Cllrs for Town and Parish councils get paid little to nothing. The article you link to is talking about Cllrs for Primary Local Authorities, which have a lot more responsibility. Regardless of which, town hall officials aren't Cllrs, they're pai employees--yes, overpaid, but completely irrelevent to this discussion.
Nope--Town Councils are equivalent to Parish Councils, it's just a different name. They're unpaid. The town is not a Primary Local Authority, it's in one of the Somerset unitaries, I forget which. (I've lived in the towns of Brixham and Totnes, and now live near Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, all have Town Councils, none of the Cllrs are paid).
Having said that, I agree with your overall point--they should've been able to respond to what was said, it's not like you can't issue a press release.
Punctuation and similar moves on most keyboard layouts on different countries. The HP laptop I'm typing this on has the same punctuation layout as a UK standard keyboard--odds are good that a Can laptop has the same layout as a Can standard keyboard.
If you want to get really confused, try German or Belgian (Flemish) keyboards, they're not even QWERTY, it's QWERTS or something annoying.
Because reliance on advertising revenue as the sole model works really well for the independence of the media in the US. You never ever hear of stories or entire shows being quashed because the advertisers wouldn't stand for it. Oh, wait...
The TV licence allows the BBC to be more independent of outside influence than advertising funding. Doesn't make the BBC perfect, but does mean it has a guaranteed predictable revenue stream that allows it to commit to medium term projects that fulfill a public service remit. Like the iPlayer, and local news gathering, and coverage of non-mainstream events, etc.
There are semantic definitions that could include the fee, but in the UK, a tax is defined as revenue raised to go to the treasury of a form of government, the BBC isn't part of the Govt, and the fee is raised independently by a subcontracted private firm.
You do not need to pay the fee, if you choose not to receive broadcast television: I owned two sets for the period I wasn't paying the fee, but I didn't have them plugged into an aerial and only used them to watch DVDs and videos.
If you choose to take a service (broadcast television) and then refuse to pay for it, then you're subject to civil constraints backed up by legislation. It's not a tax under UK definitions. I'm aware that the US has different definitions, hence the US embassy refusing to pay usage fees for London roads, etc. Specifically, under UK law, it's not a tax. Thus the BBC is not funded by taxpayers, it's funded by licencepayers (and DVD buyers, which I always remained).
I suppose that the BBC views themselves as a branch of the British government.
Hah! You jest, surely?
Yes, I know that it is supposedly an "independent" organization,
It is
but it is fully-funded by taxpayers in the UK.
Incorrect.
The BBC is funded by a licence fee that all TV set owners pay, it's raised independently of the government and is specifically not a tax, the money never goes anywhere close to the Treasury. Many people chose not to have a TV and thus don't need to pay the license (I was one of these people for about 3 years, I had dial-up and a DVD collection, what'd I need a TV for?)
It also gets money from overseas sales and a semi-independent part dedicated to overseas broadcasts is funded by the Foreign Office in the same way as Radio America and similar.
I suspect the BBC has broken the law. I suspect they'll get investigated. I think that, regardless, they did the right thing--most people have no idea what a botnet is, let alone how much damage they do. Anything that raises awareness amongst domestic users in an open and transparent way is good. Those that had their PCs hijacked mught do well to upgrade their security (again).
But a lot (ie most 'normal' people) want something that "just works". For them I either do my default install and tell them it's fine now, or I point them at Opera or Chrome depending on who they are.
Some people are never (ever) going to want to play around with software, fiddle with settings, or similar.
The more usability stuff I learn, the more I understand this. Since I suck at coding, usability is the way to go for me...
I've found a fair number of friends are using FX with no extensions. When I've found this, I've recommended in the past they switch to Opera, as out of the box it's better than Fx. Now I'm pushing Chrome at them.
For thee and me, Fx is better as it does lots of extras. We're power users, spending a lot of time online, building sites, etc. A large number of Fx users don't use a single extension, and the majority of users still use IE.
