What makes you think it will be out in the open just because it is hosted by Google?
Just because it is POSSIBLE to be out in the open, doesn't mean that it will.
I agree with your sentiment that we need a more transparent government, but I disagree that using Google will necessarily achieve that.
I use Google every day and have seen no reason to suspect they are up to no good, but it makes me a bit nervous when I see that people seem to trust them completely.
They are a large, powerful corporation. Even if the current management proves to be saintly, a corporation can change its management. Sometimes against the will of the current management (I'm looking at YOU Yahoo).
Having the government's information held by a private corporation seems a bit dangerous.
Cheaper, definitely. More transparent, maybe. Good idea, remains to be seen...
I certainly hope that if the govt. really goes down that road, that the process by which they do so is absolutely transparent.
Really well written contracts (and possibly legislative actions) need to spell out EXACTLY what Google can and can't do. It could be implemented very well or very badly. AND there needs to be a fall back. It may be unthinkable for Google to fail, but not that long ago people thought the same of GM, AIG, Citigroup, etc, etc...
If they know which Hollywood types to hyphenate or concatenate, they are content. To them THAT is news.
The best part is that those are the folks who are most likely to make lots and lots of babies. Where does that lead? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Anybody remember "Bulletman"? "Bulletman, Bulletman, the HUMAN bullet."
One of the craziest GI Joe characters ever. No real link to the rest of the characters. Late in the run of the original toys. Before the Joes shrank and got more back story...
The model that has evolved for webcomics typically balances on the following legs:
1) Ads (Adsense, Project Wonderful, etc.) 2) Books, T-Shirts, buttons, stickers, etc. 3) Comics Conventions (to boost sales of said merch) 4) Original art * * Profit!
There are over 10,000 webcomics that simply don't make any money and a few that make a respectable living for the artist.
The key here is that the artist is also an entrepreneur and not above selling trinkets. He (or she) only needs to cover his (or her) cost of living.
I have a webcomic that is a few months old and have been researching and studying these models. I am in the 10,000+ group and would like to move into the other, smaller group some day.
I won't post a link here because a) people will call me bad names for self-promotion, b) it is designed for children, not the Slashdot demographic and c) my servers don't need that kind of a workout.
Just for the record I would very much like to get $100/day, but have far less than 10,000 readers.
The usual metric is 1,000 True Fans (based on a blog you can google... not mine, but again, I don't want to melt anybody's servers). If you can get a 1,000 true fans to buy $100 worth of stuff a year, you can pretty much quit your day job and still cover luxuries like health care insurance...
Linux also has a PR problem. The average person (if they have heard of Linux at all, and most haven't) tend to think of it as something for anti-social geeks who will be mean to them if they ask for help.
I'm not saying that is the truth of the matter, just the common perception I have seen.
They also perceive Mac as being the easy and cool computer, but perhaps too expensive or trendy for them. Or simply not the computer they currently have.
That leaves XP. It is already installed on their computer. Installing a new operating system is not something they want to do any more than they want to install all new toilets. They'll do it if they have to, but are pretty sure they'll screw things up with disastrous results.
The average person isn't a programmer and doesn't want to be. The concept of open source and free software means nothing to them except free as in beer. They like free beer. But they aren't willing to set up a brewery to get free beer. They don't want to learn the details of brewing. They just want to get drunk...
There is nothing technically that prevents Linux from going mainstream. The Linux kernel (and that is all that is actually Linux) works and works great. The software that sits on top of it is of mixed quality. Some is great, some sucks. Same is true of Windows and Mac, right?
So why don't those suffering XP users switch to Linux? Because they aren't suffering enough to take action. They give lots of reasons why they won't switch to Vista, but at the end of the day most don't largely for the same reason they don't switch to Linux: XP works well enough that they aren't willing to do what they consider the difficult and annoying work of installing a new OS.
The same arguments apply to the digital TV transition. Some people simply don't believe they should have to buy a new TV or a converter box (or subscribe to cable or satellite) when the hardware they have is not broken.
For the record, I believe that on older hardware (the kind my hypothetical person has), installing something like Ubuntu is likely to be much easier and more successful than Vista. But neither is as easy as keeping the current, spyware infested XP. Easiest wins.
That was far more than I intended to post so I will stop now. Wait. Now. Doh!
Whether or not Microsoft or anyone else is trying to "kill Google" doesn't change whether or not Google is trampling on privacy.
I for one don't trust ANY company to do anything except look out for its own interests.
