Tim Cook Says Ads That Follow You Online Are 'Creepy' (cnet.com) 181
In a wide-ranging interview with MSNBC and Recode, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that everyone should know how much data they're sharing and what can be inferred about us from that information. He added that privacy "is a human right" and said he's worried about how advertisers and others can abuse access to our data. "To me it's creepy when I look at something and all of a sudden it's chasing me all the way across the web," Cook said. "I don't like that." CNET reports: The comments came as part of a wide-ranging interview between Cook, MSNBC's Chris Hayes and Recode's Kara Swisher. MSNBC broadcast the special, named "Revolution: Apple changing the world" at 5 p.m. PT on Friday. The interview was taped the day after Apple's education event in Chicago, where the company introduced a new 9.7-inch iPad and tools for teachers. The two publications released some early clips and comments from Cook over the past couple of weeks. That included remarks he made about Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cook noted that Apple purposely chose not to make "a ton of money" off its customers' data and that Facebook failed to effectively regulate itself, prompting a need for government intervention. Along with Facebook and its privacy issues, Cook talked up DACA and immigration, tax reform, the changing job landscape and the need for everyone to learn coding, among other topics.
Cook yaps out of both sides... (Score:1, Troll)
Cook yapps out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand, he claims to support privacy. On the other hand, Apple is nudging users against local storage and to Apple's own cloud services. Cloud = someone else's computer, and it's not really private unless you implement your own key management.
If Cook were truly about privacy, Apple wouldn't be deprecating OS X Server -- i.e. support for local storage in corporate environments. They'd be building Mac OS to encrypt by default, but building their machines
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Remember Iad?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Tim Cook, some changes are needed (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite my criticisms of Tim Cook using Apple as his personal political platform, he and the company been vocal advocates of user privacy and rights. Compared to the rest of Silicon Valley and how they view users, Apple has been truly fantastic.
HOWEVER, I agree with you that here are a lot more things, some fairly simple, that Apple should be doing to back up their words with actions. Here's just a few:
1. Loosen restrictions on VPN protocols in iOS. Everyone knows the industry standard is OpenVPN, but Apple basically restricts VPN providers from implementing OpenVPN natively in their iOS apps, forcing users to resort to L2TP or IKEv2 (or set up their cknnectjkn manually using the OpenVPN app). This is cumbersome and gets in the way of good security.
2. Set StartPage as the default search engine in iOS Safari (rather than Google). StartPage returns Google results, but securely and privately. Adding DuckDuckGo a few years back was good, but most users stick with defaults and most users want Google results. So give them Google results securely and privately by making StartPage the default search engine.
3. Let alternative browsers on iOS submit DNT headers. Currently only Safari can do this. In fact, Apple needs to signicsntly lessen restrictions on alternative browsers, including letting users set a different browser as default over Safari. At least do this with browsers that have proven security credentials, like Firefox, Ghostery and Brave. But the way Apple has handled iOS browsing has been very anti-security. They took a long time to get around to fixing the HSTS supercookie bug in Safari, and then in iOS 11 created a HUGE WebRTC leak issue in most every other browser that is still unpatched. Why isn't this a priority?
4. The first four were easy; this one is going to hurt. Cook, it's time to start open sourcing some of Apple's code. The amount of simple but critical bugs found in OSX recently is insane. At the very least, start by implementing a policy that once an OS major version number is two or three years old, it's published open source. This will build trust amongst users and help researchers find bugs, while also protecting your most current developments as proprietary.
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it's time to start open sourcing some of Apple's code. The amount of simple but critical bugs found in OSX recently is insane. At the very least, start by implementing a policy that once an OS major version number is two or three years old, it's published open source. This will build trust amongst users and help researchers find bugs, while also protecting your most current developments as proprietary.
Open source doesn't magically make something better, or even good. There is plenty of open source software that is shit.
More importantly, OSX is specifically designed to **ONLY** run on Apple's mediocre over-priced hardware. Open source would change that and cut into Apple's massive profit margins that they make by charging a premium price for mediocre shit hardware.
In other words, never going to happen.
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Never used that "mediocre shit hardware" have you?