Which is better for my grandma--IE, Fx with no extensions, or Chrome?
I suggest Chrome.
Livejournal was, IIRC, the first site to allow client side logging in using OpenID.
Created by the same person (now working for Google), specifically because he hated the idea of non-authenticated blog comments but also hated logging in all over the place.
A guy witha lot of great ideas. Shame he can't market a product for shit.
The order that the programmes are in and what they're selected for is, in itself, a creative work. Listing them afterwards isn't the work itself, deciding what order they're in is.
Then why are all the people still using it regardless? Simple, a lot of the people using Blogger either a) don't know of the alternatives or b) don't know they can switch. When I first met with a British MP to discuss blogging and similar, he was thinking of getting "a blogspot", because that's what he knew of and had seen. When I pointed out a lot of other sites he looked at were actually blogs, he was impressed.
why are you still blogging on there? I speak to a lot of Blogger users who have a lot of incoming links and similar that they've built up, the hassle of leaving is too much for them, it works, why jump when what you jump to might not actually suit you?
Making progress on this is hard work, but I keep at it.
You're right--the constitution wasn't set up to create a two-party system. But the electoral system mostly used (winner takes all, simple majority or first past the post depending on what you want to call it) will give a two party system in most districts.
A Frenchman called Maurice Duverger liked the results so much he wrote a famous analysis (called Duverger's Law now) which points to the way that the system used to count votes will create a two-party system in virtually every district. The UK uses pretty much the same system, but because we don't have one single national election there are districts where a different party is in competition with one of the main two (just as in San Francisco the Greens are in contention for local elections but the Republicans aren't normally).
If USians genuinely want a more pluralistic system without the massive barriers to entry, then looking at different electoral systems (especially the one used in Ireland and Australia) would be a good plan--I'm heavily involved in campaigns to get them introduced here in the UK as well, I really dislike simple majority and the two-party duopoly it unintentionally creates.
Honestly? Not sure either way. Advantage of the implant is that it can't be lost, whereas keys, etc can be. When I leave the house, I always double check to make sure the house keys are in my pocket, my fiancée left hers at work last week, she'd taken the chain she keeps them on off in order to not get it caught while changing a barrel. If I hadn't been in, she'd have had to call the relative that has the spare set. If you've got a chip, then you can't forget to take it, you can't leave it out accidentally, and if you get mugged they can take the key, your watch, your wallet, but not the chip.
Not sure I (or many others) would be prepared to go that far yet, but I can see uses for it, especially for the naturally absent minded (like me).
Nah, convenience of not reaching into the pocket or pulling out the chain--some people'll keep the key in a secure pocket in a bag or something instead.
When I comment here, I comment with my Slashdot username, and if I switch PCs I have to reset the password (again) as I always do forget my password here. When I comment on a Typepad blog, I used to have to use my Typekey. On Blogger, my Blogger username. Now I can use my OpenID for everything except here, and you can comment on my Livejournal (if you wanted) using one of your OpenIDs. I have several different IDs, some are embedded into the headers of my sites so I can use my sites rather than my LJ if I want to, depending on context.
Biggest advantage for blogging (which is what initially inspired Brad) is that when I comment with my OpenID, the people reading it, including the blogger, know it's me, not someone pretending to be me by putting my details into the name/email/site address fields that a lot of blogs allow. Not an issue for many, but I've seen dodgy sock puppeting, I've even seen a British MP try to pretend to be someone else and forget to switch logins (that was a fun one).
In fields of online commenting where who you're talking to actually matters, OpenID is a way of me proving I am me, the owner of domain X, and not just some random claiming to be me.
In terms of developers, creating your own authenticationmethod is useful. I don't develope, I install, manage and use, for me, it's irrelevent, but it means I've got choices of implementation depending on what I or a client needs.
In terms of an end user, the client side login is currently not as available--LJ allows it, it can be used with some MEdiaWiki powered sites, Wordpress and Movable Type can allow it (when I recode some of my sites then you'll need to login with either an OpenID or a site registration), and some services, such as Technorati and LoudTwitter make good use of it already. But LJ has the best implementation, and that's barely finished.
