NSA, US government, tyrants everywhere, watch Google carefully for how it's done. For a fickle crowd like Hacker News, you can seize their liberty and human rights easily - just distract them with shiny new things.
For shiny new toys, some people will rationalize anything ;-)
Obviously you'd call them over Skype. If you called them, which you wouldn't because free consumer services don't provide support. They probably view the PSTN as a legacy system.
Serious, snark-free question: is this a paid review by Microsoft? I've never been an Arstechnica reader but I thought they had more integrity than this.
Talking up SkyDrive is like extolling the virtues of ivory from elephant tusks. In both cases there is a horrible hidden cost.
Yahoo
Google
Facebook
PalTalk
YouTube
Skype
AOL
Apple
Who have also been mentioned as complicit in this whole scandal.
Just to be fair :-)
By the way, I actually agree with you and have been slowly switching all my home stuff to linux and trying to get away from Google Dependence (although I type this in Chrome on a Win 8 laptop... damn work computer)
If you think a company has behaved badly, why are you under any obligation to be fair to them?
It might be extremely difficult to boycott every company involved, so why not choose one to make an example of? The idea that you must boycott all or none appears irrational.
It's as though you're being bullied by two people, and when you try to deal with one of them, you're accused of being unfair because you can't deal with both!
It sounds very much as though it was the bullies who decided what was "fair" in this instance.
I didn't say it was right, I said it was different and that your reframing wasn't appropriate.
What changes? For a start, the more people that are involved, the less each knows of the situation. A single individual being bullied is aware of each incidence and what it going on at all times. A group doesn't - witness mob justice as a clear counterpoint. A group is highly susceptible to hearsay and misdirection.
As for why it's unfair - if we expect the judicial system to be fair when it acts on our collective behalves, it is dissonant to not expect other group action to also be fair in how it's meted out.
I don't see why a group being "susceptible to hearsay and misdirection" is a good reason for their ire to be directed at more companies rather than just one.
I also don't see any reason why a group fighting against the injustices they can tackle, obliges them to take on the ones they can't.
EDIT: To take your example of the justice system - if I steal from someone, it would not be a valid defence to point out that other people had not been successfully convicted of stealing, therefore I should not be prosecuted.
All areas of Ubuntu that report to Canonical/Amazon/etc can be disabled and/or uninstalled. I personally find this the optimal way from base install to get to a desktop I enjoy using but otherwise I would probably have a look at debian.
Mint seems to be popular. But honestly if you care about this sort of stuff you're going to have to get a bit technical, at which point you might as well use something really serious like OpenBSD.
Yahoo Google Facebook PalTalk YouTube Skype AOL Apple
Done and done (including Microsoft) for well over a decade; I don't get this whole "can't be trusted anymore" thing. These companies could never be trusted, and never should have been.
There's something sketchy about Jottacloud. I don't trust it. I installed the client a few weeks ago and it wouldn't upload my files. The program just froze. When I tried to uninstall the software it hung again (I had to manually delete it).
It's still in my start menu somehow, although I disabled it. And this is happening to a guy who religiously scans and cleans his Windows partition.
Sure but the executive branch is setting a horrible example by enforcing federal laws against drugs in states where said drugs are legal.
If the administration and a local jurisdiction disagree on what's legal they shouldn't use the citizenry as a proxy punching bag through which they release their frustration.
Yeah but they were funded and trained by DHS money, training that focuses on fighting wars not peaceful conflict resolution. You're right though, it's not just one administration, this is the Bush Administrations fault as much as the Obama Administration.
For shiny new toys, some people will rationalize anything ;-)