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Holbein

Re:Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon on Friday August 08, 2014 @09:14AM (#8152595)
Why don't you talk to joshkaufman about that "not providing any links" business, huh? But you don't, because you have a selective perception - what you do agree with does not need verification, apparently.

Here's a link for you: http://www.spiegel.de/international/amazon-seeks-fifty-perce...

Now about "childish": calling things what they are is indeed the adult way. You've been childish. And in your last post, you've also been cynical ("At least have the decency…"). Both are very bad traits. Please grow up.

Re:Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon on Friday August 08, 2014 @08:34AM (#8152466)
Well, I've read a few articles about that spat, and made up my mind. I suggest you read a few articles yourself, get ahold of the facts, and stop the way small kids argue ("monopschmopy").
Re:Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon on Friday August 08, 2014 @05:35AM (#8152071)
Bullshit. Amazon told Hachette & Co "we are granting ourselves a big discount, from now on we will pay 20% less than before. Since this is nearly a monopsony, you can agree to these terms, or loose a lot more than half of your income. But hey it's your choice... (suppressed snickers)". Amazon is not playing fair at all.
Re:Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior on Sunday July 27, 2014 @09:43AM (#8092710)
How about "how the Snowden relevations changed the behaviour with online porn"?

Because I'm considering leaving all that behind. Some creepy organisation going all peeping tom on me? No thanks.

Sure this has been researched as well?

Thanks for the link. While it does indeed looks nice, it's not what I had in mind. This is basically isometric 2D. You're looking at a plane. Things that rise up, like pillars, are not shown. You could not see that dam the way it really looks like in my linked picture.
The funny thing is, Dwarf Fortress is simulated in 3D. With the 3D viewer, you can even look at your terrain in 3D:

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r21/khyron2k/Dwarves/Dwar...

If DF would look like that during gameplay, I'd immediately start playing.

What a load of bullcrap... "where told".

If you have a equipment to down planes, it's also your duty to have the proper radar equipment to reliably see what's up there, something that those Rebels did not have. They just stole equipment out of their league, did not know how to handle it and killed 300 innocent travelers.

Re:NSA targets the privacy-conscious on Thursday July 03, 2014 @05:35PM (#7986000)
Well, it was ambiguous to say the least, with all those "you"'s in it. If it was meant as an analogy, maybe you should have written it like this:

> This is also silly. That's like people who walk into speeding traffic because they have the right-of-way. They won't get to hear about how the trial turns out from their grave.

Re:NSA targets the privacy-conscious on Thursday July 03, 2014 @03:51PM (#7985315)
Well, when you say

> You won't get to hear about how the trial turns out from your grave

that's equally projecting something onto me, so... that's not a great way to have a productive discussion neither.

Re:NSA targets the privacy-conscious on Thursday July 03, 2014 @02:46PM (#7984890)
> You won't get to hear about how the trial turns out from your grave.

Well, in contrast to you, I plan to enjoy my life instead of wasting it by worrying about some possible bad actor spying on me, which is what I'm must read is how you spend your life.

Sure, fight the NSA by engaging a little bit politically, and buying the right things. But apart from that, don't worry so much, man.

Re:NSA targets the privacy-conscious on Thursday July 03, 2014 @02:01PM (#7984639)
I think you're overestimating the NSA's capability to cross-reference your actions and compare them to "what people like me should typically do".

My point is, you should not change your behaviour to be a lesser target to the NSA. You'd just quickly become super paranoid. Instead you should live your live exactly the same, and if the NSA tries to make your live bad, that's the moment when you call them out on it - after all, it's the NSA that is behaving out of line. So they should change, not you.

Oh, and http://defundthensa.com/ , sure.

Re:NSA targets the privacy-conscious on Thursday July 03, 2014 @01:26PM (#7984437)
No. That's common sense. If you don't do something on the internet, there is no data. No data = nothing suspicious.
Re:NSA targets the privacy-conscious on Thursday July 03, 2014 @01:20PM (#7984387)
Yeah, and if you don't even have an internet connection, NSA is putting you on their most wanted list. Give me a break. Not doing something can't make you more suspicious.
The article failed to mention that the previous $199 ipod touch hasn't had a camera, but now it does.

Apple mentioned in a previous keynote that that $199 price point is kind of a magical barrier. If you can lower your price to <200, lots of people consider it that previously have not thought about buying it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfgyQcyDthw#t=425 (jump to 7:05)

So what they tried to communicate, badly, was: a product that is already a best-seller now also includes a camera. So now it has the potential to upend another category after music, communication and gaming: photography.

Re:This is Phil Fish on Thursday June 19, 2014 @09:09AM (#7915836)
I agree.

Also, Steve Jobs was probably even more driven, perfectionist and hurtfully direct than Phil. But Steve was just growing up in a different era, and cleverly realized that when a lot of people are looking, you should try to keep the illusion of being kinda nice.

Phil is not hated by everybody. Me, I thought Fez was kinda neat. I don't care about his demeanor, great art survives all that.

Re:Amazon Fire Phone on Wednesday June 18, 2014 @03:54PM (#7912415)
Both the object detection and that 3D tracking seems to be focused on consumption. Consume more movies, more music, more books, more apps!

How sad. A phone is the most intimate piece of technology we have, and all Amazon can think about making it a machine of consumption.

I wish they would have focused more enabling people to create things. You know, help them be active. Help change the world.

There's just a slight hint here that Amazon considers its users more like mindless money-spending media consuming drones.

A new device very rarely push the human race forward. The Kindle Phone is clearly no such device.

Re:Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware on Tuesday June 17, 2014 @04:19PM (#7906761)
What is speculation about this?

- wifi and celltower db query servers are indeed hosted outside EU

- Siri indeed uploads your whole address book - it even tells you about that beforehand!

- iCloud tabs must upload every URL to a central server, it would not work otherwise

- the mud puddle test* proves that iCloud backup is extractable from Apple servers by third parties.

*http://www.magnir.com/2012/08/how-secure-is-your-cloud-take-...

Re:Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware on Tuesday June 17, 2014 @04:06PM (#7906672)
Of course, if you buy an iPhone in Europe, and you want to use it any significant manner, you're getting spied on by US agencies as well:

- GPS: the wifi and celltower db queries that optimize the service are transferred into a foreign country.

- use Siri: uploads your whole address book to US servers before use

- use iCloud tabs: every URL you visit it uploaded to Apple's US servers

- turn on the only cloud backup solution available on the device, and all your data, including every SMS, every call and all your most private notes and photos are also transferred into the foreign country of the US, with a chance of it being analyzed by certain agencies.

In other words, this might qualify as getting spied on as well.

Re:Show HN: TripExpert – Professional Hotel Reviews on Friday June 13, 2014 @03:05PM (#7890333)
Great site!

So how do you come up with the TripExpert score? Do you read every review, map it manually to a number, then get the average? Or is it more like Rotten Tomatoes where each review only gets a shot at a thumps up or thumps down, and then you average those?

Btw: Slight coding error: On city pages, hotel names are overlaid over the preview icon, which makes them very hard to read on Safari 5.1.

Re:Apple Opens Up Touch ID To All Apps on Thursday June 12, 2014 @12:04PM (#7884178)
You did not understand me correctly. The problem is that this can be done remotely, over the air, even when you're not in the US.
Re:Amazon Launch Event on Wednesday June 04, 2014 @07:26PM (#7849140)
Indeed. Here's a screengrab:

http://i.imgur.com/b1edNBJ.png

She's clearly using something that looks like a phone.

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