When I need specs, I have a gaming PC that I built properly. But one doesn't pay for the specs with Apple, one pays for stuff that doesn't go on a spec sheet. For example a laptop where the fans at full speed are still almost silent, where the hinge is smooth with no wobble and you can open one-handed, with a battery life that is actually true, a gorgeous screen, excellent sound for a laptop, and the best trackpad I've ever used.
I'm not saying Apple isn't ov
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But the hardware is sure as hell not mediocre.
That must be why they get to get away with selling the same specs for years at a time and having virtually no way to upgrade or make your machine better?
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Despite my criticisms of Tim Cook using Apple as his personal political platform
How so? Tim Cook is a human with opinions political or not, should being a CEO prevent you from broadcasting such opinions? That seems like an odd position to be take.
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Tim Cook as a human should get the same amount of media attention that the rest of humanity gets, ie, near zero unless you happen to be the eponymous man in the street at the right time.
Tim Cook gets access to the media because he is Apple's CEO, which means that Tim Cook "the human" gets a much better access to the media to broadcast his personal political platform.
Also, I don't think for a fucking second Tim Cook says anything to the media that either hasn't been vetted by a half-dozen lawyers and publici
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Tim Cook is a supply chain expert and business manager. AFAIK he has no claim to expertise in terms of politics or political issues.
It's one more person who knows something about X, trying to claim it gives them expertise in Y.
Re:Tim Cook, some changes are needed (Score:4, Informative)
The first four were easy; this one is going to hurt. Cook, it's time to start open sourcing some of Apple's code
This one is easy because they've already done it. Go to http://opensource.apple.com/ [apple.com] and take a look. A lot of the recent vulnerabilities were found in code that has been open sourced but none of the ones that I'm aware of were found by source analysis. Apple incorporates static analysis into their workflow on a pretty aggressive basis so bugs that are easy to find by static analysis of the source code don't usually make it into their code. A lot of their recent vulnerabilities have been found by Google Project Zero and were found by fuzzing and then binary analysis. Having access to the source code might make it easier for third parties to fix it, but wouldn't make it noticeably easier for anyone to find holes.
5. Let me control which apps have internet access (Score:2)
Yes, I realize that's a power user feature that can likely break functionality. But there's no reason why every little app should be able to siphon up analytics data every time I use it. We can already control some aspects of what an app has access to (contacts, microphone, etc) but should be able to decide "this is a solitaire game, it shouldn't need internet access".
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Despite my criticisms of Tim Cook using Apple as his personal political platform, he and the company been vocal advocates of user privacy and rights.
Apple couldn't care less about your privacy and rights. They are only vocal about it when it serves as a way to attack their competitors business model (especially Android). Do you remember "the fappening" : hundreds of very personal pictures of celebrities stored on iCloud were leaked to the internet. If it is not a privacy violation, I don't know what is. Of course, we could argue that it was most likely a fishing attack and therefore not Apple's fault, but still, the pictures come from Apple, not the sup
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Despite my criticisms of Tim Cook using Apple as his personal political platform, he and the company been vocal advocates of user privacy and rights. Compared to the rest of Silicon Valley and how they view users, Apple has been truly fantastic.
This is marketing retcon, there is a reason that all the silicon valley press started talking about Apple being the privacy company simultaneously. It conveniently overlooks the long period where Apple provided no information about what an applications used.
More over, Apple has consistently used misleading statements about the encryption used on products, e.g. messaging.
Re: Tim Cook, some changes are needed (Score:2, Interesting)
"Self-serving" makes no sense in the context in which you used it.
Also, obviously that idea would be the beginning of eventually open sourcing everything. It's a way to ease into it by open sourcing the oldest components first. The whole idea of open sourcing older components as a benefit in helping researchers find security holes clearly IMPLIES the holes may be in software still in use.
People buy Apple for a few reasons. Hardware, ease of use with the UI, and security are probably the big three. Hardware
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People buy Apple for a few reasons. Hardware, ease of use with the UI, and security are probably the big three.
Fuck off. Their hardware is overpriced, not good and idiots can't tell the difference, maybe pretty, but not good.. The UI is only good if that's all you've used and security through obscurity is well and truly done for them, especially as they want all your data on their cloud nowadays.
