| 00:58 | <Hixie> | foolip: yt? |
| 00:58 | <Hixie> | or anyone who has opinions on video really |
| 00:58 | <Hixie> | consider a video that has one frame per minute |
| 00:58 | <Hixie> | with lots of audio |
| 00:59 | <Hixie> | the UA manages to download half of this file, but stops exactly on the boundary between two frames |
| 00:59 | <Hixie> | so it has frames 1 and 2, say, along with their audio, but doesn't have frame 3 or any of its audio |
| 00:59 | <Hixie> | where should playback stop? as frame 3 starts, or as frame 2 starts? |
| 01:00 | <Hixie> | i presume "as frame 3 starts" |
| 01:00 | <Hixie> | hmm |
| 01:07 | <nessy> | yes, I think so |
| 01:07 | <nessy> | what's the consequence? where are you changing things? |
| 01:07 | <zewt> | Hixie: you should print all of your batch emails and sell the Hixie-opedia |
| 01:09 | <Hixie> | nessy: just trying to clean up a mess i did a few months ago |
| 01:09 | <Hixie> | zewt: he |
| 01:09 | <Hixie> | h |
| 01:09 | <nessy> | yeah, your batch emails are epic :-) |
| 01:10 | <Yuhong> | I posted a bit about the history of presentational markup on Slashdot: |
| 01:10 | <Yuhong> | http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2201100&cid=36304692 |
| 01:17 | <zewt> | quote on the left page, hixie response on the right; flip through and see how many pages just say "indeed" :) |
| 01:20 | <Yuhong> | zewt: What are you referring to? |
| 01:20 | <zewt> | just the hixie-indeed :P |
| 01:21 | <nessy> | Hixie: as you just looked at chapters/captions etc - I just noticed in http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-iframe-element.html#sourcing-out-of-band-text-tracks a weird action |
| 01:21 | <nessy> | where chapters are turned on, it says: |
| 01:21 | <nessy> | "If there is a http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-iframe-element.html#text-track in the http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-iframe-element.html#media-element's http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-iframe-element.html#list-of-text-tracks whose http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/the-iframe-element.html#text-track-mode is http://www.whatwg.o |
| 01:22 | <Hixie> | um |
| 01:22 | <Hixie> | can you paste that without hte urls? :-) |
| 01:22 | <nessy> | ah damned Adium |
| 01:22 | <nessy> | If there is a text track in the media element's list of text tracks whose text track mode is showing by default, the user agent must furthermore change that text track's text track mode to hidden. |
| 01:23 | <nessy> | I read that as: when a chapter track is turned on it turns off all other tracks |
| 01:23 | <nessy> | no matter what kind they are |
| 01:23 | <nessy> | is that intended? |
| 01:23 | <Yuhong> | zewt: I mean, what page are you referring to? |
| 01:24 | <zewt> | err, any of hixie's Big Emails |
| 01:24 | <zewt> | (it was just a random comment as I'm reading through one of said Emails, there was no deeper meaning, heh) |
| 01:25 | <Hixie> | nessy: looking |
| 01:26 | <Hixie> | nessy: hm yeah that's bogus. will fix. |
| 01:26 | <nessy> | ta |
| 01:28 | <Hixie> | fixed. |
| 01:30 | <nessy> | also a question: what happens when there are more than one chapter track - is none of them enabled or the first one? |
| 01:38 | <Yuhong> | ". They seem to work with HTML, because text/html user agents are lenient and try to cope with broken HTML. The most common mistakes involve not escaping markup-significant characters or escaping them twice." |
| 01:39 | <Yuhong> | What do you think most XSS attacks come from? |
| 01:39 | <Hixie> | nessy: that seems to be defined by those steps already |
| 01:39 | <Hixie> | nessy: is it not clear? |
| 01:40 | <nessy> | Hixie: I assume when there are more then one, none is active - that's how I read it |
| 01:40 | <Yuhong> | Of course, there is also the U+FFFF problem in XML. |
| 01:40 | <nessy> | Hixie: but I think if we turn one on when there is only one, we should also turn one on when there are several |
| 01:41 | <nessy> | Hixie: or we should allow the default attribute on them to choose it, in addition to a subtitle/caption track |
| 01:41 | <Hixie> | nessy: i don't understand how you read the current text to mean what you describe |
| 01:42 | <Yuhong> | hsivonen: I think you should mention U+FFFF in http://hsivonen.iki.fi/producing-xml/ |
| 01:42 | <nessy> | Hixie: I'm also taking in the information from the bug 11842 that you posted: "For "chapters", one chapter track is always enabled regardless of the "default" |
| 01:42 | <nessy> | > attribute, so adding this doesn't seem useful." |
| 01:43 | <nessy> | Hixie: I read this to mean that one chapter track is always showing |
| 01:43 | <Yuhong> | considering it is common even in application/xhtml+xml |
| 01:43 | <nessy> | Hixie: maybe I am misreading - what is your intention? |
| 01:43 | <Hixie> | nessy: the spec is all that matters, don't listen to what i say :-) |
| 01:43 | <nessy> | lol |
| 01:44 | <nessy> | Hixie: so I cannot turn a chapter track on by default as well as a subtitle track using the default attribute? |
| 01:44 | <Hixie> | "default" can only be set on one text track at a time |
| 01:44 | <Hixie> | but there's no need to set a chapter track to be the default track |
| 01:45 | <nessy> | why not? |
| 01:45 | <nessy> | if I want one of a set of chapter tracks to be on as well as one of a set of subtitles? |
| 01:46 | <Hixie> | it'll be one anyway |
| 01:46 | <Hixie> | s/one/on/ |
| 01:51 | <nessy> | Hixie: and what will be on when there are several chapter tracks? |
| 01:52 | <Hixie> | whichever is the most appropriate one for the user |
| 01:52 | <Hixie> | is the spec really not clear about this? |
| 01:52 | <Hixie> | i don't understand what is confusing about the spec text |
| 01:55 | <nessy> | Hixie: it's when you have multiple tracks of the same language and the UA cannot decide which one is most appropriate for the user that it becomes a random decision and incompatible between browsers, IIUC |
| 01:55 | <nessy> | (possibly incompatible) |
| 01:56 | <nessy> | I assumed it meant that none is active |
| 01:57 | <Hixie> | it wouldn't be random |
| 01:57 | <Hixie> | why would it be random? |
| 01:57 | <Hixie> | the spec is completely deterministic here |
| 01:58 | <nessy> | re-reading… : the first one of the appropriate language? |
| 01:58 | <Hixie> | right |
| 01:58 | <nessy> | OK, my bad :-) thanks |
| 04:59 | <eboyjr|mobile> | Does anyone know what software is used to create this? http://hixie.ch/specs/html/server-sent-events/server-sent-events |
| 04:59 | <eboyjr|mobile> | Just like the w3c specs |
| 05:00 | <eboyjr|mobile> | Hixie: hello :) |
| 05:15 | <heycam> | eboyjr|mobile, http://anolis.gsnedders.com/ I believe |
| 05:17 | <eboyjr|mobile> | heycam: yeah that looks like that's it, thanks for finding it |
| 08:21 | <MikeSmith> | so the new Google +1 button relies on an "g:plusone" element? |
| 08:48 | <hober> | yeah, groan |
| 08:54 | <nessy> | does somebody here have access to the whatwg mailing lists and can make sure the "video feedback" email from Hixie is archived? |
| 08:54 | <nessy> | I can only find Glenn's answer in the archives, but not Hixies original one on that thread: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2011-June/031898.html |
| 08:54 | <nessy> | I think it may be stuck in moderation because it's very long |
| 08:58 | Ms2ger | sets mode: +b webben!~benjamin⊙1scc |
| 09:00 | <foolip> | Hixie, I think it should stop on the (time of) last frame it actually has, otherwise it doesn't make sense to display that last frame, which we certainly want to |
| 09:20 | <zewt> | i'd expect playback to stop as soon as something is needed for playback that isn't there |
| 09:21 | <zewt> | which would be when frame 3 starts |
| 13:11 | <smaug____> | Hixie: ping |
| 13:22 | <smaug____> | Hixie: just curious why any other interface than Function uses FunctionOnly. |
| 13:44 | <hsivonen> | why did Google switch from hyphened-words to camelCase for Rich Snippets? |
| 13:46 | Ms2ger | sets mode: -b webben!~benjamin⊙1scc |
| 15:10 | <hsivonen> | does anyone know if rel=pgpkey is supported by anything other than Jacques Distler's blog? |
| 15:18 | <matjas> | hsivonen: Thanks for your comment. I simply forgot to register apple-touch-icon-precomposed as well; my bad. Registering now. |
| 15:20 | <matjas> | hsivonen: Oh and since you asked, -precomposed actually works. Android doesn’t fully support that one though. Read http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/touch-icons#effects if you’re interested. |
| 15:20 | <hsivonen> | matjas: ok. |
| 15:21 | <hsivonen> | so which UAs actually implement rel processing per spec? |
| 15:21 | <matjas> | hsivonen: just edited http://microformats.org/wiki/existing-rel-values#HTML5_link_type_extensions |
| 15:21 | <hsivonen> | if IE and Mobile Safari don't |
| 15:21 | <hsivonen> | is correct processing a Gecko & Opera thing or something? |
| 15:21 | <matjas> | That’s a good question. |
| 15:23 | <hsivonen> | matjas: the validator will be aware of -precomposed once it finishes its deployment dance |
| 15:24 | <matjas> | hsivonen: yay! |
| 15:24 | <matjas> | I’ve also added openid.delegate and openid.server; have you added those as well? |
| 15:24 | <hsivonen> | matjas: yes. I also added the openid2 thingis |
| 15:24 | <hsivonen> | *thingies |
| 15:25 | <hsivonen> | even though it's not a good sign that a group (OpenID) is so quick to push an incompatible version of their initially successful protocol |
| 16:23 | <MikeSmith> | hsivonen: the openoffice user experience is so painful that I find a hard time caring who's in charge of it |
| 16:48 | <sephr> | Hixie: why do some events use detail:any and some use data:any? e.g. MessageEvent.data:any vs CustomEvent.detail:any |
| 16:50 | <smaug____> | sephr: in that particular case, .detail makes IMO more sense for CustomEvent since it is "detail" of that event. Messages need some data, so .data |
| 16:50 | <smaug____> | sephr: also, in practice CustomEvent interface is really old |
| 16:50 | <sephr> | yeah, but why was detail chosen to begin with? |
| 16:50 | <sephr> | because MessageEvent.data is "detail" of message events too |
