lotusleaf1987

I 100% agree, imagine if we had invaded North Korea rather than Iraq. Both had bad tyrants/dictators but North Korea makes Iraq look like Disneyland. Same as number of other countries, I think we should be tackling objectively worse humanitarian problems as higher priority.

I think your sarcasm meter may need some tuning. ;)

How are you going to have "the latest hardware at all times" if they require a 3 year contract? http://searchengineland.com/google-chromebooks-out-june-15-3...

3 years x $336 per year= $1008, granted it includes a 3G connection, that seems incredibly expensive to me for what they're offering.

Summary: Be proactive and do as much work as you can to provide evidence on your own behalf, don't expect them to do the work for you.

Yeah I know they have Zune subscription, I should have clarified that, but that's why I think Netflix would fit with them well. Having music+movies and giving a discount for the more services you bundle like Comcast/AT&T's double/triple play deals.

Skype+Kinect+XBox actually sounds pretty cool, even WP7 seems to have some potential. I actually think MSFT made a good move and it was worth it to keep Skype out of the hands of Google/Facebook.

If I were Microsoft I would even look at buying out Pandora/Spotify/Slacker/Last.fm, Netflix, and remove the file limit on their Windows Live online storage to compete more directly with Dropbox and others--then there'd actually be incentive to use a Hotmail/Live account again and with a plethora of subscription services they could set up their own app store that would compete a bit better with iTunes and sync with Xbox Live. Something else powerful is it would be one bill for your Xbox live, online storage, email, movie rentals, games rentals (potentially), apps, music subscription, and VoIP calls.

I think you answered your own question: to compete with FaceTime and Google Voice. I think they're afraid to sit this race out the way they did mobile and get left behind again.

I think Skype would have been more valuable to Google, than to Microsoft--imagine having a free Google Voice number linked to your Skype ID. I think Microsoft was willing to pay a $1-2 Billion premium to keep it from Google and maybe a bit more to be able to use it as a bargaining chip with Facebook in their (MSFT and Facebook) pseudo-alliance.

Now if only PSN wasn't still down... sigh

>there may be a slight bias

Slight? I agree with most of what you were saying, I just felt most of those editorials were not only unnecessary, but distracting.

Apple is indirectly competing with record labels and the services they once provided--promotion, distribution (iTunes), publicity (Ping).

But you're right, Apple isn't trying to be a one stop shop like a record label, Apple is only going after a piece--that is what record labels should be adjusting to. Record labels should try to differentiate and offer whatever services Apple isn't--marketing, advertising, studio space, etc.

Apple doesn't need to buy the Big 4, they're quickly disrupting them. The Big 4 used to offer, publicity, promotion, and distribution--now iTunes does all of that. Record labels are dinosaurs who are unwilling or incapable of adapting to survive.

This is really cool! I like it because I think it will actually encourage kids especially, and generally everyone, to take an interest in nature and the plants around them. Also, I'm sure it could be useful in identifying dangerous and safe plants. Keep up the good work!

I disagree--I think trends have shifted away from NYC. Advertising was once largely based in NYC (Madison Ave), now Google and Facebook are disrupting that and bring it more to Silicon Valley. Mobile advertising will only further this. Finance is also no longer as loyal to NYC, look at everything Sand Hill Road has and Wall Street begins to seem less dominant. Regardless, NYC is still top-dog is many respects and will remain so for the foreseeable future, but I think this is not a fight they are going to win.

1. Did you even read my previous comment?

2. I made no "large jumps of logic" like I said, it was open speculation. Now please get off your high horse and quit repeating things that have already been said--everything you assert in your second point is proving wrong in my previous comment.

Do you not realize you're just discouraging people asking questions? That's essentially what you're advocating.

Reading comprehension.

So you have never speculated on something which there is no definitive answer for?

