Well you don't have to be a psychic to know what he's thinking: "How can we get our hands on some more metadata so we show users photos they want to remember?" Do you know what marketers did when they started getting too good at recognizing changes in shopping patterns like women being pregnant and consumers felt it was creepy? They made coupons with anti-offers, like next to the baby gear they were trying to sell you they'd put a lawn mower. That way users felt it was random and then it was okay. Besides that'd probably tie in well with their advertising, what mood you're in is probably very related to what ads you're susceptible to at the moment.

After the hype it seems that story was overblown -- looked like less than 1% were compromised

That's good. I haven't been able to keep up on the story with the holidays and all.

I'm thinking that services like TOR (and others) are the one hope for having an internet in the future that is worth having.

Of course, I have my own opinions but I won't share them because they reflect my own biases.

That may be the single stupidest sentence in the history of stupid sentences on the Internet.

You won't share what you think because it's what you think. Everything you see and think and say and do reflects your own biases. If you decide not to share a single bit of data that is floating around in your head if it happens to reflect your biases, that means you will spend the rest of your life mute, which come to think of it might be best for everyone.

I've just re-read your entire comment and it doesn't seem to say anything at all about anything. Are you a Markov bot? If so, your maker forgot to put in the AI.

One way or another, you pay for your free Internet services.

It's not "one way or another". It's ONE WAY.

Where do I sign up to pay for Google and Twitter and other internet services directly instead of via my private data? I've been to Google thousands of times, and I've never seen a "subscribe" button.

No, there is no "one way or another". You can ONLY pay for your internet services by letting companies upskirt your private communications and personal data. That gives you some idea of just how valuable your private data really is.

Now we have that story of more than half of all TOR nodes being owned by some hacker group.

The Internet has been weaponized against us.

Speak for yourself. Hating on HTML and web tech because you're bad at it is the lamest of the lame excuses. My users much prefer our HTML GUI over our shitty old desktop apps

Sounds like you're hating on desktop apps because you're bad at them .... though certainly that's a common problem.

Upper management are making these arguments because they're afraid of exactly that - if they can't hire the best people, their competitors will and their company will lose out (i.e. they will lose out).

" but anti-GamerGate has harassed far more women than GG has (namely, any)"

That's really how they talk.

The only thing you really need to know is - do you think they actually make them in mixed colors? Nah... they make a batch of a gazillion red beads, then blue beads, then green beads, then yellow beads... the tub is just their mix to maximize sales, they know that you'll end up with leftovers and will buy more expensive pure color packs to round it out. It's like how there's a silent conspiracy between hot dog sausages and hot dog bun makers, they avoid matching numbers so you'll always go out shopping more to make use of the leftovers. It's not exactly a coincidence when you end up with a tub full of colors you don't want.

It might be news to you, but capitalism - at least in the Russian variety and I wouldn't hold my breath on the US variety as of late - means a lot of the wealth has been accumulated on a few hands. I'm not sure that people are worse off on an absolute scale, but there's actually quite many feeling that they're worse off compared to everybody else. In Greece for example SYRIZA - the "Coalition of the Radical Left" - has been up to 27% in the polls lately. That's the birthplace of democracy, not some shithole that's never known anything different. Which I suppose is nicer than the way Germans reacted in the 1930s to the economic buttfucking of the Allies, I guess. In a dysfunctional economy most everything will seem like it's worth trying and they can be very productive in unconventional ways. Like the German war machine that nearly broke Europe's back in WWII was build by a country allegedely on the brink of bankruptcy. But money is money and guns in guns and what the lacked in the former they got plenty in the latter. Don't underestimate Russia and China just because they're not western.

Of course I recognize the marketing phrase. I was just providing a little context to readers who might not realize that there were technology powerhouse corporations before Apple.

Kodak was developing and patenting new technologies when Steve Jobs' great-grandfather was selling pencils under a bridge.

I thought you sided with

I don't side with. I side against. Against 8chan pedos. Against rape apologists and definitely against anyone who harass women or condone sexual abuse of children. Against #GamerGate.

And definitely against anyone who would shit all over my long-time preferred pastime of video games the way GamerGate has done. More damage has been done to the gaming community in 2014 than in any time since I've been gaming. And sonny, I've got game cartridges that are older than you are. I've got cheetoh crumbs in my couch that are older than you and your fucked up microscopic cadre of sociopaths.

I think you'll be able to get "parts" for your android tablets for as long as you need them.

Yeah, fuck those kids who gotten a new toy

It won't kill you not to play your sociopath simulator for one day, cuck.