The analogy is a thought experiment, dumbass, not a claim that online tracking is the precise exact equivalent of installing cameras in your bathroom (but that should be fucking obvious, so I have to question your motives in purposely misinterpreting and misconstruing what I wrote).
Do Not Track is a step toward putting you in control of the way your information is collected and used online. Do Not Track is a feature in Firefox that allows you to let a website know you would like to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes including behavioral advertising. It does this by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header every time your data is requested from the Web.
I would love to see it as a setting with no default and a prompt when you install the browser, so that every user must make a conscious decision to either be tracked or not be tracked.
But here's the thing. In spite of all this so-called debate, let's be honest, how many ordinary people are going to answer "Yes" to the question "Would you like other companies to be able to watch and compile databases of everything you do online?"... I'm guessing approximately NOBODY. Who actually likes being watched?
However, if the header is sent by default, then Google can convincingly argue that the user has not expressed this desire
Actually, I'm willing to guess that a decent lawyer could convince a court that a reasonable person can be presumed by default to prefer not to be watched, given that pretty much nobody likes being watched. Put it another way, should you have to expressly opt out of me installing a camera in your bathroom, or can you by default be presumed to prefer that I not put a camera in your bathroom? The presence of a DNT selection, which people will rightfully not turn on, could clinch it. I suspect this is why the debate around this is so strong.
Microsoft's business model is based on selling you OS and productivity software. Google's business model is based on tracking you, in order to deliver targeted advertising. So yeah, I'd think the former stands more to benefit than the latter via enabling this, but much as I dislike MS, in this case it seems beneficial to consumers as well as MS. Personally, I'm a bit tired of all this increased online tracking these days, and I think the only reason Joe Public hasn't revolted is most people don't know just how bad online tracking has become.
I don't see why the specification has to dictate a default though; why not leave it up to the browser vendor to decide?
I doubt it would kill the project to have it on by default though; on the contrary, I'm guessing someone is more worried about the potential for things like class action suits if it becomes the norm for this to be enabled on widely released software, almost 'forcing' Google to have to ignore it... I'm guessing what they're worried about it is precisely that it will be effective at its exact goal (for at least so-called "non-evil" advertisers).
Calm down. The article itself says "Within hours, the problem was fixed". A stupid mistake, corrected quickly. Could you calm down for just long enough to explain what all your raging is about, exactly?
Sigh.. the worst thing about knee-jerk 'that's not irony' Alanis references is when they are actually irony... how sadly ironic can you get. FYI, it is actually irony that the 'preferred method' of signing in is Facebook for an article discussing desire to stop using Facebook.
So in summary, you use facebook as a social network, for socializing.
Yes, but you see, he's better than all the other lowly facebook users, as everyone else just made a list of 500 people they met once or twice and don't it use properly. He's the worst kind of "I don't even own a TV" snob - the type who does actually watch TV.
I'm guessing the 'kleptocratic class' - e.g. politicians and bankers - will still be eating the finest steaks even while they convince us 'proletariat' to eat bugs as part of convincing us to accept an ever-declining standard of life so that they can keep stealing from us. Fuck that... why should we have to start eating bugs? Let's rather ask why they're making us so poor.
Not exactly surprising given that Firefox is a relatively small organization with little funding and limited advertising, while Chrome gets a big banner and download link on every Google search results page (not sure if they're still doing that). That said, Chrome is not a bad browser... I prefer Firefox, but the margins are becoming slimmer.
I regularly have hundreds (yes hundreds) of tabs open; Firefox is the only browser that can handle it relatively elegantly. Open just a few dozen in Chrome and my entire system starts turning into a brick. Only Firefox has the 'don't load tabs until I open them' option. The memory criticisms have clearly mostly been fixed.
Firefox also has a better privacy track record, e.g. introducing things like the 'Don't track me' option, while Chrome was busy doing things like creating a GUID (unique ID) for every installation, and sending back every link you type, linked to your GUID (which they claim to have removed, but only due to public pressure, and they have a vested interest in continuing to try push against privacy.)
I regularly try all the browsers, and somehow do keep ending up back at Firefox. But of course, I realize not all users use browsers as intensively like I do.. if you only need five or ten tabs open, or whatever, and don't mind Google trying to learn everything about you and every site you visit, then use whatever works for you.
