Google, as a publicly traded company, has only one obligation: to make a profit for shareholders. Let that soak in.
In doing so they have to do things like bow to the Chinese, track all of your searches, etc. It's business folks!
Unfortunately that also means that "do no evil", is more of a guideline than a rule. Maybe they should change their motto to "We do less evil than everyone else"
Really I'm amazed that anyone is surprised by this.
Where Google can offer clear cut advantage, it's easy to see them dominating. Online search was ripe for such a revolution. Other things like answers.google.com just didn't make 'em enough money. Social networking needed a revolution and Facebook emerged as the winner. Friendster couldn't do it and MySpace became irrelevent through obsolescence. What I think had made Google such a success has been it's openness towards developers and Facebook beat Google to that game by allowing developers to use it's services (which is torn from Google's own playbook). Google can try but I think they're gonna fail on this one, Facebook people are way too entrenched in it now. I, for one, will avoid Google simple because I just don't like how big they've become.
Because of the dev-team and their wonderful jailbreaking abilities I'm ok with iPad's DRM. The iPhone is ok on it's own and it's spectacular after you jailbreak it. It's not that tough and doing that can break Apple's controls.
I'll buy an iPad after I can jailbreak it. If you can't open it, you don't own it.
I've used Ubuntu for a few years now and always though it was great. Using a clearly inferior search engine as a default is pretty bogus. I guess I'll just go back to using Debian. Can't say I blame them though they need to make money somewhere.
So if I have this straight you think Ubuntu is great and now you're going to Debian because you're too lazy to switch the default search engine? Your nerd-fu is weak.
This is only one example but thanks to the Bush administration having its lips super glued to the ass of the religious "right", stem cell research is now being done largely by other countries. As the United States slid more into retreat and towards a theocratic nation, other countries just passed us by and lapped us: countries who aren't concerned about what Pat Robertson thinks and idiot hillbilly religious mentality. Mod it as a troll folks but the United States is largely to blame for its own self inflicted diminished role in research.
My starting salary in DC contracting with the Feds was $70K. Flash forward to a year of living in Cincinnati and my salary dropped to $40K. Now I'm back in DC contracting for Feds again. Starting salary? $105K.
60K in a place like Cincinnati, not bad. 60K in DC, can't live on it. Be sure to take regional salaries into consideration.
I would argue that most Apple fanboys (the real hardcore ones anyway) only THINK they're "free-thinking." They're original and free-thinking in the same way that hippies thought they were original and free-thinking in the 60's--by acting, dressing, and thinking like every other hippie. Real free-thinkers don't start out with an set ideology, and they certainly don't have a cult leader or product line that they worship.
They are more "West Side Story" than West Side. They are like the Dolce and Gabbana "Punk" t-shirt that costs 120.00 and says "Wash on gentle".
The difference between Apple and say Microsoft, has been that Apple is more like a smooth Vegas hooker taking your money and Microsoft has been more like a crackhead in Atlantic City using a lead pipe.
Apple, as a publicly traded company, only has one obligation: to make a profit for shareholders. That means doing things like closing off Darwin for developers and totally locking down the App Store to only provide apps friendly to Apple, then they will do it and from a business perspective rightfully so. Of course I'm still gonna break my iPhone because I don't care about five apps on the App Store that make my iphone a flashlight. I need tethering and even more useful apps like blacklisting SMS messages and phone numbers that call me who I don't care for.
Apple does and gets away with a lot of things that/.'ers get their panties in a wad about when other companies do it. Proprietary formats anyone? Remember how when Microsoft does it it's bad? Apple = good, Microsoft = bad. It's not that simple and it's naive to think it is.
That being said, I only use Apple products. Apple makes products that work. That's all I ever wanted from my computer and cell phone. They do it, I'm fine with their business and Steve Jobs deserves all the zillions he's worth. Actually making products that work and listening to your customers forgives a LOT.
At some point, after many failed attempts, Microsoft is bound to get something right. At the core of all of this debate, remember that Google and Microsoft are both publicly traded companies and their only obligation is to make a profit for shareholders. Historically the difference between the two has been that Google has been a smooth Las Vegas hooker taking your money while Microsoft has been more like a crackhead in Atlantic City taking your money with a lead pipe. Google has something like 80% of the search market and the time for backlash is past due. Bing isn't all that bad. They do need credit where credit is due.
