Amiga founder RJ Mical now works for Google

[Sean Cunningham]

Getting upset about collecting info to target ads is forgetting one thing: online advertising is mostly a scam, not on us but on the people who pay to advertise online.  

I run ad blocking and pop-up blocking.  I can't tell you what was the last ad I saw on YT or anywhere else because I can also click "close" and "mute" and in the worse case scenario pop over to another tab if, in the case of folks like HULU, you have sometimes minutes worth of unavoidable ads, whether you pay subscription fees or not.  

Who are the people these things work on?  Who clicks thru?  Who is actually watching or reading these ads?  Not anyone here, intelligent enough to make an Amiga their hobby or more, I would hope.  So, let google bilk these saps while I enjoy free stuff.  I'm immune to their charms and when someone offers something better I'll go there.

[kickstart]

Google is one of the internets worst things.

[Sean Cunningham]

Compared to what?

On the scale of great to horrible for humanity I would rank them much better than sites that profit off your average teen girl being stupid enough or desperate enough or sad enough to flash their boobs and a lot worse on the webcams and webcam-equipped laptops their parents bought them.  Just to name one of many things the internet has brought us that warrant ill will.

I'd say that kind of %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! is way worse than trying to show people ads they should be smart enough to enjoy, tailor-made for them from eavesdropping on conversations and public postings that aren't really that aren't really that interesting to begin with.

Seriously.

[stefcep2]

"We believe the WWW exists because of entertainment" : WHAAAT!!!???: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web

Of course it does!

You think god-knows how many bytes of information traversing the internet is people doing productive things or tele-medicine (the often quoted justification for ever faster and ever more bandwidth?)  Isn't something like 40% of internet traffic in the US Netflix?

For all its productive possibilities, once it became mainstream, the internet is the biggest time-sink ever invented.

The amazing things is that internet mega-corporations have convinced governments to pay for that infrastructure to further their businesses at the expense of things like health care, education, and other infrastructure.

And just try to get the internet-addicted population off it now!  Impossible!  They'll happily hand over their taxes and personal money.  Until they get sick, and their health system sucks, or their kids can't pay for an education, or it their train system is a mess, and traffic jams due to a lack of planning and maintainance on these things.  Then its "where are my taxes going..?"

[itix]

@Kesa & Pyromania

I am working here one or two months, comissioning a machine vision system at local paper mill. China is not that bad. I havent seen the sky since I came because of the smog but people here are nice and very kind. They hardly speak english, at the first hotel they had to communicate with a translator app on their phone. And many here adore westerners, so if you desperately need a girlfriend China should be on your dating zone.

Apparently everyone here is using smart phones only and younger Chinese are chatting on phone all the time. Nobody have iPhone here but Samsung or some lesser Chinese label. And yeah, Google is banned here :-)

I give credit to Google for their stubborness. They lost great market.

[alphadec]

Sad that a guy who have been a part of amiga now says that hardware is not vital.

Well RJ you are WRONG.

[Sean Cunningham]

Google being banned in China has more to do with the oppressive, controlling regime running country, despite the anything goes purist Capitalism GOP wet dream face put on in a few cities.  China has a version of the internet.  It's better than N.Korea's at least.

[Sean Cunningham]

Sad that a guy who have been a part of amiga now says that hardware is not vital.

Well RJ you are WRONG.

He's right though.  Software is the thing.  Great engineering only matters to other engineers, doesn't impress the marketplace at large and doesn't actually let people do anything useful.  A great app on %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!ty hardware is infinitely more useful than a great machine and nothing to run on it.

[alphadec]

He's right though.  Software is the thing.  Great engineering only matters to other engineers, doesn't impress the marketplace at large and doesn't actually let people do anything useful.  A great app on %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!ty hardware is infinitely more useful than a great machine and nothing to run on it.

The problem is this. Everything must be connected but sometimes u are not connected (it happens) and the I like to store it on hardware that I OWN!.

But if you is payed by google you better say network is everything!, I dont.

[XDelusion]

Definitely hasn't hurt Google's standing.
As much as I dislike Apple, there's never been a company with as loose ethics as Google. Ever.

You are absolutely right on!

[Kesa]

YouTube is the only video channel worth watching. Sure the adverts are annoying but look at how that income improves the service. It allows greater exposure for talented people and also increases the quality of the material. Some YouTubers can even give up their day jobs to make <10 minute videos for a living.

Without Google running YouTube we wouldn't have channels like this:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg

or this:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA

The two above are my favourite channels at the moment but there are many more.

YouTube is also the only video service that I know of offering 4k videos. And soon will be playing videos at 60 fps. YouTube rocks!

[LiveForIt]

He's right though.  Software is the thing.  Great engineering only matters to other engineers, doesn't impress the marketplace at large and doesn't actually let people do anything useful.  A great app on %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!ty hardware is infinitely more useful than a great machine and nothing to run on it.

Its not what he is saying, he is expecting mobile devices to get faster.

He says that consoles are going to go away.

Maybe he thinks you just connect a mobile device to your TV, or maybe the content can be on smart TV, I'm not shore, he does not say, maybe a combination of this two.

What has been true for many years is that a Gaming PC is often more powerful then a Console.