Funny how physics principles apply to the socio-political domain. First it was popularity and election polls, now it's Google Predictions. In both cases the 'predictions' tend to become self-fulfilling. With this press release, the mere fact that Google is making these predictions will become a factor now and in future elections, just as it has become a factor in the success or failure of businesses that do or do not successfully manipulate their Google rankings. Politicians, political parties, lobbyists, and astro-turfers will all be scrambling to have Google 'predict' their success.
Make no mistake, Google is a kingmaker in our world. I find that a really scary state of affairs, especially given Eric Schmidt's pompous pronouncements on subjects such as privacy.
TFA strongly implies that the App Store was distributing VLC on its own initiative, not at the behest of the author. If that is the case, then there's a BIG difference between the author's behaviour and Apple's.
GPL = terms and conditions implemented by the creator of the software. Apple-applied DRM = terms and conditions scabbed on by a middle-man, profiting from the generosity of the creator of the software, in contravention of the creator's specified conditions and legal rights. Surely the rights of the creator supersede those of the middleman in this case?
Apple says 'all your rights are belong to us'; Apple can go piss up a rope.
The problem IS NOT usage-based billing per se. The problem is that Bell can now apply usage-based billing to third-party ISP's such as TekSavvy, WITHOUT APPLYING IT TO THEIR OWN DIRECT CUSTOMERS! It's no longer even close to a level playing field; the CRTC has effectively destroyed competition in this market, with one stroke of a poisoned pen. So now I have a choice between staying with TekSavvy, enjoying their superior service and tech expertise but having to pay UBB, or going back to Bell Sympatico and putting up with arrogant jerks in customer service, and know-nothing f**ktards in 'tech support' who couldn't tell the difference between Linux the OS and Linus the Charlie Brown comic strip character.
The CRTC has sold Canadians down the river with this move, and I'd like to know how much Bell paid some snivel serpents for this favourable legislation. Arrogant, whining, incompetent Bell fancies that it owns the infrastructure on which land line calls and DSL service take place. I'm sure that as far as the law is concerned they do, however in reality Canadians own the infrastructure. We've paid for it several times over with decades of tax breaks, government-enforced monopoly, public rights-of-way, putting up with crap service, etcetera.
The CRTC ought to be dismantled and its functionaries jailed, and Bell ought to be nationalized. Free enterprise is one thing; government-sanctioned raping and pillaging of the population by actively suppressing competition is quite another.
Yeah, except that at some point that's like saying "DON'T USE THE WEB". These things have a way of becoming necessary for even entry-level participation in society as a whole. I'm not saying Facebook is there yet, but it looks to be heading in that direction. The time to bring the Zuckerbergs of the world to heel is BEFORE we make their services a part of societal infrastructure.
Take some fucking personal responsibility you god damned nitwits.
In some sense, this is like telling people who voted for Gore to take responsibility for Bush's mess. Facebook effectively has a monopoly, for whatever historical reasons, and the people suing are simply serving notice that the practices of this monopoly are unacceptable. It's easy to take the classic Conservative/Libertarian/Anarchist point of view here, but that view is unworkably simplistic and totally ignores the 'whole is greater than the sum of the parts' aspect of society.
Why the worry about your "friends" doing stalker-ish things to you?
The fact that you singled out the word 'friends' as you did underlines the weakness of your argument. Sometimes, friends become enemies, or inadvertently do stupid or careless things. Sometimes people misjudge, and befriend people who end up being jerkwads. Even at that, in everyday life I don't worry too much about 'friends' doing 'stalker-ish things'; that's because I'm not usually worried about the authorities putting the tools into their hands and then encouraging them to become creepy stalkers. Unfortunately, in Facebook-land that doesn't hold true.
... then it's not called 'hacking', it's called 'connecting to an open access point'. Next thing you know, sticking a DVD in your computer's drive and installing software will be called 'hacking'. Have we fallen so far?
As a long-time fan of Philip K. Dick, I've always been disappointed that the movies made from his stories have deviated so far from the stories themselves. Don't get me wrong - I loved Blade Runner and quite liked Total Recall - but I was always dissatisfied that they weren't true to Dick's original vision. 'The Man in the High Castle' is arguably Dick's best and most accessible work, and I've always thought it would make a fantastic movie. Here's hoping that Scott has the good sense to simply translate the novel to film, rather than playing at being an SF writer and trying to one-up Dick's own mastery of the genre.
How about school lunches, school books, teachers' salaries, scholarships, poverty amelioration? I know 27 million bucks isn't a lot of money, but as the saying goes, "a million here, a million there, and soon you're talking real money".
