I was recently insured in the U.S. under a very nice system. I was injured and my symptoms worsened, so I was sent for an MRI, which confirmed the terrible news they suspected (severe L5/S1 nerve impingement).

Unfortunately, I was actually injured at work, so I was required to restart the whole process two days later with the workplace injury insurance. The doctors wanted to claim that I had a muscle strain and "wait and see," despite my symptoms being the same, until I went to get a hard copy of the MRI from the previous visit. Still, even with the proof, they wanted to wait twelve weeks for improvement for me to have surgery that the original hospital was ready to put me through to immediately. The result? That nerve is permanently damaged, and I don't have full use of or feeling in that leg.

That was just the difference between top-tier and lower-tier insurance. I can't imagine the lack of treatment I would have gotten had I been uninsured.

And for those two years, you are just praying that you don't get sick.

Why not use XMPP? See my two-year old sig below.Unfortunately, OWS, a working social network, was run over by Diaspora, which was vaporware at the time. XMPP+ extensions would give you federated social for free.

Picasaweb has migrated to Google+ Photos, and Picnik is closed as a standalone and is instead called "Creative Suite" or something in the photo service. Just like the rest of Google's local applications, I doubt Picasa has a real future. Picnik (also on the chopping block in TFA) really needs to move from Flash to HTML5, and they need to work on the load time.

I know nothing about him, but in his defense, I've been reading about this issue for days. There's no reason to do in-depth analysis on the article. Skim and see if it has anything new to say. No? Fine. Post.

• Techies complain about Android and Apple, too
• Android manufacturers like HTC and Moto are going the other way -- supplying unlocked bootloaders or tools to unlock them

MS is going the wrong direction on this one. It's no different than the continuing fight against DRM.

ARM ultrabook-style computers and desktops are included.

This is actually the first thing I thought of when this story surfaced. "MS is known to be paying manufacturers to make WinPhones. They don't want to pay someone to have Linux installed on that later." I'm not sure if that's true, though. MS may also be requiring WinPhones on the line-up as part of the NDAed Android patent agreement they seem to be getting with everyone, too. There's no way to know.

There's a difference between requiring "Secure on by default" (which almost no one will ever change) and requiring "custom mode to be disabled." I know that you're a pragmatist. Surely you can see the difference.

When Google search holds 95-98% of the search market or mobile and uses contracts under NDA to prohibit businesses from using other parties' products, come back and present that argument again.

Google doesn't have that kind of pull. Period. Yeah, I use Google, but I'm no fan of them or any sports teams.