In many cases, Tiffany wouldn't hire them. I've never seen anyone with two-inch gauges and tattoos from wrist to shoulder working at Tiffany.
I'm somewhat surprised that Apple hires them -- not that they don't do a good job, but few companies would hire such for public-facing positions. I think Apple has tapped a good employee resource there; bright, competent young people who've made personal appearance choices that generally disqualify them for customer-facing jobs better-paid than 7-11. And it probably does allow them to pay a little less.
Also, with regard to the national institute I'm at, I tell people I haven't seen this many pregnant women since high school, but that's probably because they're getting to a certain age.
I'm not sure if that says something about your institute... or something about your high school.
The ownership of anything you do during your work hours would be in question (at best).
Which is relevant how?
His goals are to learn something and pass the time, not build the next killer app. How does it his employer potentially owning the code he writes interfere with those goals?
Google provides the tools to allow you to opt out, and honors your choice.
BS - you have to be logged in to a Google account to be able to opt out.
No, you don't. If you opt out through the Google privacy pages, it installs a cookie which tells Google servers not to track you. There are two different opt-outs, one for ads and one for analytics. If you want to make sure that cookies don't get lost, Google provides plugins/extensions for IE, Firefox and Chrome which will reinstall them if they get deleted.
If you are logged in, there are some other options, many of which are off by default (i.e. opt-in). I think those are orthogonal to the ads and analytics cookies.
Do you know, then, that Page does get bonuses? According to Forbes, he does not -- his total compensation package is $1 per year. Obviously this is because as a founder he owns a large portion of the company. The point of my original post was that it makes no sense to complain about CEO compensation in the context of an article about Google.
True, but the implication in your original post was that it was reasonable for people to run without AV -- but the approach you use, while better than AV, is hardly reasonable for anyone but hardcore Windows experts (to know what should or should not change) who are also willing to do snapshots and offline scans.
He also doesn't get any stock or stock options... not sure about bonuses, but I don't think so. Of course, he personally owns a huge chunk of the $180B company, so it's not like he needs any direct income.
Google logs all IP addresses initially but after nine months zeros the bottom octet to anonymize them
That's not much privacy. If I watch your browsing habits for 9 months, I bet I could put together a signature that would let me identify your browing from a group of 256 random individuals.
If that were the only privacy protection measure, sure.
Which is only what Google tells you. You don't think they're tracking you by IP address too? You don't think they're using browser fingerprinting? Google's cookie is one tiny part of the problem.
Google logs all IP addresses initially but after nine months zeros the bottom octet to anonymize them. Cookies are kept for 18 months, and many have noted that the cookies can be used to recover the full IP address going back 18 months, assuming you're always connecting from the same IP, but if you've opted out then there are no cookies stored to provide that linkage (I'm not sure if the opt-out cookie is itself anonymous, or if it's stripped before logging, or what, but it's something like that).
I don't know if browser information is anonymized; I'm sure at least enough is kept to identify the browser version.
Although you almost certainly won't believe me (since I work for Google), I'll tell you that Google tries very hard to honor tracking opt outs. If someone discovered a way that Google could recover individualized tracking about a user who had opted out, that would be considered a bug and it would get fixed. If it couldn't be fixed, controls would be put in place to ensure that the data is not used for tracking in any systematic way, and that individual employees can't access it without specific permissions, and the use of those who actually have a demonstrated need to use it would be audited.
The tinfoil hat crowd will simply dismiss this post, but the truth is that Google really doesn't want to track you if you don't want to be tracked. Google wants to convince you that you do want to be tracked, of course, that Google's services (including targeted advertising!) are actually sufficiently valuable to you that you want Google to have the data. But if you don't agree, Google provides the tools to allow you to opt out, and honors your choice.
This isn't to say that bad things will never happen, or that mistakes will never be made. Google is composed of people, and people screw up. Hence things like the Wifi packet capture, and Safari privacy workaround. But violations of the principles of user privacy are treated as errors to be corrected.
