*cough* maps *cough*

*sips coffee*

On the upside, with this cat out of the bag now, at least it is going to be brought up in court. Kim doesn't seem to be the sort of chap who will keep quiet and just let it slide. He is probably straightening his tie as we speak and about to knock on the door of the nearest court in NZ.

What I simply don't understand is why US universities are so expensive. It's gotten to the point where it seems that any sort of education can only be gotten my pretty much taking on so much debt that you will be lucky to pay it back - which then forces the government to start putting in copious amounts of scholarships/funding to keep students there.

Degree Costs in Australia

Over here, a degree (not counting the really expensive ones like medicine) costs $15-30k and a masters $20-37k.

The average cost (excluding the notoriously expensive universities) in the US is $28k per year.

Seriously, why?

I find it so ironic that it's cute and I just want to give it a big cuddle...

Are these privacy advocates aware that the folks who want this most are the government that they are going to ask to curtail the ability to do it? It's like asking the playground bully to ask for permission to steal your lunch money...

I like stories like this. If something is done really well and in a clever way (whether it was really being naughty or not) the effort, cleverness and ingenuity should indeed have its merits praised. Slashdot should have more stories like this: Hey, they did a bad thing, but look at just how WELL they did it.

That's not going to help the feds/governments in the long term though. The more they rough up the journalists, treat them like enemies and make their lives generally more difficult - the more they are likely to be treated in the same manner. Why go to all the trouble of being polite, redacting sensetive bits and playing by the book when you know that the next time you go through an airport, your pants are coming down and you better hope you got some lube in...

When one team starts playing hardball, the other team often starts doing the same - and the journalists will probably see these sorts of infractions nothing short of a badge of honour - but on the flipside, the potential trouble/egg-on-face for the governments just went up and up.

The original app did. That's when Google stepped in and dropped the hammer. They gave MS a list of things to do. Even from reading the article, the chap says that they haven't done all of these. Google wanted the app in HTML5 - the app isn't. They wanted other features implemented (which aren't for whatever reason, blame MS or Google - it sort of doesn't matter - they are not implemented) so Google has pulled the plug.

While I am not totally convinced that at least part of this isn't Google playing tough and messing with MS, it doesn't sound like MS has a huge platform to stand on. Do what google asks so that Google will serve you THEIR content.

From TFA:

I am personally not a fan of "Do as I say, not as I do..." but when you are giving your market competitor access to your content like this, it doesn't seem a totally unreasonable request, does it?

No, they do "research" that is much less scientific.

"I wonder if THIS whale tastes any different to the others we have caught today...."

Yeah, but when people are laid off, they might get walked out the door, but they are still paid the next two weeks wages. At least that is the case in Australia. Yeah, it's certainly not unheard of that folks walk into the office one morning and get told that they have been let go - but they are always paid their two weeks + entitlements that same morning.

Yeah, they do, that's why they are doing this. Classic misdirection 101. Can't fix the economy? Can't do your job properly? Do something loud, big that gets noticed and likely eaten right up by the average Joe-Shmo living in Nowheresville, Mediocrity. Get into the news for being the "Good guys" after the "dangerous treason-ous US-hating, communist/socialist/terrorist". Then when (and in the unlikely case of IF) people ask why you didn't do what you were supposed to do, you can cheerfully say that you were too busy keeping the US safe.

Snowden wasn't employed in a position where he had access to the Chinese espionage program. He was employed where he had access to the US programs. Maybe one day there will be a Chinese version of Snowden that will shine light on all the mischeif that the Chinese get up to...

If the US has it as a national park, the others will likely be polite enough to avoid trashing it. That's the point.

Actually the US has some rather "straightforward" laws about National Parks - which are also places like the Lincoln Memorial (I think they file those under National Heritage) and places that are important to the military.

And while I totally agree that they can't really enforce it outside the US, it does actually go a long way to defining what can and can't be done there by US companies. So, actually, I think that this is a great idea. It probably takes next to no time to propose in parliament, will likely get a pass and stops US based companies using the original landing sites as a mine.

If space travel were to get super cheap tomorrow, I would dearly love and enjoy taking a tour of the original landing sites and not look at billboards, advertising or simply find out that they got ran over by a mining rig...

Actually, I think that this is finally starting to change. Ever-so-goddam-slowly, but in recent times, I have moved two non tech savvy friends over to Linux partly because it was free, partly because it did everything they wanted. Okay, these folks didn't go out, do the research themselves, pick their 'nix flavour and get into a terminal window - but after seeing how easy most things are, I have managed to encourage two more users to switch. A few and a good few months into their little linux saga respectively, neither would consider switching back. Disclaimer: one of these machines is merely a media server and transcoder (Ubuntu, MediaTomb and MakeMKV) but even that is a good win in my books.

I think the biggest issue with these changes for Microsoft will be when businesses, typically their biggest proponents are going to start frowning about these changes. I dare say that for every company that switches off Windows, half their employees will change OS at home. Perhaps not straight away, but in time.

You should use mod points where they will make a difference. Find trolls or spam, mod them down. Find that insightful comment that is still sitting at zero and give it a point. That's what mod points are for, not throwing them away because you agree with a bunch of folks that did something else first.