To be absolutely clear, I mean they were 'on the right track' in some other aspects of moral reasoning not related to slavery. From the slavery perspective, obviously, not on the right track. But if one looks at it from a historical perspective, moral reasoning has been evolving slowly, and really the moral philosophers at the time of the founding fathers may have taken several steps forward, they didn't quite "get there" - and so our moral improvement continues. One obvious mistake is the notion that "natural laws" derive in some way from "God". This doesn't mean there are no such thing as natural rights though; on the contrary, there are such things as natural rights, but they derive from facts and reason.
The "dark place" was where they started. Clear and rational thought was the light that would have led them out of that "dark place", had they applied more of it. "Clear and rational thought" didn't lead to slavery. Quite the opposite; the founding fathers were 'on the right track', but had they applied MORE clear and rational thought, they would have come to the conclusion that slavery was morally wrong.
There is a very simple reason for that --- clear and rational thought does in fact lead to the conclusion that slavery is morally wrong (details omitted, but we can probably agree on that, I assume). So it can only be that had the forefathers applied more clear and rational thought, they would have seen that.
Were they perfect, no, they were human. But the flaws were because they were human, not because reason is flawed.
Didn't know 'USB' was having so much trouble, but what are the alternatives really? Firewire doesn't seem to be taking off and USB3 will obviate any speed complaints etc.
To be absolutely clear, I am not saying investors aren't at fault merely for making a 'bad investment'. (It was reasonably obvious in advance to anyone with a few brain cells that Facebook was a bubble stock.) However, we aren't talking about losses from just making a bad investment - we are talking about multiple different forms of either outright criminal trading fraud, and/or what is being called "technical problems" that resulted in "effectively negligently fraudulent" trading platform (that e.g. gave wrong prices, didn't allow people to sell who wanted to sell, etc.). So retail investors should maybe have lost some small amount of money from making a bad investment - but, they lost much more, due to fraud and a broken trading platform.
It doesn't really make sense to entirely blame traders here.. what about all the traders that tried to sell early to minimize their losses when they realized early into the IPO that it had been overvalued, put sell orders through at price $X, had their orders mysterious "fail", then get blocked from selling for hours while all they could do was watch the price (and thus their savings) keep falling? If that was (say) your own mother who could just watch some of her savings evaporate (and your inheritance) purely and only because of so-called "technical errors" that favored some traders while ripping off other traders, preventing her from selling early, and forcing her to be left holding dud shares priced much lower? Zuckerberg himself, on the other hand, had no such apparent problem cashing in over a billion worth of his shares really early. Face it, Zuckerberg pulled a fast one here, ripping off mom-and-pop investors to the tune of billions.
And at least the institutional investors, like UBS, at least have a team of lawyers where they can get some form of "justice". Mom-and-pop investors don't.
And this is by far not the only problem with the IPO that makes it all look rather like a whole pattern of dodginess - there have been multiple dodgy things from start... e.g.: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hagens-berman-files-securities-class-action-against-facebook-zuckerberg-and-underwriters-continues-insider-trading-investigation-against-selling-shareholders-2012-05-25
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, an investor-rights law firm, today announced that it has filed a securities class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Inc. FB -3.82% , officers, directors and underwriters of the company's Initial Public Offering (IPO) on behalf of investors relating to allegations of whisper estimates withheld from all but a few select investors.
Also, it wasn't just delayed orders. Prices were also mysteriously delayed. This means that people were placing buy and sell orders based on incorrect prices for some people.
http://moneymorning.com/2012/06/07/facebook-ipo-fiasco-to-cost-nasdaq-40-million/ But there were problems from the first trades went off around 11:30 a.m. EDT. Executions were late, allotments askew, and prices delayed. Investors who did manage to get shares were disappointed when Facebook stock barely finished above the IPO price on its first day of trading, closing at $38.27... "The retail investor, the true victim, gets lost in the shuffle,"
(Note, in shares, the word "orders" can mean either "buy orders" or "sell orders" - I think some of the confusion on this thread stems from people thinking "order" always means "buy".)
