No. Google does not have a legal obligation to make money for it's shareholders.
Google has a legal obligation to behave in a manner dictated to it by the voting shareholders. While this is usually a directive to make money, it could be other things. It just so happens that Page and Brin have 66.2 percent of the voting power. So they can actually do whatever they want to do. THEY are the final word on China or not, so you can point the finger directly at them.
I'd be wary about this. By the same logic, would you agree to full-scale public surveillance in picture and sound combined with massive computing power to dig out any detail and hold it against you, because it's public anyway?
You mean like the growing network of privately funded video serveillance in every store and the ubiquitous in urban areas traffic cameras at every intersection and at regular intervals on the highway?
With the increase of bandwidth consumption by sites like google video and youtube, someone is eventually going to have to pay to upgrade the infrastructure.
Which is why they government gave tax breaks to the companies who laid the infrastructure in the first place. If they need to build more, they will get more breaks.
Unless you live somewhere where you get to choose who you buy Public Utilities from, your phone company and your cable company don't own their wires, they lease them. Go ahead and switch your cable provider, try it.
Not completely true. These companies received tax breaks to lay their wires down. They received their financial motivation up front, paid for by YOU.
Yes and no. Absolutism, as in an absolute truth, does exist. The problem arrises when you try to define one. The only way I have been able to convince myself of this is through a minor logic exercise. Look at this statement:
There is no such thing as absolute(s).
In order for that to be true, it must make itself untrue - the statement would be absolute. The statement could be appended to the effect of "except for this statement." That would then make the statement relative, but the part that it was relative to would itself be an absolute as it is the only exception. This makes the statement true semantically, but untrue logically.
As you said, the two are intertwined. To use these terms effectively all parties have to agree on a standard with which to base their arguments on. This makes these concepts valid in the context of the established boundaries, but relative to the standard. The only way to break away from this cycle is to use a standard established OUTSIDE the context of your discussion. Often only simple mathematics and undeniably true facts on a micro scale (I stubbed my toe).
But, that is pretty much useless as anything that would qualify as a standard in this capacity is usually so unrelated that to base an argument of absolutism on it you would need to employ so much relatavism it would make no sense.
So I think we agree, relatively speaking of course.:P
Here's a search for MichNews. It's the first listing.
This is extremely difficult to pull off when you are not in the Google Index.
You have no clue what you are talking about, you are just rehashing some point of view that was fed to you. You did no research on the topic and took your prefered source as truth. The index was not purged, their content just has not been included in some sub-topic aggregation. That's FAR from a "censors mentality."
And since when were blogs and Op-Ed pieces considered news. They are most certainly related, but not the same.
Journalism is slowly being mistaken for Reporting because of the forces exerted by the advertising model. Get your facts straight before you start bringing completely unrelated topics into a discussion about how we are ALL GOING TO GET FUCKED if this goes through. Conservative and Liberal alike.
Reciprocating friends as I feel honest debate is the only way to test if my beliefs hold true to what is happening in the world and to find others who have different beleifs that I can coexist with because they have well thought out reasoning behind it. I surf at -1 so I can see everyones posts, sometimes downmodding happens and I feel some weird obligation to stand up for those who have been attacked ignorantly.
To address your first point, building your relativism into your terms still means you are using realativism, and really kind of makes my point for me. Killing is an absolute term. Someone was alive, now they're dead, you killed them. Murder is a relative term. Who decides if it was murder?...
I like to take it one step further and introduce the concept of levels: family, tribe, village, society, humanity.
I have always found the relative/absolute to be a circular argument, which is why it is so hard to discuss. In order for us to do it any justice, and not go around in circles, we would first have to establish a scale to discuss the topic on. Your statements about relative absolutism couldn't be more true. Absolute is relative to something.
You also introduce that certain cultures see murder for revenge as justified. I would argue, and it would be scemantic at best, that this is not murder - but an instance of killing. The definition of murder to be used must come from the culture we are examining the concept within. If this culture has a defined moral outlook that killing for revenge is not considered murder, but is in fact an action of Justice - then applying the concept of murder to it is an exercise of forcing an outside definition upon a similar, but contextually unrelated, action.
From the absolute standpoint of humanity as a whole, I believe it isn't justified, because it harms humanity, drives us apart, and validates performing an irreversible act based on imperfect information.
To continue on with this topic, and it is relative, we would have to look at this cultures place in the context of the greater entity - humanity. Is this culture small and displaced from most of humanity? Do they wield little to no influence over humanity's behavior in general? If the answer to these questions is yes then they can kill all they want. A larger culture that holds more sway in the world with the same moral perspective would be a completely different problem.