FTA:That's all well and good, but it raises the question: what should Mozilla be doing *after* it conquers the browser world – that is, once it has 50% market share?
Easy, people should begin to explore other alternatives like Chrome, Safari and Opera. There should ALWAYS be choices because absolute power corrupts absolutely whether it's IE or Firefox. It's naive to make simple assertions like Microsoft = bad and Mozilla = good. Any organization that gets that kind of control eventually capitalizes on it. I know the article says "The threats have changed". How about "Mozilla's motivations will change?"
And as far as computers go, Macs are niche market. The majority of human activity has little to do with the direct creation of art.
I work for a federal government agency and the developers (myself included) ALL use Macs with more on the way. It's not a niche, it actually works for us. "Macs are a niche market" is a phrase from previous 2006.
If you're handy with a soldering iron the you should build this nifty Seismic Reflector. From the website...
This project has two strands, a software and a hardware component. The aim is to build a device which responds to earthquakes being reported in near-real time via the USGS RSS feeds. The device responds by illustrating the magnitude of the reported earthquake via two fairly chunky vibration motors of the kind used in video game controllers. The device is connected to a PC via a virtual com port over USB (thanks to an on board Arduino). On the PC, an application sits there checking the RSS feed periodically and when a new event it posted to the RSS feed, the desktop app parses the data out of it and presents the magnitude of the quake to the Arduino which interpreters this as rate at which to activate the vibration motors.
Canada started using U.S. data a couple of years ago. Sadly Canada this is the downside of our arrangement with you. You don't get just the good part of this arrangement.
Why even discuss it? After all this is the same slashdot where the term "tinfoil hat" is used regularly when people really mean aluminum foil.
Al != SN
Given that the defendants are also ridiculously litigious about software patents, I say more power to Eolas. I think the whole idea of software patents is absurd anyway but if there is going to be pain suffered by anyone then it needs to be suffered by all. Adobe, Amazon.com, Apple, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, JPMorgan, and Playboy are all probably really saddened by the fact that they didn't come up with this themselves quicker.
Inevitable DMCA smackdown coming?
on
The DIY Book Scanner
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· Score: 2, Insightful
How soon before the manufacturer of the $20,000 commercial version files a lawsuit against him? That would be extraordinarily sad because the American system of patent/copyright only serves to stifle independent innovation like this.
Seriously, I know that it's kneejerk to assume that cops are wrong. Generally all you have to do at customs is answer questions and get on with it. No one gets beaten up without at least some plausible reason. That's like 3rd graders complaining that they got a bad grade because the teacher doesn't like them. Considering that simplest answer is probably the one that's correct, Peter Watts was probably an asshole and got what he deserved. Of course when it's some uber nerd all you/. pussies get your panties twisted because there's no WAY he could have deserved it.
I have a jailbroken phone and it was ridiculously easy to do so. So does my girlfriend and technically speaking, she's amish. In short, jailbreaking a phone is stupendously simple, so much that I wonder why even Apple's numbers claim that the figure is something like 10% of all iphones are jailbroken.
That being said, it would appear that pirating apps from the app store, while not hard, would take at least a little more technical know how than the average iphone user has or is willing to put up with.
So jailbreaking an iphone, which takes almost no technical know how is done by 10% of users and pirating apps, which takes more know how, results in 60% of games being pirated?
If this Mark Cuban person has a love affair with Microsoft, then it's the sort of love affair where Microsoft is deeply embarrassed about their drunken one night stand and desperately wishes the other party would shut up about it.
I wish I could mod this up to a 1,000. Funniest damn thing I have seen all week.
I agree. News in America is dead. It turned into entertainment a long time ago. It isn't so much about news anymore as it is about yellow journalism or picking a station that validate one's political views. I stopped watching American news when I discovered BBC news.
I would say that Edward R Murrow is rolling in his grave, but he was cremated.
Slashdot Mirror
Google, as a publicly traded company, has only one obligation: to make a profit for shareholders. Let that soak in.
In doing so they have to do things like bow to the Chinese, track all of your searches, etc. It's business folks!
Unfortunately that also means that "do no evil", is more of a guideline than a rule. Maybe they should change their motto to "We do less evil than everyone else"
Really I'm amazed that anyone is surprised by this.
