A thumbnail (which Google Image Search displays) is just a downsampled version of the original image.
If it is OK for Google to distribute these, why is it illegal for a person to distribute downsampled versions of WAVe files (aka MP3s)?
And, for someone who included the notion of improving the "leisure time" of poor villagers, he's not thinking too clearly about the delightful aroma that comes with 24x7 burning of cow dung.
Clearly you have some cowdung between your ears.
Villagers in India burn cowdung every day for their daily energy needs: cooking, cleaning, heating, etc. Go to any rural village (I have) and you'll see cowpatties everywhere, drying in the sun (to be used as fuel when they're dry). So, this generator burning cowdung is no big deal. You may like to wrinkle your nose, but there are a billion people out there who use it daily.
If Firefox is caching these pages, why doesn't it cache POST results? When I hit back to go back to a page obtained via POST, FF refuses to show it to me, asking me to either cancel the action or resubmit the form.
JUST SHOW ME THE GODDAMMN PAGE, DAMMIT!. Once the page lands in my machine, regardless of how I obtained it (i.e. via GET, POST or whatever), then just show it, or at the very least give me the option of seeing the possibly expired page. Let it be my decision.
Let me start with the second-to-last paragraph.
Google's mantra is "Do no evil" and not "Don't be evil". There's a difference. Read it a couple of times if it's not apparent to you.
Re: the tax hit. From the company's press release:
"Primarily because the proportion of total expenses allocated to our international operations was greater than we anticipated, more of our profits were taxed at a higher domestic tax rate; this resulted in a greater effective tax rate compared to our expectations," the company said in its press release.
International taxation is a complicated beast. The 2005 effective tax rate was 31.6%. The company had guided for a full-year 2005 tax rate of 30%. You can blame this on Google, because unlike other companies, Google does not guide Wall Street analysts on a continual basis; so when something surprising like this happens, the stock takes a pounding.
Re: censorship. Google used to wear its "we don't censor results" on its sleeve. For years and years, Google got great mileage out of this statement (and similar ones). For them to now turn around and censor results in China, for whatever reason, is like betraying its core principles. The market is making them pay for this.
There's a difference between offering (as the headline implies) and considering offering as the article states. For all we know this could be the handiwork of some marketing droid who just ran a poll for a Powerpoint presentation.
But also, for what it's worth, McCarthy was actually 100% CORRECT in his inquiries.
Sorry, the WikiPedia article you linked to does not say that. It says that some of his targets were indeed Soviet spies or Commie sympathisers.
Tomorrow if a black person mugs somebody and the cops arrest all black people, they will be "100% correct" according to your metric; but that doesn't make it right.
What you are saying about censoring themselves would be true if Google was a publisher of information.
In this instance, however, by preventing access to information, they are effectively censoring the pro-democracy and pro-freedom voices. If no one in China can find these sites, then these sites may just as well be censored, no?
the Chinese people will get to see all the articles on democracy and many other things that will educate the citizens
You forgot to add, "for now". How long before those also are redacted?
The Chinese government's efforts are not static; they will cut off any site that they deem is a threat to their grip on power. So today you might be able to see those sites; but the moment the next demonstration happens, expect those sites to be gone too.
If Google did not serve China at all, the Chinese people would be forced to find ways to get to Google. It would be a cat-and-mouse game, but eventually they would find a way. And then they'd get pure, unadulterated Google.
By giving in to the Chinese censorship demand, Google is taking away this desire. The people of China will get a version of Google; and, if they somehow manage to bypass this "official" version of Google and reach the door of the real Google, they will be turned away.
Basically, if someone from a Chinese IP address reaches Google's doors, s/he will be sent back to the "santized Google". This is almost like those who turned escaped slaves in. Google is not only censoring results, it is also actively denying information to those Chinese who happen to access Google outside.
Here's him responding to the MSFT techie: I often get asked the question, "who has been fired for shipping insecure code at Microsoft?" My usual answer here is that we are still learning a lot about security at Microsoft and that most of the security issues that we deal with don't come as a result of carelessness or disregard for the process, but rather new vectors of attack that we didn't understand at the time.