| 16:50 | <sephr> | but it's data, not detail |
| 16:51 | <smaug____> | sephr: ask someone who edited DOM 3 Events 10 years ago |
| 16:51 | <sephr> | heh |
| 16:52 | <smaug____> | .detail feels quite natural in DOM 3 Events, since also UIEvents have .detail |
| 16:52 | <sephr> | yeah |
| 16:52 | <sephr> | maybe it's messageevent that is "wrong" |
| 16:52 | <smaug____> | .data sounds right in message events |
| 16:52 | <smaug____> | message events are containers for some data |
| 16:53 | <sephr> | smaug____: then .message would make the most sense |
| 16:53 | <sephr> | with customevents you don't know anything about what they will contain, so data seems more generic |
| 16:54 | <Ms2ger> | Meh, names |
| 16:54 | <smaug____> | anyway, these interfaces are something which probably can't be changed anymore |
| 16:54 | <smaug____> | at least their .data/.detail attributes |
| 16:56 | <MikeSmith> | earthquake |
| 16:56 | <MikeSmith> | 5. |
| 16:57 | <MikeSmith> | 5.9 u Fukushima |
| 16:59 | <karlcow> | hmm |
| 17:05 | <karlcow> | http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/2/20110604010419391-040100.html |
| 17:07 | <Philip`> | Their colours for "4" and "1" look almost identical to me :-( |
| 17:14 | <karlcow> | ah interesting |
| 17:14 | <karlcow> | I would have thought 3 and 2 |
| 18:19 | AryehGregor | notes that Gecko and WebKit accept {delete: 1} as a valid object initializer, but IE and Opera throw a syntax error |
| 18:20 | <AryehGregor> | I'm pretty sure ES5 supports Gecko and WebKit. |
| 18:20 | <AryehGregor> | Actually, almost totally sure. |
| 18:21 | <AryehGregor> | No, wait, my bad, IE supports it. |
| 18:22 | <AryehGregor> | Only Opera doesn't. |
| 18:23 | <AryehGregor> | Opera also seems to not like x.delete. |
| 18:25 | AryehGregor | would file a bug at this point if he were able to track its progress, since it seems like something that would be relatively likely to get fixed soon if reported, but . . . |
| 18:29 | <Philip`> | AryehGregor: The likelihood of it getting fixed is probably independent of your ability to track its progress, if it's something simple like that, and merely satiating your personal curiosity over progress seems less important than leading the web to its full potential by getting such bugs fixed |
| 18:31 | <AryehGregor> | Philip`, getting such a bug fixed is a sufficiently small contribution toward leading the web to its full potential that I have no qualms about not doing it if I don't have a more personal stake in the matter. Particularly since a) I would have to interrupt work I'm being paid for on an hourly basis to file the bug; and b) I mentioned it in a channel where lots of Opera employees hang out, and they would in fact be able to file it on paid ti |
| 18:31 | <AryehGregor> | me. |
| 18:34 | <othermaciej> | AryehGregor: ES5 has the concept of contextual keywords |
| 18:35 | <othermaciej> | AryehGregor: ones that are not treated as keywords when they appear in a position like a property name in an object initializer |
| 18:35 | <AryehGregor> | othermaciej, really? Where does it say that? As far as I can see, it's more like *nothing* is a keyword when used as a property name in an object initializer, because it's an IdentifierName instead of an Identifier. |
| 18:35 | <othermaciej> | that might be true |
| 18:36 | <AryehGregor> | Actually, if I read the spec correctly, {null: "a"} is the same as {"null": "a"}. Which is slightly confusing. |
| 18:36 | othermaciej | has no idea |
| 18:36 | <othermaciej> | why is that confuing? |
| 18:36 | <othermaciej> | property names are always strings, so obj[null] is by definition the same as obj["null"] |
| 18:36 | <AryehGregor> | Because I'd expect that {null: "a"} means "use the special value null as a key", not "use the string 'null' as a key and just don't bother with the quotes". |
| 18:36 | <AryehGregor> | Oh, I see. |
| 18:37 | <othermaciej> | it would only be confusing maybe if there was a keyword that has a different value than its own stringification |
| 18:37 | <AryehGregor> | So it's like PHP, foo[1] is the same as foo["1"]. |
| 18:37 | <othermaciej> | yes |
| 18:37 | <AryehGregor> | That's not confusing, then, no. |
| 18:37 | <othermaciej> | though of course implementations optimize the heck out of numeric property names, at least for arrays |
| 18:37 | <AryehGregor> | Well, that's not like PHP, then. ;) |
| 18:38 | AryehGregor | has not noticed anything optimized the heck out of in PHP |
| 18:38 | <AryehGregor> | Tim Starling is MediaWiki's resident PHP performance guru, and he tells everyone not to use objects, strings, numbers, arrays, or booleans, because all of them are horribly inefficient. |
| 18:39 | <AryehGregor> | Instead, we should use MySQL result resources, because those are actually efficient. |
| 18:39 | <zewt> | (i just threw up a little in my mouth) |
| 18:39 | <AryehGregor> | (this is taken slightly out of context and may be overgeneralized compared to his original statement) |
| 18:39 | <AryehGregor> | (but MediaWiki does try to use MySQL result resources whenever possible instead of converting them to arrays, because they use ridiculously less memory than any built-in type) |
| 18:40 | <AryehGregor> | (e.g., we have Title objects to represent page titles, and instead of keeping arrays of Titles, we have a TitleArray class which just keeps a MySQL result resource you feed it and generates the Title objects on the fly as you request them) |
| 18:40 | <AryehGregor> | (I think I remember hearing that minimum size of an array in PHP is something like 80 bytes per item) |
| 18:41 | AryehGregor | gets curious, tests |
| 18:43 | <AryehGregor> | http://pastebin.com/2WwB83k2 |
| 18:44 | <AryehGregor> | This outputs 103.5 on my 32-bit desktop, and 199 on my 64-bit server. |
| 18:45 | <AryehGregor> | That's the number of megabytes PHP uses when I create a million-element array whose keys are the integers from 0 to 999999 and whose values are all 0. |
| 18:45 | AryehGregor | tries something like that in JS |
| 18:47 | <AryehGregor> | A similar-ish test in Chrome suggests around 4.5 MB, although it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison. |
| 18:47 | <AryehGregor> | But 4.5 MB is only slightly more than you'd get in C, so pretty good. |
| 18:47 | AryehGregor | gets back to work |
| 19:07 | <rudak> | http://d-cent.org/fsw2011/ |
| 19:36 | <Hixie> | foolip: yt? |
| 19:46 | <AryehGregor> | Does Opera not yet support SVG in <img>? |
| 19:47 | <AryehGregor> | It seems like it does, but it's not working on this page, hmm. |
| 19:48 | <AryehGregor> | Oh, it seems to not like it if I set width/height on it. |
| 19:48 | <AryehGregor> | No, that's not it . . . |
| 19:49 | <AryehGregor> | Oh, now it's working. Oh well. |
| 20:31 | <AryehGregor> | Opera also doesn't let var parent shadow window.parent, which all other browsers do. |
| 20:33 | <Hixie> | there's some bug on exactly how to specify that |
| 20:35 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: see bug 12100 for a question (at the bottom) |
| 20:38 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, I don't see where you changed atob()/btoa(). |
| 20:39 | <AryehGregor> | Basically DOMStrings are arrays of 16-bit integers, and btoa()/atob() should work fine as long as you don't do anything silly like assume DOMStrings have anything to do with UTF-16. |
| 20:39 | <AryehGregor> | Probably everything that references to characters and code points should be ripped out of all DOM-related specs. |
| 20:40 | <AryehGregor> | s/references/refers/ |
| 20:40 | <AryehGregor> | (except where the string actually needs to be displayed, then you need to convert it to Unicode somehow for display) |
| 20:40 | <AryehGregor> | (also maybe during parsing or something) |
| 20:41 | <AryehGregor> | (but not regular old DOM methods, those don't deal with Unicode at all in practice) |
| 20:41 | <Hixie> | what i did was remove the stuff that said to "convert DOMString to unicode" |
| 20:42 | <AryehGregor> | That should make everything correct, except maybe for stuff that actually displays things on the screen. |
| 20:42 | <AryehGregor> | Like alert(). Although I don't know if that uses the spec's algorithm or some other algorithm. |
| 20:42 | <Hixie> | yeah i don't know what to do about that |
| 20:42 | <AryehGregor> | When you parse a document, does all the text wind up being valid Unicode in the DOM? |
| 20:43 | <Hixie> | what do you mean by "valid unicode"? |
| 20:43 | <AryehGregor> | It doesn't matter, you can always get a DOM that contains invalid UTF-16 by setting it programmatically. |
| 20:43 | <Hixie> | what do you mean by "UTF-16"? |
| 20:44 | <AryehGregor> | I mean you can set a text node's content to contain arbitrary DOMStrings, including unpaired surrogates. |
| 20:44 | <AryehGregor> | And browsers have to deal with that anyway. |
| 20:44 | <Hixie> | yes |
| 20:44 | <AryehGregor> | So presumably, however they deal with it, they deal with alert() the same way. |
| 20:44 | <AryehGregor> | I imagine alert() is actually displayed using the DOM in at least some browsers. |
| 20:44 | <AryehGregor> | Not if they use OS modal pop-ups, I guess. |
| 20:45 | <AryehGregor> | But it seems fair to say that unpaired surrogates in alert() get handled the same as unpaired surrogates in text nodes, as Henri says. |
| 20:45 | <AryehGregor> | Is behavior defined for the latter? |
| 20:45 | <Hixie> | not as far as i can tell |
| 20:46 | <The_8472> | utf-16 strikes me as an odd choice considering that it's 32bit wide now. you have no character-counting benefits or anything from wasting those bytes. might as well use utf-8... |
| 20:46 | <AryehGregor> | So then we're probably fine, unless we want to define that behavior. |
| 20:46 | <AryehGregor> | Which is low-priority at best, since it only matters in weird situations and the effects are only visual. |
| 20:47 | <AryehGregor> | As long as browsers don't do something stupid like throw an exception or refuse to display anything at all, interop is unlikely to be essential here. |
| 20:47 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, yeah, we'd all love it if JavaScript used UTF-8, but it's way way way too late to change, so here we are. |
