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namankon Tools To Help You Hide Online Raise The Ire Of Advertisers

Oh right, because everything not relevant to the context of the situation must be dragged in to the discussion, right? Big data is the umbrella term and just throwing the term around signifies an understanding of analytics; the main reason for collecting all kinds of random data.

It can't be judged equally but then who is responsible for judging it?

namankon Tools To Help You Hide Online Raise The Ire Of Advertisers

I agree.

But for the sake of argument, why? "Big data" is huge an expected to grow exponentially over the next couple of years. This is just another form of big data.

namankon Tools To Help You Hide Online Raise The Ire Of Advertisers

But it's not your browser. Some kind people have created one for you. Should they not explore potential avenues of revenue? (what if advertisers pay browser makers 1% of their earnings via this cookie tracking thing?)

namankon USA must not hunt down whistleblower Edward Snowden

I largely view this as indoctrination.

In Canada, we sing (or used to; been out of school for some time) the national anthem at the start of each day. I think it's the same for most countries.

I wonder how something as explicit as a pledge of allegiance compares to the national anthem in terms of the effect it has on a child's values.

namankon USA must not hunt down whistleblower Edward Snowden

What's the pledge ritual? Seems like something reinforced via the education system? Please enlighten those of us outside the US.

namankon USA must not hunt down whistleblower Edward Snowden

The stop sign was made for you. You weren't made for the stop sign.

namankon Ecuador has received asylum request from NSA leaker Snowden

Exactly!

But it's important to post for it to serve the purpose.

namankon NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

It's not about validating an assertion as much as it is about exploring the truth.

namankon NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

It's not about responsiveness as much as it is about self-interest and bureaucratic thinking that is inherent in all institutions.

namankon A Great Response to a Cease and Desist Letter

We should start a consortium whose sole purpose is to put million dollar backings behind small companies trying to ward off trolls and assholes.

namankon NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

I find it to be the direct consequence of institutionalization.

namankon NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

Except that companies would want to negotiate, lets say, a contract to include a gray area clause that serves as an incentive for the companies to keep doing this.

Once this thing becomes legal, companies have grounds to organize this as a trade with the NSA. The funny (maybe scary is the right word?) part is that they can legally lie about this because it's with the NSA.

namankon NSA Boss Asks Congress For Blanket Immunity For Companies That Help NSA Spy

The implications are more serious than immunity for NSA actions.

This law could circumvent the breaking of ALL and ANY laws by these companies. After such a law is passed, companies may not have to be accountable to anyone. When questioned, they can lie about it and say the NSA said so.

They don't need to release transparency reports cuz the NSA said so. Any tech company can lie to the Privacy Commissioner cuz the NSA said so. They can do anything cuz the NSA said so.

This is the mother of all loopholes. Good luck, world.

namankon Why monopolies make spying easier

That's two governments out of 100+. And I'm not weighing in number of users per country because, in most cases, each country has it's independent government.

namankon Why monopolies make spying easier

Why is this surprising...the nature of a capitalist system is to have one winner.

namankon Why monopolies make spying easier

These days, America has one dominant search engine, one dominant social-networking site..

Correction:

These days, the world has one dominant search engine, one dominant social-networking site...

namankon New Dropbox Homepage

It's aimed at displaying value propositions to a new user - something that startups usually focus on. I suppose Dropbox must be looking to expand their market share.

namankon Google challenges U.S. gag order, citing First Amendment

So, if Google does continue like it should, at the very least we should watch out for Sergei & Larry's dirty laundry hitting the internet soon enough?

namankon New Dropbox Homepage

Interesting. My question is why is this setup like a landing page of a pre-funding startup?

Or am I missing something?

namankon Google challenges U.S. gag order, citing First Amendment

It's a start!

So what can the gov't do if companies don't co-operate? With individuals, there is blackmail and illicit co-ercion. What does the gov't do to corporations worth updwards of 100B to get them to comply?

namankon How FPGAs work, and why you'll buy one

Somewhat true.

I think the OP is targeted at programmers en masse. So, if we were to pick majority of embedded programmers and see if their application would benefit directly from an FPGA, I'm fairly certain my previous post would come in to play.

namankon How FPGAs work, and why you'll buy one

But that's not the contention here; those applications are outside the domain of most programmers, including embedded developers.

namankon Obama: If you are a US citizen the NSA can’t listen to your calls

"If you are a US citizen.."

The constitution of one country is being used to govern an infrastructure that powers many more.

namankon Obama: If you are a US citizen the NSA can’t listen to your calls

Well put. Trust has become the underlying issue here, everything else is semantics.

At the same time though, I think Obama is looking at a comfortable point where trust is traded off for security. Problem with such points is that they can shift in either direction depending on who is in charge - that's what's scary.

namankon How FPGAs work, and why you'll buy one

Would you trade off developer time to figure out how many registers to use, how many pipeline stages you want every single time you need to write code? How many of your developers are apt at figuring that out? And that's a decision you have to make every time you want to add a feature because FPGA architecture is, more often than not, dependent on the business logic you want it to encapsulate. It's cheaper to get an Arduino instead.

FPGAs look very attractive when you're used to comparing C#/Python/Java/everything to C but that fades away as soon as the complexity in managing code on FPGAs comes to light.

All the points mentioned in the article under "performance"? It's left up to you, the developer, to configure the board in such a way that you can leverage them. And that's before you've written a single line of the business logic.

In theory, FPGAs give you the power to code your business logic as circuits (making it monumentally faster) but in practice, the story is very different. You may want to look at High Frequency Trading - they use FPGAs for stock analysis there.

namankon How FPGAs work, and why you'll buy one

Programmers don't give a crap about the reasons mentioned in the post. So, if FPGAs do take off in the dev community, it'll be for different reasons.

Such as when 80% of the world's code can be, with accuracy, can be parsed into HDLs.

namankon Skrollr - parallax scrolling for the masses

NO.

What's the point of this? Parallax exists on the mobile because a phone IS a 3D object and because it's used for 3D applications.

When is the web used for 3D? The closest we come to 3D on the web is games; and JS games already do this.

namankon Dear Mozilla, stop watching me

You're wanting to do away with the whole concept of analytics.

Though I've often pondered over the implications, I'm not convinced that not gathering analytics is the solution here. This is not too far from the debate about AK-47 - would it be better if the gun had never been invented? How about nuclear power?

The point is that analytics are the way of the future, the differentiation lies in the purpose for which you leverage them.

namankon COINTELPRO

FBI's stated motivation was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order.

So the only way to progress is...how again?

I wonder how they view innovation, startups, and Silicon Valley.

namankon Man's static jacket sparks alert (2005)

How is such a large accumulation of charge possible in an open system that is everyday life?!