Tavern on the Meta

M.A.R.

2:00 PM

@Andy congrats for the gold Python badge!

Jason C

It's such constant crap.

Ugh

Now I'll just be angry all day.

Derpy

@ShadowWizard Atlas, people need to be sad. Only by constant worrying and suffering their mind will be busy enough to not notice how unbalanced the world is.

Jason C

@Derpy It's worse than that.

It's not that people need to be sad. It's that if being sad puts people in a big social pat-eachother-on-the-back club then sad it is.

Shadow Wizard

well, I got a former friend (used to be friends as kids, gone apart by life, found each other on FB) who is on the extreme left wing in politics, and has habit of leaving "smart-ass" comments on lame posts by extreme right winged people. Hard to explain...
e.g. FB post "kill all da arabz!" (with such mistakes) and he would leave a comment "Totally agree, who is "da arabz?"". Good way to acquire haters, lol

Jason C

It's the subconscious, fundamental need to be in a club to elevate your social standing among your peers.

Which always trumps the need to think critically.

Shadow Wizard

2:03 PM

uh oh, I broke @Jason

hmm...

How to fix....

M.A.R.

@JasonC WTH, is that you?

Shadow Wizard

@Jason Don't Worry Be Happy!!!

M.A.R.

Slaps @Jason

Shadow Wizard

slaps @Jason too

slap orgy!!!

Jason C

It's the human need to bring down people who you view as higher than yourself in the social hierarchy when you can't relate to them. It's the same reason we love it when celebrities say something stupid. It's why we like Hollywood "celebs without makeup look-how-ugly-they-are" pics. It's everywhere.

M.A.R.

2:04 PM

@ShadowWizard Have you tried turning him off and on again?

4

Jason C

reboots

Shadow Wizard

@M.A.R. no. Looking for @Jason's power cable.

Derpy

@JasonC that would make you happy. Nah, sorry but I stand my view. People are to afraid of judgment, to be deemed silly and childlike. They cannot laugh, they can't play..... and since that makes them feel miserable, the only way to make them look better is to lower the average.

Shadow Wizard

@Jason !!status

Jason C

~/Desktop>

@Derpy That's actually almost the same as what I said. I think we're thinking similar but I'm probably not communicating well.

Shadow Wizard

2:06 PM

@Jason dir *.* /s

Jason C

.
..
poop_jokes/

Shadow Wizard

@Jason cd poop_jokes

Jason C

~/Desktop/poop_jokes>

Shadow Wizard

@Jason dir *.*

Stijn

@JasonC have you seen Idiocracy? :)

Shadow Wizard

2:07 PM

hey don't bother him!

upgrading @Jason's CPU

Jason C

Not ready reading drive C. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?

Shadow Wizard

...

Jason C

@Stijn Of course, lol.

Shadow Wizard

Installing Norton Disk Doctor on @Jason

Jason C

How could somebody with the rants that I have not have seen that movie?

Shadow Wizard

2:08 PM

Stijn

hehe

Derpy

@ShadowWizard NORTON? Aiming at making things WORSE?

Shadow Wizard

It used to be good.

Until they made it.... not good.

Stijn

I remember being very impressed by Norton Utilities fixing all those registry problems, thinking "my computer must work so much better now"

Shadow Wizard

running Diagnose Disk on @Jason

Jason C

2:09 PM

emits click of death

Shadow Wizard

uh oh

Jason C

suddenly becomes an apple iic

]

Shadow Wizard

rofl

still better than before though

:D

Jason C

Lol

Shadow Wizard

getting back to work

Jason C

2:11 PM

Probably a good idea, lol.

@Stijn Spin (1999), btw, is another great watch. Not fiction, a documentary. Really want a 2017 version. It's especially fun to watch when you feel like reviving Pat Robertson hate.

Stijn

I'll have a look

Jason C

1995 rather.

Stijn

Black Mirror has some similar futuristic ideas that genuinely scare me

Jason C

I haven't seen the 3rd season but yes.

The exercise bike episode comes to mind. And White Bear.

And the one with the pig. That series can be hit or miss, but the hits are terrifying.

M.A.R.

@JasonC I dunno this guy, so had to Google him

> Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.

