can compete with.
The problem, historically, is that Palm will continue to offer this same product with minor cosmetic tweaks for a few years after their competitors have adequately competed and the entire market has subtly changed to the point that Palm's products don't really fit in. Palm will respond to this by changing their branding.
Palm's had some real hits over the years, but between hits they stagnate like no other major company I can think of...
c.
More likely he's going to put "invented Java" on his resume, and HR is going to screen him out because "invented" isn't a number greater than or equal to 15 years.
At least, that's how it works in the federal government...
c.
> In one case, a 9-year-old girl accidentally shared her contact
> list in Gmail with a person who has a "sexually charged" username,
> the lawmakers said in the letter.""
So... basically, people who's parents didn't think things through are automatically considered pedophiles?
c.
> What is it, that people honestly see in this distribution?
The short answer? Jaunty was the first Linux distribution which, out-of-the-box, wasn't pure shit on a modern laptop. Now, admittedly Ubuntu may not be unique in that sense... I guess I could try Fedora again. No, wait, I couldn't.
I don't like Gnome functionally, aesthetically, or philosophically, but since the only really reasonable alternative right now is KDE4, I'm seeing it as the lesser of two evils...
c.
> A average table saw would be able to cut right through chainmail.
At the same time, it would pull the hand inside the chainmail deeper into the blade...
If there's a situation where a glove might make you safer, it's in helping keep a grip on the wood you're feeding the saw and helping keep nasty splinters out of your fingers.
c.
> They pay a copying tax every time they buy media.
> It seems to me this implies copying is then legal.
Yep. The problem for the record industry is that the rules were created when people actually bought blank media in order to copy music. Portable players like the iPod pretty much eliminate the "buy media" part. The way it works now, most people who buy blank media aren't bothering to put music on it.
Technology changes a lot faster than the law...
c.
> ... and somebody else will gain a virtually monopoly as
> the "default" search engine - namely Microsoft.
I agree with the "somebody else" part, but if you think the chinese gateway to the Internet (which is what a search engine is these days) is going to be any company not directly under the thumb of the chinese government...
Baidu, sure. Bing, no.
c.
> Data isn't up yet though.
You mean this?
http://votewatch.eu/cx_vote_details.php?order_by=euro_vot_valoare&order=ASC&last_order_by=euro_vot_valoare&id_act=456&vers=2
So, against were all from a couple of groups in the UK and the Netherlands. Coincidence?
c.
> Don't give an unwanted animal to PETA. Give them to the Humane Society.
But _not_ to the Humane Society of the United States, who are to animal welfare what Scientology is to religion. Find a credible shelter or rescue.
Better yet, grow a pair, _learn_ how to deal with your animals issue(s) yourself, and stop being part of the problem.
> They'll try.
Well, some will try. The unfortunate truth is that giving up an unwanted pet to many overcrowded shelters is an instant death sentence. Shelters are _legally_ obligated to hold strays to be claimed for a minimum period (3-7 days, usually), but they have no such obligations for owner surrendered animals. So when they're completely out of room and deciding to euthanise... you do the math. Heck, many rural shelters don't even bother to run adoption programs... the only options are return to owner, send to rescue, or kill.
c. [frustrated rescue doggy foster dad]
Is this like if, say, the spring on my irony meter broke off and hit me in the eye and instead of suing the company that made the defective device, I sue the person who made the excessively ironic statement?
c.
> Anything you create, including shopping lists, notes to your spouse, and your
> diary is copywritten. Automatically. Without needing notification of the gov't
> or on the article itself.
Probably not shopping lists unless you live in one of those stupid jurisdictions which allow copyrighting collections of facts. Facts like, as another commenter has pointed out, a price list of services to law enforcement or some kind of procedure manual.
I'd also point out that in many places, registration is necessary if you want to bring legal action over the work.
There's copyright, and then there's copyrighted enough to justify a take down, and unfortunately the laws are tilted towards protecting dubious works and claims.
c.
> So their claim is legally correct and everything, isn't it?
Well, assuming a document you never intended to publish is treated as being under copyright rather than, say, a trade secret.
c.
> And what of the people that had already paid for reMail?
> They won't be getting any updates or support for their product.
True. Nor would they if the author just got bored of the whole thing and went away, or got hit by a bus, or got a job doing something completely unrelated to e-mail, or Apple decided the app violated some obscure and unpublished rule about the evaluator having an off day, or... anything. Just one of the risks people take with buying software. Even open source suffers from some of those concerns, although in this sort of situation there'd be a chance someone would take over.
> Hardball with Apple, lol.
I don't see "don't be evil" to mean skipping along the beach holding hands with the competition...
c.