Currently, it's not quite ready yet for mass consumer use, but with this, it means it will be. And then you'll be able to comment on a huge number of sites using just one identity. And Taco will be able to comment in places using his/. profile address, and if he comments on my site, I'll know it's him, not someone pretending (unless his account gets hacked that is).
===
Consumer use. When I comment on a site that allows me to use OpenID, I type my ID into the field. My browser now takes me to my ID site, which asks me to confirm that I want to give the info being asked for. I click yes, it takes me back to the initial site and I'm logged in. There will be support for it embedded within Fx and IE soon (I'm told), and you can choose to allow or disallow any sites you wish.
You want one account? That should be an option, but it'll depend on the sites you want to log into seeing it as a benefit and allowing it. I push for it, and others that like it do, and some sites find it useful. Whether it'll take off for the consumer end? We'll see, but the prognosis is good.
If the Libertarina party wants to make a breakthrough nationally, it first needs to make local breakthroughs and build fromt he ground up. Duverger's Law shows that in a simple majority voting system third party votes will wither away unless a substantial chunk of voters think they can win. Target areas you can win in, build up support there, take control of some towns, then a State or two, then you'll get better coverage. Until then, you're not going to get anywhere. Deal with this and build the party up rather than tilting at windmills.
When I looked at the figures, the turnout at Iowa in terms of percentage was more than half that of most of the primaries, so while Primaries do get more people,t he difference isn't that big. Iowa still gets to send delegates, as does Nevada, it's local as to how they determine who gets them. I concur Huckabee's probably out, but ignoring Caucuses is to ignore the delegates they send, it's just a different method of choosing.
I don't think it matters too much about what they're likely to use, two reasons. 1) When I went to school, UK schools were mostly still using BBC Micros, mine had weird older Research Machines kit, IBM PCs were almost unknown, let alone Windows.
IT literacy means, and should mean, just that, basic functions are these days cross platform, etc.
Besides, you're assuming that when they leave school they'll go into Windows environments, but if Linux use becomes more general in their country they may move into Linux environments and some of them will go onto be the opinion formers that build up a Linux environment.
Knowledge that MS isn't the only option is almost certainly a good thing, if nothing else it forces MS to compete more effectively. Besides, in a country such as the Phillipines, price matters much more, and encouraging Open Source usage in developing countries will have very good long term benefits to all of us (cf speculation that the supposed greater proportion of Brit programmers is due the the much greater success of ZX Spectrums et al over here when I was a kid compared to much greater console/video game use in the US, etc.)
60 million people in the UK, works for us, always has done. A bunch of politicians keep trying to change things to electronic counting, never popular, it was trialed last May in Scotland and there was a bit of a mess, but at least all the votes were counted within district.
couldn't I get a bad name for myself out of this? Depends what you mean by 'bad'--you apologised and offered to remove the offensive material, you're 18, 18 year olds make mistakes. The school refused your apology and then set about destroying your life chances.
Some corporate employers would look at you poorly because of it, and it'll likely have to go on some applications. But if you make a fuss, get your MP/senators/whoever involved, then you might make a good name for yourself.
I don't know you, I only have your side, and I don't know Aussie employers or universities, nor do I know what the polity is like (I know the constitution fairly well because I studied it, but not the way voters and politicians react to certain stories). If it were down to me as an employer, or the admissions tutor that let me into my university, that you've admitted your mistake is a good sign, and I'd let you in/employ you, people learn from mistakes.
But I'm not most people--you have to decide, but I'd personally kick up a massive fuss, if what you say is correct, they've really messed you up for a prank that was stupid, but not that serious.
I loath MySpace with a passion. But in order to personalise it you have to embed code. Sure, a lot of people are going and grabbing templates, but some of them will tweak and play, and others will go look for something better--I've seen some really nice MS profiles around. OK, the ugly ones outnumber them 100:1, but still, they're there.
