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Comment Re:I'm so pissed at electronic devices!!! (Score 1) 134

I agree with you and I think a few people do recognize the problem. What we need is a system that allows the app companies like Dropbox and kindles to innovate and make money but without the lock-in.

For example Dropbox. Much of there success is just because of the lock-in. They are expensive and lack features like real encryption but because they built the most user friendly interface and spent lots of money for integration with other parties, the only people that can compete are Microsoft and Google.

It's a hard problem to solve because the market seems to go in the opposite direction - openness just isn't attractive.

I would guess the best way to break out of this situation is to develop a ecosystem where the advantages of openness are accessible by the general public. But that means user friendly, not here are 100 apps that support rsync, another 100 service providers and go figure out which combination is best for you then install, sign-up, configure and pay.

Comment Extradition from Sweden is easier (Score 4, Informative) 377

I'm really surprised how many highly rated comments claim extradition from the UK would be easier. Extradition from Sweden to the US would almost certainly happen. Take for example this fact:

Sweden has a bilateral agreement with the United States which would allow it to surrender Julian Assange without going through the traditional tests and standards of regular, lengthy extradition procedures.

How could anyone reasonably expect him to willfully submit to that? It seems highly likely he would end up rotting in a US jail for life, unheard and unseen.

Comment Re:it's been twenty years, or forty (Score 1) 120

Nice comment. Of course, it's not just calendars but basically everything; finding something as simple as a reliable and scalable email client is a challenge.

If you (or other posters) have some thoughts about how we might be able to fix this I'd love to hear it. Next month I'm going to start working full-time on trying to solve this problem because I hope the lack of success is just due too few attempts. Judging by your other replies, the issue is barely even recognized.

Comment www.healthcare.gov just redirects to 127.0.0.1 (Score 1) 644

No wonder it's so fast.

09:16:31> dig www.healthcare.gov @4.4.4.4
^C 09:18:15> dig www.healthcare.gov @8.8.8.8

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> www.healthcare.gov @8.8.8.8
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8850
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.healthcare.gov. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.healthcare.gov. 28 IN CNAME www.geodirector.hc.gov.akadns.net.
www.geodirector.hc.gov.akadns.net. 28 IN CNAME bh.georedirector.akadns.net.
bh.georedirector.akadns.net. 11649 IN A 127.0.0.1

;; Query time: 47 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Sun Dec 1 09:18:17 2013
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 130

Space

Submission + - Astronomer Clowes discovers a group of quasars 4 billion light years across (newscientist.com)

mal0rd writes: "The NewScientist reports "A collection of galaxies that is a whopping four billion light years long is the biggest cosmic structure ever seen. The group is roughly one-twentieth the diameter of the observable universe – big enough to challenge a principle dating back to Einstein, that, on large scales, the universe looks the same in every direction."

For reference, Andromeda is only 2 million light years away."

Comment Re:What a stupid time to post this drivel (Score 1) 654

There's a lot of value in having an experienced person doing basic tasks, but we've forgotten that. Go to Europe, or Japan, and see what level of service you get there.

I agree with the rest of your comment, but I don't get this part. Service in Europe is horrible; it's one of the few things I miss about the states.

Comment Re:Yay another sequel... (Score 1) 76

No, I don't particularly like the action parts of Mass Effect anyway. For me it's all about the storyline, meeting characters and making though decisions.

I like ME1 a lot, but altough it's story is a bit more epic than it's sequel, the way the story is told in part 2 is a lot more engaging and immerse. The dialog is better and also brought better visually by offering more interesting camera movement.

And even though the universe to explore is smaller in part 2, it's also a lot nicer, offering a few hub worlds instead of just one large Citadel and all of the landing points are actually nicely designed levels instead of generic repetitive generated worlds.

All in all ME2 just feels more refined and realistic, while still offering a great story and interesting charactars and dialog. What's not to like?

Comment Speed (Score 1) 240

One thing many first-day reviews of opera-mini said was that it was much faster then safari, even while on wifi.

I tried it yesterday (on wifi, since i have an ipod, not an iphone), and opera mini took serious time connecting to the opera servers, after which loading was fast. however, the opera-server connection pretty much killed it for me..

Opera mini is a nice try, and some things do improve on safari, but on the whole, what i really want is opera Mobile (and once the app store is open enough, CHROME) for the iphone/ipod

The Media

Wikileaks Releases Video of Journalist Killings 1671

linguizic writes "Today Wikileaks released a video of the US military firing large caliber weapons into a crowd that included a photojournalist and a driver for Reuters, and at a van containing two children who were involved in a rescue. Wikileaks maintains that this video was covered up by the US military when Reuters asked for an official investigation. This is the same video that has supposedly made the editors of Wikileaks a target of the State Department and/or the CIA, as was discussed a couple weeks ago." Needless to say, this video is probably not work safe (language and violence), and not for the faint of heart.

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