DavidWanjiru

My two cents: rather than tell someone to change a word here, a colour shade there, what you should do is give your reasons for WHY. Why is this shade of blue better than the one I chose? Why is a given call to action better than another? That way, your opinion becomes, if not data driven, at least reason or anecdote driven. And that shouldn't demoralize anyone, I should think.

My guess is that the reason why freedom of speech only protects you from being made to shut up by govt through prosecution, and not being made to shut up by a private company due to the space it occupies in the world's technology and information zeitgeist, is because when the freedom of speech laws were formulated, the govt threat to your speech is the only major threat that existed. A Google kind of threat to freedom of speech didn't exist.

The question then becomes, is Google stifling freedom of speech? Can their impact on your freedom of speech by deleting your blog or posts be compared to the govt's impact on your freedom of speech through prosecution?

I say yes. Freedom of speech and similar laws seek to give you an immunity against govt, not because govt is evil, but because govt is powerful, and you are not. Google is powerful, and they were alive to just how powerful they were going to be when they came out with that don't be evil admonition.

Whereas Google took it upon themselves to not be evil, the writers of freedom of speech and similar laws tool it upon themselves to tell govt to not be evil. Should our societies protect individuals against entities who have power beyond some kind of threshhold? I'd say yes.

According to the bulk of the response I saw on African Twitter when this was announced, the simpler (and much cheaper) thing to do would be to remove visa restrictions for anyone with an African passport.

You're confusing "trust" with "use," which appears to be the cause of your apparent bewilderment. I could be wrong, however.

Suppose you were handling snakes. Some snakes are not poisonous, and don't need to handled with the care you'd handle, say, a black mamba with. However, you are being advised to treat every snake you encounter as though it was the most poisonous snake known, and apply every care that you normally apply to snakes that you know are poisonous.

Will you handle the snakes? Yes, you're a snake handler, remember? But you handle all of them like they are deadly, even the ones you "know" to not be deadly.

I don't know if this makes any sense, but let me try:

Everything a computer does boils down to a binary signal. Is the current on, or is it off? Everything else is an abstraction built on that on/off business.

Life, as I see it, similarly boils down to two things: finding love, and finding knowledge. Everything else is an abstraction built on these two things.

We seek to become what we seek to become because those that become what we seek to become are rewarded with love and knowledge. That thing we call purpose in life, and becoming someone, and making something of yourself, it's just love in various degenerate forms.

When we change the world, when we make a difference, when we make something of ourselves, we are simply chasing love. We end up loving ourselves, and being loved by others, and being loved by our gods.

The reason we become doubtful about life, I feel, is because we aren't sure whether what we are doing is going to receive this reward of love. That's why someone writing code for Adsense might feel like her job would me more fulfilling were she writing code for cardiac pacesetters instead.

But the love we experience in life doesn't have to be tied to what we do in life. We can love ourselves for the sake of loving ourselves, and without needing reasons for doing so. We can hopefully find people who are going to love us, and who we are going to love back, on similar terms. We may not be able to change society's prerequisites for loving us, but we can certainly change those prerequisites for ourselves and those close to us.

If we manage to do that, we won't need to become this or that in order to feel loved. Then we can do the things that we do because they interest us, or because they afford us a chance to work with people who interest us, or because they allow us to be with people we love the way we love ourselves. If that happens, it won't matter what you do in life, or the lengths of your shifts. Coz you could be working an 8 to 5 shift, but playing in a local band with an amazing bunch of friends, to people who love to hear your play. You could found a start up and do well, and then cash out and quit to go raise a family. You could be a social worker by day and an open source contributor by night.

Love yourself.

The utility of Facebook to me is exactly the same as that of the post office. The post office derives value from me by directly charging me for it. Facebook doesn't, but it's not because they asked and I said I won't and so they offered to offer me the utility anyway out of their benevolence. It's because they found a way to have advertisers pay for it on my behalf, in return for me looking at the advertisements of those advertisers. My attention and my presence on Facebook has value, just as my cold, hard cash has value. The reason I'm on Facebook is because it has a utility for me. If it didn't have that utility, I wouldn't be on it, and advertisers wouldn't pay for my being on it. When Facebook unilaterally takes away that utility from me, it feels akin to the post office closing my P.O. Box with my mail still in it.

Facebook and Gmail are private websites. What is privacy we talk about? Ownership? Investment? Is that all there is to it? Suppose the government wanted to shut down Google and Facebook; would the public object? Of course they would. Why would the public object at the closing of a private website? After all, they don't own it, so what's in it for them? Whatever is in it for them is what I'm arguing needs to be protected, and not necessarily under Facebook's or Google's terms.

My comment was in response to a story where Google has deactivated somebody's email address. Think about that for a minute. I receive payments for work I do using PayPal. My ownership of my PayPal account, and hence access to money I've worked for, is directly tied to my Gmail address. If Google can take away my Gmail address, they are, effectively, taking away my PayPal "bank account." Should they be able to do that, just because Gmail is "a private website"? I don't think so.

