I'm one of the technical cofounders of a software startup. I'm often dumbfounded by how shortsighted my business counterparts are. Some of their behavior can be legitimately justified on account of their concern for the company's bottom line- but only some. For example, they have recently tried to outsource app development for the fourth time (that I know of), thinking it was a quick solution. And for the fourth time, it failed. After talking to them and hearing them go on about how it was still cheaper to outsource development work instead of hiring someone, I still don't think they've learned their lesson.

Their core problem is nothing more and nothing less than the fact that they are "business school" graduates. Because instead of running businesses in a technocratic manner with the intention of selling a good product, we instead need to train a separate class of people to do this nebulous thing called "business", which involves short-term thinking, buzzwords, and a ton of ass-kissing. And it seems that the ultimate purpose of this thing called "business" is just more "business".

Put your Tor client in a Secure Linux VM, so none of your hardware information can be exposed. Go to https://check.torproject.org/ to check if Tor is working, and make sure NoScript or something similar is enabled.

Ok, you have been mostly reasonable but this is kind of ridiculous. There is no way that my cell phone in my pocket can tell that I am looking at a specific billboard or building front.

I'm an Android Developer that develops autonomous high-detail locator apps for public transit telemetry systems running Android, but that wouldn't really tell you why I'm right. So I'll describe exactly why you're wrong.

Phone GPS/Network Location Providers can give speed/heading based on the direction and spacing of your last few positions. This tells me what direction you're headed (since most people don't walk backwards), and more importantly, I can use this information to normalize the output from the phone's accelerometer/tilt sensors. So if your phone is sideways in your pocket, my knowledge of your bearing lets me figure out how much the phone is offset from the standard "flat in hand front to back" orientation so that I'll be able to properly interpret the output from your tilt sensors. I'll be able to tell the difference between running and walking, I'll be able to tell when you move your torso relative to your legs.

I can also use wifi networks or network location providers to figure out where you are even if your GPS is off.

You're seriously underestimating the number of sensors on a standard Android device, and the complex inferences that can be drawn about their simple output.

I defy you to say that you would be capable or even willing to maintain custom ROMs for all of your associates and family

Most popular custom ROMs come with OTA updaters. There are third-party ROM updaters as well.

Once you've loaded a custom ROM you are excluded from any future automatic updates/security patches.

No you're not. ROM updates merge in the latest security patches.

It's not any different than the current problem with Android fragmentation and custom ROMs. If you follow that logic, it leads to a place nobody wants to be.

You either know very little about custom ROMs or you're not very competent at using them.

This comes across as a really contrived set of objections, for a number of reasons.

First of all, all the "they're reading my mind, man" objections can be put to rest with a custom ROM, as I already addressed. Same goes for cellphones.

Second, the "outward tracking" objection is naturally limited by battery power and user consent.

Third, you haven't really described how the basic capabilities differ from a cellphone. Yes, there's a cosmetic difference. But cellphones already accelerometers and tilt sensors- they can tell which direction you are facing and what position your body is in. The "outward tracking" distinction is superficial.

I'm not really a huge Glass fanatic, but these really just come across as whining from conspiracy theorists. Sure it could track your vitals. No, it won't unless you let it, otherwise every major government and data protection agency in the world will eat Google alive. Can you even imagine the EU fine?

Leave out the "slippery slope" objections until you've actually got evidence that such an undertaking would even be economical in the face of the coming ad bubble burst and the government fines.

"Google Glass is scary because it's easier to record others!"

You have a cellphone in your pocket capable of doing just that, and pinhole surveillance cameras have existed forever anyway.

"Google Glass is scary because GPS!"

Your cellphone doesn't even need an active GPS setting in order to be tracked. As an Android App developer, I can just use a Network Location Provider and triangulate your position to within 100-1000 meters. If you have a cellphone, you're being tracked just as easily as with Glass.

"Google Glass is scary because it might serve me ads!"

That's from an early video parody of Glass. Ads are against Google's guidelines.

"Google Glass is scary because they're trying to get us to depend on it, then sneakily put in ads and spyware!"

Even if they do that, we've already got the dumped firmware for Glass. Just run a custom ROM on it.

"Google Glass is scary because some pseudo-libertarian tech journalist told me to be scared!"