Um, wow

Sounds like an extremist loony

Jason C

2:17 PM

Yeah

Andy

@M.A.R. Thank you

Jason C

He founded the Christian Coalition, CBN, etc. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson).

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: How do I realistically assess the risk of side effects with a drug? by Patricia Edwards on health.SE

Jason C

The 700 Club

alternet.org/belief/10-craziest-things-pat-robertson-has-said, he's sort of the embodiment of that extreme Christian right-wing stereotype.

The screwed up part is he's still there, influential, lurking behind the scenes (and as expected, nobody cares about him any more, for reasons stated prior to my forced reboot).

Lol rightwingwatch.org/post/…

Derpy

@JasonC the idea that d&d drives players to satanism sadly was firmly rooted in many minds even before

Jason C

2:27 PM

rpg.stackexchange.com should be renamed satan.stackexchange.com

Stijn

@JasonC #NoContext

Jason C

Lol

Derpy

@JasonC well, someone once claimed that d&d used to use three d6 dices because of the obvious "666" reference. Let me see if I can find that claim again.

SmokeDetector

2:40 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: What are these batteries called? by Helen Brown on ell.SE

M.A.R.

4:39 PM

@JasonC are these people for real?!

Gah, the quote about humankind stupidity has never been so true

Jason C

4:56 PM

@M.A.R. Oh that site is awesome if you ever want to get angry at the right.

Or if you just want some less focused (but aimed somewhat to the left), more widely distributed anger you can hit up wapo headlines.

rene

5:20 PM

@ShadowWizard handled by Servy and someone random

SmokeDetector

6:39 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: Do you have to pay off each loan all at once (not including the down payment)? by peter on gaming.SE

user315433

One hour until the end of Biology election.

Jon Ericson

@Gerry Have a prediction?

user315433

I'm not the biggest fan of AliceD (gave 1st vote to James), but it's probably them.

user315433

Notice you are prepping by editing in giant S after HTTP.

user315433

There are lots of those announcements on all the per site metas...

M.A.R.

6:45 PM

@Gerry Why? They seem like the best choice to me

user315433

Because of the recent "inbred mods" meta thread.

Jon Ericson

@Gerry Yeah. I thought there would be an automatic rewrite. Gonna check that.

ɥʇǝS

@Gerry wat

Jason C

Lol...

26

A: Why are you on Writers.SE?

This is going to be an unexciting answer (I apologize in advance!), but I came here to flag the spam.

#tbt, 2 days early.

M.A.R.

!!/blame

SmokeDetector

6:56 PM

@M.A.R. It's rene's fault.

rene

7:08 PM

:(

What have I done this time?

M.A.R.

@rene Slacked off from SOBotics, so a billion NAA has remained without feedback

rene

Well, I know this is a lame excuse but I had to do some work today.

M.A.R.

@rene Boo

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-Latin answer, pattern-matching website in answer: Sharing mockups with annotations by ehsan shabani on ux.SE

user315433

7:25 PM

@ɥʇǝS Referring to this. I'm distrustful of "power to the people" agendas, perhaps for historical reasons.

Aaron Hall

I think I understand. The downside of "get out the vote" activity is that you have people voting who aren't motivated enough to get out and vote on their own without others cajoling or incentivizing them to.

@Gerry is that what you're talking about?

Travis J

If I post an answer, and my ISP sells the content to someone, haven't they just violated the license since it wont be attributed to me?

Jason C

7:44 PM

@TravisJ Only if they don't attribute it to you.

user315433

@TravisJ You probably have an agreement with them saying that everything you transmit is their property and they can do what they want with it. So by agreeing to that, you are publishing the same content under different terms.

user315433

Okay, maybe not with "their property" part.

Jason C

To be fair I've never seen an ISP with that in their TOS.

Travis J

@JasonC - They can't attribute it to me though, since the owner of the material they sell is anonymized aside from IP address.

Jason C

@TravisJ Then the question is mostly invalid unless you are certain of the premise. First you have to find out if your ISP can sell your actual content to somebody, and also in what form it may be used.

Travis J

7:47 PM

If? You mean with regards to ToS?

Jason C

For example perhaps an ISP has a clause in their TOS that states they can capture data transmitted and use it for e.g. data mining purposes.

In that case it could get quite fuzzy.

