If Google was capable of doing this, then there would already be a perception that all good developers are Google developers. And that isn't anywhere close to true.
You're missing the point of how powerful branding can be.
Nobody but idiot managers think that not having a particular certification means that someone is a bad developer. This isn't a problem where general perception is concerned.
Tell that to every good developer who wasn't hired because some shitty developer with an MSDN certification and no experience got hired instead.
This doesn't make much sense. No developers have a.dev URL today, so obviously nobody associates the two that way right now. And if it's restricted to Google developers, that association is never going to be formed in the future either.
This is totally at odds with reality. Strong pushes in branding can and will warp public perception. If Google pushes ".dev = good developers" it will cause a branding in people's minds. At first it's not going to be considered an exclusive requirement that good developers have.dev, but eventually, as the.dev becomes a cognitive shortcut for "good developer" people will start thinking that those without.dev are in some way suspect - after all, if they were that good, why wouldn't they have a.dev?
This isn't just speculation, either - the same thing can be seen in the computer world today (or at least recently) with the "XXX Certification" nonsense, be it A+ / MSDN / whatever. I've seen job hiring requirements that require certifications that are pointless to the job, or that focus more on certifications than actual job experience or ability.
Well, I'd hesitate to call you colour blind since you are in fact correct. The dress really is blue and your brain is somehow undoing the mangling that's been done by the camera and lighting to arrive at the correct colour. I can't unsee it as white and gold however.
I'd actually think it was the other way around - I'm less blue colorblind which is why I always see blue, regardless of surrounding context. You've got slight blue colorblindness which is why context causes you to interpret the blue as a different color.
The other day I saw an odd green thing on the floor in my hotel room. It was actually my backpack lit with green tinged light, but was crumpled in an odd shape so I couldn't tell what it was. When I figured it was my backpack, I could no longer see it as green (the actual colour is black).
This could indicate another possible explanation; that in many people the color you first see it as becomes the "right" color, and it becomes difficult/impossible to see it otherwise, as your brain has already interpreted it, and is remembering the "right" color even if you're trying to see it "wrong".
I think their application for.dev to be Google-only highlights a major problem with a company like this having control over any TLDs: They intend to use their control to crowd out competitors in a monopolistic fashion. That no non-Google developer can register a.dev is akin to saying that if you don't work for Google you're not really a developer. The only TLD restriction I would be OK with Google having reserved entirely for personal use is.google - and even that I'd be wary of without concrete rule for revoking the exclusive use if a good reason comes up.
I can only see it as blue, period. Not trolling - I really cannot see this as white in any circumstances, even the XKCD "color balanced" bit I still see it as blue (albeit a much lighter blue on the left).
Maybe this has more to do with some effect similar to color-blindness? There are more types of color-blindness than just the standard red-green, and they have different effects on how colors are seen (and some kinds of color blindness can actually make you see other colors better). Maybe this dress has highlighted a previously unknown type of color-blindness?
The unicorn dream is obviously the strongest bit of evidence that Deckard is a replicant.
A unicorn is a symbol of a mythical (i.e. man-made) creature of beauty and purity - so it's heavily symbolic for Rachael. The dream is symbolic of Deckard falling in love with Rachael. Gaff's unicorn at the end is also symbolic of Rachael. Also, Gaff's other uses of origami/similar throughout the film are all heavily symbolic of the scene it's placed in - why would this one use be the only one not symbolic?
There's also the little hint when Rachael asks him if he's ever taken the VK test himself.
More a reference to the book, where the same question comes up, and he has.
When the police first hire him, he's told that SIX replicants hijacked the shuttle and one got fried running through a force field. He then gets info about Leon, Roy, Pris and Zora... so where's #6?
Production error. They were originally going to have six (and even had the part cast), but had to cut one for budget reasons, and forgot to change it in the dialogue. This has been fixed in the Final Cut, as they changed the dialogue to having two replicants fried by Tyrel's security grid.
Deckard always seems to be physically out-classed by the replicants, which is evidence that he's not one of them, but he also takes a hell of a beating, which indicates that he might be.
