incosta

In any Western court an entity who forked it, would win a copyright lawsuit if Rambler sued. You cannot claim it was your proprietary code all of a sudden after it's been openly available for 15 years.

I guess this is the reason they use a Ukrainian word 'Holodomor' for it?

+100

I appreciate your confession.

Anyone who knowing enough facts calls what happened earlier this year and back in December 2011 "democratic elections" is, in my opinion, being paid by the Kremlin. You are being paid by the Kremlin.

Putin should feel humiliated when he meets his North Korean friend Kim (err.. what's his name?) next time, for getting his officially announced miserable 64%.

Look my friend, a guy in North Korea gets 100% of the vote. And Russia's poor friend Saddam Hussein got 99.9% on the most recent presidential "elections" he held. Putin, after 12 years of ceaseless propaganda should be ashamed to get the miserable 64% (of those rigged) votes. How much he stole does not really matter. He stole the election process itself. And he violated Russia's own Constitution by running for the 3rd time. Just like some of his comrade dictators. His gotcha moment. Welcome to the club!

P.S. Calling those "elections" democratic tells the whole story about you. Yes, you. They was nothing democratic about them, my Kremlin paid buddy.

Paid or not, you do know that it's not possible to compare Obama and Putin in terms of popularity. Putin has been covered by all major channels in Russia exclusively for last 12 years, every single day. It's also not possible technically because he made a mockery of the elections process, and even then had to rig the vote. You also know that your claim about his popularity among Russians outside of Moscow is bogus but hardly verifiable to most people on HN: but he's just as disliked there as he is in Moscow. Don't portray Russian people as fools: they are not. And your talk about things not being so simple: how familiar. They are simple, my friend: Putin violated Russia's own laws including the Constitution, when he ran for the 3rd time, and he should not be the president, no matter how big you think his popularity is. He wants to rule forever? He will end up as a dictator. Simple as that.

So Madonna should now comment on anything going over the world? She been to Moscow and SPB, so she expressed what she was thinking about the case which is a significant issue in Russia. Good enough?

Regarding the "vandalism" claim, you are wrong. The three girls have not touched a thing there. At most, they deserved to pay a fine (even according to Russian laws). I suggest you study the facts first before starting another of your ironic passages.

No, because what he said was a lie. And he knows it.

I guess you prefer having someone who does not get elected and steals for 24 years in a row better?

And as a Russian I think you better shut up in this case.

Things are'nt rosy for Putin indeed. And they're not as simplistic. I guess to make them simpler he got himself back in the office by rigging the vote and then by beating and arresting those who protest, Kasparov included?

"If you haven’t experienced waking up one day with millions in a bank account and a dozen or so people looking at you in the eye, nodding their heads and telling you that they believe in you, you have never experienced the perfect storm of excitement and fear."

Sounds like the author has totally misplaces what should cause an excitement or worth pursuing as a goal. It's not having someone looking you in the eye (who this person is?). And not even a million dollars in the bank (is one million a lot of money?). It's what you did to make it, and what you make after with it.

We need then to get in touch - even for the CFPB I cannot just reference someone by an online alias. Please write me to m3dsa [at] hotmail.com.

Thank you. This is probably the most valuable advice I got about the issue here. I will file a complaint there.

I used to be able to pay mortage online when it was BoA mortgage (it no longer is). Can't you do the same thing?

Back t the story: I am going to switch to a local bank from BoA as result of this. I hope they do treat their customers differently.

Does he use his own toilet paper, or also borrows one for the occasion?

Don't get me wrong on this, but a single 29 y.o. woman, loving her job, as she admits, feels lonely and bored at her job because of all-male and tech people around? It's not surprising. But it has nothing to do with tech or engineering. My advise is get married (perhaps to someone outside of tech field, but in the end it does not matter: to someone you like). It will solve all problems.

I think it's pretty obvious from keywords such as "green cards" and washingtonpost.com.

I understand why the author is not willing to share much specifics (such as which free apps get him 4k+ a month in ad revenue) but he still at least could get a number of installs published.

I am skeptical because I know for a fact that some people don't tell the truth. We can only speculate about the reasons..maybe it's to generate more traffic or interest towards the non-free products they offer. I know a fellow (who used to publish a competing product to mine) who boasted online in an article about making quarter million dollars a year after just being a year in business. The same fellow just was trying to sell me his "quarter-million a year business" domain name for 1K a few months before:) In this case, numbers are much more moderate and believable, but still I am not taking this just at the face value, unless there are some facts I can verify, or compare against. The number of active users, for example, and in which countries (mostly) are generating 4K+ /month in ads?

OK, I suggest that you stop looking at this situation from some sort of idealistic perspective. The thing is that American President and Congress are serving interests of Americans, not foreigners (H1b, green card holders, etc). They have to find a delicate balance between what to give foreigners to please their constituents (not just people but also companies who have powerful lobbies).

American universities are interested in foreign students because they can pay a lot of money for the opportunity to study and then have some time (a year or more) to get a job in states. Most Americans fret at the idea to let foreign graduates (even from US universities) to compete for the same jobs with American-born graduates (I already hear: "our own children cannot get jobs after college, why let foreigners to compete!"), however this is part of the deal: allowing them some time to get employed here makes this student visa more attractive. Read: they will be willing to pay more to study. Good for American universities.