Although realistically it probably wouldn't be fuzzy, as privacy statements and such are generally not that underspecified. So you'd want to read your ISP's TOS/privacy statement first to determine exactly what they can and can't do (i.e. "sell my content" could be a serious oversimplification). Then you can analyze the consequences properly.

user315433

I think the Stack Exchange license requiring attribution is not particularly relevant if the ISP does not get the data from Stack Exchange.

Jason C

What this all boils down to is there is not enough information in the question you asked on its own, without context, to give you a solid answer beyond conjecture.

Holy crap, lol

When all that net neutrality stuff was repealed me and some others hit up my ISP on Facebook and asked them about it.

The next day they turned around and added an official statement optimum.net/pages/internet-privacy.html. Another solid +1 for Optimum. I love these guys.

Anyways, let's see, I just reviewed their privacy policy in great detail the other day, I should be able to find what I'm looking for here...

user315433

^ Famous last words

Jason C

@TravisJ So, using my ISP as an example, essentially their privacy statement states that they may collect any data about me except the actual transmitted content (outside of headers and such) itself, and use it internally for targeted advertising.

They can not sell mined data.

Travis J

7:59 PM

TWC says that they will collect anything they can get their hands on except what is limited by the law.

Jason C

They do have some power when it comes to child pornography investigations.

Travis J

They also state that it may be sold to vendors, sales reps, etc.

Jason C

And they must pass along your personal info in response to DMCA-related complaints although they can't do the monitoring themselves.

Travis J

Yeah, but that is different.

Jason C

Yeah TWC sucks in a thousand ways. They're also 3x the cost and 5x the top speed as Optimum around here.

Travis J

8:00 PM

I am not concerned about government or internal data collection for the use of legal request or service provision.

Jason C

When I was looking for apartments I specifically got a map of Optimum's coverage area first.

Travis J

In SoCal it is all monopoly here

They have a hush hush non compete agreement with the major providers

Jason C

Do you have wireless options? Like AT&T / Verizon?

Lame

Travis J

I could probably get some sort of Verizon box that has a data rate and whatnot, but those are really expensive.

Jason C

Let's see, looking at TWC's internet privacy policy.

Wow they have quite the complex collection of privacy policies. Are you looking at the TWC Subcriber policy, or the Residential Services one?

user315433

8:03 PM

I use wireless... Verizon, with my Android phone being my WiFi hotspot. 8GB/month, use about half of that. Not a Netflix user.

user315433

No idea about Verizon's policy on such things.

Travis J

I looked at both, since part of the residential service policy cites the subscriber policy

Jason C

There we go; help.twcable.com/twc_privacy_notice.html

Yeah the Residential Services one seems pretty run-of-the-mill.

Their policy doesn't seem so bad.

Their "personally identifiable information" seems to exclude actual content outside of e.g. header information. Do they have a different one for internet services?

They seem to subtly avoid mentioning of internet services here, they talk about video and phone a lot.

@TravisJ Btw: help.twcable.com/twc_sub_agreement_california.html

Travis J

So their policy isn't updated yet to reflect the new law, but they seem to indicate they will sell your information to anyone they legally can.

Jason C

It seems in CA you have the right to demand that TWC tell you what they disclosed last year.

Travis J

8:11 PM

Yes, I did notice that I can see what they sold later on.

> if you receive our data service, information, including IP addresses, may be disclosed to third parties in the course of providing the service to you. Recipients of such information may include, in addition to those persons listed above, entities that provide content and/or services to us or your OLP.

Jason C

@TravisJ Btw, just a small reality check... the repealed FCC laws weren't actually set to take effect until this year anyways.

So TWC can't do anything that it couldn't do before.

Travis J

Oh, when do they take place?

Jason C

Never, now.

All those privacy laws we were fighting for didn't take effect yet but were about to. Now they will not.

So nothing changed per se, but our hopes for the future have been dashed.

Travis J

I thought they were already in place.

Jason C

It also opens up the door to increased sketchiness.

Nope. I believe the first was set to take effect, like, this week, actually. The repeal was super last minute. I'll do some digging later for specifics when I have more time.

