...it's how it was rolled out. Things that were not shared have now become shared.
If you actually work for Google, it sounds like your attitude is part of the problem.
Yes, the feature is cool. Yes, people will get used to the new way things work. No, it still was not OK how you rolled it out.
I mean, come on. You're fucking Google. You're supposed to be the best engineers in the world. So tell me, how hard would it be to have a "shared" option, and a third "publish" option which was off by default? And then to prompt people on their first login after introducing "publish" whether they wanted their stuff to be shared or published by default, and whether they wanted that change to affect all their shared stuff?
That took me, what, ten seconds to think up, and less than a minute to type, and this isn't even my fastest keyboard.
"Share", in this context, did not always imply sharing with the entire world.
Yes, it perhaps wasn't the smartest choice by a lot of these people, but Google's actions, and specifically, their lack of a real response, is exactly the kind of "evil" they were trying to avoid becoming.
While it may be smart to be honest and straightforward with people you're close to, it's no more Google's right to prevent that than it is their right to sell your personal info to spammers.
You said you own your own domain that you use for your email account. Did you know that you can now forward all your email to Gmail, enjoy the benefits of a superb spam filter, and then use either Gmail's excellent web interface or an IMAP client?
I carry a laptop everywhere, and I'm not willing to trust my email to someone's potentially keylogger-infested machine. Webmail buys me nothing except OS independence, and Thunderbird gives me that, if I cared.
Did you know that you can now use Google to have your default return address be your custom domain name, so nobody even knows your using GMail?
Doesn't change the from address. And if it did, that'd make me a bit more likely to be filtered, I'd bet.
Did you know that GMail offers unlimited filters, so that every time some clown decides to add you to his BCC "Ron Paul 2008" list, you can click the filter button and never, ever hear from him again?
I can do that anyway, though I usually tell people to stop adding me to these lists.
But did you know that desktop clients not only have unlimited filters, but unlimited storage? It's true! All you have to do is buy more disk space if you ever come close to running out!
All of this is free.
I pay less than $10/year for a domain. Everything else is done by a server I have running in my house. I'd probably have this server anyway, just to play around with -- webhosting and such -- so Postfix is every bit as "free" to me as GMail. Moreso, because I don't have to put up with advertising. (Or spam -- my spamfilter is every bit as good as GMail's, as far as I can tell.
So it's got a slick UI. BFD. But even you qualified your own statement. I have an equally nice UI using the same IMAP client I've been using since before GMail existed.
I think people are making the case that it's not equally nice -- that GMail is actually superior to desktop clients. I actually like IMAP, and I like being able to do my own PGP signing, but I haven't seen anyone beat GMail yet.
My IMAP client, while it may not offer Google's exact flavor of search technology, does a perfectly fine job of searching my mail. (Indexing and searching text isn't rocket science.)
Which is why you'd think someone else would've gotten it right. (See my sibling's mention of labels. You might know them as "tags".)
If everybody believes stoning adulterers is morally right, does that make it morally right?
Obviously, the people about to get stoned wouldn't agree with that.
What about enslaving people of other races, or sending ethnic minorities to death camps?
Your sibling post suggested a new moderation: "Godwinbait". I like it.
But in this case, it's flawed. Obviously, an ethnic minority is still going to be a ton of people who don't think it's morally right, thus "everyone" no longer applies.
One more thing: I don't actually believe in absolute right or wrong. For instance, I absolutely believe that rape is wrong. And I absolutely believe that this is arbitrary.
You seriously think that hobbyists will, on average, be anywhere as good as pros at music and movie production?
Looking up, it looks like GP apparently did. Oh well.
Because they're assuming that the pros couldn't exist in a post-copyright world. Certainly, music can often be better done by people who simply tour.
As for movies, while I don't think it will be completely taken over by "hobbyists" -- or by Blair Witch and Clerks -- I do think studios will find less expensive ways to make movies.
Correct. It is about the birth of Jesus Christ. That is what it is about. That is why it is celebrated around the world, why it is a national holiday, and why you get the day off from work.
You say this because you dismissed my earlier comments on the basis of "strawman" and "red herring".
It is celebrated because it is tradition, and because people love shiny new toys. I'm sure I can't speak for everyone, but I strongly suspect that most people are not thinking of Christ on Christmas eve. They are thinking of Santa, of cookies and milk, of the presents they're going to get (or give) the next morning. They're thinking of a turkey dinner, of being home with family, and yes, of getting a day off from work.
By the way: Strawman. I am not taking tomorrow off.
Each of those billions may have their own reason for celebrating Christmas, but they wouldn't be celebrating it at all if not for that primary reason.
