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Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

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Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#231

Post by Spooky23 »

version_five wrote: post #138
akiselev wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People often pay electricians even for tasks that are just "flip a switch and turn some screws," after all. The ultimate reason people pay electricians is liability. Unlicensed work is an easy way to invalidate your homeowner's insurance, lose everything, and get sued for any damage to your neighbors' property (by their insurance company, no less).

My view is that if the only reason you are doing something is because of the insurance implications, then you've surely made the wrong decision. Nobody's interests are less aligned with your own than an insurance company's. There are lots of legitimate reasons to hire an electrician, but making decisions solely based on what someone who wants you to perpetually give them money whole finding reasons to never give it b…

All parties related to a home (owner, occupier, bank, insurer) have an interest in the asset they have a stake in.

Home electric is one of those things that many people claim to know and understand. The reality is that most people are clueless, and can and do make mistakes. If you ever bought an old house, you get this — there’s always some dangerous cob job hiding somewhere.

The evil insurance company doesn’t want to pay when you are seriously injured in a fire. You probably don’t want to get injured. In the end, interests are aligned.

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#232

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #176
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to walk into a business without shoes or a shirt and demand service. For some crazy reason these businesses are allowed to restrict my liberty on their property.

Having your access restricted based on readily-remedied conditions, based on consideration for the common weal, or to one of numerous potential suppliers or vendors, is different from access restrictions based on flat-out retaliation, intimidation, coercion, historic social discriminatory bases, and/or to the sole, overwhelming majority, or most attractive (low cost, convenience, features, compatibility/interactivity…

Running through some stale tabs, gumby makes pretty much the same point a few days ago regards a flatfile addressbook:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27442335

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#233

Post by kortilla »

slg wrote: post #97
kortilla wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why couldn't we fragment and distribute one set of those keys among multiple legal entities? Because crypto is implemented in software and it’s trivial to remove the part that encrypts for the government’s key.

You completely ignored the last paragraph of my comment where I addressed this type of concern.

Because it’s detached from reality and shows a misunderstanding of how deeply embedded secure crypto is into everything. Nearly every X86 processor now supports AES intrinsics that are used in the building blocks of far beyond encrypting messages (e.g. golang’s hashing).

Additionally, a from scratch implementation of AES in JavaScript or any other modern programming language is a junior level task. Unless you propose trying to ban every copy of the AES algorithm, it will be trivially implemented and passed around regardless of what FAANG does.

Money laundering restrictions work because everything goes through a fairly centralized banking system. Crypto has no such equivalent.

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#234

Post by ehsankia »

mattzito wrote: post #120
majormajor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because so few people know about it, "reputation managers" are charging people like $500 a pop to "remove damaging information from Google results." And ALL THEY DO is fill out that form for free. Someone tried to hawk this service to my husband after he came under attack. While that sounds like a high price, and you usually don't want to just hire the first person you see advertise a service, the concept of specia…

I would say that the difference between your example and these reputation managers is that they are often themselves directly responsible for the problems they create: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/24/technology/on... I guess this is more analogous to flipping someone’s breakers in their house and then charging them to flip them back on.

Yep, the reason they are so effective is because they own the very website that is spreading the slander. So you're really just indirectly paying the website who's blackmailing you to remove the blackmail.

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#235

Post by shimon »

akiselev wrote: post #116
gambiting wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean electrician's insurance? I do have a so called "DIY insurance" on my home policy - if I damage something while doing a DIY project(drill into a cable or a pipe for instance) my home insurance will cover the repair. Is that not enough?

No, that's just for incidental damage and probably legally mandated by your state. If your house burns down to due to DIY wiring, the insurance company won't pay out a dime (if the inspectors discover it). Electricians have liability insurance provided by an organization specializing in policies for practicing tradesmen. If an insurance company fails to disqualify a homeowner's policy and pays out, it will then go af…

This idea that DIY wiring can invalidate your insurance policy is widely repeated, but I don't think it's true.