Also Pai is the freakin' devil and nobody cares. But I already got that rant out of my system this morning, you'll have to scroll up for it, lol.

npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/03/28/521813464/…

> Passed by the Federal Communications Commission in October, the rules never went into effect. If they had, it would have given consumers more control over how ISPs use the data they collect. Most notably, the rules would have required explicit consent from consumers if sensitive data — like financial or health information, or browsing history — were to be shared or sold.

Just about sums it up.

So we're not suddenly in a crazy, privacy-be-damned world. But all our progress was reversed, and a good thing that was about to happen in the right direction no longer will happen.

Travis J

8:17 PM

This is the legal doc for it: apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-16-148A1_Rcd.pdf

Jason C

@TravisJ Yeah section 311/312 sets the schedule.

Travis J

Yeah, it states " The notice and choice rules we adopt today will become effective the later of (1) PRA approval, or (2) twelve months after the Commission publishes a summary of the Order in the Federal Register.907" , so I guess it would have been October of this year

Jason C

Was just pasting that.

We were so close.

Travis J

Yeah, bummer. Well I guess the upside is that if some sort of weird disclosure was taking place, it already has been and there hasn't been too much damage. Although, hard to determine what really happened.

Jason C

But who cares, it's way more fun to get distracted by the Russians or our lack of acceptance of weird gender-neutral pronouns like faerself. Because f this country.

Like I said in my earlier rant, we love the easy distractions. Internet tragedies nearly slipping through the cracks while we're all busy complaining that we deserve to be the 1% because that's what gets the most Facebook likes.

Joel ranting about immigration non-issues while Pai gets promoted to FCC chair and secretly plots to demolish net neutrality at the same time.

The internet is why we can whine about everything. We need to value it above all else.

Aaron Hall

8:25 PM

So... if they end net neutrality, money-driven traffic will be prioritized over non-money-driven traffic (like peer-to-peer file-sharing and people accessing my github.io site)?

Travis J

I would rather be the 2% and have more protection for society than the 1% with less protection.

Jason C

@AaronHall Sort of.

Net neutrality means that, for example, if your ISP provides a code hosting service they can't block all their customers access to github.com.

Aaron Hall

But netflix would work better?

Jason C

It also means they can't e.g. block access to web content unless you pay a premium rate.

Travis J

Net neutrality also means that the Government cannot shut down a website because it disagrees with it.

Jason C

8:27 PM

Like hey here's our value plan but if you want to go to facebook.com you have to upgrade.

Aaron Hall

If they block sites people will sue, class-action style.

Travis J

Or censor the results that websites produce.

Jason C

And they'll lose if it's legal.

Aaron Hall

They can't censor Google.

Jason C

Because it'll be too late by that point.

Travis J

8:28 PM

China censors Google.

Aaron Hall

We're not China.

Bart

@ShadowWizard can that guy not just be suspended? Then we can all move on.

Travis J

Only by laws are we not.

Without those laws, we may as well be with regards to internet censorship.

Jason C

People don't deserve to get angry about censored content when they spent all their time ranting about how video games cause school shootings instead of focusing on stopping this kind of stuff.

At this point we had it coming.

Well not at this point. Not yet. It's not too late yet.

Travis J

Yeah, we aren't there yet.

Definitely headed more in that direction than not though.

Jason C

8:30 PM

internetsociety.org is a good start.

It's like I was talking about earlier, too. Like, if I go on Facebook and post something about how "man-hours" is offensive, I'll get 500 likes.

If I go and post something about internet privacy laws: Crickets.

Travis J

Maybe you should choose different friends ;)

Aaron Hall

That's what I was thinking...

Jason C

Oh, I have. Lol.

My FB page is somewhat of an anomaly. I need a new one for only close friends.

It's because I run a lot of volunteer event production stuff around here, so I use it to stay connected, mostly for promotion. Blending that in to my personal page was a mistake and is a constant source of regret.

Aaron Hall

Who is pushing to end net neutrality?

Jason C

Well not constant. Mostly I just don't use FB much any more.

@AaronHall The chairman of the FCC for starters.

Aaron Hall

8:33 PM

Netflix?

Jason C

And all the "evil" ISPs, TWC and Comcast and such.

Aaron Hall

They want to charge you more to do peer-to-peer or something?

Travis J

I don't understand why you asked "Netflix?" @AaronHall. What did I miss?

