I think most of the complaints about sports fans has to do with the lack of thought one makes for being a fan of a particular team. Many seem to do so for childish reasons (the person likes the colors, mascot, or the city the team plays for) or because of something more annoying, one was raised that way. They never question if they support the vision of the team, or the management, or the coaches or players (most of whom never lived in the city for which they play). But hey, they are my city's team!
I certainly will not force my children to grow up liking a particular team/company just because I or my family likes them. I would hope that I would teach my children to appreciate a well played game (or well run company) and make the appropriate choice for mature reasons. I would also hope I would teach them that you do not need to have devotion in the face of mediocrity.
One has a choice in who one roots for and one should use proper reasoning when coming to that choice. Rooting for a particular team/company should not be a mindless activity.
I have no evidence but from being a sports fan for over 25 years I find people become fans of teams for two reasons. Either they are from that city|state|region or they like a particular player on that team at the time.
Being a fan of a team from your region gives you another connection to your community. It is something you all have in common. I would not call that silly. A little overly emotional maybe but not silly. It is just like the programming communities that we all fall into. I think we have all read stories on HN about someone leaving a or joining a language based on the community. Community can be important to some people.
And being a fan of a player, thus becoming a fan of the team, probably falls into your line of thinking as far as "picking a team for a mature reason". You like how the player plays the game so you want to cheer for him. If that's how you pick a team then that is fine as well. Some sports fans hate this way of picking a team but I think it is legitimate.
But being a fan of a team from a particular community is silly when nothing about that team truly represents that community other than a management team that has money to recruit leadership and players. How many players and coaches on a team are actually from and grew up in the community for they are currently representing? It's even more ridiculous in baseball where a person could come from another country or soccer where they will spend their complete budget getting a poster boy from the UK.
I can understand picking a player and liking the team because of that player, but do most people then stop liking the team when that player is drafted to another team? Seems the norm is to like a team, and then if a particular player is on that team it's a bonus, otherwise they still like a player but ultimately root for the original team.
Really enjoy Jon Jabat-Zinn's material. He's got a couple videos on google tech talks and his guided CD's are very good. I came to meditation knowing nothing at all and his clear and simple explanations helped immensely.
I agree, I find his material very good. I think he has good timing and his voice is in no way annoying; something I often find off putting with audio CD's. He has a good ability to remove the 'mumbo bumbo bullshit' (as he puts it) and get to the core of what is important.
I also started with the Google tech talk and went on to his other work.
on one reading, for example, the previous policy limited future changes to 'minor' ones; this is important because honestly., who ever revises their opinion on their use of a site based on their monitoring of a privacy policy? a minute fraction. Now, "and we expect most such changes will be minor" is gone.
Their freedom to hand the data to third parties is now much, much wider (for <processing> not the operation, improvement or development of services).
Search the page for 'sensitive' - this is vital. Look: before, google refused to collect or use it without your consent. Now, it can, without consent; it merely requires consent before sending it to third parties. Sensitive info is defined as 'related to confidential medical information, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality and tied to personal information.'
They also now retain the right to store the content of the SMSses you send.
They no longer bind themselves by promising to store credit card data in encrypted form.
They no longer promise to provide services, like google search, that you do not need to provide personal information to use.
They allow themselves to burrow detail about privacy policies in myriad 'help files' or 'specific notices'.
My point is that unless you or anyone can suggest a rational argument against clarifying this policy's language, I'm just not going to worry about it, and I don't think anyone else should either. "Lawyers can exploit it more easily" doesn't work as a rational argument for me. It seems like almost all privacy violations out there happen well within the constraints of privacy policies, or by accident. There's rarely ambiguity in a policy which gets exploited to enable something unexpected. It seems like a really low-concern area that doesn't deserve the kind of FUD I'm seeing in this thread. Especially in the case of a company like Google that could suffer for reversing its public stance on privacy.
It hardly seems more clear than the old privacy policy. I mean, is it really so high in the agenda of google to worry about people reading four or so words saying that google cares about their privacy!
There are some updates such as calling gadgets third party applications which is really just keeping up with the times.