The idea that Microsoft is bad, therefore Google is good is silly. They are both large corporations. Both want to find ways to get you to send them your money. Heck, I would love to find a way to convince you to send me your money. I find it disturbing that so many people seem to trust Google to the extent they seem to trust them.
Hate on Microsoft all you want, but don't make the dangerous assumption that "if MS is bad, then Google is good". Evaluate the actions of each company on its own merits, not in comparison to one another.
Do you really think no MS fanboy would have harassed her?
Hmm. My experience is that the MS fanboys are far less passionate about their choice than either the Linux or Mac fanboys. Perhaps it is the complacency of the mainstream?
You are correct that there are fanboys for just about everything, and I expect you are right that someone would have responded had she blamed Microsoft, but I doubt there would have been the same depth of disparagement and certainly not the same quantity. Fewer MS fans would have bothered to respond...
I use both Linux and Windows and like them both. I used Macs a very long time ago, but their price pushed me to Windows and then Linux (I'm talking about before Jobs left the first time...). I enjoy working with all three, but wouldn't consider myself a fan of any of them any more than I'm a fan of my television.
This is one of the few I'd be willing to plop down modern dollars on.
I loved the original X-Wing game. Played through that thing a number of times.
Some of my best gaming memories come from that game.
I love the ability to reconfigure the shields on the X-Wing. I forget the missions now, but there was one that had kicked my butt several times running. It was a longish mission with several waves of enemies you had to hold off. I was down to ONE Tie between me and victory and ALL my weapons had been destroyed. R2 and I shifted all shields to the front and began a protracted series of ram/run-away/recharge maneuvers that resulted in victory.
I'm going out on a limb here and guess that the president elect has more pressing things to do with his time than getting Rockbox to work on an iPod.
I'm not arguing with your assertions, because you are correct that for a certain percentage of people tinkering is fun (I enjoy such things myself), but the popularity of the iPod is not based on any technical superiority, but rather on the fact that it is dead simple to use. The vast majority of people are enraged by any machine that asks them to press more than three buttons to hear music.
"...lack of access to a Windows environment for development and testing."
Reminds me of the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch.
"Do you have any Windows machines?"
"We don't get much call for it around here."
"It's the single most common operating system on the planet!"
"Well not round here!"
I can accept many, many arguments as to why the Perl code hasn't been tested on Windows, but not that the team couldn't find a Windows machine. Surely at least one of them has at least one friend who at least has a dual boot machine. I could buy the argument that they couldn't find an Amiga or BE/Os machine very easily, but Windows? You gotta work pretty hard to avoid Windows that completely.
Note that I am not saying Oracle is the shovel and MySQL is the spoon. The previous posts reduced the argument to abstracts. This makes the argument applicable to many areas, not just the current discussion.
Decide for yourself which tools are shovels and which are spoons, then match them to the job at hand.
Come on, man, that's a bit extreme. It's not like any of us are suggesting we should use Microsoft Visual Basic here...
And yet Visual Basic "gets the job done"...
I've worked with lots of languages, and they almost all get the job done. What I find amusing is that virtually everyone has languages they feel defensive about "come on! open your mind!" and others they feel superior to "at least we aren't using X". You really can plug just about any set of languages or technologies into the equation and find someone who will argue the point.
I use a hammer, I don't have "nail driving experiences" with one.
You, sir, have CLEARLY never tried the Hammer-Matic 2500 Xtreme. It has an ergonomic handle and a 3 megaton nail-pounding turbo-booster. I once achieved nirvana THREE TIMES while building a birdhouse. Remember, just because YOU have never had a nail driving experience, doesn't mean that the rest of us are so limited in our hammer-wielding world-view!
Slashdot Mirror
What makes you think it will be out in the open just because it is hosted by Google?
Just because it is POSSIBLE to be out in the open, doesn't mean that it will.
I agree with your sentiment that we need a more transparent government, but I disagree that using Google will necessarily achieve that.
I use Google every day and have seen no reason to suspect they are up to no good, but it makes me a bit nervous when I see that people seem to trust them completely.
They are a large, powerful corporation. Even if the current management proves to be saintly, a corporation can change its management. Sometimes against the will of the current management (I'm looking at YOU Yahoo).
Having the government's information held by a private corporation seems a bit dangerous.
Cheaper, definitely. More transparent, maybe. Good idea, remains to be seen...
I certainly hope that if the govt. really goes down that road, that the process by which they do so is absolutely transparent.
