From RT:
http://rt.com/politics/177248-...

Such authors will now have to register with the state watchdog Roskomnadzor, disclose their real identity and follow the same rules as journalists working in conventional state-registered mass media.

  The restrictions include the demand to verify information before publishing it and abstain from releasing reports containing slander, hate speech, extremist calls or other banned information such as, for example, advice on suicide. Also, the law bans popular bloggers from using obscene language, drawing heavy criticism and mockery from the online crowd.

So.., now you're not legally allowed to lie to a large number of people or incite violence based on those lies. Gee. That's bad how? Might be nice to have something like that in the West, because right now it's perfectly legal for FOX News to outright lie to their viewers.

Russia, like any large nation the US hates, (see Venezuela) must defend against the standard CIA tactics used to de-stabilize governments and population bases through grass roots propaganda tactics. Forcing creeps and liars out of the game seems like a pretty good way to do this. You don't want to be forced out? Then follow the law and back up your claims with fact checking verification of what you are writing, don't use hate speech and don't incite violence. How hard is that?

There's a reason you're not allowed to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, and this falls neatly beneath the same rubric.

Honestly, think of the gossips and cruel kids in school spreading lies in deliberate attempts to undermine healthy energies. Putin has the guts to whip the carpet out from under such types.

So now, once you reach 3000 readers, the Russian government says you are a news source with real pull and must start acting in a manner befitting such responsibility. Is 3000 the right magic number to have picked? I don't know, but it makes perfect sense to draw a line somewhere.

Of course, any law can be abused, but right now I don't see this as an abuse. I see it as a sensible measure as Russia is under increasing media attack by a truly psychopathic nation whose leadership is completely disconnected from objective reality, has a tail-spinning economy and seemingly bottomless war lust. Of course you have to take measures to protect your populace from that kind of sickness.

But naturally, this proactive move is being spun with wicked and/or childish glee in the West (depending on whether you are CIA or just ignorant and easily led).

That is all very correct.

Note that first off, this is a warrant rather than a subpoena. This was covered in depth when the magistrate ruled on it. If they are looking for specific information and the company can review it and provide the information then a subpoena is the correct tool. The police stated in both reviews that they are searching for a broad range of documents and that they want their own discretion to review all of them associated with the email address. You wrote "This is not seizing evidence it is compelling an entity to produce it". If they could have just seized a US server, they would have gladly stormed the office and taken the entire box, as is the custom with a warrant. In this case they could not seize a specific computer and they could not justify attempting to seize all of Microsoft's mail servers. A subpoena would normally be the correct implement, but that is not what the police are using. They want a huge amount of stuff rather than specific stuff, which is why they are using a warrant.

Next, you are correct about things being in your control. Microsoft Corporation is a US based company. Microsoft Ireland is a different company. It is more along the lines of an umbrella company. Much like you have Viacom as the big NASDAQ traded company, then you have Viacom International, Paramount Pictures, BET Networks, and the rest. You don't sue Viacom (the parent) when you want documents from Paramount Pictures. Viacom owns Paramount but they don't control Paramount's documents. Similarly the police are going against Microsoft Corporation in Seattle when they should have been suing Microsoft's Irish subsidiary. The US based corporation owns the Irish subsidiary, but they don't control the documents of the subsidiary.

So as has been written, they are using the wrong tool, on the wrong company, in the wrong country. There is a proper way to do things, and this is not it. Microsoft is going to win this one in the long term. The judge may understand some aspects of law, but he clearly doesn't understand corporate organization and ownership.

As I understand it, these devices allow you to copy from CDs onto their internal hard drive so that you can keep your own selection of music on the device. Is it possible to use these devices to burn a CD? AS far as I know, the answer is no. If they can't burn a CD, then they cannot be used for illicit copying.

There are quite a few games from their back catalog of acquired games I would love to play again. Remember that EA has bought a long list of companies and products.

It is terribly unlikely that most of the games will be brought back (which is a shame) but potential is there. They added a few to Good Old Games but most of them have problems or require dosbox or have multiplayer disabled.

My short list:

* Wing Commander series, including Privateer (some already on GoG, but buggy on some systems)
* Ultima series (already on GoG but buggy on some systems)
* Populus series, with LAN multiplayer
* Old Dune and old C&C games that allowed LAN multiplayer
* The Neverhood

My long list would include a considerable number of games that are not on GoG and have not been updated to run on newer platforms. For that cost and a catalog including updates or even patched current versions of those games, it would be worth it to me.

I fear it will just be games that have the full version still available at a reduced cost, and become more of a games preview service. But hey, maybe they will get this one right.

That's similar to a BOFH story arc.

1. Configure the servers to serve as a 'cloud' resource using various open source software.
2. Show executives that this cloud computing system has much faster ping times than all the competitors.
3. Get the contract to provide cloud services.
4. PROFIT!

Well, we could always quote someone from the previous administration:

"The cost of one bullet, if the [...] people take it on themselves, is substantially less than [the cost of a war]." -- White House press secretary Ari Fleischer 1 Oct 2002.

At the time they were talking about an overthrow of Iraq. It applies well to the US as well.

So you use a VM, marginal cost is near zero for a 4GB VM in todays world.

Math time... $126M loss / $19B revenue = 0.66%, less than one percent loss for a quarter. The company is worth about $140B, so the quarter's drop is less than a tenth of a percent, meaning absorbing a the loss is a tiny decrease in a large bucket. In contrast, the skittish investors yesterday cost the company about $12B compared to the $126M business loss. The skittish investors who cause huge overnight drops like this create opportunities.

We're not talking about a company that is hemorrhaging money. It isn't a company plagued by mismanagement. It is a company that since their first day built a track record of tinkering with models. That is all Amazon has ever done. They have the resources to continue operating when they discover unprofitable ones. It takes money to make money, and many tests and changes cost time and money. Yes, some investors refuse to see the long term and demand a profit every single quarter. Other investors see this as an opportunity to buy or to hold.

Last night they took a 10% drop because short-term investors are skittish. Today you can buy it at a 10% discount; so thanks skittish investors!

AWS started as a way to gain revenue from the spare capacity they had for cyber monday, but it's now ~200x the size of Amazon's actual needs and is its own revenue and profit center. If a new CEO wanted to at this point he could spin it off into a separate company with contracts to host services for Amazon. I'm honestly not sure what it would gain you other than access to a pile of capital to use elsewhere, but for the time being Amazon doesn't seem to be hurting for access to capital.

They're not selling goods below cost for the most part, it's just that their expenses eclipse their earnings from sales. This is largely due to capital investments in projects and shipping centers.

Lol, they're less than 1.7% of the retail market, a quarter the size of Walmart and only twice the size of the flailing Sears. Heck, as a percentage of the market they're significantly smaller than the old Sears catalog business used to be.

You don't have to login to use a Chromebook, you can browse as a guest. As to your comment about compilers, MS offers Visual Studio Online Basic for free.

Except Google doesn't track apps for education users.

That's probably a good thing since students shouldn't be static consumers of information and tablets are really subpar for most kinds of content creation. Add in the fact that a Chromebook costs half as much as even an ipad mini and overall the schools are probably making the rational choice.

Wasn't that the incident where they pressure washed the cages of the deceased animals thus flinging infected fluids all over the area?