Can you be sure they wouldn't be celebrating Yule anyway, had Christ never been?
So we've basically killed causation and most of the correlation. What does that leave? I suppose the name is still there...
After all, with only causation, I feel like putting up a sign saying "Sex is the reason for the season." After all, were it not for sex, we wouldn't have people to celebrate Christmas, now would we?
While saturnalia, etc., may be a pagan holiday, Christmas itself is very much about Christ.
Yeah, because Christ totally wants you to buy that electric train set for your child. Or maybe a laptop, or a skateboard, or a car.
And it's Christ who compells you to lie to your child about the existence of a fat, jolly man who flies around the world in a single night, to bring presents to everyone -- but hey, you believe in Christ, so why wouldn't you believe in Santa?
I get what you're trying to say -- that the spirit of Christmas is about giving and sharing and being cheerful on the darkest of winter days. But that's absolutely not what Christmas is about today. (Oh, and it's not just the time that was appropriated...)
I find it strange that people are so eager to denigrate one particular religion's holidays...it's pretty small-minded and disgusting.
I didn't actually see GP denigrating any holidays, just one particular guy's ignorance about its origins. Even you must realize that "the reason for the season" is dead wrong, even if it was the reason for the holiday (which it isn't).
This is the people, nor is it the national government, because it causes unrest, which the national government has to deal with; and I don't think they want that.
Wrong.
As I'm sure the Chinese government has discovered, it is not the corruption which causes unrest, it is news about the corruption. And when the corrupt control the news, it becomes very easy to make you believe everything's alright.
To some extent, that goes for the US, also, but there are things the government here cannot control. We have bloggers, for instance. You effectively don't, or at least, your government can silence anyone who disagrees.
This very conversation is something which, I'm fairly sure, cannot take place in China.
The chinese government are like most governments in most modern nations - they by and large want to do what is best for the people, or what they think is best.
Also wrong.
Any government -- any organization, any organism -- does what's best for itself. There are exceptions, but the larger the organization is, or the more powerful the person, the less likely you are to find these exceptions. The very qualities which cause a person or entity to be in power are qualities which would tend to make them unsuitable for that position.
Now, a good system of government will generally be set up such that what's best for the people is best for the government, but that is very tricky to do. Freedom of speech is something I would imagine most Slashdotters consider to be essential to limit the government -- if the government is allowed to control the news, the Internet, and basically all forms of communication, then, suppose, for a moment, that it is corrupt. How would you ever know?
This website? Hah. Suppose, for a moment, that the people directly responsible for running the website are corrupt. There goes that theory.
Every time there are news from China, it is interpreted in the worst possible light - if they put a man on the moon, it must be because they starve their poor and want to rain death on America, if they tighten copyright laws, it is 'repression', if they don't, they are 'thieves'.
Are you sure it is the same people making these interpretations?
Put simply: The RIAA/MPAA would rather you tighten copyright laws. The FSF/EFF and most of Slashdot would rather you loosen them -- but even on Slashdot, there are different people with different views.
That's right: Different people with different views, and opinions all their own. I suppose that might be a novel concept if you're coming from China.
The things that Slashdotters associate with China are always negative: the Great Firewall, jailing dissenters, censorship. I don't agree with these things either, but this is just a very small part of China,
And a fairly important part. It's your government, I'd think that's important, right? (Furthermore, the original post here was not making a sweeping statement about China itself, they were making a statement about what is obviously a move by the Chinese government -- which is the very organization which does all these things you say you don't agree with.)
Although I think I get your point. I'm an American, and I don't at all agree with Bush. But hey, at least I'm allowed to say that here.
but this is just a very small part of China, which is an extraordinarily vast country.
So surely, some other part of this extraordinarily vast country must be working to correct that situation?
For a country that has been growing so fast since Deng Xiaoping took office, there are bound to be some growing pains.
True, but at the same time, you really shouldn't have to.
On my laptop, I encrypt everything I can, because that can be stolen. On my desktop, I don't. Fortunately for me, neither machine is a Mac, and with my desktop, I would probably just have someone drill holes in the drives before buying replacements.
I've been asking this for awhile, never really able to come up with an answer...
The problem is, essentially, legalese has become too complex. I actually have, as part of my insurance, the ability to contact a lawyer for 30 mins consultation about anything -- they see it as a loss leader, in case I get hit with something big -- but that's probably enough for me to email (or fax) an EULA for them to interpret for me.
But it's to the point where it bothers me as much as taxes. Every citizen is required to pay taxes, but taxes are so complex that you really need a specialist -- thus, H&R Block.