Of course reason applies to the real world (why are you trying to equate 'reason' and 'logic'?), what a load of nonsense. Everybody uses reason in the real world, all the time, every day, even if they aren't good at it - because it works well.
If you don't believe reason applies to the real world, then tell me, why don't you stand in front of a moving truck? It is ultimately reason that informs that us that wouldn't be good for your health.
Of course, it is precisely immoral people who want to promote the lie that reason cannot be used in the "real world", because it serves their agenda. That's why self-proclaimed 'extreme leftists' like PopeRatzo employ deception, logical fallacies - all to trick people into believing a lie.
And before you say it, humans aren't logical,
This is just to say that humans on the whole are not very good at reason. That doesn't mean reason is broken, and it certainly doesn't mean reason is not an ideal to strive for. On the contrary, those that are better at reason generally see positive results from it.
Problem with reason and logic is that it is only an instrument, a tool, which cannot be used without some basis in personal experience (which is often plays the role of axiom) and some preferred algorithm or route (which determines what is considered logical and what is not).
Not only is there no problem with reason, but reason is the only valid tool with which we have to make decisions. If not reason, then how does one make decisions and determinations? If someone commits a logical fallacy, then they are just plain wrong, it's as simple as that. Either they need to find a correct argument to support their thesis, or adjust their thesis.
There are times when we may forgo the use of reason, but generally only on matters of personal entertainment - e.g. sex, appreciating a sunset or poem, or on the dance floor.
However, for decisions such as determining what is a morally valid politically philosophy, that is not one of those times; rather, it's one of those times when it's critical we use reason, because if we don't, we are going to end up committing moral violations.
Slashdot Mirror
The analogy is a thought experiment, dumbass, not a claim that online tracking is the precise exact equivalent of installing cameras in your bathroom (but that should be fucking obvious, so I have to question your motives in purposely misinterpreting and misconstruing what I wrote).
Boy should you be glad you posted that comment as AC. Anyway, http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/dnt/
What is Do Not Track?
Do Not Track is a step toward putting you in control of the way your information is collected and used online. Do Not Track is a feature in Firefox that allows you to let a website know you would like to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes including behavioral advertising. It does this by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header every time your data is requested from the Web.
I would love to see it as a setting with no default and a prompt when you install the browser, so that every user must make a conscious decision to either be tracked or not be tracked.
But here's the thing. In spite of all this so-called debate, let's be honest, how many ordinary people are going to answer "Yes" to the question "Would you like other companies to be able to watch and compile databases of everything you do online?" ... I'm guessing approximately NOBODY. Who actually likes being watched?
However, if the header is sent by default, then Google can convincingly argue that the user has not expressed this desire
Actually, I'm willing to guess that a decent lawyer could convince a court that a reasonable person can be presumed by default to prefer not to be watched, given that pretty much nobody likes being watched. Put it another way, should you have to expressly opt out of me installing a camera in your bathroom, or can you by default be presumed to prefer that I not put a camera in your bathroom? The presence of a DNT selection, which people will rightfully not turn on, could clinch it. I suspect this is why the debate around this is so strong.
Microsoft's business model is based on selling you OS and productivity software. Google's business model is based on tracking you, in order to deliver targeted advertising. So yeah, I'd think the former stands more to benefit than the latter via enabling this, but much as I dislike MS, in this case it seems beneficial to consumers as well as MS. Personally, I'm a bit tired of all this increased online tracking these days, and I think the only reason Joe Public hasn't revolted is most people don't know just how bad online tracking has become.
I don't see why the specification has to dictate a default though; why not leave it up to the browser vendor to decide?
I doubt it would kill the project to have it on by default though; on the contrary, I'm guessing someone is more worried about the potential for things like class action suits if it becomes the norm for this to be enabled on widely released software, almost 'forcing' Google to have to ignore it ... I'm guessing what they're worried about it is precisely that it will be effective at its exact goal (for at least so-called "non-evil" advertisers).
I do wonder if that leaked net profit statement was the one for the taxman, or the one for the shareholders.
Calm down. The article itself says "Within hours, the problem was fixed". A stupid mistake, corrected quickly. Could you calm down for just long enough to explain what all your raging is about, exactly?