Oh ok, I guess that explains the inconsistency in your position. Funny how all these former pro-corporate tech gossip douchebags are suddenly worried about your rights. Where were they 10 years ago? And for that matter, where were you?

1. Banning ad-blocker apps from the Google Play App store

2. Banning jabber invites

3. Killing Google Reader

They're too big to need to play nice with anyone.

Look, that guy ("Required Snark") might have been an asshole, but you didn't really acquit yourself well either in your original post. I cofounded and work for a real-time telemetry contractor. We use Android, but the Linux kernel isn't built to handle read-time applications reliably. There are too many things to handle in terms of time-safe task-switching, execution, multi-processing, and internal consistency in order for it to be a good RTOS. So keeping that in mind, I had to implement a real time environment in userspace that uses root and some native code in order to collect data, send data, and operate hardware in a safe, timely manner. But this isn't the best solution because I still have to deal with the fact that it's all just a frustrating abstraction sitting on top of a kernel that isn't at all concerned with what I'm actually trying to do, despite my best efforts to single-handedly make the necessary changes.

Your "newer processors" bit is also completely off the mark. Radiation-hardened processors lag generations behind owing to the need for extensive redesign and testing. Complicating this picture is the fact that even then, they still have varying levels of reliability and power efficiency. You don't want a processor that has a microcode architecture that makes your targeted code difficult to semantically evaluate and verify. You don't want (or need) a recent processor that hasn't had extensive real-world user testing. You want a processor in the goldilocks zone, one that you've worked with before and has a community behind it.

Keeping that all in mind, they chose a good processor, and already had an OS largely built for it based on previous missions with earlier versions of the same processor.

You're jumping on a bandwagon, parroting what you've heard others say. The first release had some glaring issues that invited SQL injections, mostly. Then the source was released and others began fixing those issues while keeping the data model and UI work the kids had done. As my parent post indicated, you can't judge Linux 3.6 by looking at Torvald's first shitty Linux release. Same thing here.

Frankly, the whole "better to do nothing" idea is completely asinine. It was first started by a blogger, Peter Cantrememberlastname, that wanted to elevate his pageviews by promoting the sensationalist view that the first release was so broken that it was unsalvageable. Completely wrong. Go look at the crypto section of the Diaspora wiki and the source itself if you still have doubts on the basis of a shitty, condescending blog post from two years ago.

I guess you're the center of the universe, then. It didn't happen if you didn't read it. So I'll provide some tech news/blog posts about the similarity. FYI, Diaspora first released the aspects ("circles") feature and the alpha UI in September 2010. Google+ launched in June 2011.

http://www.gizmag.com/diaspora-google-plus-resemblance/20638/

http://www.launch.co/blog/did-google-copy-diaspora-or-vice-versa.html

http://babyfruit.typepad.com/mediagirl/2011/09/google-meet-diaspora-or-maybe-you-know-them-already.html

http://www.launch.co/blog/diaspora-finally-unveiled-feels-like-google.html

No, it uses different "pods", or diaspora servers. These pods communicate with each other, hence the "decentralized social networking" description. You set up an account with one pod, but you can communicate with people on other pods. You can search for a person faster if you know what pod they're on. I have an account on diasp, so my address is [username].diasp.org, which could help you find me if you're on another pod. As far as I know, all pods achieved federation some time ago, so this shouldn't be a problem.

This is a completely sensationalist and somewhat deceptive post.

First of all, those security bugs existed in the first release, before Diaspora even went open-source. Discussing Diaspora's first bugs without mentioning its current project status is like complaining about the first release of Linux when Linux 3.6 just came out. The author is deliberately leaving out information about the current status of the project in a way that is intended to further a deceptive conclusion in the reader's mind.

Second of all, check out http://diasp.org/ because it seriously works.

Third, Diaspora is still being developed by its community.

Fourth, Diaspora had the equivalent of the "circles" feature before Google+ did. In fact, the first release of Google+ looked so similar to Diaspora that people started to talk. And acting like Google+ somehow made Diaspora irrelevant is totally stupid. Apples and Oranges. Big Data and decentralized social networking. They have different purposes and therefore can't be directly compared.

Quit with the sensationalist tech journalism. I don't even use social networking much any more, but considering the friends I know who swear by Diaspora, I know its far from the idea of "a few young kids" creating a failure, which is what this stupid article champions.

Five years ago I did my IB thesis on this robot. This is very old news.