Actually, I use Adblock Plus. I've never tried Adblock Edge; I guess I'll look into it.
But still, whatever plug-in we're talking about, there's always the chance that the owner can be bought out. For, in the words of the most beloved children's entertainer of our times: They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house! I'm not made of stone!
I see your Stewie, and raise with Stewie and Brian:
Stewie: So you finally did it, huh? Well look, Brian, as your friend I should tell you that that vagina is just ground zero, man. I mean, I just wrecked that thing on the way out. And just to be a jerk, I carved "Brooks Was Here" on the wall. Did you see that? Did you see "Brooks Was Here"? Brian: We didn't have sex. Stewie: Of course with Chris coming out before me, I pretty much just walked outta there. Didn't even have to stoop over. There was even room to twirl a cane as I strolled. Brian: You're exaggerating. Stewie: Only a little bit! That's the messed up thing!
It depends on whose sensation we're talking about.:-) The wearer should experience almost no friction from the latex itself, since it's supposed to stay more-or-less in place. But the latex is thin enough that he can sense the temperature and "grip" of his partner, which is probably the primary stimulating sensation for him.
His partner, on the other hand, would certainly experience friction from the latex, which is one reason you should use lube with condoms -- too much friction, and thrusting becomes difficult for the pair and especially irritating (or painful) for the person being penetrated. That leads to irritation, soreness, and an eventual halting of adult activities.
(PSA: Make sure to choose the right lube for the condom you use -- some lubes will cause the material of the condom to fail, which leads to babies, and possibly also a halting of adult activities. But also talk to your partner -- certain women report high incidents of yeast infections after using certain types of lube.)
So I can see a thinner, lower-friction condom being a boon for both partners, as it would increase sensation for both, and also lead to fewer incidents of vaginal/anal tearing from friction, which are not only not fun but which also which increase risk of STD transmission.
I mean, Google was about to offer US$4B for Snapchat. I can't imagine it's that expensive for them to keep a service like this running, if for no other reason than to avoid the inevitable negative press like when they shut down Google Reader. Does anyone know how many users we're talking about, and how much administrative time?
It's not even like it is necessarily *obvious* if they play it right (the sum of a set of seemingly unrelated pools could actually be under a singular interest and collude to mess with things.
Exactly. Everyone is focused on the problems when any one pool gets too big that they ignore the obvious precedent -- stealth takeovers of corporations by a syndicate of minority shareholders who together have controlling interest. There doesn't even have to be a single controlling entity. Just a collection of individual concerns who agree to act in concert to achieve a particular end.
Another observation, in answer to those who say that you'd never be able to corrupt a pool because you'd have to convince all the pool members to change their client software to the corrupted version:
Nowadays, it seems that people are far less likely to deploy mining rigs of their own even when they join a pool. Instead they purchase mining contracts with folks who already have the big iron (http://www.bitcoinforsale.net/). As hardware advances continue, it's even less advantageous for individuals who do have rigs to pay for upgrades, and more likely for them to just give up the arms race and purchase contracts with the big pools.
So a large, successful pool might eventually have most or even all of its bitcoin clients under the control of several mining companies, each of which is selling contracts and operating server farms full of big iron with big network pipes. The smaller companies don't do as well, so they don't attract as many customers, and eventually most will either dissolve or get bought out by the larger companies.
So you might have pool A mining 12% of bitcoins, but pool A is almost exclusively composed of independent mining companies A1, A2, and A3, plus a few inconsequential companies and scattered individuals with their own rigs. Similar for pools B, C, D and E. A scenario like that results in almost 60% of bitcoin mining being controlled by 15 corporate entities, each with about 4% of the pie. Which probably boils down to 15 smart, ambitious, and already-wealthy CEOs.
Sooner or later -- especially if Bitcoin begins to slip in value, and a bad future is looming on the horizon -- those 15 people might sit in a conference room together and figure out a way to get even richer by gaming the system before it falls apart. Even if the gaming of the system is what ensures the collapse. As long as they can escape with their own holdings turned into non-bitcoin assets before the bust.
My understanding of the nuances of bitcoin mining is limited, but it seems to me that this is how the real world operates, and has operated for a long, long time.
A thought experiment, nothing more. But I almost never say never about anything. All we're really talking about is wagering. If I want to bet US$1000 that BTC will decrease in value, all I need to do is find someone who is willing to bet US$1000 that it won't.
I put it in as Step 1: Find (or create through other agents) an index fund tied to the value of BTC.
