Which is why I don't understand them not taking the 3 billion. It's just an app. It's not like it's a comprehensive social web site. I can't imaging FB having offered 3B for a simple app. You can't build a social experience around one app, so sell the app and use the money to come up with something entirely different, without the need for VC.

Obligatory Link for RDBMS deniers: mySQL vs. MongoDB

If he was truly able to get 350 women to undress just by chatting with them online, then he's either Hannibal Lecter, or God! Teach me, master!!!!!

Because most retailers who'll choose to exercise this method will not drop their current prices by 4 percent. The prices will stay where they are right now (because everyone's used to already paying those prices) and the CC users will instead get shafted an extra 4 percent. The sad thing is that the cash payers will CONTINUE to get shafted because the price they're paying for is the same price as before even though it no longer includes the increase attributed to CC users.

Of course nobody can tell what future holds, or he'd be a millionaire. However I stand by what I said. Just check out these snippets from the article and tell me how any of these could be good for the consumer:

Is it fair use or not? If it is, then they should STFU and come up with a business model that works better for them and gets them what they want. If it's not, then take Google to court.

Who do you think will pay for these "compensation schemes"? You and I. We're the only ones who have untapped money. True that we're already paying an arm and a leg for Internet connectivity and Satellite audio/video, but where there's more, greedy bastards will follow.

Ditto above.

Of course the other side of the coin is that it's in nobody's interest for newspapers or media companies to go out of business, but enough is enough. Newspapers can definitely reach a sustainable model. It just means they'll have to change. Look at Newsweek. They just issued their last print edition. They figured they'd make out better financially. Media companies are the whores of this planet, loving to charge for both ends as someone else already put it very elegantly in this thread. For them, the more holes they have the better off they are.

I'm not saying we have all the facts of the case and obviously more information is always good. I'm just saying that a network provider who is (highly) likely already getting paid for traffic going across their wires getting paid twice CANNOT end up being good for us consumers. If Google pays for the double traffic, then the least it'll cost us is in terms of innovation coming out of Google.

I'm sure the "other" providers using Orange's connectivity are already paying based on whatever agreement they signed up with Orange, thus they look like another "customer" to Orange. You can throw more information at the issue, but it just stinks of a business model not good for us end users, since it'll just make content providers more greedy for money if they have to pay network providers.

You do know that ripping your DVDs is illegal, don't you? Based on DMCA, breaking the encryption of your DVD can land you with a fine and/or jail.

You know, that's the fucking problem. I have plenty of money to pay for good, on-demand video and the selection I want. However, because my time is literally worth money, I don't want to have to sit through commercials and ads. I subscribed to Hulu plus for a week before I discontinued it, and it wasn't because I didn't want to pay the $9/month fee. I would have gladly paid $20/month if I could watch the content ad-free.

Face it, as another poster said already above, downloading offers a whole bunch of incentives, such as DRM fee, Ad free, and great selection. If I had that combination, heck, I'd even pay $30/month for it. Not that I download shit, cough cough, but I'm already paying $119/month for my satellite TV with HBO, Show Time, Starz, Encore, and lots of other programming. Obviously it's not the money that's the issue.

Holy shit! I just noticed your low ID of 9623. Please don't delete my account! I'll make all sourts of GRAMITTICAL mi$stakes just to pr0ve that I'm no graWWar police. *ducks*

I know this is flamebait, but you'd have to wonder what an educated girl would want to do with you. Let me turn on the grammar police.

Bad English turns a lot of folks off. I only hit on the punctuation, but there's a lot of room for improvement in sentence structure. Let me also say that I agree with what you've stated.

I fully expect the higher ups in the grammar department to correct some of my bad English as well, but truth be known, English is my second language.

True, in that it does not apply to the whole country (even in Illinois it applies to Cook County only), but this literally affirms the lower court's ruling. Pay attention: The lower court was a federal appeals court, thus its jurisdiction is the whole U.S. By the Supreme Court letting stand the federal appeals court's ruling in that the law against eavesdropping is unconstitutional, any other state will think twice (or three times) before bringing a charge against a citizen recording police in the course of performing their duties.

Cross Shredder

You joke about this, but that is, in a way, the exact thing they're doing. They're starting bullshit like this at an early age, so that by the time you get to critical thinking (late high school early college) you've been used to it, looking at it as a matter of fact and not questioning it.

... for Open Source. Compile it yourself if you want to, or download it from a reputable place and trust it.