Seriously, what kind of consequences are you afraid of when logging in with your Facebook account?
Have you looked at the Facebook API? I've produced a website where you can either create a "normal" account by supplying your email address, or you can use Facebook Connect.
What I know about our users with "normal" accounts: their name and their email address.
What I know about our users with Facebook connect accounts: their name. No email and no means by which to contact them. And if I wanted to do anything else, like post on their wall, I'd have to ask them explicit permission first.
personally, i avoid places that require a facebook login because i want to avoid lock-in. this isn't such a great example, because i doubt i would care about long term access to random strangers, but in general i want to be able to have access to sites without having to keep using facebook. this is just a simple issue of access control - there's little advantage to me, and a big advantage to facebook, if they control my access to important services.
second, i am starting to be concerned about the ease with which private data on me can be pooled in one place. i have a consistent public persona on the internet (i am usually the no 1 hit on searching for my name, for example), and i am fine with that. however, in the past that has not included private conversations with other people. google (gmail) and facebook are changing that, and starting to exploit access to data i have previously considered private. so i am worrying about how to reduce the likelihood that this private data can be abused. one way is to reduce the amount of data out there (so i have stopped using gmail). another is to keep data isolated, which leads to me not wanting to use facebook logins ubiquitously (note that isolation works for private data, even as public data becomes more unified, as it cannot be pooled by a third party). i am not saying that there is any current danger in you providing data to facebook, but i think there is a clear risk that things could progress in that direction (for example, in the future they might provide libraries/services that help with whatever your site does; that may lead to them managing data, and that data will be associated with a single identity).
[before anyone points out that email is not private, the distinction i am making here is a practical and graded one. no single email is private, but the entire corpus is unlikely to be public knowledge]
You are sorely mistaken. With the Facebook API, you're granted CIA level information on any person that allows you (most). I should know, I've been using the api for games and other apps since its inception. As for privacy, I'm convinced people can afford to give some up, in exchange for more civility, if that's what they want. If not, they can continue to enjoy the Smörgåsbord over at CR.
I'd love to just take your word for it, but for the sake of the discussion, would you please expand a bit on what "CIA level" information you can retrieve using the Facebook API?
To begin with, what can you find out about a person after they've logged in with Facebook Connect, without explicitly asking for additional permissions?
If that isn't everything you need, you could use that information as foreign keys to other databases in other places, to easily fill in the blanks, if you wished to dampen the shade of your hat. As far as "CIA level", I'll admit that was sensationalist just for the sake of writing, but it is damn scary nonetheless.
Right. But, if you are sensitive to privacy issues (which seems sound), you're not likely to have an exhaustively filled out Facebook profile either way.
So, if you have a sparingly filled out Facebook profile, what is the risk involved using Facebook Connect?
That API list kind of looks like a CIA-like dossier of information, I agree, but that's worth nothing if the values are mostly: "", drivel, some inside joke, or whatever.
I assume I would need to enable Facebook JS to see that? Perhaps they only want to target the Facebook demography, but if not, it would be a "good" idea to allow some other kind of login.
Things are somewhat better, but far from the speeds we see in the more developed parts of Asia. I'm in Wellington, and get 3.5 M.bits/second downstream, with a 50 GB monthly usage cap.
It's good to note that Wellington is probably the best connected city in New Zealand.
There is fibre around the Wellington CBD, and it extends outwards to some residential. There's also a cable TV offering.
The rest of the country has to put up with ADSL and Wifi links... though things may have improved in my 2 years away from home.
The entrepreneurs behind it are a good team; I've worked with Rod Drury for a couple of years at his startup, so I know this was something they've pitched national government before.
It will be interesting to see what sort of public help they get with the endeavor.
New Zealand has traditionally been a leader in internet uptake - see the BBC's recent data visualisation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8552410.stm
The initial uptake was all dialup, however, and we've been left behind in the push to broadband because of a local monopoly/duopoly.
I hope this cable goes through - I may consider returning home one day :)
I'm disheartened by the trend towards tea over the last few years. The solid kick in the pants that a cup of coffee brings is something I'm reluctant to live without.
you clearly haven't spent time tuning your tea brewing! Its actually shockingly easy to brew amazing tasting black tea that is in the coffee- expresso strength in terms of caffeine.
First of all: Get loose leaf black tea, trying out several varieties to find a baseline one you like. Black tea is the simplest to brew of all the caffeinated tea variants. You'll also want to experiment with water temperature, steeping time (not that long, else you'll get the bitter flavor bits that no one like), and how you go about steeping (i
've found that disposable tea bags that I can fill with loose tea is best for me). I've fine tuned this process for myself to the point that I can make super strong tea that also naturally tastes sweet!