That having been said, on the issue of killing I have always looked at it from a relative perspective - on a case by case basis. I'm not really for the death penalty, not because of any particular political outlook, but because that resolution cannot be undone. Considering that humans are not infallable, I'm not comfortable with that. Now, killing a guy who has 10 children hostage in a school and who is threatening to kill them, waste him. He's no use to humanity, even after a possible rehabilitation. Point is, using something as binary as death to illustrate an argument in relative morality is tricky and ends up breaking down to scemantics.
As to my motivations and practices in debating here, well, I like to think that I have arrived at my position through continued introspection. I like to believe that I can change my preconceptions when the evidence says they are invalid. I like to think I operate from a nuanced point of view that is superior to an absolutist position. Yes, I'm an arrogant dick.:)
Bah, you and I both know that a strong emotionally charged finish can nail the coffin shut on someone throwing out a rehashed argument defending a perpective that they picked up somewhere that they don't completely understand. I can appreciate strong convictions as I have them myself. It's just that some arguments fall into a self defeating category - and I point them out when I see them.
I actually think dictating to someone their behavior based on my beliefs is wrong. That doesn't mean that I don't think that some people shouldn't be
I don't completely disagree with your sentiments, but your statements are a little broad to be used the way you use them.
Is killing someone always wrong? I guess you don't believe in self defense. Killing is always wrong, right? No qualifying things, no putting them in context, wrong is wrong. Doesn't matter that some thug is trying to stick a knife in you, killing is wrong.
What if I don't believe killing is wrong, but murder is. Then the concept of moral absolutism still holds up - within this context. Your example uses killing as a broad term, while others absolutes may be based on more granular components. Using your broad definition against a similar definition with context and qualifiers already built in is not really an accurate comparision. The real issue is the impossibility of establishing one true moral absolute that covers all possibilities concerning one subject.
This is usually handled by people breaking themselves into groups who approach the idea of a particular moral absolute from the same direction, which I believe then makes the absolute a relative. Absolute to them, relative for everyone else holding a different absolute.
Let me introduce the concept of harm reduction. In a complex world, one can not predict all outcomes and potential harm inherent in an action, but one can try to reduce the amount of harm done. Perhaps, by refusing to participate in censorship, Google would make things worse for the Chinese than if they do participate and call attention to the fact that they are censoring things.
I don't disagree with this, but I think this misses the point of the larger debate. Is Google going into China wrong or right? Well, approaching it from their stated position it's wrong. They said they would do no evil, and in the context of a company making information available to the masses censorship is wrong.
The second argument which is made for Google, which you did not make, boils down to "Well, there are other companies much worse than Google who are doing horrible things in China, so we should just give Google a pass" is also false. A moral choice is made on the basis of an entities actions in the context of its moral system. Google's moral choice was Censor or Not Censor. Whether or not the scummiest company on the planet was over there and Google is a saint compared to them doesn't affect the results of Google's choice in the matter.
Now, I understand that an entity can make moral compromises for the greater good. If Google's stance is they are in China because they can do more good there playing by China's rules than by not being there at all - well that is a different debate. It still doesn't detract from Google making a decision to do something they said they wouldn't do. Personally, I don't think this is true. Search results don't really do too much when it comes to helping an oppressed people when they are censored.
Also, using your own statements - you could also state that Google might do greater harm by giving censored search results back with the notification that they were censored. This may validate censorship to a percentage of China's population.
It must be nice living in your black and white world, reducing all potential decisions down to some absolute right and wrong. Let me ask, where does this absolute scale of right and wrong come from? Did you just make it up? Did someone tell you what it is? Did God tell you? How do you know for sure you have the right list?
People like you scare me. How much unnecessary suffering in this world do you suppose was created by people who knew, absolutely, that they were doing the right thing?
How is this different from you tearing into the GP because you are so sure you are right? You abviously have some set of rules working for you that have driven you to the point of attempting to invalidate his statements. I'm pretty sure your doing it with a sense of full justification too.
That's the worst argument I have ever heard in defense of Google. The Chinese people already know that their information is being censored. They also know it is concerning any subject involving Government, protest, uprising, other countries political views of China, and religion.
Let's also look at the logical order of events. Lets say that information concerning a villiage riot is censored. How the hell are the Chinese people going to know what they are supposed to be looking for? Knowledge that something is censored doesn't give you any leverage or head start n finding out WHAT was censored from it.
Is your whole argument that Google is doing no evil because their search results are up front about the fact that they are censored and this in turn then validates the Chinese peoples desire to complain? The Chinese people have been protesting way before Google started telling them "Hey, we're fucking ya while we sell you to advertisers."
Google ain't doing shit there except making money.
There is nothing moral about compromising your promises to sell advertising to the largest internet userbase in the world. Being the "most moral" company profiting off of the people in a suppresive regime doesn't make you any better. That stance is a cop-out.
