tzmudzin

So how much did you pay for your GPL software? Or for posting your comment? Do you expect to pay with your privacy for those?

For sure there's no free lunch, but I believe you're making it too easy for AVG. An antivirus is a piece of software one normally trusts. It's a shame if this trust is misused. And let's not deceive ourselves that users will attempt to understand fully the technical stuff behind the data privacy statement they put out. While trivial for an IT person, the jargon will not be understood by non-techies.

so why settle on a bmw if bentleys are even nicer, and you should not be blamed for such urges?

The hobbyists being the communication networks, tracing your phone location?

I guess this has been tried before: http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention

The /r/piano FAQ (https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/wiki/faq) is a great starting point. There's a ton of resources available online, so the trouble is actually in picking the really good ones. Still, if you want to play well, you should probably get a teacher.

As for myself: I've started lessons about 6 months of trying on my own. The teacher's role is to point out the small things one does not even notice when learning on one's own -- and those can really make a huge difference. But in the end it is all about the learning process -- seeing what works for you at any given stage, filling the gaps, re-evaluating periodically if your approach should change. And it's a long-time project. Most people become comfortable after 10 years or so of daily practice. So either you're extremely committed/desperate/forced/enjoy the learning process with the long-term goal in mind, or you quit.

The specific resources I can recommend are:

  - Lypur's video courses on youtube (both piano + music theory)
  - "Piano Handbook" by Carl Humphries
  - "All About Music Theory" by Mark Harrison
  - http://www.musictheory.net
  - Willi Schneider's "Klavierfibel"

If you want a subjective, personal view as anecdotal evidence on this:

music IS another language.

There are regional variations (Western vs oriental) with their own phonetics (scales...) and grammars (rules of harmony, chord progressions). Not to mention that quite a few musicians describe it as a means to express themselves.

Reading sheet music is not much different from reading in a different alphabet, music theory is the equivalent of grammar study, and BTW playing by ear is pretty much like the natural language acquisition (the way kids pick up their mother tongue).

You'd be surprised how many parallels both in the nature and in the learning process you'll find. Learning music is like learning another language [Source: I'm a multilingual who just started learning to play piano as an adult.]

EDIT: formatting

I'm surprised the alleged Niels Bohr baromoter story did not show up here yet: http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp

Is this really supposed to be more effective than an enforced legislation? It might work for one or two big names, but only until people get tired with the news of another bully. And you need it to work for all players, not the top one or two.

If the above does not speak sufficiently: think of the efficiency loss caused by everyone having to watch who's the latest culprit in any market they enter... I'd never thought I'd ever advocate compliance & legislation -- but this is just a perfect case for it, also from an economical perspective.

...so maybe they should keep their hands off the aggregates as well?

For the surge pricing, I'm a bit at a loss, because you don't need personally identifiable data for it, just a request counter per area ID, right? Maybe I don't understand it right though...

Also, the reasoning should be the other way around: if I cannot provide a service respecting the basic privacy of my users, I should not be providing a service.

The problem many people with Uber is that they leak information, rather than that they actually do creepy stuff...

Whether they brag about it or not, whether they make active use of it or not -- they did invest their time & effort into this type of profiling. Was this altruistic goofing around, with no bad intent? I'd prefer to believe that, but there are no checks in place to ensure this. And I believe most of their customers would be enraged to be subject to such a profiling, even just for the goofing...

They _published_ the data in an aggregated form, but they have _profiled_ the customers on individual basis.

Now contrast this e.g. to the principles of data protection that Germany has imposed...(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesdatenschutzgesetz)

Why would you believe the data was aggregated, and not available in individualized form in the latter case?

Not quite, as long as we as a society want to protect the minorities. Either you force equal treatment, or things can escalate quite quickly:

- basic right of owner to rent property to anyone he likes without explaining the decision (and not to rent to anyone else...)

- basic right of hotel owner to accept anyone he choses (and deny access to anyone else)

- basic right of restarant manager to accept anyone he chooses (and deny service to anyone else)

- basic right of transportation owner to accept anyone he chooses (and deny service to anyone else)

- basic right of hospital operator to accept anyone he chooses (and deny service to anyone else)

Now pick your minority: it might have been Jews or the Slavic for the Nazis, it might have been the blacks in South Africa -- or the US, or homosexuals in Russia. Or the red-headed, the fat, the old, ...

Once you step onto this path, it's hard to put hard stop someplace

You can go for plain "No thanks" as a slightly less variant. Still works, but does not emphasize your "superior" status and can be passed on really friendly, as when "thanking them for an opportunity to help them" (which you don't need to use).

Doesn't this match the real life societies have learned to deal with over the centuries? Your stupid mistake 20 years ago will probably be remembered by someone. Someone might even have a picture of it. But it will not be the first thing a stranger will learn about you.

So what is the marginal cost of storing the tape? And does it matter? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_cost)