Yeah, overly simplistic I know, but the OP said that it wouldn't be in any mining pool's interest to devalue Bitcoin, so my mind went to a scenario where that mining pool first converts its entire BTC holdings to something like USD, then wagers heavily with those USD that BTC will crash, then crashes BTC. Profit.
1. Find (or create through other agents) an index fund tied to the value of BTC. 2. Short BTC. 3. Use your mining pool's 51% position to compromise the BTC network, driving participant confidence (and hence value down). 4. Profit.
Illegal? Oh, probably. That doesn't seem to dissuade people.
I don't have strong feelings about Bitcoin either way, but as I understand it some folks support Bitcoin because it isn't controlled by a central bank or government.
Except it seems that one large mining pool -- or a consortium of smaller ones seeming independent but in truth acting together -- can game the system in certain ways. In short, controlling it. And given that large sums of money are on the line already, is Bitcoin really that different from any other currency?
(Hmmm.../. swallowed my original answer... take two...)
Well, to be clear, I'm not saying that I think Yahoo is trying to win over a conservative market. But that map certainly made my brain go there.:-)
But to answer your question... I think Yahoo could conceivably consider adopting a solidly conservative slant for the same reason that Fox News doesn't try to win over a more liberal audience. There's probably a niche market in news/mail/entertainment which has a reputation of being consistently friendly to the political Right, and Yahoo might like to capture and keep that market. Google certainly isn't; among many conservatives they have a reputation of being liberal-leaning (as per the link in my post above). American Republicans are pretty passionately political these days, and they have been talking for years about their distrust of the "mainstream media". If conservative sites were to start pushing Yahoo as "the search engine for *real* Americans", Yahoo would benefit tremendously.
It's a potentially politically-divisive map from what should be a non-political company. Focus on the US portion for a minute:
1. He shows the "gearheads" on both coasts in blue, and the "normals" in-between in red. Very much like a current political map of the US, where the majority of the center is red (Republican) and the coasts are largely blue (Democrat). As RLM puts it: maybe you didn't notice, but your brain did. I really don't think the red/blue choice was an accident. A lot of Yahoo management eyeballs would have seen it, thought about it, and approved it.
2. The map equates the positive term "normal" with red [heartland, Republicans] and the negative term "gearheads" with blue [coastal, Democrats].
3. The map shows a larger proportion of red areas than blue areas, suggesting that the US is far more "normal" than "gearhead". If it were really meant to show "normal" vs "gearhead" then it's obviously absurd: what about Chicago, Austin, DC, and other major tech centers? But it's certainly appealing for a Republican to look at a US map and see far more red than blue.
All of which seems designed to position Yahoo as a politically-conservative portal, meant to appeal to people that would prefer to avoid supposedly-liberal web sites like Google. Look at this article to see what I mean:
I’m talking about Goodsearch. Goodsearch is run by Yahoo, which, against Google, gives comparatively poor search results. But the return for using Goodsearch is that for each search you make, the company donates one cent to the charity or school of your choice.... This is a great conservative alternative to Google, which yesterday, instead of using its daily Google graphic to honor Easter, they used it to honor a day that not only does no one celebrate, but which nobody has heard of: Cesar Chavez Day.
Ok, maybe I'm reading more into that map than I should, but they certainly opened the door for speculation.:-)
Today we know dust can be created in several ways, but in the early universe most of it must have come from supernovas.
Supernovas, as every landlord can tell you, are awful tenants. They trash the property for light years around, leave dust bunnies the size of nebulae under the furniture, and clog up the drains with heavy elements. Yeah, we know they have a lot of pent-up energy to blow off, but I was the one who cleaned up after Cygnus X-1 was evicted and I found this huge friggin' hole they'd punched into the side of the cosmos. I mean, seriously kids, have some pride, it's your spacetime too. I can't even patch it up with drywall: the stuff just crumples up and disappears. Now the security deposit's gone and I'm out $3B to Home Depot. Next time I'm only renting to brown dwarfs.
Yep, I fully agree. But the genie is out of the bottle. If tech companies can stir up a huge demand, and if the technology becomes ubiquitous, it seems a likely future.
There once was a time when store owners would toss you out if they caught you taking pictures of their displays -- especially if they thought you were spying for a competitor. But now, just try to run a business like that where you have to chase after everyone who holds up a phone in the vicinity of your shop. It's over. The Surreptitious Surveillance Society has arrived. And if corporate interests can push more products and services built around it, I don't really see an end. Do you?
