Adhere
Demandbase
Dynamic Logic
Facebook Connect
Facebook Social Plugins
Google +1
Google Analytics
Google FriendConnect
ShareThis
Twitter Button

I have ghostery installed,a plugin for all browsers that blocks not ads themselves so much as all these trackers.

This particular site isn't even that bad, mostly all the social crap that tends to get everywhere like the scum it is. But there are worse sites.

Do I mind being tracked? Not really no... the main reason I installed ghostery was to get rid of all those annoying scripts that make the net just a little bit slower with each and everyone of them.

But what about the free content I consume? Once the internet was a non-profit area and frankly I think it was better for it. Using google becomes more and more a pain as companies that try to sell something I don't want outrank information sites. I feel like I finally got rid of the deluge of paper ads on my doormat everyday and now it insteads gets delivered by the truck load through the wires in my home. I do not have an answer as to how sites like Slashdot would survive without advertising but frankly, I don't care. The internet would adapt, go back to privately run sites on private funds for the hell of it and only post articles that are intresting, not just to attract the most eyeballs.

Advertisers keep pushing the limits and users are pushing back. If one day we users push back so hard that advertisers starve to dead (preverably a miserable and painful one) then... MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED!

In Holland we had the referendum, the voters (across all parties) rejected it and it got passed regardless. The D66 which claims to want more referundum couldn't ditch the results of the first referendum ever in Hollland fast enough. Democracy sucks for politicians because those silly voters just don't know how to vote correctly.

It must be a highly annoying job. You as a politician clearly know what is right but can the plebs see it? No!

It isn't just copyright, see the whole EU debate, the Greek debt crisis, immigration. Democracy by a lot of politicians is seen as some holy grail that will make everything alright. Pity it allows grubby mean spirited selfish people to vote who are tired of paying through the nose for content, tired of constantly paying for more EU nations who are corrupt as hell and whose only contribution is a new load of ciminals, tired of paying for Greece a country that hasn't contributed a single penny to the EU in its entire history, tired of boat loads of immigrants who don't want to live among their own culture anymore for whatever reason and then try to establish the same culture in their new country.

Not nice? Not PC? Well, that is how the common voter thinks, don't like any of those things? Then you don't like democracy. Democracy ain't good, democracy is the dictatorship of the common man and the common man ain't all that nice.

Either you have full democractic rule and risk the majority voting to re-open the gas chambers OR you have ACTA and the EU constitution. Choose wisely... oops there is that democracy thing again, better hope everyone chooses wisely, or at least a majority. And sucks to be you if the majority thinks different.

It took them years to even acknowledge the existence of the rest of the world let alone cater for non-credit card users and when they finally did, they used one of the most maligned payment providers in existence.

Also, a dollar per song, how does that translate to a euro per song? Where are all the cost savings going? And am I buying a license (argued by the content industry so I can't sell the tracks 2nd hand) or a copy (argued by the content industry since this means they have to pay artists less? And what about breakage fees? Why are artists selling through iTunes still charged breakage fees (not brokage fees, breakage as in broken LP/CD's).

If you think iTunes is a good reasonable offering, you have been taken it up the ass as a good little consumer a bit to long. Give your sphincter a rest and grow a backbone.

iTunes is a ripoff, it is basically saying, we pass the gigantic cost savings on to the credit card companies, the content industry and Apple and the customer and the artist can go screw themselves, after all, they are used to getting screwed.

So your protection against the holocaust would be to have refused to do fill in the census report as a Jew. Yeah, that would have worked really well.

The defense against tyranny is not to hide from lists but to prevent tyrans from rising to power. Basically you are saying "I am not on any lists (as far as you know) so I am safe". First they came for the people on the list and you did nothing but vote for the tyrant since he offered you a tax cut.

Fight for a better future so that if your data chances hands, it can't make a difference because those involved would go to jail.

I have done this myself, early on I had the choice between going MS or Unix at a large ISP and I went the Unix route and never looked back. A few years ago I worked at a small sub division of a large telecom that was merged back in and saw the writing on the wall and quit.

The people who say you got to roll with things are those with no backbone who are suffering from the economy. Not going to make friends with this but if you are worried about your job in this economy, then you fucking suck at it. Granted, i do live in Holland whose economy isn't as down the drain as the one in the US but I have been getting recruitment offers from the US and US companies. They still are looking for skilled people.

Mind you, I don't know if the OP is one. He doesn't actually mention what the hell his job is? He might be an accountant or a painter or a jet pilot.

For me, it is easy, I am a web developer and the intresting stuff is being done with open source tools. If you want a steady non-intresting job on projects that take years for the government where the latest craze is those new fangled animated gif's, then you go ASP but for startups and the like, the opensource LAMP stack just beats everything else on performance, costs, availability of knowledge and personel and general acceptance. But is this guy suitable for that kind of job?

There are still jobs out there. In my experience, what you need most is to hit the right note with the interview. That has nothing to do with something you can measure objectively. I submitted a piece of code where I tried something out. I have had responses ranging from "you suck" to "this is wonderful, just what we are looking for". Job hunting is like dating, if you can't handle being utterly humiliated and have your ego ground in the dirt while they laugh at your penis... eh cv... then you just ain't suited for it. Stick to that go-no-where job, swallow it all and lash out against anyone who dares to break free (see a lot of the above posts for examples).

