Bleh.
For the sake of completeness here is the link to LB complaining about google as well.
It's disappointing. I use gmail as my primary e-mail account, have a G+ account which I actually use, albeit minimally*, and I just got an Android phone last November. I feel like I've picked the wrong moment to increase my usage of Google products.
I'm usually so slow to commit to any new technology that I know exactly what I'm getting myself into, so it's an odd experience to feel like I happened to pick something which seemed like a good idea and have it so quickly feel like a questionable choice.
*I have a FB account which I never use, for a variety of reasons. Part of the appeal of G+ for me, compared to FB, is that nobody uses it so it felt like starting fresh. Rather than wandering into a long-running, far reaching conversation which is how I assume FB would feel.
WE WERE SOMEWHERE AROUND BARROW ST. WHEN THE DRUGS BEGAN TO TAKE HOLD
This thread made me check and I learned that some guy wrote a book using my pseud as a title.
On the last point, can't you do it in a private browsing session, or whatever it's called in your browser?
I was surprisingly angry about the google fuckup linked in 2. Not sure why it got to me -- I'm really not careful about my pseudonymity at all -- but having google take my sending someone an email under one address as license to connect them to all sorts of other things about me really pissed me off.
5: Would that work? I always thought the secret browsers were just porn-protection, ie they wouldn't leave any trace of websites you visit for your spouse to stumble upon, but the browser still treats you like you. I think it still knows your bookmarks, for example.
Somebody told me that staying logged out of your google account means google can't see what you are searching. I have not look into it.
I was quite surprised at how bad G+ got and how fast. No really, Google, don't put random crap in the middle of my content feed. The point of social media is that I see things posted by people I've chosen to be connected to. Not that I see things from Google.
I think that Google+ has been expressly anti-pseud. As in, its a violation of their terms of service to use a pseud for Google+. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but there was a big kerfuffle about that when it first came out.
Ah, yes, here it is. The "Real Names" policy.
So nice of Google to be leading the charge against internet anonymity.
9: For real. When they started feeding me "popular posts" from Google employees -- and these "popular posts" were vaguely racist jokes, etc. -- I was pretty cheesed.
4: Also, someone is pretending to be you on Twitter.
12: Are you getting spam and nobody told me? I don't see it sent.
No, that was my attempt at a lame joke...'cause Googling "Moby Hick" brings up (what I assume is) your Twitter account, of which I was hitherto (or heretofore, if you prefer) unaware.
7. Chrome Incognito:
Browsing in incognito mode only keeps Google Chrome from storing information about the websites you've visited. The websites you visit may still have records of your visit. Any files saved to your computer will still remain on your computer.For example, if you sign into your Google Account on http://www.google.com while in incognito mode, your subsequent web searches are recorded in your Google Web History. In this case, to prevent your searches from being stored in your Google Account, you'll need to pause your Google Web History tracking.
Sorry. I should have seen it that way. I'm just getting a fair bit of twitter spam lately.
Anyway, now I know why there was vomit on my airplane seat.
since all the search engines prioritize sites you've visited before
Allow me to be the first to recommend DuckDuckGo.
8: See here and here. Also, Chrome extensions which cover other evildoers. Also, Tor.
It's easy enough to try it out. I think how well it works depends on what kind of searches you typically do.
For searches where I'm looking for obvious things one search engine is usually as good as another. If all I need is going to be on wikipedia or some official organizational website or something like that that I don't happen to know the URL of, it's fine. That's a huge amount of my searching, so making DuckDuckGo my default hasn't reduced my ability to search at all. They also put a box at the top for disambiguation and precision when you use terms with more than one meaning that I really like a lot and find a huge improvement over google's search.
They haven't crawled nearly as much of the web as google, so you'll notice it on some searches. And the localization stuff can make a difference - I don't know about personalization, as I've had Google's web history off for years. They do link to alternatives for maps, but the integration across services is obviously smoother for Google. Google does a better job of anticipating common searches too, I think.
I don't find it a hassle to type in "www.google.com" or "maps.google.com" or "news.google.com" or whatever google url I need when I need it. And for pure web searching I don't need to do that very often.