The problem you're describing could be mitigated somewhat if the glasses had forward-facing LEDs which turn on whenever the camera is engaged. Then you could be reasonably sure that most people are not, in fact, videoing you all the time. For the small percent who want to do this anyway, sure they could paint over the LEDs, but then they could just wear a buttonhole camera anyway. You're not going to stop surreptitious recording now that the technology is small enough.
Here's one other way it can go down, though:
The next generation of teenagers becomes the first wide adopters of the technology. You can guess the marketing strategies: have pop idols be seen with them, have the next generation's Hannah Montana wearing them. They're fun, kids! Record good times with your friends! Record that important history class for a friend who's sick! Record a POV of your mad skateboarding skills and upload instantly to {hot social media platform du jour}.
In short, produce a generation that is used to filming and being filmed 24/7/365. The same way we've produced a generation that's used to being online all the time. It's possible, right? Especially if the parents are resisting it, the kids'll be wild for it.
As long as Google Glass looks like Locutus-of-Borg cosplay, there will be pushback from people who don't want to be seen with it.
The display needs to be embedded transparently in the lenses itself, and the other components need to be integrated into a thin, ordinary-looking temple piece.
Yes. The value of Snapchat isn't the app itself -- the app and its server-side infrastructure could be replicated in a matter of weeks by Facebook engineers. The value of Snapchat was and is entirely its current user base. If you're Facebook and you can suddenly acquire millions of non-Facebook users (or tether existing users more tightly to Facebook) then you have millions of more opportunities to sell ads, and to sell user metadata to whoever.
But once the bubble pops and the users go elsewhere, Snapchat goes the way of... um... well, any company I can't remember the name of because they've gone the way that Snapchat will go. If you know what I mean.
Perhaps they should have taken the $3B offer from Facebook (or the alleged $4B from Google) when they had the chance. Especially since people have endless opportunities to abandon services like Snapchat for the Next Cool Thing anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I use Adblock Plus. I've never tried Adblock Edge; I guess I'll look into it.
But still, whatever plug-in we're talking about, there's always the chance that the owner can be bought out. For, in the words of the most beloved children's entertainer of our times: They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house! I'm not made of stone!
...these malware companies buy out AdBlock. :-/
I see your Stewie, and raise with Stewie and Brian:
Stewie: So you finally did it, huh? Well look, Brian, as your friend I should tell you that that vagina is just ground zero, man. I mean, I just wrecked that thing on the way out. And just to be a jerk, I carved "Brooks Was Here" on the wall. Did you see that? Did you see "Brooks Was Here"?
Brian: We didn't have sex.
Stewie: Of course with Chris coming out before me, I pretty much just walked outta there. Didn't even have to stoop over. There was even room to twirl a cane as I strolled.
Brian: You're exaggerating.
Stewie: Only a little bit! That's the messed up thing!
It depends on whose sensation we're talking about. :-) The wearer should experience almost no friction from the latex itself, since it's supposed to stay more-or-less in place. But the latex is thin enough that he can sense the temperature and "grip" of his partner, which is probably the primary stimulating sensation for him.
His partner, on the other hand, would certainly experience friction from the latex, which is one reason you should use lube with condoms -- too much friction, and thrusting becomes difficult for the pair and especially irritating (or painful) for the person being penetrated. That leads to irritation, soreness, and an eventual halting of adult activities.
(PSA: Make sure to choose the right lube for the condom you use -- some lubes will cause the material of the condom to fail, which leads to babies, and possibly also a halting of adult activities. But also talk to your partner -- certain women report high incidents of yeast infections after using certain types of lube.)
So I can see a thinner, lower-friction condom being a boon for both partners, as it would increase sensation for both, and also lead to fewer incidents of vaginal/anal tearing from friction, which are not only not fun but which also which increase risk of STD transmission.
Interesting point. Although I would imagine that spammers could be dealt with automatically, much as they are in GMail.
I mean, Google was about to offer US$4B for Snapchat. I can't imagine it's that expensive for them to keep a service like this running, if for no other reason than to avoid the inevitable negative press like when they shut down Google Reader. Does anyone know how many users we're talking about, and how much administrative time?
Yep, you're right:
https://www.bitfinex.com/pages/howitworks
I guess it was only a matter of time. :-)
It's not even like it is necessarily *obvious* if they play it right (the sum of a set of seemingly unrelated pools could actually be under a singular interest and collude to mess with things.