I'd put this evidence more to him not being one. He even gets his ass kicked by Pris "a pleasure model", and while he takes a hell of a beating it's not past the realm of believability for humans. Also, he doesn't display the ability to ignore pain that the replicants do.
Gaff tells Deckard "You've done a man's job."
This is a colloquialism that means about the same as "you've done a good day's/hard day's work". It's not meant to imply that anything about the listener not being a man.
Also, every single writer on the project has said that Deckard was never meant to be a replicant. Plus, there are multiple literary themes that lose their impact if Deckard is a replicant, too.
So either they start this one in which Deckard isn't a replicant, and they'll piss off the fans of the movie.
I'd say that Deckard is not, and never was, a replicant, and I'll be pissed off if they try say he was one. I've never gotten this assertion that he's a replicant, since so much of what's the in movie points to him not being one, and how much better the story and symbolism is if he isn't.
Another story set in the same milieu? Now that could be done. But not a sequel.
If the few things I read about this late last year are any indication, that's what it is - something with a new Blade Runner as the primary protagonist, and Deckard is in the script as the old man who used to be one.
And really, it's not like they could reasonably do this with Ford playing the hunter of Replicants anymore - he's 72 years old, and is starting to show it.
Ah, OK - I just remember they sold it off in the midst of financial problems. I was probably confusing their story and that of TSR's (all-but) bankruptcy, since they happened at about the same time.
As for Hasbro/Wizards sitting on the IP, the simple fact is that the vast majority of the IP is unusable at this point. They might have names that are too generic, or too close to other games on the market. Or, if they have a unique enough name for that to be valuable, the game is unknown outside of very small and specialized gaming circles. A very large majority of their games are basically the same type of game with slightly different rules (i.e. Diplomacy/Machiavelli, all the various WWII combat games, etc.). A large number of their games would compete with WotC/Hasbro's other IP (other WWII games vs. Axis & Allies, fantasy games vs. the various D&D incarnations, etc.). And, in a large number of cases, the rules are woefully out of date with the modern game industry - most of them were developed in the 70s or 80s, and would need to have major updating done to make them viable alternatives to other currently-published games.
You are entirely missing the point. There's a difference between something that by default publishes very little content that is hand-picked for the readers (a magazine), and a platform for public posting (a blog hosting site).
Add to that the fact that, in this current Google fiasco: A) These blogs are already posted and are going to be censored due to a change in the TOS. B) Google is going to literally be deciding content on a case-by-case basis, and you won't know their decision until you post ("we'll no longer allow blogs that contain sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video. We'll still allow nudity presented in artistic, [...]" - so THEY decide if your nudity is "graphic" or "artistic").
Okay tell me which of these acts of censorship is censorship and which is not? An organic food co-op offers a "free" farmers market every saturday and one of the vendors wants to sell Pepsi?
No. Censorship has to do with speech and expression, not simply sales of physical items. Prohibiting Pepsi to be mentioned or advertised would be censorship. Prohibiting sales of items based on something other than moral or ethical grounds is not. Prohibiting sales of items not in line with it being a "farmer's market" is definitely not. A "farmer's market" is not an open forum to sell whatever you want - there is an expected type of product that will be sold there.
A tee shirt store refuses to carry KKK tee-shirts.
Censorship only if they either (a) typically accept all T-Shirts from whoever; or (b) have a contract with, and already accept shirts from the company that sent the KKK shirts.
A drug store refuses to carry tobacco products.
Nope. Once again, a store is not an open forum for producers to sell their products; it is a chosen selection. Default state = no, not yes.
There are multiple blogging platforms so these people are not being prevented from posting on other platforms.
Sure, for now. And that's fine if Google wants this in their TOS. But just because it's their choice, and it's OK, does not mean it's not censorship.
Even so, it still causes problems - what if you've been posting to this blog platform for years, and now your blog starts falling foul of this decree? Your choices are to effectively lose your blog, or start another blog elsewhere for the taboo posts, splintering your own blog across multiple sites.