20. Do you rate the Tor browser? Does it do the business?
Oh, heebie. You're so aughty-aughts. Haven't you heard Mark Zuckerberg: Privacy is no longer a "social norm." Not only should everyone know everything about you, you should like it that way.
I just got Tor for my phone. It's pretty rad.
Slow as shit, though.
I just googled myself while routed through Tor and got the same results as I get googling while logged out, for what it's worth.
20: Yes, it's pretty good, though you should still use HTTPS (this is the same guy who grassed up Bradley Manning).
I switched to DuckDuckGo for searching and would definitely recommend it. If you want to search a specific website, you just put a "!" before it (maybe everyone knows this already?). That's really helpful to me for searching Google Scholar (which Google has now hidden behind like three clicks). It automatically makes your search anonymous too.
It's so weird that these tech companies are run by people who literally don't understand why someone would want to have one identity in one aspect of their life, and another identity in another aspect of their life.
They aren't kids who grew up uber-wealthy and unable to understand why lesser mortals would feel a need for privacy. They are people who went from obscurity to success through networking and managing their "persona" or "brand" in a world where co-workers, friends, classmates, employers are all the same people. Not everyone sees their economic prospects improve when their employer finds out that they spend ten hours a week writing elegantly worded complaints about Sam Brownback, you rose-spectacled futurists.
23: Every time I read a quote by Mark Zuckerberg I check my FB privacy settings. I must be doing something right since it thinks I'm in the military, if the ads are anything to go by.
It's so weird that these tech companies are run by people who literally don't understand why someone would want to have one identity in one aspect of their life, and another identity in another aspect of their life.
I was going to say the same thing. Then, considering the G+ pseudonym controversy, I decided it was probably company policy.
I would find it literally unbelievable to think that google lacks people who would be excited to design a functional system for people to have multiple identities which were actually kept separate. I have to believe they've just decided that they don't want that.
I've been finding DuckDuckGo pretty decent for TFA. Just found a quote with it that I had been looking for but not finding with Google for the child research/IRB thread. It had been blocked at my workplace but it just worked now:
A former German military officer, F. W. Remmler, hunted wolves with eagles in Finland in the 1930s and later in Europe before moving to Canada. He trained his eagles first by turning them loose on children. The children were dressed in leather armor and covered with a wolf skin, and raw meat was strapped to their backs. When the eagles were used to knocking down the children for the meat, Remmler put them in an enclosure into which he loosed wolves bought from European zoos.
re: 28
There's also the fact that -- and I say this as someone who works in this area -- a lot of nerds are bastards. Harsh, but true.
I have to believe they've just decided that they don't want that.
That is their explicitly stated policy position.
All the nerds here are lovely, of course.
And I'm not accusing you [whoever you are] of being a nerd.
30.last seems accurate to me.
I think that part of it is that once you're a superstar CEO you have no real privacy of your own other than that purchased at considerable cost and even that is always subject to being pried into by people looking for either a story or some slight edge at guessing what the company is up to. These guys have literally millions of dollars spent investigating them by investors, competitors, and the press.
I think 31 needs to be cross posted to the "ethics of experimenting on children" thread below.
I would find it literally unbelievable to think that google lacks people who would be excited to design a functional system for people to have multiple identities which were actually kept separate.
Based on this, it would appear that there are plenty of people there who are in fact excited to do just that, but that management isn't interested.
36: That's why I was searching for it originally. But they're being too boring and earnest. I have a fundamentally off-topic comment on fictional Nazi experimenters teed up over there.
28: To a first approximation, they're run by sociopaths. One is tempted to mention a recent investor call where evidence of A was used to proudly assert not-A (none of the business analysts caught it even though they could've just based on publicly available information). Or that whole no-poaching deal.
On the other hand, features like history-dependent search, geotargeting, etc. may be genuinely useful for the vast majority of users, as long as regulators show some teeth.
once you're a superstar CEO you have no real privacy of your own
And then you just can't figure out why anyone else cares about theirs.