Exactly. Everyone is focused on the problems when any one pool gets too big that they ignore the obvious precedent -- stealth takeovers of corporations by a syndicate of minority shareholders who together have controlling interest. There doesn't even have to be a single controlling entity. Just a collection of individual concerns who agree to act in concert to achieve a particular end.
Another observation, in answer to those who say that you'd never be able to corrupt a pool because you'd have to convince all the pool members to change their client software to the corrupted version:
Nowadays, it seems that people are far less likely to deploy mining rigs of their own even when they join a pool. Instead they purchase mining contracts with folks who already have the big iron (http://www.bitcoinforsale.net/). As hardware advances continue, it's even less advantageous for individuals who do have rigs to pay for upgrades, and more likely for them to just give up the arms race and purchase contracts with the big pools.
So a large, successful pool might eventually have most or even all of its bitcoin clients under the control of several mining companies, each of which is selling contracts and operating server farms full of big iron with big network pipes. The smaller companies don't do as well, so they don't attract as many customers, and eventually most will either dissolve or get bought out by the larger companies.
So you might have pool A mining 12% of bitcoins, but pool A is almost exclusively composed of independent mining companies A1, A2, and A3, plus a few inconsequential companies and scattered individuals with their own rigs. Similar for pools B, C, D and E. A scenario like that results in almost 60% of bitcoin mining being controlled by 15 corporate entities, each with about 4% of the pie. Which probably boils down to 15 smart, ambitious, and already-wealthy CEOs.
Sooner or later -- especially if Bitcoin begins to slip in value, and a bad future is looming on the horizon -- those 15 people might sit in a conference room together and figure out a way to get even richer by gaming the system before it falls apart. Even if the gaming of the system is what ensures the collapse. As long as they can escape with their own holdings turned into non-bitcoin assets before the bust.
My understanding of the nuances of bitcoin mining is limited, but it seems to me that this is how the real world operates, and has operated for a long, long time.
A thought experiment, nothing more. But I almost never say never about anything. All we're really talking about is wagering. If I want to bet US$1000 that BTC will decrease in value, all I need to do is find someone who is willing to bet US$1000 that it won't.
I put it in as Step 1: Find (or create through other agents) an index fund tied to the value of BTC.
Yeah, overly simplistic I know, but the OP said that it wouldn't be in any mining pool's interest to devalue Bitcoin, so my mind went to a scenario where that mining pool first converts its entire BTC holdings to something like USD, then wagers heavily with those USD that BTC will crash, then crashes BTC. Profit.
Or possibly this:
1. Find (or create through other agents) an index fund tied to the value of BTC.
2. Short BTC.
3. Use your mining pool's 51% position to compromise the BTC network, driving participant confidence (and hence value down).
4. Profit.
Illegal? Oh, probably. That doesn't seem to dissuade people.
I don't have strong feelings about Bitcoin either way, but as I understand it some folks support Bitcoin because it isn't controlled by a central bank or government.
Except it seems that one large mining pool -- or a consortium of smaller ones seeming independent but in truth acting together -- can game the system in certain ways. In short, controlling it. And given that large sums of money are on the line already, is Bitcoin really that different from any other currency?
(Hmmm... /. swallowed my original answer... take two...)
Well, to be clear, I'm not saying that I think Yahoo is trying to win over a conservative market. But that map certainly made my brain go there. :-)
But to answer your question... I think Yahoo could conceivably consider adopting a solidly conservative slant for the same reason that Fox News doesn't try to win over a more liberal audience. There's probably a niche market in news/mail/entertainment which has a reputation of being consistently friendly to the political Right, and Yahoo might like to capture and keep that market. Google certainly isn't; among many conservatives they have a reputation of being liberal-leaning (as per the link in my post above). American Republicans are pretty passionately political these days, and they have been talking for years about their distrust of the "mainstream media". If conservative sites were to start pushing Yahoo as "the search engine for *real* Americans", Yahoo would benefit tremendously.
Not to you and me, maybe. But to the "normals"? :-)
Googlethinkers unbellyfeel Goodsearch. ;-)
It's a potentially politically-divisive map from what should be a non-political company. Focus on the US portion for a minute:
1. He shows the "gearheads" on both coasts in blue, and the "normals" in-between in red. Very much like a current political map of the US, where the majority of the center is red (Republican) and the coasts are largely blue (Democrat). As RLM puts it: maybe you didn't notice, but your brain did. I really don't think the red/blue choice was an accident. A lot of Yahoo management eyeballs would have seen it, thought about it, and approved it.
