Well, you've not given a meaningful link since it's the same slashdot article we're all reading right now.

But, I'll tell you what ... you go ahead and trust them, and I won't.

We'll see which of us gets disappointed in that scenario.

or it could be hooked into the greater social network, where status updates, messages, etc could propagate between domains and, depending on who your friends with, you would get those updates to show up on your own feed

Fuck that.

What you're suggesting means that all of the social networks we're trying to avoid will still get all of our data.

The last thing I'd want is some open standard where every damned social network cross-talks with one another.

Some of us are trying to get away from the intrusive crap which has become social networks, not make them even more entrenched in everything.

With social media becoming such a huge part in a lot of peoples' everyday lives, it really is about time to open it up and stop having it controlled by any single entity.

Or accept that sooner or later everyone is going to get bored/fed up and move onto something else.

What next, having your Facebook profile tied to your drivers license?

If you want to really not have one social media company control everything, you don't keep giving them access to everything.

Otherwise you're getting all of the suck, but with a shiny open protocol to make you forget you've changed absolutely nothing.

And it serves up data from cloudfront, which is just a front end for Amazon's analytics, isn't it?

It also makes references to integrating with YouTube, and doing an auto-push to "other" networks (which I assume is the list you gave).

So, we won't sell your stuff, but we'll be so tightly integrated with these other sites that they'll know what you're doing anyway.

If the whole point is to avoid Facebook et al, WTF is the point of broadcasting to them everything you do?

Goodbye Ello.

Well, it must see some traffic ... I see a lot of users posting here on Slashdot which apparently authenticate as their Google+ users.

Me, I've avoided it like the plague. But someone is clearly using it.

Wow, they formally promised.

Is a formal promise more legally binding than a non-formal promise? Is it transferable and binding to someone who subsequently buys Ello?

It sounds good in principle, but is it really legally binding in any sense?

As always, I remain skeptical about such things ... because time and time again companies have reneged on such promises. Or after they've gone through bankruptcy/get sold the new owner simply ignores any of these things.

That would be fine in a free market

Assuming such a mythical animal ever existed.

Here's a hint: it doesn't exist, it never has, and it simply can't.

For the reasons you list. The people with the most capital will never allow it to be free ... only as free as benefits them the most.

The free market is an abstraction, like a perfectly spherical cow. But it isn't real.

You obviously haven't had to update Java in quite some time.

Every single time you update it, it pre-selects the choice to install the ask.com toolbar and make it your default search. You have to explicitly deselect it.

If you don't know to look for it, you end up with it ... I've had to remove it from the computers of several friends.

Because, apparently Oracle are still greedy assholes, and use Java as a vector to piggy back the ask.com crap -- which means either Oracle is part owner, or being paid to install the shitware that is the ask.com troll-bar.

I haven't used ask.com in years, but if you are stuck using Java, you have to consciously avoid it several times per year.

How does a major vendor like Cisco take 3+ years to fix a known security hole?

Did they just sit on it? Or were they hoping nobody would notice?

That makes no sense to me at all.

Not a case of the drive itself failing, but the OS becoming unresponsive when trying to read data from a damaged/corrupt disc. Had this problem first hand working on a client's iMac in 2008.

Which, as the GP points out ... isn't running iOS, it's OSX.

Do you know of any Apple phones or tablets with optical drives?

I understand that puffery more or less gives companies to make claims which aren't supportable as fact ("Best Pizza in the World") ... but can you make statements which mislead investors?

Isn't that covered under the SEC?

Because, if companies can hide behind puffery when they're doing their financial forecasting ... then it's time to admit the entire stock market is a lie, and mostly comes down to how well the CEO lies to (or bribes) the analysts.

Of course, many of us have suspected that to be the case for years.

I agree that there is pretty much no modern precedent for either withholding assent, or declaring war and ordering us to follow. I think it's far from cut and dry if it was ever tried, and might involve a tremendous amount of legal wrangling.

I find it sad that there is still any ambiguity about if Canadian soldiers would take orders from the Queen. We've been essentially sovereign for almost 30 years.

If we're not, then it's bloody well time we were.

To hell with the old broad, we're not still some fucking colony. The monarchy can go piss up a rope.

Again, you have no idea what you're talking about. She most definitely does have legal authority. Check your facts.

OK, I think you're full of shit, but if you have anything to add, go ahead.