Illiterate kids going hungry in NYC, and the city is putting up new street signs? Gimme a break! How about investing in a future in which citizens are actually capable of READING the street signs? I don't give a damn which level of government the money is coming from, or what it was earmarked for in some dunderheaded budget. We need to get our priorities straight.
It strikes me that there are similarities between the concept of social media effecting change, and the concept of far-flung developers creating successful free software. Both rely on a loosely-knit network of interested individuals who often have never met each other in person, using technology collaboratively to foster commitment, create an organization, develop an agenda, and manage a sustained effort, at personal cost, toward a common goal. Given the success of the FOSS model, why WOULDN'T social media be a good means of fomenting social change?
TFA says, "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice". I'm not so sure that this is true; only time will tell.
...that the Religious Right is going to kick up such a fuss about this. Anything that involves genetics sends them into a tizzy. Then it's likely that the Republicans will kowtow to the religious wingnuts, the Democrats will fold like a tent, and the research will be set back by years. A pity, really, given the potential of this research to alleviate some human suffering.
I don't even see this 'feature', nor the annoying and distracting 'fade in' effect launched a few months ago. NoScript handily takes care of that junk for me. And I've switched off suggestions in Google prefs, which means I don't have to look at what other people have searched for as I'm typing in my own search criteria. Now if I could only find a way to permanently switch off Web History - I refuse to open an account with Google, (aka 'Big Brother'), just to be able to disable this, ewpecially given that I don't trust Google to fully disable it even if they say they have done so.
In my experience, when a company starts down the road of intrusiveness, invasion of privacy, and excessive 'eye candy', they've usually come to the end of their tenure as true innovators. I suspect that Google will slowly become less and less relevant over the next 5 to 10 years, just as Microsoft has in the previous decade or so.
For many years now I've been calling the agency in question 'DFS', for 'Department of Fatherland Security'. I guess it was only a matter of time before they demonstrated their fascism in a public, step-on-your-own-dick manner. Now their pretense of righteousness has fallen away; DFS is obviously all about money and power, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the safety and security of America and her citizens. These clowns are simply organized criminals with a government mandate, and they run the biggest protection and extortion rackets in the whole country.
Given a choice, I'd rather deal with the Mafia - they seem more honorable and more competent, and at least they don't pretend to hold the moral high ground.
...then by definition they're launching at a tangent to the earth's surface. This means that they'll have to punch through a lot more atmosphere than they would have to with a traditional perpendicular launch. I wonder how much they're really gaining with this strategy.
Is it normal for the-government-as-defendant to seal a case after settling? If this action is not standard procedure, then it suggests the presence of findings the government didn't want revealed publicly.
Yet another bit of distracting, eye-candy crap that uses JavaScript to tart up my monitor like a whore on Saturday night. I get that Google is becoming EVIL despite their stated intentions to the contrary, but do they have to be ugly and bloated too?
A quote from the TV series 'Life': "Its like Hello Kitty ate the Disney Channel and threw it up on that half of the room."
This trend of 'cute for cuteness sake' seems to be taking over the whole computing industry. I really wish developers, and Google specifically, would spend more effort on functionality and usability and less effort on putting on their damned makeup.
Except in this case the government would NOT be regulating the Internet, they'd be regulating a business practice that just happens to take place on the 'net. I'll bet you have no objection to government regulations against spam, so why would you have a problem with the government regulating other types of advertising conducted via the Internet?
If I find one of these on my car, it's mine! I can take a hammer to it; or better yet, I can stick it onto a taxicab and laugh out loud while I'm imagining the police scratching their heads and muttering "What the fuck?".
Hear hear! People tend to forget that at some point that nice, 'incorruptible' digital signal is turned into an analog signal, and that the circuitry which processes that analog signal is susceptible in a multitude of ways, some not immediately obvious, to interference from outside sources. Your CPU runs in the GHz range with nominally rectangular waves. Guess what? That's a broadband radio transmitter, with cabling, PCB traces, and even the nominally 'grounded' computer case and power cord being antennae. The same thing applies to SATA connections, memory busses, USB, etc. These radio frequency signals can change the bias points of analog amps, mix non-linearly with other signals to cause artifacts in the audible range, and/or overload some or all parts of an amplifier unpredictably and sometimes intermittently.