However, giving them 5 years of time to get employed or start a business? In the eyes of most Americans this is beyond reasonable. It's going to create a major outcry and will not be voted by Congress. The only situation it's going to work is if America had a population shortage and needed more people (like Canada, Australia), but this is not currently the case in America.

Now let's look at American businesses. They are interested in skilled but cheap labor. And H1B gives them exactly this. You call this slavery? I agree, up to some extent. But these people are foreigners and until they become citizens, they have no voice and are effectively nobody. So, it's their price if they want to be in America and eventually become 'somebody'. Sounds harsh? Correct. We live in the world of conflicting interests of different people, not in a paradise. Don't forget about this.

I think H1-B waiting times to green cards should be reduced. But H1-B is a fairly reliable way to see that person is skilled/qualified. No reasonable employer would keep someone on a payroll if the person is not good, even as a "serf" (a paid serf, more accurately).

Not so sure about green cards for recent students based on revenue/income of their business. We then have to ask the government to audit a lot of financial papers from people who have a great interest in showing higher numbers than there are in reality. Someone with family resources can "make" high revenue/income be shown on paper. It's not that difficult to do. But green card based on number of employees with some minimal wage limits makes sense.

Speaking from personal experience, my employment-based green card had been delayed by about two years because of so-called "FBI name check". Not because of the quotas. So bureaucracy plays a part (based on what I know, it has been reduced somewhat after Obama took office).

I am not so sure about the statements on family-based immigration. First, even close family members often spend many years waiting. More importantly, though: we all ideally want future Sergei Brins just to come and start next Google and hire thousands. But let's don't forget that he came to states as a young child (just as some other founders mentioned in the CNN article) with his well educated parents. By the time he started Google, he was 20-something and effectively an American. Would he be able to do this if he just came as a foreign student? Not so sure. So, we need to get families too, but those who have not just hopes, but also education. We need smart families, smart parents. We need to make America attractive to them.

P.S. I am stunned by all negative comments on CNN site saying immigrants take American jobs, and America educates foreigners, but not its own citizens. It seems to me many people don't realize that foreign students are in fact paying for Americans to get to schools by paying much higher tuition fees that make schools profitable and able to offer scholarships to locals.

I agree that US needs an entrepreneur visas. But I disagree with author's suggestion that all US-educated graduates must be given green cards. A lot of them came to US to study because they could afford it (often via wealthy parents). I don't think it's fair to give green cards only because they graduated from a US university thanks to their rich parents.

Foreign students have one year after graduation to find an employer, convert to H-1B and then ask the employer to sponsor the green card. Nothing wrong with this.

However, of course H1-B to green card to citizenship must be done in a more timely manner. In many cases it takes too long. The time spent on waiting for the green card (sometimes as long as 4-5 years or even more, due to slow bureaucracy) must be in some way counted towards the citizenship requirement of 5-year residency.

I think as baby-boomer generation starts to retire en-mass, U.S. will have no choice but to liberalize and simplify its immigration policy. It is competing against many other developed countries for younger workers and talent, and the earnings disparity is becoming less of a factor in many developing countries. There's just no way out but to make immigration process faster and more attractive if the U.S. wants to win.

I am assuming the author and his wife are both Canadian citizens. If he moved to the U.S. in year 3, and his wife a year later, I wonder how the guy has retired (without moving back to Canada)? He got his green card in 4 years or less? Not likely. Did he already have it? Also, if he was on H1 visa, it's very unlikely (if possible at all) to become less-than-full-time worker (as he did in year 8) in this status. Lots of questions..

I have been using UDID to track on how many physical devices my app has been installed. In part - to see if there is any piracy (a spike in new devices would certainly mean something is going on).

If Apple removes support for UDID completely, I will have no way to track this information. Generating unique ids randomly will result in new ID being created when app is deleted and then reinstalled (something that happens all the time with iPhone apps). Are there going to be other ways to create unique ID based on some hardware specs, or Apple will provide a new function call?

Google is making money by providing support and utilities for Android? This is something new to me. They never told anyone except you?

Of course it has nothing to do with Google. And the fact the "get free Nexus S today" ended up on Googe's main page was just complete coincidence! Google did not even know about it:)

Here's the main question: we both agree that G gives away Android to phone manufactures for very little. Below the actual cost. You even pointed out it's not always tied to Google search and services. So why, why Google does this? Out of their great heart? Think about it - and perhaps you will see their motives are not that idealistic.

So Google gives away Android for free because of a great heart, right?

Google essentially gives Android for free. Just yesterday I saw Nexus S "free" (with 2-year contract) on main Google page!

You can argue that any kind of software is better off free. More people will use it sooner if it's free. But I don't think this model fits everyone. What if you don't want to get outside investors right away and don't have deep pockets?

I did not know about Android phones not tied to Google search. I understand that you can switch your default search engine to something other than Google, but most people use the defaults. Windows users could have also deleted IE and installed Netscape. But with free IE pre-installed and working, most did not bother. Netscape got killed.

I am glad you brought Walmart as an example. We soon will have a country full of Walmarts where local stores have no place, which looks the same everywhere you go. Walmart after Walmart. It's all cheap there!

Similarly we just may soon have a country when Google is the only software company to work for. Because everyone believes all software should be free and ad-based, and because Google is dominating the ads business.

Oh so Google is offering stuff free because it's being nice! Very funny. I guess MS was also then being nice by offering IE for free to everyone? They did it because they were nice, not because they wanted to have everyone who offered non-free alternatives marginalized and killed, right?