Homeowner's insurance routinely covers preventable disasters. Did you leave a candle on or a heater plugged in and start a fire? Did you not cut down a tree that was looking unhealthy and it fell on your home? These are all situations where your insurance would pay a claim. The cases where they would not pay a claim are more along the lines of "deliberate arson".

You may well need to certify that work is permitted in order to get an insurance policy.

Relevant reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/doe...

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#236

Post by shimon »

mackman wrote: post #140
tialaramex wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid a gas plumber full rates to in effect remind me where the tap is for the fill line for my boiler. Over time a boiler that isn't meaningfully "leaking" will still gradually lose internal pressure. Once the pressure inside the boiler is less than outside the boiler even when the water inside is hotter, that's not good. Eventually the system won't work and shuts down for safety, but before that it'll make a lot o…

Huh, never heard of a manual one of those. I have some little widget that automatically refills the boiler when there's a pressure difference in the wrong direction I guess.

Yes, the modern solution to this consists of a pressure-reducing valve (refills when pressure in the boiler system drops) and a backflow preventer (for the safety issue).

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#237

Post by shimon »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #229
subhro wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note, how do I find a list of electrical codes (or any code for that matter) for my area without going through an expensive subscription?

Usually visiting your place of local government / library and asking for a copy of local building codes will get you a hard copy at not much more than cost to photocopy.

These typically reference model codes that are often proprietary. You may still be able to get them from a library but if your question is along the lines of "how many receptacles can I put on one circuit" you need to look in something like the International Residential Code[1], not in your city/state statutes.

[1] https://www.iccsafe.org/products-and-services/i-codes/2018-i...

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#238

Post by artiszt »

oh_sigh wrote: post #44
legitster wrote: post #21

To Google's credit, it's literally the first search results for "how do I remove myself from Google". It is a bit ironic that people looking to remove something for being too easy to find via search are being stymied by a simple search. Still, good to provide some visibility about it. I certainly never knew this was a thing.

First result...under 4 ads that probably make you pay to do the thing google does for free for you.

so it's of course not free, given ads alone tho -- wisely -- even w/out feeling inclined to pay for anything Goo

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#239

Post by a1369209993 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #225
a1369209993 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> insurance won't let you do anything risky, and won't pay if you do . This is the part that is outright fraud. A legitimate insurance policy is literally a cheque; if something happens, you deposit it in the bank and get you money, and it's the insurance company's responsibility to prove that your claim is not covered by the policy written on the cheque. The insurance company does not make a decision about whether t…

Without trying to sound snarky, I feel like maybe you haven't had to deal with insurance companies for anything substantial. A lot of them go out of their way to say no to as much as they can, and you need to fight with them to get them to change their decision.

> A lot of them go out of their way to say no to as much as they can, and you need to fight with them to get them to change their decision.

I am aware of that; I'm pointing out that their being able to say no (rather than the cheque being valid by default and claim being paid out without the insurer's involvement, and the insurance company having to go to court to recover the money after the fact) is fraud, precisely because it enables them to "say no to as much as they can".

Re: Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results

#240

Post by jfoster »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #137
jfoster wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google always errs on the side of left wing political platform Reminds me that yesterday I tried googling around the topic of how covid affects fertility (eg. "covid fertility") and nearly every result that comes back is about vaccines not affecting fertility. Okay, thanks Google, but how about the actual disease? Results were a fair bit more relevant by adding "disease" to the query, but still got one or two about…

COVID-19 is a special case. I think Google has intervened there to ensure that official sources are favoured due to concerns about the impact of misinformation in a pandemic specifically. This is not a common Google practice so far as I know.

But that's my point. If someone searches for "covid fertility" and Google unexpectedly decides to make it all about vaccines, in a way, they are a source of misinformation. Where someone was previously concerned with fertility as a result of covid the disease, Google makes them start considering fertility as it relates to vaccines instead, essentially going against their search intent & pointing them in the wrong direction.
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