If someone calls themselves a chef or a foodie, it may not make them right when they say how long you should boil pasta, but it means their opinion about it IS based on care, thought, and knowledge

Wow, is that ever a crock. So, a person calling themselves a foodie means they've have exercised "care, thought and knowledge"? If I call myself a world champion surfer, does that mean I've ever waxed a board? Appeals to authority are one of the most dishonest forms of fallacy:

http://www.nizkor.org/features...

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:

Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.

But maybe you're just not familiar with logical fallacies. Well, that's something about which I know a thing or two to snatch a phrase from esteemed computer tech Marlin Schwanke. And you will not find an "ad hominem" anywhere in my post. If you think you also know a thing or two about fallacies, I invite you to point mine out. The purpose of my post was to point out the fallacy via sarcasm. There was no ad hominem. I didn't say Marlin Schwanke was stupid, or that all computer techs are stupid or that he's somehow a bad person or a Republican. I just pointed out the absurdity of claiming this authority as if it meant something.

I'll just bet you're a computer tech, too. And that, my friend, you can take as an ad hominem.

I am a computer tech. I repair tech all day long. I know one or two things about technology in general.

This is what's known as the, "Do you know who I am?" argument, and it's always a big winner.

If somebody tells you they "know one or two things about technology", you better BTFU because there are so precious few of these Masters of All Technologies that their pronouncements are as precious and rare as rubies.

So you Apple H8'ers out there better just sit down and shut up and learn something from Marlin Schwanke. Who is a computer tech.

Now comes the mobile phone, as people tend to upload pictures of their glorious bodies

The dick pic is the killer app of mobile phones.

I've always said this. I'm trying to remember the first time I held a mobile phone with a camera in it, but I'm pretty sure the first thing I did was reach for my zipper.

Can you substantiate this? Every time somebody has said this to me and they've gone into specifics, it's been bullshit.

You know, it's good that you come to me instead of the morons you've been talking to you, because I can definitely substantiate this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04...

http://arstechnica.com/busines...

See, the reason "Silicon Valley" (meaning the tech industry) is allowed to play this game is because they're willing to let the NSA upskirt your private information and communications. And since they've already got their hand up your dress, they're going to cop a little feel for themselves, you know? So the US Government is happy, the corporations get to make a shitload of money from your private information and communications, and they get to keep playing their little tax game.

If you had a government worth a damn (like during the trust-busting era), they wouldn't allow companies like Apple to perpetrate their little willful fraud.

Now, the next time somebody tells you about Apple and the government playing footsie to protect Apple's tax advantage, I hope you won't continue to say it's bullshit.

Same here. Which anti-trust laws? Be specific.

Same here. Now when somebody asks you "Which anti-trust laws is Apple violating?" you'll be able to tell them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

http://www.jstor.org/discover/...

See, the problem is "vertical integration". You can't control both the product, the store that sells the product, the insurance that covers the product, the consumables (media) that plays on the product and on and on down the distribution chain. Even making both the hardware and the software is arguably a violation of anti-trust. But when you start to also own the only store that sells software for the product and have a vested interest in every bit of software that runs on the product you've crossed so many lines that Apple should have been broken up into several companies long ago. Same with Microsoft and many others. They're not just over the line, they're WAY over the line. The technical term is an oligopoly. They are anti-competitive and they destroy entire markets. Oligopolies are what happen in fascist countries.

I hope you appreciate the time and energy I spend disabusing you of your notion that "it's bullshit". And I hope you enjoyed edification as much as I enjoyed providing it.

Don't they realize that by definition, "non-piratable" means less useful? How does Apple and Bono's new magical DRM know the difference between me putting the song I bought on my Nexus and copying it for a friend?

And you know what? Bono is becoming a little embarrassing. For that matter, Apple has become a lot embarrassing. You would think that after their recent, "You will take this album whether you want it or not" routine that they'd maybe take a deep breath before coming up with another brainstorm together.

Wake me up when Apple partners with some interesting artists, like Deerhunter or Demdike Stare or Charlie Boyer And The Voyeurs. Fuck Bono and fuck Tim Cook and fuck Apple and their jewelry.

I'm glad I got that out of my system. So, how about them Bears?

Apple does some odd things, but I can't imagine anyone could watch the Charlie Rose interview of Tim Cook and come away with the impression that he and Apple don't care about their customers. To hold that position you'd have to believe he was a pathological liar and just plain evil.

Well, there is a very high potential benefit to having a CEO who is a pathological liar. So high, in fact, that it would be incredible if someone rose to that position without being a pathological liar. And didn't Steve Jobs set the precedent?

And you do understand the reason Tim Cook goes on Charlie Rose, right? It's not because they're old friends having a nice chat. It's a very carefully planned and controlled public relations effort. They're trying to "shape the narrative" which is pretty much the definition of pathological lying. Celebrity CEOs are all about image, and image exists to fool people.

Because when it comes to security, "almost" is "not at all".

How would providing data to the USA government raise their stock prices? If anything, it would lower them.

Maybe you don't get the full picture. They cooperate with the US gov't, and the gov't looks the other way when they try to claim that 80% of their profits come from outside the US when it's tax time. Apple has so many sweetheart deals with the US gov that it's not funny, mostly in the area of non-compliance with tax code or outright tax evasion.

