Many people here work for (or even own) companies that are enabling this sort of data collection to happen whether or not they take responsibility for it. We as a community are burdened with this issue and it is our responsibility to be knowledgeable about what is going on in an attempt to understand/deal with it.
Rust looks really great and I would love to switch all of my C development over to Rust but last time I tried to compile it, it took a good hour or two. Has this changed at all?
Exactly, this is the weirdest part to me. The US government feels alright with the fact that they have publicly declared anyone living outside the US a possible enemy. That is definitely not how I feel at all as a citizen and that viewpoint is obviously extremely dangerous. It seems like the US is becoming something like a xenophobic elderly person who isn't able to adjust to the times.
Hm, every new bit of news relating to the US government and the Internet makes me question what exactly the Internet is doing for me and if I could live without it.
Lately I've began to realize that within the next 5 years my Internet usage will be extremely minimal(if at all) unless there is some kind of huge change.
I'd rather just cancel all of my accounts on major websites than be forced use this creepy ID system.
I totally agree, this isn't necessarily about the projects listed in the article. It is more of a reaction against the over abundance of announcements like "it's like X but open!" without really providing any significant openness over google drive or whatever it's attempting to replace.
After checking out the projects mentioned in the article I would definitely say that they don't fall into this category.
I feel like most people don't consider that the content people post on Facebook is posted because the person wants everyone to see it... They wouldn't post about the absolutely mundane stuff that we all go though every day unless it's significant in someway. This is why it can be depressing, because you're looking at the best moments of hundreds of your friends' lives and you're just sitting there at the computer.
But when you post something interesting others feel the exact same way you did when they posted something interesting. Sort of a weird situation.
Why are people so interested in recreating a 'more open X' (where X is something like dropbox, skype etc...)? When these people could actually be iterating on these ideas and creating something different. Is it because there is lots of money/publicity surrounding this new found interest in "openness" or do these people actually believe that this is the most important thing to be working on? I am just trying to imagine what kind of new openness we could create if we began thinking outside of the framework that current applications provide already.
This is not not to say that they're not doing enough, but it's just a question that's been bouncing around in my head lately.
That may be true, however, we may understand that google has been doing this since day one but many people have no idea about this kind of stuff. Not everyone understands the Internet and how everything works... to some people I'd imagine this could be quite shocking.
But I do agree that this is definitely part of a trend and this could have been reported on at any time over the last couple years.
I personally found that some packages wouldn't install because they had dependencies that were broken in some way. This was about a year ago though, so I don't know how things have changed since then. Also, node packages seems to be small and specific so npm downloads many dependencies for each package. Again, I only played around with node for a little but I got a bit frustrated with all the packages and dependencies.
I don't know the details of what they do with it. But for instance, someone can purchase ads targeting a specific type of user and google probably uses this browsing data to decide if the user should be targeted for a specific kind of ad or not. That advertiser is in turn getting better ad targeting due to you using google analytics on your website.
Your analogy would only work if the website was actually hosting their own analytics. Using google analytics is quite literally participating in a larger tracking program.
It is not the same as individual shops collecting data on customers for their own use.
I believe that tracking users in this way is wrong no matter what the reason is. About 2 or 3 years ago I removed all analytics and other forms of tracking from my personal website and all other projects. At first it felt weird, now it just feels normal and when someone shows me their google analytics dashboard it feels plain creepy.
I suggest that if you support privacy then the things you create should reflect that.
I would tell myself to not be afraid of publicly failing. I had, and sometimes still do have, a really hard time putting myself out there. So, do not be afraid of the judgment of others; if you are proud of what you're doing then that's all that matters.
Definitely.... However, I have been working to keeping this subject alive but at a certain point people don't want to hear it and even more disturbingly I've found that many people don't think that our government would really do something like that even after reading about it.
Whenever I fly I request a hand screening and it seems that more often than not the person screening me is more uncomfortable than I am. In the past I have literally walked a TSA employee through the procedure because he was to shy to touch me like he was "required" to.
It's not only passengers who struggle with this stuff but also the employees of the companies that require this kind of behavior.
I am still outraged but I don't know what to do about it. I don't think the restore the 4th/1984 day stuff is the right way to go about it. That is a great way to spread a message but has about a 0% chance of shutting down the NSA etc...
This stuff has recently caused me to fall into a bit of depression because I feel totally helpless.
Yeah, that's sort of true... but I think people do see these snacks as real food. Pop-tarts are marketed as a breakfast food - this makes it seem as though you could eat pop-tarts in the morning before you start your day instead of a fruit salad or something more "time-tested"
People eat things like Pop-Tarts, Skittles, Grape Soda and other "food products" like that without researching the team behind them. Does it really matter what the team members' positions are?
I would trust a company like Soylent over General Mills until I have reason to believe otherwise.
I completely agree with you. I went to art school and studied programming in my own time and have found it to be the best way to establish a well-rounded interest set. Art school helped me develop critical thinking skills that could apply to nearly any field. However, from what i've seen many art school graduates do not realize this.