Let's start with Wikipedia:

Per the Canadian constitution, the responsibilities of the sovereign and/or governor general include summoning and dismissing parliament, calling elections, and appointing governments. Further, Royal Assent and the royal sign-manual are required to enact laws, letters patent, and orders in council. But the authority for these acts stems from the Canadian populace and,[8][9][10] within the conventional stipulations of constitutional monarchy, the sovereign's direct participation in any of these areas of governance is limited , with most related powers entrusted for exercise by the elected and appointed parliamentarians, the ministers of the Crown generally drawn from amongst them, and the judges and justices of the peace.

Or, how about this?

Why The Royal Prerogative of Veto (Withholding Royal Assent) No Longer Exists

Modern Justification

The website of the British monarchy explains on the page âoeQueen-in-Parliamentâ:

        The role of the Sovereign in the enactment of legislation is today purely formal, although The Queen has the right to be consulted, to encourage and to warn through regular audiences with her ministers. As a constitutional monarch, the Sovereign is required to assent to all Bills passed by Parliament, on the advice of Government ministers. The Royal Assent (consenting to a measure becoming law) has not been refused since 1707. [...][4]

That phrase that the Queen gives Royal Assent âoeon the advice of her Ministersâ means that the government organizes the scheduling of the ceremony of Royal Assent (just as the Canadian sources show) and advises the Queen when to grant Royal Assent â" not whether to grant Royal Assent.

In other words, if our government passes it, she doesn't have the legal authority to withhold assent. She doesn't retain veto power over our elected parliament.

It would be an exceedingly unprecedented scenario in which the actual monarch refused or vetoed our laws. If if she did, she would probably find herself overruled, because she really has no basis to override parliament.

The monarchy does not retain the legal ability to actually interfere in these things.

Name me one instance in the last 100 years in which the monarch actually refused assent on anything. I'm pretty sure you can't. Because her role is pro-forma and ceremonial, the things are done "in her name", but she really has no legal authority, and hasn't in a long time. And in no way can she do anything which violates our constitution -- her job here is to act as guarantor for it.

Even the governor general would need a pretty exceptional scenario to refuse assent ... because the GG isn't an elected entity, and doesn't have a lot of leeway to overrule parliament.

So, unless you can cite specific legal stuff which assigns her this authority, or can cite specific examples of her actually using this alleged authority ... I'm afraid you're talking out of your ass. Because when she is "the Queen of Canada", her role is such that she doesn't have the authority to overrule parliament.

but the Monarch can override that should he or she wish

As far as I'm aware, she hasn't had the legal authority to override anything in 20+ years. It's a pro-forma step, but if she ever actually tried to overrule anything she'd get told to PFO. It's the formality, but there is no legal basis for them to withhold anything.

When you pay taxes, you pay them to the Canadian State. The Monarch is the head of the state. So you are paying taxes to the Monarch.

Except, she doesn't get a dime of it ... she's the ceremonial entity, but she doesn't receive any of it. None of my taxes goes to anything controlled by the Queen.

I, [name], do swear (or solemnly affirm) that I will well and truly serve Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her heirs and successors according to law

Pathetic. Really and truly pathetic. We also make people doing the citizenship oath swear to her ... which you couldn't compel me as someone born here to do -- not legally or without the threat of violence anyway.

I wouldn't swear allegiance to her, and I don't give a fuck what she or any of the rest of the British monarchy think. They can lick donkey balls off silver spoons for all I care.

The reality is, she's a ceremonial entity, and has been for some time. And if her Queen-ness ever felt the need to command me as one of her subjects ... she'd get told in no uncertain terms to fuck off. Because, I'm not one of her subjects.

So this is the Google Wave thing that nobody knew WTF it was for, but which everyone kept saying was super awesome and the way of the future ... but for email?

I'm afraid I'm not really overly interested.

I guess it's cool that someone is still trying to design new things and think about things differently. But from reading TFA, this sounds like something which I'm not sure why I'd want it.

Except for the Queen?

Our relationship with the Queen is complicated.

Many of us think the old cow should be removed from our money and institutions for good. Our current government seems to want to escalate the ties to the monarchy.

But she has no legal authority, and we don't pay taxes to her -- her role is purely historical and symbolic. But for many people, they really still adore the royals.

So, in many ways she's completely irrelevant, and in other ways you can't be unaware of her.

Would I bow to her? Unless I was pointing my ass at her, not on your life. And nobody could legally compel me to acknowledge her as anything but an anachronism and a symbol of colonialism.

I suspect the Aussies and Kiwis have a similar relationship, but I've never asked.