Selling guns and live animals is not illegal in the US.
That depends on what you're selling, to who, and where you and the recipient are - and not all eBay transactions have both endpoints in the USA.
Also, considering the legality of sending those items through US Mail, and the stupidity of most US sellers, its a can of worms eBay doesn't want to be involved in.
Editorial freedom and such should in my eyes not be mentioned in the same breath as goverment controlled censorship -- unless the editorial restraints actually originate from the state, in which case we are back at rightfully calling it "censorship".
Except that "censoring" is the only word that correctly addresses the situation; what other word would you use to describe refusal to publish something based upon a moral decision? "Editorial freedom" is most definitely not it unless you're practicing Newspeak.
Additionally, saying that only government censorship is bad is simply denying the reality of the modern age. Due to the multi-national nature of corporations, and of the internet, a decision by a company can actually affect more people than one by a government could.
If a book publisher refuses to publish your manuscript, is that considered censorship too?
That depends. Were they going to publish it, and then decided not to based on the content?
You're confusing an editor choosing what to publish with an otherwise open forum suppressing certain subject matter.
Here's a crash course in how to tell if it's censorship: Not censorship: By default nothing is published. The selection board chooses which select few items out of many to publish. Censorship: By default everything is published. The selection board chooses which select items out of many to not publish.
Now, this isn't a 100% way to tell (for example, it's not censorship to reject based on a non-subject matter requirement such as being too long; and it is censorship if it's the government requiring being on a whitelist for publication). This quick method is, however, going to cover almost every situation that would typically come up in a discussion like this.
I wrote the summary. I take exception to Nye's stating that software engineers in the United States are scientifically illiterate.
And I take exception to your summary. I don't know if you are scientifically illiterate, but considering your obvious problems with reading comprehension I wouldn't be surprised if you were...
However, in the cases of the stores selling stuff, or newspapers publishing stuff, every item is chosen for and cleared by the entity selling/publishing them. That's different from a service that solicits self-publication by the masses. The key difference is that newspapers, stores, etc. start with nothing and choose what to add. This type of censorship starts with everything and chooses what to exclude.
The eBay/Craigslist examples are the companies not wanting to enable illegal activity (many of the ads/sales would fall into illegal activity depending on where/how the transactions occurred - this is them not wanting to be an accessory to illegal activity).
Google is not preventing them from publishing anything. They are just enforcing their guidelines for their free service.
However, that is censorship. Practically the dictionary definition of it, even: A censor is "an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds" or "any person who supervises the manners or morality of others." Censorship is the act of acting as a censor. This situation is absolutely Google suppressing blogs on a "morality" basis.
It's only news because it's a reversal of their stated policy, and could lead to problems if it's indicative of a larger trend on Google's part (i.e. if they started to censor their other platforms, such as their search engine, this way).
Large chunks of the AH catalog had been sold separately before Hasbro purchased the AH name/trademarks and remaining catalog, so many of these old favorites are not even in Hasbro's hands. Also, many of them were not made by AH, but simply published by them. Of the ones that are still theirs, they've republished several, and they release another one every year or so (albeit sometimes reworked/updated and renamed).
However, they're not going to release everything, as many of the games are simply not popular enough to actually make any money if they printed it - especially considering the dearth of new games on the market.
AH went bankrupt for a reason - publishing a lot of stuff that had too small of a market - why should Hasbro/WotC republish those mistakes?
TSR and WoC are dead. Now we all have to negotiate with Hasbro for the rights to D&D.
Not at all true. WotC is owned by Hasbro, but given a high level of autonomy. Hasbro has even moved other product lines they've acquired under WotC's management (Avalon Hill, for example).
the impact and fallout for Gemalto, and the affected carriers, could be huge.
Why is it that the fallout is centered on these companies, instead of on the NSA and GHCQ? Why are these criminal enterprises masquerading as government agencies so completely above the law?
Slashdot Mirror
If Google was capable of doing this, then there would already be a perception that all good developers are Google developers. And that isn't anywhere close to true.
You're missing the point of how powerful branding can be.