This kind of attitude reminds of the asshole 4-hour workweek guy. "I pay dozens of people a pittance so I can spend all my time snowboarding! If you don't, you're just a stupid drudge! Unless you're one of the pittance receivers! Then you're awesome and should work 50 hours a week for less than I spend on my cable bill!"
I just googled myself while routed through Tor and got the same results as I get googling while logged out, for what it's worth.
Tor doesn't change your cookies, though, right?
Maybe if you googled for something location-related it would make a difference.
I think that Google+ has been expressly anti-pseud.
IIRC, they've claimed that the requirement is that you use the name you generally go by or are called, but even that much hasn't been born out in practice—some self-named former googlers who are primarily known, now, by what were originally internetical handles (and were so addressed by their google co-workers, even) got the boot.
41: it was the Tor browser for iPhone, so different set of cookies.
37 led me eventually to this picture of french fries on pizza.
The policy, as I understand it, is you can use any "name-shaped" pseudonym you please (e.g., Joe Blow) or you can have a nickname attached to a regular name (e.g., Edward "Skippy" Williamson), but they won't allow a non-"name-shaped" pseud like heebie-geebie to be the only name on your account.
For the record, heebie-geebie is the only name on my Gmail and now-defunct google+ account. Or Heebie Geebie, but still.
I've been paranoid for years so when you google my name you only get stuff about how I'm related to my parents.
stuff about how I'm related to my parents.
Via filiation, I assume.
It's so weird that these tech companies are run by people who literally don't understand why someone would want to have one identity in one aspect of their life, and another identity in another aspect of their life.
I'm repeatedly surprised by this, and then find myself surprised at my surprise.
There are a disproportionate number of libertarians at all levels of this modern wave of tech companies. Their commitment to personal liberty should lead them to take a stronger stand against the repeated encroachments against liberty that their companies perpetrate day after day. Yet, they don't.
I think this situation reveals the thinness of their commitment to first principles. If they (or their company) are making money from their corrosion of liberty and violation of privacy, then everything is justified.
46: The name restrictions are for G+ only; Gmail usernames can be arbitrarily pseudonymous.
As I understand it, libertarians don't believe it's possible that a company could perpetrate an encroachment against liberty, because it doesn't have a monopoly on the use of force. And if it does, it's the fault of the government for playing favorites and picking winners through stacking the deck with industrial policy that has its thumb on the scale.
I get the impression that smaller companies building things like twitter clients are more sensitive to multiple identity management than the larger ones. But a lot of that is about keeping personal and organizational accounts separate within the same application rather than realname/pseudonym issues.
Nothing... untoward... when I search...
If you read google privacy statement carefully - this stuff is serious - there's no claim that a google employee can't read all your stuff whenever they want.
40.last: Sadly, that guy seems to namecheck John McPhee a lot. (He went to Princeton and presumably had a course/course with him.)
DONUT TAKE THE NAME MCPHEE IN VAIN
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
MCPHEE ALEIKUM
Christ I do not want to be making these graphs right now.
43: Tonight I had a slice of what was called "falafel pizza," but thank Jesus had no actual falafel on it, as that is the thing that caused my nearly-life-ending food poisoning a few weeks ago. It was a slice of pizza with hummus and peppers and parsley on it. Not great, I think, because hummus made the crust soggy, but also not inducing of memory vomits.
We have this new place in town that is trying to be an experimental pizza/beer place, and the beer is fantastic (and unlike most places in this godforsaken state, you can purchase a fucking sixpack and not a huge case at a time) but the pizza is... not Motorino's brussels sprout pie. Nor is it Otto's. Nor is it the greatly-lamented Una Pizza Napoletana, where I dined once with nosflow before it died its inevitable death.
its inevitable death.
It rose again in SF, didn't it? I remember that pizza. It was good!
I mean, I remember that dinner. The pizza, I'm sure, was no better, indeed a sight worse, than the company.
I was volunteered to present slides to the gov't next week, and we're trying to share them by google docs which feels the need to reformat them every time we upload a new version. So, what the OP said.