2. The map equates the positive term "normal" with red [heartland, Republicans] and the negative term "gearheads" with blue [coastal, Democrats].
3. The map shows a larger proportion of red areas than blue areas, suggesting that the US is far more "normal" than "gearhead". If it were really meant to show "normal" vs "gearhead" then it's obviously absurd: what about Chicago, Austin, DC, and other major tech centers? But it's certainly appealing for a Republican to look at a US map and see far more red than blue.
All of which seems designed to position Yahoo as a politically-conservative portal, meant to appeal to people that would prefer to avoid supposedly-liberal web sites like Google. Look at this article to see what I mean:
http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/04/the-conservative-alternative-to-the-liberal-google/
Ok, maybe I'm reading more into that map than I should, but they certainly opened the door for speculation. :-)
Today we know dust can be created in several ways, but in the early universe most of it must have come from supernovas.
Supernovas, as every landlord can tell you, are awful tenants. They trash the property for light years around, leave dust bunnies the size of nebulae under the furniture, and clog up the drains with heavy elements. Yeah, we know they have a lot of pent-up energy to blow off, but I was the one who cleaned up after Cygnus X-1 was evicted and I found this huge friggin' hole they'd punched into the side of the cosmos. I mean, seriously kids, have some pride, it's your spacetime too. I can't even patch it up with drywall: the stuff just crumples up and disappears. Now the security deposit's gone and I'm out $3B to Home Depot. Next time I'm only renting to brown dwarfs.
Yep, I fully agree. But the genie is out of the bottle. If tech companies can stir up a huge demand, and if the technology becomes ubiquitous, it seems a likely future.
There once was a time when store owners would toss you out if they caught you taking pictures of their displays -- especially if they thought you were spying for a competitor. But now, just try to run a business like that where you have to chase after everyone who holds up a phone in the vicinity of your shop. It's over. The Surreptitious Surveillance Society has arrived. And if corporate interests can push more products and services built around it, I don't really see an end. Do you?
No. They're relaunching it as SnoopDogeCoin. Or maybe SnoopDogeDogeCoin. Unless they were SnoopLyin'.
The problem you're describing could be mitigated somewhat if the glasses had forward-facing LEDs which turn on whenever the camera is engaged. Then you could be reasonably sure that most people are not, in fact, videoing you all the time. For the small percent who want to do this anyway, sure they could paint over the LEDs, but then they could just wear a buttonhole camera anyway. You're not going to stop surreptitious recording now that the technology is small enough.
Here's one other way it can go down, though:
The next generation of teenagers becomes the first wide adopters of the technology. You can guess the marketing strategies: have pop idols be seen with them, have the next generation's Hannah Montana wearing them. They're fun, kids! Record good times with your friends! Record that important history class for a friend who's sick! Record a POV of your mad skateboarding skills and upload instantly to {hot social media platform du jour}.
In short, produce a generation that is used to filming and being filmed 24/7/365. The same way we've produced a generation that's used to being online all the time. It's possible, right? Especially if the parents are resisting it, the kids'll be wild for it.
As long as Google Glass looks like Locutus-of-Borg cosplay, there will be pushback from people who don't want to be seen with it.
The display needs to be embedded transparently in the lenses itself, and the other components need to be integrated into a thin, ordinary-looking temple piece.
Yes. The value of Snapchat isn't the app itself -- the app and its server-side infrastructure could be replicated in a matter of weeks by Facebook engineers. The value of Snapchat was and is entirely its current user base. If you're Facebook and you can suddenly acquire millions of non-Facebook users (or tether existing users more tightly to Facebook) then you have millions of more opportunities to sell ads, and to sell user metadata to whoever.
But once the bubble pops and the users go elsewhere, Snapchat goes the way of... um... well, any company I can't remember the name of because they've gone the way that Snapchat will go. If you know what I mean.
Perhaps they should have taken the $3B offer from Facebook (or the alleged $4B from Google) when they had the chance. Especially since people have endless opportunities to abandon services like Snapchat for the Next Cool Thing anyway.
Judging by the comments on certain internet fora in America, the most common languages currently appear to be:
1. Vitriol
2. Snarkese
3. ALLCAPSISH
4. $PAmm3R@ni@n!!
5. LOLspeak and Doge.
(I'm just kidding. No one speaks Doge.)
I will only consider it if I can change the voice activation sequence from "OK Glass, ___." to "Go Go Gadget ___!"