Nobody but idiot managers think that not having a particular certification means that someone is a bad developer. This isn't a problem where general perception is concerned.
Tell that to every good developer who wasn't hired because some shitty developer with an MSDN certification and no experience got hired instead.
This doesn't make much sense. No developers have a .dev URL today, so obviously nobody associates the two that way right now. And if it's restricted to Google developers, that association is never going to be formed in the future either.
This is totally at odds with reality. Strong pushes in branding can and will warp public perception. If Google pushes ".dev = good developers" it will cause a branding in people's minds. At first it's not going to be considered an exclusive requirement that good developers have .dev, but eventually, as the .dev becomes a cognitive shortcut for "good developer" people will start thinking that those without .dev are in some way suspect - after all, if they were that good, why wouldn't they have a .dev?
This isn't just speculation, either - the same thing can be seen in the computer world today (or at least recently) with the "XXX Certification" nonsense, be it A+ / MSDN / whatever. I've seen job hiring requirements that require certifications that are pointless to the job, or that focus more on certifications than actual job experience or ability.
Well, I'd hesitate to call you colour blind since you are in fact correct. The dress really is blue and your brain is somehow undoing the mangling that's been done by the camera and lighting to arrive at the correct colour. I can't unsee it as white and gold however.
I'd actually think it was the other way around - I'm less blue colorblind which is why I always see blue, regardless of surrounding context. You've got slight blue colorblindness which is why context causes you to interpret the blue as a different color.
The other day I saw an odd green thing on the floor in my hotel room. It was actually my backpack lit with green tinged light, but was crumpled in an odd shape so I couldn't tell what it was. When I figured it was my backpack, I could no longer see it as green (the actual colour is black).
This could indicate another possible explanation; that in many people the color you first see it as becomes the "right" color, and it becomes difficult/impossible to see it otherwise, as your brain has already interpreted it, and is remembering the "right" color even if you're trying to see it "wrong".
I think their application for .dev to be Google-only highlights a major problem with a company like this having control over any TLDs: They intend to use their control to crowd out competitors in a monopolistic fashion. That no non-Google developer can register a .dev is akin to saying that if you don't work for Google you're not really a developer. The only TLD restriction I would be OK with Google having reserved entirely for personal use is .google - and even that I'd be wary of without concrete rule for revoking the exclusive use if a good reason comes up.
I can only see it as blue, period. Not trolling - I really cannot see this as white in any circumstances, even the XKCD "color balanced" bit I still see it as blue (albeit a much lighter blue on the left).
Maybe this has more to do with some effect similar to color-blindness? There are more types of color-blindness than just the standard red-green, and they have different effects on how colors are seen (and some kinds of color blindness can actually make you see other colors better). Maybe this dress has highlighted a previously unknown type of color-blindness?
The unicorn dream is obviously the strongest bit of evidence that Deckard is a replicant.
A unicorn is a symbol of a mythical (i.e. man-made) creature of beauty and purity - so it's heavily symbolic for Rachael. The dream is symbolic of Deckard falling in love with Rachael. Gaff's unicorn at the end is also symbolic of Rachael. Also, Gaff's other uses of origami/similar throughout the film are all heavily symbolic of the scene it's placed in - why would this one use be the only one not symbolic?
There's also the little hint when Rachael asks him if he's ever taken the VK test himself.
More a reference to the book, where the same question comes up, and he has.
When the police first hire him, he's told that SIX replicants hijacked the shuttle and one got fried running through a force field. He then gets info about Leon, Roy, Pris and Zora ... so where's #6?
Production error. They were originally going to have six (and even had the part cast), but had to cut one for budget reasons, and forgot to change it in the dialogue. This has been fixed in the Final Cut, as they changed the dialogue to having two replicants fried by Tyrel's security grid.
Deckard always seems to be physically out-classed by the replicants, which is evidence that he's not one of them, but he also takes a hell of a beating, which indicates that he might be.
I'd put this evidence more to him not being one. He even gets his ass kicked by Pris "a pleasure model", and while he takes a hell of a beating it's not past the realm of believability for humans. Also, he doesn't display the ability to ignore pain that the replicants do.
