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Comment leaving aside the potential for abuse... (Score 1) 87

Do you think that as long as an organization lets us know that "People will be able to track the aircraft online whenever they're used in order to learn where and why they were deployed" we should allow the creepy, annoying presence of machines buzzing around our visual and sonic spheres?

Comment Re:And how is this different than a bank? (Score 1) 436

Except banks should be able to transfer all your assets, if not in cash, at least in some form (given a reasonable amount of notice in any reasonably likely situation) by calling in investments. They are constrained by regulations and audit scrutiny, etc., It's going to be hard for privately-held, internationally cloaked Full Tilt to get customers' money back out of their exec's pockets.

Comment Re:But... (Score 1, Interesting) 456

The Greater Internet Jerkwad Theory:
Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Jerkwad

As TheGratefulNet suggests, anonymity is very important. At least in the sense that we value intellectual freedom. Sometimes the quality/range/expressive power of the discussion improves too, so I guess we need it as a comunication tool. I don't know that we NEED tons of anonymity to survive as a species, but it does seem like one of the more enlightened human rights and a good thing to try to preserve.

For now, we have plenty of technologies and forums supporting some degree of anonymity, and I don't see them going away just because Google+ landed on the individuation side. Bad news (for + users): Google+ will lose some userbase and some amount of the good things that anonymous communication can foster. Good news (for lovers of aliases-based communication): some other, less-omniscient service will get a market opportunity they wouldn't have had if Google+ allowed aliases.

FWIW, I have a + alias-as-name and will probably drop 'em like Friendster if they make me change it. I already have a RealIdentity-style social network. (On Facebook. For now. Can't wait to try the Great Opensource Distributed Social Network that I know one of y'all is going to invent.)

Comment Re:Wow, back to the future (Score 1) 180

Comparing vector to raster is like apples and oranges, but that's an interesting observation... the choke point for graphics has shifted way up. it's because vectors are like blueprints (and the cpu cycles are like fantastic builders) whereas raster is a less-dimensional structure that can be easily displayed and copied, but not easily manipulated.

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