Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Fights Back

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 475 posts

Re: Google Fights Back

#461

Post by bpfrh »

pdimitar wrote: post #441
icebraining wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't fail to understand it. They just realize that if people don't push back, they won't have freedom to tinker even when they need it .

"What if"-s and theoreticals don't help any discussion. It's very evident by now that people en masse don't push back. And there are no signs that this is changing as well. Instead of being hung up "but if the people just do this...", how about we formulate a new strategy based on the facts observed so far?

IMHO open source already does that. Most of the new opensource projects do make ease of use a major point. You see that in frameworks, nearly every framework has a "Get started in 5 mins" and samples. But the problem is that the money has to come from somewhere, so either you get sponsored, sell data, raise pricing or die. Too few people pay for tech stuff, since most of is is free and then we end up in situations like today.

Re: Google Fights Back

#462

Post by 50656E6973 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #427
50656E6973 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's hard to see how using personal data to sell ads is going to cause a harm anywhere near as bad as a person dying No need for imagination, simply read history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

That's a fair point, but it falls flat with me personally the same way arguments about gun control and the potential to use guns in revolutions against autocratic regimes fall flat with me: it just seems incredibly unlikely in this day and age, at least in developed countries. Like, the US once rounded up Japanese people and put them in camps. Using your same reasoning, one could argue that the government collecting…

>it just seems incredibly unlikely in this day and age, at least in developed countries.

This opinion wouldn't be quite as naive if there was some magical boundary that keeps digital information solely in the hands of benevolent rulers in developed countries, but there's not.

>Governments have also, at times, discriminated against people for their sexuality, or gender, so should the government never be allowed to gather any information on those attributes?

That's somewhat like how some gun rights advocates say it's futile to ban guns because you can just kill people with knives, so why don't we ban knives too?

We're talking about virtually total information awareness which is far more powerful, problematic, and discriminate than knowledge of superficial attributes such as race and gender.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness

Re: Google Fights Back

#463

Post by HillaryBriss »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #342
HillaryBriss wrote: post #20

If Google's possession of all this data makes many new good things possible, then sharing this data broadly and freely with others would make even more good things possible. Would Google share the data with other corporations so that they, too, can innovate and serve the consumer even better? I mean, if I buy into the notion of Google's benevolence, I should buy into that notion for other corporations, shouldn't I?

Isn't that the purpose of Google Takeout? If Google isn't providing the most value for your data, you can take it elsewhere. That's how I use Internet services. If they don't do anything useful with my data, I don't use them. If they do something useful with my data, I use the one that does the most useful thing with my data. Thus, Gmail over other email services and Slack over whatever nonsense Google's messaging pr…

thank you for making me aware of that.

Re: Google Fights Back

#464

Post by kexx »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #70
areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

Google is already not Google. The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore. The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ug…

please dont give money to apple. it gives them the illusion of being a good company.

instead: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (i know it's not ready, but it's coming) or https://lineageos.org/

Re: Google Fights Back

#465

Post by kerkeslager »

gnode wrote: post #460
kerkeslager wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems antithetical to me. The trained model is the program, and the training data is in-essence the source code. No, I think that trained models and training data are entirely new concepts. I can see the similarities between trained models/programs a and training data/source code, but there are obvious privacy concerns with training data that don't apply to source code. Calling the training data the source cod…

I think the trained model is analogous to a program (which may be interpreted by a virtual machine; not necessarily a machine code program) because it is not intelligible by humans. I'll admit that there are tools for analysing neural networks, but these are like disassemblers. Trained models carry all the hazards of binary blobs, and so can't just be trusted. Training data is no true analogue to source code, but the…

> I think the trained model is analogous to a program (which may be interpreted by a virtual machine; not necessarily a machine code program) because it is not intelligible by humans. I'll admit that there are tools for analysing neural networks, but these are like disassemblers.

Yeah, I agree that's a valid analogy, but again I'll say it's just an analogy. The training data still differs from source code in its privacy attributes, so I don't think it should be treated the same way as source code in a free (libre) software context.

> Trained models carry all the hazards of binary blobs, and so can't just be trusted. Training data is no true analogue to source code, but the concept of reproducibility is still relevant. At the very least, the production of blobs should be auditable.

This is true, and it's a big problem, not just because of free software concerns. One of the deeply problematic effects of this is that we can't always explain why an AI does what it does, leading to horrifying possibilities[1].

[1] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2019/04/frogger-ai-explains-its-dec... (WARNING: I recommend copy/pasting this link to a separate tab rather than clicking it. JWZ has a rather negative opinion of HN and a while back his server started serving up rather unsavory images in response to requests with an HN referrer. I'm not sure if that is still happening, but I know that if you copy/paste the link there's nothing offensive on the page.)

