Spoken like someone who probably never traveled outside of the USA. When you say big city, does the second biggest city in Sweden count? Because if it does, I can tell you it's missing completely from Apple gaps (seems like a more accurate name for what it is).

That's what is inaccurate.

I agree that it is inaccurate to say that Apple Maps is poor, I'd say its a compile pile of sh*t!

Perhaps you can live with the fact that Apple thinks that the Washington monument has been moved, or that the Berlin wall has been resurrected in the middle of Montreal, but when they "forget" the second biggest city in Sweden entirely (Gothenburg), I ask you, is not "very poor" an understatement?

Take a look here:http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/

Total previous budget 3.5 million SEK, new budget for today 400 million SEK - no anomaly there...

3.5 million? really? this just shows that slashdot mods really dont care about facts and are happy to mod post with no reference with completely made up numbers.

Here are the actual numbers ... and for those of you who don't read swedish, Sweden has given between 150 - 200 million a year since 2009, and the 400 million allocated now is for 2 years, so theres no change there at all from last year.

Also how much aid was given to Cambodia before Svartholm was arrested?

The exact same amount (200 million SEK) was allocated, out of which 183 million was paid out. Swedish embassy in Cambodia has the following information around sweden's payouts to Cambodia per year (last 3 years).

Approved 2009: SEK 190 Million
Actual Payout 2009: SEK 182 Million

Approved 2010: SEK 177,5 Million
Actual Payout 2010: SEK 173 Million

Approved 2011: SEK 200 Million
Actual Payout 2011: SEK 183,8 Million

So virtually the same amount was allocated again as the past three years, but this time it's because Sweden wants someone extradited.

Doubt any of the conspiracy nuts hanging around will change their opinion but shall we at least assume there is a possibility the money has nothing to do with TPB? Maybe, just maybe, there is the possibility that Assange is wanted in Sweden for questioning because, and I know this is a bit out there, the prosecutor really wants to question him? But hey, what do I know, these days apparently Equador is for freedom of speech.

... and he got the Nobel peace-prize!

In the end, the patentsystem sucks, and Apple has just grabbed the runner-up spot on my list of companies I don't buy products from (and even with all the lawsuits flying around, they still have a looooong way to go if they want to take over the number-one spot from Sony).

Do you honestly think that is what this whole thing is really about?

YES!

Lets go through some of the arguments people are constantly bringing up.

Let's start with "going to the US" thing. Why is it more likely that he will be sent to the US instead of Britain, they both have extradition agreements with the US. One incident where Sweden sent two egyptians without a trial to the US keeps being brought up, perhaps it'd be good to remember that it was an incident because the courts were _not_ involved, here, they are. Oh, and Sweden cannot extradite him if death penalty is a potential punishment.

"It was a rape, its not a rape in country X, the case was dismissed, politically motivated blaha blaha"
Shall we let the courts decide, or was anyone there and can give a definate answer on what happened that night? On the one hand, people want justice, on the other, this should not apply to the women who might actually have been assulted.

"Ecuador is brave" -- yea right. At least the president is for free speech, as long as it agrees with him that is. Julian Assange calls him a brave man, what a load of crap. You simply cannot be for free speech and full disclosure, and the think the president of Ecuador is a great man.

"They offered video-links, interview in embassy etc etc etc"
If you commit a crime in Sweden, you are interrogated and tried in Sweden. This is the law, and Julian Assange should definitely not be given special treatment.

"They wont guarantee he isn't going to be sent to the US" -- No, because Sweden cannot guarantee that since they have an extradition agreement with the US, just like Britain cannot guarantee that either. He however seemed perfectly fine with being in Britain until now.

The worst thing that can happen to Mr Assange is that he is sent to Sweden, interrogated/tried and [sentenced or released], and the US keeps on not giving a shit.

This might help: http://simply-android.wikia.com/wiki/Dictionary

I live in Boston and see hundreds of of people daily using a variety of phones. I have NEVER seen a Windows phone. not once. Why? Because it makes NO sense to buy one over Android/Iphone.

I bought one for my wife, made perfect sense. She had an old iPhone 3Gs which wasnt working very well, she uses the phone for some browsing, listening to spotify and audio books, email, calendar and some document reading. She doesn't use that many apps.

