Hey guys.

There are quite a bit of these around (fully aware of that), but we're trying to make a step ahead. Think of Cronforce as online timesheets meets vacation/absence scheduling meets project cost management for SMBs/startups. Real time tracking and rich 3rd party integrations to complete the picture.

The focus right now is bundling the software with segmented apps (think Google Apps, Jira, Basecamp, SAP, Trello). We're heavily relying on the Jira integration as it seems a lot of users are keen on it:

http://cronforce.com/integrations/jira-time-tracking.html

Would be glad to have your opinion on what works and what could be better!

Unfortunately the mainstream media has taken a stern stance of building a negative image of those services. You always get to read how it's full of pedophiles and drug traffic. The fact that such services help dissident journalists, bloggers or political figures or are invaluable in case of repressive internet shut-down seems to escape their spotlight.

This generalization of tech phenomenon which can be used for both good and bad deeds has led to extreme paranoia. Hence such harsh sweeps when dealing with it, I guess. Those who are under the effect of the judgement are also a part of yet another generalization encompassing an undefined, ridiculously big network of "criminals".

The general assumption in both the public mind and law is that anonymous == criminal, because of the "if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear" argument.

The long term downward trend in the trustedness of institutions has been steadily undermining this argument which is why, I think, things like Tor exist at all, but public attitudes change slowly.

In the case of Tor, it's slower / less convenient than usual browsing and is otherwise the same except for being more anonymous. So it's very easy to plant the idea in people's minds that there's no point in using it unless you're up to no good. And the Tor project doesn't really help here - they talk about the legitimate uses on their website but don't point to concrete examples (iirc), e.g. they say the military use it, but provide no real evidence of that. I think actually the UK child porn censors use it as well because it's a source of free proxies and child porn hosting sites know their IP addresses and block them, which is a pretty funny story, but this was mentioned in some talk and I don't think it's on their website.

To make things worse, the internet itself is rapidly converging on the consensus that Tor isn't worth it. Witness the widespread blocking of exit nodes that occurs these days. Tor is losing the argument not just in court but elsewhere too.

IMHO running Tor exits will not become less dangerous any time soon unless Tor finds a way to significantly boost "obviously legit" usage. For that they'd need to provide a Tor browser that isn't geared towards the total-anonymity-or-die crowd. VPN services like HotSpot Shield absolutely dominate Tor in terms of usage because they're much easier t use and don't do stuff like disable Flash and constantly wipe cookies, which makes them much more popular for people trying to evade national censorship but not treat the destination service as hostile.

Agreed. I'm interested to how they will implement copyright issues too.

What I'm also worried about is design changes. YouTube had some poor decisions in this domain and if Twitch experiences stuff like this, it may turn to a rather unpleasant platform.

I haven't deleted it, but for me the problem lies somewhere else:

The tech-sector is slowly growing into an oligopoly or at least that's my impression. I expect it to be diversified but deals like this leave me questioning and yes, they make me a bit sad. Perhaps the Oculus guys can use the resources Facebook will flow into them but...I have a bad feeling about this. Really.

Slowly?

The waves of patent and copyright attacks unleashed on Google are basically the giants who were born in the 70s and early 80s (Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle) trying their damndest to make sure no-one will ever grow in the shadows they cast.

I think it's going the other way. Remember that circa 2000, consumer tech was a monopoly.

Now there are quite a few big players. Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

This is like a real-life crime fiction.

Yeah, screw those decades before, 2010 is where it's at!

Pax Americana will continue for another 3 or 4 decades, even more. No matter what the U.S. does, there is a time needed for the developing giants at the moment (mostly China and India) to get into the next gear and make that power shift.

The next power status bearer won't be any different, though. That's how international relations have rolled in the past, and that's how they'll continue to be.

Don't know much about other stuff but from what I experienced in England (London area especially), the public transport is unbelievably expensive. I went there for 2 weeks and maybe the biggest part of my expenses was spent on trains/buses/the tube. Especially trains.

This from the point of view of a tourist, though. I guess English citizens have some preferences/reductions?

No particular reductions, though there are a few railcards for certain groups (e.g. <25s, retired) that generally offer a 33% discount. The best way to save money on trains is just to know your way around the labyrinthine system. For example, if you're going to Birmingham, don't catch the crazily expensive Virgin service from Euston; take the London Midland semi-fast, or the Chiltern line from Marylebone.

You use an Oyster card in London and you buy train tickets in advance and after peak hours or arriving to less "main" train stations (like Liverpool Street instead of King's Cross). If you can, you take a National Express/Megabus coach. English, British doesn't matter unless you are an OAP.

Strange, where are you from?

I'm the same as you - heard the name, never used the app. In the recent 4-5 months though all of my friends migrated to WhatsApp. I'm from Eastern Europe and when I cruised around other countries from the region there were many people who used that too. Maybe has to do with the fact that some telecoms still charge insane prices for a piece of SMS when you deplete your free quota.

I'm from the northeast US.