I didn't give Gmail my stuff. They offered to carry my communications between me and those I communicate with. I derive value from it, and so do they. It's a business transaction like any other, even though no money changed hands between them and myself. The world has come to know that David Wanjiru can be found at dwanjiru@gmail.com. That arrangement has suited David Wanjiru. That arrangement has also suited Gmail.

The question then is, who owns "dwanjiru@gmail.com"? If a prospective employer who's had my CV for three months wishes to talk to me, they'll fire an Email to dwanjiru@gmail.com. If my PayPal account becomes compromised, PayPal will send remedial steps of action to dwanjiru@gmail.com. When the higher education loans body in my country wants to pursue me for my college student loans, they send Emails to dwanjiru@gmail.com.

How then can it be proper that Gmail owns dwanjiru@gmail.com, so much so that at the press of a button, dwanjiru@gmail.com ceases to exist? And that this is done without any reference whatsoever to this David Wanjiru person?

Do I pay for Gmail and Facebook? No I don't. But me and Facebook, or me and Gmail, are in business as much as any other traditional, and protected business transaction, and I feel that my interests in that transaction should be protected too.

If they no longer wish to provide me that service, fine. But they can't block me out at their own will. They can, and the terms of service I agreed to say as much, but that's what I'm saying should change.

I'm not asking for Facebook or Gmail to mandatorily keep my stuff. I'm asking that I be given an opportunity to keep my stuff if they're no longer willing to keep it on my behalf, whether they're doing that because they want to cut costs, or because, per them, I've violated their terms of usage. When I first opened my Yahoo Email account, my storage was limited to 6MB. Megabytes. When it got full, I had a choice to delete some, download others, and so on. I didn't demand for more storage, because my deal with them said 6MB. (If I'm not mistaken, I could pay for more if I wished to).

Now they offer me unlimited storage (with a few caveats). If they want to revert back to 6MB mailboxes, they can't just unilaterally do so and get rid of my excess. They'd give me a chance to save my stuff, just as they've done in the past when they shut down services like 360 and Geocities. My argument is that the opportunity to save my stuff should be mine by right, not simply because Yahoo has good basic manners.

When my brother died in 2010, I posted to that effect on Facebook. Many friends (majority of them "real life," pre-Facebook/outside of Facebook friends) gave their condolences. Others called me. A few messaged me, etc. You get the picture.

That correspondence was, and remains, important to me.

Does Facebook own it? Can they delete it if they want to? Can they block me from accessing it?

The answer, at least as far as current law stands, is yes they can. I imagine the ToS that I signed up to indemnify them from any claims I may have.

But should they have these rights? If people had written me snail mail condolences, I'd keep that archive for as long as I want.

From where I'm standing, Facebook, Gmail, etc, are like the post office, as far communication between people is concerned. It just happens whereas the post office sells postage stamps to senders, and rents post office boxes to recipients, Gmail puts adverts in my inbox. In return, they deliver my mail, and agree to store my archive for me.

That shouldn't give them unilateral rights to my stuff, any more rights than a post office or FedEx or DHL would have (Oh look, DHL is actually a post office off-shoot). Because although it is on their servers, it's my stuff, in every sense of ownership.

The law currently favors them, but the law, I feel, will have to change. Even if the ToS says they own my stuff, that will have to change.

It is being disappeared. The exact same deployment of power, with practically no recourse other than a revolution (which I doubt fora such as HN can trigger).

Out of curiosity, have you actually tested your ability to tell the difference? You know, someone other than you puts, say, 10 samples in identical cups, randomly makes 2 coke, 3 pepsi, 1 Dr Pepper, and 4 from another brand unfamiliar to you, and you're able to identify each by smell each time?

I suspect this will eventually go the way domain names went. Initially, any random person would register microsoft.com, and Microsoft didn't have much recourse back then. Now they do, I believe, and I feel like this is a similar question of ownership of something virtual.

If I understand you correctly, the point you are making is the question of obligation. Is Google obliged to us? Well, no, private company, other search engines available, etc. I contend, however, that being a publicly financed entity is not the only path by which a company can, or at any rate should, become obligated to a public. Funds are not the only resource that a public can provide. A public also provides trust, without which a private company wouldn't make money, because the public won't use your product. That trust in my view is public a resource. And acquiring it is important to Google's business, which is why Google wasn't skewing search results in 2000, which is why Facebook wasn't mucking around with the Timeline in 2009. They had the freedom to do it then. Why didn't they? Because the outcome for us, and hence for them, would have been different. We hadn't "invested" our trust in them back then. Now we have, and they can't just fuck around with it just because private company, other brands are available, etc. Google isn't built on their brilliance only, it's built on our usage of their brilliance, and they can't act like we aren't invested in it. We didn't put any of our money in it, but money is not the only thing that a public puts, or could put, in companies. Are we Google owners? No. But are we Google stake holders? Yes we are, hence our demand they don't skew results in favor of some thing or other. I didn't sign up for that, and if I hadn't signed up, Google wouldn't be, would it? Can we resolve this by education? No, because Rome wasn't built in a day. If the govt wanted to shut Google down, can you imagine people protesting? I can. Why, and they don't own Google? Because they're stake holders.