Different cables have different impedances, inter-conductor capacitances, inductances, and different lengths; all of these factors can have a tremendous effect on the interference potential of the devices to which they're connected. Speaking as an RF technologist who has done lots of equipment tweaking to pass Industry Canada testing, (Americans, think FCC here), I can say from copious experience that changing a cable CAN and often DOES make a huge difference. If this wasn't an important issue we wouldn't have so many cables with 'big bump' ferrite beads molded into or kludged onto them. The manufacturers would rather not go to the added expense and bulkiness, but they have to do it to meet regulatory criteria that are in place precisely to prevent one device from compromising the functioning of another.
I too have a tendency to dismiss audiophilic 'snake oil', but I always try to remember that at one time the earth was flat and anyone who dared to question that 'fact' was considered delusional. When someone hears a difference that's 'just not possible', it behooves us to examine the evidence without prejudice rather than taking comfortable, smug refuge in what we think we know. After all, questioning the conventional wisdom has given us much of the technical cornucopia we discuss here on this forum.
...I can say that I truly HATE $1 and $2 coins. Having ten one-dollar bills in my wallet was never a problem. Having ten one-dollar coins in my pocket, (along with other assorted change), is a major PITA. Hold on to your paper singles, America! Folding money rules; one-dollar and two-dollar coins just suck!
Is it just me, or does Ballmer sound lame, cliched, mealy-mouthed, and unprepared? I've heard more original and substantive comments in post-game locker room interviews of sports figures.
Ballmer seems to be trying hard to convince HIMSELF, (never mind his audience), of Microsoft's continued relevance. If this is the best effort he can muster, then he needs to step down, for the good of the company.
On the other hand, maybe he should stay. Right now, Ballmer could be the best friend that FOSS has!
I agree fully, and as someone who uses both Windows, and Gnome under Debian, I really don't want the window controls to move from the upper right hand corner, especially to meet some perceived need to be different. Gnome needs a lot of things more urgently than it needs a spurious "Look! I'm different" facelift. For example, how about a full-featured file manager, instead of the current Nautilus? One that has a full file search feature built in, (so I don't have to launch a separate app just to find a file by date or by text contents), that allows click-and-drag file select, and so on. Gnome is so immature in so many ways; they need to get the basics right before they go wasting resources on prettification.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny how physics principles apply to the socio-political domain. First it was popularity and election polls, now it's Google Predictions. In both cases the 'predictions' tend to become self-fulfilling. With this press release, the mere fact that Google is making these predictions will become a factor now and in future elections, just as it has become a factor in the success or failure of businesses that do or do not successfully manipulate their Google rankings. Politicians, political parties, lobbyists, and astro-turfers will all be scrambling to have Google 'predict' their success.
Make no mistake, Google is a kingmaker in our world. I find that a really scary state of affairs, especially given Eric Schmidt's pompous pronouncements on subjects such as privacy.
TFA strongly implies that the App Store was distributing VLC on its own initiative, not at the behest of the author. If that is the case, then there's a BIG difference between the author's behaviour and Apple's.
GPL = terms and conditions implemented by the creator of the software. Apple-applied DRM = terms and conditions scabbed on by a middle-man, profiting from the generosity of the creator of the software, in contravention of the creator's specified conditions and legal rights. Surely the rights of the creator supersede those of the middleman in this case?
Apple says 'all your rights are belong to us'; Apple can go piss up a rope.
The problem IS NOT usage-based billing per se. The problem is that Bell can now apply usage-based billing to third-party ISP's such as TekSavvy, WITHOUT APPLYING IT TO THEIR OWN DIRECT CUSTOMERS! It's no longer even close to a level playing field; the CRTC has effectively destroyed competition in this market, with one stroke of a poisoned pen. So now I have a choice between staying with TekSavvy, enjoying their superior service and tech expertise but having to pay UBB, or going back to Bell Sympatico and putting up with arrogant jerks in customer service, and know-nothing f**ktards in 'tech support' who couldn't tell the difference between Linux the OS and Linus the Charlie Brown comic strip character. The CRTC has sold Canadians down the river with this move, and I'd like to know how much Bell paid some snivel serpents for this favourable legislation. Arrogant, whining, incompetent Bell fancies that it owns the infrastructure on which land line calls and DSL service take place. I'm sure that as far as the law is concerned they do, however in reality Canadians own the infrastructure. We've paid for it several times over with decades of tax breaks, government-enforced monopoly, public rights-of-way, putting up with crap service, etcetera. The CRTC ought to be dismantled and its functionaries jailed, and Bell ought to be nationalized. Free enterprise is one thing; government-sanctioned raping and pillaging of the population by actively suppressing competition is quite another.
DON'T USE FACEBOOK.
