That's not how it works. My privacy perception has nothing to do with another person's trust in me. And no I did not say I am volunteering ALL the information I am privy to - I did say that I have my boundaries. How I define those boundaries will obviously take into consideration what I think is a mutually understood contract between me and another person. But those boundaries vary from person to person and so it is futile to try to define someone else's privacy perception objectively.
That's where you (and by some extension most computer science people) are completely off-base. You don't get to define what is private for me or what privacy means for me. It is a social construct. I have a select set of information that I do not want in the hands of a select group of people - THAT constitutes MY privacy.
Yes it's called taking risk. I am aware of it - people like you seem to get offended that we actually take that risk in exchange of the convenience (free and more or less stable services).
I guess this is a backlash (albeit an opportunistic one for some) against Google's previously touted love for openness. I agree with the OP that unlike Larry Page, Eric Schmidt was the one who always talked openly (forgive the pun) about openness.
I prefer these services free and have no problem being tracked for more personalized ads. I don't wanna pay with my wallet - I am OK with paying with my information.
This is probably not gonna be a popular sentiment here but I actually like the G+ integration with all the services. The main reasons for that are my expectation of better personalization and synchronization, and a better experience with Google Now. And BTW I'm an iOS user.
Why does he always have to be such a pessimistic grandpa? Privacy as he knows it doesn't exist anymore because majority have made a choice to give it up in exchange of new value created by new technology. I'm unsure of what Bruce Schneier has added of any value to the society lately except his rampant skepticism. To me he's turning into a Richard Stallman of security/privacy.
Actually only heard of it when Mailbox was coming out - looks like they have GTD nailed because they target businesses. I'll definitely give it a try (although with the free plan and it's 10 message credit limit - hopefully I don't need to snooze too many messages in a month). The sad thing is that the clean new-age UI, the queue-reservation-based hype and the publicity from its investors like MG made this sound like groundbreaking thing which it isn't.
[EDIT: This might be a bit off-topic to the issue raised by the author]
I find the whole idea of zero inbox incredibly useless to my workflow as I don't care to treat email as GTD. The only value I get out of keeping Mailbox on my phone is the snooze feature (which unfortunately no Google App Script or Chrome Extension has been able to address properly yet). Once that gets solved by Gmail, Mailbox will be a goner. And yes, even though the author pooh-pooh'ed them at the introduction of the article, lack of labels and a couple of other features (like Undo) make Mailbox a no-go for me on a regular basis. Countering these objections with "missing the point" is extremely lazy IMHO.
You are allowed to find a device useful (i.e. gain value out of it) without being productive on it. That is why e-Readers sell a lot - they are useful. We're arguing about productive use cases here and that in my mind does not include commenting on facebook walls. If that is a narrow viewpoint then that's fine with me.
My best use case for iPad has been the ease of showing some paper or draft to my advisor instead of printing it out or sending it over email and hoping he reads it. In general, I find iPad great for sporadic use cases that complement my laptop-based use cases quite well. But often I will lament the fact that I am using a $600 device (32GB) just for sporadic use cases.
I don't think reading/learning are productive use cases. Productivity, IMHO, means you create/produce something that is tangentially different (regardless of how small it is) than what existed before an activity. In the minds of most people, creating new knowledge or acquiring new information does not conform to the above definition.
You could argue though that iPads and other tablets _help_ you stay productive on a broader basis. At least that's how I justify my use of my iPad. They simplify certain aspects of my workflow (like easier/intuitive annotation of PDFs). But I know that simplification is not at a level where I'd like it to be.
The author talked about "productive use" - you listed gaming and browsing. In many circles those don't rank as productivity. There's a fine difference between "great"/"cool" and "being productive".
When you tell a guy in distress to "man up" (an opinion that was obviously upvoted by many in HN) and the guy ends up committing suicide, then, fair or not, you gotta take a hike. Or else someone will start a shitstorm in your direction (in this case it was Arrington/TC) and enough people will support that shitstorm just like enough people supported his dick-ish comments. It doesn't really matter if they all start eventually sounding like the guy they are directing their anger towards. Ed should have simply stayed quiet on Aaron-related threads instead of offering condolences - it was bound to tick off many.
I agree I was stupid to have forgotten that the code was not in email but in a text message (not finding anything in the email made me give up and get back into the reservation line). But it is pretty idiotic to not allow us to use our reservation code once we realize mistakes like that and find our codes. And now I have 2 pairs of reservation-private codes sitting idle in my text message inbox.