The mistake that many people make with tea vs coffee is that they equate the jitteriness with the caffeine working. In tea, there is also theanine, which moderates the jitters that occur due to caffeine via being a very mild muscle relaxant, and I am lead to believe that theanine has been found to have wholely positive cognitive effects generally.
That being said, coffee or tea are only helpful if you have a caffeine dependency, or you are amidst being tired/groggy to an extent that interferes with work. If your issues with doing work are not those, drink the tea anyways because its tasty, healthy and easier on the stomach/body than equivalent volumes of coffee (also tasty) or sugary(real or fake) energy drinks. and/or go talk with a doctor to figure out why you can't do work.
re: "steeping time (not that long, else you'll get the bitter flavor bits that no one like)"
As a tip to those who might want to give tea a try, the pattern of increased bitterness with increased steeping time is highly dependent on tea quality. Not necessarily price, but quality.
Don't be afraid to do some research, talk to local tea lovers, etc. to find the best quality (not simply the most expensive, as that is a sure way to just get ripped off) loose tea in your area. You'll be rewarded for it in terms of the freedom you have in steeping time, as better tea can be steeped longer and to stronger flavour without developing bitterness. (Higher-quality tea can also be reused for another steeping or two (gasp!) and still deliver great flavour, making it an even better value.)
For those coming off of a strong coffee habit, you can have yourself a nice, strong (but almost never bitter!) replacement in no time.
I enjoyed your Django and OpenID talks at Webstock in 2008 - they fit the conference and audience perfectly. However Webstock is a 400 person conference hosted in a remote part of the world. I'm not convinced that the niche of conferences that want speakers for such technical topics is large enough to support an agency you described.
I'm not so interested in an agency for conferences, since most of the conferences I speak at can't afford to pay their speakers (or if they can, don't pay them enough to make it worth having an agency involved). I'm interested in an agency that gets bookings for private talks at companies - really sort of one day consulting gigs.
In my case, I'd give a talk at a conference like Webstock and note at the end (probably just in text on a slide, no need to say anything out loud) that I'm available for internal talks at private companies. If anyone in the audience asked me about this afterwards I'd put them in touch with the agency. The agency negotiates pricing / travel / etc, and also actively sells my talks in other media (taking out adverts in "CTO Monthly" promoting the 20 or so speakers and topics in their stable).
I'm pretty confident that the niche of companies that want to engage technical experts for a combination of tech talk + a day consulting in the office is big enough to support something like this. I just have no interest in doing it personally - the reason I want it to exist is so I don't have to negotiate / market / coordinate the above points myself.
He didn’t have a bad word to say about Microsoft. He was more concerned that I not write anything negative about the company than anything else.
This guy's a class act. That level of professionalism is something we don't see often enough in this industry, and it'll reflect well on him while he looks for his next job.
"... This guy's a class act. That level of professionalism is something we don't see often enough in this industry ..."
I'd tend to agree with you here. I remember Don really getting stuck into YC, not in a negative way but fundamentally questioning the reasons for the niche b/w Angel and VC. Once explained what was going on and the reasons (benefits to Startups, VC's, customers, companies). Given the evidence and seeing the advantages Don changed tack. So it's not the first time I've seen how well Don has behaved in the sometimes bitchy world of Tech.
For those that haven't seen it, it's really worth your time. Her speech skims across the surface of several ideas, and in the last few minutes comes together into an elegant and cohesive whole. I wish I could speak like that.
I'd like to see more of this type of thing. When learning a new language, I don't need an introduction to the if statement or while loops, yet in the interests of completeness many programming books include a thorough (and mind-numbing) guide to them. For some readers that's called for, but many of us are stuck reading about concepts we're already comfortable with. I'm concerned that if I don't read everything, I'll miss out of some bizarre quirk of the language, so I'm reluctant to skim, but this gets in the way of what I'm really trying to achieve - using the language to make cool stuff.
Writers of programming language books take note: I'm generally not interested in the tool. Tools are boring. No really, they are. Making cool stuff and solving hard problems is interesting and fun. Get the tool out of the way so I can get things done.
Agreed. I wrote a couple-page cheat sheet on Objective C, and since I've made a twice-yearly ritual out of forgetting Objective C, it's come in handy. Repeatedly.
If you ever have time or inclination to share it, I could use a good cheat sheet. The closest I have now is "Objective C for C++ programmers", but it's not short enough to be a useful cheat sheet.
Throw me into a fresh install propagated with dummy data for a fake company. Make starting the demo a one click operation. When getting people to try things, you really need as few barriers to entry as possible.