Oh, and the goal is just to standardize the descriptions used for all of experimental biology across the entire world. No big deal.
I personally would like my classifiers to shape up and get to classifying.
But the worst outcome is that my poster at a conference that people don't take very seriously is not taken very seriously, so maybe not so serious. Still. Stupid classifiers. It's like housetraining a puppy.
Have you tried breaking some babies' brains?
|| Hey hey, Sarko is doubling down on immigrant-bashing in France, confirming my sense that the article I was bitching about last week was in fact engaging in reflexive bothsidesdoitology, French edition. |>
The funny thing about Sarko and immigrants is that earlier in his political career he had a period of championing integration, denouncing the extremely low proportion of Arabs and blacks in powerful positions (for example there were no non-white deputies from Metropolitan France at the time in the French parliament, in spite of making up about a tenth of the population), calling for 'discrimination positive' (as the French call affirmative action) and making remarks on how France's enshrinement of extreme 'anti-communitarianism' as a cornerstone of the state religion of 'republican values' worked to perpetuate the all white status quo. He was of course attacked by all sides of the political spectrum for his embrace of American values. Then he embraced the really nasty ex-fascists within the ruling party, e.g. his campaign chief or the current minister of defense, an ex leader of a violent extreme right group (sort of as if Obama not only had known Ayers a bit bit but named him to run the Pentagon). The defense minister just proceeded to lick up MLP in an interview for a fringe extreme right newspaper, which as it happens, used to be run by the campaign chief.
61: Aw. It was nice! That location was taken over by an outpost of Motorino, which is great, but not... UPN great.
||
So Yglesias's idea of a nice honeymoon in a foreign country appears to involve going to McDonald's, which apparently led him to discover that said country's government is engaging in de facto price controls on Big Macs in an effort to keep The Economist from noticing that it's also manipulating the value of its currency.
|>
A Big Mac and a hamburger combined are cheaper than a Triple Mac. But 3 hamburgers cost barely more than a Big Mac alone! This pricing scandal goes all the way to the bun!
It's not like there's any better beef to be had in Argentina, teo.
I just love the idea that the Argentine government is putting a significant amount of effort into gaming the Big Mac Index. I don't even care if it's actually true.
It sounds like it's probably true, but I suspect that adding different items up on a fast food menu and comparing with "equivalents" will often reveal apparent pricing oddities.
I'll see your classifier and raise you a subsumption hierarchy. (Honestly- I'm writing slides about this thing and I'm still not sure I correctly understand what it is.)
a subsumption hierarchy
Dude! Really? That's awesome. I've loved those since high school.
Except, in classic Yglesias style, it appears (from reading a commenter, and checking a little) that he is sort of kind of right but the interpretation is significantly wrong in detail due to extreme laziness-- the government was manipulating the price of the big mac as part of a price control long before it imposed currency controls.
It takes a special kind of man to be looking into a McDonalds on his honeymoon so as to write an economics blog post, but not to bother to research the phenomenon in any detail.
Man. I should see if there are any projects I can do with one of those, actually. Action hierarchies are hot right now.
he is sort of kind of right but the interpretation is significantly wrong in detail due to extreme laziness
Shocking!
Maybe Sifu and SP should switch projects.
I seriously doubt SP would be interested in this project. Shit, I'm barely interested in this project.
On the other hand, my images finished uploading! Everybody get psyched!
Way to do whatever the hell it is you're doing!
How about you do both our projects? All I have to do is add you to the sharing list on google docs! I'll give you $5 and a sippy cup.
78: I don't understand why it's clear that the commenter is right, and Yglesias wrong?
I just Googled "action hierarchy" and "subsumption hierarchy". Which means Google+ now knows I don't know how to spell "hierarchy". Thanks a lot, guys.
I think that means Google now owns your spleen or something.
Huh, SP was talking about a totally different kind of subsumption than I thought he was.
I take it back. I totally wasn't into those in high school.
Which I think also means I should go to bed.
I hope it's a nice sippy cup, at least.
78 -- the argument is that the big mac prices were being pressured down by the government long before the latest round of capital controls.