Search is not a product, the searchers are. Google decided access to that amount of searchers was worth the possible backlash. The argument that Google is at least doing some good in China is ridiculous, it was for money.
What good are they doing? Great search results (subjective and censored) can't create food. They don't create democracies. They can't fight along side you in a revolt.
Let's disarm another favorite. Google, as a public business, has a duty to it's shareholders to conduct themselves in the manner that they vote upon in their shareholder meetings. OK - the people who hold a majority of voting rights in Google are........Larry, Sergey, and Eric. So I guess they really have to answer to themselves when it comes to these things. If Larry, Sergey, and Eric really didn't want to enter China - they wouldn't have. They wanted to and they did.
For the good of the people my ass. I ask again. What good can search results that are censored bring to an oppressed people?
You forget your history. Netscape spent its cash on trying to shift from a browser to the Netscape network. That left no money in the warchest to fight MS.
Also, Netscapes browser absolutely sucked at handling manipulating the DOM. At a time when the web was beginning to make its first steps towards becoming the "Web 2.0" type landscape it is today, this was a serious problem. Web Developers HATED the thing.
AS for fully functional FTP. Who cares. Joe Average-Enduser doesn't use that feature. So its moot to argue that its inclusion in a browser makes that browser better.
Yes there were phone #s that people could call, and those companies picked a # that could be translated into words like 1-800-CALL-ATT.
I would be willing to bet that if DNS wasn't used that we would have used a phone dialing type interface to navigate directly to websites. This is completely conjecture, and moot, as we would have to go back in time and alter history to see if my theory is right.
IP addresses have 12 #s at most
The instant I hit submit one of my systems guys called me out for being a moron. There's nothing like being called an idiot in meatspace for something you posted on/. right after you post it.
spokesperson had to say visit us at 169.42.86.47 during a commercial.
I completely disagree. Before the Interent TV commercials often had phone numbers in them that poeple could call for more information. Some commercials, mostly of the infomercial type, still do. And a telephone number is longer than an IP address.
DNS certainly makes things easier, but it's not requirement - TV advertisers did just fine bofore the internet.
But I have to respond to what else you had to say. For the record, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about: Gints is neither dickless nor a moron. He's a good fighter, very polite and well spoken in person, and he's interested in testing and improving his fighting skills.
Fair enough. In retrospect, this response may have been a little extreme and unwarranted. This may very well be a decent group of guys with legit skills, but you do have to admit the article presents them as a bunch of idiots.
We're all practicing. Please don't go knocking whatever someone out there is doing to practice and test their skills, particularly where you clearly haven't ever met them.
As I said above, they didn't present you as people who knew what they were doing, they made you sound like a bunch of yahoos. Also, the videos they have to offer aren't really flattering either. One of them has a guy with a toilet seat, that doesn't lend itself to any credibility.
If you're worried about knee strikes in the context of sparring with eskrima/kali/arnis people, there's a number of things you can do that don't involve your knees getting shattered
I wasn't so much worried about getting my knees knocked as much as letting someone get that close. I crouch real low, quite often I have had skinned knees after practicing, so it tends to not be an issue. I also tend to cross my body with staggered strikes, usually higher ones to open up targets for lower ones - an occasional sweep straight up at the jawline helps to ensure that I don't get rushed over the top.
I know if someone were trying to knee me in the face while I still had sticks, they would be getting the butt end to the top of the thigh.
While i will admit that a good multiplayer fragfest will vent some frustrations, there is nothing better than a good sparring match. You don't even have to get to heavy with it, some basic response and counter work is really exhilerating - especially between two equally skilled people who respect each other and are open to practicing variants.
These guys sound like dickless morons who watch way too much UFC. The guy in the photo looks like an idiot using those Kali sticks. When using them you don't get within knee strike range, and you definitely dont try to graple in the manner he is.
In my opinion these guys need to go to a real dojo, roll with some real experts, and learn that combat for the purpose of ego masturbation is fucking pointless.
You missed the part where it doesn't do this by default,
You forgot to mention where it tries to scare you into using it by offering up protection from Phishers if you leave the service enabled. You think the average end user knows the deal their cutting there? They don't.
I hope you don't use Babelfish, Wikipedia, or Dictionary.com! They're all spying on you!
I work intimately with data collection as it relates to the web on a daily basis. All you need to do is click a link and you are being logged. Server logs are filled with great information if you know how to read and analyze them. Keep your snide jeers to yourself. You know damn good and well what I'm talking about here. Google logs data about your surfing habits. By defaulat, no. But they definitely try to scare the average user into it with a little "protection racket."
We don't even need to debate whether or not it logs a personal identifier as it is way too easy to get a fairly positive id using basic data cross referencing.