Gaff tells Deckard "You've done a man's job."
This is a colloquialism that means about the same as "you've done a good day's/hard day's work". It's not meant to imply that anything about the listener not being a man.
Also, every single writer on the project has said that Deckard was never meant to be a replicant. Plus, there are multiple literary themes that lose their impact if Deckard is a replicant, too.
So either they start this one in which Deckard isn't a replicant, and they'll piss off the fans of the movie.
I'd say that Deckard is not, and never was, a replicant, and I'll be pissed off if they try say he was one. I've never gotten this assertion that he's a replicant, since so much of what's the in movie points to him not being one, and how much better the story and symbolism is if he isn't.
Another story set in the same milieu? Now that could be done. But not a sequel.
If the few things I read about this late last year are any indication, that's what it is - something with a new Blade Runner as the primary protagonist, and Deckard is in the script as the old man who used to be one.
And really, it's not like they could reasonably do this with Ford playing the hunter of Replicants anymore - he's 72 years old, and is starting to show it.
Ah, OK - I just remember they sold it off in the midst of financial problems. I was probably confusing their story and that of TSR's (all-but) bankruptcy, since they happened at about the same time.
As for Hasbro/Wizards sitting on the IP, the simple fact is that the vast majority of the IP is unusable at this point. They might have names that are too generic, or too close to other games on the market. Or, if they have a unique enough name for that to be valuable, the game is unknown outside of very small and specialized gaming circles. A very large majority of their games are basically the same type of game with slightly different rules (i.e. Diplomacy/Machiavelli, all the various WWII combat games, etc.). A large number of their games would compete with WotC/Hasbro's other IP (other WWII games vs. Axis & Allies, fantasy games vs. the various D&D incarnations, etc.). And, in a large number of cases, the rules are woefully out of date with the modern game industry - most of them were developed in the 70s or 80s, and would need to have major updating done to make them viable alternatives to other currently-published games.
You are entirely missing the point. There's a difference between something that by default publishes very little content that is hand-picked for the readers (a magazine), and a platform for public posting (a blog hosting site).
Add to that the fact that, in this current Google fiasco:
A) These blogs are already posted and are going to be censored due to a change in the TOS.
B) Google is going to literally be deciding content on a case-by-case basis, and you won't know their decision until you post ("we'll no longer allow blogs that contain sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video. We'll still allow nudity presented in artistic, [...]" - so THEY decide if your nudity is "graphic" or "artistic").
Is it a physical magazine with a finite space that you have to pick and choose what goes into (i.e. default state is unpublished)? Then no.
Is it an online paper, whose default state is that everything is published?
Then yes.
Okay tell me which of these acts of censorship is censorship and which is not?
An organic food co-op offers a "free" farmers market every saturday and one of the vendors wants to sell Pepsi?
No. Censorship has to do with speech and expression, not simply sales of physical items. Prohibiting Pepsi to be mentioned or advertised would be censorship. Prohibiting sales of items based on something other than moral or ethical grounds is not. Prohibiting sales of items not in line with it being a "farmer's market" is definitely not. A "farmer's market" is not an open forum to sell whatever you want - there is an expected type of product that will be sold there.
A tee shirt store refuses to carry KKK tee-shirts.
Censorship only if they either (a) typically accept all T-Shirts from whoever; or (b) have a contract with, and already accept shirts from the company that sent the KKK shirts.
A drug store refuses to carry tobacco products.
Nope. Once again, a store is not an open forum for producers to sell their products; it is a chosen selection. Default state = no, not yes.
There are multiple blogging platforms so these people are not being prevented from posting on other platforms.
Sure, for now. And that's fine if Google wants this in their TOS. But just because it's their choice, and it's OK, does not mean it's not censorship.
Even so, it still causes problems - what if you've been posting to this blog platform for years, and now your blog starts falling foul of this decree? Your choices are to effectively lose your blog, or start another blog elsewhere for the taboo posts, splintering your own blog across multiple sites.