What I'm suggesting comes from the same school of thought that motivates Wikipedia to allow edits without signing in, or StackOverflow to allow questions without an associated account.
Throw me into a fresh install propagated with dummy data for a fake company.
You wont be able to see how the field names you have provided correspond with things on the screen. I tried this with our user accounts' "home" areas, and people are not as interested in seeing someone else login area. Seeing your name in small font "[Hello, mahmud] [help] [logout]" etc, makes a lot of difference. My dummy data populator actually takes stuff from your geo location and is very use specific.
It always amazes me how the best social commentary comes from those who have the least to lose. Without the artificial constraint of professionalism (or, I guess, the need to be factually accurate), Lyons somehow manages to be more honest and credible, not less.
Exactly. If you don't let the style distract you, Fake Steve is actually the most sensible and sharp tech journalism around. This is the first non-hyperbole analysis of Google's announcement I've seen today.
My bet is that Chrome OS will have similar impact to the Chrome browser - encourage everyone to step up their game, but not dominate the market. Google has a lot of money and a lot of bright people, and it acts just like a bright person with little financial concerns: It toys with a lot of ideas, many of them brilliant, but rarely bothers to execute them fully. An OS takes years of frustrating, boring work to mature, I doubt Google has the focus for that.
The only way this makes sense is if they are trying to keep Microsoft distracted and too busy defending their core market to attack Google. If this forces MSFT to further lower their asking price for Windows 7 on low end devices, it is probably a success for Google.
The danger is if they take it too seriously. They do not want to get in a serious competition with MSFT for OS market share. But if this is costing them relatively little in engineering costs and executive focus, it's probably a good idea.
Fake Steve makes this same point: "Nah, the only point in Google giving away a free browser and OS is somehow to fuck up Microsoft."
They put years of frustrating, boring work into Google search, Maps, Mail, Chat, Calendar, Reader, etc.
Why should we doubt their ability to stick with a Linux Windowing and Usability project?
This 'Google is unfocused. Google doesn't follow through. Google leaves projects to rot' meme is particularly annoying, because there is so little evidence that it happens to anything on a significant scale.
Several of their large acquisitions have appeared to be neglected, but each and every time that I can recall, it's been a seeming public neglect followed by the introduction of the 2.0 successor.
Case in point: if you think their social networking acquisitions are being left to rot, vs their energy being focused on new services that integrate with WAVE, I've got a bridge to sell you.
There's also Froogle, Google Notebook, Blog search, Google Video and there's still no way to delete a GAE app... My view is that, unlike what much of the media seems to assume, Google and other huge companies aren't executing some secret Harry Seldon-like plans to conquer the universe - they just do a lot of stuff, sometimes it works and sometimes not. (Eg: Sun paying $1b for MySQL. Conde Nast paying actual money for Reddit's "Crowd wisdom". Bebo acquisition and most everything else AOL does.)
As for their social networking acquisitions vs WAVE, I'm completely ignorant on both (and expect to remain so, along with most of humanity).
But my main point isn't Google, but FSJ's tech coverage. Between Techcrunch & co hysteria and The Register's empty cynicism, I think FSJ's piece remains the best analysis of the Chrome OS announcement yet.
Froogle's been continually updated, even if it's not very good it appears to be as good as comparable products. And blog search is largely integrated now. (One wonders if it's worthwhile to maintain the distinction at all, now that Google's algorithm has a better 'understanding' of blog-style posts and links.)
Google Video and Notebook are good examples of projects that seem to linger and rot, but are in fact just having their energy devoted to their successors. Google Video development is being channeled into Youtube updates and Notebook into WAVE-based document creation.
And the only reason I didn't respond to your comment about FSJ's analysis is I agree with you 100% on that. Lyons' is without a doubt the most insightful and interesting commentary thus far.
I just think the 'Google is unfocused/fickle/etc' meme needs to be approached critically and put out to pasture if it's found wanting. (which i believe it is)
He is also good in weaving in trivia. Example from the Yahoo-merger story:
"But what, exactly, is the big vision here? I guess they'll talk about how phase one was the PC revolution and now we're entering phase two which is Internet computing and the cloud and they'll say that by joining together they'll become this giant powerful megacloud provider and the battle for utility computing is going to be all about scale."
Years ago Steve Jobs presented the digital-hub strategy for the Mac. He talked about the internet being the second phase of the PC and the digital-hub the third phase. So the above cited paragraph is mockery of the finest order. The better pieces of Fake-Steve are full of this stuff.
Yeah. That's not going to happen.