malvosenior

> Microsoft, Amazon and Apple also sell ads.

Not as their main or even major business lines.

> AMP may tie publishers into their standard, but as a user I'd much prefer an AMP page to a dog slow publisher page on mobile.

As a user I couldn't disagree more. When I go to a URL I want the content behind that URL. I don't read bloated garbage sites anyway, but even there I'd prefer the real site to the AMP Google-ware.

> iOS has plenty of hidden spy apps, masque attacks, and iCloud backup attacks.

Hidden spy apps? Would love to hear your source on that. None of these compare to the absolutely toxic Android ecosystem.

> Apple, Amazon and Microsoft all routinely deprecate products.

Nothing these companies has done rivals Google here. How many Google chat products have there been?

> Plenty of privacy concerns with Amazon and Microsoft. Remains to be seen if Apple caves on the Pensacola iPhones.

Google's business model is removing privacy.

> Not sure how workplace politics or culture affects the user experience at all, sounds like you might be confusing your own prejudices with users at large.

What prejudices would those be? I didn't even state a position other than they inject politics everywhere, which is undeniable.

> Microsoft censors their products in China, Google does not.

Irrelevant.

> Amazon sells counterfeit products, Google does not.

Amazon sells physical products, Google sells ads.

> Apple refuses to interoperate with industry standards, Google does not.

This is true about Apple but it's also true about Google. RSS anyone? Gmail's embrace/extend/extinguish of email protocols. AMP.

I also think it's funny that my post went from +8 to flagged overnight. How many Google employees does it take to flag a popular post? Only you offered any sort of rebuttal to my statements but obviously many agree.

That's too bad. Out of the other $1T US companies (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft) Google seems by far the most user hostile. I would say Microsoft once held this position but lost their edge to be truly damaging. On the other hand Google:

* Sells ads for a living

* Pushes AMP

* Removes features from Chrome that allow you to block ads

* Android littered with spyware

* Kills products randomly

* Kills platforms randomly (leaving developers high and dry)

* Horrible hiring culture cargo-culted by lesser Googles

* Privacy concerns with Google Home product

* Introduces politics into the workplace

* Introduces politics into their products

* Sexual harassing execs get big payouts

* Infantalized workplace culture

* Produces increasingly awful search results

* More...

I don't know enough about chemistry to say, but does steaming milk (like for a latte) have any effect on its health properties? I ask because for milk based coffee drinks you really want to be using whole milk. There are no taste and texture options that get anywhere near it.

We’re talking about people invited to his island and people he invested in. Not random members of the public.

It’s all in the MIT report. They knew everything about him yet continued to work and socialize with him.

No one made that argument. I said:

> Not everyone who went there is guilty, but given everything we now know it's not unfair to question their presence in Epstein's orbit.

That's it. I'd also argue that 1. doesn't exist because Epstein and his properties highly advertised his lifestyle.

> This is unreasonable, and it makes you kind of dumb.

You're responding to an argument no one has made.

That's just one small example. The other big one is that he had underage girls around him all the time. That makes him a pedophile.

We don't know what Epstein and his backers were after. Maybe Seth Lloyd had influence over someone or some other leverage they wanted. It definitely warrants further investigation though.

There's evidence of people being aware of Epstein's predilections. He was hardly secretive about it:

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2019/08/jeffrey-ep...

> There were lavish dinner parties with the likes of Steven Pinker and Stephen Jay Gould during which Epstein would ask provocatively elementary questions like “What is gravity?” If the conversation drifted beyond his interests, Epstein was known to interrupt, “What does that got to do with pussy?!”

It think it's fair to say anyone who was on his island, home or jet should be questioned by authorities about what they saw there. He was a child sex trafficker operating out of his homes and private jet. Those are crime scenes.

Not everyone who went there is guilty, but given everything we now know it's not unfair to question their presence in Epstein's orbit.

Epstein was most likely backed by Israel, so you should ask what they would want with quantum computing.

You're correct about this but sadly getting downvoted. People have a hard time processing that their heroes very likely knew about Epstein's activities and at the very least looked the other way (some definitely participated themselves). Gates, Hawking, Groenig... all have their fans that will defend them to the death.

The evidence is there though for those that care to look. As you say, Epstein couldn't not talk about sex and young women, they were around constantly, everyone knew it was weird or they enjoyed the prospect of it.

Typo

Yes, she did claim that. Here's a better link:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article233728717.html

> In the lawsuit, Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex with a “large amount of people,” some of whom had not previously been named, including former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, Hyatt hotels magnate Tom Pritzker, hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, the late Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Marvin Minsky, modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, another unnamed prince, plus “a well-known Prime Minister.”

This wasn't a "few decades ago" it was 2015. The standards for professional events have not changed since then.

Because it was supposed to be a professional event and that's not even remotely professional? There's a second hand account in this thread by someone who knows people who went to the island and were propositioned for sex there.

It's unprofessional at best but as we know know, many of these girls were sex trafficking victims and underage.

It's also known that Epstein's island residence was decorated with pictures of underage nude girls and a giant nude painting of Ghlisaine Maxwell. So yeah, I'd say there are quite a few red flags there.

Did any of the people you know regret going there? I know I would be able to do it. Even if they didn't participate, I would think being in an environment like that would make most people really uncomfortable.

Gates had close ties to Epstein:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-...

In fact, Epstein left his entire estate to Boris Nikolic (guy on the far right on that NYT picture). Nikolic worked for Gates for many years.