From an information-theoretic standpoint, the best way to be sure that Google never screws up with your privacy is to ensure it is impossible for Google to know anything about you, so opt out of tracking and avoid Google services, or even just block Google at your router. IMO, given its track record, trusting Google to behave responsibly isn't at all unreasonable, and I think Google offers good value in trade for your information (assuming that Google behaves responsibly). But it's your choice, and Google wants it to be possible for you to make that choice.
Why does everyone think the only way to know if you're infected is to run some resource-sucking A/V software?
Because with well-written malware it is the only way to know, unless you routinely snapshot your system and do off-line verifications that your system files have not been modified.
How do you think A/V companies know to add something to their definitions?
There are many ways malware is discovered initially. It depends on the type of malware and the infection vector.
Maybe the fact that I don't get falsely complacent by running A/V software, means that when the A/V companies miss something like Flame for two years then I'd know about it on my machine before the AV warning, because I wouldn't be thinking "My A/V software shows nothing, so I'm not infected."
No one (well, not me anyway) is claiming that A/V software never gives false negatives. But not having A/V software gives a lot more false negatives.
If they allow us to see their content, they have to send us the bits in some form. If they send us the bits in any form, we can capture them and convert them to another form.
Do you really think Google doesn't get this? I'd look a little harder to understand the reasoning.
I'd guess that the malware detection is actually performed by servers at Google. That would make more sense (to me, anyway) than trying to embed the code in the browsers where malware authors can examine it, and where updates require a browser release.
Er, I guess I should have clicked your link before shooting my mouth off, rather than after:-)
Er, I guess I should have read the code at the link you provided before correcting myself... since it appears that it does indeed connect to "safe browser servers" at Google.
I think I'll just shut up now, even if further perusal shows this comment to be wrong as well.
I'd guess that the malware detection is actually performed by servers at Google. That would make more sense (to me, anyway) than trying to embed the code in the browsers where malware authors can examine it, and where updates require a browser release.
Er, I guess I should have clicked your link before shooting my mouth off, rather than after:-)
I'd guess that the malware detection is actually performed by servers at Google. That would make more sense (to me, anyway) than trying to embed the code in the browsers where malware authors can examine it, and where updates require a browser release.
> and just generally making the devices suck as general-purpose tablets
They're not designed or sold as general purpose tablets.
They may not be sold as general-purpose tablets, but many people want them to be. As for design... other than various software limitations, how is their design not suited to general-purpose use? They're not the beefiest devices, so there are some limitations, but outside of that there is a huge amount that could be done with them.
(Disclaimer 2: I work for Google, but don't work on Android or anything to do with tablets. I do have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Honeycomb which I quite like, however. Though I wish Samsung would release the ICS upgrade.)
If you really work for Google why don't you flash the tablet with an internal ICS build? You know you can do that, don't you? No need to wait for Samsung to release it.
I'm sure people on the Android team could do it easily. I don't have access to any internal Android builds. I could use one of the builds off the web, but then Google's security policy wouldn't allow me to use it for my corporate e-mail. TechStop (Google's IT support staff) specifically will not do it for me; their web page says that they won't support ICS on the Galaxy Tab it until Samsung releases it.
There's probably a way around all of this if I cared to spend enough time looking, or maybe just go through a friend on the Android team (I have a couple), but it hasn't yet become that important for me.
As you said yourself, random samples are important and I'd say a bigger number of websites can help in this regard, especially since there are significant differences between browser usage based on countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
A bigger biased sample is still biased, unless your sample is so large that it actually covers close to all of the population. What would be more useful is to understand what the biases are, and then try to adjust for them. muxxa pointed out that Net Apps is a paid-only service, which undoubtedly accounts for some of the bias.