Also, the option to turn the pagerank feature on or off at install is a recent thing. It used to be on by default with no notification until Alexa got sued. Wow, sounds like they were really looking out for me from the start. Nope, it only became an issue when they could get sued for it. Hrm, not evil at all.
MSN searches have a little box on the right showing active eBay auctions for the search term. It would be similar to eBays Google adWords campaigns but at no cost AND removing revenue from eBay advertising on Google.
You HAVE to choose an area of interest. Also, learn the business environment that your interest rests in. If you are going to be skilled AND revenue generating in an area of expertise this is a must. Once you understand the underlying concepts of a field and its diciplines - you will need to be vigilant on where they are going in order to apply your knowledge to maintain your revenue. If you can maintain your revenue in this manner, it effectively co-opts business to fund your learning.
Finally, Avoid tech ego; do your best
I would like to add to this with my own philosophy. If you run into tech ego - try to cater to it initially. There are those that will tell you that you suck, that you are a newb, and that you have no business doing what you are doing. These people tend to have some piece of knowledge you can garner from them. Explain what you are trying to do and they will undoubtably explain how you should do it and why.
THEN GO HOME, DO IT THEIR WAY, AND TRY TO BREAK IT.
These types will always give up the "inside info" so they can look smarter than you. Take it and run with it - you should be in this for the knowledge, not the noteriety. Their hubris will give you a great bit of information to build your skills on.
never forget they count on you to tell them what is best, like you count on a doctor. That's a real responsibility.
I wish more people understood this instead of assuming it.
Actually, an even easier and more profitable path would be to get an education as a pharmacy tech. Pharmacist techs make more and are in an equal demand to nurses.
Mining data by itself isn't inherently evil; it's what you do with the data you've collected that's important (e.g. sell it to other companies).
I'll decide what's evil when your doing it with data about me. Here's some info about gmail. You are free to disagree with their uses as evil, but I'm not obligated to recognize your definition.
Is this what you're calling spyware, or something else I haven't heard about?
It phones home. Its spyware. Notifying me or not notifying me is not a defining trait, it just makes it worse if you don't.
Although, supporting the people who make them money is precisely the problem; they need to stop supporting some of the people who make them money.
You don't think offering a filtered Google search in China is a positive thing? Sure, it's not as good as unfiltered access, but nobody can legally offer that, so that's completely irrelevant.
Just don't go where you can't do it the right way. Oh, wait theres money there. You contradicted yourself.
On another note, what good is a search engine with filtered results doing for China? I seriously want to know what awesome goodness Google has brought to China that MSN or Yahoo can't other than the ability to use a different product. If more accurate search results is the only answer then that's sad. It subjective first off, and second - not really what the citizens of China need. Considering all Google is really doing is making the population of Chinaa available to people who wish to advertise to them, I wouldn't call that a positive thing.
You're trying to build a strawman. It doesn't matter how many customers there are in the market, and broadband is not and never has been a requirement for USING a search engine.
What fucking strawman? I never said broadband was a requirement. I never said someone couldn't switch search engines. I never said the amount of searchers changed anything. I commented on the changing market landscape, and its composition, as a backdrop for why certain things happened. Search isn't the monopoly, online advertising and being the defacto listing of websites is. The searcher isn't in any way forced to use google, but if Google gains over 75% market share in search, online businesses will be forced to get listed and to advertise on it. If the user base isn't moving, you're a monopoly in web listings and online advertising.
The searcher is the PRODUCT. Google provides the PRODUCT to advertisers and online businesses. Once Google provides over 75% of the product out there - it is a Monopoly. Get it?
How many of those other companies have been classified as monopolists?
Good point.
Linux has billions of dollars invested in it. It is simply spread across thousands of stakeholders. You can not simply take a copy of Linux, roll it into a distro and call yourself a competitor to Windows.
The same way you can't just start a search angine, get some servers, and say you can compete with googles advertising scheme.
Perhaps I wan't being clear enough in what I was trying to state in these posts. Perhaps I was trying to take counterpoints head on. This may have led to my point being unclear. But Google is most definitely approaching a monopoly. The points I didn't clarfy were as I said before. The search isn't the product, it is the tool used to deliver the product. The product is the searcher.
And I have said before, this is a very new area to look at. The Internet and the web have created a lot of similarly difficult questions that have yet to be handled completely. Th issue I have goes much deeper than "the searcher can change the engine they use."
Slashdot Mirror
No. Google does not have a legal obligation to make money for it's shareholders.
Google has a legal obligation to behave in a manner dictated to it by the voting shareholders. While this is usually a directive to make money, it could be other things. It just so happens that Page and Brin have 66.2 percent of the voting power. So they can actually do whatever they want to do. THEY are the final word on China or not, so you can point the finger directly at them.