Jason C

@AaronHall Start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality, see also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Varadaraj_Pai and engadget.com/2017/02/28/… as a research start.

Aaron Hall

Do they want to charge me more to access Stack Overflow and charge Stack Overflow for me to access them?

Jason C

8:35 PM

It's actually a rather complex and long issue.

Aaron Hall

I'm just trying to reason it through, motivation and all.

Jason C

Motivation is $$$.

Aaron Hall

I want to know how it affects me

Jason C

ISPs want more control, and they want more control so that they can make more money.

Do you live in the US?

Aaron Hall

Yes.

Travis J

8:36 PM

I mean, from the $$ angle, if they were charging more for the amount of traffic you generate, then that means that startups reliant on the internet would have an even larger barrier for getting going. So that would directly damage our industry as a whole.

That aside, increasing the amount of control that an ISP has over the content that they provide to or receive from you, is problematic from a privacy and censorship standpoint in various ways.

Jason C

Ok, so, lack of net neutrality opens up a whole host of possibilities. Nothing concrete until we see what ISPs decide to do with the power. All we can do now is give possible examples (among many) of what they could do. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#By_issue for some examples, but like

Aaron Hall

But I don't really see how they are going to do it, they already charge different prices for up/down speeds

Jason C

Yes, your ISP preventing your access to torrents is one example.

Protocol-based filtering on their end.

Aaron Hall

They already block my email port... :(

Jason C

That's slightly different. Net neutrality is exclusively related to access to information, rather than servers that you run.

So for example, whether or not they let you run a server on port 80 is not related to net neutrality, but

Aaron Hall

8:40 PM

It's just my laptop...

Jason C

Whether or not they let their other customers access your server (whether you're a customer of theres or not), based on the type of content you provide, is.

Think of it like "net neutrality = treat all content equally". No blocking you from using FTP in general. No blocking you from accessing certain IP addresses. Etc. No blocking you from accessing the iTunes Store because they want you to use their shop instead. That kind of stuff.

Aaron Hall

What I do know is that they want to charge more for less bandwidth, and I want to pay less for more bandwidth...

Jason C

Haha, well

That's not net neutrality, that's just business, lol.

That's why I like my ISP so much.

But yes an ISP theoretically could block access to stack exchange sites, if they wanted to. They could even charge you extra for accessing them, if they wanted to. Net neutrality prevents that.

Travis J

You can have all the bandwidth you want for free if you agree to let the ISP limit what you can connect to, limit what you get back, and share anything inbetween.

Jason C

Granted any ISP that did that would certainly be unpopular, but you're screwed if you have no other options.

Aaron Hall

8:44 PM

Will they be able to unilaterally change our agreement, which seems to assume that I have equivalent bandwidth whether I'm using Netflix or Bittorrent?

Jason C

Exactly what Travis just said.

Aaron Hall

what about Tor?

Probably want to deprioritize that too?

Jason C

Whatever they want to filter, they can filter (if net neutrality is gone).

Travis J

The "dark web" uses public DNS servers.

Aaron Hall

I seriously don't think they're going to block arbitrary things that people want and use.

They might slow them down, though...

Jason C

8:47 PM

Happy with that off-shore VPN proxy you've got set up to let you browse without restriction? Great. Sans net neutrality, ISP sees all your traffic is going through that IP, blocks it. Sad trombone.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (batch report: post 1 out of 3): "What is it you want?" vs. "What do you want?" by Logan Neer on ell.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (batch report: post 2 out of 3): "What is it you want?" vs. "What do you want?" by Logan Neer on ell.SE

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (batch report: post 3 out of 3): "What is it you want?" vs. "What do you want?" by Logan Neer on ell.SE

Aaron Hall

You keep saying "block" but like I said, I'm skeptical of that possibility - do you have a source?

Jason C

Happy with that private proxy DNS server that you pay for? Who cares. Access blocked. Peace out, private browsing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#By_issue + knowing the technical details of how networks work.

It is completely trivial for an ISP to have the infrastructure in place to block traffic based on any number of rules.

See for example digitaltrends.com/computing/…

> Cable operator Comcast has agreed to pay some $16 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over selectively blocking traffic from peer-to-peer networking applications in the name of “network management.”