I have to take issue with StatCounter's claim that their data is inherently better because they have 3 million sites in their sample vs 40,000 in Net App's sample. Ask any statistician (I'm not one, but I do fiddle with stats from time to time) and he'll tell you that the only situation in which having more than 40,000 data points (and Net App had 40,000 sites of data points, meaning many millions of page views) can make any difference is if you're trying to tease out extremely subtle differences.
Regardless of the total size of the population you're trying to estimate, you only need a relatively small number of samples to get a given degree of certainty that your hypothesis is not invalidated by your data. This is why you see nationwide polls that only ask 2,000 people out of 300 million Americans -- because the math shows that's all you need to achieve a +-3% margin of error with a 95% confidence interval, and note that you can achieve the same accuracy with the same number if you randomly select 2000 people out of the seven billion on the planet. The margin of error depends on the sample size, not the population size. Once you're up to tens of thousands of samples, the margin of error is miniscule, and upping that to a few million samples doesn't appreciably improve your accuracy.
What does matter, a lot, is that your samples are randomly-selected. And the fact is that neither StatCounter nor Net App have a very good story to tell there. StatCounter's larger sample size may possibly help by getting a slightly larger cross-section of the web, but I doubt it. Both companies measure only a tiny slice of web usage, so complete coverage is a pipe dream, and both have way more than enough data to achieve highly accurate estimates -- if the data is well-sampled, which it isn't. If it were, their estimates would be identical to several decimal places.
Smack in the middle of the market that currently B&N and Amazon hold.
I think you forget what the Nexus line of devices is. Reference platforms are made, among other reasons, so that the people behind the OS know what they're programming for.
In addition, Google has used the Nexus line as a way to combat the tendency of manufacturers to muck Android up with all sorts of "overlays" and modifications that generally do a lot of damage to the user experience. It's just like the tendency of PC vendors to pre-install loads of crapware, but harder to fix. So Google's Nexus devices showcase the "Google Experience" version of Android, in the hopes that users will see just how bad their devices have been screwed up and put pressure on the manufacturers (and carriers), to stop it.
Given what Barnes and Noble and Amazon have done with the Nook and Fire, locking them down, removing all sorts of features, providing only a very limited app store, and just generally making the devices suck as general-purpose tablets in an attempt to lock the users into their respective ecosystems, it seems to me that it's high time for Google to show people how an Android device with that form factor and cost price should work.
(Disclaimer 1: I haven't actually touched a Fire; everything I know about it is second and third-hand. I did, however, try to help my sister root her Nook and work around many of the limitations B&N had built in. The attempt was somewhat successful, but still a pretty poor UX. She ended up returning the Nook and buying a Galaxy Tab 10.1, and is very happy with it, even though it cost significantly more money.)
(Disclaimer 2: I work for Google, but don't work on Android or anything to do with tablets. I do have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Honeycomb which I quite like, however. Though I wish Samsung would release the ICS upgrade.)
$250,000-300,000 for 1000 square foot house???? WTF are they building it out of gold bricks? $40-50 a square foot should get you a bare bones house. up to around $100 a square foot will get you a really nice place.
And the Ikea prefab is $116 per square foot. Hardly seems like a bargain.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that was the actual goal... taking bin Laden alive would have been hugely "inconvenient" for the US government, and they had no interest in creating a political martyr. The outcome was exactly as hoped/planned, I'm sure...
I don't see that it would have been inconvenient. It would have been very similar Saddam Hussein. The government would have obtained a couple of years of footage of bin Laden as an old, broken man (it's not even necessary that he be old or broken -- you just have to film a lot and select the released footage carefully), and would then try him and execute him. It's not like there wasn't a wealth of evidence, most of it his own words.
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In many cases, Tiffany wouldn't hire them. I've never seen anyone with two-inch gauges and tattoos from wrist to shoulder working at Tiffany.