This is Gates emailing co-workers after visiting Epstein:

> After the meeting, Epstein emailed friends and associates to boast, writing "Bill's great" in one email reviewed by The Times. In an email Gates sent to his own colleagues the next day, he wrote, "A very attractive Swedish woman and her daughter dropped by and I ended up staying there quite late."

The revelations about Epstein directing the $2M Gates donation to MIT first came out in Ronan Farrow The New Yorker piece on Joi Ito and MIT. Gates has denied it but given all the facts it seems very believable that Epstein did have something to do with that donation.

There were definitely young women around when Hawking was there. I don't know if they were underage, but it I don't think it's safe to say Hawking knew nothing. By all accounts the island was full of girls and decorated with photographs of nude photos of them (some underage).

You can see Hawking surrounded by women on the island here:

https://cloverchronicle.com/2019/07/24/stephen-hawking-pictu...

You're going to have to put the (many) pieces together yourself. The people who would normally be responsible for doing this (the media, the government) are the same people working to suppress the story. And yes, there is plenty of evidence for this (Amy Robach hot mic, Acosta's "intelligence owns him" quote, destroyed video tapes, the plea deal Epstein got...),

Epstein's was the first suicide in MCC in 21 years:

https://nypost.com/2019/08/10/suicide-supposedly-nearly-impo...

Marvin Minsky was accused of assaulting Virgina Guiffre. Virginia had been trafficked by Epstein starting when she was 15.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/new-details-in-unsea...

> Giuffre also alleges Epstein and Maxwell told her to have sex with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell; the late MIT computer scientist Marvin Minsky; and MC2 model agency cofounder Jean Luc Brunel, as well as an unnamed “prince,” “foreign president,” and owner of “a French hotel chain.” Giuffre previously alleged she had been forced by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Britain’s Prince Andrew.

Yes, and the LinkedIn co-founder is obviously Reid Hoffman. Here's a series of Tweets from Aanand Giridharadas talking about discovering some of this information and how they reacted to it:

https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1169947031806365696

The report itself is rather interesting:

http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/files/MIT-report.pdf

> After meeting Epstein in February 2013, Ito conducted what he described as “due diligence” into Epstein. Ito told us that he performed a Google search of Epstein and also spoke with certain individuals to learn more. According to Ito, the “influential” people with whom he spoke included Nicholas Negroponte, Media Lab co-founder and Professor Post-Tenure of Media Arts and Sciences; members of the Media Lab Advisory Council; tech billionaires, including a former LinkedIn senior executive and co-founder; and a well-known Harvard Law School professor. Ito also met other influential individuals at meetings with Epstein, including Woody Allen, a senior executive at the Hyatt Corporation, and a former prime minister of Israel. Ito explained that these meetings and discussions influenced his view of Epstein.

Honestly I wouldn’t recommend Patlabor to someone who only likes the GITS movie and Cowboy Bebop. It’s going to feel too slow and cheezy (in a way many anime fans including myself enjoy).

I’d probably suggest Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X) or Gundam Zeta instead. They have interesting themes, are more adult and have amazing art.

Just a nit pick but the original Japanese version isn’t a dub, it’s the original audio. I totally agree it’s the best version though.

That being said the English dub is pretty good too.

Also see Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

> "I developed this for manipulating public opinion,” Peng told the Reporter, an investigative news site in Taipei, which partnered with BuzzFeed News for this article. He added that automation and artificial intelligence “can quickly generate traffic and publicity much faster than people.”

It's funny that Buzzfeed is reporting this because this is exactly the model that they created and helped disseminate all over the internet. It's a semi-automated system for creating clickbait to manipulate public opinion. I would love to see outlets like Buzzfeed, Huffpo... examine their own role in creating the world of clickbait, ragebait and misinformation that they so often complain about. That will never happen though.

I had the opposite experience growing up poor (although knew plenty of people who feel as you did). For me, I constantly felt that my situation was "wrong" and didn't fit me. I didn't want to eat frozen food or wear K-Mart sneakers, I thought I deserved better. It pushed me to fight hard to achieve what I considered a reasonable standard of living. Had I taken the advice or followed in the footsteps of those around me, it never would have happened. Instead I focused on my love of computers (even if it existed more in my head than real life since we couldn't afford one for a long time). That focused carried me out of poverty and then some.

I'm convinced some subset of poor people that are high achievers will always reject their environment and refuse to settle.

> People who used the app consented that the Obama campaign would get access to data about them and their friends. For better or worse (better for marketers, worse for the friends of these app users), this was all within how Facebook was expected to work.

I see no material difference here. People shared their data and it was used accordingly. This is how Facebook is expected to work. It's not like the Obama app had a big button that said "upload your friends list to Obama's database!". That was covertly done behind the scenes.

Irregardless, all Facebook users should assume all of their data is being sold and sliced and diced a million different ways.

The main point here is that the media has tried to turn CA in to a scandal while they very much did not do that for very similar actions Obama was taking.

What you're basically saying is that if a candidate tailors a message to an individual, then that individual will support them. Yes! That's how it should work. The candidates have to earn the support of the voters. They should be trying to craft messages that resonate with them. If people can flip voters with ads alone, then where does it end? Who has the better ads?

What we say was a constituency that was upset with the status quo. When given a chance to vote for an outsider, they jumped on it. I think advertising played little to no role in the 2016 election and I've yet to see data to suggest otherwise.

Probably not. In fact Obama did more or less exactly what Cambridge Analytica did:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-...

> "Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database.

The only difference is that at the time it was heralded as being technologically savvy because it produced results that the media and tech companies desired.