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.
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.
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.
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 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.