I hadn't heard anything about there being a current weak 'El Nino', we have been in neutral conditions since the last La Nina event as far as I'm aware.
This was from my friendly neighborhood meteorologist, last Monday. It is possible he is wrong, but he is a recognized expert in his field, not a "meteorologist" on TV. I suppose we shall see.
"As even the headline stated they use it as a library to compile against."
I think you overstate your case. It's a HUGE library to "compile against". I mean, let's be realistic: people complain about "bloat" in Firefox, but on OS X, Chrome is very close to 6 times as large.
And you don't have the argument that "they're only using small parts of it". In fact, according to TFA itself, they are using most important parts of it.
"...and suddenly the pages stop working altogether. It is trivial to make a page that is empty and use JavaScript to load the contents of the page. If these guys resort to AdBlock-detectors, why do you think they would allow NoScript to circumvent that?"
Aaaaaaaannnnnnnddddd... guess what? I don't need that page!
The more they do shit like that, the more people (including me) will be pissed off.
I do not owe them a living. I look at what I want to look at, including ads. Shoving them in my face will not make sales.
"Not really. The correlations, core theory, and lack of other matching explanations totally invalidate every such point raised, and have been done to a sufficient degree that these people are basically tremendous liars, pretending to be moderate, while exposing a fundamentally indistinct point."
Yes, really.
This conversation was NOT ABOUT whether the "deniers" were correct. And even if it had been, you are simply incorrect about their arguments. I have no intention of getting into a long argument about it here, though, because that's OFF-TOPIC.
"Well, to be fair, the AGW deniers said that only after it was repeatedly demonstrated that there was in fact some variety of global warming going on."
That's not "being fair", that's being false. Part of my point was that it's not legitimate to lump everyone who disagrees into one "denier" category. That's about as accurate as saying all blacks are criminals or all Polish people are stupid.
Some of those who disagree did so from the very beginning, on the premise that it's the Sun and other natural factors that drives climate change, not CO2. Just a fact.
"It's possible that both the AGW deniers and AGW alarmists are wrong. Climate change could be real, but caused by natural factors that are out of our control, the same ones that have caused ice ages and warm periods in the past when carbon outputs were nowhere near as high as they are now."
The problem with this is that it is exactly what many of those so-called AGW "deniers" have been saying all along.
And, I should add: all the while, we've been experiencing a weak "El Nino" event. So even with ENSO on the warming side, it has been very cold in much of the world.
You are giving us a prime example of exactly what GP wrote.
Sure, AUS is having a heatwave. Even while much of the United States was having a record cold temperatures, and much of Europe has been experiencing its coldest weather in more than 10 years... Arctic ice extent is expanding again and the Antarctic summer is colder than usual, with even more sea ice.
You can't cherry-pick your heatwaves. This is GLOBAL climate we're talking about.
He cares all right... he want's MORE surveillance. He's proved it many times over.
For what it's worth, I agree that Obama's proposal is nothing more than a whitewash. I'll support the other bills that come up in the House and Senate.
"Since they have to go through the FISA court for warrants to do the searches now the bandwidth of the court will limit their ability to dragnet like that."
Sorry, but no. The FISA court already approved all that in the past. So why would this make any difference?
This is a joke. A distinction without a difference. You know very well that Obama has been in favor of expanding surveillance -- because he DID. This is just another of his many lies. He's pretending to address the issue without making any real, substantive changes.
I think you should have taken this argument further.
The problem with utilities, public or (most) private, is that they're really NOT "free enterprise". They are either run by the government, or highly regulated by the government, often in a "crony capitalism" fashion... which is about as far from "free enterprise" as it gets.
I think it's hilarious how Statists will see businesses regulated -- badly -- and then use that as an excuse for even more government intervention. "Look! It's not working! Let your benevolent government step in and fix it!"
You missed my entire point: that is too simplistic of an analysis.
If your users use a feature casually, and don't really give much of a shit if this little feature is changed, etc., then you CAN change something and nobody cares much.
But if that 20% of users REALLY NEED a particular feature, then if you get rid of it, you also get rid of those users. You have just unilaterally lost 20% of your business, for no good reason. And make no mistake: 20% is a huge chunk.
Simply going by "80% of my users don't use this function much" is stupid business management. You ALSO have to weigh how important that feature is to those who use it.
A physical safe which you have no knowledge of how it was constructed or what it's constructed of. It may just be cardboard and Scotch tape, but nobody's checked yet. That doesn't count as "holding strong."
No, because people HAVE tried to crack it, and as best we know so far have been unable. So yes, it's "holding strong".
"I'd think that they'd be collecting usage data and be aware if this was a useful feature or not."
Useful to whom? This is a point I made elsewhere in this thread:
Simple traffic analysis doesn't cut it. Let's say only 20% of your users ever use this feature. BUT... if that feature is very important (valuable) to that 20%, getting rid of it will likely lose you that 20% for good and your business will suffer.
Seriously: in general, how many people use a feature is only a small part of the picture.