| 20:47 | <Hixie> | what is 32 bit wide? |
| 20:47 | <The_8472> | the unicode planes |
| 20:47 | <Hixie> | unicode is 21 bit wide |
| 20:48 | <Hixie> | (with holes) |
| 20:49 | <The_8472> | well, the point is that with utf-32 you at least have 1 word per character, which makes some calculations easier. utf16 doesn't have that benefit |
| 20:50 | <AryehGregor> | Yes, UTF-16 was a terrible mistake and should never have existed. UTF-8 is superior in essentially all respects. |
| 20:50 | <Hixie> | yeah, utf-16 is pretty much pointless. but we're like 15 years too late to fix that. |
| 20:50 | <The_8472> | yeah :/ |
| 20:50 | <AryehGregor> | So everything new uses UTF-8 only. |
| 20:50 | <Hixie> | (for the web) |
| 20:50 | <AryehGregor> | Like WebSockets, right? |
| 20:50 | <AryehGregor> | But old stuff is stuck. |
| 20:50 | <Hixie> | websockets is complicated in all manner of ways but i'll let the hybi people deal with that |
| 20:50 | <Hixie> | their encoding issues are Not My Problem |
| 20:51 | <The_8472> | websockets are crazy anyway. using http means you can't just implement old protocols in javascript... they should have specified a proper socket API, including listening ports |
| 20:51 | <The_8472> | then we could run IRC in javascript or fun things like that |
| 20:52 | <AryehGregor> | Um, WebSockets doesn't use HTTP. |
| 20:52 | <The_8472> | really? maybe i was thinking of the wrong standard then |
| 20:52 | <AryehGregor> | At least last I checked. |
| 20:52 | <Hixie> | arbitrary sockets in JS would be such a security disaster |
| 20:53 | <Hixie> | websockets can be viewed as using http and viewed as not using http |
| 20:53 | <Hixie> | if you're an ietf person, you will view it as using http |
| 20:53 | <The_8472> | http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-hybi-thewebsocketprotocol-07 <- sure looks like HTTP to me |
| 20:53 | <Hixie> | in reality it's just a lie though |
| 20:54 | <Hixie> | it's really just doing stuff that vaguely looks like http |
| 20:54 | <The_8472> | same difference |
| 20:54 | <The_8472> | the point is that you have to deal with those pre-defined headers |
| 20:56 | <Hixie> | if you mean "there's a handshake", then yeah, there'd better be |
| 20:56 | <Hixie> | otherwise like i said, security dis-as-ter |
| 20:56 | <The_8472> | i don't see how |
| 20:57 | <Hixie> | say you're in an intranet environment |
| 20:57 | <The_8472> | unless someone would be so silly and would automatically let all sites use sockets. operating systems don't do that either (anymore) |
| 20:57 | <Hixie> | and you go to hostile.com |
| 20:57 | <Hixie> | now hostile.com can read your intranet |
| 20:57 | <The_8472> | well, i didn't allow hostile.com to make any connections |
| 20:57 | <Hixie> | how do you propose to prevent it? |
| 20:57 | <The_8472> | just like i didn't allow gimmickyprogramijustdownloaded.exe to go through my firewall |
| 20:57 | <zewt> | your mom probably does |
| 20:58 | <The_8472> | my mom doesn't sit in my company's network |
| 20:58 | <zewt> | so? |
| 20:58 | <Hixie> | no but she sits on her network and it's just as bad, because now any website can use your computer to launch a worm against any vulnerable services on your network |
| 20:58 | <Hixie> | s/your/her/ |
| 20:58 | <The_8472> | again, this is a solved problem |
| 20:59 | <The_8472> | just like we have software firewalls in the operating system you can have the same type of whitelisting in the browser |
| 20:59 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, we're talking about letting any website you visit open a connection. |
| 20:59 | <The_8472> | add a blacklist for the local network to protect yourself |
| 20:59 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, no we aren't |
| 20:59 | <AryehGregor> | We are. Maybe you aren't. |
| 20:59 | <AryehGregor> | Any website can use WebSockets. |
| 20:59 | <The_8472> | some people here don't seem to understand the concept of "opt-in" |
| 21:00 | <AryehGregor> | That's not what WebSockets is designed for. |
| 21:00 | <AryehGregor> | If you want that, write a browser extension and use real sockets. |
| 21:00 | <AryehGregor> | Or just write a real program. |
| 21:00 | <The_8472> | designing web APIs on an opt-out basis have lead to such things as ever-lasting tracking cookies. someone should have realized by now that that's a bad idea |
| 21:01 | <zewt> | having the user decide whether to allow a site/program to open a socket to a particular host is guaranteed not to work; users don't know what sockets are |
| 21:01 | <AryehGregor> | The entire point of WebSockets is that any website can use them. Thus they have to be safe. |
| 21:01 | <Hixie> | software firewalls whitelisting apps is _not_ a solved problem |
| 21:01 | <Hixie> | it's a huge problem |
| 21:01 | <zewt> | you can do that for some things (users understand "let this website know where I am" for geoip), but for network communications? not a chance |
| 21:01 | <Hixie> | users do not understand the prompts and allow everything |
| 21:01 | <AryehGregor> | What alternative do you propose to allowing tracking cookies, asking the user whether they want to accept every single cookie that a site tries to set? |
| 21:01 | <zewt> | (geolocation, rather) |
| 21:01 | <The_8472> | well, then they shot themselves in the foot |
| 21:01 | <AryehGregor> | That's just not sane as default behavior. You can configure your browser that way if you want. |
| 21:01 | <The_8472> | their own problem |
| 21:01 | <zewt> | asking the user permission for everything is the worst last-ditch almost guaranteed-failure security mechanism |
| 21:01 | <AryehGregor> | No, not their own problem, it's everyone's problem. |
| 21:01 | <Hixie> | The_8472: it's OUR problem |
| 21:02 | <zewt> | no, having a platform where every user is expected to be a network security expert would not be their problem |
| 21:02 | <AryehGregor> | Our goal is to design standards that make the web better and safer, not push all responsibility off to the user. |
| 21:02 | <Hixie> | The_8472: being responsible stewarts is what makes it our problem |
| 21:02 | <zewt> | the web is not only for programmers and netadmins |
| 21:02 | <The_8472> | well, you failed. *points at tracking cookies* |
| 21:02 | <zewt> | ... |
| 21:02 | <Hixie> | The_8472: having their networks become spam sources makes it our problem |
| 21:02 | <zewt> | (troll?) |
| 21:02 | <AryehGregor> | What alternative do you propose to allowing tracking cookies? |
| 21:02 | <The_8472> | no, i'm serious |
| 21:02 | <Hixie> | The_8472: having their networks become sources for DOS attacks makes it our problem |
| 21:02 | <AryehGregor> | Sites need a way to track the user so that they can, e.g., remember that the user is logged in. |
| 21:03 | <AryehGregor> | Any such mechanism can necessarily be used for tracking too. |
| 21:03 | <Hixie> | you don't need cookies for tracking |
| 21:03 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, the problem is that this feature is always on and not just when you actually need it |
| 21:03 | <AryehGregor> | That too, you can use all sorts of fingerprinting. |
| 21:03 | <The_8472> | so even sites where you don't want to log in can use it |
| 21:03 | <AryehGregor> | You can track just fine without cookies, cookies just make it easier (but they're not as reliable as other methods). |
| 21:03 | <The_8472> | just more things to fix |
| 21:03 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, https://panopticlick.eff.org/ |
| 21:04 | <AryehGregor> | No cookies needed. |
| 21:04 | <AryehGregor> | What do you propose, the browser provide a prompt every time a site tries to set a cookie? |
| 21:04 | <AryehGregor> | Prompts are annoying, users don't want them. Also, most users won't understand and will make a more or less random choice. |
| 21:04 | <AryehGregor> | After they figure out that sites break if they say no, they'll just say yes all the time. |
| 21:05 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, it could do something smart. maybe only store cookies for sites that you also store passwords for or something like that |
| 21:05 | <AryehGregor> | "Do something smart" is not a particularly useful suggestion. |
| 21:05 | <The_8472> | just a "remember me on this site" button going along with logins |
| 21:05 | <Hixie> | it's trivial to make the browser store a password for a site |
| 21:05 | <AryehGregor> | Sites need to legitimately store info about you even if you don't enter a password or such. |
| 21:05 | <The_8472> | i have cookies off by default |
| 21:05 | <AryehGregor> | For instance, say you rearranged some things on the site without logging in. |
| 21:06 | <The_8472> | you can use sessions for that |
| 21:06 | <AryehGregor> | vBulletin's forum home page lets you collapse sections of forums, and remembers what you collapsed using cookies. |
| 21:06 | <AryehGregor> | Um, sessions use cookies. |
| 21:06 | <The_8472> | or session IDs |
| 21:06 | <AryehGregor> | Which are stored in cookies. |
| 21:06 | <The_8472> | or in the url |
| 21:06 | <AryehGregor> | Unless you mean appending to the query string? |
| 21:06 | <AryehGregor> | Then it only works until you leave the site and come back again. |
| 21:07 | <AryehGregor> | Tons of sites allow non-logged-in users to save some types of preferences using cookies. |
| 21:07 | <The_8472> | that's the idea |
| 21:07 | <zewt> | (not to mention all the other horrible problems of storing session IDs in the URL; go back a decade or so and see how bad it was) |
| 21:07 | <Hixie> | turning off cookies is just silly, it doesn't help anything and it just breaks sites |
| 21:07 | <The_8472> | i have them off and most things work just fine |
| 21:07 | <AryehGregor> | Great, so you're saying websites should not be able to store info for non-logged-in users beyond one session, and should only be able to store the info within a session by appending query strings everywhere? |
| 21:08 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, it does stop tracking if sites assume that cookie-based tracking works and don't bother with more sophisticated methods, which is doubtless the case. |