Where Google can offer clear cut advantage, it's easy to see them dominating. Online search was ripe for such a revolution. Other things like answers.google.com just didn't make 'em enough money. Social networking needed a revolution and Facebook emerged as the winner. Friendster couldn't do it and MySpace became irrelevent through obsolescence. What I think had made Google such a success has been it's openness towards developers and Facebook beat Google to that game by allowing developers to use it's services (which is torn from Google's own playbook). Google can try but I think they're gonna fail on this one, Facebook people are way too entrenched in it now. I, for one, will avoid Google simple because I just don't like how big they've become.
Because of the dev-team and their wonderful jailbreaking abilities I'm ok with iPad's DRM. The iPhone is ok on it's own and it's spectacular after you jailbreak it. It's not that tough and doing that can break Apple's controls.
I'll buy an iPad after I can jailbreak it. If you can't open it, you don't own it.
No one is surprised when Microsoft does this but it'a amazing that people are when Google does. As a publicly traded company Google's only obligation is to make a profit for shareholders. That means doing things like instituting business practices that are favorable to their business. Can you imagine a better situation? 80% of the search market and people love you. Once GOOG became publicly traded "Do no evil" is more of a guideline than a rule. Maybe they should change their motto to "We do less evil than everyone else©"
Sweet Jebus, today is the day I need points to mod up posts.
I've used Ubuntu for a few years now and always though it was great. Using a clearly inferior search engine as a default is pretty bogus. I guess I'll just go back to using Debian. Can't say I blame them though they need to make money somewhere.
So if I have this straight you think Ubuntu is great and now you're going to Debian because you're too lazy to switch the default search engine? Your nerd-fu is weak.
This is only one example but thanks to the Bush administration having its lips super glued to the ass of the religious "right", stem cell research is now being done largely by other countries. As the United States slid more into retreat and towards a theocratic nation, other countries just passed us by and lapped us: countries who aren't concerned about what Pat Robertson thinks and idiot hillbilly religious mentality. Mod it as a troll folks but the United States is largely to blame for its own self inflicted diminished role in research.
My starting salary in DC contracting with the Feds was $70K. Flash forward to a year of living in Cincinnati and my salary dropped to $40K. Now I'm back in DC contracting for Feds again. Starting salary? $105K.
60K in a place like Cincinnati, not bad. 60K in DC, can't live on it. Be sure to take regional salaries into consideration.
I would argue that most Apple fanboys (the real hardcore ones anyway) only THINK they're "free-thinking." They're original and free-thinking in the same way that hippies thought they were original and free-thinking in the 60's--by acting, dressing, and thinking like every other hippie. Real free-thinkers don't start out with an set ideology, and they certainly don't have a cult leader or product line that they worship.
They are more "West Side Story" than West Side. They are like the Dolce and Gabbana "Punk" t-shirt that costs 120.00 and says "Wash on gentle".
The difference between Apple and say Microsoft, has been that Apple is more like a smooth Vegas hooker taking your money and Microsoft has been more like a crackhead in Atlantic City using a lead pipe.
/.'ers get their panties in a wad about when other companies do it. Proprietary formats anyone? Remember how when Microsoft does it it's bad? Apple = good, Microsoft = bad. It's not that simple and it's naive to think it is.
Apple, as a publicly traded company, only has one obligation: to make a profit for shareholders. That means doing things like closing off Darwin for developers and totally locking down the App Store to only provide apps friendly to Apple, then they will do it and from a business perspective rightfully so. Of course I'm still gonna break my iPhone because I don't care about five apps on the App Store that make my iphone a flashlight. I need tethering and even more useful apps like blacklisting SMS messages and phone numbers that call me who I don't care for.
Apple does and gets away with a lot of things that
That being said, I only use Apple products. Apple makes products that work. That's all I ever wanted from my computer and cell phone. They do it, I'm fine with their business and Steve Jobs deserves all the zillions he's worth. Actually making products that work and listening to your customers forgives a LOT.
At some point, after many failed attempts, Microsoft is bound to get something right. At the core of all of this debate, remember that Google and Microsoft are both publicly traded companies and their only obligation is to make a profit for shareholders. Historically the difference between the two has been that Google has been a smooth Las Vegas hooker taking your money while Microsoft has been more like a crackhead in Atlantic City taking your money with a lead pipe. Google has something like 80% of the search market and the time for backlash is past due. Bing isn't all that bad. They do need credit where credit is due.
