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Comment Re:Marketing over primary function of searching (Score 1) 232

The part you're missing is that google's algorithms don't attempt to understand the words. That is why they actually can index and search foreign language pages effectively. My wife searches for stuff in Thai all the time. Google didn't have to add any special Thai support for that. All they do identify strings and substrings. It is all based on what patterns exist. It is all just identifying lexical units and what other lexical units are used in relation to them, with no attempt at all at semantic understanding. So in your example, it tells you that in English it is more common to talk about "male scientists" than "female scientists." Indeed, even news articles reporting on the gender imbalance in science is likely to use the term "male scientists" and not the phrase "female scientists." Even without any sexism, just the nature of having an imbalance means that in many cases you would pair one group with the position that lacks parity, and the other group with the people not choosing that position. So you might talk about "male scientists," and then about "female students" not choosing a career in science. Once you understand that, then you can just click on the link and get to your results without embarrassment.

In the old days when google had a clear and literal search syntax, you could avoid those problems by just quoting phrases or word groups, but that doesn't work well anymore.

Comment Re:How to Deal with Bullies (Score 1) 232

What you're describing is a "natural monopoly" where they're used because they're better. It is totally approved of by US law. They're also allowed to enjoy the natural benefits of their position. They're not allowed to harm consumers, defined as making them pay more. Search is free, nobody had to over pay. They're not allowed to use tactics to keep the competition out. And they're not accused of that. They are absolutely allowed to be more successful than the competition. They're allowed to be more profitable. And they're allowed to put their own needs first. If they buy up the ISPs and refuse service or raise prices on the other search companies, that is when there would be an issue of preventing competition. Preventing competition never means just that you didn't help them out, or give them free advertising.

Comment Re:I just don't care (Score 1) 232

Search is free, and they're not compelling anybody to use it. Being a natural monopoly is in no way illegal. And you're allowed to enjoy the natural benefits of that. What is banned is only using it to harm consumers, as defined by price, and ability to compete. Listing your own stuff first doesn't affect anybody else's ability to have a search engine and order their own rankings. It doesn't stop them from doing anything. And since it is free, they can't be accused of gouging consumers.

It is just that simple. Customers have to be over-paying, or the competition has to be excluded, for there to be a problem. Google could totally leave the competition out of their search listing, and pretend they don't exist, and the competition could still run their own search engine, and advertise it, etc. To be doing something wrong, google would have to take control of some supplier, create a bottleneck, and use it as a choke point to keep the competition out of the market. If, for example, they were buying ISPs and dropping packets of search competitors, that would be illegal. Or if they intentionally bought up all the ISP service available, so the competition couldn't get internet hosting, and they were actually just idling the servers, or didn't need them, then that would be illegal. If they were using contracts with advertisers to prevent those people doing business with the competition, that would be illegal (for a monopoly, but legal for the little guy!).

None of that is accused.

There is nothing to accuse. It sounds like the document describes some legal things google is doing, that were investigated and found to be acceptable.

Comment Re:Meh (Score -1, Troll) 70

Where did they dredge up this Soulskill guy? Are they sure he's a nerd? Since when is, "Golly gee, they're such a big company I just assumed they'd keep my stuff safe for me" something that we care about?

Some idiot used a giant corporation and got treated like a cog. Good news for him, then; nothing went wrong, you're just experiencing the expected life of a cog. Some wear is expected. And when you're worn, you can be replaced.

If you want to choose from one of the large registrars, at least check various consumer reporting entities. I doubt you'll find great reviews of "GoDaddy." The reviews might be what you would expect if you just looked at their name and stereotyped the sort of company that would name themselves that.

Comment Re:I dub all unswitchable hardware: disposable (Score 2) 362

Stallman came out against buying stuff at Amazon. I don't think he actually came out against returning them, which is what was said.

If you find yourself in the situation of having bought something from Amazon, received it, and felt less free, I think Stallman might agree that the right to return the item "is a freedom we can defend." Hopefully then you'll buy something somewhere else.