Re:Cook yaps out of both sides... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh fuck off. You're not required to use iCloud at all. You can attach as much storage as you need. You can use FileVault 2 to encrypt locally. You can sync your iOS devices easily to local storage.
What in holy fuck are you on man?
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It's more than encouraging and being nudged hard - iCloud notifications are straight-up nagware. I refuse to sign in, and I get random pop-ups to sign in every couple of hours. Sometimes while doing nothing. I've disabled everything cloud related, and it still persists. Short of identifying what processes are triggering this and killing them, or writing a script to auto-kill them, there's no way around the nagware that I can find, other than signing in.
That MBP is now gathering dust, however, because I got
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You can sync your iOS devices easily to local storage.
How does this work without using a Mac or a PC running a Microsoft operating system? Does the storage device need to present itself as a NAS of some sort? Or is there a dongle that plugs into the Lightning connector and allows syncing to a USB or microSD block device?
Apple USB Camera Adapter (Score:2)
You can sync your iOS devices easily to local storage.
How does this work without using a Mac or a PC running a Microsoft operating system?
You save your data either on the local hard disk, on a USB source, or on a network source over any of the standard protocols.
Network source I understand, but not the other two. An iOS device has no "local hard disk". Instead, it has an internal flash memory, which is fairly small on entry-level models. Nor does it have a USB port. Instead, it has a Lightning port.
I remembered vaguely that there was some means to connect digital cameras. After a bit of web searching, I discovered that Apple had introduced support for devices other than cameras through the Apple USB Camera Adapter [apple.com]. It mentions "SD card readers", which I presume to
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The tyranny of the default. He's definitely marketing. Apple's hands are far from clean, his company has horrible environmental practices in spite of their "green" marketing.
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1. How do you know this about Apple's environmental practices?
2. Which smartphone / tablet / computer company are you recommending as better on environmental practices?
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Re: Cook yaps out of both sides... (Score:5, Informative)
No they don't. They started iAd in 2010 to piss off Google, but shut it down in 2016. It sucked because it required a huge upfront investment, required giving Apple some control over your own ads, and Apple took 40% of ad revenue. Apple made a big deal about how iAds would be more secure for customers and less annoying. Thing is, advertisers want to be annoying and they don't give squat about customers of the host site.
In other news... (Score:1)
Tim Cook takes cheap shots at anyone in tech who is a Billionaire and isn't Apple.
The question isn't if he is right or wrong. The question is - what is his motivation?
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Motivation? To push people towards Apple's walled garden and cloud storage, at the expense of less-private solutions. But also at the expense of things that offer MORE privacy, like encrypted local storage or even isolated intranet-based storage.
Basically, to get his name in the headlines and make dough for Apple.
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We have a winner!
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We get it. You don't like Apple. You've repeated the same nonsense a couple times already.
No one is forcing anyone to use Apple, and you're more then welcome to not use iCloud on any Apple device. You can attach as much local storage as you want to a macOS machine. You don't have to use iCloud with iOS, and with recent iOS versions you have your choice of multiple cloud storage providers. You can even use local network storage if you wish. For example I use the FileBrowser app which can connect to my
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As long as the walled garden surrounds me I don't give a crap. The current system is corrupt shite. So instead of Tim Cook just saying stuff, how about doing stuff. Like a massively multiplayer online social media web site using avatars with attached varied game zones. A place for people to play, not attack each other. Lets see actions not words, lets see some concrete plans, not empty statements. Want better Tim Cook, do better, you have the tools and you have the knowledge, so put it together.
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He probably does not enjoy the constant grindr ad chasing him everywhere.
The question is - what is his motivation? (Score:2)
Tim Cook takes cheap shots at anyone in tech who is a Billionaire and isn't Apple.
The question isn't if he is right or wrong. The question is - what is his motivation?
No, stop overthinking this, it's really simple. Apparently Tim Cook said that ads that follow you online are 'creepy' and you know what? He's right!! ... they are creepy. End of story.
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Tim Cook takes cheap shots at anyone in tech who is a Billionaire and isn't Apple.
The question isn't if he is right or wrong. The question is - what is his motivation?