| 21:08 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, some properly managed session cookies might be ok too |
| 21:08 | <Hixie> | specifically, sites that want to track you against your will still can, and sites that want to provide you with personalisation will break |
| 21:08 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, what's "properly managed"? |
| 21:08 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: hostile sites don't just use cookies |
| 21:08 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: only benign sites rely on cookies for tracking |
| 21:08 | <The_8472> | i have flash, local storage and cross-domain requests off too |
| 21:08 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, some users don't want to be tracked even by "benign" sites. |
| 21:08 | <AryehGregor> | Cross-domain requests? Like all cross-domain loads? |
| 21:09 | <AryehGregor> | Doesn't that break any site that uses a CDN? |
| 21:09 | <The_8472> | it does |
| 21:09 | <Hixie> | e.g. if you turn off cookies, your google results will get measurably worse |
| 21:09 | <AryehGregor> | Okay, so do you see why this is totally not a viable solution for the average web user? |
| 21:09 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: that's silly |
| 21:09 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: if they're benign then by definition it doesn't matter if you're tracked by them |
| 21:09 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, that's why I said "benign". |
| 21:09 | <AryehGregor> | I agree that there's no reason to worry about tracking, but not everyone agrees. |
| 21:10 | <Hixie> | there's plenty of reasons to worry about tracking |
| 21:10 | <AryehGregor> | Some people would view any statistics-gathering as non-benign. |
| 21:10 | <Hixie> | i'm just saying that turning off cookies doesn't help |
| 21:10 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, if it were the default the CDNs would just run on the sub-domain and you could easily use the same-domain policy instead of a same-host policy |
| 21:10 | <The_8472> | anyway, i know i'm slightly paranoid |
| 21:10 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, yes, and all the tracking stuff would just run on a subdomain too, so you've made things harder for authors and gained nothing. |
| 21:10 | <The_8472> | but most things still work. maybe with 1-2 extra clicks |
| 21:10 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, it wouldn't work across domains |
| 21:11 | <AryehGregor> | Why would it have to? |
| 21:11 | <The_8472> | e.g. i have zero google analytics, anywhere |
| 21:11 | <zewt> | ... 1-2 extra clicks adds up to a lot of pointless UI noise |
| 21:11 | <AryehGregor> | Things like Analytics would just tell you make a CNAME pointing to their domain, and load Analytics off a subdomain of your own site (which actually points to Google's servers). |
| 21:11 | <AryehGregor> | So if cross-domain loads didn't work at all by default, everything would just be "same-domain". |
| 21:12 | <AryehGregor> | It would only stop you from including content from parties that didn't cooperate, which isn't the use-case you're worried about at all. |
| 21:12 | <AryehGregor> | And again, normal users don't have any idea what a "domain" is and don't want to, and the web is not meant to be something only nerds can use correctly. |
| 21:12 | <Hixie> | The_8472: how do you have zero analytics? |
| 21:13 | <AryehGregor> | We can't dictate what the web looks like, we're limited to what browsers can feasibly implement, and they're restricted by user demand. |
| 21:13 | <The_8472> | yeah, they want their data harvested and sold by facebook and google instead. |
| 21:13 | <AryehGregor> | Correctg. |
| 21:13 | <AryehGregor> | Correct. |
| 21:13 | <Hixie> | The_8472: (and what harm does google analytics do to you? just curious) |
| 21:13 | <AryehGregor> | The large majority of users would prefer that data about them be collected and sold, than that they have to put up with extra hassle or confusing dialogs. |
| 21:13 | <Hixie> | or having to pay to view the sites :-) |
| 21:13 | <AryehGregor> | That too. |
| 21:13 | <The_8472> | i don't know. that's the issue. maybe it's completely harmless. maybe they sell that information to advertisers... maybe they use it to create personalized profiles. who knows. |
| 21:14 | <AryehGregor> | They do have a privacy policy, you know. |
| 21:14 | <AryehGregor> | You can read it. |
| 21:14 | <Hixie> | The_8472: i don't understand (a) how you prevent it and (b) what the harm is in having more targetted ads |
| 21:14 | <The_8472> | as if companies ever adhere to their own privacy policies |
| 21:14 | <AryehGregor> | Perhaps they don't follow it, but that's pretty unlikely, given the liability it would expose them to. |
| 21:14 | <AryehGregor> | Large companies do, because otherwise they'll get sued and take a huge PR hit. |
| 21:14 | <AryehGregor> | Small companies, yeah, probably they aren't so careful. |
| 21:15 | <zewt> | (or they just follow the Dropbox model, and quietly change their privacy policy when it's inconvenient) |
| 21:15 | <AryehGregor> | But if Google were flagrantly ignoring its own privacy policy, all it would take is one employee to anonymously leak the story to the media. |
| 21:15 | <AryehGregor> | Then of course people would sue them and find out the truth during discovery. |
| 21:15 | <The_8472> | or someone to lift the database and dump it on bittorrent *cough*sony*cough* |
| 21:15 | <AryehGregor> | Sure. |
| 21:16 | <The_8472> | data avoidance helps with that |
| 21:16 | <AryehGregor> | But that hasn't happened, and Google has very good reason to not to want it to happen, so it's pretty safe to assume they're following their privacy policy. |
| 21:16 | <AryehGregor> | Which you might not like, of course. |
| 21:16 | <The_8472> | Hixie, by blocking cross domain requests. |
| 21:16 | <AryehGregor> | I'm pretty sure it says they can release data to other parties as long as those parties also agree to keep it secret, or something to that effect. |
| 21:17 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, also. google has handed over search records to the govt several times. they fought to anonymize them, but other search companies just caved in. |
| 21:17 | <AryehGregor> | But anyway, there's no way we can prevent tracking by default. If you care about being tracked, you should prefer the status quo, because it makes it much easier for you not to be tracked. |
| 21:17 | <AryehGregor> | Well, yeah, any data is going to be subject to subpoena. |
| 21:17 | <Hixie> | The_8472: you block cross-domain requests? how? |
| 21:17 | <The_8472> | and considering that the US has a court that can hand out such orders *in secret* i have no certainty that they aren't forced to do so without disclosing it. |
| 21:18 | <The_8472> | Hixie, request policy addon for firefox. |
| 21:18 | <AryehGregor> | Entirely possible. |
| 21:18 | <AryehGregor> | If you never learn about it, though, it's kind of unlikely you were materially harmed by the disclosure. Possible, but quite unlikely. |
| 21:18 | <The_8472> | so why let google track me if all that could possibly happen is that data somehow getting in the wrong hands. |
| 21:18 | <Hixie> | The_8472: either your addon is broken, or you must have a pretty warped experience browsing the web, because pretty much EVERYTHING on the web uses cross-domain requests |
| 21:19 | <The_8472> | or you must have a pretty warped experience browsing the web <- that |
| 21:19 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, these things typically prompt you when you load the page. |
| 21:19 | <AryehGregor> | At least NoScript does. |
| 21:19 | <AryehGregor> | Or can be configured to. |
| 21:19 | <The_8472> | it's in the addon bar, so i can manually allow requests |
| 21:19 | <AryehGregor> | So you use a whitelist. |
| 21:19 | <AryehGregor> | Which you build over time. |
| 21:19 | <The_8472> | yeah, like amazon -> amazon-images |
| 21:19 | <AryehGregor> | Analytics and ads and so on get knocked out very early, others get permanently whitelisted if they look reasonable. |
| 21:19 | <The_8472> | yep |
| 21:20 | <AryehGregor> | For random sites you might have to click a few times, but they'll work. |
| 21:20 | <AryehGregor> | Just a bit of extra inconvenience. |
| 21:20 | <The_8472> | and it also has a "add exception temporarily" thing |
| 21:20 | <The_8472> | i have the same for cookies, flash, etc. |
| 21:20 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, anyway, I hope you realize that most people are not interested in going to all this effort to avoid tracking, and it doesn't make sense to try setting up the web to work like this by default. |
| 21:20 | <AryehGregor> | And also that it only works so well for you because it's *not* set to work like this by default. |
| 21:20 | <AryehGregor> | Because if most users did it, sites would work around it. |
| 21:21 | <AryehGregor> | Like by putting Analytics on subdomains that point to Google's servers, etc. |
| 21:21 | <Hixie> | given how much more pleasant the web is with well targetted ads than with untargetted ads, that seems like a whole lot of pain for nothing |
| 21:21 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, um, I assume he blocks all ads. |
| 21:21 | <The_8472> | what ads? |
| 21:21 | <AryehGregor> | Those are generally cross-site. |
| 21:21 | <_bga> | gsnedders http://www.dark-masters.tk/index.php/articles/8-fulldisclosure/15-stealing-files-using-a-malicious-html-file |
| 21:22 | <AryehGregor> | Also, I find that targeted ads tend to be more amusing than actually helpful, like ads for Microsoft SQL Server training and things like that in my case. |
| 21:22 | <Hixie> | well let's hope you stay in the minority, otherwise the web will become economically unsustainable :-/ |
| 21:22 | <AryehGregor> | Technically it's *close* to appropriate, but in fact it's about as useful to me as ads for 18,000-square-foot mansions in Madagascar. |
| 21:22 | <AryehGregor> | I.e., it's not. |
| 21:22 | <The_8472> | most ads i've seen are completely pointless. advertising stuff sold on the wrong continent. |
| 21:23 | <Hixie> | The_8472: not surprised, if you block tracking! |
