They're playing the cards they have at any given time - when it means supporting standards, they do that. And when they're totally dominant, they tend to set the standards.

I'm not even suggesting it might be intentional - the IE team and the MS top management don't necessarily have the same long-term goals is all.

Maybe the IE team would even love to go cross platform and compete as a browser and not as a part of a larger platform.

I'm sad that you think I was trying to come up with something - I just wrote about this strange (but honnest !) feeling I got, as people talking in nice terms about IE hasn't happenned in a while.

In fact I don't think I'm criticizing IE itself at all.

Perhaps I could re-phrase my point more simply: I don't think IE 9's standards support means "the web wins" in the long run, since IE is still tied to Windows for strategic reasons.

You're of course right that it's a good thing for web devs right now, though.

I don't think your argument makes any sense, sorry. If you were talking about IE6, I'd agree, but standards compliance means never having to use the exact same browser for anything.

They don't benefit now from using it over Safari. They benefit from it just as a promise from MS that they won't screw up the web just to sell more Windows PCs. As long as it's relatively easy to obtain IE for Mac, it's not a useful tool to sabotage the standards in a platform lock-in grab.

However, I agree with you that it seems totally unrealistic to expect MS to do this. Not because they're evil, but just because why bother?

So what? How is the Web threatened or at risk or even _impacted at all_ by IE9 being Windows-only? With IE9 supporting standards so thoroughly, it very directly means that IE9 being Windows-only doesn't make a lick of difference anymore.

The game for the Web is standards. With all major browsers supporting standards, browser and platform themselves are irrelevant factors for the Web to prosper as a platform and a medium.

My entire world is consumed with interactions with business owners (lead generation for the service industry). We work with thousands of small businesses, some "tough" and some not so much. To me the defining characteristic of a successful business man is always "obsessively analytical", not simply "decisive".

Every successful business person I've ever encountered can tell me (to the number) the key metrics for their business on demand. They know that our program is generating x% return on their spend. They know that we're +- y% better than a competitor. They know everything about their business.

When you've aggressively instrumented your business and have a lot of data, it's easy to be decisive. I've also encountered a number of business people who are decisive, but are more or less always shooting from their gut. They don't tend to do very well. For them everything is a guess, even if they're really sure that they are right.

Toughness is overrated. Great businesses are built by constantly trying to assess and reduce risk. You don't do that by being tough, you do it by being fascinated with data.

If someone very "alpha male" thinks the world is flat, it is still round. The universe doesn't give a shit about your status.

Neither does the market, really.

Business... or at least business done well... is a science. It's about minimizing and maximizing and optimizing and iterating. It's about building a good fit to a market, and lots of details.

Machismo can be beneficial in certain contexts, but it's not fundamental. You're spot on about analytics and data-driven rational thought.

It does have some value, but the excessive machismo is not particularly appealing. Yes, you get shit done. Yes, getting shit done is a prerequisite to getting a startup done. No, that doesn't make you some kind of super-human being. There are plenty of others out there, outside the world of startups, who get tremendous amounts of shit done.

With a bit more life experience, you may learn that there's more to effectiveness than being "tough". You can get a whole lot more done with intelligence than with mere bullishness.

If this article was written by PG about WePay, that would be one thing. Even if its 100% true, it sounds less impressive when the author is telling others how great someone else thinks he (or his company) is. It just came off a bit too self-congratulatory to me. And that's saying a lot in the already narcissistic world of startups.

Your friend is getting sued, so you move to a country where people are put in jail for their political opinions ?

Don't invent stupid excuses, there's no need to. You're 24 years old and are looking for opportunity, and China, despite being a bloody dictatorship were a billion people work in slave-like conditions, is the new land of opportunity, so you're giving it a try. Good for you.

But cut the ridiculous crap. You sound like a spoiled brat.

We're not talking about your average (or even uniquely scalable) startup here.

Seriously, do you have any doubt that anyone involved in this could end up secretly detained for years ? Assange is taking huge personal risks here, so yeah, it is about him, to a very large extent.

I can't say whether it stems from a desire for celebrity on Assange's part, which would be totally incompatible with the mission of a site like WL, or if it's unintentional and simply the result of accidental mismanagement. But either way I don't think it bodes well for the future of the site.

That said, I don't think that Assange or Wikileaks in general are critical. If nothing else, he proved that there is material out there waiting to be released. The concept, at least in broad strokes, is still sound; it was the execution that was flawed.

I think there is an open opportunity right now for someone to step in and do right -- less politically, less bombastically, more securely and more decentralized -- what WL aimed to do.

Seems unlikely; they could well be exploring legal and technical options - but due to where Wikileaks operates from the US government will have a hard time taking it apart. There could be a black bag operation in effect; but I have a feeling if that were the case we would soon be hearing about it from Assange.

Seriously, do you have any doubt that anyone involved in this could end up secretly detained for years ?

Yes, someone in Government would have to be insane to risk that. OR Wikileaks would have to release something extremely critical/damaging. Assange is pretty high profile and his disappearance wouldn't go unnoticed.

We're not talking about your average (or even uniquely scalable) startup here.

No, but as pointed out elsewhere there are a lot of highly evolved models for distributions already in use by illegal enterprises. These are efficient, relatively cheap and difficult to track. The problem is that Wikileaks would lose a lot of editorial control; which, I guess, they don't want.

I have a number of ideas that I suggested to them (when they asked for help) to improve their infrastructure but never heard back...

Assange is taking huge personal risks here, so yeah, it is about him, to a very large extent.

I don't buy that - I think mostly he is a bit of an attention seeker and cries wolf at the slightest hint of a conspiracy :) There's not a lot wrong with that but you must bear it in mind when dealing with Wikileaks. I don't think Assange is taking a huge personal risk in terms of western governments. If they can nail him for something legally I am sure they will jump at it - but the political fall out from taking down a whistleblower is huge.

Besides; Wikileaks doesn't actually leak all that much (well, any more).....

I think we're getting scooped up in the story of a narcissist. A reliable source of information and a drama do not mix.

So I'm not surprised google has to do potentally damaging things to somehow make it all work.

The strange part to me is that they don't require and automate this buyer contact info & tracking number gathering from the start.

http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/04/27/the-quest-for-french...

I think that it would be somewhat of a stifling approach to just make a blanket proclamation that no one can enter the discussion unless they have full read the article.

The title is a little provocative, but the article is really worth it.

It is however a real critique of OpenBSD's security model that they haven't pursued enhanced access control (Niels had to bolt it on with Systrace because Theo doesn't agree with the concept).