"So maybe, and maybe so far... here's a probably: Because it's not generating enough revenue.I don't know why people seem to forget that google is a corporation and their main products are services... so funding these things is sorta important. They aren't a charity."
Doesn't matter, if you ALSO forget that end-users are Google's product (according to their own founders). Therefore their software has to be attractive to users, in order to draw them in so Google can sell information about them.
I've seen a lot of this in recent years. It seems many corporations seem to have forgotten that they have to give the people what THEY want... trying to force consumers to do things the corporation's way doesn't work. That's the same basic mistake they made recently with Google+.
"Maybe it's because only 300 people know about it? Yes, that was a joke, but seriously Google Maps has millions of users, and Google knows how many people click on it. If the vast majority don't (even if it's due to not having a clue), I could see why Google might drop it."
The problem with that kind of analysis is that it does not include any way to measure how important the feature is to those who DO use it.
If you decide to drop (or in this case, offer a poorly-working, poorly-designed substitute) because only 20% of your users even used it, BUT that 20% of users relied on it very heavily, then guess what? Your business is going to suffer from that decision.
I never used "Search Nearby", so what was the difference between that and putting "brothels near 1600 pennsylvania avenue washington dc"?
2 diferences:
1) Search Nearby did not need an address. You could use "my current location" for example, as a starting point. This is valuable or people who are unfamiliar with an area, because they might not even know an address for their location.
2) The example you gave -- which was Google's suggested workaround -- as often as not does not work, according to users.
The simple fact is that Google, yet again, took something that was well-thought-out, and was well liked and oft used by their users, and messed it up.
According to the forum linked above, Mapquest still has this feature. I might give it a try.
"There were cases in the US where the guy refused to give it up, and they cracked it anyway."
That doesn't really imply very much. Most people use shitty passwords anyway, which (as you say) leaves them vulnerable to variants of a dictionary attack.
Pardon me. I was not trying to criticize. But I mean that this is SO different from U.S. law that it is likely to confuse someone from the U.S. That is all I meant.
Slashdot Mirror
I hadn't heard anything about there being a current weak 'El Nino', we have been in neutral conditions since the last La Nina event as far as I'm aware.
This was from my friendly neighborhood meteorologist, last Monday. It is possible he is wrong, but he is a recognized expert in his field, not a "meteorologist" on TV. I suppose we shall see.
"As even the headline stated they use it as a library to compile against."
I think you overstate your case. It's a HUGE library to "compile against". I mean, let's be realistic: people complain about "bloat" in Firefox, but on OS X, Chrome is very close to 6 times as large.
And you don't have the argument that "they're only using small parts of it". In fact, according to TFA itself, they are using most important parts of it.
"...and suddenly the pages stop working altogether. It is trivial to make a page that is empty and use JavaScript to load the contents of the page. If these guys resort to AdBlock-detectors, why do you think they would allow NoScript to circumvent that?"
Aaaaaaaannnnnnnddddd... guess what? I don't need that page!
The more they do shit like that, the more people (including me) will be pissed off.
I do not owe them a living. I look at what I want to look at, including ads. Shoving them in my face will not make sales.
"Not really. The correlations, core theory, and lack of other matching explanations totally invalidate every such point raised, and have been done to a sufficient degree that these people are basically tremendous liars, pretending to be moderate, while exposing a fundamentally indistinct point."
Yes, really.
This conversation was NOT ABOUT whether the "deniers" were correct. And even if it had been, you are simply incorrect about their arguments. I have no intention of getting into a long argument about it here, though, because that's OFF-TOPIC.
Which is just as scientifically invalid, and not helping. It's worth lumping you guys together because you're all making the same argument:
"I don't personally agree with the facts, so let's pretend they aren't there".
Which is only opinion, also inaccurate, and more to the point: off-topic. Which is not helping.
"Well, to be fair, the AGW deniers said that only after it was repeatedly demonstrated that there was in fact some variety of global warming going on."
That's not "being fair", that's being false. Part of my point was that it's not legitimate to lump everyone who disagrees into one "denier" category. That's about as accurate as saying all blacks are criminals or all Polish people are stupid.
Some of those who disagree did so from the very beginning, on the premise that it's the Sun and other natural factors that drives climate change, not CO2. Just a fact.
I think it's "People who throw rocks at glass houses shouldn't be stoned." Or something like that.
"It's possible that both the AGW deniers and AGW alarmists are wrong. Climate change could be real, but caused by natural factors that are out of our control, the same ones that have caused ice ages and warm periods in the past when carbon outputs were nowhere near as high as they are now."
The problem with this is that it is exactly what many of those so-called AGW "deniers" have been saying all along.
And, I should add: all the while, we've been experiencing a weak "El Nino" event. So even with ENSO on the warming side, it has been very cold in much of the world.
"So, yes, it's global warming."
You are giving us a prime example of exactly what GP wrote.
Sure, AUS is having a heatwave. Even while much of the United States was having a record cold temperatures, and much of Europe has been experiencing its coldest weather in more than 10 years... Arctic ice extent is expanding again and the Antarctic summer is colder than usual, with even more sea ice.
