I disagree about the last line, not "everyone" has their bullshit. These 3 do have and spread massive amounts of bullshit, however.
Bullshit
51–60 of 233 posts
Re: Bullshit
#52Apple's bullshit is strictly business. Google's and Facebook's bullshits affects peoples privacy, and, if they live in a country that values privacy, actually violates their fundamental rights. Facebook and Google are engaged in open warfare against social values and legal restrictions that are prevalent in most of the world (especially outside the US), and the lies they tell about it can not simply be categorized as…
Do you have any citations for this? I'm curious to see how Google is unknowingly violating people's privacy to the point that it's borderline illegal in certain countries.
Facebook on the other hand, I can easily believe they're doing that.
Re: Bullshit
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with Google is you get tracked even if you don't use any of their services. Almost every single web page has one of Google Adsense, Analytics, Maps, ... all of which can build up a profile about you. To a degree this same effect is happening with FB as more and more sites add like buttons, though they remain less common than Google's array of libraries.
Does Google have a look at Google Analytics? I thought it was only for the webmasters who set it up and that Google did not touch it. It is nearly their only service that I haven't blocked (with the libraries available on their CDN).
The issue is they have the potential to do it.
Once the potential is there and you have people motivated by performance targets, stock price, etc it's very difficult to permanently resist the temptation.
Re: Bullshit
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with Google is you get tracked even if you don't use any of their services. Almost every single web page has one of Google Adsense, Analytics, Maps, ... all of which can build up a profile about you. To a degree this same effect is happening with FB as more and more sites add like buttons, though they remain less common than Google's array of libraries.
Does Google have a look at Google Analytics? I thought it was only for the webmasters who set it up and that Google did not touch it. It is nearly their only service that I haven't blocked (with the libraries available on their CDN).
If you are really paranoid you could mirror their cdn libraries and rewrite the urls, as they could be used as fairly poor info too...
Re: Bullshit
#55Yes, it's true the things listed are bullshit. Yes, I guess we can take it or leave it. Sometimes the "take it or leave it" position ends up being presented in a way that it is framed that those of us who choose not to partake in the rape of our liberties are backwards luddites (non-facebook member here, also got their domains blocked to kill their insidious tracking). I hope that criticism of those who say "no" is n…
They're all bullshit except the 'Android is open' thing. That's just a plain fucking fact. Despite the incessant barrage of snarky 'open' jokes from professional Apple frother John Gruber (typically redeemed somewhat by being funny) and M.G. "Mini-Gruber" Siegler (not so much), you can go download the fucking source code : http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html Sure, tons of manufacturers will sell you jun…
"Android is open" is BS for the plain and simple fact that (time delayed) source code availability is of no consequence to the vast majority of Android users. They say it as though it means something, it means nothing, rather like water vendors claiming "100% fat free" on a bottle of water.
Marco didn't say the claim was factually incorrect, he said it was BS, it is.
Re: Bullshit
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sentence from Google is a falsehood. It claims that the tracking is done for the user, and implies that this is their only intention. The actual truth is that Google only does what's "good" for the user as long as it improves their market position and/or makes them money. To have a position of "well, they do care about theirs users, even if it is to make money off of them" is intellectually dishonest because you'…
Now that is Bullshit. Yes, Google makes money from their advertising. But Google does things that directly limit their ability to make money from advertising, when those decisons are in the interest of consumers. Take the whole design and UX of Chrome. There are many, many ways Google could have changed the design to make more money from it, and yet they haven't because they aren't in the interests of the users. Addi…
Google chrome isn't exactly a good example, considering that it's the only browser I've ever heard of embedding advertisements in its default homepage - http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/googl...
Re: Bullshit
#57> Facebook: "Our users want to interact with brands." As distasteful as the hacker crowd may find it, this is probably a true statement. A significant number of people (in the developed world) really do construct a large part of their personal identity by buying branded products from companies in order to signal something about themselves. There's a section on this on the Wikipedia page for "Brand": http://en.wikiped…
What yeswecan said, but to expand: people like brands - they will gladly and openly declare their brand allegiances on their profiles. We saw this before Pages even came out.
What people don't want to do is to be constantly bombarded by bullshit communications from said brands. In many ways, openly declaring your brand preferences is signaling - the "liking" of brands is for their friends, not an enthusiastic wish to receive "special offers" from you. What they dislike even more are the highly intrusive ways brands are marketing themselves on Facebook.
It's great that you're running a promotion for a brand I like. No, I will not let you post to my wall as me. No, I will not spam 15 of my friends with your stupid offer before actually receiving said promo. No, I don't want to be forced to "Like" your stupid brand before I can even look at your page.
Brands, I want to receive pertinent information from you. If Starbucks is opening a new store in my area, I totally want to hear about it. What I don't want to hear are bullshit "news stories" concocted by your marketing department that is entirely content-free and screams like a cheap attempt to keep your name in my head.
Re: Bullshit
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sentence from Google is a falsehood. It claims that the tracking is done for the user, and implies that this is their only intention. The actual truth is that Google only does what's "good" for the user as long as it improves their market position and/or makes them money. To have a position of "well, they do care about theirs users, even if it is to make money off of them" is intellectually dishonest because you'…
Now that is Bullshit. Yes, Google makes money from their advertising. But Google does things that directly limit their ability to make money from advertising, when those decisons are in the interest of consumers. Take the whole design and UX of Chrome. There are many, many ways Google could have changed the design to make more money from it, and yet they haven't because they aren't in the interests of the users. Addi…
Also, could you provide an example of where advertising improves the user experience?
Re: Bullshit
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except for a really long time, ie between Android 2.x and 4, you couldn't download the source code. Edit: why is that being downvoted? It's a fact. HN can be a strange beast at times.
"A really long time"? Seriously--I know it's been a busy year--but the nine months (from February 2011 to November 2011) during which Android was being used in certain tablets without being open sourced hardly qualifies as "a really long time", especially in comparison to operating systems which have never been open.
I'm not sure how your'e able to say nine months isn't a long time (especially in this industry!) with a straight face.
Also, I subscribe to a pretty liberal interpretation of "open source", and "source will be downloadable at an undetermined date in the future, if we feel like it" really doesn't qualify.
There is, of course, the colloquial expectation of open - the implication that Google has never shied away from is that openness means choice. Of course, even with the source code, the vast majority of Android headsets are locked down - the openness does nobody any good except people who build custom distros (that normal users can't even install themselves!).
The "open" argument, while arguably, technically correct (the source is available... kind of), fails to meet the bar for what techies consider to be essential to the concept of openness, nor does it meet the bar for what laymen would consider to be openness.
Re: Bullshit
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it would be that hard. You're one MX record change away from changing your mailhost without anyone ever knowing. You can continue using your gmail.com address without ever seeing ads by connecting with IMAP. You can get maps from anywhere, including Open Street Map. You can move your photos from Picassa to your own machine and to Flickr, if you desire. Google Chat is XMPP, so you can get a new "chat pro…
The mail host is the least I'd worry about. Migrating the mail archive is much more important. Furthermore Gmail's user interface beats anything else hands down, it's too hard to say goodbye to it.
Nothing very hard about migrating all your mail off Gmail via the IMAP interface if you really want to.