that's why I generally just feed random data into these field (treat them like pw field except not saving the value)

interesting thoughts! thanks for sharing

Regarding the current situation this seems like a dumb move. A good deal of the fun part of youtube comes from the comments and a lot of people don't want to engange in some minor trolling or posting funny comments with their real name. Of course there are a lot of really offensive comments and stupid discussions also, but what I see as a result of anonymous names are especially the top rated funny comments you often come across.

yes, that would be the way to go.

But I hate the App Store. I doesn't help you separate the wheat from the chaff.
There are some good apps that don't phone home at all, but the norm is to at least contact hockeyapp or another usage-info-collector.
That's why I use Firewall IP.

Exactly. Wasn't there an article on slashdot some time ago where somebody showed how much money from the Gates Foundation was almost wasted by investing it in an inefficient way into the amercian school system!? It was a lot of money.

I don't play much, if so then mostly shooters. RAGE was by far the best game I've played since a long time. I liked it much more then Half-Life 2. It made me realize why I prefer id software to valve: there's some crazyness to it that makes titles like Half-Like 2 appear almost sterile in comparison. In RAGE, the movements of the muties for example, the 'british' bandits and all this stuff must have been designed by people with really cool phantasy and I appreciate that.

.. I'd actually welcome something as drastic as preventing german visitors access to youtube. Otherwise the populace will never get that GEMA is to be removed ASAP. But Google will just go least resistance with most revenue and bow. Damn, I hate how little political well doing is done by the powerful Google.

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Very useful, thanks!

Every time I see a map rendered with different colors and a different style as Google Maps I immediately feel how much I prefer the Google Maps style. Is it only me or is the rendering really that refined that it's just so much easier to spot things and therefore feels better?

yeah, classical Streisand Effect here

here's a screenshot, the lower VLC 2 window is at minimum size already http://i.imgur.com/1wEyJ.png

I agree. Not being able to disable the library bar made me immediately downgrade back to 1.12. It's annoying that it can't behave in various ways. I'm using VLC as a quick and simple player, now they're offering me just their idea of how it should be used.

You US citizens at some point in future will need to understand that though we don't hate you, but your government and associated corporate behaviors, you have a responsibility for who represents you. If you continue to not uphold to that responsibility it get's harder and harder to respect you. As individuals you would laugh at me since I'm probably much weaker then you. But I know that we have learned a lot through time. Your nation is really young and there's so much collective experiences you never had. Please don't make the mistake and fight for north America staying like it is. I believe in better futures for everybody.