I bought her the Lumia 800 because the second-hand value of that phone is next to nothing (paid roughly â200 for a 5 month old phone), it looks quite nice (important to her), has an amazing interface and has good batterylife... and it just works (yes, I just said that about a microsoft product).

There are plenty of reasons for getting a Windows Phone, I would personally get one if they would just port Rumble and my online banking app over to it, only two apps missing for me.

Douchebags like that need to be humiliated (if that is even possible) into shame for total lack of parental skills.

I'm guessing that a lot of people who are calling this "bad parenting" dont have children themselves. I did not expect my 2 year old kid (he was 1 at the time) to find my iPad, figure out slide-to-unlock, reply to an email which through activesync on my phone was sent as an SMS to a friend, but he did.... since that incident I've enabled a lot of restrictions on the iPad.
I work on mobile platforms for a living and my kid wasn't even 2 years old when he did this... is it resonable to assume that a non-technical parent should understand that a game marked as "free" on appstore may actually cost you 100s, or even 1000s, of dollars, because there are berries or mushrooms or other junk in there priced at $100+??

Its not always that easy to be a parent, there are tons of things to watch out for and you would hope that companies arent trying to exploit every little mistake (if you can even call this a mistake, I think the lawsuit is valid and games where you can spend money should not be called free) to the max. Even with the restrictions the way they are now, not all kids understand they are spending real money when buying in-app berries and other junk, and not all parents realize that games that are marked as "free" are not really free.

Apple is exploiting kids here, yes Apple, they chose an appstore model where they are the "police", so they are responsible. I hope they loose, not because of the money but because I hope that it will result in a change where apps with in-app purchases are CLEARLY MARKED in appstore, so I as a parent have the option of never installing it... and no, I don't have that option today unless I read comments / review, and should I really have to rely on some random person adding a comment about in-app purchases? A warning/info message when the app is being installed would be more appropriate.

So even more reason to flash your droid with CyanogenMod or custom ROM of your choice.

There is still a level of trust required, you shift from trusting your tele-operator to trusting the Cyanogen-mod people.

To be honest, the best, relatively doable way, is to compile the ROM yourself. It's not that hard, XDA Developers has great information on how to do so. Sure, in this case you need to trust google but in the previous cases you need to trust google + teleoperator, or google + cyanogen mod devs.

Lets not forget that your operator can track your calls quite easily even without software.

I'd be interested in a list of operators that use this software, and an explanation as to what they are using it for, and how they verify that it isn't used for spying on people.

Right, because the Democrats were not already campaigning on the "refusal" of the Republicans to work with them when they set this committee up...oh wait, yes they were.

... and were they wrong?

It goes both ways of course, tax increase AND cuts in spending is what's needed. However, AFAIK, democrats weren't signing pledges that they would not reduce spending, whereas republicans are signing pledges not to increase taxes.

The Republicans were never going to agree to anything.

Oh but they did agree to something, they agreed to go into the discussion AFTER signing the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge": http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/21/grover-norquist-tax-lobbyist-supercommittee-gop
They really set themselves up for success on that one.
"I know, lets go into a discussion about the US finances, but before we do, let's remove some of the most powerful tools in our toolbox completely"

I'm a european working for an American company, and have always been impressed with how American companies do business, their aggressive plans and the "everything is up for grabs" mentality. Lately however, I've been equally unimpressed by the opposite, here we are, facing a massive problem, and the American politicians are behaving like babies.
The response? Smoke weed on wall-street!

Internet without porn.. INTERNET without porn... INTERNET WITHOUT PORN!??!!??!?

Preordering was not going to give you a better chance of getting into beta, it was going to give you early access to the game, and it will still give just that.

Not opening up for everyone on the same day at the same time might not be the dumbest of ideas, one can assume that servers will get hit pretty hard at start, don't see why this is a problem. It's fairly clear that the first weeks to month of an MMO decides its popularity, very few games have survived or come back from an initial disaster.

Pulling back on how many people can beta it? Seems like everyone is getting beta access these days, should they maybe just open up free playing for everyone until release?

I'm looking forward to the game anyway, and if it becomes a "star wars galaxies mess" I will happily play it, because I think that vanilla SWG is one of best MMO's ever created.