tl;dr: Try to fit your process to reality and not force reality into a process.

Unfortunately, it's all too common to have processes that just get in the way of getting useful work done in larger companies.

Well, I suppose I should elaborate since I may not have been as clear as I could have been.

When I'm talking about privacy here, I'm referring to the group privacy within Burning Man. In other words, the idea that what happens in Burning Man stays in Burning Man. The intent of these rules, as far as I understand them, is to make it so people can come to this event and not feel the need to hide themselves just because they're afraid of the outside world seeing them online.

The organization is trying to maintain some control over it so , for example, the "Burners gone wild" type videos or whatever they were called that Burning Man had to go after in previous years doesn't happen again.

So, I still do think the intent is noble.

There is a reasonable argument to be made about how realistic that is now that youtube, facebook, and flckr have become so common and people feel the need to share every aspect of their lives online. I'm not saying there is a simple answer to this, since copyright and privacy issues are full of gray areas.

Hopefully that clears up what I meant though.

"It's less about art and free love and the like, and more about college guys getting drunk/stoned and harassing girls, trying to get them to strip."

You seem to be confusing BM with spring break parties in Mexico. There are certainly a few of those types that show up every year, but it has grown enough that you get a variety of sub-cultures and not just hippies or frat-boys. Plus, the location they chose still tends to keep out more of the obnoxious people that couldn't handle the camping, which I believe was always intentional. Really, there's enough going on that you can choose what you want from the event and stay away from the things you aren't interested in.

Also, any large enough festival like this is going to have some bits of drama, most of it brought on from people that haven't really been there or get the point. I also don't really agree with the photo policies at BM, but I do understand the need to protect privacy in events like this.

They are specifically interested in giving people some control over their privacy (which is a good thing) so they can do what they want without fear of it ending up on youtube, facebook, or flickr. I wouldn't look at this like some evil corporation trying to take control of everything so much as a group that has good intentions and may just need to modify the rules to make sense. When the EFF criticized them last year they were willing to have conversations about how to change the rules, and that still seems to be an on-going conversation. I'm not sure where that is at exactly since I haven't paid attention to every detail, but I do believe they made at least some slight modifications during the last year or so based on the feedback.

To be fair, I've been with large enough groups that had to bring in sat phones to coordinate trucks and supplies, and having an emergency line wasn't such a bad thing. Most of that stops at the beginning of the week though.

I didn't see any people using their phones last year either, so it's not that hard to avoid. I was a bit surprised to find my cell phone had signal at all during the event, but just did what I always do and stored it in the glove compartment the whole week.

I swear though, I'll punch someone if they start twittering or some other bullshit during the event next year when I plan to go again.

I think what is more likely is that someone came to the engineer and said they needed to get the data and nobody really bothered to think of the privacy concern since it was going to be used internally anyway. Sure, if the engineer was told that the requirements demanded better privacy, he could have stripped the payloads, but if someone asked you to just get the data, it's less likely you'd think of that as a problem.

I would redefine it as sloth on the part of the management for not considering the issues, as opposed to lazy engineers.

...and just admit that we use the word when we really mean asshole, which Steve Jobs is.

Most of his comments at D8 and WWDC regarding Google, Flash, app store rejections, the 4.0 leak, and whatever are disingenuous at best, and flat out lies at worst.

That doesn't make them a monopoly though. He's obnoxious, but there are still other opportunities out there to be had.

So stop crying over the Mexican invasion that's taking place right now. If they're meant to take over, that's just how it's going to be.

This is life.
Stop crying over spilled milk.
We live in the present. Our sons/daughters will not be responsible for the sins of the current generation.

Just because you named your computer does not make it your wife, and I don't even want to know what you consider to be its jaw and tongue muscles. This drug will not work on your computer.

Yeah, I dug around online for solutions and had this working in 2.0 reasonably well using mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new.

I posted this question on mozillazine a few weeks ago and got some more information, including the bugs listed in bugzilla which are still unresolved. I probably should have included those before.

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1615305
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=496119
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=528009

GMail IMAP still has problems though. I've been tracking it since the betas, and they haven't fixed the issues with checking folders for new mail. So, if you subscribe to the "All Mail" folder, you get a notification in your inbox and "All Mail." It basically ignores the checkbox right now for "check this folder for new mail" in the properties.

You could always unsubscribe to "all mail" but that kind of defeats the purpose of the new search and archive features.

I still like it overall, but the multiple notifications are a little annoying. I'm hoping they resolve them soon.

Let me get my checkbook.

Well, to be fair, if we can infer anything from the recent music studies, the same people that are hardcore enough to mod their xbox and steal some games are still buying other games. In music's case, it's been shown a few times those people downloading music frequently are still legally buying more music than the average consumer.

recent reference: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090828/0444096038.shtml

Having said that, we can't really know for sure right now since nobody has studied games specifically, as far as I'm aware. It's probably not that far off.

I'm a little torn on this though, since I have a modded original xbox for xbmc, but my 360 is unmodded. I like the idea of getting rid of cheaters, but there still are some valid reasons to mess with your box in some cases.

Most people are still going to use it as a linear conversation. The added benefits though will be useful to the small percentage that start to take advantage of them. Plus, once people start building plugins, it could have more unintended benefits.

I look at it a little differently, and I don't put them all in the same categories.

Facebook, for example, is mostly for friends that I don't talk to regularly, so for those people it's a good place to give periodic updates and keep in touch on a less regular basis. I don't update every single day, so as long as you use it in moderation it can serve a purpose.

People that I communicate with more often are either in person or on the phone, so they're a closer circle of friends and family than I would use facebook for.

I haven't personally found a use for Twitter, since I generally agree I don't feel like relaying how many bowel movements I've had today or giving every single detail out to the public. I guess I could see a use if you like following celebrities or some special groups that have started using it, like the LA Fire Department, but otherwise it's not my thing.

I don't think anyone has been sued for questioning evolution. We just point and laugh at those people.