| 21:23 | <AryehGregor> | You don't need tracking to do geolocation. |
| 21:23 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: then it's not a well targetted ad |
| 21:24 | <The_8472> | for ads to be well-targeted they'd need a personal profile of me. and i don't see why whole ad-networks supplying thousands of companies worldwide should know about me. |
| 21:24 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, sure. But almost none of the ads I see are well-targeted. Google isn't smart enough yet to distinguish essential subtleties like "Windows sysadmin" and "Linux sysadmin". |
| 21:24 | <AryehGregor> | That's not quite true -- I see Linux ads too, probably disproportionately. |
| 21:24 | <AryehGregor> | But most of those are useless to me too, like ads for IDEs, or . . . |
| 21:24 | AryehGregor | looks at Gmail |
| 21:24 | <AryehGregor> | "Server Protocols - License Our IP - Make Your Software Work with Microsoft Protocols! - www.Microsoft.com/Protocols"; |
| 21:24 | <AryehGregor> | That's just *so* ironic. |
| 21:24 | <The_8472> | well... gmail... i don't use that. that's like handing google the key to the town |
| 21:25 | <AryehGregor> | "GoDaddy #1 domain names - $7.99 .COM Domains - Save Today Free Hosting, Blogcast, Email, More - GoDaddy.com" Like I wouldn't know where to go if I wanted domain names. |
| 21:25 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: yeah. it's early days yet. |
| 21:25 | <AryehGregor> | "Google NY is Looking For - Software Engineers with great aspirations. Send your resume now! - www.google.com/jobs"; Definitely close to the mark, but not usefully so in my case. :) |
| 21:25 | <The_8472> | for targeted advertising to work they basically have to strip you naked |
| 21:26 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: that seems pretty perfect to me :-) |
| 21:26 | <AryehGregor> | "Compare to GMC Sierra - Compare the GMC Sierra to the Competition. Get Details. - www.GMC.com/Sierra"; Don't have a driver's license. |
| 21:26 | <AryehGregor> | Etc. |
| 21:26 | <Hixie> | early days |
| 21:26 | <Hixie> | it'll get better |
| 21:26 | <AryehGregor> | Yep. |
| 21:26 | <AryehGregor> | As long as they can build up sufficiently detailed profiles. |
| 21:26 | <AryehGregor> | Which, fortunately, the large majority of people will let them do. |
| 21:26 | <AryehGregor> | While people like The_8472 will just freeload. |
| 21:27 | <The_8472> | but hey, people are getting conditioned. feeling your crotch at airports? no problem. having your boss see your party pictures on facebook? every weekend... |
| 21:27 | <AryehGregor> | Well, this is unless data tracking laws get out of hand. |
| 21:27 | <zewt> | well, the basic problem is that's such a blatant violation of privacy |
| 21:27 | <AryehGregor> | Assuming you think privacy is worth caring about, which I don't. |
| 21:27 | <AryehGregor> | Lots of people do, so we'll have to see how it goes. |
| 21:27 | <The_8472> | mind if i film you with your girlfriend? |
| 21:27 | <Hixie> | The_8472: i have a huge problem with the airport "security" stuff, and don't have a facebook account. But I don't think those even compare to analytics. |
| 21:28 | <AryehGregor> | Sigh. |
| 21:28 | <The_8472> | Hixie, the difference is not so big. the latter just requires more data mining |
| 21:28 | <jgraham> | AryehGregor: Should be a known bug. At least I ran into it in the past so I guess I reported it |
| 21:28 | <Hixie> | The_8472: i don't even see any similarity |
| 21:28 | <jgraham> | Maybe I should just try and fix it sometime :) |
| 21:29 | <The_8472> | Hixie, i think a sufficiently intelligent GA could learn more about me than an airport screener could |
| 21:29 | <The_8472> | especially if i were one of the unwashed masses |
| 21:29 | <jgraham> | Is there some Godwins law equivalent for privacy discussions involving the person who brings up cameras in the bedroom forfeiting the argument? |
| 21:30 | <jgraham> | Because if not I propose such |
| 21:30 | <zewt> | unless it's backdooring my phone it's not likely to get nude photos of me standing in a demeaning pose, as is standard practice in airports now, heh |
| 21:30 | <AryehGregor> | I don't care about privacy violations unless they stand some chance of materially harming me, which includes being embarrassed. |
| 21:30 | <AryehGregor> | But not things that I won't know about, or things like targeted ads that don't actually harm me. |
| 21:30 | <Hixie> | The_8472: why is learning about you a problem? |
| 21:30 | <zewt> | (and while my phone might manage to get a picture, I'm probably not going to be in the Airport Backscatter Pose, either) |
| 21:30 | <Hixie> | The_8472: my problem with airport security isn't that they learn about me |
| 21:30 | <The_8472> | jgraham, if people say "i don't care about privacy" then this argument is simply used to show them that their statement is not correct. they DO care about privacy, they just don't know when they have implcit privacy expectations |
| 21:31 | <Hixie> | The_8472: my problem with it is that they touch me, or x-ray me, and make me queue for no benefit. |
| 21:31 | <AryehGregor> | Put another way: I don't care about privacy. I care about embarrassment and other forms of harm. |
| 21:31 | <The_8472> | Hixie, privacy. |
| 21:31 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, I don't care about the privacy, I care about the embarrassment. |
| 21:31 | <The_8472> | well, then just get used to it. after a while you'll stop being embarrassed |
| 21:31 | <Hixie> | The_8472: privacy? |
| 21:32 | <zewt> | i do care about privacy, but comparing "tracking your amazon searches" to airport security is just overstating the case by orders of magnitude |
| 21:32 | <The_8472> | you know that concept, right? |
| 21:32 | <AryehGregor> | Maybe so, but until then I'm still going to be embarrassed. |
| 21:32 | <AryehGregor> | So I'm still going to have a problem with that. |
| 21:32 | <Hixie> | The_8472: sure, what's it got to do with either case here? |
| 21:32 | <Hixie> | The_8472: what do _you_ mean by it? |
| 21:32 | <AryehGregor> | In some hypothetical future where there are ubiquitous video cameras that post their data publicly to the Internet in real time and everyone can see anything that anyone else does, then maybe I won't be embarrassed and won't care. |
| 21:33 | <AryehGregor> | But that's not the world we live in, so it's not relevant to my preferences right now. |
| 21:33 | <The_8472> | that my life is my own business and nobody should amass data about me. |
| 21:33 | <Hixie> | The_8472: do you have a credit card? |
| 21:33 | <AryehGregor> | Right, see, you value privacy per se. |
| 21:33 | <The_8472> | i pay cash |
| 21:33 | <AryehGregor> | You pay cash online? |
| 21:33 | <jgraham> | The_8472: It always struck me that the point of that argument was to derail the conversation by targetting (sterotypically) American prudishness |
| 21:33 | <AryehGregor> | Or don't buy things online? |
| 21:33 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, i can pay on delivery |
| 21:33 | <AryehGregor> | jgraham, no, it's just an argumentum ad absurdum. |
| 21:33 | <Hixie> | The_8472: i don't understand why you care about people amassing data about you |
| 21:34 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, what online merchants let you pay on delivery? |
| 21:34 | <The_8472> | amazon does |
| 21:34 | <jgraham> | AryehGregor: Yeah, but the absurdity is carefully chosen |
| 21:34 | <AryehGregor> | Really? Never knew. |
| 21:34 | <The_8472> | well, the delivery service they use in germany does |
| 21:34 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, it's terminal utility, not instrumental utility. He wants privacy for its own sake, not because of any other benefits that accrue from it. |
| 21:34 | <jgraham> | It's the privacy equivalent of "won't somebody think of the children" |
| 21:34 | <jgraham> | AryehGregor: Also, the bug is already filed |
| 21:35 | <AryehGregor> | Most people feel that way to some degree. |
| 21:35 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: apparently |
| 21:35 | <zewt> | ... i want privacy because it's something that rarely comes back when it's lost, heh |
| 21:35 | <AryehGregor> | jgraham, yeah, but any argumentum ad absurdum is going to be chosen to have maximum impact. That doesn't mean it's invalid. |
| 21:35 | <The_8472> | <AryehGregor> jgraham, no, it's just an argumentum ad absurdum. <- i'm not the person making the absurd statement. someone claiming "i don't need privacy" is |
| 21:35 | <AryehGregor> | zewt, that's not a reason to want privacy by itself. Ignorance also doesn't come back so easily when it's lost, but that's not an argument in favor of ignorance. |
| 21:35 | <Hixie> | personally i'm more than happy to trade personal information for making my life better |
| 21:36 | <Hixie> | i care about liberty, happiness, being productive |
| 21:36 | <AryehGregor> | At least not by itself. |
| 21:36 | <Hixie> | privacy is a tool to achieve these things |
| 21:36 | <Hixie> | it's not a goal in and of itself |
| 21:36 | <zewt> | Hixie: as am I, sometimes, but if I don't have a choice in the matter, it's harder to see it as an even exchange |
| 21:36 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, um, right, that's what "argumentum ad absurdum" means. |
| 21:36 | <AryehGregor> | "ad" means something like "to", not "of" or anything. |
| 21:36 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, ah... i was thinking of reductio ad absurdum |
| 21:36 | <AryehGregor> | It's the same thing. |
| 21:37 | <zewt> | and, unless I'm going to tin-foil-hat like 8472 here, I really don't have a choice |
| 21:37 | <AryehGregor> | Probably the latter is a more common name. |
| 21:37 | <The_8472> | but i didn't perform any reduction |
| 21:37 | <The_8472> | i just provided an extreme case |
| 21:37 | <The_8472> | that's a difference |
| 21:37 | <jgraham> | AryehGregor: "Invalid" isn't the point. It's generally doesn't move the conversation forward |
| 21:37 | <AryehGregor> | Well, that's basically what a reductio ad absurdum means. |
| 21:37 | <jgraham> | Everyone cares somewhat about privacy |
