>> ^VoodooV:

first sentence into the interview and yeah, I have to agree, he sounds like he's trying to wash his hands of any responsibility. If he wanted to just be a good engineer, he didn't have to become a co-founder. He could have said "thanks steve, but no thanks, I like working in my garage"
as corporations get more and more powerful, the issues of their responsibility are going to be bigger and bigger.
I dunno, the way I see it, the internet is too big to be cracked down on and locked down. Of course there are always going to be people who try to lock it down but it will be temporary at best. sure there are always going to be your walled gardens and areas where things are locked down, but the internet at large will probably always be free.
There would be too much outrage if they were actually successful in locking people out.
but like anything, you can't just rest on your laurels and do nothing and assume it will be free without doing anything. freedom has to be fought for. There has to be pushback. The protests of PIPA/SOPA did have an effect and if someone tries to take something away from you, you fight to keep it.


Yeah the first sentence is do important people have a responsibility to speak out about regulation of the internet! No questions about taking responsibility for the actions of ones company. Of course the people running a company are responsible for the actions of the company. This was never talked about in this video. Woz states he likes it when anyone in the public eye speaks out for what they think is right. I cannot believe people are trying to correct me and still completely fail to understand basic English. Whether or not Woz is defensive about Apple in other situations I don't know anything about and is also irrelevant since he hasn't had any influence there for decades.

first sentence into the interview and yeah, I have to agree, he sounds like he's trying to wash his hands of any responsibility. If he wanted to just be a good engineer, he didn't have to become a co-founder. He could have said "thanks steve, but no thanks, I like working in my garage"

as corporations get more and more powerful, the issues of their responsibility are going to be bigger and bigger.

I dunno, the way I see it, the internet is too big to be cracked down on and locked down. Of course there are always going to be people who try to lock it down but it will be temporary at best. sure there are always going to be your walled gardens and areas where things are locked down, but the internet at large will probably always be free.

There would be too much outrage if they were actually successful in locking people out.

but like anything, you can't just rest on your laurels and do nothing and assume it will be free without doing anything. freedom has to be fought for. There has to be pushback. The protests of PIPA/SOPA did have an effect and if someone tries to take something away from you, you fight to keep it.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^dag:
Oh yes! I would love to see some classy, clever spy stuff like this. I bet MI6 has the whole place bugged though.>> ^Deano:
I'm thinking of the end of The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan. Have a load of Assange lookalikes turn up and swarm the area, make several hoax "omg I saw a terrorist" calls and in the confusion Assange walks out disguised as a black guy (I saw that in Silver Streak with Gene Wilder).


That's my thought also.
With bugs everywhere, satellites, and CCTV cameras on every corner (to keep citizens "safe"). There is little chance an old style clock and dagger escape would work.


Some of the ideas aren't bad though...the thing is if they get tons of information you can use it against them until they don't trust the information they're getting. Also if push came to shove they would lock down the airport until they got a handle on the situation. The best thing they could do is distract like they're going to the airport and go to a small airport to charter a small plane to another nation who wouldn't turn him over, or at least to Europe where he could more easily disappear. Or maybe even use a boat to get to Europe. Just simply cover of darkness changing your hair sort of stuff could work and with communication and GPS these days he could be picked up and moved really efficiently.

I really wish I was a part of the group trying to get him out though, that would be soo much fun.

Here's some info on the resolution issue:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/08/08/Curiosity-interview-with-Malin-Space-Science-Systems-Mike-Ravine

tl;dr: the cameras on board Curiosity have 2 megapixel sensors, because NASA has a very conservative design philosophy and locked down the tech in 2004. They chose what they were most confident would work.

Some points:

* No sir, you are completely WRONG about vertical videos, they are hard to watch, and are ridiculous. You not being bothered to hold your phone horizontally is the problem, not people who don't want to watch something where the majority of visual information is in the direction our eyes are not.

* His gripes against Apple are largely correct. I mean, they do prescribe how you must use things and what you must have on your device, but that's not entirely unfair. I mean, it's kind of fair for an OS to be able to expect that certain components just will be there. The camera app, the email app and so on.

* Not being able to remove them from your 'home screens' because Apple doesn't differentiate between a 'desktop' and a list of all installed apps is kind of the problem here. Android has google apps that you can't get rid of unless you root your device and then risk it not working properly. But you don't have to really ever see those apps because you just don't put them on your homescreens.