The closing paragraph of that article is a good hint at the motivations of Pai's recent actions, too:

> Since the fracas over shutting down P2P traffic, Comcast has introduced usage caps for its most enthusiastic broadband customers (currently 250 GB per month), but is appealing the FCC sanctions, claiming the agency does not have the authority to penalize Comcast for violation of agency guidelines, rather than actual regulations or legislation.

Pai does believe that the FCC doesn't have that authority. The FCC's authority (which they had to fight for) was the only thing that protected us as consumers.

Now bear in mind this is all worst case scenario stuff.

Aaron Hall

I think if they suddenly start doing weird stuff we've got a good case to bring in competition.

Jason C

I mean I could conceivably imagine, for example, consumer revolt against TWC. My fear is the changes will happen sneakily enough that we won't realize the trouble we're in until we're in too deep.

Yeah, "suddenly" would be a bad move.

That's why I rail so hard about people not fighting it now.

Pai being promoted to FCC chairman was the first major sneaky move.

Nobody protested it but that was huge yet massively understated.

That's the kind of move that scares me.

Aaron Hall

8:55 PM

Yeah, but you don't really know what's going to happen, your analysis is based on worst case scenarios.

Jason C

Yes. That is definitely true.

Aaron Hall

What if this is what we need to get competition and we all see our bills go down by 70%?

With no noticable change in service, except maybe that torrents run slower?

Jason C

But still you have to ask yourself: If nothing bad is going to happen, why was getting net neutrality and privacy laws passed a fight? Clearly there was strong opposition. The fact that opposition exists is scary.

That very well could be the case and I would love to see that. But TWC and Comcast are smart. They surely are asking that same what-if.

Aaron Hall

Big corps getting the long-run analysis wrong is not a rare thing.

Jason C

I wouldn't be surprised to see any sort of "anti-antitrust" (I don't know the right word) moves quietly happening in the background before anybody made a move. Taking the steps ahead of time to ensure that small independent ISPs couldn't thrive.

SmokeDetector

8:58 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, mostly non-Latin answer, repeating words in answer: Light dispersion in water by dude on physics.SE

Jason C

Especially under the Trump administration.

Our only hope is morally conscious existing large ISPs.

At least in my opinion.

ISPs that are well-equipped to compete with e.g. TWC.

Aaron Hall

And he wants people to reelect him. I doubt he wants to piss off everyone. If anything, he's a populist that will be down with trust busting these ISPs...

Jason C

Trump is very anti-regulation, it's the GOP in him. He wants the government to not be involved.

Aaron Hall

In which case the ISPs lose their monopolies?

Jason C

Like, Ajit Pai's view is that the FCC should not be regulating ISPs, or much of anything for that matter.

@AaronHall Depends on how optimistic you are.

Aaron Hall

9:01 PM

Verizon's kinda on thin ice with (not) rolling out FIOS to all of Brooklyn...

Jason C

It could also be taken as "in which case nobody regulates ISP monopolies"

Heh tell me about it

The anti-regulatory viewpoint is a bit of a double-edged sword.

Aaron Hall

I think, if we insist on competition, we'll be fine no matter what.

Jason C

You get all these people like "yeah! f*** the man!" But at the same time you lose the protections the man gives you as well. There's a cost.

I hope so.

You have more faith than me. Which is actually unusual now that I think about it, usually I'm the one with faith in things to self-correct. You may be right.

Aaron Hall

I think I'm probably over-paying for my internet - I'd like to see what some competition could do for it.

Jason C

Only time will tell but I really do think we shouldn't just passively sit back and wait.

Aaron Hall

9:05 PM

Abilene paradox

In the Abilene paradox, a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of many (or all) of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group's and, therefore, does not raise objections. A common phrase relating to the Abilene Paradox is a desire not to "rock the boat". This differs from groupthink in that the Abilene paradox is characterized by an inability to manage agreement. == Explanation == The term was introduced by...

Jason C

Hehe, remember Bluelight?

Aaron Hall

@JasonC nope

Jason C

@AaronHall There was a short period circa 1999 where K-Mart offered Bluelight, a free dial-up internet access.

It was glorious.

Aaron Hall

oh, I seem to recall that... why glorious though?

Jason C

It was right in that weird dial-up -> broadband transition.