In very few instances, it works. The GPL, for instance, is perhaps too long, but is written in text which is both human-readable and legally valid. Creative Commons has simple "deeds" which explain, in almost less than a paragraph, what that license is about, with a link to the absurdly long legalese which essentially says the same thing.
Essentially, I would like that 8 euro headset to have a document which I can read in less than two minutes, maybe less than five, and understand without being a lawyer -- if, indeed, it contains an EULA at all. But I'm not at all sure how to turn that into a law requiring it.
You are actually offended that someone would have a perception so dramatically different from your own, and freely speak it, which is the epitome of religious intolerance.
So what would you say, then, to someone whose viewpoint is that the Chuck Norris Facts are real? Original post in this thread was suggesting that Chuck Norris would be offended by such a perception, because of his own religion.
Oh, and just for fun...
Our country is founded on the principal of religious freedom
Here's a mnemonic for you: Principal is referring to the person, because he's your pal. Or not, but at any rate, you should remember it this time.
What you're looking for is "principle".
In short, your offense, doesn't matter.
That sounds awesome if you replace the commas with Shatner pauses.
Now, back to a more serious discussion:
Mr. Norris' offense has no more significance than your own, but his venue of expressing it was in context, where your expression here is fanatical.
I don't get how that was in context at all. That would be like if I told a story about caffeine addiction, and you said, "You know who can cure caffeine headaches? Jesus!" Only Chuck was even more out of context, because it was a joke being made.
I get that it's comforting if you put everything in the context of your dear and fluffy Lord, but understand that you are doing that, probably without realizing it, and that it can be obnoxious to people who don't share your faith. It's easy to try to hide that faith by saying "We all believe in the same God..." which is great for Judeo-Christian religions (Islam included), but how do you reconcile that with Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Satanism, or straight-up Atheism?
I'm not actually that easily offended, just making a point.
"Long tail" is even worse for movies and TV shows. The only way I really see this working is if it was also accompanied by a massive investment by, say, Google.
Assume a completely even playing field where each of the three main consumer OS's, Windows, linux, and OS-X each has 33.3% of the market. Which environment would a trojan/botnet writer target and why?
I'd say Linux and OS X at that point, because both are Unix. Much easier to port things between Linux and OS X than it is to port things between either and Windows.
Put another way, how difficult would it be to develop a similarly intricate for linux or OS-X if a malware author decided to target those platforms?
The relative security of the OS has nothing to do with the intricacy of the virus. If you could write ANY kind of malware for Linux, you could easily write one this intricate.
And so, the question you're asking is exactly the same one that's been asked time and time again, and has absolutely nothing to do with this story. It's a question of whether malware could target Linux and OS X. I can't really say, but I think it would be somewhat harder -- and I figure Linux has a much better shot, unless you mean 33.3% Ubuntu, simply because of distro diversity.
Most malware now is either by drive by download using whatever plugin/browser exploit is new, or by having them download the exe from P2P or somewhere.
How many of these go through Firefox, though?
Most of their vulns have been plugin related it seems though - but I don't see why it would be different if Linux were targeted as much as windows is.
Depends on the plugin. I imagine the plugins have to behave fairly differently on other OSes.
Slashdot Mirror
...it's how it was rolled out. Things that were not shared have now become shared.
If you actually work for Google, it sounds like your attitude is part of the problem.
Yes, the feature is cool. Yes, people will get used to the new way things work. No, it still was not OK how you rolled it out.
I mean, come on. You're fucking Google. You're supposed to be the best engineers in the world. So tell me, how hard would it be to have a "shared" option, and a third "publish" option which was off by default? And then to prompt people on their first login after introducing "publish" whether they wanted their stuff to be shared or published by default, and whether they wanted that change to affect all their shared stuff?
That took me, what, ten seconds to think up, and less than a minute to type, and this isn't even my fastest keyboard.
I'm not trying to justify Google here, but...
You're in politics, and porn and atheism are enough to end your career.
Not your fault, I'm sure, but that is sad.
"Share", in this context, did not always imply sharing with the entire world.
Yes, it perhaps wasn't the smartest choice by a lot of these people, but Google's actions, and specifically, their lack of a real response, is exactly the kind of "evil" they were trying to avoid becoming.
While it may be smart to be honest and straightforward with people you're close to, it's no more Google's right to prevent that than it is their right to sell your personal info to spammers.
I carry a laptop everywhere, and I'm not willing to trust my email to someone's potentially keylogger-infested machine. Webmail buys me nothing except OS independence, and Thunderbird gives me that, if I cared.