Sigh .. the worst thing about knee-jerk 'that's not irony' Alanis references is when they are actually irony ... how sadly ironic can you get. FYI, it is actually irony that the 'preferred method' of signing in is Facebook for an article discussing desire to stop using Facebook.
So in summary, you use facebook as a social network, for socializing.
Yes, but you see, he's better than all the other lowly facebook users, as everyone else just made a list of 500 people they met once or twice and don't it use properly. He's the worst kind of "I don't even own a TV" snob - the type who does actually watch TV.
I'm guessing the 'kleptocratic class' - e.g. politicians and bankers - will still be eating the finest steaks even while they convince us 'proletariat' to eat bugs as part of convincing us to accept an ever-declining standard of life so that they can keep stealing from us. Fuck that... why should we have to start eating bugs? Let's rather ask why they're making us so poor.
Not exactly surprising given that Firefox is a relatively small organization with little funding and limited advertising, while Chrome gets a big banner and download link on every Google search results page (not sure if they're still doing that). That said, Chrome is not a bad browser ... I prefer Firefox, but the margins are becoming slimmer.
I regularly have hundreds (yes hundreds) of tabs open; Firefox is the only browser that can handle it relatively elegantly. Open just a few dozen in Chrome and my entire system starts turning into a brick. Only Firefox has the 'don't load tabs until I open them' option. The memory criticisms have clearly mostly been fixed.
Firefox also has a better privacy track record, e.g. introducing things like the 'Don't track me' option, while Chrome was busy doing things like creating a GUID (unique ID) for every installation, and sending back every link you type, linked to your GUID (which they claim to have removed, but only due to public pressure, and they have a vested interest in continuing to try push against privacy.)
I regularly try all the browsers, and somehow do keep ending up back at Firefox. But of course, I realize not all users use browsers as intensively like I do .. if you only need five or ten tabs open, or whatever, and don't mind Google trying to learn everything about you and every site you visit, then use whatever works for you.
See, they're right, you're in denial ... just admit it already, you're in a love-hate relationship with Firefox ..
the founding fathers were 'on the right track',
To be absolutely clear, I mean they were 'on the right track' in some other aspects of moral reasoning not related to slavery. From the slavery perspective, obviously, not on the right track. But if one looks at it from a historical perspective, moral reasoning has been evolving slowly, and really the moral philosophers at the time of the founding fathers may have taken several steps forward, they didn't quite "get there" - and so our moral improvement continues. One obvious mistake is the notion that "natural laws" derive in some way from "God". This doesn't mean there are no such thing as natural rights though; on the contrary, there are such things as natural rights, but they derive from facts and reason.
The "dark place" was where they started. Clear and rational thought was the light that would have led them out of that "dark place", had they applied more of it. "Clear and rational thought" didn't lead to slavery. Quite the opposite; the founding fathers were 'on the right track', but had they applied MORE clear and rational thought, they would have come to the conclusion that slavery was morally wrong.
There is a very simple reason for that --- clear and rational thought does in fact lead to the conclusion that slavery is morally wrong (details omitted, but we can probably agree on that, I assume). So it can only be that had the forefathers applied more clear and rational thought, they would have seen that.
Were they perfect, no, they were human. But the flaws were because they were human, not because reason is flawed.
“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” - Martin Luther King
The "rules of society" have been thoroughly turned on their head, and it's time to look very closely at oneself and decide what's right.
Agreed, though I think the path to do do so, is to use truth and reason, objectively, and at a high standard of clear and rational thought.
Didn't know 'USB' was having so much trouble, but what are the alternatives really? Firewire doesn't seem to be taking off and USB3 will obviate any speed complaints etc.
That's not what any of this is really ultimately about, e.g. cf comment above http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3020415&cid=40851961
You would understand more clearly if you RTA (and some of the other articles about the various other lawsuits being filed).
To be absolutely clear, I am not saying investors aren't at fault merely for making a 'bad investment'. (It was reasonably obvious in advance to anyone with a few brain cells that Facebook was a bubble stock.) However, we aren't talking about losses from just making a bad investment - we are talking about multiple different forms of either outright criminal trading fraud, and/or what is being called "technical problems" that resulted in "effectively negligently fraudulent" trading platform (that e.g. gave wrong prices, didn't allow people to sell who wanted to sell, etc.). So retail investors should maybe have lost some small amount of money from making a bad investment - but, they lost much more, due to fraud and a broken trading platform.