I'm somewhat surprised that Apple hires them -- not that they don't do a good job, but few companies would hire such for public-facing positions. I think Apple has tapped a good employee resource there; bright, competent young people who've made personal appearance choices that generally disqualify them for customer-facing jobs better-paid than 7-11. And it probably does allow them to pay a little less.
Also, with regard to the national institute I'm at, I tell people I haven't seen this many pregnant women since high school, but that's probably because they're getting to a certain age.
I'm not sure if that says something about your institute... or something about your high school.
The ownership of anything you do during your work hours would be in question (at best).
Which is relevant how?
His goals are to learn something and pass the time, not build the next killer app. How does it his employer potentially owning the code he writes interfere with those goals?
Google provides the tools to allow you to opt out, and honors your choice.
BS - you have to be logged in to a Google account to be able to opt out.
No, you don't. If you opt out through the Google privacy pages, it installs a cookie which tells Google servers not to track you. There are two different opt-outs, one for ads and one for analytics. If you want to make sure that cookies don't get lost, Google provides plugins/extensions for IE, Firefox and Chrome which will reinstall them if they get deleted.
If you are logged in, there are some other options, many of which are off by default (i.e. opt-in). I think those are orthogonal to the ads and analytics cookies.
Do you know, then, that Page does get bonuses? According to Forbes, he does not -- his total compensation package is $1 per year. Obviously this is because as a founder he owns a large portion of the company. The point of my original post was that it makes no sense to complain about CEO compensation in the context of an article about Google.
True, but the implication in your original post was that it was reasonable for people to run without AV -- but the approach you use, while better than AV, is hardly reasonable for anyone but hardcore Windows experts (to know what should or should not change) who are also willing to do snapshots and offline scans.
So why did you post? Just hit cancel next time.
The irony...
Larry Page's annual salary is $1.
He also doesn't get any stock or stock options... not sure about bonuses, but I don't think so. Of course, he personally owns a huge chunk of the $180B company, so it's not like he needs any direct income.
Google logs all IP addresses initially but after nine months zeros the bottom octet to anonymize them
That's not much privacy. If I watch your browsing habits for 9 months, I bet I could put together a signature that would let me identify your browing from a group of 256 random individuals.
If that were the only privacy protection measure, sure.
As far as I know
Which is only what Google tells you. You don't think they're tracking you by IP address too? You don't think they're using browser fingerprinting? Google's cookie is one tiny part of the problem.
Google logs all IP addresses initially but after nine months zeros the bottom octet to anonymize them. Cookies are kept for 18 months, and many have noted that the cookies can be used to recover the full IP address going back 18 months, assuming you're always connecting from the same IP, but if you've opted out then there are no cookies stored to provide that linkage (I'm not sure if the opt-out cookie is itself anonymous, or if it's stripped before logging, or what, but it's something like that).
I don't know if browser information is anonymized; I'm sure at least enough is kept to identify the browser version.
Although you almost certainly won't believe me (since I work for Google), I'll tell you that Google tries very hard to honor tracking opt outs. If someone discovered a way that Google could recover individualized tracking about a user who had opted out, that would be considered a bug and it would get fixed. If it couldn't be fixed, controls would be put in place to ensure that the data is not used for tracking in any systematic way, and that individual employees can't access it without specific permissions, and the use of those who actually have a demonstrated need to use it would be audited.
The tinfoil hat crowd will simply dismiss this post, but the truth is that Google really doesn't want to track you if you don't want to be tracked. Google wants to convince you that you do want to be tracked, of course, that Google's services (including targeted advertising!) are actually sufficiently valuable to you that you want Google to have the data. But if you don't agree, Google provides the tools to allow you to opt out, and honors your choice.
This isn't to say that bad things will never happen, or that mistakes will never be made. Google is composed of people, and people screw up. Hence things like the Wifi packet capture, and Safari privacy workaround. But violations of the principles of user privacy are treated as errors to be corrected.