Yeah, except that at some point that's like saying "DON'T USE THE WEB". These things have a way of becoming necessary for even entry-level participation in society as a whole. I'm not saying Facebook is there yet, but it looks to be heading in that direction. The time to bring the Zuckerbergs of the world to heel is BEFORE we make their services a part of societal infrastructure.
Take some fucking personal responsibility you god damned nitwits.
In some sense, this is like telling people who voted for Gore to take responsibility for Bush's mess. Facebook effectively has a monopoly, for whatever historical reasons, and the people suing are simply serving notice that the practices of this monopoly are unacceptable. It's easy to take the classic Conservative/Libertarian/Anarchist point of view here, but that view is unworkably simplistic and totally ignores the 'whole is greater than the sum of the parts' aspect of society.
Why the worry about your "friends" doing stalker-ish things to you?
The fact that you singled out the word 'friends' as you did underlines the weakness of your argument. Sometimes, friends become enemies, or inadvertently do stupid or careless things. Sometimes people misjudge, and befriend people who end up being jerkwads. Even at that, in everyday life I don't worry too much about 'friends' doing 'stalker-ish things'; that's because I'm not usually worried about the authorities putting the tools into their hands and then encouraging them to become creepy stalkers. Unfortunately, in Facebook-land that doesn't hold true.
...then shall we call them TV Dinners?
Seriously though, speaking as a Proud Canadian... YAY!
... then it's not called 'hacking', it's called 'connecting to an open access point'. Next thing you know, sticking a DVD in your computer's drive and installing software will be called 'hacking'. Have we fallen so far?
As a long-time fan of Philip K. Dick, I've always been disappointed that the movies made from his stories have deviated so far from the stories themselves. Don't get me wrong - I loved Blade Runner and quite liked Total Recall - but I was always dissatisfied that they weren't true to Dick's original vision. 'The Man in the High Castle' is arguably Dick's best and most accessible work, and I've always thought it would make a fantastic movie. Here's hoping that Scott has the good sense to simply translate the novel to film, rather than playing at being an SF writer and trying to one-up Dick's own mastery of the genre.
How about school lunches, school books, teachers' salaries, scholarships, poverty amelioration? I know 27 million bucks isn't a lot of money, but as the saying goes, "a million here, a million there, and soon you're talking real money". Illiterate kids going hungry in NYC, and the city is putting up new street signs? Gimme a break! How about investing in a future in which citizens are actually capable of READING the street signs? I don't give a damn which level of government the money is coming from, or what it was earmarked for in some dunderheaded budget. We need to get our priorities straight.
It strikes me that there are similarities between the concept of social media effecting change, and the concept of far-flung developers creating successful free software. Both rely on a loosely-knit network of interested individuals who often have never met each other in person, using technology collaboratively to foster commitment, create an organization, develop an agenda, and manage a sustained effort, at personal cost, toward a common goal. Given the success of the FOSS model, why WOULDN'T social media be a good means of fomenting social change? TFA says, "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice". I'm not so sure that this is true; only time will tell.
...that the Religious Right is going to kick up such a fuss about this. Anything that involves genetics sends them into a tizzy. Then it's likely that the Republicans will kowtow to the religious wingnuts, the Democrats will fold like a tent, and the research will be set back by years. A pity, really, given the potential of this research to alleviate some human suffering.
I don't even see this 'feature', nor the annoying and distracting 'fade in' effect launched a few months ago. NoScript handily takes care of that junk for me. And I've switched off suggestions in Google prefs, which means I don't have to look at what other people have searched for as I'm typing in my own search criteria. Now if I could only find a way to permanently switch off Web History - I refuse to open an account with Google, (aka 'Big Brother'), just to be able to disable this, ewpecially given that I don't trust Google to fully disable it even if they say they have done so. In my experience, when a company starts down the road of intrusiveness, invasion of privacy, and excessive 'eye candy', they've usually come to the end of their tenure as true innovators. I suspect that Google will slowly become less and less relevant over the next 5 to 10 years, just as Microsoft has in the previous decade or so.
For many years now I've been calling the agency in question 'DFS', for 'Department of Fatherland Security'. I guess it was only a matter of time before they demonstrated their fascism in a public, step-on-your-own-dick manner. Now their pretense of righteousness has fallen away; DFS is obviously all about money and power, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the safety and security of America and her citizens. These clowns are simply organized criminals with a government mandate, and they run the biggest protection and extortion rackets in the whole country. Given a choice, I'd rather deal with the Mafia - they seem more honorable and more competent, and at least they don't pretend to hold the moral high ground.