But in general he's quite correct (except the vertical video thing, he's wrong on that), and it's why I just soooo dislike using apple products in general. I think their hardware is largely nice (although the original iPad lacking a camera at all, then the iPad 2 rocking an amazingly crap one, much in line with the iPhones' original crappy cameras), but when using software to interact with iOS devices I end up going insane. I HATE iTunes, it's insanely restrictive and locked down and... urgh... I dislike not being able to make an iPhone or iPad have nicely clutter free 'desktops' with what I want on them, but am restricted to just rows of icons and folders.

And people flock to them... and ooh and ahh as Apple announce features that have been around for years in other devices and crow about them like they're brand new and amazing. (Facetime anyone? Really, it's been around for yeeeeeaaaars in Australia over the mobile networks, no WiFi needed. And you know what? Pretty much no one uses them. It's as easy as just making a call, except you do it as a video call, but no-one cares, no-one uses it.

And yet Apple launch facetime and everyone goes nuts.

Do you know anyone at all who uses it?

Skype, sure... because when you're at home or office or in a hotel room, that's when you want to be able to talk to someone and see them, and it being on an object on a table works really well... when you're on a phone? Not that many applications.

And locking down access and copying to things has resulted in this kind of loss countless times. It's really really easy to screw up a backup or have something catastrophically fail due to flood, fire, theft, anything.....and then you're SOL unless someone keeps their own copies because they are super paranoid usually without permission or against standards.

Lets rewind:

Last presidential election, early on Hillary Clinton was considered the likely Democrat candidate. Republicans assumed (rather offensively) that anyone female would be practically guaranteed to vote for her due to some sort of "vaginal solidarity". What did they do? They pushed McCain into naming Sarah Palin as his veep, in spite of the fact that nobody really knew anything about her. The only reason for doing that was that they assumed that they would be hemorrhaging women voters, and Palin would magically solve that. How'd that work out? Not well.

So what is Mitt doing here? Failing to learn from that mistake. Mitt thought that having a gay spokesperson might make it possible for him to steal some of that demographic. He failed to remember that an election is a high school popularity contest, and you have to lock down your base before you can go for the swing vote. He stands to lose way more votes from the religious right-wing bigots that would take offense to his working with an "unclean" homosexual than the votes that he could potentially gain from moderates and liberals who are impressed with this "open minded" appointment of a gay staffer.

I would somewhat disagree with Cenk that that makes Romney the bad guy here, though. And it sounds to me like the spokesperson himself wasn't offended by being "fired"; he just realized that unfortunately his presence was going to have a negative effect on Romney's campaign. If he really did want Romney to get elected, he probably would have resigned once that became apparent -- but on the other hand if he is "fired" it can be seen as an attempt to mollify the right-wing nuts that took offense in the first place. Anyway, I'd say that the whole mess reflects much more poorly on the Republican party and the religious right wing than it does on Romney himself. At least he (sorta) tried, and showed that he is probably less of a bigot than his base...

If they're selectively turning back parts of the scene then what they're doing is faking the photo - the resulting picture can not be described as a photograph.

It's not enough to save RIM, unless this is a small part of an unimaginable transformation. RIM will be lucky to survive as a niche manufacturer at this point. If I was them, I'd switch to Android and try to get a large niche as the manufacturer of Androids with keyboards, perhaps with some sort of optional lock-down so their business apps and messaging can be secured.

>> ^hamsteralliance:

Still being an asshole:
Attempts to extort former client
I've been trying to get him to give up the access to these things he's been holding hostage (email accounts, Twitter, etc) by asking nicely for a couple of days. The gloves are off now.
Paul told me on the phone two hours ago that "Eight months ago, I locked down all this stuff so they wouldn't be able to fuck with me. If they don't give me what I want, it's war." His demands include a contract written on his terms and substantial compensation, both immediate and for as long as the company continues to exist. He flaunted the PR debacle he created as proof that he "made the company a success", citing all the media and public attention as the "best thing that ever happened to Avenger".


L-O-L
Chiullan has done a pretty masterful job of damage control. He's managed to very publicly disown and denounce Christoforo (going so far as to say that there "isn't a bus big enough for me to throw Paul Christoforo under."