FTA:That's all well and good, but it raises the question: what should Mozilla be doing *after* it conquers the browser world – that is, once it has 50% market share?
Easy, people should begin to explore other alternatives like Chrome, Safari and Opera. There should ALWAYS be choices because absolute power corrupts absolutely whether it's IE or Firefox. It's naive to make simple assertions like Microsoft = bad and Mozilla = good. Any organization that gets that kind of control eventually capitalizes on it. I know the article says "The threats have changed". How about "Mozilla's motivations will change?"
And as far as computers go, Macs are niche market. The majority of human activity has little to do with the direct creation of art.
I work for a federal government agency and the developers (myself included) ALL use Macs with more on the way. It's not a niche, it actually works for us. "Macs are a niche market" is a phrase from previous 2006.
If you're handy with a soldering iron the you should build this nifty Seismic Reflector. From the website...
This project has two strands, a software and a hardware component. The aim is to build a device which responds to earthquakes being reported in near-real time via the USGS RSS feeds. The device responds by illustrating the magnitude of the reported earthquake via two fairly chunky vibration motors of the kind used in video game controllers. The device is connected to a PC via a virtual com port over USB (thanks to an on board Arduino). On the PC, an application sits there checking the RSS feed periodically and when a new event it posted to the RSS feed, the desktop app parses the data out of it and presents the magnitude of the quake to the Arduino which interpreters this as rate at which to activate the vibration motors.
Bono comes off as a pious f*ck when U2 is more than happy to dodge taxes. Reality Check: Bono is a business folks.
Canada started using U.S. data a couple of years ago. Sadly Canada this is the downside of our arrangement with you. You don't get just the good part of this arrangement.
Why even discuss it? After all this is the same slashdot where the term "tinfoil hat" is used regularly when people really mean aluminum foil.
Al != SN
Grigory Perelman = Greta Garbo
I, for one, will be avoiding this. Existing services work fine and this is one more way Google is headed towards info omniscience.
Given that the defendants are also ridiculously litigious about software patents, I say more power to Eolas. I think the whole idea of software patents is absurd anyway but if there is going to be pain suffered by anyone then it needs to be suffered by all. Adobe, Amazon.com, Apple, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, JPMorgan, and Playboy are all probably really saddened by the fact that they didn't come up with this themselves quicker.
How soon before the manufacturer of the $20,000 commercial version files a lawsuit against him? That would be extraordinarily sad because the American system of patent/copyright only serves to stifle independent innovation like this.
Seriously, I know that it's kneejerk to assume that cops are wrong. Generally all you have to do at customs is answer questions and get on with it. No one gets beaten up without at least some plausible reason. That's like 3rd graders complaining that they got a bad grade because the teacher doesn't like them. Considering that simplest answer is probably the one that's correct, Peter Watts was probably an asshole and got what he deserved. Of course when it's some uber nerd all you /. pussies get your panties twisted because there's no WAY he could have deserved it.
Mod me down now bitches but you know I'm right.
I have a jailbroken phone and it was ridiculously easy to do so. So does my girlfriend and technically speaking, she's amish. In short, jailbreaking a phone is stupendously simple, so much that I wonder why even Apple's numbers claim that the figure is something like 10% of all iphones are jailbroken.
That being said, it would appear that pirating apps from the app store, while not hard, would take at least a little more technical know how than the average iphone user has or is willing to put up with.
So jailbreaking an iphone, which takes almost no technical know how is done by 10% of users and pirating apps, which takes more know how, results in 60% of games being pirated?
If this Mark Cuban person has a love affair with Microsoft, then it's the sort of love affair where Microsoft is deeply embarrassed about their drunken one night stand and desperately wishes the other party would shut up about it.
I wish I could mod this up to a 1,000. Funniest damn thing I have seen all week.
I agree. News in America is dead. It turned into entertainment a long time ago. It isn't so much about news anymore as it is about yellow journalism or picking a station that validate one's political views. I stopped watching American news when I discovered BBC news.
I would say that Edward R Murrow is rolling in his grave, but he was cremated.