Topolsky thought his analogy would be a knock out punch, he made the rookie mistake of not having thought about possible counter arguments before he spoke. What we saw in the video is the proverbial tale of the blind men and the elephant

In this realm, success is measured in what the organisms wandering the surface of the world look like after you are dead. It's called "survival of the fittest", and it doesn't care in the slightest what your opinion is of how a person lived their life.

You're not wrong... but, there are scenarios where, for example, a designer comes up with 4 proposed designs, all of which are good, and someone need to make a decision as to which one to go with without any meaningful way to differentiate. This algorithm allows all 4 to be approved as "functional and not embarrassing" and put into place.

And yes, 2 years later, you might decide it's a good idea to hire a designer to freshen things up, and have them deliver you a few more designs. But, with a pattern like this, you don't need to discard the old ones... you can add the new ones in amongst the old and have the algorithm elevate the one that is popular.

But the real gem would be to find out that the design that was least popular 4 years ago is actually in better sync with what is stylish now, more so than the ones you paid for 6 months ago, and have that dusty old design automatically leap to the front of the queue without you even having to think about it.

Yeah, frightening. I think it's trivial for a business that wants to use SSL encryption to pay for an SSL certificate too.

If you believe in democracy and free speech then you totally DO want them to participate in a global communications treaty. If democracy really is the best ideaology on offer then surely it will pass the test of refusing to censor it's own enemies?

Posting due to lack of a +1-hypocritical option.

Librarians have worked toward a similar goal for centuries and are trully the unsung heros of free speech. They have a strong code of ethics and present a united and publically respectable front. Pity the world's sysadmins and coders can't get their shit togther ethics-wise because we are going to be fighting each other until doomsday over who controls the wires.

How old do you have to be? I'm 53 next week, I was also an IBM contractor for a few years in the 90's, and guess what, I've even done some work on IBM mainframes. I agree people should be wary of vendor lock in, particularly with IT infrastructure but I'm highly skeptical of claims that this is an anti-competitive move. Now to the actual point of my post, hyperbolic speculation about what could happen just makes the person who posted it look like a fool when everything is still humming along a decade or so later. Every one of those foolish reactions is a paraphrase of one or more posts in this thread, many which are rated +5 insightful. I think they are silly and childish now, if you can't see that now come back and review their dire predictions in 2020.

Yes, hanging a fridge from your neck can be a little uncomfortable and downright dangerous while swimming, but I agree it is more noticable than a pendant, bracelet, or sticker. The idea in TFA just inserts a middleman between the victim and the paramedic who expects payment for inconvienencing both. I predict that once this slashvesrtiment is off the front page we will hear no more of it (discounting the obligatory dupes).

BTW: The compressors found in fridges have a bad habit of exploding in a fire, often with enough force to blow a hole in the back and rip the door off it's hinges.

Whatever it is like to be a cockroach, it is almost certainly nothing like what it is like to be a human.

What you mean hiding in secluded dark places waiting patiently for the moment of total world domination? The only difference between us and the cockroaches is we have computers.

He doesn't 'program for a hooby' he went to programming classes specifically to learn more about the subject for this specific trial. It really isn't that uncommon for a judge to decide they need some independent "briefing" on the subject at hand before hearing the arguments.