Because it was free. Awful, but free. Everybody was very excited about it.

Nothing like that has ever existed since.

Aaron Hall

9:07 PM

but nobody used it?

Jason C

Coffee shop free wifi maybe.

Aaron Hall

There was a service called netzero, right?

Jason C

Nah, K-Mart filed for bankruptcy.

Then Juno bought Bluelight and turned it into a paid service.

Yeah NetZero owned Juno (and Bluelight after KMart sold it)

Aaron Hall

Wasn't someone offering a free computer deal if you paid for internet, or something like that? Weird that cell phones work that way, but nobody does computers like that...

Jason C

Bluelight was kinda funny too because it freed people from the bonds of AOL's dial-up service. AOL ended up having to offer a slightly cheaper service that gave customers the option of using other ISPs to access their services. It was a strange and exciting time.

That... sounds vaguely familiar... I'm not sure though.

Free PC?

dylan.tweney.com/prophet/990222prophet.htm that's right.

Free computer in exchange for all your personal information, circa 1999.

Eerily telling.

They got bought out by eMachines.

You know what's kind of screwed up?

If you look at the stuff that made FreePC, Juno's free email, etc. controversial in 1999, that kind of stuff is virtually the norm now.

That's a lot like the fears I have of things shifting gradually.

20 years of being bombarded with data mining, targeted ads, privacy policies that include selling off your personal info, has completely desensitized us to it. We complain about it, but the stuff we accept now is the stuff we were railing against in 1999.

SmokeDetector

9:15 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer: How to draw a small benzene ring symbol in an inline chemical formula? by mona on tex.SE

Jason C

Give it 20 more years of changes happening with nobody noticing and you've got my worst-case scenarios. That's scary, I think.

Aaron Hall

I still wonder why ISP's aren't offering free PC's if you sign up for a 2 year deal...

Jason C

We're not good long-term thinkers when it comes to opposing policy changes.

Because they don't need to.

People sign up for 2 year deals quite happily without being offered a free PC.

It's not hard to get free / cheap computers in the US these days. It's not a good incentive any more.

Aaron Hall

Meh, I think there's a market for it. Niche maybe...

Sign up and get a cheap Chromebook or something like that.

Probably cost in bulk would be $100 a unit, could probably claim them valued at $200 a unit.

Jason C

I could certainly use a new laptop, that's for sure. And I wouldn't mind it being free.

Anyways I better get back to work nice chatting

Aaron Hall

9:20 PM

Oh yeah, recently they were doing the inverse, buy a chromebook and get free internet for life from Verizon.

Jason C

Ha

Aaron Hall

Cheers!

Shadow Wizard

10:08 PM

@rene why not you? :/

@Bart yeah that would save lots of rants, but think he's Q banned on MSE by now. :)

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, bad keyword with email in answer, email in answer: what would allow an epidemic on the scale of the Black Death to happen again? by vanessa on worldbuilding.SE

Journeyman Geek

@JasonC difference is, they get our info anyway, no free shit

Shadow Wizard

We used to have free ISP for a while, which serves ads on each page. It didn't survive for long.

Stijn

cause of ad blockers? :p

Shadow Wizard

Nah, people just didn't use it

user315433

10:44 PM

I remember when NetZero was free...

user315433

NetZero

NetZero is an Internet service provider based in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California. It is a subsidiary of United Online, which in turn is a subsidiary of investment bank B. Riley Financial. United Online is also the parent of Juno Online Services and BlueLight Internet Services. == History == Netzero bought FreeInet around 1998. FreeInet was the first free national internet service provider. NetZero was launched in October 1998, founded by Ronald T. Burr (original CEO), Stacy Haitsuka, Marwan Zebian and Harold MacKenzie. The first national free Internet service provider, NetZero grew to...

user315433

Chances are my data was not very private when I used it, but it wasn't anything I cared about.

Shadow Wizard

So we can find your private data there, in theory? ;)

user315433

Yes, like whether Gerry is my real name or not.

user315433

Or if I'm really as normal as I claimed to be. (Well, that's not hard to figure out anyway.)

user315433

10:49 PM

5

Q: 2017 Community Moderator Election Results

Biology's second moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the new moderator is: They'll be joining the existing crew shortly — please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn the ropes! Please also join in in tha...