So it is like taking a GPS navigation unit that bases arrival time on past traffic patterns (standard feature even on basic units for a few years now), type in the delivery addresses and notify when you are x minutes away according to the readout? Not much of an invention, IMHO.

> No, it clearly didn't since no one in the industry came up with it.

That is not so clear cut. Someone might have thought of it, but did not think of patenting it or thought it was a conceptually trivial extension of existing systems. But did not implement it due to lack of resources.

And GPS navigation systems estimate driving duration based of past traffic data for some time now.

> Not that your statement is an actual test in any shape or form.

  "any fucking idiot in this business can come up with this" is a more colorful way to state the "non-obvious" criterion for patent application.

What is your point? I can have my social circle at work, have beer with them after work, talk about stuff. And I can have a social circle with my sport buddies, meet them weekends, talk about different stuff and interact with them in a totally different way. And I can keep those social circles separate, If I choose so.

There is *nothing* inherently contradicting between "social" and "privacy"!

In that particular case some weeks ago, the girl noticed her mistake, closed the post and cancel her party. People found it "funny" to show up regardless. Her parents had to hire private security for their home, massive police presence to close the street and control the hundreds that came (even from far away).

Some further notes:

1) The police is opposing the "ban it" back-seat politicians, they say it is not feasible.

2) The boulevard press jumped on the bandwagon and accelerated events by persistent reporting (look at that, massive party) even after the cancellation. Afterwards they fueled it some more (already there are new parties on facebook, see here and here, we wonder how big these get). And that is the despicable part to me, not the poor girl that made the mistake and corrected it.

That is not the complaint. There is no info if Amazon does compatibility checks at all.

The author himself specified compatibility in a spec file ("Manifest file") in the app package. The Android Market uses that information to automatically not show the app to incompatible devices. Amazon ignores that information and either does not do any testing at all, or does a bad work on it.

If your are content with iWeb, stay with it. IWeb is not bound to MobileMe, it can just as well publish to your own FTP server. See http://www.apple.com/findouthow/web/ or http://macintoshhowto.com/software/how-to-upload-iweb-sites-without-a-mac-account-iweb-09.html

> 10 years ago Amazon tried providing differentiated pricing for different customers under the same premise: they would charge based on what the customer is willing to pay.

3rd degree price differentiation is not at all what he is talking about. He is talking about financially punishing / rewarding players' behaviour in the game.

It is a very sad state of affairs. You probably can image how much time/effort it took me to get a 30 Euro headset. I dare not calculate the true cost of that requisition.

Not if they use a binary diff algorithm on the volume file.

Hear, hear!

On my last job, I wanted a 20 Euro head-set, so I can work better when on phone with my customers. The cost of the time spent on that... Insane!

> So they would require an additional warrant to investigate additional email addresses for emails older than 6 months?

Why would they need two warrants? They would need ONE warrant to access ALL emails. Currently, they need NO warrant to access old emails and ONE warrant to access new emails.

The initiative wants to get rid of the provision for warrantless access. More power to that.

Not for me. The "subscribe" banner does not go away and the answer underneath that is a blurred image. When I use the google cache link, that page shows multiple answers, but the texts are replaced by "only available to premium members" messages.

My guess you have some kind of browser extension that fools the site into thinking you are the google bot or something.

> How is this different from legal messages arriving in your physical mailbox when you are away (in hospital/on vacation)?

You claim to the sender (and have to prove if he disagrees) that you were not able to retrieve the letter for that reason and any deadline has to be restarted. The legal term is restitutio in integrum (although it seems the US uses restitutio in integrum only for demages?).

http://service.deutschepost.de/faq/wie-steht-die-deutsche-post-zum-geplanten-de-mail-gesetz

Natürlich unterstützen wir die De-Mail-Initiative des Bundes und werden – sobald das Gesetz in Kraft ist – eine Akkreditierung als De-Mail-Anbieter beantragen.
Schon jetzt erfüllt der E-POSTBRIEF die hierfür erforderlichen Standards, soweit sie nach dem derzeitigen Gesetzesentwurf absehbar sind.

(Loose translation: We support the de-mail intiative and will apply for an accredition as soon as the law is enacted. e-postbrief already meets all criteria of the upcoming law.)

They were stalling the legislation, but they have no chance but to participate as they could not stop it.

You mean that cardbord that has a plastic bag laminated inside?