94: Thanks. I misunderstood, in a way that is completely consistent with being the kind of person who can't spell "hierarchy" correctly.
I also have trouble with "medieval". But I can spell "freedom" right. Every time.
It's so weird that these tech companies are run by people who literally don't understand why someone would want to have one identity in one aspect of their life, and another identity in another aspect of their life.
But if they let you have multiple identities, how would they know what ads to spam you with?
I also have trouble with "medieval".
That's because it's spelled mediaeval
I just love the idea that the Argentine government is putting a significant amount of effort into gaming the Big Mac Index
Basically the Argentinians are involved in a long-term project of preparing to refight and win the Falklands War.
"This time we've got the mad jingoistic old bat in charge and they've got the cabal of unelected incompetents, so we'll win, right?"
It rose again in SF, didn't it? I remember that pizza. It was good!
Olivia O'Leary (Irish journalist & sometime Newsnight presenter) was on the radio recently with an anecdote about her time reporting from Argentina during the Falklands war. After the sinking of the Belgrano, the Irish foreign minister Paddy Power remarked that it seemed that the U.K. was now the aggressor. She said you couldn't turn on a radio or open a newspaper without coming across "El ministro irlandés, Paddy Power". As an Irish journalist she suddenly got wonderful access for interviews etc. ( which made her uncomfortable in a way as she didn't like the idea of her country being seen to be on the side of the bunch who had disappeared people. ) Argentinian sales of "Paddy" and "Powers" Irish whiskey went through the roof.
"Paddy Power" is an Irish politician? Not an Irish nationalist slogan?
Speaking of profanity and absurd business practices, if you have a presentation called "Manage Your Team Through Change," there's really no need to tell me about it.
Oh, and the goal is just to standardize the descriptions used for all of experimental biology across the entire world. No big deal.
Can you establish a convention where, if there is only one TPS protein that anyone cares about, and it's called "TPS-1", I can just call it "TPS" instead of saying "TPS-1" five hundred times in ten pages?
Hi, Peter Ned. What's happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports nomenclature.
"Paddy Power" is an Irish politician? Not an Irish nationalist slogan?
Was a politician; these days is mainly a chain of off-course bookies.
"Paddy Power" is an Irish politician? Not an Irish nationalist slogan?
I thought it was a bookie's.
63
Oh, and the goal is just to standardize the descriptions used for all of experimental biology across the entire world. No big deal.
Good luck with that. That cartoon applies to my job too sometimes.
87
78: I don't understand why it's clear that the commenter is right, and Yglesias wrong?
Without reading the comments and after merely skimming Yglesias' own post, I'm going to go with the balance of probability.
unlike most places in this godforsaken state, you can purchase a fucking sixpack and not a huge case at a time
I think that every single bar in PA sells six-packs.
I'm not saying the PA beer policy is good or sensible, I'm just saying that it's actually easier (albeit much less efficient) to buy six-packs than cases. You can also buy 40s at many bars, but I suspect that's not exactly your desire.
Six-packs cost about 1/2 as much as a case of the same beer. Sure, you can do it, but only if all the vanilla extract is gone.
Is there some Pennsylvanian-specific meaning of "bar" I don't know or, should I be surprised that you can buy six-packs, or cases, of beer in a bar in PA? I mean, I know PA has weird liquor laws, but I've never heard of bars that sell alcohol in bulk.
They are just regular bars. You can't buy a case in a bar but in most of them (all?), you can buy up to two six packs to go. You don't see this in other states, or at least it isn't as important as in other states, because in most other states you can buy beer in grocery stores, gas stations, and the like. We also have beer distributors who well beer only in cases and other large quantities. There aren't very many of these distributors and they aren't open late, so it is often not convenient to get beer that way. The beer distributors sell beer to the bars at the same cost they sell to anybody else (I assume).
So presumably PA does not have the on/off licence distinction then?
Beer distributors go ape shit every time somebody suggests that maybe having a state-enforced monopoly position isn't in the interest of anybody who isn't a beer distributor and they keep winning. I assume they give whole bunches of political donations and there is a large contingent of voters whose biggest fear is that somewhere an Irishman is happy.