I'd be wary about this. By the same logic, would you agree to full-scale public surveillance in picture and sound combined with massive computing power to dig out any detail and hold it against you, because it's public anyway?
You mean like the growing network of privately funded video serveillance in every store and the ubiquitous in urban areas traffic cameras at every intersection and at regular intervals on the highway?
With the increase of bandwidth consumption by sites like google video and youtube, someone is eventually going to have to pay to upgrade the infrastructure.
Which is why they government gave tax breaks to the companies who laid the infrastructure in the first place. If they need to build more, they will get more breaks.
Unless you live somewhere where you get to choose who you buy Public Utilities from, your phone company and your cable company don't own their wires, they lease them. Go ahead and switch your cable provider, try it.
Not completely true. These companies received tax breaks to lay their wires down. They received their financial motivation up front, paid for by YOU.
Relativism just is absolutism.
:P
Yes and no. Absolutism, as in an absolute truth, does exist. The problem arrises when you try to define one. The only way I have been able to convince myself of this is through a minor logic exercise. Look at this statement:
There is no such thing as absolute(s).
In order for that to be true, it must make itself untrue - the statement would be absolute. The statement could be appended to the effect of "except for this statement." That would then make the statement relative, but the part that it was relative to would itself be an absolute as it is the only exception. This makes the statement true semantically, but untrue logically.
As you said, the two are intertwined. To use these terms effectively all parties have to agree on a standard with which to base their arguments on. This makes these concepts valid in the context of the established boundaries, but relative to the standard. The only way to break away from this cycle is to use a standard established OUTSIDE the context of your discussion. Often only simple mathematics and undeniably true facts on a micro scale (I stubbed my toe).
But, that is pretty much useless as anything that would qualify as a standard in this capacity is usually so unrelated that to base an argument of absolutism on it you would need to employ so much relatavism it would make no sense.
So I think we agree, relatively speaking of course.
You sir are an idiot.
Here's a search for Rusty Shackleford. Jawa report is on the first page.
Here's a search for jawa report. Jawa report comes up on the first page.
Here's a search for Jawa Report on GOOGLE NEWS. Second listing.
Here's a search for New Media Journal First listing.
Here's a search for MichNews. It's the first listing.
This is extremely difficult to pull off when you are not in the Google Index.
You have no clue what you are talking about, you are just rehashing some point of view that was fed to you. You did no research on the topic and took your prefered source as truth. The index was not purged, their content just has not been included in some sub-topic aggregation. That's FAR from a "censors mentality."
And since when were blogs and Op-Ed pieces considered news. They are most certainly related, but not the same.
Journalism is slowly being mistaken for Reporting because of the forces exerted by the advertising model. Get your facts straight before you start bringing completely unrelated topics into a discussion about how we are ALL GOING TO GET FUCKED if this goes through. Conservative and Liberal alike.
Not really.
Buying a Congressman is how the game is played. Its what you do with your congressman that determines if its evil or not.
Reciprocating friends as I feel honest debate is the only way to test if my beliefs hold true to what is happening in the world and to find others who have different beleifs that I can coexist with because they have well thought out reasoning behind it. I surf at -1 so I can see everyones posts, sometimes downmodding happens and I feel some weird obligation to stand up for those who have been attacked ignorantly.
...
:)
To address your first point, building your relativism into your terms still means you are using realativism, and really kind of makes my point for me. Killing is an absolute term. Someone was alive, now they're dead, you killed them. Murder is a relative term. Who decides if it was murder?
I like to take it one step further and introduce the concept of levels: family, tribe, village, society, humanity.
I have always found the relative/absolute to be a circular argument, which is why it is so hard to discuss. In order for us to do it any justice, and not go around in circles, we would first have to establish a scale to discuss the topic on. Your statements about relative absolutism couldn't be more true. Absolute is relative to something.
You also introduce that certain cultures see murder for revenge as justified. I would argue, and it would be scemantic at best, that this is not murder - but an instance of killing. The definition of murder to be used must come from the culture we are examining the concept within. If this culture has a defined moral outlook that killing for revenge is not considered murder, but is in fact an action of Justice - then applying the concept of murder to it is an exercise of forcing an outside definition upon a similar, but contextually unrelated, action.
From the absolute standpoint of humanity as a whole, I believe it isn't justified, because it harms humanity, drives us apart, and validates performing an irreversible act based on imperfect information.
To continue on with this topic, and it is relative, we would have to look at this cultures place in the context of the greater entity - humanity. Is this culture small and displaced from most of humanity? Do they wield little to no influence over humanity's behavior in general? If the answer to these questions is yes then they can kill all they want. A larger culture that holds more sway in the world with the same moral perspective would be a completely different problem.