| 21:37 | <The_8472> | reducing it would mean following down a slippery slope from the original statement |
| 21:38 | <AryehGregor> | That you show that if you hold X, then it implies you hold Y, and you clearly don't hold Y, so you can't hold X. |
| 21:38 | <AryehGregor> | No, slippery slopes are a different story. They're fallacious. |
| 21:38 | <AryehGregor> | Reductio ad absurdum is not. |
| 21:38 | <AryehGregor> | Mathematicians usually call the latter an argument by contradiction. |
| 21:38 | <The_8472> | well, then i mixed those two up |
| 21:38 | <AryehGregor> | It's a perfectly valid type of argument. |
| 21:38 | <The_8472> | now we're talking |
| 21:39 | <AryehGregor> | Slippery slopes are sometimes valid, sometimes not. |
| 21:39 | <AryehGregor> | jgraham, in this case it did move the conversation forward. I clarified what I meant. |
| 21:39 | <zewt> | Hixie: and your "early days" only made me think: "we can do better! all we need is even more information about you"--sorry if I'm skeptical :) |
| 21:40 | <The_8472> | and that's exactly what i wanted to achieve. for you to step away from such a silly, absolute statement. |
| 21:40 | <AryehGregor> | As I said, I do not care about privacy. I only care about privacy violations insofar as they're likely to entail other types of harm, like embarrassment or monetary loss. |
| 21:40 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, it's not silly at all. I stand by it: I don't care about privacy. |
| 21:40 | <jgraham> | AryehGregor: If we are going to be technical about it, I think the problem with the statement is that it suffers from the fallacy of the excluded middle |
| 21:40 | <AryehGregor> | jgraham, how so? |
| 21:40 | <Hixie> | zewt: not necessarily more information |
| 21:40 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, but you can't know in advance what total transparency would entail. so it's saner to default to privacy if in doubt. |
| 21:40 | <zewt> | not necessarily, but likely |
| 21:41 | <Hixie> | zewt: i'm sure that targetting can be made massively better without increasing the amount of data collected already |
| 21:41 | <The_8472> | imagine if everyone had preconceived opinions of you because they know your personal tastes, hobbies, etc. |
| 21:41 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, no, it's just something I have to take into my cost-benefit analysis. There's some chance that using Gmail will cause harm to me down the road, via letting Google have lots of info about me, but I deem that the benefits outweigh the risk. |
| 21:41 | <The_8472> | what benefits? |
| 21:42 | <jgraham> | Because it is an example of what most people would consider an extreme privacy violation. Using it to argue against lesser violations ignores all the middle ground between the two things |
| 21:42 | <The_8472> | i have a mail server, it works just fine. |
| 21:42 | <Hixie> | the gmail priority inbox is a huge benefit already |
| 21:42 | <Hixie> | man i wish pine had that |
| 21:42 | <AryehGregor> | That it's a good e-mail client? And that it's the one I use, and switching is a hassle? And that to get any privacy I'd really have to host my own e-mail, which is much more hassle/less reliable/fewer features/etc.? |
| 21:42 | <AryehGregor> | On the other hand, I see extremely little chance of harm from using it. |
| 21:42 | <Hixie> | gmail has all kinds of crazy cool features no other mail client does |
| 21:42 | <AryehGregor> | Yeah, priority inbox is *awesome*. |
| 21:42 | <The_8472> | that's just a reverse spamfilter |
| 21:43 | <zewt> | i turned priority inbox on for a minute; it decided that the "WELCOME TO PRIORITY INBOX" mail was "high priority", which I took as ludicrous enough that I turned it off again, heh |
| 21:43 | <AryehGregor> | jgraham, but that's fair in this case, because I made a very absolute statement: that I don't care about privacy at all. It's fair to call me out on that and challenge me to back down to a more moderate statement if I didn't mean it. |
| 21:43 | <AryehGregor> | zewt, you have to train it. |
| 21:43 | <zewt> | (presumably hixie receives ... somewhat more email than I do, however) |
| 21:43 | <AryehGregor> | Give it a few weeks of training and it's very reliable. |
| 21:44 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, as for everyone having preconceived notions about me: that would be a cost I'd take into consideration if it were relevant. For instance, I'm careful what I post on the public Internet about myself under names that are traceable to me. |
| 21:44 | <The_8472> | see, most people don't even think about that |
| 21:44 | <jgraham> | AryehGregor: Fair enough. In most contexts where I see the bedroom example used no one has made such an unreasonable statement |
| 21:44 | <zewt> | AryehGregor: yeah, but it was just a really bad first impression that they didn't set it up to not decide that an automated welcome mail was "important", heh (eg. train it against its own automatic mails to start) |
| 21:44 | <AryehGregor> | It's not relevant to using Gmail except in the case where Gmail's mail databases get posted publicly somehow, which is possible but exceptionally unlikely, and probably less likely than the database of my own mail server getting hacked. |
| 21:44 | <AryehGregor> | jgraham, I don't think the statement is unreasonable, though. :) |
| 21:44 | <The_8472> | jgraham, the "i don't have anything to hide" statement comes up pretty often in discussions about privacy |
| 21:44 | <AryehGregor> | zewt, it's more or less random at the start, IIRC. |
| 21:45 | <Hixie> | i agree with AryehGregor here. I care about privacy only to the extent that it affects my personal liberty, happiness, and productivity (and that of people I care about). I definitely don't care about it as a goal in and of itself. |
| 21:45 | <zewt> | someone who has nothing to hide is probably a rather boring individual :P |
| 21:45 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, but we're weird. Most people care about privacy per se at least to some extent. |
| 21:45 | <Hixie> | i think it depends on the culture |
| 21:46 | <jgraham> | AryehGregor: I expect it is unreasonable because I expect if you talk to some psycologists/anthropologists/whatever they will tell you than some degree of privacy is needed to maintain human social interactions |
| 21:46 | <Hixie> | in germany clearly more people care than in america, for example |
| 21:46 | <jgraham> | s/whatever/biologists/ I guess |
| 21:46 | <zewt> | but if I can't decide what parts of "privacy" are important for what my "personal liberty"--if that decision is taken out of my hands and put in the hands of advertisers and websites--then it's not going to be made in my interests |
| 21:46 | <AryehGregor> | zewt, I have nothing to hide in the sense that I would have no problem if all information about me were made available to, say, computer programs run by the government or Google or whatever, if I had good assurance that the information would go no further (which might not be the case in real life). Of course, I have lots of things I'd like to hide *from the general public*. |
| 21:46 | <The_8472> | we have some history with intrusive, orwellian govts.... |
| 21:47 | <The_8472> | now the large corps do the data harvesting and the govt just accesses the data when it seems fit, thus side-stepping laws that forbid the govt to collect unnecessary data. |
| 21:47 | <AryehGregor> | jgraham, as soon as we're talking about people I know, embarrassment and similar things immediately mean that I care a lot about what they know about me. Not because of the privacy, but because of the practical implications it would have if people I knew knew all this stuff about me. |
| 21:48 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, ah, you're German? |
| 21:48 | <The_8472> | and it's even worse... the US govt could get my data from google despite not being an american citizen |
| 21:48 | <Hixie> | zewt: information that could impact my personal liberty would be things like my passwords and bank account details |
| 21:48 | <The_8472> | i am |
| 21:48 | <AryehGregor> | Makes sense. |
| 21:48 | <AryehGregor> | Germans are crazy strict about privacy (understandably . . .). |
| 21:48 | <Hixie> | zewt: and i don't give those to advertisers and websites other than those who already have them (e.g. my bank) or who can give me serious benefits from having them (e.g. mint.com) |
| 21:49 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, I bet in the Far East people care less about privacy than in the West. |
| 21:50 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, actually, they're very afraid about "losing face". So they act very strict in public and only "free" at home |
| 21:50 | <AryehGregor> | Interesting. |
| 21:50 | <The_8472> | so privacy is quite important to them |
| 21:51 | <The_8472> | they're coming more from your embarrassment angle |
| 21:51 | AryehGregor | solicits MikeSmith 's opinion on whether he thinks privacy is valued more or less in Japan than, say, America |
| 21:54 | <The_8472> | anyway. the more "the web" knows about you the more likely it becomes that that information will harm you some day. by accident, due to shady agreements, due to policy changes... whatever. something always happens |
| 21:54 | <AryehGregor> | Sure. But I also get benefit from it. |
| 21:54 | <AryehGregor> | And the harm is unlikely to be terribly large, in my case. |
| 21:54 | jgraham | notes that googling for interesting articles about privacy in primate social structures is hindered by all the sites having privacy policies |
| 21:54 | <AryehGregor> | So I'm not going to trade away clear-cut benefit for the sake of long-term hypothetical risk that doesn't seem very large. |
| 21:55 | <The_8472> | people have been fired over some information on facebook. what if some embarassing data becomes visible because facebook changes their policies once again? or because someone crawls semi-public and dumps it in a way for google to index? |
| 21:56 | <AryehGregor> | I don't use Facebook, and if I did I'd be smart enough not to post anything I didn't want my boss to know. |