The real regret is that the winning SN currently does appear to be Fb, which means people aren't learning any code. I learnt HTML on Geocities, and CSS on Blogger and Livejournal--sure, I'm still a nobody, but there are others a lot more advanced than me out there, so yeah, you're right. Scary, innit?
Then you have profiles where a user has added dozens of apps, making it pretty much like a highly jumbled up myspace page So much so that I've got into the habit of clicking the top bar of pretty much every app to minimise them when I look at profiles, so that I only have to see the stuff I want not the crappy meme-style stuff.
Wasn't aware Orkut was that big in India, I know a few people on Fb from there but my main SN remains LJ, which is mostly the preserve of the goth and the geek in the UK. I agree though, OpenSocial is a step forward in many ways, and we'll just have to see how things pan out.
They did. The WfI went for the advertisers instead, and threatened them with screenshots and similar. That was after several months of just going for LJ. Which was of course the problem a bunch of us predicted when LJ tried to switch from pure subscriber funded to a mixed system.
It's not really the loons that are the problem, it's a website and management that haven't actually managed to update itself or stay with the times, and an abuse team run mostly by willing amateurs instead of actual trained staff.
Six Apart are basically digging their own grave business wise,t hey destroyed the (successful) LJ business model after they bought it, launched a new platform that directly competed with their own product (Vox) and have absolutely no idea how to deal with their screechy-monkey userbase. That and Facebook is eating up all their potential new customers and they're doing nothing to respond.
I would want (ideally) complete control over how widely distributed my "friend-connections" become
Given that Livejournal has allowed micromanagement of that wort of information for as long as it's been around, and that was always something Brad saw as a strength, I suspect that'll be covered within the project.
You don't see an advantage to an end-user; I do, specifically, I had no idea Brad was working on this, but have been talking about something very similar in a variety of places already; distributed, decentralised networking, no one location controlling everything, open protocols, user control.
Virtually all of my online IDs are in my name, and I'm always careful about what I reveal where and to whom--I can say more in a filtered, friends locked post on Livejournal than I ever will on Facebook or on one of my topic specific blogs. They all interlink, but I can micro-manage the privacy levels.
That's a good thing. I really like this project, and think it, or a successor, is definitely the model to follow.
This'd be a distinct case of YMMV. My first phone was a Motorola, my current is, and every time I've tried a Nokia, my reaction has been similar to yours, I can't stand their interface nor their UI.
Slashdot Mirror
Cllrs for Town and Parish councils get paid little to nothing. The article you link to is talking about Cllrs for Primary Local Authorities, which have a lot more responsibility. Regardless of which, town hall officials aren't Cllrs, they're pai employees--yes, overpaid, but completely irrelevent to this discussion.
Nope--Town Councils are equivalent to Parish Councils, it's just a different name. They're unpaid. The town is not a Primary Local Authority, it's in one of the Somerset unitaries, I forget which. (I've lived in the towns of Brixham and Totnes, and now live near Hebden Bridge and Todmorden, all have Town Councils, none of the Cllrs are paid).
Having said that, I agree with your overall point--they should've been able to respond to what was said, it's not like you can't issue a press release.
If you want to get really confused, try German or Belgian (Flemish) keyboards, they're not even QWERTY, it's QWERTS or something annoying.
Because reliance on advertising revenue as the sole model works really well for the independence of the media in the US. You never ever hear of stories or entire shows being quashed because the advertisers wouldn't stand for it. Oh, wait...
The TV licence allows the BBC to be more independent of outside influence than advertising funding. Doesn't make the BBC perfect, but does mean it has a guaranteed predictable revenue stream that allows it to commit to medium term projects that fulfill a public service remit. Like the iPlayer, and local news gathering, and coverage of non-mainstream events, etc.
There are semantic definitions that could include the fee, but in the UK, a tax is defined as revenue raised to go to the treasury of a form of government, the BBC isn't part of the Govt, and the fee is raised independently by a subcontracted private firm.
