I think panic is the key word.

Microsoft doesn't want to be the next RIM. They've been sitting comfortably on their office/desktop monopoly while google and apple have (not necessarily for better) been driving the future of computing, and are worried they may no longer fit into it. Everything they've done recently screams of desperate flailing to stave off a march down RIM's "we innovated once, that aught to be enough" path of doom.

This comes off less as some young guy saying "tablets guys, tablets are cool, lets do tablets!" as some old guy screaming "everyone is using tablets and we don't do tablets, we need to get on tablets now!".

Indeed. I mean you can find them in google, but you'd think an article on the subject would at least include a screenshot of what it was actually talking about.

I've used the flashblock plugin on firefox for a long damn time, but I'm finding it has stopped working properly on a lot of websites, including just recently youtube. I'm guessing this is due to some javascript shenanigans, but haven't had time to investigate.

Postfix? I thought postfix was pretty solid.

Legal expectation of privacy and social expectation of privacy are pretty different concepts.

Socially unacceptable behaviour is met with hostility, usually in proportion to the nature of the behaviour. Something extreme (like a guy beating his date) is likely to attract violence, something relatively minor like my cellphone example would likely result in being told to "cut that out and go away" (which is more or less the response I'm advocating).

See: http://slashdot.org/comments.p... for standard counter argument.

The counter-argument of "no expectation of privacy" is also oft repeated, and imo wrong (see http://slashdot.org/comments.p... for my also tired response).

Agreed, but see:

Citation needed, but at least perceptually I don't feel like everyone is sneakily recording my private conversations at a restaurant.

* there .. :(

Horrible as it is, this is a battle of social acceptance. Google wants wearing a camera on your face to become socially acceptable. Those of us who don't want to see this become the norm want to make sure it doesn't become socially acceptable.

Unfortunately the best way to achieve this is by being hostile towards people wearing the damn thing. Just as walking up to some random couple at a bar, pulling out your cellphone, and pointing the camera at them would likely attract hostility as a non-socially acceptable behaviour, so must wearing google glass.

This doesn't have to be violence, but it does have to be enough to make:

- the individual unhappy (negative re-enforcement against the socially unacceptable behaviour)
- observers nervous about engaging in the behaviour themselves (hmm, everyones telling this guy to shove his google glass up his ass, and one guy is even offering to help, maybe I shouldn't buy one just yet!)
- businesses nervous about incidents, hopefully enough to ban the devices

There are subtle but important differences.

Yes surveillance is ubiquitous, but it's usually managed by business owners or government agencies, which means it's very unlikely to end up on youtube. A bar wouldn't survive very long if they made a habit of posting embarrassing moments from their surveillance tapes on the web.

People with cellphone cameras is also ubiquitous, but using one to record something is usually fairly obvious.

Covert surveillance is also now mostly trivial, but it's not socially acceptable and very few people actually do it, so the chances of being covertly recorded in a bar are pretty slim unless someone has reason to.

Google glass is in an all new category. To many, walking up to a table while wearing google glass is roughly equivalent to walking up to that table with your cellphone camera pointed at the people sitting their, and thus has gotten much the reaction you would expect.

It's a fairly commonly used term, and I wouldn't really call it a grudge so much as an acknowledgement of the disconnect in reality with those who assume an out of proportion interest in anything involving space.

Lots of people find space interesting and are generally supportive of ongoing research and efforts, but generally maintain a healthy balance of other interests.

Space nuttery is in my opinion defined by an unhealthy and unrealistic obsession with space. These are people who would (or at least have said they would) sell all their worldly possessions for the opportunity to spend some time in space, who would volunteer for a one way trip to mars. Basically a space nutter is someone who spends a fair bit of time flailing their arms and shouting "SPAAACCEEE" excitedly.

Gotta agree.

Business in general has become very risk adverse with a few exceptions (spacex and google being the big ones). Many of us feel constrained in this environment where everything we do has to mostly work or we won't get a second change or an opportunity to improve it. Everything has become about risk management and ROI and soul crushing metrics. It's very refreshing to see this kind of apparent "lets just do something we know probably won't work the first time, and keep doing it until it does" attitude.

Indeed. I'm not a space nutter, but this impresses the hell out of me. With a problem this hard, the fact that they are down to minor mistakes like this and not major fundamental issues is awesome.