Doesn't change the from address. And if it did, that'd make me a bit more likely to be filtered, I'd bet.
I can do that anyway, though I usually tell people to stop adding me to these lists.
But did you know that desktop clients not only have unlimited filters, but unlimited storage? It's true! All you have to do is buy more disk space if you ever come close to running out!
I pay less than $10/year for a domain. Everything else is done by a server I have running in my house. I'd probably have this server anyway, just to play around with -- webhosting and such -- so Postfix is every bit as "free" to me as GMail. Moreso, because I don't have to put up with advertising. (Or spam -- my spamfilter is every bit as good as GMail's, as far as I can tell.
I think people are making the case that it's not equally nice -- that GMail is actually superior to desktop clients. I actually like IMAP, and I like being able to do my own PGP signing, but I haven't seen anyone beat GMail yet.
Which is why you'd think someone else would've gotten it right. (See my sibling's mention of labels. You might know them as "tags".)
Obviously, the people about to get stoned wouldn't agree with that.
Your sibling post suggested a new moderation: "Godwinbait". I like it.
But in this case, it's flawed. Obviously, an ethnic minority is still going to be a ton of people who don't think it's morally right, thus "everyone" no longer applies.
One more thing: I don't actually believe in absolute right or wrong. For instance, I absolutely believe that rape is wrong. And I absolutely believe that this is arbitrary.
Looking up, it looks like GP apparently did. Oh well.
Because they're assuming that the pros couldn't exist in a post-copyright world. Certainly, music can often be better done by people who simply tour.
As for movies, while I don't think it will be completely taken over by "hobbyists" -- or by Blair Witch and Clerks -- I do think studios will find less expensive ways to make movies.
Um, isn't that what I said?
What is it with Slashdotters being unable to read "can"?
You say this because you dismissed my earlier comments on the basis of "strawman" and "red herring".
It is celebrated because it is tradition, and because people love shiny new toys. I'm sure I can't speak for everyone, but I strongly suspect that most people are not thinking of Christ on Christmas eve. They are thinking of Santa, of cookies and milk, of the presents they're going to get (or give) the next morning. They're thinking of a turkey dinner, of being home with family, and yes, of getting a day off from work.
By the way: Strawman. I am not taking tomorrow off.
Can you be sure they wouldn't be celebrating Yule anyway, had Christ never been?
So we've basically killed causation and most of the correlation. What does that leave? I suppose the name is still there...
After all, with only causation, I feel like putting up a sign saying "Sex is the reason for the season." After all, were it not for sex, we wouldn't have people to celebrate Christmas, now would we?
Thanks for that.
That's actually kind of cool -- it's worse than I thought! That doesn't happen often in religion!
Last I checked, XKCD can be linked to directly, without going through dwarfurl.com.
Yeah, because Christ totally wants you to buy that electric train set for your child. Or maybe a laptop, or a skateboard, or a car.
And it's Christ who compells you to lie to your child about the existence of a fat, jolly man who flies around the world in a single night, to bring presents to everyone -- but hey, you believe in Christ, so why wouldn't you believe in Santa?
I get what you're trying to say -- that the spirit of Christmas is about giving and sharing and being cheerful on the darkest of winter days. But that's absolutely not what Christmas is about today. (Oh, and it's not just the time that was appropriated...)
I didn't actually see GP denigrating any holidays, just one particular guy's ignorance about its origins. Even you must realize that "the reason for the season" is dead wrong, even if it was the reason for the holiday (which it isn't).
But "miao" is PERFECT! Fits with lolcats...
:(
I'm going to burn for this
Wrong.
As I'm sure the Chinese government has discovered, it is not the corruption which causes unrest, it is news about the corruption. And when the corrupt control the news, it becomes very easy to make you believe everything's alright.
To some extent, that goes for the US, also, but there are things the government here cannot control. We have bloggers, for instance. You effectively don't, or at least, your government can silence anyone who disagrees.
This very conversation is something which, I'm fairly sure, cannot take place in China.
Also wrong.
Any government -- any organization, any organism -- does what's best for itself. There are exceptions, but the larger the organization is, or the more powerful the person, the less likely you are to find these exceptions. The very qualities which cause a person or entity to be in power are qualities which would tend to make them unsuitable for that position.
Now, a good system of government will generally be set up such that what's best for the people is best for the government, but that is very tricky to do. Freedom of speech is something I would imagine most Slashdotters consider to be essential to limit the government -- if the government is allowed to control the news, the Internet, and basically all forms of communication, then, suppose, for a moment, that it is corrupt. How would you ever know?