You do not need to pay the fee, if you choose not to receive broadcast television: I owned two sets for the period I wasn't paying the fee, but I didn't have them plugged into an aerial and only used them to watch DVDs and videos.
If you choose to take a service (broadcast television) and then refuse to pay for it, then you're subject to civil constraints backed up by legislation. It's not a tax under UK definitions. I'm aware that the US has different definitions, hence the US embassy refusing to pay usage fees for London roads, etc. Specifically, under UK law, it's not a tax. Thus the BBC is not funded by taxpayers, it's funded by licencepayers (and DVD buyers, which I always remained).
I suppose that the BBC views themselves as a branch of the British government.
Hah! You jest, surely?
Yes, I know that it is supposedly an "independent" organization,
It is
but it is fully-funded by taxpayers in the UK.
Incorrect.
The BBC is funded by a licence fee that all TV set owners pay, it's raised independently of the government and is specifically not a tax, the money never goes anywhere close to the Treasury. Many people chose not to have a TV and thus don't need to pay the license (I was one of these people for about 3 years, I had dial-up and a DVD collection, what'd I need a TV for?)
It also gets money from overseas sales and a semi-independent part dedicated to overseas broadcasts is funded by the Foreign Office in the same way as Radio America and similar.
I suspect the BBC has broken the law. I suspect they'll get investigated. I think that, regardless, they did the right thing--most people have no idea what a botnet is, let alone how much damage they do. Anything that raises awareness amongst domestic users in an open and transparent way is good. Those that had their PCs hijacked mught do well to upgrade their security (again).
For those that want to play around? I did.
But a lot (ie most 'normal' people) want something that "just works". For them I either do my default install and tell them it's fine now, or I point them at Opera or Chrome depending on who they are.
Some people are never (ever) going to want to play around with software, fiddle with settings, or similar.
The more usability stuff I learn, the more I understand this. Since I suck at coding, usability is the way to go for me...
I've found a fair number of friends are using FX with no extensions. When I've found this, I've recommended in the past they switch to Opera, as out of the box it's better than Fx. Now I'm pushing Chrome at them.
For thee and me, Fx is better as it does lots of extras. We're power users, spending a lot of time online, building sites, etc. A large number of Fx users don't use a single extension, and the majority of users still use IE.
Which is better for my grandma--IE, Fx with no extensions, or Chrome?
I suggest Chrome.
Livejournal was, IIRC, the first site to allow client side logging in using OpenID.
Created by the same person (now working for Google), specifically because he hated the idea of non-authenticated blog comments but also hated logging in all over the place.
A guy witha lot of great ideas. Shame he can't market a product for shit.
The order that the programmes are in and what they're selected for is, in itself, a creative work. Listing them afterwards isn't the work itself, deciding what order they're in is.
why are you still blogging on there? I speak to a lot of Blogger users who have a lot of incoming links and similar that they've built up, the hassle of leaving is too much for them, it works, why jump when what you jump to might not actually suit you?
Making progress on this is hard work, but I keep at it.
You're right--the constitution wasn't set up to create a two-party system. But the electoral system mostly used (winner takes all, simple majority or first past the post depending on what you want to call it) will give a two party system in most districts.
A Frenchman called Maurice Duverger liked the results so much he wrote a famous analysis (called Duverger's Law now) which points to the way that the system used to count votes will create a two-party system in virtually every district. The UK uses pretty much the same system, but because we don't have one single national election there are districts where a different party is in competition with one of the main two (just as in San Francisco the Greens are in contention for local elections but the Republicans aren't normally).
If USians genuinely want a more pluralistic system without the massive barriers to entry, then looking at different electoral systems (especially the one used in Ireland and Australia) would be a good plan--I'm heavily involved in campaigns to get them introduced here in the UK as well, I really dislike simple majority and the two-party duopoly it unintentionally creates.