It doesn't really make sense to entirely blame traders here .. what about all the traders that tried to sell early to minimize their losses when they realized early into the IPO that it had been overvalued, put sell orders through at price $X, had their orders mysterious "fail", then get blocked from selling for hours while all they could do was watch the price (and thus their savings) keep falling? If that was (say) your own mother who could just watch some of her savings evaporate (and your inheritance) purely and only because of so-called "technical errors" that favored some traders while ripping off other traders, preventing her from selling early, and forcing her to be left holding dud shares priced much lower? Zuckerberg himself, on the other hand, had no such apparent problem cashing in over a billion worth of his shares really early. Face it, Zuckerberg pulled a fast one here, ripping off mom-and-pop investors to the tune of billions.
And at least the institutional investors, like UBS, at least have a team of lawyers where they can get some form of "justice". Mom-and-pop investors don't.
And this is by far not the only problem with the IPO that makes it all look rather like a whole pattern of dodginess - there have been multiple dodgy things from start ... e.g.: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hagens-berman-files-securities-class-action-against-facebook-zuckerberg-and-underwriters-continues-insider-trading-investigation-against-selling-shareholders-2012-05-25
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, an investor-rights law firm, today announced that it has filed a securities class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Inc. FB -3.82% , officers, directors and underwriters of the company's Initial Public Offering (IPO) on behalf of investors relating to allegations of whisper estimates withheld from all but a few select investors.
Also, it wasn't just delayed orders. Prices were also mysteriously delayed. This means that people were placing buy and sell orders based on incorrect prices for some people.
http://moneymorning.com/2012/06/07/facebook-ipo-fiasco-to-cost-nasdaq-40-million/ ... "The retail investor, the true victim, gets lost in the shuffle,"
But there were problems from the first trades went off around 11:30 a.m. EDT. Executions were late, allotments askew, and prices delayed. Investors who did manage to get shares were disappointed when Facebook stock barely finished above the IPO price on its first day of trading, closing at $38.27
(Note, in shares, the word "orders" can mean either "buy orders" or "sell orders" - I think some of the confusion on this thread stems from people thinking "order" always means "buy".)
What is better than reason at production the most rational, meaningful decisions possible?
Nothing.
Claiming reason fails because logic doesn't deal with real numbers is the most absurd, bullshit strawman I've seen in my life.
Of course reason applies to the real world (why are you trying to equate 'reason' and 'logic'?), what a load of nonsense. Everybody uses reason in the real world, all the time, every day, even if they aren't good at it - because it works well.
If you don't believe reason applies to the real world, then tell me, why don't you stand in front of a moving truck? It is ultimately reason that informs that us that wouldn't be good for your health.
Of course, it is precisely immoral people who want to promote the lie that reason cannot be used in the "real world", because it serves their agenda. That's why self-proclaimed 'extreme leftists' like PopeRatzo employ deception, logical fallacies - all to trick people into believing a lie.
And before you say it, humans aren't logical,
This is just to say that humans on the whole are not very good at reason. That doesn't mean reason is broken, and it certainly doesn't mean reason is not an ideal to strive for. On the contrary, those that are better at reason generally see positive results from it.
Problem with reason and logic is that it is only an instrument, a tool, which cannot be used without some basis in personal experience (which is often plays the role of axiom) and some preferred algorithm or route (which determines what is considered logical and what is not).
Not only is there no problem with reason, but reason is the only valid tool with which we have to make decisions. If not reason, then how does one make decisions and determinations? If someone commits a logical fallacy, then they are just plain wrong, it's as simple as that. Either they need to find a correct argument to support their thesis, or adjust their thesis.
There are times when we may forgo the use of reason, but generally only on matters of personal entertainment - e.g. sex, appreciating a sunset or poem, or on the dance floor.
However, for decisions such as determining what is a morally valid politically philosophy, that is not one of those times; rather, it's one of those times when it's critical we use reason, because if we don't, we are going to end up committing moral violations.
You realize Jan Brewer is almost 70 years old?
And since your Google is broken, "kleptocratic" basically means, in short, 'rule by thieves'.