Oh my god, how horrible. My videos may autoplay again.

Sorry but the possibility that someone may somewhere change a setting is still not enough to warrant going through the effort of setting up browser plugins to do what is already just an optional tickbox.

Also you're assuming that people want a really basic system. Most people don't. As platforms like snapshat and twitter have shown they tend to augment things like Facebook.

If they go down that route they wouldn't be able to charge people with medical conditions that make them obese more either. I'm surprised it hasn't been challenged already, although I note that European carriers tend not to and perhaps that is why. They can't charge extra for things like wheel chairs either.

Japan Airlines (JAL) makes a big deal of their 10cm extra leg room and charge a little more for it. They seem to be doing okay with it.

1) I just went and pulled the first anim-gif I saw off 9-gag, a fairly simple thing of Ralph Wiggum with little motion, so it should compress quite well for an animated gif. Size: just over 400k. I then pulled the first video that showed up on my Facebook feed, a 30 second full motion clip, and downloaded the entire thing (including the audio stream, full quality). Size: just over 400k.

So....?

2) Are you actually sure that it is downloading the audio stream when it does muted autoplay? Not saying that it oes or doesn't, but do you actually have evidence either way?

3) See the reply below.

There's really no argument. If you're going to allow animated gifs, you should allow autoplay videos. So that we can finally put the nail in the coffin of the awfulness that is gif by removing the last common use of it.

And FYI, 400k is not that much. Slashdot is a pretty simplistic website compared to most, and I just measured how much data is downloaded just to read the front page: 1.4M.

Since when do ACs get modpoints?

Or you could just change the Facebook settings without downloading additional crap.

Why is it any more evil than animated GIFs? Both play automatically, neither happen with sound, and compression on x264 is *way* better than with animated gifs.

I was initially opposed to autoplay on FB, but after thinking about it, I changed my mind. We already see tons of animated stuff on web pages, and the videos from people who show up on my page about are usually things I'd find interesting (if the user posting them didn't usually post interesting things, I'd have stopped following them). There's no unexpected sounds to bug me, and the quality to size ratio versus animated gifs is, what, two orders of magnitude better?

Uh, GP didn't say he never uploaded photos to iCloud. He said he does NOT upload photos he doesn't "want distributed widely" to iCloud.

Basically, it's a good piece of advice generally: if you have very sensitive data that you'd like to keep private (whether it's financial data, passwords, nudie photos, whatever), it's probably best to keep your own control over that data. Devices that are attached the internet and which randomly transmit your data to other computers there are NOT guaranteed to be secure.

The ONLY place you have your photos of your kids is on your phone and on iCloud? I have electronic copies of photos I care about shared via a syncing utility (not based on commercial servers or services) on at least four different computers, with at least two different computers in different locations running backups daily.

I probably shouldn't get involved in this discussion either, but I'm pretty sure that GP is NOT placing any blame on the victim, especially since he explicitly said that.

In case you've never thought about this, it is in fact possible for a number of factors to be preconditions to a criminal act without all of them being "responsible" for the criminal act. (You might consider reading some philosophy on the nature of causality here.)

Or, to take this to a less controversial topic, let's say that I observe that you keep arriving at work on rainy days with your clothes soaked. I carry an umbrella in my bag every day, just in case.

If I told you that I found things worked out better for me in terms of not having wet clothes when I get to work by carrying an umbrella with me, would you conclude that I've "allocated responsibility" for the weather to you? Of course not! That's preposterous. The weather is the weather, and you're not somehow "responsible" for causing the rain if it rains on you and soaks your clothes.

But carrying an umbrella might help. Suggesting that you could carry an umbrella is not "blaming the victim" of the rain -- it's pointing out that reasonable precautions can sometimes help to avoid bad situations.

I know that if I were a famous actress or something, and I knew that nude photos of me would be desireable by some sick hackers out there, I'd take extra precautions. That's not "blaming the victim." That's recognizing that evil people are in the world, and that's crap, and those evil people are 100% to blame for their stupid actions... but sometimes it's a rainy day, so preparation could help. I frankly feel very bad for those women whose privacy was violated here -- and I think it's really, REALLY important to talk about how to prevent such things in the future, which includes education about how to perhaps avoid dealing with these bad guys in the first place.

I absolutely get why the OP who started this thread sounded offensive by saying this was "overblown" or something. I do NOT get why you feel the need to attack someone (GP) who is talking about reasonable precautions to take to avoid being taken advantage of evil people in the world. In an ideal world, those evil people wouldn't exist... and I could let my doors open at night, post my financial passwords and data on a public website, and store my stash of cash on my front porch. But we all recognize that bad people will take advantage of situations like that. We all take precautions. Observing what sort of precautions might be helpful in certain circumstances is not "blaming the victim."

While this is true, most doctors mention that one needs to be careful about using stockings that squeeze too tight (which can make the problem worse) -- too loose, and blood pools in the legs, too tight and they can prevent circulation. Ideally, compression stockings should have them properly fitted or run them by your doctor for the best results.

Maybe passengers can take the blame for fighting incidents. But probably not other problems that may arise... like medical issues.

It's long been known that flying in cramped conditions leads to a much higher risk of blood clots and deep vein thrombosis, particularly on longer flights.

The most common recommendation to avoid these problems is to move around more -- both actually getting up and walking around and doing various exercises to move your legs around while you are sitting. Making flights more cramped makes it more difficult to both -- when it's harder for people to maneuver in and out of a cramped seat, they are less likely to do it as often to walk around (particularly for older folks or those with more difficulty moving around, who are more at-risk for these problems). And if you are tall, these new seats may make doing any kind of leg motion in your seat nearly impossible for exercise.