> So not evil in the way they treated the developer, but evil
> that they are preventing innovative competition.
If they are, which depends on their intent. If they hired the developer mainly to get his expertise on Android, then screwing Apple is just a nice side-effect.
Besides, one can argue that they've _increased_ innovative competition by highlighting a market which people care about and which Google cares enough to buy out. Surely that'll spur competition? Unless they pull this "buy and kill" trick again, or take active steps to make gmail hostile to similar apps, it's tough to conclude that preventing competition is really the main goal.
So at this point, I'm finding it tough to see any real "evil".
c.
> So much for _that_ motto... as if they lived by it
> in the first place.
You'll need to explain why playing hardball with Apple counts, in some way, as "evil". The developer got a nice permanent job and a pile of cash, existing users still get to use the app they bought. Potential users are out of luck, but I don't see how Google owes them anything...
c.
amazing how nobody saw that one coming...
Seriously, folks, is this really news? I'd imagine that when Microsoft does a takeover these days, one of the criteria they're using is "are we going to have a repeat of the Hotmail clusterfuck?" They were planning on doing this before they bought the company, and the only question was when and what excuse they'd be using...
c.
> To say that I hate it with the intensity of a
> thousand burning stars would be an _understatement_.
I met a guy who hated iTunes so much that he bought a Zune instead of an iPod. Now, that's hate.
c.
> What's really fun about these two comments is that each
> contain the sort of error that TFA references
But not disruptively so; most people wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out. It's not like we're looking for errors in every written piece.
The brain will overlook the odd grammatical failure as long as it flows more or less the way we're wired to anticipate. But combine poor grammar, spelling, the use of "lol" and "rofl" as punctuation, and a complete lack of a coherent theme in every sentence... all in a completely inappropriate context... the brain just shuts down. And weeps.
I work with people where I just trash most e-mail longer than a sentence because of this nonsense. Gamer chat != professional communications, period.
c.
> Rogers is no longer the only GSM carrier. At the end
> of '09 Telus and Bell launched their own GSM networks.
> So counting Fido (owned by Rogers) there are now four
> Canadian GSM based carriers.
Plenty of choice, Canadian telecom style.
Now, instead of having to share my cell with a burly psychotic rapist axe murderer, I can choose from four of them. If I'm lucky I'll pick the one who uses the most lube...
I'll just stick with a dumb voice-only phone until someone beats some competition into these assholes.
c.
>>> Good, that'll put an end to assholes taking cell phones
>>> into the movies and on airplanes.
>> And assholes with pacemakers.
> Pacemakers are usually inserted into the chest cavity.
If a pacemaker can keep one part of the body regular...
c.
Actually, no. The appeal decision makes it clear that setting a price and everyone raising it at the same time isn't the issue so much as there being no good reason for raising the price.
If a major resource for an industry goes up in price (i.e. oil) then it's perfectly normal that the entire industry is going to adjust prices to compensate, probably at around the same time, and just knowing that everyone else is going to do it doesn't make it collusion. But in this case, it's been clearly pointed out that costs were decreasing significantly, but they still all jacked the price at the same time. That's the collusion part. Well, that and the part about industry insiders being on record as saying their contract procedures were intended to avoid anti-trust scrutiny. That's pretty bad, too.
c.
> The difference is probably that Google can easily do
> without the Chinese market.
Yep. Google probably doesn't make much in sales in China.
But can they do without Chinese hardware manufacturers for Google-branded gear? And hardware supplied by vendors with a strong relationship with China? Because if I were pissing of a totalitarian government with what amounts to a tech gear manufacturing monopoly, that's the sort of thing I'd be worrying about.
c.
> If you think about it... a single bang would be even more impressive :)
> than one with two, three or more. That would mean that you had an
> account on a machine like cbosgd or ucbvax.
It's a tough call. On one hand, access to core resources counts for something. On the other hand, bouncing your communications through a myriad of nodes from some godforsaken net backwater...
Extra points for a one-way bang path. Those were... fun.
c.
> > I really want an @compuserve.com email address. Retro-cool.
> U WANT RETRO, GET BIFF@BIT.NET!
Bah... if it doesn't have at least three exclamations in it, it's not a retro e-mail.
c.
> But even drawn pictures can have a sexual or erotic ... unless the viewer is a pedophile.
> intention. A full body scan isn't in any way sexual.
Which makes this whole issue even more hilarious; if you think about it, these various security orgs are basically telling the public that a significant chunk of airline security screeners may be pedophiles and that it's far too dangerous to allow an exception to the child porn laws for them.
At least, if I were conducting an anti-body-scanning PR campaign, that's the angle I'd be taking.
c.