Or ask yourself, where is the cutting edge considered old hat, has opensource been accepted for over a decade as not so much an option but the norm and people care about results not certificates or fud? Then go web development. Granted, if you are old office tech, it will take some adjustment.

If you believe in something you got to fight for it, or be just another sheep. Nobody said it was going to be easy, just because you refuse to bend in one direction doesn't mean you don't have to bend at all. Look further afield for jobs where MS is not even dirty name anymore but rather just the maker of a rather bad browser a small percentage of customers still use. (One intresting result I found with one niche webshop is that while MS browsers were still in the high percentage for visitors, for actual buyers, it didn't even reach into the double digits and then it was version 9, I have been developing the opinion that people still on IE6 and such are also not likely to buy costly racing bikes, odd that eh?)

The majority of human beings have managed just fine without dating sites, that means the norm is not to use them, therefor if you use them, you are outside the norm.

And since you are outside the norm, you should probably examine why. Not being able to meet someone during normal social activities is outside the norm. Dare I take a guess that you are not someone who is socially active? That is not within the norm, knowing this and accepting therefor that it limits your choice and who you should look for will make you much more successful.

Only on slashdot would a guy complain about finding easy sex.

It is no doubt sexist but girls who reach puberty are very attractive to a large age range of men. Boys of the same age, only to Catholic priests. For women, it is looks that count. For men, it is success, power, confidence. Not saying that all women are gold diggers only after a wallet but confidence is something you gain overtime, with success, with power, with age. And when you couldn't get a 18yr old at 18, why would you date that girl who is now 40 when she has been used up and now desperate when with your status gain, you can get a nice young girl?

Dating sites reflect this. I have worked on two and the database clearly showed that the women tended to be more experienced (read: many failed relationships) and fed up with it and now trying to find something more longterm. Generally these women show little self-awareness of why they are this situation, 30 something with just as many boyfriends and nothing permanent.

Men are slightly more realistic but to negative. A lot of 30yr old men who now feel they have power/money to pretend to be confident are really hateful to women who they believe are now only interested because of their cash.

When these two groups meet, mis-communication is rife, a lot of men are simply not prepared to accept that a women their own age has more experience, they don't want second hand goods or even 30th hand goods. The women on the other hand don't quite get why men they turned down for years are not falling over themselves like all the guys that came before. They don't see that the guys they had before were only there for the sex and nothing else.

The men might not have much experience with relationships but neither do the women. Being used as a booty call is after all not a relationship. The only thing these women are good at is failed relationships. Think of it like this: If you try a race circuit a thousand time and crash everytime at the first corner you are NOT more experienced at racing at that circuit then someone who never even been there. It is a complex concept but an essential one if you want to understand the dating scene. A one-night stand when he never calls again does NOT teach you how to make a relationship work. In fact, if that is your history for the last decade, it seems likely you will never learn.

A lot of people approach online-dating and other dating aids with this screwed up mind set, men who hate all women because they never had the guts so ask them out, girls who been used all their life thinking it is the fault of men that none of them saw how wonderful a person she really is, people with expectation that just don't exist in this world.

Real romances? Try this, do a poll among married couples for valentine gifts and on a dating site. The results might be very different, the married couples are realistic, the dating site will have stuff that even Spielberg couldn't make up.

It is true after all, normal people don't need dating sites. That does NOT mean you will only find freaks on dating sites. It means if you are using one, you are a freak. Accept this, take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourself: "What is wrong with me that I have to use this". It is not wrong to use dating sites but if you think you are perfect when you have to use one... you are in for a disappointment.

Utility services? I PAY for my utilities, and the phone companies especially charged through the nose. You PAY, you are the customer. You get it for free, you are the product.

So unless you propose paying a monthly fee and a usage fee and a signup fee and a rental fee for your facebook usage, shut the fuck up with your idiotic notion that you companies got to provide you with free services and not make a single penny of you.

And if you don't like facebook, DON'T use it. It is not hard, I am not using it right now and still have time to insult your feeble self-entitled mind.

If people need daily standups to know what is going on, then your communication sucks. But hey, you first forced them to do this then when they realized that the person doing their performance review thinks that these wastes of their time are a good idea, they don't say "yes sir, your ideas suck and you are a moron sir!" but agree with your forced policy.

Good anecdote.

Really, if you need standups to get problems solved... you got far far bigger issues. One reason I often hear for bringing up blockers during a standup is that it is faster to get a reply that way... THINK (if your feeble mind can) about that... isn't that a RED FLAG that the communication in your company is messed up because if you do NOT expose a problem in front of everyone, it doesn't get solved?

I have seen this happen, the only way to get things done was to air them in front off everyone so the slacker had no option not to do it... that is great. That is like saying "going over someone's head" is a good policy to get things done as well. Have experienced this too, the only way to get a sysadmin to do anything is to go straight to the boss and get him to lean on him... is that going to be part of your management style too?

FIX you goddamn internal communication so that problems can be reported WHEN they occur and not hours if not a day later and are dealt with ASAP not hours or a day later.

Daily standups are a fix for bad management, fix management and you don't need them anymore.