I said yes there was some purpose behind the shape, look at it, and like you said, it could be just the plot that was available, but... like I said the very first comment it was a "guess" so it's really not a leap of logic and my point was he had a hard to breach compound located conveniently near a military base--a highly suspicious coincidence."Those are far more likely reasons for the design than thinking Osama fired up some CFD program and designed his stone walls to mess with the rotors of a helicopter" Strawman much? Did Osama fly the planes into the World Trade Center? No. My point was the Pakistan military could have provided the safe-house. I never said I knew whether the walls were designed to make vortex rings, or conceal OBL, or make it harder to breach by a commando team, or if it was religious--but clearly it's not a randomly designed shape.

My point is people, like yourself and prewett, get off on down-voting people, arguing over some minutia in an attempt to achieve a superiority high, and wasting everyone's time arguing about some inconsequential aspect of their comment. I never said all along I was certain I said it was a "guess" so please spare me your smug high and mightiness about "making a couple leaps of logic."

Why don't you try reading a comment in its entirety next time?

Please reread the comment "To my eye I couldn't tell what the effect was--religious was my first guess, but what you're saying makes sense." Which is pretty inconsistent from what you said "made strong claims with no evidence (religious motivation for the walls); the stronger the claim, the more support it needs."

I made no claim whatsoever, I divulged my first guess/naive speculation and said at first glance from my uninformed perspective I did not know exactly what the intentions were behind the architecture, but that I thought maybe it had to do with religion--him being a religious extremist.

I replied to the parent comment because I thought maybe the architecture was designed with the goal of producing vortex rings--making it harder for a helicopter to allow to allow people to repel.

You're also a hypocrite considering the comment you made previous to the one I'm replying "This is kind of off-topic, but I've always wondered...:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2515028

How is that any different than what I did, if not worse?

Sometimes HN is just looking to be overly critical and point out flaws that only exist if you obsess over being pedantic.

But IBM has a focus--business to business. You could argue Google's focus is advertising, regardless Google is much more aggressive than IBM or any other company in expanding into ever semi-related web category.

I'd love to know why this was downvoted. Sometimes HN is a really hostile and narrow-minded place.

There really is an unwritten law somewhere that Google must and will expand into every possible web-related business category. They look more like Yahoo and AOL to me. Jobs says it best: People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.

The layout of the compound definitely had some design or goal to it. To my eye I couldn't tell what the effect was--religious was my first guess, but what you're saying makes sense. After all, he was 1800 yards from the Pakistan ~WestPoint. Coincidences of that magnitude don't occur flippantly.

I submitted this yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2511034

Glad to see it's getting attention though, regardless.

To me the interesting thing was that they did this two years ago...

I know lots of people who have found jobs or been recruited off of LinkedIn--it's alive and well.

Bubblicious.

The movie is obviously a spoof and fits into Banky's prankster narrative. For those who have seen the movie, remember the scenes when: Shepard Fairey talks about perceived power creating real power, the fake Princess Diana currency, the hipster/followers in line who get interviewed and talk about 'art'. There are others, but those scenes make it the most obvious.

It's because a Macbook is a Macbook whether its 2005 of 2011, but some HP-24x454 vs a MX311 is meaningless. That's why Motorola/Samsung are making their Droid/Galaxy lines.

Craigslist is fine with some precaution--meet in a public place and trust but verify. Do not just take their word, seek evidence like receipts etc. Also, cashier's checks/money orders are pretty cheap and would be relatively safe to accept. Amazon and eBay take a huge chunk out and you can still have the person reverse the Paypal transaction, so nothing full-proof and I don't think the added price is worth it.

Sorry but when you're too corrupt and incompetent to find the world's most hated man living in a mansion near your most elite military academy--well you lose the right to complain that someone finally intervened and put down a mass murderer.

They're different verbs with different implications, I think Forbes is being pretty clear. Xoom may have shipped 250,000, but only 125k were actually sold. The other half are sitting on the shelves somewhere, which means inventory is high--a bad sign, which usually leads to price-cuts to clear space.