Meh. With any large organization, there will always be those who bleat and whine about the "potential" for abuse, and cry that they're not getting their "fair" share of the market because their product(s) just flat out aren't good enough to earn it.

Don't get me wrong: I don't buy the "don't be evil" mantra, but I don't see Google actually doing anything wrong.

And it's kind of laughable that Microsoft is resorting to whinging about the situation given how shitty the results Bing produces are. I've tried it. Many times. They rarely, if ever, produce results that are even vaguely related to what I'm searching for. They don't have market share because THEY SUCK.

They announced work on Hurd when I was still in university. I've worked a career, ended up disabled, retired, and spent years on a pet project since then, producing 13 point releases. Over 30 years have gone by.

Yet they've still only reached release 0.6? So one decimal point release every FIVE YEARS?

Jesus.

Stick a fork in this project.

It's done -- as in dead. Pushing up daisies. Pining for the fjords. Defunct. Deceased. Non functional.

It's not even worthy of being called a pipe dream any more. Even "Duke Nukem' Forever" beat them to the punch, and everyone gave up on that project long before it was released.

Expecting any software to be "beyond reproach" is completely unrealistic. All software has bugs; some of them will be exploitable.

Every religion's lies and bullshit are equally valid, including Scientology. Take away tax-free status from ALL of them. They're ALL just big money-grubbing BUSINESSES.

I recently subscribed to SaskTel's MaxTV IPTV services. While my download speeds remain unchanged and in line with what's promised, my upload speeds have seen a near 30% boost. But that's because in order to enable the IPTV, the link was actually upgraded to 25 megabits from 6, and the IPTV doesn't use the upload bandwidth, leaving it available for me.

This is actually an ideal situation for me, because upload speeds for me to ship code are far more important to me than download speeds. I've had far more download bandwidth than I actually need ever since I upgraded to the 5 megabit package from the "basic" 1.5 megabit. 1.5 was enough for streaming video; 5 lets me stream and download at the same time.

And to think it's all because I didn't want to take a chance on missing Season 3 of "Orphan Black". :D

I've got to thank the moderators for the "Troll" rating, which just proves my point. :P

Probably about as many lines as the difference between software rendering in the original Doom vs. later games that used OpenGL and DirectX. But to be fair, they probably just linked in a shitload of libraries rather than writing them.

Yeah, but you're not allowed to complain about Google on anything other than "privacy" issues. 'Cause, like, "do no evil" and all that.

See, if you give away your attempt to dominate the world, you're automatically a "good" guy because you're not using it for profit (pay no attention to the ad push on every single thing you do, nor the tracking of your every action.)

Discrimination is not only legal, but encouraged, so long as it's in favour of women and minorities.

Pathetic.

I am sick to death of "religious" groups getting a pass on taxes and fees. 99% of those organizations are big businesses with only the loosest of ties to "faith." Let them pay, pay, and pay again like every other business.

The article is dealing with the wrong problem. The question is not how you achieve the highly mechanized and wasteful civilization we have now, but how you define "civilized." Personally, I feel that many earlier non-mechanized societies were at least if not more civilized than we are now.

Closely tied to the land and limited to steam powered transport that could be fueled by wood and biomass if need be, this entire continent of North America had it's kickstart. Granted, we didn't have iThingies and ship oranges from the other side of the continent, but it was a "civilized" society.

How many millions are you allowed to lose or waste before you get fired?

Hint: In the corporate world, it's not that many.

Just once, I'd like to see a politician stand up in front of the cameras and say "We fucked up. We fucked up royally. We blew millions and didn't get a fraction of the benefits for society we'd hoped for. I'm going to take responsibility for that mistake and fire myself."

Unfortunately, many people think that if you express a different viewpoint or opinion than the masses that you're trying to start an argument or a fight. Why is society so hell-bent on crushing dissenting opinions? And not merely silencing them, but villifying them?

I've often been tagged as "trolling" because I don't agree with the crowd. If you knew me personally, you'd know very well that I'm not trying to start a fight, just expressing my opinion. Just because it is not the popular viewpoint doesn't mean my views aren't valid.

Here on Slashdot, I often see people flagged as being trolls just because they don't follow the masses. You'd think a site full of outcasts and oddballs like programmers and technologists would be more accepting of alternative views, but the exact opposite seems to be the case.

In other news, party animals who spent their time on drugs, cannabis, or alcohol instead of studying were more likely to fail their courses.

The prohibitionists touted the study as a great victory for prohibition. The legalizers touted the study as proof that responsible use was necessary.

And the parents raged that their stupid kids were wasting all their time on parties instead of doing some actual work.