I know it isn't Amazon granting my right to return, it is consumer protection laws.

Comment Re:First one's free (Score 1) 193

Historically, MS achieved market dominance by other means, and before there was widespread copying-with-a-license.

And the period when unlicensed copies were increasing the most also lines up with Apple's renewed market share, and with open source offerings being widely known about.

It may or may not be true that the unlicensed windows installs prevented people in various countries with low cost of living from switching to OSS. It makes sense that it would be true. But it is guaranteed to have taken place well after the peak of MS market share, and isn't available as a potential cause of said market share.

Comment Re:This is pretty common. (Score 1) 193

No - They've given you an amnesty license.

That isn't what they actually said. That is just what people are mindlessly assuming. What they have said is that even machines without a valid license will be able to download and install the upgrade. That is all they're really saying. Their only clarification was to say that if you didn't have a license, you still don't. They haven't promised any forgiveness. They can still shut you off later, or send you a bill.

Considering the technical problems they've had with legit users having to fight the license checks, it is not really any surprise that they're moving away from tying the physical upgrade capability to the license check. That tells us nothing at all about what they will do instead to enforce the licenses.

Maybe nothing, maybe something harsh. We don't know. And from the history of the company, that could go either way. Believing anything before we get more information is ill advised.

Comment Re:This is pretty common. (Score 1) 193

Not everybody cares about "community mods."

Not all games are even on a computer. Shocking, but true.

Some games are "on a computer," but don't rely on native clients. For example, people whose main game is chess often play chess on a computer, but using a native client is optional. (and cross-platform anyways in most cases)

So there are lots of other possibilities beyond the false-dichotomy presented.

I grew up playing Oregon Trail and Moon Unit on computers. The closest thing to a "community mod" that we had was, "Cracked by The Nibbler." Now I play chess, because most games suck. New graphics + same shit. Not intellectually stimulating, not physically stimulating, just mindless button-mashing. I'm not saying there is no skill involved, just that it is mindless skill without a contextual connection to my life. And if I want that, Tetris is already a thing, and runs fine anywhere. Tetris is more intellectually stimulating than most new games, though. It is at least mindless mental exercise.

Comment Re:This is pretty common. (Score 1) 193

I don't think many people who dislike MS Windows are worried about games. In fact, I think lots of people who use other operating systems for actual work on a computer also have a windows machine to play games. And even if you think windows is the devil, there would be little security risk because you wouldn't have any important private data on that machine.

If you're saying you do your real work in windows because that is your preferred gaming platform, then I would indeed say that is "stupid and clueless" if you're a computer nerd and either do paid work on a computer, or engage in serious hobby computing. Not for choosing windows, there are probably good reasons for that. But if you're a serious user, you wouldn't choose your OS based on games. Especially when dual-boot and VMs are both real things.

Comment Re:Oh dear. (Score 1) 193

You're inventing the "is ought" fallacy, they're not using it. None of the people you're accusing of that fallacy actually said what you accuse them of saying.

They're just giving an opinion, they're not claiming to demonstrate logically that it is true. And their opinion isn't even that somebody must have checked just because they can and ought to have.

Your response is a Straw Man, based on just flat assuming that the "many eyes" theory, as you misunderstand it, is the source of the opinion. People are actually giving other reasons than that. In this case the person believes that OSS programmers are higher quality, based on the incentives for the different groups and who is attracted to those incentives. It is a good explanation of how the person feels about it, but it isn't a logical analysis for you to be trying to refute. You can't refute opinions.

Nobody is saying that OSS is perfect or without bugs, and your assumption that is what they mean, even when they didn't say it, is some sort of magical thinking. A weird upside-down magical thinking, where you accuse others of having religious-type motives, so that you can attack their religion-like views, except that the magical connection between cause and effect is supposed entirely by you, and not endorsed at all by your victim.

In this particular case, the person already gave their own counter-point at the end. It is clear you weren't trying to add to it. You didn't even disagree with any of the points actually raised.

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