Right, right. It's like when my wife goes, "Why do you bother reading what a bunch of frigtards think on some lame site for dorks?"

And I correct her, "Honey, they're FREETARDS, not frigtards. And the site is for nerds, not dorks!"

Then she blows me!

Jesus, Jobs, have you no heart? First you killed off the floppy disk drive. Then you wiped out serial ports in favor of USB. Now you're blowing out syncing technology that barely anyone uses any more in order to streamline your OS... shame, shame on you.

Sorry, I'm having a real hard time getting worked up over this, or even seeing a nefarious scheme behind it.

Well I'm an experienced computer user (Mac user mostly), and I love the way the firefox bar works.

I now never look through my bookmarks folders, I just start typing words I know are in there, and find them ASAP.

Maybe that's because I'm used to similar cool search functionality in Spotlight and every other Mac app that ties into it seamlessly.

Because most people using Wave will just use the original Google Wave, which will eventually have ads.

They will also make money from businesses that want Wave collaboration -- just another reason to move your mail to Gmail for Businesses (and all the other apps), which they sell at $50/user/year.

I've used Wave on a semi-decent iMac, and it works just fine, even in beta without them ramping up on their end yet. So I'm not sure why you think the way you do about its speed.

But Google is not tying this concept to the browser at all. It's completely open and you can absolutely implement a wave client natively if you want, and people will do that.

just like "clouds", "waves" do not reside on your computer, but rather *out there* somewhere, that you can *probably* get access to...

What you're saying makes as much sense as saying you can't get to your mail if you're using IMAP, because IMAP mail is *out there* somewhere.

You clearly have not read any of the technical information about Wave.

Waves are comprised of "Wavelets," the pieces that make up a wave. You could absolutely write a client application that downloaded and cached everything locally, and most clients probably will. I imagine Google itself will have some HTML5 local caching (google gears, etc) to allow you to retrieve existing stuff when offline, as long as you previously synced it up.

I mean, they already have offline Gmail support. Wave is along the same lines.

Wave is absolutely going to catch on. I think in 20 years you're going to be saying the same thing about email that we're saying now about things like Gopher vs. Web.

The real news here is not that it's open sourced -- Google said that from the beginning. Everything about Wave will be completely open. The news here is that there is some code shipping.

Why is it that we let companies trademark words which are already in the common lexicon?

Because the trademark granted is only within their respective industry, and if it's a common word, is generally restricted in how the trademark applies.

Just because Apple Inc. has a trademark doesn't mean you can't sell apples (fruit) or even records (Apple Records) or a bank (Apple Bank), etc.

All of the things you're describing as locking these people into Outlook sound like things that could better be handled *outside* of Outlook.

E.g. why is a tech support system being built on top of Outlook? ::shudder::

The only thing stopping our company from moving to Gmail is lack of REAL BlackBerry/iPhone push support. What is taking Google so long to implement ActiveSync? They licensed it from Microsoft, implemented it for Calendar and Contacts. LET'S GO, GOOGLE!

Don't want me to use software of my choice to allow two pieces of hardware I own to interact with each other (PC to iPhone)? That's pretty evil.

Let me get this straight, you're pissed at Apple because they don't create a seamless environment for you to use a THIRD PARTY application with their hardware?

Did Apple tell you you were buying a PC, or did they tell you you were buying an iPhone?

It's not evil, it's Apple creating an eco-system that is dead simple to use, and avoiding -- at all costs -- the nightmare that exists in the Windows/Linux world for "here are 50 ways to do what you want."

Because most of us iPhone users are willing to trade "device freedom" for "device just works."

must side on the consensus of the scientific community

If you keep silencing dissenting scientific opinions, is it a true consensus?

"give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."

What generosity? The city owns the land they're using, not you.

In exchange for the huge capital outlay of installing the infrastructure, the city gives them certain rights. It's a win-win.

Let's see if I can summarize the gist of most Slashdot articles recently:

- Screw any internet provider that wants to cap any users or charge a lot more for heavy users.
- Screw any internet provider that wants to give more weight to some traffic over others.
- Give me my P2P

Sorry, something has to give. It's basic economics.

Cheap internet. Open internet. No usage caps.

Pick 2.

Because the government is terrible at managing things, has no competition, and little oversight.

Purchase a GPS logger, carry it with you everywhere while you take pictures. Or even better, buy/rent a camera with GPS built in.

Next, upload your photos into Microsoft Photosynth. http://photosynth.net/

I've seen demos where it can synthesize multiple photos based on GPS data, and present them in a mapping mode where you can 'walk down the street' using your photos, and other people's photos from the area. Not sure what capabilities have been released in this regard, yet, to the general public.

Can you people possibly be this naive?

Where exactly do you think the businesses are going to come up with the extra money? Unlike the U.S. government, they can't just print more of it. No, they'll raise prices, lower dividends, lower wages, and offer fewer jobs. FEWER JOBS. Does this sound like a good idea?

You're still paying for all those government services "the businesses" are using up, just indirectly. You fell for it! Bravo.