| 21:56 | <The_8472> | AryehGregor, and they know that and exploit it. they start to make an interesting/beneficial service and then look how much you're willing to put up with to get as much data as they can |
| 21:56 | <AryehGregor> | Sure. I'm not claiming there's no risk. |
| 21:57 | <Hixie> | privacy is not all or nothing. You have to weigh the risks. In my case, I don't think Facebook's benefits outweigh its risks. |
| 21:57 | <Hixie> | In GMail's case, I think they do. |
| 21:57 | <The_8472> | and i'm tech-savy enough that the supposed benefits aren't really that big to me |
| 21:57 | <Hixie> | In the case of better ads, I think they do. |
| 21:57 | <Hixie> | In the case of buying things by credit card on amazon or iTunes, I think they do. |
| 21:58 | <The_8472> | ads are totally useless. i want to make informed opinions, not to be manipulated into buying things on a subconscious level |
| 21:58 | <The_8472> | *informed decisions |
| 21:58 | <AryehGregor> | Incidentally, I find it unlikely that anything I've told people privately would get me fired. People getting fired or otherwise harmed due to what they posted on Facebook is mostly when they do things that are illegal or immoral or reflect very badly on them in others' eyes. |
| 21:58 | <AryehGregor> | I'm sure there are exceptions. |
| 21:58 | <The_8472> | and as for amazon, like i said... i can pay on delivery |
| 21:58 | jgraham | might be prepared to trade cameraa in the bedroom for open-access science journals for everyone :( |
| 21:59 | <jgraham> | s/aa/as/ |
| 21:59 | <AryehGregor> | But I don't do anything I think of that anyone I care about would find really objectionable. |
| 21:59 | <AryehGregor> | But I don't do anything I can think of that anyone I care about would find really objectionable. |
| 21:59 | <The_8472> | jgraham, open access would be even better |
| 21:59 | <AryehGregor> | Of course, people who regularly do things that others would find highly objectionable have a greater need for privacy. |
| 21:59 | <AryehGregor> | Like people who lose custody of their children in divorce cases because they posted pictures on Facebook of themselves smoking weed or whatever. |
| 21:59 | <The_8472> | well, i do have voiced opinions that i don't want to be associated with my person |
| 22:00 | <AryehGregor> | I have too, because some people would find them extremely offensive. Particularly political and religious opinions. But they're mainstream enough that I don't foresee that I'd come to any actual harm if they were known. |
| 22:01 | <Hixie> | The_8472: ads don't have to manipulate you into buying things at a subconscious level. The best ones don't. |
| 22:01 | <Hixie> | The_8472: useful ads are those that give you information you wanted, when you wanted it, and that you didn't previously have. |
| 22:01 | <gsnedders> | AryehGregor: People who post pictures of FB of stuff that's illegal are just stupid. |
| 22:01 | <The_8472> | i call that "searching for something" |
| 22:01 | <Hixie> | The_8472: some of the best ads around are the ones that appear in response to a search, yes |
| 22:02 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, example of ads that are often useful: Amazon recommendations. Often they're useless, but sometimes I've browsed through my recommendations and found things like that an author I like published a new book in a series I've read, that I didn't know about. |
| 22:02 | <The_8472> | well, those don't need profiling, since they have the information right from the search |
| 22:02 | <jgraham> | It does sound a bit like Hixie is drinking deeply from the Google koolaid |
| 22:02 | <jgraham> | :) |
| 22:02 | <AryehGregor> | I wouldn't have searched for it, it wouldn't have occurred to me. |
| 22:02 | <The_8472> | i was talking about Hixie's case |
| 22:02 | <jgraham> | But Amazon recommendations are a good example |
| 22:02 | <AryehGregor> | But Amazon was clever enough to suggest it proactively. |
| 22:02 | <AryehGregor> | Google ads are almost never that useful. |
| 22:02 | <AryehGregor> | Because they don't have info on what you've bought. |
| 22:02 | <Hixie> | The_8472: yeah, i pointed out earlier that improving ads doesn't necessarily mean getting more user data |
| 22:03 | <jgraham> | Although I really wish they would stop recommending things I *just bought* |
| 22:03 | <Hixie> | The_8472: note though that giving better search results _does_ require user tracking to a large extent |
| 22:03 | <AryehGregor> | Google's trying to make them more useful. I don't know how well they'll succeed. |
| 22:03 | <Hixie> | The_8472: google results are measurably better if you're logged in with a history than if you are not logged in without a history |
| 22:03 | <zewt> | i don't foresee stock google ads ever being useful; if google knows something I want, they'll presumably show it to me when I make a search--there's nothing gained by it being shown by www.randomsite.com as well |
| 22:03 | <AryehGregor> | But I think it's safe to say that what Google really *wants* is to show you one ad a week for something you really want but never would have thought to search for, then you buy it and Google gets a $5 commission and everyone wins. |
| 22:03 | <zewt> | (google ads on other sites, I mean) |
| 22:04 | <AryehGregor> | To do that, though, they need way more info than they have. |
| 22:05 | <AryehGregor> | If the ads become useful enough, you won't have to show them to people when they're viewing other sites at all. People will want to view them of their own accord. |
| 22:05 | <zewt> | the cases where sites can actually show an ad to me that I'd ever actually find interesting, which I'd actually need to go to that site to see, is exceptionally rare--and in practice almost exclusively tied to searches (again, Amazon) |
| 22:05 | <AryehGregor> | Just like I've sometimes read through my Amazon recommendations voluntarily. |
| 22:05 | <smaug____> | Google is sure trying to get more data |
| 22:05 | <AryehGregor> | Amazon is mostly tied to purchase history, not searches. That's why it's so effective. |
| 22:05 | <AryehGregor> | Purchases predict purchases way better than searches predict purchases. |
| 22:06 | <AryehGregor> | Plus, ads in search often just suggest the thing you're searching for, which you'd find anyway in the first result or two. |
| 22:06 | <smaug____> | I wonder if Google already changes ads if you use speech recognizer. Google could recognize gender etc. |
| 22:06 | <karlcow> | if you are logged in, Google will give more expected results, which is entirely different than better results… though we would have to define what we consider better. etc etc etc. yadayada |
| 22:07 | <zewt> | the vast majority of sites aren't selling you anything, though--after all, that's usually the point of ads |
| 22:07 | <The_8472> | well, yeah. i make a new login every time i buy at amazon. if i could i'd have it delivered to a different address too. but moving for every amazon purchase is quite inconvenient |
| 22:07 | <Hixie> | as i understand it you can see exactly what google knows about you for ads by looking at http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/view |
| 22:07 | <The_8472> | and i can't use the packet station if i want to pay in cash |
| 22:07 | <zewt> | (that is, ad revenue for sites that don't have an end-user-buys-something-from-them business model) |
| 22:08 | <zewt> | 8472: heh I'm sorry, but you're pretty hard to take seriously :) |
| 22:08 | <The_8472> | disposable paypal accounts would be great |
| 22:08 | <Hixie> | karlcow: do you have any data to back that up? |
| 22:08 | <smaug____> | Google sure knows more than that |
| 22:08 | <karlcow> | Hixie: to back up what ? |
| 22:08 | <The_8472> | zewt, i am aware that i'm acting quite paranoid |
| 22:08 | <zewt> | i just expect the next thing you'll say is "every time I make a purchase I put on a disguise and make the purchase from a randomly-selected internet cafe" |
| 22:08 | <Hixie> | karlcow: your last statement |
| 22:09 | <karlcow> | Hixie: what have you understood of my last statement? |
| 22:09 | <Hixie> | karlcow: did you not mean what you wrote? |
| 22:09 | <The_8472> | zewt, it's the least i would do if i were trading illegal goods. |
| 22:09 | <zewt> | on amazon? heh |
| 22:09 | <The_8472> | not amazon, lol |
| 22:10 | <zewt> | their new service, Amazon Controlled Substances |
| 22:10 | <The_8472> | well, i guess in some countries you could get arrested for buy stuff from amazon |
| 22:10 | <karlcow> | *I* meant what I wrote, which might be different of what *you* think I meant. |
| 22:10 | <AryehGregor> | Hixie, if that's *all* the data Google knows about me, I've really lost a lot of respect for them. :) |
| 22:10 | <The_8472> | order porn to saudi arabia or something ^^ |
| 22:10 | <Hixie> | karlcow: if you meant what you wrote, then i am just curious as to whether you have any data to support your statement or not |
| 22:11 | <karlcow> | Basically, experiment take two persons with a long history of searches and let them do the same query. Do you get the same results or not. |
| 22:11 | <AryehGregor> | It thinks I'm 25-34. I guess I'll take that as a compliment on my maturity. :) |
| 22:11 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: yeah, people don't realise that google doesn't associate the data collected via one's google login with one's activity on the web and thus what google uses for ads on the web |
| 22:12 | <Hixie> | AryehGregor: but as far as i am aware, that page lists everything google knows with respect to the showing of ads |
| 22:12 | <AryehGregor> | That's silly of them. But I guess they're forced to cripple themselves like that because people are so worried about privacy. |
| 22:12 | <Hixie> | karlcow: how would that affect your statement? |
| 22:13 | <zewt> | Hixie: fyi, that page just says "click here to opt in" with no info |
| 22:13 | <zewt> | for me |
| 22:13 | <karlcow> | That Google return results which are targeted to your profile instead of just results. |
| 22:13 | <karlcow> | what I call expected results |
| 22:13 | <Hixie> | zewt: i guess that means you're not getting any targetted ads :-( |
| 22:14 | <Hixie> | karlcow: that statement seems entirely vacuous |