Honestly? Not sure either way. Advantage of the implant is that it can't be lost, whereas keys, etc can be. When I leave the house, I always double check to make sure the house keys are in my pocket, my fiancée left hers at work last week, she'd taken the chain she keeps them on off in order to not get it caught while changing a barrel. If I hadn't been in, she'd have had to call the relative that has the spare set. If you've got a chip, then you can't forget to take it, you can't leave it out accidentally, and if you get mugged they can take the key, your watch, your wallet, but not the chip.
Not sure I (or many others) would be prepared to go that far yet, but I can see uses for it, especially for the naturally absent minded (like me).
Nah, convenience of not reaching into the pocket or pulling out the chain--some people'll keep the key in a secure pocket in a bag or something instead.
When I comment here, I comment with my Slashdot username, and if I switch PCs I have to reset the password (again) as I always do forget my password here. When I comment on a Typepad blog, I used to have to use my Typekey. On Blogger, my Blogger username. Now I can use my OpenID for everything except here, and you can comment on my Livejournal (if you wanted) using one of your OpenIDs. I have several different IDs, some are embedded into the headers of my sites so I can use my sites rather than my LJ if I want to, depending on context.
/. profile address, and if he comments on my site, I'll know it's him, not someone pretending (unless his account gets hacked that is).
Biggest advantage for blogging (which is what initially inspired Brad) is that when I comment with my OpenID, the people reading it, including the blogger, know it's me, not someone pretending to be me by putting my details into the name/email/site address fields that a lot of blogs allow. Not an issue for many, but I've seen dodgy sock puppeting, I've even seen a British MP try to pretend to be someone else and forget to switch logins (that was a fun one).
In fields of online commenting where who you're talking to actually matters, OpenID is a way of me proving I am me, the owner of domain X, and not just some random claiming to be me.
In terms of developers, creating your own authenticationmethod is useful. I don't develope, I install, manage and use, for me, it's irrelevent, but it means I've got choices of implementation depending on what I or a client needs.
In terms of an end user, the client side login is currently not as available--LJ allows it, it can be used with some MEdiaWiki powered sites, Wordpress and Movable Type can allow it (when I recode some of my sites then you'll need to login with either an OpenID or a site registration), and some services, such as Technorati and LoudTwitter make good use of it already. But LJ has the best implementation, and that's barely finished.
Currently, it's not quite ready yet for mass consumer use, but with this, it means it will be. And then you'll be able to comment on a huge number of sites using just one identity. And Taco will be able to comment in places using his
===
Consumer use. When I comment on a site that allows me to use OpenID, I type my ID into the field. My browser now takes me to my ID site, which asks me to confirm that I want to give the info being asked for. I click yes, it takes me back to the initial site and I'm logged in. There will be support for it embedded within Fx and IE soon (I'm told), and you can choose to allow or disallow any sites you wish.
You want one account? That should be an option, but it'll depend on the sites you want to log into seeing it as a benefit and allowing it. I push for it, and others that like it do, and some sites find it useful. Whether it'll take off for the consumer end? We'll see, but the prognosis is good.
If the Libertarina party wants to make a breakthrough nationally, it first needs to make local breakthroughs and build fromt he ground up. Duverger's Law shows that in a simple majority voting system third party votes will wither away unless a substantial chunk of voters think they can win. Target areas you can win in, build up support there, take control of some towns, then a State or two, then you'll get better coverage. Until then, you're not going to get anywhere. Deal with this and build the party up rather than tilting at windmills.
When I looked at the figures, the turnout at Iowa in terms of percentage was more than half that of most of the primaries, so while Primaries do get more people,t he difference isn't that big. Iowa still gets to send delegates, as does Nevada, it's local as to how they determine who gets them. I concur Huckabee's probably out, but ignoring Caucuses is to ignore the delegates they send, it's just a different method of choosing.
I don't think it matters too much about what they're likely to use, two reasons. 1) When I went to school, UK schools were mostly still using BBC Micros, mine had weird older Research Machines kit, IBM PCs were almost unknown, let alone Windows.