...then by definition they're launching at a tangent to the earth's surface. This means that they'll have to punch through a lot more atmosphere than they would have to with a traditional perpendicular launch. I wonder how much they're really gaining with this strategy.
Is it normal for the-government-as-defendant to seal a case after settling? If this action is not standard procedure, then it suggests the presence of findings the government didn't want revealed publicly.
Yet another bit of distracting, eye-candy crap that uses JavaScript to tart up my monitor like a whore on Saturday night. I get that Google is becoming EVIL despite their stated intentions to the contrary, but do they have to be ugly and bloated too?
A quote from the TV series 'Life': "Its like Hello Kitty ate the Disney Channel and threw it up on that half of the room."
This trend of 'cute for cuteness sake' seems to be taking over the whole computing industry. I really wish developers, and
Google specifically, would spend more effort on functionality and usability and less effort on putting on their damned makeup.
...I hope they don't decide to call it Icarus
...that although Fair Use may protect the author from LOSING a law suit, it probably won't protect him from BEING sued.
Except in this case the government would NOT be regulating the Internet, they'd be regulating a business practice that just happens to take place on the 'net. I'll bet you have no objection to government regulations against spam, so why would you have a problem with the government regulating other types of advertising conducted via the Internet?
If I find one of these on my car, it's mine! I can take a hammer to it; or better yet, I can stick it onto a taxicab and laugh out loud while I'm imagining the police scratching their heads and muttering "What the fuck?".
Hear hear! People tend to forget that at some point that nice, 'incorruptible' digital signal is turned into an analog signal, and that the circuitry which processes that analog signal is susceptible in a multitude of ways, some not immediately obvious, to interference from outside sources. Your CPU runs in the GHz range with nominally rectangular waves. Guess what? That's a broadband radio transmitter, with cabling, PCB traces, and even the nominally 'grounded' computer case and power cord being antennae. The same thing applies to SATA connections, memory busses, USB, etc. These radio frequency signals can change the bias points of analog amps, mix non-linearly with other signals to cause artifacts in the audible range, and/or overload some or all parts of an amplifier unpredictably and sometimes intermittently.
Different cables have different impedances, inter-conductor capacitances, inductances, and different lengths; all of these factors can have a tremendous effect on the interference potential of the devices to which they're connected. Speaking as an RF technologist who has done lots of equipment tweaking to pass Industry Canada testing, (Americans, think FCC here), I can say from copious experience that changing a cable CAN and often DOES make a huge difference. If this wasn't an important issue we wouldn't have so many cables with 'big bump' ferrite beads molded into or kludged onto them. The manufacturers would rather not go to the added expense and bulkiness, but they have to do it to meet regulatory criteria that are in place precisely to prevent one device from compromising the functioning of another.
I too have a tendency to dismiss audiophilic 'snake oil', but I always try to remember that at one time the earth was flat and anyone who dared to question that 'fact' was considered delusional. When someone hears a difference that's 'just not possible', it behooves us to examine the evidence without prejudice rather than taking comfortable, smug refuge in what we think we know. After all, questioning the conventional wisdom has given us much of the technical cornucopia we discuss here on this forum.
...I can say that I truly HATE $1 and $2 coins. Having ten one-dollar bills in my wallet was never a problem. Having ten one-dollar coins in my pocket, (along with other assorted change), is a major PITA. Hold on to your paper singles, America! Folding money rules; one-dollar and two-dollar coins just suck!
...to say that I'm looking forward to condoms and/or sex toys using this marvelous innovation!
Is it just me, or does Ballmer sound lame, cliched, mealy-mouthed, and unprepared? I've heard more original and substantive comments in post-game locker room interviews of sports figures. Ballmer seems to be trying hard to convince HIMSELF, (never mind his audience), of Microsoft's continued relevance. If this is the best effort he can muster, then he needs to step down, for the good of the company. On the other hand, maybe he should stay. Right now, Ballmer could be the best friend that FOSS has!
I agree fully, and as someone who uses both Windows, and Gnome under Debian, I really don't want the window controls to move from the upper right hand corner, especially to meet some perceived need to be different. Gnome needs a lot of things more urgently than it needs a spurious "Look! I'm different" facelift. For example, how about a full-featured file manager, instead of the current Nautilus? One that has a full file search feature built in, (so I don't have to launch a separate app just to find a file by date or by text contents), that allows click-and-drag file select, and so on. Gnome is so immature in so many ways; they need to get the basics right before they go wasting resources on prettification.