Keep appealing, and answering the name changer thingy. After a bit of complaining and reporting, they now allow me to use my official pseudonym.

My profile with a pseudonym, Drew from Zhrodague, is blocked by Google+, despite my repeated requests. I've been posting on the Internet for a long time as such, and even my resume, business cards, printed authorship credits, and other online profiles identify me as such. I'd love to use Google+, but there is currently no way for me to do that. I do not use my real birth name online, for obvious reasons.

They specifically state it does not need to be your real name.

Except that I am blocked because my name, Drew from Zhrodague, does not fit their Terms of Service. Google+ has my profile blocked:

Hi, Thank you for contacting us with regard to our review of the name you are trying to use in your Google Profile. After review of your appeal, we have determined that the name you want to use violates our Community Standards. You can review our name guidelines at http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1228271 If you edit your name to comply with our policies in the future, please respond to this email so that we can re-review your profile. Sincerely, Duyen The Google Profiles Support Team

Huh. Facebook doesn't let me use my real online name, Drew from Zhrodague. LinkedIn allows this just fine. I am still blocked by Google+, since I use the name Drew from Zhrodague, and not my birth name. They've ignored my contributions to O'Reilly and Associates as Drew from Zhrodague, two other mentions on Google Scholar, and countless years and accounts posting also as such. So far, I can't enter the town of Google+, can't +1 anything, and can't post pictures or other stuff. Other (more famous) people can get into Google+ with their chosen names. I will either have to wait for them to unblock me, or I will simply lose interest - my bazaars and cathedrals must be elsewhere.

Hopefully, during the post-mortem after their upgrade, they will read this article on Slashdot, and use it and the other sites talking about this to positively update their website. Also, I'll bet some of the usability people were given the smackdown over someone's ego-trip. It shows in the design. I know they have usability people there. Let 'em do their thing -- they already know how it is supposed to work.

With competition like this, I'm starting to think Netflix producing its own content is a great move.

Is this how Sci-Fi, Bravo, A&E, TBS, etc., all started to produce their own shows? I welcome this from Netflix, Hulu, Microsoft, or any other vendor -- give us more science-fiction. How do I tell them this with my dollars?

If they're planning on using bands within or nearby the current digital channels, I suspect that folks may be able to hack the current lineup of WRTs to spit out an ATSC signal. This would actually be really good thing for the diy crowd. Everyone needs their own pirate TV station. I haven't seen any F/OSS ATSC modulation code in the wild yet though.

I'm a long-time Skype user, and while it isn't my favorite application, it certainly works, and connects me to people around the world (for work). Good luck, Skype. I do hope this brings plenty of improvements and functionality. If not, we'll use something else!

Y'know, this guy can make back his $90 and then some by putting ads on the site. The PD must have already setup links everywhere, all he has to do it set it up, sit back, and collect a check. What are the chances this guy will be sued?

This is Slashdot not 4chan.

Oh, I thought this was SPARTAAAAA!!!!

geolocation, which is what Google obviously wants them for

Bingo. A neat idea made almost moot with GPS chips in cell phones. If you know where the WiFi is, you can look up the location of the WiFi via Google -- without a GPS. I mentioned in a similar /. article about placelab.org which I think maps whichever radio they're able to get data from.

I experimented with this stuff back in 2002 when I created wifimaps.com, which is a wardriving map application, which harvests data from wardrivers. I'm not a math guy, so I used a weighted average for estimating the WIFi signal source. Mapserver is kinda neat too, which I used since Google Maps didn't exist yet.

There is the Placelab.org project, but their mailing list has died down over the years.

"Good news, everyone -- it's a suppository!"

Sorry, I had to, please forgive me mods!

That was my thoughts. And mobog, and a few other experiments. Glad to see the guy still kicking, if it is the same Phil.