IT literacy means, and should mean, just that, basic functions are these days cross platform, etc.
Besides, you're assuming that when they leave school they'll go into Windows environments, but if Linux use becomes more general in their country they may move into Linux environments and some of them will go onto be the opinion formers that build up a Linux environment.
Knowledge that MS isn't the only option is almost certainly a good thing, if nothing else it forces MS to compete more effectively. Besides, in a country such as the Phillipines, price matters much more, and encouraging Open Source usage in developing countries will have very good long term benefits to all of us (cf speculation that the supposed greater proportion of Brit programmers is due the the much greater success of ZX Spectrums et al over here when I was a kid compared to much greater console/video game use in the US, etc.)
60 million people in the UK, works for us, always has done. A bunch of politicians keep trying to change things to electronic counting, never popular, it was trialed last May in Scotland and there was a bit of a mess, but at least all the votes were counted within district.
Some corporate employers would look at you poorly because of it, and it'll likely have to go on some applications. But if you make a fuss, get your MP/senators/whoever involved, then you might make a good name for yourself.
I don't know you, I only have your side, and I don't know Aussie employers or universities, nor do I know what the polity is like (I know the constitution fairly well because I studied it, but not the way voters and politicians react to certain stories). If it were down to me as an employer, or the admissions tutor that let me into my university, that you've admitted your mistake is a good sign, and I'd let you in/employ you, people learn from mistakes.
But I'm not most people--you have to decide, but I'd personally kick up a massive fuss, if what you say is correct, they've really messed you up for a prank that was stupid, but not that serious.
Except...
I loath MySpace with a passion. But in order to personalise it you have to embed code. Sure, a lot of people are going and grabbing templates, but some of them will tweak and play, and others will go look for something better--I've seen some really nice MS profiles around. OK, the ugly ones outnumber them 100:1, but still, they're there.
The real regret is that the winning SN currently does appear to be Fb, which means people aren't learning any code. I learnt HTML on Geocities, and CSS on Blogger and Livejournal--sure, I'm still a nobody, but there are others a lot more advanced than me out there, so yeah, you're right. Scary, innit?
Wasn't aware Orkut was that big in India, I know a few people on Fb from there but my main SN remains LJ, which is mostly the preserve of the goth and the geek in the UK. I agree though, OpenSocial is a step forward in many ways, and we'll just have to see how things pan out.
They did. The WfI went for the advertisers instead, and threatened them with screenshots and similar. That was after several months of just going for LJ. Which was of course the problem a bunch of us predicted when LJ tried to switch from pure subscriber funded to a mixed system.
It's not really the loons that are the problem, it's a website and management that haven't actually managed to update itself or stay with the times, and an abuse team run mostly by willing amateurs instead of actual trained staff.
Six Apart are basically digging their own grave business wise,t hey destroyed the (successful) LJ business model after they bought it, launched a new platform that directly competed with their own product (Vox) and have absolutely no idea how to deal with their screechy-monkey userbase. That and Facebook is eating up all their potential new customers and they're doing nothing to respond.
I would want (ideally) complete control over how widely distributed my "friend-connections" become
Given that Livejournal has allowed micromanagement of that wort of information for as long as it's been around, and that was always something Brad saw as a strength, I suspect that'll be covered within the project.
You don't see an advantage to an end-user; I do, specifically, I had no idea Brad was working on this, but have been talking about something very similar in a variety of places already; distributed, decentralised networking, no one location controlling everything, open protocols, user control.
Virtually all of my online IDs are in my name, and I'm always careful about what I reveal where and to whom--I can say more in a filtered, friends locked post on Livejournal than I ever will on Facebook or on one of my topic specific blogs. They all interlink, but I can micro-manage the privacy levels.
That's a good thing. I really like this project, and think it, or a successor, is definitely the model to follow.
This'd be a distinct case of YMMV. My first phone was a Motorola, my current is, and every time I've tried a Nokia, my reaction has been similar to yours, I can't stand their interface nor their UI.
Ah well.