Back in the day, it was the current 'fashion' to remove vowels as a method of shortening variable names.

Later on, it was determined that simply truncating longer words was actually significantly more readable.

You know the US has hit rock bottom when the Chinese start opening factories here because of cheaper labour. :)

That was terrible. Maybe you corn try again?

This is getting ridiculous. I already use trillian because I'm sick of the balkanization of chat. I don't see why I need to load 50 different programs just to chat with different people. Now we're moving to systems where we can't even use 3rd party consolidators?

I don't care if they want to 'reinvent communication'. There are very excellent use cases for having plain old text chat, and they arn't going to go away just because Google wants to stick their fingers in their ears and go "lalalalala". And there are plenty of other chat systems that don't (yet) pull this crap.

Actually, there HAVE been outbreaks of those diseases. However, those outbreaks appear to be localized in areas where the the anti-vax movement is strongest.

It must be a conspiracy!

I wonder how long it will be before they start paying people to spy on their neighbours?

Little companies, yes. Microsoft, no. Their entire history revolved around screwing everyone and everything they could get their hands on, from individual (and little) companies, right up to international standards bodies.

If Google is also preventing Apple, Blackberry, et al, from accessing youtube, then that would be a problem. As far as I know, they're not. They're only refusing Microsoft. Microsoft has yet to do anything that shows they have truely changed their ways (and probably never will as long as Ballmer is in charge), so I have no problem with another company giving them a good hard screwing for a change.

When this is exactly what Microsoft has been doing to everyone else for the past 20 years? Yes, I do fail to see this as a problem.

Karma's a bitch.

The very same. I wish the prosecution good luck.

These media conglomerates salivate in their sleep while dreaming of litigating the crap out of anyone they can get away with so that they can maintain a stranglehold on culture.

I am totally in favor of culture biting them in the ass, using the very laws they weas^H^H^H^Hchampioned.

You mean like XMPP, which is an official chatting protocol that allows for virtually every method of communication currently in use today?

Google Talk uses that, but nobody else does, because all these companies like having total control of their messaging networks and have no business interest in playing nice with others.

1Password by agilebits supports all of those except linux, and syncs between them all using a couple different methods including an AES encrypted files on dropbox. If you need it on linux, they have a way that you can do it, but it's not as nice.

I do think it's worse, but not in and of itself. It's a symptom of an increasing amount of general (legal) abuse that corporations are perpetuating on their employees, and society in general.

I don't want to repeat, but here's a comment I just wrote in reply to someone else:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3677925&cid=43546149

Yes, I do understand that. And I will concede the point as soon as you can demonstrate that there is a systemic alienation of young people for tech jobs.

Actually, people who work a _ton_ of hours ARE moving backward to the days of yore. As in, the days of serfdom and slavery. The fact that you consider this normal and acceptable tells me that you either don't know jack about history, or you're aiming to be in a position of power (if you're not there already) where you can abuse others.

There's nothing wrong with working long hours. But that should be the exception, not the rule. One good thing unions did for us was establish reasonable limits on what employers should expect of their workforce, so that workers could still have lives.

But this is all being eroded by companies that are doing everything they can to bring down the quality of life for employees. They are driving down wages, while driving up the amount of work to be done, all the while making record profits. You DO realize, that the reason companies favor young workers is NOT because they're better, right? Or that there is somehow something inherently better about working absurdly long hours?

Young single males, as a general demographic:
-have the energy to work longer hours,
-are willing to tolerate longer hours because they don't have have family pressures,
-are cheaper because they work for less (because they don't know any better),
-are cheaper because the cumulative results of living unhealthily hasn't yet bit them in the ass

You'll note that nowhere in that list do I state anything resembling quality of work. And I will note that even THAT isn't enough, which is why they're pushing so hard to increase the H1B quotas. Overseas workers arn't necessarily better, skill-wise, than domestic workers. But they work even that much more cheaply, and as a bonus you can just revoke their visa and send them back again when you don't want them anymore, with no repercussions.

And all the above is why I'm applauding Dropcam. Based on the information we have, it sounds like entire *mindset* is different, where they value their employees rather than treat them as cattle, to be used and abused and then tossed aside when they won't put up with the abuse. Which is unlike an increasing number of modern MBA-mangled corporations that, despite their bubbling marketing, treat people (employees AND customers), like meat for their grinders. Fantastic examples include Electronic Arts and Goldman Sachs.

My current employer is such a place. And you know what we have? Employees that are loyal. Employees that *care* about the quality of their work. Employees that work extended hours, when needed, not because they're required to, but because they *want* to.