You can't cherry-pick your heatwaves. This is GLOBAL climate we're talking about.
He cares all right... he want's MORE surveillance. He's proved it many times over.
For what it's worth, I agree that Obama's proposal is nothing more than a whitewash. I'll support the other bills that come up in the House and Senate.
"Since they have to go through the FISA court for warrants to do the searches now the bandwidth of the court will limit their ability to dragnet like that."
Sorry, but no. The FISA court already approved all that in the past. So why would this make any difference?
This is a joke. A distinction without a difference. You know very well that Obama has been in favor of expanding surveillance -- because he DID. This is just another of his many lies. He's pretending to address the issue without making any real, substantive changes.
I think you should have taken this argument further.
The problem with utilities, public or (most) private, is that they're really NOT "free enterprise". They are either run by the government, or highly regulated by the government, often in a "crony capitalism" fashion... which is about as far from "free enterprise" as it gets.
I think it's hilarious how Statists will see businesses regulated -- badly -- and then use that as an excuse for even more government intervention. "Look! It's not working! Let your benevolent government step in and fix it!"
Yeah, right. When was the last time THAT worked?
It doesn't. But then, nor did your point seem to have anything much to do with what the person you were replying to actually wrote, either.
WHOOSH
You missed my entire point: that is too simplistic of an analysis.
If your users use a feature casually, and don't really give much of a shit if this little feature is changed, etc., then you CAN change something and nobody cares much.
But if that 20% of users REALLY NEED a particular feature, then if you get rid of it, you also get rid of those users. You have just unilaterally lost 20% of your business, for no good reason. And make no mistake: 20% is a huge chunk.
Simply going by "80% of my users don't use this function much" is stupid business management. You ALSO have to weigh how important that feature is to those who use it.
A physical safe which you have no knowledge of how it was constructed or what it's constructed of. It may just be cardboard and Scotch tape, but nobody's checked yet. That doesn't count as "holding strong."
No, because people HAVE tried to crack it, and as best we know so far have been unable. So yes, it's "holding strong".
Why does that make a difference? I don't get your point.
MY point was that things that occurred before you were born are put in books, for you to read later.
"I'd think that they'd be collecting usage data and be aware if this was a useful feature or not."
Useful to whom? This is a point I made elsewhere in this thread:
Simple traffic analysis doesn't cut it. Let's say only 20% of your users ever use this feature. BUT... if that feature is very important (valuable) to that 20%, getting rid of it will likely lose you that 20% for good and your business will suffer.
Seriously: in general, how many people use a feature is only a small part of the picture.
"So maybe, and maybe so far... here's a probably: Because it's not generating enough revenue.I don't know why people seem to forget that google is a corporation and their main products are services... so funding these things is sorta important. They aren't a charity."
Doesn't matter, if you ALSO forget that end-users are Google's product (according to their own founders). Therefore their software has to be attractive to users, in order to draw them in so Google can sell information about them.
I've seen a lot of this in recent years. It seems many corporations seem to have forgotten that they have to give the people what THEY want... trying to force consumers to do things the corporation's way doesn't work. That's the same basic mistake they made recently with Google+.
"Maybe it's because only 300 people know about it? Yes, that was a joke, but seriously Google Maps has millions of users, and Google knows how many people click on it. If the vast majority don't (even if it's due to not having a clue), I could see why Google might drop it."
The problem with that kind of analysis is that it does not include any way to measure how important the feature is to those who DO use it.
If you decide to drop (or in this case, offer a poorly-working, poorly-designed substitute) because only 20% of your users even used it, BUT that 20% of users relied on it very heavily, then guess what? Your business is going to suffer from that decision.
I never used "Search Nearby", so what was the difference between that and putting "brothels near 1600 pennsylvania avenue washington dc"?
2 diferences:
1) Search Nearby did not need an address. You could use "my current location" for example, as a starting point. This is valuable or people who are unfamiliar with an area, because they might not even know an address for their location.
2) The example you gave -- which was Google's suggested workaround -- as often as not does not work, according to users.
The simple fact is that Google, yet again, took something that was well-thought-out, and was well liked and oft used by their users, and messed it up.
According to the forum linked above, Mapquest still has this feature. I might give it a try.
"There were cases in the US where the guy refused to give it up, and they cracked it anyway."
That doesn't really imply very much. Most people use shitty passwords anyway, which (as you say) leaves them vulnerable to variants of a dictionary attack.
Pardon me. I was not trying to criticize. But I mean that this is SO different from U.S. law that it is likely to confuse someone from the U.S. That is all I meant.
"There are two scenarios in forcing someone to hand over information on an encrypted disk."
You should have stated up front that you were not talking about the U.S., because your points 1 and 2 do not match with actual U.S. law.
"Right, because the guy should have remembered being taught it before he was born rather than so late in the game as when he was a child."
This is why we have things called "books": so the human race doesn't have to re-invent the wheel every new generation.