This is not a minor issue. Average treatment costs for a year after a diagnosed case of DVT are $20,000-30,000, not to mention potentially life-threatening complications.

Right now the incidence is significant but still relatively low (maybe 1 in 4500 people who fly). It will be interesting to see if further restricting motion and cramming people in will increase these risks.

And if it does -- then the cost of cramming people into tighter seats is more than just the potential for some disagreements and fights. We may be talking about serious expensive medical problems, potentially resulting from airlines squeezing one more seat in here or there.

Well, uh, call me "strange" if you must, but I actually am not an anarchist. I'll join the various libertarian appeals here on occasions to complain that our government is too big -- but I think we need SOME government. And funding for that government has to come from SOMEWHERE.

Our elected representatives have set up a system to fund that government through taxation, and I absolutely agree that at least SOME of that revenue needs to be collected to serve fundamental government services (e.g., police and emergency services, at least some military, basic infrastructure, etc.).

So yeah, I actually believe I have a "moral obligation to give the government my money" as a general matter, assuming I actually want the benefits the government provides. I may disagree about the amount that I think is fair, but I have the option to try to elect representatives who will agree with my view -- if not, by continuing to live in this country, I agree to abide by its laws.

If you don't like the government and don't believe you have a moral obligation to fund it, move to some other place where you can have your anarchist paradise.

As for the specific case of businesses asking for special tax breaks, I also believe it is immoral and antithetical to the nature of law to ask for personal exemptions from laws that others must follow. It leads to corruption of politicians and the legislative process, and it's fundamentally unfair. If tax rates are too high to attract businesses, then lower tax rates for ALL businesses. Asking for a special exemption from the law just for yourself is not just. And yeah, I think taking an advantage of such an exemption is actually immoral.

Of course, I realize these things happen all the time. That doesn't mean it's desirable or moral behavior. Is it "legal"? Well, yeah, if you buy a politician or a few, it is. But don't pretend that it should be sanctioned as "moral."

At the expense of likely quid-pro-quo types of arrangements with politicians. I'm not naive, and I realize that these sorts of things happen in the real world. But every time we rationalize private deals made between big corporations (or rich people) and politicians, we're asking for more corruption.

Umm, NO. Sure, you're right that some people argue for zero corporate tax. I'm not saying that's an invalid argument. But what's unfair is that if you REALLY want "zero corporate tax," you give it to ALL corporations. That's fair.

What you're talking about is an anticompetitive practice that gives large corporations an unfair market advantage. Say I give a major tax break to a company that employs 10,000 employees. You know who gets screwed? 200 other local companies that each have 50 employees or whatever. Because they're forced to pay the normal tax rates, while your giant corporation is exempt. Sure, most of those companies may not be competing directly against the big company, but some of them might be.

And if the state's corporate tax rates are uncompetitive, the FAIR way to fix that is to lower them for ALL corporations, not give an unfair advantage to large corporations that already have many advantages in the marketplace.

Or is your goal to drive local small businesses out of business?

By artificially lowering the tax rates for a few select corporations, you are also allowing the state to continue ignoring a potential problem of too high corporate tax rates for anyone else. Anyone with the clout to negotiate gets the lower rate, while other local small businesses get screwed. That's the exact OPPOSITE behavior of something that will drive tax rates to zero -- because the local tax rates are artificially propped up by the people who can't fight them.

"Fair" in terms of the law means that we all get to play by the same rules. No one should get to "negotiate" out of abiding by the law. If corporate tax is too high in a state or local area to draw these large businesses, the correct way to fix this is by lowering corporate taxes FOR EVERYBODY. If enough big businesses refuse to move to a state because of its tax structure, it puts pressure on the state legislature to move toward your ideal world of zero corporate tax. If, on the other hand, companies get arbitrary individual tax rates, there's no such pressure, and the only benefits accrue to the biggest companies with the best lobbyists and connections... which is a recipe for corruption and unfair to actual local smaller businesses.

So? Apple developers don't care, customers may care. Protesting is about two things, PR and disruption.

Lots of disruption cases are illegal especially in a public setting so disruption is typically reserved for private cases but then how can you be disruptive if you don't have access to the private premises? Disruptive protests are normally done by employees internally but they aren't going to complain about the tax breaks their employer received.

In cases like this the protest is exclusively a PR campaign to raise awareness. Disruption will likely end them in jail, fined, or worse still as in the cases of the Google Buses people may not sympathise due to a misdirected attack.

What they did here was get their face on TV. It's about the best form of public protest you can have. Who cares about a few thousand developers when you have the evening news and media sites picking up the story? In some cases getting your face on TV is the end game and there really is no point it wasting your time beyond that.

I'll bit, and I'll call you silly.

Many projects evolve over their lifetimes. This isn't just an IT thing. In many cases during the construction / commissioning stage you'll come out of the end with a wishlist of things and features to add in the future. Many such things would be impossibly expensive (both in money and lost time) to add during the project stage, and many projects which demand everything from the very beginning end up turning into an unmanageable behemoth.

If the primary goal was to get 500 servers operational then adding this after the go-live is perfectly legitimate.

Look, I normally don't respond to AC trolls -- but my record of posts is available for you to peruse as you'd like. I've been active here for years, and I haven't hid my knowledge of stats, which I make use of periodically in posts (and even do some of my own calculations to respond to posts from time-to-time).

I have a durable record you can feel free to follow and search. I'm not "hiding" as an AC, and on the rare occasion where I'm unnecessarily harsh to someone in a post, I apologize. You, on the other hand, are an AC randomly swearing at people while you hide behind the cloak of complete anonymity, knowing whatever you say will never follow you anywhere.

Have a nice day! Cheers!