Really well written contracts (and possibly legislative actions) need to spell out EXACTLY what Google can and can't do. It could be implemented very well or very badly. AND there needs to be a fall back. It may be unthinkable for Google to fail, but not that long ago people thought the same of GM, AIG, Citigroup, etc, etc...
The average person doesn't care.
If they know which Hollywood types to hyphenate or concatenate, they are content. To them THAT is news.
The best part is that those are the folks who are most likely to make lots and lots of babies. Where does that lead? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Anybody remember "Bulletman"? "Bulletman, Bulletman, the HUMAN bullet."
One of the craziest GI Joe characters ever. No real link to the rest of the characters. Late in the run of the original toys. Before the Joes shrank and got more back story...
Rob a 7-11, apparently. How else does a warrior fund a Bird of Prey in this economy?
Pimp My Bird Of Prey
The model that has evolved for webcomics typically balances on the following legs:
1) Ads (Adsense, Project Wonderful, etc.)
2) Books, T-Shirts, buttons, stickers, etc.
3) Comics Conventions (to boost sales of said merch)
4) Original art
*
*
Profit!
There are over 10,000 webcomics that simply don't make any money and a few that make a respectable living for the artist.
The key here is that the artist is also an entrepreneur and not above selling trinkets. He (or she) only needs to cover his (or her) cost of living.
I have a webcomic that is a few months old and have been researching and studying these models. I am in the 10,000+ group and would like to move into the other, smaller group some day.
I won't post a link here because a) people will call me bad names for self-promotion, b) it is designed for children, not the Slashdot demographic and c) my servers don't need that kind of a workout.
Just for the record I would very much like to get $100/day, but have far less than 10,000 readers.
The usual metric is 1,000 True Fans (based on a blog you can google... not mine, but again, I don't want to melt anybody's servers). If you can get a 1,000 true fans to buy $100 worth of stuff a year, you can pretty much quit your day job and still cover luxuries like health care insurance...
Linux also has a PR problem. The average person (if they have heard of Linux at all, and most haven't) tend to think of it as something for anti-social geeks who will be mean to them if they ask for help.
I'm not saying that is the truth of the matter, just the common perception I have seen.
They also perceive Mac as being the easy and cool computer, but perhaps too expensive or trendy for them. Or simply not the computer they currently have.
That leaves XP. It is already installed on their computer. Installing a new operating system is not something they want to do any more than they want to install all new toilets. They'll do it if they have to, but are pretty sure they'll screw things up with disastrous results.
The average person isn't a programmer and doesn't want to be. The concept of open source and free software means nothing to them except free as in beer. They like free beer. But they aren't willing to set up a brewery to get free beer. They don't want to learn the details of brewing. They just want to get drunk...
There is nothing technically that prevents Linux from going mainstream. The Linux kernel (and that is all that is actually Linux) works and works great. The software that sits on top of it is of mixed quality. Some is great, some sucks. Same is true of Windows and Mac, right?
So why don't those suffering XP users switch to Linux? Because they aren't suffering enough to take action. They give lots of reasons why they won't switch to Vista, but at the end of the day most don't largely for the same reason they don't switch to Linux: XP works well enough that they aren't willing to do what they consider the difficult and annoying work of installing a new OS.
The same arguments apply to the digital TV transition. Some people simply don't believe they should have to buy a new TV or a converter box (or subscribe to cable or satellite) when the hardware they have is not broken.
For the record, I believe that on older hardware (the kind my hypothetical person has), installing something like Ubuntu is likely to be much easier and more successful than Vista. But neither is as easy as keeping the current, spyware infested XP. Easiest wins.
That was far more than I intended to post so I will stop now. Wait. Now. Doh!
Alright, get me my crowbar.
Whether or not Microsoft or anyone else is trying to "kill Google" doesn't change whether or not Google is trampling on privacy.
I for one don't trust ANY company to do anything except look out for its own interests.
The idea that Microsoft is bad, therefore Google is good is silly. They are both large corporations. Both want to find ways to get you to send them your money. Heck, I would love to find a way to convince you to send me your money. I find it disturbing that so many people seem to trust Google to the extent they seem to trust them.
Hate on Microsoft all you want, but don't make the dangerous assumption that "if MS is bad, then Google is good". Evaluate the actions of each company on its own merits, not in comparison to one another.
Do you really think no MS fanboy would have harassed her?
Hmm. My experience is that the MS fanboys are far less passionate about their choice than either the Linux or Mac fanboys. Perhaps it is the complacency of the mainstream?