That having been said, on the issue of killing I have always looked at it from a relative perspective - on a case by case basis. I'm not really for the death penalty, not because of any particular political outlook, but because that resolution cannot be undone. Considering that humans are not infallable, I'm not comfortable with that. Now, killing a guy who has 10 children hostage in a school and who is threatening to kill them, waste him. He's no use to humanity, even after a possible rehabilitation. Point is, using something as binary as death to illustrate an argument in relative morality is tricky and ends up breaking down to scemantics.
As to my motivations and practices in debating here, well, I like to think that I have arrived at my position through continued introspection. I like to believe that I can change my preconceptions when the evidence says they are invalid. I like to think I operate from a nuanced point of view that is superior to an absolutist position. Yes, I'm an arrogant dick.
Bah, you and I both know that a strong emotionally charged finish can nail the coffin shut on someone throwing out a rehashed argument defending a perpective that they picked up somewhere that they don't completely understand. I can appreciate strong convictions as I have them myself. It's just that some arguments fall into a self defeating category - and I point them out when I see them.
I actually think dictating to someone their behavior based on my beliefs is wrong. That doesn't mean that I don't think that some people shouldn't be
I don't completely disagree with your sentiments, but your statements are a little broad to be used the way you use them.
Is killing someone always wrong? I guess you don't believe in self defense. Killing is always wrong, right? No qualifying things, no putting them in context, wrong is wrong. Doesn't matter that some thug is trying to stick a knife in you, killing is wrong.
What if I don't believe killing is wrong, but murder is. Then the concept of moral absolutism still holds up - within this context. Your example uses killing as a broad term, while others absolutes may be based on more granular components. Using your broad definition against a similar definition with context and qualifiers already built in is not really an accurate comparision. The real issue is the impossibility of establishing one true moral absolute that covers all possibilities concerning one subject.
This is usually handled by people breaking themselves into groups who approach the idea of a particular moral absolute from the same direction, which I believe then makes the absolute a relative. Absolute to them, relative for everyone else holding a different absolute.
Let me introduce the concept of harm reduction. In a complex world, one can not predict all outcomes and potential harm inherent in an action, but one can try to reduce the amount of harm done. Perhaps, by refusing to participate in censorship, Google would make things worse for the Chinese than if they do participate and call attention to the fact that they are censoring things.
I don't disagree with this, but I think this misses the point of the larger debate. Is Google going into China wrong or right? Well, approaching it from their stated position it's wrong. They said they would do no evil, and in the context of a company making information available to the masses censorship is wrong.
The second argument which is made for Google, which you did not make, boils down to "Well, there are other companies much worse than Google who are doing horrible things in China, so we should just give Google a pass" is also false. A moral choice is made on the basis of an entities actions in the context of its moral system. Google's moral choice was Censor or Not Censor. Whether or not the scummiest company on the planet was over there and Google is a saint compared to them doesn't affect the results of Google's choice in the matter.
Now, I understand that an entity can make moral compromises for the greater good. If Google's stance is they are in China because they can do more good there playing by China's rules than by not being there at all - well that is a different debate. It still doesn't detract from Google making a decision to do something they said they wouldn't do. Personally, I don't think this is true. Search results don't really do too much when it comes to helping an oppressed people when they are censored.
Also, using your own statements - you could also state that Google might do greater harm by giving censored search results back with the notification that they were censored. This may validate censorship to a percentage of China's population.
It must be nice living in your black and white world, reducing all potential decisions down to some absolute right and wrong. Let me ask, where does this absolute scale of right and wrong come from? Did you just make it up? Did someone tell you what it is? Did God tell you? How do you know for sure you have the right list?
People like you scare me. How much unnecessary suffering in this world do you suppose was created by people who knew, absolutely, that they were doing the right thing?
How is this different from you tearing into the GP because you are so sure you are right? You abviously have some set of rules working for you that have driven you to the point of attempting to invalidate his statements. I'm pretty sure your doing it with a sense of full justification too.
That's the worst argument I have ever heard in defense of Google. The Chinese people already know that their information is being censored. They also know it is concerning any subject involving Government, protest, uprising, other countries political views of China, and religion.
Let's also look at the logical order of events. Lets say that information concerning a villiage riot is censored. How the hell are the Chinese people going to know what they are supposed to be looking for? Knowledge that something is censored doesn't give you any leverage or head start n finding out WHAT was censored from it.
Is your whole argument that Google is doing no evil because their search results are up front about the fact that they are censored and this in turn then validates the Chinese peoples desire to complain? The Chinese people have been protesting way before Google started telling them "Hey, we're fucking ya while we sell you to advertisers."
Google ain't doing shit there except making money.
There is nothing moral about compromising your promises to sell advertising to the largest internet userbase in the world. Being the "most moral" company profiting off of the people in a suppresive regime doesn't make you any better. That stance is a cop-out.