| 22:14 | <zewt> | whereas google does seem to have some data; when I disable abp and load a random mail in gmail, it's showing Java ads (and I've been doing a lot of Java searches lately; that language is just as horrible as I remember) |
| 22:14 | <karlcow> | do the experiment same IP, same place, different profiles. |
| 22:14 | <karlcow> | or Google is delivering a random results page :) |
| 22:15 | <karlcow> | based on coriolis movement |
| 22:15 | <zewt> | karlcow: the strange thing is when I do a search, some mailing list post by me three years earlier pops up on top, I think "must be targetted", and ... it's not :o |
| 22:15 | <Hixie> | karlcow: if a biologist looking for animals searches for "lion", and a mac developer looking for OS X information searches for "lion", then returning big cats for the former and operating systems for the latter is obviously "better" |
| 22:15 | <karlcow> | for you |
| 22:15 | <Hixie> | karlcow: for them |
| 22:16 | <karlcow> | cf my comment of definition of better |
| 22:16 | <Hixie> | karlcow: i don't understand what point you were trying to make then |
| 22:16 | <karlcow> | as usual |
| 22:16 | <Hixie> | karlcow: you might want to consider being clearer :-) |
| 22:16 | <karlcow> | I'm clear |
| 22:16 | <Hixie> | no, uou're not |
| 22:16 | <karlcow> | different wired brain |
| 22:16 | <Hixie> | you, even |
| 22:16 | <karlcow> | well I'm not clear to you |
| 22:17 | <karlcow> | that is obvious |
| 22:17 | <karlcow> | but as usual |
| 22:17 | <Hixie> | "if you are logged in, Google will give more expected results, which is entirely different than better results [but we don't define better]" is completely vacuous |
| 22:17 | <Hixie> | it is an illogical, trollish statement |
| 22:17 | <Hixie> | "in condition A, B will occur, and B != C, but we don't define C" |
| 22:17 | <The_8472> | but what do you do if you're a mac os developer but are looking for the big cats? |
| 22:18 | <karlcow> | it is not trollish, you confirmed it |
| 22:18 | <karlcow> | [17:20] <Hixie> karlcow: if a biologist looking for animals searches for "lion", and a mac developer looking for OS X information searches for "lion", then returning big cats for the former and operating systems for the latter is obviously "better" |
| 22:18 | <Hixie> | karlcow: it's unconfirmible, since you confirmed it didn't mean anything! |
| 22:18 | <Hixie> | karlcow: you specifically said you didn't define the term that you were comparing to |
| 22:18 | <AryehGregor> | The_8472, adjust the query so that it clarifies your intent. |
| 22:18 | <AryehGregor> | I do that all the time, Google handles it very well. |
| 22:19 | <karlcow> | I will use the word that I didn't want to use initially. "Serendipidity". |
| 22:19 | <Hixie> | would you like to use that word in a sentence? :-) |
| 22:19 | <karlcow> | Discovering, being surprised, etc. |
| 22:19 | <Hixie> | i know what it means |
| 22:20 | <The_8472> | well, i guess you could do -"os x" |
| 22:20 | <karlcow> | basically getting results which are not necessary the ones you were expecting. |
| 22:20 | <Hixie> | karlcow: yes, we know what it means |
| 22:20 | <The_8472> | i think his issue is akin to groupthink, google being the rest of the group, sortof. |
| 22:21 | <Philip`> | Hmm, Google says I like "Beauty & Fitness - Fashion & Style - Fashion Designers & Collections" |
| 22:21 | <Hixie> | The_8472: if he has an issue, i'm sure he'll get around to telling us :-) |
| 22:21 | <karlcow> | Philip`: which sites did you read lately? :) |
| 22:22 | The_8472 | hands Philip` a shake-weight |
| 22:22 | <Philip`> | Surely Google can't be wrong, so I'll have to start caring slightly more about fashion now |
| 22:22 | <karlcow> | ahah |
| 22:23 | <karlcow> | The_8472: "his issue" <- me? |
| 22:23 | <The_8472> | yes |
| 22:23 | <karlcow> | aaaah |
| 22:23 | The_8472 | assumed context-inference capability |
| 22:23 | <Hixie> | The_8472: that isn't a given with karl :-( |
| 22:23 | <karlcow> | hmmm it is somehow, on the philosophical level it is about us becoming our own robots. |
| 22:24 | <karlcow> | beasically by getting more and more things which are closer to our own initial thinking, we are reducing the accidents |
| 22:24 | <karlcow> | and then we answer to our own program |
| 22:24 | <karlcow> | we become robots. |
| 22:25 | <Philip`> | It's lucky that this unwanted cookie tracking thing has already been solved by new laws as per http://blog.silktide.com/2011/05/cookie-law-makes-most-uk-websites-illegal-what-you-need-to-know/ so we just need to get the rest of the world to adopt a similar approach |
| 22:25 | <karlcow> | it works also with maps and direction |
| 22:25 | <The_8472> | karlcow, if google becomes sufficiently intelligent it's no different from teaching your own children! |
| 22:25 | <The_8472> | until they know more than you do and you're an old man shaking his stick "get off my search results" |
| 22:25 | <karlcow> | not exactly the same thing. |
| 22:26 | <karlcow> | Usually you should be teaching to a child how to tell you "NO". |
| 22:26 | <karlcow> | (gross summary) |
| 22:26 | <Hixie> | karlcow: this concept of "filter bubble" as it is more commonly known is pretty widely discussed, but so far i've never seen any evidence that it's a real risk. In particular, I have not seen any evidence that Google's personalisation of search results is resulting in any kind of loss of serendipity, if anything I'd say it was quite the opposite. |
| 22:26 | <Philip`> | If Google's algorithms become indistinguishable from our own thoughts, that doesn't mean we're robots, it means Google has become alive |
| 22:27 | <The_8472> | karlcow, instead of "no!" it is just more polite and says "didn't you mean to ..." |
| 22:27 | <Hixie> | hear hear |
| 22:28 | <Philip`> | (Once Google has emulated your brain patterns it will presumably then destroy the more inefficient of the redundant copies, i.e. you, to optimise the world's resource usage) |
| 22:28 | <Hixie> | Philip`: surely having lots of redundant copies is better for making money from ads :-P |
| 22:29 | <karlcow> | Philip`: heh. (apart of the nice dark side of the fiction) there is a bit of that. |
| 22:29 | <The_8472> | Philip`, that would mean a more efficient copy of my brain patterns would run on google. i don't see the problem there |
| 22:29 | <karlcow> | I like Wall-E for this. the part where humans had forgotten they had a pool |
| 22:29 | <The_8472> | unless they can search through your brain |
| 22:29 | <The_8472> | which they probably could... |
| 22:29 | <The_8472> | damn |
| 22:29 | <Hixie> | lol |
| 22:30 | <karlcow> | ah another notion |
| 22:30 | <karlcow> | more efficient. |
| 22:30 | <karlcow> | I do not always wish to be more efficient. |
| 22:30 | <The_8472> | efficiency is important considering limited resources |
| 22:30 | <karlcow> | not really |
| 22:30 | <The_8472> | just kill another human and you can afford to be inefficient |
| 22:31 | <The_8472> | in the grand scheme of things it is important |
| 22:31 | <karlcow> | You have to believe in grand schemes :) |
| 22:32 | <The_8472> | most ecological issues are essentially caused by human inventions being significantly less efficient than their natural equivalents (just exceling in one aspect) and due to externalized costs |
| 22:33 | <The_8472> | so increasing efficiency decreases costs, even if they're "just" external ones |
| 22:33 | <Philip`> | Hixie: Google can make money by getting its cloned people to buy things from ads, and those cloned people can get money by doing the same kind of work as their inferior template organisms did but much more efficiently, so it's better to allocate all finite resources to the clones (given that it's trivial to duplicate a clone so you'll never run out and you can easily replace an organism with multiple clones) |
| 22:33 | <karlcow> | definitely but humans are basically killing the biodiversity that makes them alive. They will not kill earth (there is still a possibility of major catastrophe) |
| 22:34 | <karlcow> | so the risk is that humans might disappeared or reduced a lot at a point. That might happen indeed. |
| 22:34 | <The_8472> | of course not, the ecosphere is pretty resilient and will probably survive us. so protecting it in its current state is also a self-interest |
| 22:34 | <karlcow> | But not sure I want to be efficient as a program to achieve equilibrium and peace |
| 22:35 | <The_8472> | well, that's science fiction at the moment. for now we can concentrate on more mundane efficiency increases |
| 22:36 | <karlcow> | R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) |
| 22:36 | <The_8472> | Philip`, i think a human-usefulness-index based on the contribution to civilisational progress would be a crueld and yet very interesting measure. |
| 22:37 | <karlcow> | yirk |
| 22:39 | <The_8472> | we need some backup-planets so we can experiment more |
| 22:39 | <gsnedders> | _bga: https://bugs.opera.com/wizard/ is where you should report security issues in future |
| 22:39 | <The_8472> | see what works and what doesn't |
| 22:39 | <_bga> | ok |
| 22:41 | <karlcow> | The_8472: too far so far |
| 22:41 | <The_8472> | sorry, now i'm the one missing context |
| 22:42 | <karlcow> | backup planets are too far, so far with our technologies |
| 22:43 | <The_8472> | oh. yes |
| 22:43 | <The_8472> | before that we need sustainable energy and a space elevator or equivalent technology. |
| 22:43 | <The_8472> | almost all problems can be solved by throwing more energy at them |
| 22:44 | <karlcow> | I would prefer to grow peas going very high in the sky and so high that they would reach another planet. |
| 22:44 | <The_8472> | that has been tried, it didn't seem to work |
| 22:45 | <karlcow> | let's try harder ;) |
| 22:45 | <The_8472> | maybe if we anchor the beanstalk to an asteroid in GEO and replace the cellulose with carbon nanotubes.... |
| 22:58 | <Hixie> | anyone remember why i removed "In any case, events targeted at form controls (or other interactive elements, e.g. links) within a label must not be handled by the label itself." from the spec? |
| 23:20 | <Dashiva> | Hixie: Wouldn't that lead to double processing otherwise? |