However, unless they have bored employees with nothing to do but surfing around to see what they can make more customer friendly - this is from a company with one of the poorest customer services - I do not see why would they simply decide for the fun of it to change their privacy policy.
If nothing else, the tone of the new privacy policy is: deal with it. The rest of it we will find out shortly in the next decade.
So, are you a lawyer, or just a purveyor of FUD and ad hominems (literally -- you're saying I'm wrong because of some property about me rather than a weakness in my argument)?
> It hardly seems more clear than the old privacy policy.
It's more clear on the basis that twelve other products' privacy policies have been rolled into this one, and this one is still substantially shorter than it was (which would be more clear if we could compare before and after side-by-side rather than with the strikethroughs inlined). You now have to look in fewer places to get an understanding of the totality of Google's stance regarding privacy and your information.
> However, unless they have bored employees with nothing to do . . .
Part of the legal team's job is to periodically revisit external legal documents and make sure they convey the messages they're meant to as well as possible. It's extraordinary that you can see the sinister in something so innocuous.
you're saying I'm wrong because of some property about me rather than a weakness in my argument
I said that it is easier for lawyers to abuse, to which you replied that really you do not think so to which I asked if you are a lawyer. To which you replied no. At this point, I do not quite see what your argument is.
I am of possibly the sceptical opinion that a company like google who hardly cares to be customer friendly does not just decide to be friendly in some area which mostly affects their business, that being the policy with how they use the richness of data they gather. I will however concede. It is for the months and year coming to show their true motivations.
I believe this will just keep the moderately health conscious people being health conscious but will leave the ignorant unchanged and continue to make poor food choices. Take McDonald's packaging for example. They have been putting nutrition information on their packages for some time now but do you think that deters Joe Blow from ordering his super duper extra large king size Coke and fries?
Do you really need nutritional information hitting you in the face to realize that deep fried chicken that you're going to eat is bad for you?
It's not as if they use this information to decide between a hoagie and a salad. They use it to decide if they should get the huge hoagie or the one a couple of inches smaller.
Having it on the package is a little different though since you don't find out about the calories until after you order. When the counts are before you make the decision it may have a more profound effect.
Yes I know, seeing it on the package after you order it couldn't possibly stop you from repeating the same mistake and avoid ordering it the next 100 times.
I think you're giving too much credit to memory. Even though I've looked at the nutritional information on my fish sandwich the last three or four times I ordered it, I honestly cannot give you even a rough estimation of the calorie count -- nor would I be able to have an informed opinion the next time I'm in line and trying to decide between the fish and a big mac.
On the other hand, having that information displayed prior to ordering not only makes it readily apparent, but it also removes the burden of forcing the consumer to be constantly carrying around past nutritional information in their head.
Do you really think that either are a healthy choice? You're comparing two poor choices with each other and both will likely have the same outcome if eaten regularly. No nutritional label is going to change that.
Also, you're making the assumption that people can make a proper choice after reading a nutritional label. I could show someone that is less informed the nutritional data for various pieces of fish (that hasn't been breaded or deep fried) and they would think the fat and cholesterol content means that it's horrible for you when in fact fish has been shown to be beneficial.
Do you really think that either are a healthy choice?
No, not necessarily.
You're comparing two poor choices ...
Of which one is most certainly less poor. Granted, neither might be optimal, but if you've reached the point that you're reading the nutrition information, chances are you've already chosen where you're going to eat. Are you saying that making the slightly healthier choice would somehow be sub-optimal given the situation?
Also, you're making the assumption that people can make a proper choice after reading a nutritional label.
Yes, and that might be the wrong assumption when given the choice between apples and oranges; however, when contemplating a large fry vs. a medium fry (or a large anything vs. a smaller version of the same thing), the proper choice should most definitely be clear.
Even if it only makes moderately health-conscious people more healthy, it will still be a net benefit to the overall health and productivity of Americans. And if it reduces healthcare costs of the average American by even a minuscule amount, it will easily compensate for the effort required to put up the calorie coutns (which is honestly not very hard nor expensive)
The moderately health-conscious person is not the average American. The average American is ignorant and overweight and has led a life of poor eating choices. Not because of lack of information, but because of lack of caring and lack of habit. No nutritional label is going to change that.