Still being an asshole:

Attempts to extort former client

I've been trying to get him to give up the access to these things he's been holding hostage (email accounts, Twitter, etc) by asking nicely for a couple of days. The gloves are off now.

Paul told me on the phone two hours ago that "Eight months ago, I locked down all this stuff so they wouldn't be able to fuck with me. If they don't give me what I want, it's war." His demands include a contract written on his terms and substantial compensation, both immediate and for as long as the company continues to exist. He flaunted the PR debacle he created as proof that he "made the company a success", citing all the media and public attention as the "best thing that ever happened to Avenger".

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Let me know when you lock down a date. We'll promote the hell out of it on the front page - bring in the drifters.

>> ^Hastur:

>> ^Asmo:
I don't decide, the abstainer decides... Whether it's apathy (my vote doesn't make a difference), indifference (don't care either way) or a genuine protest about a paucity of good candidates, the abstainer chooses (democratically) not to participate. They lose the right to complain (although most will still do so) about who they wind up with, but it's not like they were disqualified against their wishes...
Here's our disagreement in a nutshell:
You claim the most pure form of democracy represents the majority of voters. I claim the most pure form of democracy represents the majority of people. If your aim is a more pure democracy, which is more desirable?
And your last paragraph simply isn't supported. In a direct election, a candidate must appeal to exactly 50.1% of the electorate, and there is no compulsion to distribute that appeal either demographically or geographically. The college at least forces the candidates to broaden their reach. Look at some of the swing states fought over in the past election: Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri, Nevada. There's a lot of diversity represented there, both geographically and demographically. IMO that's the way it should be in a union of states.


Incorrect, I agree with the assertion that the purest form of democracy represents the majority of the people. But how do you resolve an election where the majority refuses to vote? Either you poll again and again and again, or make the vote compulsory (there goes freedom), or just don't have a head of state.

But your point re: majority of the people undermines EC voting as much as it does direct elections. A state doesn't lose EC votes because people abstain, each state get's it's full quota no matter how many people stay at home.

And how does your statement not support my assertion in the second paragraph? Appealing to swing states with an uneven balance of EC votes is not diversifying, it's focusing their efforts (as demonstrated in the video). Candidates wouldn't waste time on safe seats typically. They certainly wouldn't waste time on safe seats (or alternately seats that are locked down by the opposition) that are severely underrepresented in the EC. The college forces candidates to narrow their focus, not broaden it, in the demographic that actually counts. EC votes to be gained. Demographic and geographic broadening is accidental. If those states were all jammed together in one corner of the country and had similar demographics, would you complain that candidates were narrowing their focus, or just admit they are chasing states that will yield the greatest electoral advantage to them?

The "way it should be" in a union of states is that all men (and women) are equal, not that some states get special attention because of a flawed system set up by people who didn't trust the every day person to make the 'right' choice.

edit: rephrased a sentence for clarity.

Consensus in the Geek community is yes for the Nexus S, if not for the more locked-down models. Though any Ice Cream Sandwich update will obviously absent some features such as the aforementioned soft buttons and the barometer related content. That's for me really the big reason that I paid for an un-subsidized and factory unlocked Nexus unit, I don't want some carrier or handset maker standing between me and the software I want to use simply because it interferes with their revenue model. The Nexus models represent what Google intends the Android experience.

>> ^lucky760:

>> ^therealblankman:
I'm a (very happy) Nexus S user. I'll be skipping this particular generation of handset but am hugely looking forward to an Ice Cream Sandwich update for my unit. Keep up the great work, Google.

I wonder if they'll even be back-porting Ice Cream Sandwich for older devices. I'd imagine not since they'd need to customize it for the unsupportable features (e.g., software buttons need to be removed if physical buttons exist).

Ok, another shoutout to those so far involved and times...

We have @kymbos who has issues with the weekend of 12th and 13th of Nov

We have me, where I can't make the evening of the 19th, but could conceivably do the day, or we could do a day meeting on the Sunday, 20th? I can't lock down dates perfectly as yet as my wife will be getting schedules for her work which include weekend days... but we don't know them as yet.

We have @oritteropo who can't do the 19th either, but says the rest of the month looks ok.

And then we have @dag & @persephone who I think are ok for most any time in November.

So... yeah, these things are hard to organise, at least when they aren't just a quick pop out during a lunch break sort of meeting!