You're right. Big company services never go down...except those times they did and it was a huge problem. Remember the Amazon S3 outage? EC2 botnet attacks? Google GMail and document services going down? This month Google's jQuery libs on their CDN went down 2-3 times.

Stuff going down for a few hours is a lot of money lost.

I disagree. Libraries have greatly improved the usability of many websites. I also doubt that many people are pulling down 300kb of libraries every time, since most are minified and gzipped. Even with a ton of bells and whistles it's hard to hit 100kb of .js, The ever popular jQuery + jQuery UI is only ~30kb (with reasonably useful plugins like tabs, dialog, etc, not all the crazy and expensive FX).

I'm OK with users having to pull even 100kb one time to have a nicer browsing experience all around.

I really wish I could get over my paranoia and link to the libraries on google's code CDN. Slim chance, but if they go down and my sites are still up, there be problems!

It could be our fault if you wanted it to be:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki/

This still requires an iTunes account. I had been hoping to avoid that.

So, basically I'll need an iTunes account. No way around this huh? I wonder if there are app store licence issues with publishing to the iTunes app store and Cydia.
I just don't want an itunes account :(

What about the people who own an iPhone, run Ubuntu, but don't use iTunes?

Is there going to be a way for them to install the application? Keep it up to date?

How is it not horribly expensive? I know each person has a different version of expensive, but ~$450-850 for something that doesn't do all that much seems expensive to me. The Touchbook and Lenovo Ideapad seem like much better solutions.

I was with you, up until Japan. I don't know where in Japan you live, but I have not found one location yet that people won't use a cell phone. Train, basu or restaurant? Fine with me, it's the cars, motorcycles, and bicycles that scare the hell out of me.

People on cell phones drove me crazy in the U.S. but Japan has taken mobile-distraction-while-operating-machinery to a whole new plane. I'm one of the few people who wear a helmet while riding my bicycle (a skate/snowboard helmet) and I get all kinds of scoffs for it, but 7/10 of the foreigners I talk to here have been hit by a car on their bike (thankfully nothing serious yet) and 4 of them they felt were because of mobile distractions.

Japan has so many fantastic social rituals that make things generally pleasant, but the cell / keitai are not part of that.

The worst part about it is that most of the time people aren't talking, they're texting! Not even looking near the direction they are going! Crazy. Try texting someone while riding a bike in the rain while holding an umbrella and a can of coffee with headphones on, it's the norm in Japan (and will be, for a few generations).

When I see a pink elephant, I drink.

Delicious! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_Tremens_(beer)

I felt that way at first too, but it was because I had a sloppy style honed in RTCW:ET and Nexuiz etc where it was mostly close quarters. Sometimes you can quickly run and gun in when in indoor environments or closed areas and go terminator style, but many times this will end you.

Once I changed my style to take advantage of cover all the time, drop to crouch or prone every time I am not running and avoid taking the straight line when crossing open spaces I had a much longer life span. Also, always zoom. Accuracy counts and you'll win more shootouts by learning to zoom and aim high.

It takes a bit more finesse, and I find my self switching classes much more often to take care of problematic snipes or turrets, etc. Especially those good pilots, I hate you! Eat rockets!

BTW I'm not a super FPS player, average at best. But just adapting my style improved my lifetime quite a bit.

Where is that? I saw it as a feature of GNOME 2.26, but there was scant info about it. Got the scoop on Empathy video?

Haha, I had the same experience, where was this infamous blue dong? I immediately grasped and accepted the concept that Dr. Manhattan did not care about clothes, but I didn't even know there was "full frontal" (CG at that) until after the movie, when people were walking out all "Baah! penis! I hate penis!".

It was well done, fit the character so well it didn't distract me from the scene/story/characters. The rest of the move though - woah - not a kid's movie. Neither was the Dark Knight though. I thought this movie was waaaaay better than the Dark Knight. I'd even go as far as saying best comic movie yet.

Don't worry, in the quest to get larger audiences into PG-13, the ratings system will get so skewed that R will become "ultraviolence" and pr0n, and pg-13 will be the regular old killing, torture, and skinemax.

For me, it is much more about having more accessible information about the site / software.

The food / vegan diet comparison is a good one as I see this as similar to the "organic, RBGH free, antibiotic free, paraben free" etc labels that some companies choose to display. I do think it will appeal to more people than "software vegans" though simply because interest in knowing about the underlying technology and principles of companies and products is growing.

I'm not sure I would give up a web app or service if there were no alternatives but if there are similar competing services or apps I'll choose the "free" version. If no alternative is available, I can notify the company about it, voice my opinion, and at least have more awareness.

It's a nice step in software transparency and a way for companies and sites that support FOSS standards to market another "badge" that informs of said support.

This might be the time to mention Tribal Wars.

It's a tribes mod for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Tribes is easily my favorite game of all time. I'm very sad that I have not figured out how to play it in 64bit Ubuntu. This is why I'm very excited for this mod, I can get my Tribes on in linux with a modern engine! (I'd still take the 'old' game any time if I could get it to work)
It's still IMO the only shooter that really rewarded finesse. (I never played Starseige:Tribes, so T1 players can just eat blue disc).[VGTG]

No, I should not.

Please see:
Evolution as theory and fact - Key misunderstanding in most evolutionary debate
and
Information about Evolution in general