You are correct that there are fanboys for just about everything, and I expect you are right that someone would have responded had she blamed Microsoft, but I doubt there would have been the same depth of disparagement and certainly not the same quantity. Fewer MS fans would have bothered to respond...
I use both Linux and Windows and like them both. I used Macs a very long time ago, but their price pushed me to Windows and then Linux (I'm talking about before Jobs left the first time...). I enjoy working with all three, but wouldn't consider myself a fan of any of them any more than I'm a fan of my television.
I'll second the ET motion.
I played that game probably more hours than any other game ever.
Good depth of play within a fairly simple mechanic. Combination of classes, skills and weapons fairly well balanced.
There are infinite universes, but only those that match Ray Kurzwiel's predictions survive.
Ray Kurzwiel doesn't predict the future, the future forms itself based on his predictions.
Pay the salary of someone smart enough to handle your data correctly if you have no interest in becoming smart yourself.
The first step is admitting you are stupid. That is hard for most people. Of course today they are having NO trouble making that cognitive leap...
This is one of the few I'd be willing to plop down modern dollars on.
I loved the original X-Wing game. Played through that thing a number of times.
Some of my best gaming memories come from that game.
I love the ability to reconfigure the shields on the X-Wing. I forget the missions now, but there was one that had kicked my butt several times running. It was a longish mission with several waves of enemies you had to hold off. I was down to ONE Tie between me and victory and ALL my weapons had been destroyed. R2 and I shifted all shields to the front and began a protracted series of ram/run-away/recharge maneuvers that resulted in victory.
Good times.
My guess is they will get "The Boot".
... the ability to play some fun games is a plus.
I don't own a Zune, but I read that the new 3.0 version of XNA lets you write games for the Zune. May be great, may be crap. Don't know.
Obama does represent all the Americans... not just majority, because last time I checked, he will be next president of United States of America.
And DAY 1 he signs into law the "Everybody better get a Zune" Act of 2009.
Don't blame me, I voted for the Creative Zen.
I'm going out on a limb here and guess that the president elect has more pressing things to do with his time than getting Rockbox to work on an iPod.
I'm not arguing with your assertions, because you are correct that for a certain percentage of people tinkering is fun (I enjoy such things myself), but the popularity of the iPod is not based on any technical superiority, but rather on the fact that it is dead simple to use. The vast majority of people are enraged by any machine that asks them to press more than three buttons to hear music.
"...lack of access to a Windows environment for development and testing."
Reminds me of the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch.
"Do you have any Windows machines?"
"We don't get much call for it around here."
"It's the single most common operating system on the planet!"
"Well not round here!"
I can accept many, many arguments as to why the Perl code hasn't been tested on Windows, but not that the team couldn't find a Windows machine. Surely at least one of them has at least one friend who at least has a dual boot machine. I could buy the argument that they couldn't find an Amiga or BE/Os machine very easily, but Windows? You gotta work pretty hard to avoid Windows that completely.
I'd hate to dig a big trench with a spoon.
Especially if my competitors are using shovels.
The trick is matching the tool to the task.
Note that I am not saying Oracle is the shovel and MySQL is the spoon. The previous posts reduced the argument to abstracts. This makes the argument applicable to many areas, not just the current discussion.
Decide for yourself which tools are shovels and which are spoons, then match them to the job at hand.
Come on, man, that's a bit extreme. It's not like any of us are suggesting we should use Microsoft Visual Basic here ...
And yet Visual Basic "gets the job done"...
I've worked with lots of languages, and they almost all get the job done. What I find amusing is that virtually everyone has languages they feel defensive about "come on! open your mind!" and others they feel superior to "at least we aren't using X". You really can plug just about any set of languages or technologies into the equation and find someone who will argue the point.
Basically the NASA equivalent of driving down the highway, peeing in a can and throwing it out the window...
That was PRE-conversion Twiki.
Now it is Buddha-Buddha-Buddha.
We wish to thank the Senator from Naboo for his concern.
I use a hammer, I don't have "nail driving experiences" with one.
You, sir, have CLEARLY never tried the Hammer-Matic 2500 Xtreme. It has an ergonomic handle and a 3 megaton nail-pounding turbo-booster. I once achieved nirvana THREE TIMES while building a birdhouse. Remember, just because YOU have never had a nail driving experience, doesn't mean that the rest of us are so limited in our hammer-wielding world-view!