Re: Google Fights Back

#466

Post by pdimitar »

tekknik wrote: post #449
pdimitar wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The far Eastern Europe (Bulgaria where I live, and Romania) has one of the best internet connections in the world. ;) In my case I am on 1Gbps ingress/egress for ~43 EUR a month and could negotiate a deal for a datacenter level of a link (10Gbps) but I don't want to. The reason I'll go for 10Gbps router and a 10Gbps switch is because if you put a NAS in your home network then the gigabit speeds will never be achieved…

To each their own but this is quite a bit overkill. I’m running a gig connection (with only 40mbps ingress) with a 16TB NAS setup and it serves all my needs. People in this thread are complaining about the Apple premium but then you see people talking about buying multiple thousand USD NAS setups to get around having to use cloud storage.

Eh, both things don't contradict each other. Many are willing to spend money to get away from corporate lock-in and I get that motivation. I want to partially do that myself since all my videos would cost quite a lot in cloud hosting costs (not to mention the snail speeds of backup!).

I agree that my planned setup is an overkill but I am setting myself up for such a tech overkill setup in all my work endeavours because I want to have a peace of mind for about 10 years -- if at all possible.

I don't think any of us will soon need more than 1.25GB/s ingress/egress anytime soon (unless of course our games are rendered on the cloud and streamed directly to our PCs). And since I am sick and tired of eternal tinkering, I want to go for an ultimate endgame, or at least one that can last me some years in the future.

Re: Google Fights Back

#467

Post by pdimitar »

msh wrote: post #442
pdimitar wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubiquiti or Mikrotik. No more than $400 last I checked. Per device though, so router + switch could go up to $800 - $1000. Quite an investment I admit. But it's long-term. I don't anticipate changing that setup for like 10 years.

Ubiquitys cheapest router that can do 10 G is the edgerouter infinity which cost a lot more than 400 usd.

Hm, now I can't find the link. Probably was mistaken. Or I was looking at a severe discount on a reseller website. Can't remember.

Re: Google Fights Back

#468

Post by pdimitar »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #454
pdimitar wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe in free markets. I am too much of a realist for that. :) I ask you what can we realistically do though? It's very apparent that budget Androids that lag like hell and break down often aren't to the general populace's taste if they have a choice -- in my "poor" country (Bulgaria) people get loans so they can buy the Galaxy S10 or Huawei P30, en masse. Most people I've known in my life buying budget And…

Given that all Androids offer you the "freedom to tinker", you can always shell out for the Galaxy instead of iPhone if that's what you care about. I understand either choice on individual level. Myself, I'm on Galaxy S7 now, previously on S4. Before that, I bought a cheap Android phone and learned the hard way that what you save in money, you'll repay back with interest in mental health. The "death from a thousand c…

Seems we are in agreement.

I loved Samsung while I was using Androids but they were starting to lag at the 6-9 months mark, without an exception (I owned 5 of their devices over a course of 4 years). Eventually it pissed me off.

Only Android device I legitimately loved was the Xiaomi Mi 6 (the high-end version with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage). Truthfully a masterpiece!

In the end though, my need for full and easy integration between my mobile devices and laptop (soon a desktop as well) prevailed. I arrived at the conclusion that "tinker at all costs" is not for me. There are plenty of people who do only that, I am passing the torch to them.

Re: Google Fights Back

#469

Post by pdimitar »

bpfrh wrote: post #461
pdimitar wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What if"-s and theoreticals don't help any discussion. It's very evident by now that people en masse don't push back. And there are no signs that this is changing as well. Instead of being hung up "but if the people just do this...", how about we formulate a new strategy based on the facts observed so far?

IMHO open source already does that. Most of the new opensource projects do make ease of use a major point. You see that in frameworks, nearly every framework has a "Get started in 5 mins" and samples. But the problem is that the money has to come from somewhere, so either you get sponsored, sell data, raise pricing or die. Too few people pay for tech stuff, since most of is is free and then we end up in situations li…

Wish I had your optimism. I used 8 languages in my life actively -- and 3 more as a quick hobby and evaluation of features -- and almost never seen a well-documented AND easy to use library or a framework. Almost every author falls in love with their own idea and convenient abstractions and even if they explain those to somebody else, it still doesn't make sense to a chunk of the programmer users.

Trust me, I'd like some of my ideas to be funded as well. But it doesn't seem to be the world we are living in. :(

Re: Google Fights Back

#470

Post by pdimitar »

username223 wrote: post #383
icebraining wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't fail to understand it. They just realize that if people don't push back, they won't have freedom to tinker even when they need it .

I had this argument 10-15 years ago, and agree about the potential for lock-in. But even at the time, I realized that I would rather not build Konqueror, Kate, or the Gimp from source, and would never make a significant change. They had become so complex that learning and keeping up with them enough to contribute would be a part-time job. The current toss-it-over-the-wall-ware model is good enough. Android and Chromi…

Yep. We all have jobs to do and free time to enjoy. I am frankly burned out on tinkering and I am pursuing getting better at my workplace plus work on a few hobby projects every now and then. Beyond that I throw my hands in the air and give up. I have a life. And I like it.
Post reply on HN