From an information-theoretic standpoint, the best way to be sure that Google never screws up with your privacy is to ensure it is impossible for Google to know anything about you, so opt out of tracking and avoid Google services, or even just block Google at your router. IMO, given its track record, trusting Google to behave responsibly isn't at all unreasonable, and I think Google offers good value in trade for your information (assuming that Google behaves responsibly). But it's your choice, and Google wants it to be possible for you to make that choice.
It's a side point to the main issue, but cite please?
...but was unsure how he felt, hence the one glove.
Hey, guys, scan this fingerprint. Yeah, the one on my middle finger, that's right.
You have to turn it around. They can't scan your fingernail.
Why does everyone think the only way to know if you're infected is to run some resource-sucking A/V software?
Because with well-written malware it is the only way to know, unless you routinely snapshot your system and do off-line verifications that your system files have not been modified.
How do you think A/V companies know to add something to their definitions?
There are many ways malware is discovered initially. It depends on the type of malware and the infection vector.
Maybe the fact that I don't get falsely complacent by running A/V software, means that when the A/V companies miss something like Flame for two years then I'd know about it on my machine before the AV warning, because I wouldn't be thinking "My A/V software shows nothing, so I'm not infected."
No one (well, not me anyway) is claiming that A/V software never gives false negatives. But not having A/V software gives a lot more false negatives.
I haven't run A/V for somewhere around a decade. I've never been infected.
That you know of.
If they allow us to see their content, they have to send us the bits in some form. If they send us the bits in any form, we can capture them and convert them to another form.
Do you really think Google doesn't get this? I'd look a little harder to understand the reasoning.
Well for starters it's open source so you can see for yourself.
I'd guess that the malware detection is actually performed by servers at Google. That would make more sense (to me, anyway) than trying to embed the code in the browsers where malware authors can examine it, and where updates require a browser release.
Er, I guess I should have clicked your link before shooting my mouth off, rather than after :-)
Er, I guess I should have read the code at the link you provided before correcting myself... since it appears that it does indeed connect to "safe browser servers" at Google.
I think I'll just shut up now, even if further perusal shows this comment to be wrong as well.
Well for starters it's open source so you can see for yourself.
I'd guess that the malware detection is actually performed by servers at Google. That would make more sense (to me, anyway) than trying to embed the code in the browsers where malware authors can examine it, and where updates require a browser release.
Er, I guess I should have clicked your link before shooting my mouth off, rather than after :-)
Well for starters it's open source so you can see for yourself.
I'd guess that the malware detection is actually performed by servers at Google. That would make more sense (to me, anyway) than trying to embed the code in the browsers where malware authors can examine it, and where updates require a browser release.
> and just generally making the devices suck as general-purpose tablets
They're not designed or sold as general purpose tablets.
They may not be sold as general-purpose tablets, but many people want them to be. As for design... other than various software limitations, how is their design not suited to general-purpose use? They're not the beefiest devices, so there are some limitations, but outside of that there is a huge amount that could be done with them.
(Disclaimer 2: I work for Google, but don't work on Android or anything to do with tablets. I do have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Honeycomb which I quite like, however. Though I wish Samsung would release the ICS upgrade.)
If you really work for Google why don't you flash the tablet with an internal ICS build? You know you can do that, don't you? No need to wait for Samsung to release it.
I'm sure people on the Android team could do it easily. I don't have access to any internal Android builds. I could use one of the builds off the web, but then Google's security policy wouldn't allow me to use it for my corporate e-mail. TechStop (Google's IT support staff) specifically will not do it for me; their web page says that they won't support ICS on the Galaxy Tab it until Samsung releases it.
There's probably a way around all of this if I cared to spend enough time looking, or maybe just go through a friend on the Android team (I have a couple), but it hasn't yet become that important for me.
As you said yourself, random samples are important and I'd say a bigger number of websites can help in this regard, especially since there are significant differences between browser usage based on countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
A bigger biased sample is still biased, unless your sample is so large that it actually covers close to all of the population. What would be more useful is to understand what the biases are, and then try to adjust for them. muxxa pointed out that Net Apps is a paid-only service, which undoubtedly accounts for some of the bias.