This increases the bottom line and that increases stock price.

Just the fact that Apple is allowed to flaunt the anti-trust laws is a good example of why Apple (and shareholders) benefit from spying.

[Full disclosure: Apple stock bought in the '80s and throughout the '90s paid for my daughter's undergraduate and graduate education. Plus a couple of new cars (though modest ones, not the Gallardo I had hoped. You know, Mazdas and like that. I cashed out around $650.)

Apple's recent decision to rework its latest encryption in a way that makes it almost impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police.

"Almost impossible".

They really think you're stupid.

It's interesting that this story hits Slashdot the same day as the story about Apple double-pinky swearing that they'll never, unh-uh, not ever unlock your iPhone for law enforcement any more.

I don't believe a fucking word. They'd throw a baby off a bridge for a $2 bump in their stock price. It's the same with any corporation, but they're closed ecosystem just means there's no way to protect yourself.

All this "canary" bullshit begs the question why, if Apple really cared one little bit about their customers, don't they just come out and say what they have to say. Apple may be one of a very small handful of corporations that actually could stand up to the surveillance regime. As far as I'm concerned, tacit complicity is worse than loud complicity. Especially when your selling yourself as someone who can be trusted with peoples' mobile payments and personal information and when you pretend you "Think Different". Remember the famous 1984 Apple ad? They are now part of the problem.

I'm using the example that was often cited in the 90s, you're 3 hours into your vacation and are worried you might have left the stove or coffee maker on.

Here's a radical idea: an automatic shutoff. You know, like those $10 electric water kettles have had for years that shut themselves off when they reach a boil? You could have a stove that simply shuts itself off if it fails a state check. Come on, your example sucks. A 50 cent circuit that does automatic shutoff is a hell of a lot less expensive and intrusive than giving your stove and coffee maker an IP address and having to connect to it via a cell phone. And I hope you're vacation isn't on some relaxing beach or national park where there isn't cell phone service, or you're screwed. Meanwhile, the auto-shutoff would be looking out for you even if you happen to be water skiing without your cell phone clipped to the belt of your swim trunks. Yes, your example sucks.

Otherwise you have to worry the whole time, or call somebody and beg them to visit your house

So it's easier for you to accept an "Internet of Things" and all its attendant costs and loss of privacy, than it is to make friends with a neighbor you can call and actually check on your house?
Maybe you need a different type of "connectivity" in your life, friend,.

Networked coffee makers were, of course, already decades old, though most were custom built.

I have a cheap coffeemaker from Target that turns itself off after 2 hours. Which is great because coffee only gets nasty if it sits on a heating element longer than that.

I find it... unlikely... that you truly cannot find your own examples of where information about "things" is useful to the owner of said things.

It's not about not finding examples. It's about those examples not being worth the cost in terms of money, effort or the loss of privacy. Read my post. That was the punchline: It's not worth it.

Of course, none of this will happen, because it requires that we create a set of standards that everyone abides by.

It won't happen because our lives have been monetized for the benefit of a very few. It won't happen because now we are the consumables. The Internet has become a tool of tracking, behavior modification and political control.

The "Internet of Things" is a solution without a problem. There is nothing about the Internet of things that could not be accomplished without the built-in violation of privacy. When are people going to figure out that a large percentage, if not the majority of all new technical "solutions" are actually methods of taking something from you, instead of providing you with some service or improvement to a product? Once you get past the novelty, it's actually quite an ugly picture. From "smartphones" to mobile payments, "connected" appliances and all the rest, it's not meant to make your life better, but to alter your relationship to your possessions in order to enrich someone who does not have your best interests at heart. It's not enough that they've turned the Internet itself from a revolutionary platform for communication and the sharing of data into a shopping mall where the product is you. Now they have to turn your very life into a terrarium for their own enrichment.

And the worst part of the Internet of Things is that it's just not worth the price, no matter the price.

And we should believe Apple why? Who thinks that if Apple gets a national security letter that they're not going to comply? And what about access to the increasing proportion of data that is stored on Apple's servers instead of the local iPhone? Is Apple going to say no to the NSA/FBI/CIA on that, too?

We've heard these promises before.

The US Constitution was an open declaration of treason against the Crown

Nonsense. The Revolution had been over for years when the Constitution was ratified.

I think you mean the Declaration of Independence, which didn't have any amendments, much less a second one. Now that was a suicide pact ("Live Free or Die!"). The Constitution on the other hand, was the result of many of those same authors figuring out how to create a government and maintain an orderly society. It was also a counter-revolutionary document, to rein in some of the more extremist notions of democracy and fairness that were going around at the time. It was also designed to preserve slavery, which is a discussion for a different day. And the Second Amendment, very specifically, was designed as a tool to maintain slavery. It had nothing to do with a personal right to own and carry It had nothing to do with making sure tyrants could be overthrown. It was meant to preserve the Southern slave patrols because they were worried that some abolitionist might become President and prevent slave patrols from forming their nasty little posses. The Second Amendment is an artifact of slavery and of a very ugly period in our history. It's something we should be ashamed of. I say this as someone who has owned a gun over 4 decades.