"We are still learning" ? Do they have mental midgets working at MSFT?
How many buffer-overflows have been found in MSFT code? After the first one or two, why hasn't anybody been fired for it?
How many problems have been found due to incorrect defaults?
After reading the Google China news, it suddenly dawned on me that the Google -vs- DOJ thing was probably just a sham. I'm inclined to believe that it was a feint to minimize the impact of Google's sellout. Google knows that the information that DOJ wants is harmless; but by putting up a mock fight, it can claim to take the higher ground, "standing up for the rights of our users", while they quietly sellout to the Chinese Government.
Corporations don't exist to be humanitarian organizations. Their job is to make as much money as possible, while remaining within the law.
By your reasoning, corporations don't have a concept of "evil" either. Then why did Google adopt the "Do No Evil" mantra as its core (note the past tense, since I believe this to no longer be true)? Why does Google's "Ten Commandments" list "You can make money without doing evil."?
I don't know what is more scary: the fact that these companies are thinking along these lines, or the fact that our representatives in Congress are so clueless that they haven't done anything about it. I mean, this is a no-brainer. Any sane person would tell the Telecomms to fuck off.
The deeper problem here is that the FF folks decided to bypass the "proper" process of going through a standards body (W3C), soliciting comment from the alpha geeks, etc. and just implemented it. If Microsoft had done this (as they often do, I might add), we'd all be passing out torches and pitchforks by now.
Anyone else care to remember the <BLINK> fiasco?
It is obvious that a "middleman" like Google is the one who will benefit the most from this. But one has to wonder: how much influence does Google have on Firefox development these days? And has Firefox become the de-facto "Google browser", catering to Google's needs only?
Relying on the user to submit the right statistics is asinine. No company will trust user-submitted stats ("I stayed on your web page and read every word...lol"). This is why redirects are essential: the site owner has concrete numbers about the clicks.
Once again, Firefox/Mozilla folks are showing their arrogance (anyone else remember "blink"?). When their marketshare was down, they would never have done such a thing; but now that their marketshare is noticeable, they are back to their old ways.
If Microsoft had done this, everyone would be up in arms about their "embrace and extend". Why isn't there a hue-and-cry about Firefox "extending" things unilaterally? Oh, I know why: because the almighty Google backs FF now.
This lets Google track me everywhere on the WWW. A cookie set by Google-Analytics can be read by the script from every site that has the script; therefore they (Google) can track you as you jump from Slashdot to Digg to Bullzeye to RecipeCentral and so on (assuming these sites have the Urchin script). I don't like the idea of being tracked everywhere I go like this.
I am amazed that the Googleaid-drinking Slashdot crowd isn't up in arms about this tracking possibility.
Slashdot Mirror
A thumbnail (which Google Image Search displays) is just a downsampled version of the original image.
If it is OK for Google to distribute these, why is it illegal for a person to distribute downsampled versions of WAVe files (aka MP3s)?
The PDF refers to several declarations (by Cutts, Ramani, etc.). Any links to those?
It was called UUCP. :-)
Clearly you have some cowdung between your ears.
Villagers in India burn cowdung every day for their daily energy needs: cooking, cleaning, heating, etc. Go to any rural village (I have) and you'll see cowpatties everywhere, drying in the sun (to be used as fuel when they're dry). So, this generator burning cowdung is no big deal. You may like to wrinkle your nose, but there are a billion people out there who use it daily.
If Firefox is caching these pages, why doesn't it cache POST results? When I hit back to go back to a page obtained via POST, FF refuses to show it to me, asking me to either cancel the action or resubmit the form. JUST SHOW ME THE GODDAMMN PAGE, DAMMIT!. Once the page lands in my machine, regardless of how I obtained it (i.e. via GET, POST or whatever), then just show it, or at the very least give me the option of seeing the possibly expired page. Let it be my decision.
Google's mantra is "Do no evil" and not "Don't be evil". There's a difference. Read it a couple of times if it's not apparent to you.