I have to take issue with StatCounter's claim that their data is inherently better because they have 3 million sites in their sample vs 40,000 in Net App's sample. Ask any statistician (I'm not one, but I do fiddle with stats from time to time) and he'll tell you that the only situation in which having more than 40,000 data points (and Net App had 40,000 sites of data points, meaning many millions of page views) can make any difference is if you're trying to tease out extremely subtle differences.
Regardless of the total size of the population you're trying to estimate, you only need a relatively small number of samples to get a given degree of certainty that your hypothesis is not invalidated by your data. This is why you see nationwide polls that only ask 2,000 people out of 300 million Americans -- because the math shows that's all you need to achieve a +-3% margin of error with a 95% confidence interval, and note that you can achieve the same accuracy with the same number if you randomly select 2000 people out of the seven billion on the planet. The margin of error depends on the sample size, not the population size. Once you're up to tens of thousands of samples, the margin of error is miniscule, and upping that to a few million samples doesn't appreciably improve your accuracy.
What does matter, a lot, is that your samples are randomly-selected. And the fact is that neither StatCounter nor Net App have a very good story to tell there. StatCounter's larger sample size may possibly help by getting a slightly larger cross-section of the web, but I doubt it. Both companies measure only a tiny slice of web usage, so complete coverage is a pipe dream, and both have way more than enough data to achieve highly accurate estimates -- if the data is well-sampled, which it isn't. If it were, their estimates would be identical to several decimal places.
Smack in the middle of the market that currently B&N and Amazon hold.
I think you forget what the Nexus line of devices is. Reference platforms are made, among other reasons, so that the people behind the OS know what they're programming for.
In addition, Google has used the Nexus line as a way to combat the tendency of manufacturers to muck Android up with all sorts of "overlays" and modifications that generally do a lot of damage to the user experience. It's just like the tendency of PC vendors to pre-install loads of crapware, but harder to fix. So Google's Nexus devices showcase the "Google Experience" version of Android, in the hopes that users will see just how bad their devices have been screwed up and put pressure on the manufacturers (and carriers), to stop it.
Given what Barnes and Noble and Amazon have done with the Nook and Fire, locking them down, removing all sorts of features, providing only a very limited app store, and just generally making the devices suck as general-purpose tablets in an attempt to lock the users into their respective ecosystems, it seems to me that it's high time for Google to show people how an Android device with that form factor and cost price should work.
(Disclaimer 1: I haven't actually touched a Fire; everything I know about it is second and third-hand. I did, however, try to help my sister root her Nook and work around many of the limitations B&N had built in. The attempt was somewhat successful, but still a pretty poor UX. She ended up returning the Nook and buying a Galaxy Tab 10.1, and is very happy with it, even though it cost significantly more money.)
(Disclaimer 2: I work for Google, but don't work on Android or anything to do with tablets. I do have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 running Honeycomb which I quite like, however. Though I wish Samsung would release the ICS upgrade.)
$250,000-300,000 for 1000 square foot house???? WTF are they building it out of gold bricks? $40-50 a square foot should get you a bare bones house. up to around $100 a square foot will get you a really nice place.
And the Ikea prefab is $116 per square foot. Hardly seems like a bargain.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that was the actual goal... taking bin Laden alive would have been hugely "inconvenient" for the US government, and they had no interest in creating a political martyr. The outcome was exactly as hoped/planned, I'm sure...
I don't see that it would have been inconvenient. It would have been very similar Saddam Hussein. The government would have obtained a couple of years of footage of bin Laden as an old, broken man (it's not even necessary that he be old or broken -- you just have to film a lot and select the released footage carefully), and would then try him and execute him. It's not like there wasn't a wealth of evidence, most of it his own words.