Search is not a product, the searchers are. Google decided access to that amount of searchers was worth the possible backlash. The argument that Google is at least doing some good in China is ridiculous, it was for money.
What good are they doing? Great search results (subjective and censored) can't create food. They don't create democracies. They can't fight along side you in a revolt.
Let's disarm another favorite. Google, as a public business, has a duty to it's shareholders to conduct themselves in the manner that they vote upon in their shareholder meetings. OK - the people who hold a majority of voting rights in Google are........Larry, Sergey, and Eric. So I guess they really have to answer to themselves when it comes to these things. If Larry, Sergey, and Eric really didn't want to enter China - they wouldn't have. They wanted to and they did.
For the good of the people my ass. I ask again. What good can search results that are censored bring to an oppressed people?
You forget your history. Netscape spent its cash on trying to shift from a browser to the Netscape network. That left no money in the warchest to fight MS.
Also, Netscapes browser absolutely sucked at handling manipulating the DOM. At a time when the web was beginning to make its first steps towards becoming the "Web 2.0" type landscape it is today, this was a serious problem. Web Developers HATED the thing.
AS for fully functional FTP. Who cares. Joe Average-Enduser doesn't use that feature. So its moot to argue that its inclusion in a browser makes that browser better.
Yes there were phone #s that people could call, and those companies picked a # that could be translated into words like 1-800-CALL-ATT.
/. right after you post it.
I would be willing to bet that if DNS wasn't used that we would have used a phone dialing type interface to navigate directly to websites. This is completely conjecture, and moot, as we would have to go back in time and alter history to see if my theory is right.
IP addresses have 12 #s at most
The instant I hit submit one of my systems guys called me out for being a moron. There's nothing like being called an idiot in meatspace for something you posted on
spokesperson had to say visit us at 169.42.86.47 during a commercial.
I completely disagree. Before the Interent TV commercials often had phone numbers in them that poeple could call for more information. Some commercials, mostly of the infomercial type, still do. And a telephone number is longer than an IP address.
DNS certainly makes things easier, but it's not requirement - TV advertisers did just fine bofore the internet.
But I have to respond to what else you had to say. For the record, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about: Gints is neither dickless nor a moron. He's a good fighter, very polite and well spoken in person, and he's interested in testing and improving his fighting skills.
Fair enough. In retrospect, this response may have been a little extreme and unwarranted. This may very well be a decent group of guys with legit skills, but you do have to admit the article presents them as a bunch of idiots.
We're all practicing. Please don't go knocking whatever someone out there is doing to practice and test their skills, particularly where you clearly haven't ever met them.
As I said above, they didn't present you as people who knew what they were doing, they made you sound like a bunch of yahoos. Also, the videos they have to offer aren't really flattering either. One of them has a guy with a toilet seat, that doesn't lend itself to any credibility.
If you're worried about knee strikes in the context of sparring with eskrima/kali/arnis people, there's a number of things you can do that don't involve your knees getting shattered
I wasn't so much worried about getting my knees knocked as much as letting someone get that close. I crouch real low, quite often I have had skinned knees after practicing, so it tends to not be an issue. I also tend to cross my body with staggered strikes, usually higher ones to open up targets for lower ones - an occasional sweep straight up at the jawline helps to ensure that I don't get rushed over the top.
I know if someone were trying to knee me in the face while I still had sticks, they would be getting the butt end to the top of the thigh.
Awesomeness.
While i will admit that a good multiplayer fragfest will vent some frustrations, there is nothing better than a good sparring match. You don't even have to get to heavy with it, some basic response and counter work is really exhilerating - especially between two equally skilled people who respect each other and are open to practicing variants.
These guys sound like dickless morons who watch way too much UFC. The guy in the photo looks like an idiot using those Kali sticks. When using them you don't get within knee strike range, and you definitely dont try to graple in the manner he is.
In my opinion these guys need to go to a real dojo, roll with some real experts, and learn that combat for the purpose of ego masturbation is fucking pointless.
I may be mistaken, but I thought there was no "Ten" in binary. I thought it was one zero. As I understood it, ten was a product of a base 10 system.
You missed the part where it doesn't do this by default,
You forgot to mention where it tries to scare you into using it by offering up protection from Phishers if you leave the service enabled. You think the average end user knows the deal their cutting there? They don't.
I hope you don't use Babelfish, Wikipedia, or Dictionary.com! They're all spying on you!
I work intimately with data collection as it relates to the web on a daily basis. All you need to do is click a link and you are being logged. Server logs are filled with great information if you know how to read and analyze them. Keep your snide jeers to yourself. You know damn good and well what I'm talking about here. Google logs data about your surfing habits. By defaulat, no. But they definitely try to scare the average user into it with a little "protection racket."