Unfortunately the government is in the business of creating illusions. As long as we slap a label on something we create the illusion that we are making progress.
This is along the same lines that the government thinks they are making school lunches healthier by adding a fruit cup with their food but pay no attention to that fruit cup being loaded with sugar because of the heavy syrup in the container.
It just creates the illusion that we are doing something healthy, but not actually fixing the problem.
I do not believe that there is much we can do about the majority of adult Americans, but we could start shaping the future for the children and foster proper eating habits from the beginning.
When I said the "average" American, I meant the mathematical mean. That is to say, if the health-conscious people get slightly healthier and the rest stay the same, that pulls the average up slightly, which means less medical bills on average (again, mathematical mean) and greater average productivity.
I don't disagree with most of your points, but at the same time I don't see why there's any reason this law should not exist; it's easy to implement and does help some people. This law is not the health care solution; it's one tiny part of it.
I think that the article is arguing that since this law will not have a major impact on Americans' health, it should not be implemented. I'm arguing that it's a good law because it makes sense to provide basic information on food, and it's not an unreasonable hassle to do so.
The burden placed on the healthcare system are not by health conscious people but rather the people making poor lifestyle/food choices.
First, do you think that a health conscious person really needs that label to make a choice? Chances are they are conscious enough to make the proper choice to begin with. They are also probably making choices between items that are healthier than what an average person eats from a typical fast food joint.
Second, if they are already health conscious, I would go so far as to say they, on average, use the healthcare system the least in terms of ailments caused by poor food choices. So if you take a slightly healthy person and possibly make them marginally healthier, are they really using the healthcare system less, as a whole, to make a difference?
"Which is what a large amount of people already do, who own a TV."
I don't necessarily agree with this statement. I do not believe people are as selective with what they watch if they own a TV (yes, I know, there are always exceptions). When you actively seek out the content when/where/how you want it, as well as probably paying for it in some cases, you are much more selective with what you watch and how much time you spend watching it.
If people own a TV, they are using the hundreds of channels they have to suck up time rather than providing them true entertainment. People who own TVs, in my opinion, are much more likely to channel surf and just find a boring show to fill up their time because they find nothing else to do. This gets even worse with the increasing use of DVRs.
It turns into not filling an interest/entertainment need but rather providing a diversion.
... Just like the web. If anything, the web is worse if you're susceptible to this sort of time wasting brain rot addiction.
I'd say it's best to cure the problem (If you have one) than to proclaim that TV is bad.
The same sort of personality could waste time reading the dictionary or an encyclopedia. Not because they want to lookup something, just because they're bored. But that doesn't mean books are bad.
I do not believe they should just blindly get rid of the review process of app updates, but I do think that there should be some priority given to them. I believe that a developer should be able to push updates out to their apps with relative quickness compared to getting a new app approved. This would even benefit Apple for the applications that are teetering on making a decent amount of sales but are lagging in the sales due to some kind of problem/stability issue.
"Both platforms are much more open and on a mac you have very little trouble with stability or malware or even quality. "
I believe there are other factors that can contribute to this. I think the laptop/desktop portion of Apple still attracts a certain individual that typically requires things to be well designed and stable. Unfortunately the cell phone market is not the same way, especially when you factor in free or extremely cheap applications compared to more expensive OS X counterparts. The iPhone appealed to a wider audience, including Windows users who arguably put up with a lot crappier inefficient software.
I think when originally putting the app store in place, it was a fear to have this crap trickle into the Apple app store.
Also, Apple has a vested interest in the success of applications in the app store whereas it doesn't have as much direct benefit from applications released and sold independently for OS X.
I certainly will not force my children to grow up liking a particular team/company just because I or my family likes them. I would hope that I would teach my children to appreciate a well played game (or well run company) and make the appropriate choice for mature reasons. I would also hope I would teach them that you do not need to have devotion in the face of mediocrity.
One has a choice in who one roots for and one should use proper reasoning when coming to that choice. Rooting for a particular team/company should not be a mindless activity.
Be a fan of excellence.