I think a human would drive over a kidnapper. Say your car is bullet proof. A man in a ski mask wielding a machine gun jumps in front of the road and orders you to stop. You refuse, he starts shooting at your car as you get near him (this is why I made your car bullet proof, to keep you alive but unequivocally demonstrate clear and present danger to you). In such a scenario, if your only escape route is over the dead body of the man in a ski mask, I bet a human will take that option.

If I'm not mistaken, they use a similar technique to makes satellite images of earth that don't have cloud cover, or maps without cars and stuff, yet we know it is highly likely these were present when pictures were taken. So it's not fiction.

Wait, what do you mean black people are more likely to be pulled over, not because they're black, but because they're more likely to be young and hence more likely to speed? Which stat are you using, young black drivers as a proportion of all black drivers? Youn black drivers as a proportion of all drivers? And assuming we can assume all young drivers, regardless of race, are more likely to speed (unless you say otherwise), are the patterns of being pulled over amongst young black drivers similar to the patterns for young white/other race drivers?

Me, if I was working at Facebook, I'd have called it "Private Conversations." But hey, what's in a name?

See? These are the types of reasons why the-moon-landing-was-staged conspiracy theories keep cropping up.

This is not important, but how did they arrive at "E10S" when they went about shortening "electrolysis"? Anybody know?

Exactly how much more complex would the taxes be if you had non US people? Considering you're struggling with hiring, the complexity would have to be quite a bit to warrant missing out on non US talent, especially bearing in mind you could hire a pro to do your taxes when tax season comes around.

My sense of Uber has been a company using technology innovatively to provide a much better user experience, while using currently existing but idle resources (the cars and drivers that serve customers on Uber but otherwise don't for various reasons, reasons Uber has rendered irrelevant, hence the resistance they've seen). But if they need to subsidize their drivers or customers, what does that say about their value proposition? To me, it makes them just another company using mundane, old school tactics to outdo their competition. Medallions and subsidies are old school tactics. One keeps new players out. The other throws old players out. Neither has anything to do with the value you bring to the table.

The question them becomes, did Uber need to use similar subsidy tactics to become profitable in its mature markets? If yes, then this is just rinse and repeat, no problem. If no, then I'd argue there'll be trouble ahead.

If Uber, at first anyway, pay drivers regardless of rides made, then aren't such tactics philosophically similar to the medallion racket in America? To subsidize some part of the equation strikes me as underhanded, as opposed to purely being innovatively disruptive.

"Keep" implies agency and control. Keep it simple. Keep me posted. Keep your identity small. The entire article is premised on the existence of this agency and control. If it is lacking, then I would argue that that's not the type of situation he is speaking to.

Since we're talking life and pseudo science, here's my pseudo scientific take on life: Everything everyone does in life is aimed at getting two things, love in all its degenerate cases, and knowledge. Love from ourselves to ourselves, love from others, and love, now or in some future, from our deities. That, and knowing what this whole life and universe thing is all about.

But if Kyle incorporated Cruise before being introduced to Jeremy as stated in the complaint, how can Jeremy claim to own stock in a company incorporated without his knowledge, and incorporated before he even knew the incorporator, unless such stock was issued to him explicitly? Like, if I went and discussed some search stuff with Google, does that give me a share in Google stock? Even if I gave Google some groundbreaking ideas/techniques for the next frontier in search that makes them bazillions, the most I can claim is they stole my idea, not that I own part of the stock. Am I right?

"Can't recommend it enough" is what you meant to say, I want to believe.

Now I get it. The "beef" is that white replaced their white pawn with their opponents black knight, which of course the black king can't eat...

In the solution presented at the end of the article, whose turn to move is it? Who can't make any further moves coz they've been check-mated? That's what I don't get. If it's white, white can still move their king back towards their home row and there's more than one move left in the game. If it's black, black can move the black knight in between the two kings and we'd still have more than one move left.

I'm not much of chess person, but I don't get it. Even if the black knight plays for white, it's still not checkmate. What prevents the black king from "eating" that black knight?

If the moon were only one pixel: a tediously accurate scale model of the solar system ~ http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.h... [Edit: Best viewed on a PC, I think. I don't know if this will work on a phone/tablet.]

While I wouldn't say Larry Page and Sergey Brin have built google into a multi-billion dollar company by accident, I'd imagine they weren't thinking billions when they tried to sell their prototype to yahoo (they did try to sell what they'd built to yahoo or alta vista, did they not?). They set out to make webpages easy to find. Now they are onto a much bigger mission. At any rate that's what they say. That's the sense in which I mean being led somewhere by your company.