There is a bar around the corner from us that opens at 6 am and is also a liquor store. I suspect it is also some sort of sports betting operation, though probably not the legal kind.
115: The distinction is there, but in fucked-up ways as I mentioned.
||
No more masturbating to Junior Seau. That is messed up.
|>
Oh, no, suicide. I wonder if it's attributable to head trauma as well.
121: Twitter tells me he left a suicide note saying he wants his brain studied for just that reason.
Shot himself in the heart, sounds like, so I guess we'll find out.
But... gotta figure.
There is a bar around the corner from us that opens at 6 am and is also a liquor store. I suspect it is also some sort of sports betting operation, though probably not the legal kind.
Probably the "will the vampires get fried by the rising sun" kind.
So presumably PA does not have the on/off licence distinction then?
I don't believe so, although there are different kinds of bar licenses based on food sales. I don't think anyplace but a state store can sell wine or liquor for off-premises consumption (I think wineries can sell their own wine). But if you can sell beer for on-site consumption, you can sell it for off-. Or so it seems.
Actually, you can even have a 6-pack store that doesn't have seating for on-site consumption. Or maybe nominal seating? But it's not a bar proper.
125.last: Those* are grandfathered in, I think.
*I only know of one, but I'll use the plural in case.
124: Apparently the previous occupant of our house made nightly excursions there. Should I double check the giant freezer they left in the basement to make sure it's unoccupied?
Anyway, I know there are things that exist that are not on this list. I just don't understand what or how.
I was going to quibble about AWB's complaints about buying beer in PA, but then I remembered that when I lived in Philadelphia, I would go buy it in the parts of the city known as "New Jersey".
126: I didn't mean that one. I was thinking of the place in Station Square that sells (sold?) lots of beers and, like, soft pretzels.
Actually, the one you're referring to does have a tiny bar with 3 or so stools, so maybe that's a requirement. But, as I said, not a bar in any traditional sense. A client of mine talked about opening a BBQ place that would sell six-packs, and there was to have been very little seating. He has owned a couple bars, so I assume he knows what would be possible.
Actually, the grocery store in Oakland sells beer now. I don't know how many seats it has, but it certainly isn't many.
My girlfriend complains about how you can't buy liquor in grocery stores in DC, just in small, trashy, sometimes frightening stores that specialize in liquor. Apparently you can get liquor in grocery stores in California, where she's from? When we went to Delaware a month or so ago, we bought several bottles of vodka right at a bar, and I thought that was a bit weird, but I don't have an opinion whether that's legal throughout Delaware or just in that town or what.
Speaking of Pittsburgh bars, the Tudor-ish building at the back is one bar I know. I've been trying to figure out which of the other buildings have been replaced and which just got new facades, but it's not easy.
Apparently you can get liquor in grocery stores in California, where she's from?
Yep!
When I moved out here from Chicago I was overcome with wonder when I saw a bottle of absinthe (which I hadn't realized had been legalized) in a supermarket.
In Vegas I was overcome with wonder when I asked for a glass of wine at the hotel snack bar and she said "do you want it to go?" I'd noticed college kids walking around outside with giant plastic volumetric margarita flasks but somehow hadn't realized the same rules applied to me.
133: Now I want to go look. FWIW, the brick on the Brueggers that's there now is fake - 1/2" face brick mortared over the old finish. But I don't know if the old finish was what's shown in that photo. I would guess yes, but don't know.
Incidentally, BOGF was working at that bar when we first hooked up.
Apparently you can get liquor in grocery stores in California, where she's from?
I do miss that about CA. State liquor stores here have good selection and all but there's just something special about being able to buy hard liquor at 7-11.
Because you can pour it in your Slurpie on the way home?
136: I looked yesterday. I think they're all the same buildings on that side of the street. Poking around that site killed a great deal of time for me yesterday. I was trying to find my own street in 1920 or whatever, but I couldn't identify anything much closer than three blocks away.