Re: the tax hit. From the company's press release:
International taxation is a complicated beast. The 2005 effective tax rate was 31.6%. The company had guided for a full-year 2005 tax rate of 30%. You can blame this on Google, because unlike other companies, Google does not guide Wall Street analysts on a continual basis; so when something surprising like this happens, the stock takes a pounding.Re: censorship. Google used to wear its "we don't censor results" on its sleeve. For years and years, Google got great mileage out of this statement (and similar ones). For them to now turn around and censor results in China, for whatever reason, is like betraying its core principles. The market is making them pay for this.
There's a difference between offering (as the headline implies) and considering offering as the article states. For all we know this could be the handiwork of some marketing droid who just ran a poll for a Powerpoint presentation.
Yes he makes mistakes. Don't we all?
Because, as we all know, a noisy server can exacerbate a throbbing hangover ...
Sigh.
Sorry, the WikiPedia article you linked to does not say that. It says that some of his targets were indeed Soviet spies or Commie sympathisers.
Tomorrow if a black person mugs somebody and the cops arrest all black people, they will be "100% correct" according to your metric; but that doesn't make it right.
Mod parent up!
What you are saying about censoring themselves would be true if Google was a publisher of information. In this instance, however, by preventing access to information, they are effectively censoring the pro-democracy and pro-freedom voices. If no one in China can find these sites, then these sites may just as well be censored, no?
Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
So how can Google explain the different ordering of results for Google China? Hasn't it "sold" the placement of results to the Chinese Government??
You forgot to add, "for now". How long before those also are redacted?
The Chinese government's efforts are not static; they will cut off any site that they deem is a threat to their grip on power. So today you might be able to see those sites; but the moment the next demonstration happens, expect those sites to be gone too.
If Google did not serve China at all, the Chinese people would be forced to find ways to get to Google. It would be a cat-and-mouse game, but eventually they would find a way. And then they'd get pure, unadulterated Google.
By giving in to the Chinese censorship demand, Google is taking away this desire. The people of China will get a version of Google; and, if they somehow manage to bypass this "official" version of Google and reach the door of the real Google, they will be turned away.
Basically, if someone from a Chinese IP address reaches Google's doors, s/he will be sent back to the "santized Google". This is almost like those who turned escaped slaves in. Google is not only censoring results, it is also actively denying information to those Chinese who happen to access Google outside.
"Do no evil", my ass.
Here's him responding to the MSFT techie:
I often get asked the question, "who has been fired for shipping insecure code at Microsoft?" My usual answer here is that we are still learning a lot about security at Microsoft and that most of the security issues that we deal with don't come as a result of carelessness or disregard for the process, but rather new vectors of attack that we didn't understand at the time.
"We are still learning" ? Do they have mental midgets working at MSFT?
How many buffer-overflows have been found in MSFT code? After the first one or two, why hasn't anybody been fired for it?
How many problems have been found due to incorrect defaults?
It seems to make sense now.
By your reasoning, corporations don't have a concept of "evil" either. Then why did Google adopt the "Do No Evil" mantra as its core (note the past tense, since I believe this to no longer be true)? Why does Google's "Ten Commandments" list "You can make money without doing evil."?
I don't know what is more scary: the fact that these companies are thinking along these lines, or the fact that our representatives in Congress are so clueless that they haven't done anything about it. I mean, this is a no-brainer. Any sane person would tell the Telecomms to fuck off.
Anyone else care to remember the <BLINK> fiasco?
It is obvious that a "middleman" like Google is the one who will benefit the most from this. But one has to wonder: how much influence does Google have on Firefox development these days? And has Firefox become the de-facto "Google browser", catering to Google's needs only?
Once again, Firefox/Mozilla folks are showing their arrogance (anyone else remember "blink"?). When their marketshare was down, they would never have done such a thing; but now that their marketshare is noticeable, they are back to their old ways.
If Microsoft had done this, everyone would be up in arms about their "embrace and extend". Why isn't there a hue-and-cry about Firefox "extending" things unilaterally? Oh, I know why: because the almighty Google backs FF now.
I am amazed that the Googleaid-drinking Slashdot crowd isn't up in arms about this tracking possibility.
Add :-)
http://www.google-analytics.com/*
to your blocking rules, and all is well.