Selling guns and live animals is not illegal in the US.
That depends on what you're selling, to who, and where you and the recipient are - and not all eBay transactions have both endpoints in the USA.
Also, considering the legality of sending those items through US Mail, and the stupidity of most US sellers, its a can of worms eBay doesn't want to be involved in.
Editorial freedom and such should in my eyes not be mentioned in the same breath as goverment controlled censorship -- unless the editorial restraints actually originate from the state, in which case we are back at rightfully calling it "censorship".
Except that "censoring" is the only word that correctly addresses the situation; what other word would you use to describe refusal to publish something based upon a moral decision? "Editorial freedom" is most definitely not it unless you're practicing Newspeak.
Additionally, saying that only government censorship is bad is simply denying the reality of the modern age. Due to the multi-national nature of corporations, and of the internet, a decision by a company can actually affect more people than one by a government could.
If a book publisher refuses to publish your manuscript, is that considered censorship too?
That depends. Were they going to publish it, and then decided not to based on the content?
You're confusing an editor choosing what to publish with an otherwise open forum suppressing certain subject matter.
Here's a crash course in how to tell if it's censorship:
Not censorship: By default nothing is published. The selection board chooses which select few items out of many to publish.
Censorship: By default everything is published. The selection board chooses which select items out of many to not publish.
Now, this isn't a 100% way to tell (for example, it's not censorship to reject based on a non-subject matter requirement such as being too long; and it is censorship if it's the government requiring being on a whitelist for publication). This quick method is, however, going to cover almost every situation that would typically come up in a discussion like this.
I wrote the summary. I take exception to Nye's stating that software engineers in the United States are scientifically illiterate.
And I take exception to your summary. I don't know if you are scientifically illiterate, but considering your obvious problems with reading comprehension I wouldn't be surprised if you were...
iPorn?
However, in the cases of the stores selling stuff, or newspapers publishing stuff, every item is chosen for and cleared by the entity selling/publishing them. That's different from a service that solicits self-publication by the masses.
The key difference is that newspapers, stores, etc. start with nothing and choose what to add. This type of censorship starts with everything and chooses what to exclude.
The eBay/Craigslist examples are the companies not wanting to enable illegal activity (many of the ads/sales would fall into illegal activity depending on where/how the transactions occurred - this is them not wanting to be an accessory to illegal activity).
Google is not preventing them from publishing anything. They are just enforcing their guidelines for their free service.
However, that is censorship. Practically the dictionary definition of it, even: A censor is "an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds" or "any person who supervises the manners or morality of others." Censorship is the act of acting as a censor. This situation is absolutely Google suppressing blogs on a "morality" basis.
It's only news because it's a reversal of their stated policy, and could lead to problems if it's indicative of a larger trend on Google's part (i.e. if they started to censor their other platforms, such as their search engine, this way).
Uh, owning the platform does not mean that censoring something on it is not censorship.
YouTube?
Large chunks of the AH catalog had been sold separately before Hasbro purchased the AH name/trademarks and remaining catalog, so many of these old favorites are not even in Hasbro's hands. Also, many of them were not made by AH, but simply published by them. Of the ones that are still theirs, they've republished several, and they release another one every year or so (albeit sometimes reworked/updated and renamed).
However, they're not going to release everything, as many of the games are simply not popular enough to actually make any money if they printed it - especially considering the dearth of new games on the market.
AH went bankrupt for a reason - publishing a lot of stuff that had too small of a market - why should Hasbro/WotC republish those mistakes?
TSR and WoC are dead. Now we all have to negotiate with Hasbro for the rights to D&D.
Not at all true. WotC is owned by Hasbro, but given a high level of autonomy. Hasbro has even moved other product lines they've acquired under WotC's management (Avalon Hill, for example).
the impact and fallout for Gemalto, and the affected carriers, could be huge.
Why is it that the fallout is centered on these companies, instead of on the NSA and GHCQ? Why are these criminal enterprises masquerading as government agencies so completely above the law?
So, does the money actually go to the artists, or just to the publishing companies?