This website? Hah. Suppose, for a moment, that the people directly responsible for running the website are corrupt. There goes that theory.
Are you sure it is the same people making these interpretations?
Put simply: The RIAA/MPAA would rather you tighten copyright laws. The FSF/EFF and most of Slashdot would rather you loosen them -- but even on Slashdot, there are different people with different views.
That's right: Different people with different views, and opinions all their own. I suppose that might be a novel concept if you're coming from China.
And a fairly important part. It's your government, I'd think that's important, right? (Furthermore, the original post here was not making a sweeping statement about China itself, they were making a statement about what is obviously a move by the Chinese government -- which is the very organization which does all these things you say you don't agree with.)
Although I think I get your point. I'm an American, and I don't at all agree with Bush. But hey, at least I'm allowed to say that here.
So surely, some other part of this extraordinarily vast country must be working to correct that situation?
That is not an excuse, and you know it.
I haven't followed that link, and neither should anyone else. Probably another MyMiniCity spam game.
Kids were always screaming, obnoxious brats. Not all of them, but not all of them are today.
There should be a GetOffMyLawn moderation.
True, but at the same time, you really shouldn't have to.
On my laptop, I encrypt everything I can, because that can be stolen. On my desktop, I don't. Fortunately for me, neither machine is a Mac, and with my desktop, I would probably just have someone drill holes in the drives before buying replacements.
I've been asking this for awhile, never really able to come up with an answer...
The problem is, essentially, legalese has become too complex. I actually have, as part of my insurance, the ability to contact a lawyer for 30 mins consultation about anything -- they see it as a loss leader, in case I get hit with something big -- but that's probably enough for me to email (or fax) an EULA for them to interpret for me.
But it's to the point where it bothers me as much as taxes. Every citizen is required to pay taxes, but taxes are so complex that you really need a specialist -- thus, H&R Block.
In very few instances, it works. The GPL, for instance, is perhaps too long, but is written in text which is both human-readable and legally valid. Creative Commons has simple "deeds" which explain, in almost less than a paragraph, what that license is about, with a link to the absurdly long legalese which essentially says the same thing.
Essentially, I would like that 8 euro headset to have a document which I can read in less than two minutes, maybe less than five, and understand without being a lawyer -- if, indeed, it contains an EULA at all. But I'm not at all sure how to turn that into a law requiring it.
So what would you say, then, to someone whose viewpoint is that the Chuck Norris Facts are real? Original post in this thread was suggesting that Chuck Norris would be offended by such a perception, because of his own religion.
Oh, and just for fun...
Here's a mnemonic for you: Principal is referring to the person, because he's your pal. Or not, but at any rate, you should remember it this time.
What you're looking for is "principle".
That sounds awesome if you replace the commas with Shatner pauses.
Now, back to a more serious discussion:
I don't get how that was in context at all. That would be like if I told a story about caffeine addiction, and you said, "You know who can cure caffeine headaches? Jesus!" Only Chuck was even more out of context, because it was a joke being made.
I get that it's comforting if you put everything in the context of your dear and fluffy Lord, but understand that you are doing that, probably without realizing it, and that it can be obnoxious to people who don't share your faith. It's easy to try to hide that faith by saying "We all believe in the same God..." which is great for Judeo-Christian religions (Islam included), but how do you reconcile that with Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Satanism, or straight-up Atheism?
I'm not actually that easily offended, just making a point.
I think it's the other way around -- the wine is a metaphor for Jesus' Blood.
Which makes it all the creepier.
Have you actually seen any of the "Chuck Norris Facts"? Here's one:
"Chuck Norris once visited the Virgin Islands. They are now called 'The Islands.'"
I mean, some are quite a bit more disgusting, sure. But how can anyone actually seriously think this is an effort to defame him?
"Long tail" is even worse for movies and TV shows. The only way I really see this working is if it was also accompanied by a massive investment by, say, Google.
I'd say Linux and OS X at that point, because both are Unix. Much easier to port things between Linux and OS X than it is to port things between either and Windows.
The relative security of the OS has nothing to do with the intricacy of the virus. If you could write ANY kind of malware for Linux, you could easily write one this intricate.
And so, the question you're asking is exactly the same one that's been asked time and time again, and has absolutely nothing to do with this story. It's a question of whether malware could target Linux and OS X. I can't really say, but I think it would be somewhat harder -- and I figure Linux has a much better shot, unless you mean 33.3% Ubuntu, simply because of distro diversity.
How many of these go through Firefox, though?
Depends on the plugin. I imagine the plugins have to behave fairly differently on other OSes.