We don't even need to debate whether or not it logs a personal identifier as it is way too easy to get a fairly positive id using basic data cross referencing.
Also, the option to turn the pagerank feature on or off at install is a recent thing. It used to be on by default with no notification until Alexa got sued. Wow, sounds like they were really looking out for me from the start. Nope, it only became an issue when they could get sued for it. Hrm, not evil at all.
I was using Best Buy as my pricing guide because I didn't want to use OEM software pricing.
Fucking bingo!
MSN searches have a little box on the right showing active eBay auctions for the search term. It would be similar to eBays Google adWords campaigns but at no cost AND removing revenue from eBay advertising on Google.
Nicely put.
You HAVE to choose an area of interest. Also, learn the business environment that your interest rests in. If you are going to be skilled AND revenue generating in an area of expertise this is a must. Once you understand the underlying concepts of a field and its diciplines - you will need to be vigilant on where they are going in order to apply your knowledge to maintain your revenue. If you can maintain your revenue in this manner, it effectively co-opts business to fund your learning.
Finally, Avoid tech ego; do your best
I would like to add to this with my own philosophy. If you run into tech ego - try to cater to it initially. There are those that will tell you that you suck, that you are a newb, and that you have no business doing what you are doing. These people tend to have some piece of knowledge you can garner from them. Explain what you are trying to do and they will undoubtably explain how you should do it and why.
THEN GO HOME, DO IT THEIR WAY, AND TRY TO BREAK IT.
These types will always give up the "inside info" so they can look smarter than you. Take it and run with it - you should be in this for the knowledge, not the noteriety. Their hubris will give you a great bit of information to build your skills on.
never forget they count on you to tell them what is best, like you count on a doctor. That's a real responsibility.
I wish more people understood this instead of assuming it.
My sugggestion: get a BS in Nursing
Actually, an even easier and more profitable path would be to get an education as a pharmacy tech. Pharmacist techs make more and are in an equal demand to nurses.
Mining data by itself isn't inherently evil; it's what you do with the data you've collected that's important (e.g. sell it to other companies).
I'll decide what's evil when your doing it with data about me. Here's some info about gmail. You are free to disagree with their uses as evil, but I'm not obligated to recognize your definition.
Is this what you're calling spyware, or something else I haven't heard about?
It phones home. Its spyware. Notifying me or not notifying me is not a defining trait, it just makes it worse if you don't.
Although, supporting the people who make them money is precisely the problem; they need to stop supporting some of the people who make them money.
You don't think offering a filtered Google search in China is a positive thing? Sure, it's not as good as unfiltered access, but nobody can legally offer that, so that's completely irrelevant.
Just don't go where you can't do it the right way. Oh, wait theres money there. You contradicted yourself.
On another note, what good is a search engine with filtered results doing for China? I seriously want to know what awesome goodness Google has brought to China that MSN or Yahoo can't other than the ability to use a different product. If more accurate search results is the only answer then that's sad. It subjective first off, and second - not really what the citizens of China need. Considering all Google is really doing is making the population of Chinaa available to people who wish to advertise to them, I wouldn't call that a positive thing.
You're trying to build a strawman. It doesn't matter how many customers there are in the market, and broadband is not and never has been a requirement for USING a search engine.
What fucking strawman? I never said broadband was a requirement. I never said someone couldn't switch search engines. I never said the amount of searchers changed anything. I commented on the changing market landscape, and its composition, as a backdrop for why certain things happened. Search isn't the monopoly, online advertising and being the defacto listing of websites is. The searcher isn't in any way forced to use google, but if Google gains over 75% market share in search, online businesses will be forced to get listed and to advertise on it. If the user base isn't moving, you're a monopoly in web listings and online advertising.
The searcher is the PRODUCT. Google provides the PRODUCT to advertisers and online businesses. Once Google provides over 75% of the product out there - it is a Monopoly. Get it?
How many of those other companies have been classified as monopolists?
Good point.
Linux has billions of dollars invested in it. It is simply spread across thousands of stakeholders. You can not simply take a copy of Linux, roll it into a distro and call yourself a competitor to Windows.
The same way you can't just start a search angine, get some servers, and say you can compete with googles advertising scheme.
Perhaps I wan't being clear enough in what I was trying to state in these posts. Perhaps I was trying to take counterpoints head on. This may have led to my point being unclear. But Google is most definitely approaching a monopoly. The points I didn't clarfy were as I said before. The search isn't the product, it is the tool used to deliver the product. The product is the searcher.
And I have said before, this is a very new area to look at. The Internet and the web have created a lot of similarly difficult questions that have yet to be handled completely. Th issue I have goes much deeper than "the searcher can change the engine they use."