Actually, no. The question is whether he is right or wrong. Stop trying to qui bono everything -- it's actually possible to have a discussion and come to conclusions based solely on rational argument and debate, ya know.
Ask Slashdot: What would you ask Zuckerberg? (Score:1)
Slashdot folks like to think that we are the best IT / Security / Privacy experts in the world.
What would you ask Mark Zuckerberg in the Congress hearings . . . ?
Re:Ask Slashdot: What would you ask Zuckerberg? (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Why didn't you design Facebook from the beginning to honor requests by users to have files deleted instead of just hiding the files someplace and pretending that they'd been deleted?"
"Mr. Senator, we are all about connecting people. In order to better connect people we need to better understand them. Sometimes, people inadvertently delete things that would help us to better understand them, and better connect them well. So it's better for them if we save stuff that they think they should delete."
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I hate ads...especially on Youtube... (Score:3)
Just imagine: -
You see an interesting video but when you click the link, you're "welcomed" by an uninvited ad! What I do in this case is to mute the sound, an occasionally close my eyes for a few moments. It works most of the time.
Trouble is, even when you forward the video, you'll be confronted with an ad!
I hate ads but will also not pay up in order to avoid them. I know I am not alone.
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You WILL see those ads (Score:5, Interesting)
The point Cook is making is that even if you mute that video and close your eyes, you'll still see that same ad (or at least one for that some product) on an entirely different site. That is the creepy part, that sites across the internet suddenly seem to know what you have been looking at.
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The point Cook is making is that even if you mute that video and close your eyes, you'll still see that same ad (or at least one for that some product) on an entirely different site. That is the creepy part, that sites across the internet suddenly seem to know what you have been looking at.
Exactly. And yes, it is creepy.
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Its almost like computers can be programmed to do things. Scary.
If apple was not run by the technology ignorant they would know that.
I'm not sure what your private criteria is for "technologically ignorant"; but at least Tim Cook actually knows how to Code:
https://www.macrumors.com/2018... [macrumors.com]
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I hate ads but will also not pay up in order to avoid them.
How do you propose to fund the sites you use? All that hardware, bandwidth, development, maintenance, operations management, power, etc. cost money, and if sites can't generate revenue to cover it, they'll have to shut down.
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Lately, YouTube's parent company has become more serious about anti-adblock, introducing a tool called Funding Choices to let publishers limit how many monthly page views a user of ad or tracking blocking software can see. Nor does everybody have the opportunity to purchase a subscription to YouTube Red service. As anti-adblock technology improves, what means to exercise a "deliberate choice" not to "see ads online" were you thinking of, other than A. YouTube Red or B. posting a comment without having watch
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How does Google allegedly decide who "a user of ad or tracking blocking software" is?
Presumably by failure to observe the side effects of the advertising script, which side effects are not publicly documented and may change without warning. One such side effect is that the entire ad was downloaded, and downloading and discarding the ad isn't going to help people who choose to use an ad blocker to save on cellular or satellite data transfer overage fees.
What does it look like when a YouTube video refuses to play for this reason?
I don't know what this particular message will look like on YouTube in particular once YouTube becomes more effective at detecting ad blocke
People vote for it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time you use a Facebook or Google service... that's what you vote for. Online surveillance capitalism.
Every time you allow your computer to load and run a tracking javascript from some web site... that's what you vote for.
Every time you load a "web bug"... that's what you vote for.
Every time you buy a device where someone else has more authority over it than you do, which may restrict your ability to exercise control over what the device is allowed to do... that's what you vote for.
If you've ever clicked on a banner ad, you helped us get here.
We didn't get here via foul magic, we got here because billions of people allowed things others of us see as flat out unacceptable.
Stop voting to turn the net into a shitfest of surveillance capitalism.
Is not buying any device at all preferable? (Score:3)
Every time you allow your computer to load and run a tracking javascript from some web site... that's what you vote for.
Hence my use of the Tracking Protection feature in Firefox. Hence my use of AllTheTropes.org instead of TVTropes.org.
Every time you buy a device where someone else has more authority over it than you do, which may restrict your ability to exercise control over what the device is allowed to do... that's what you vote for.
So how would I go about voting against computing devices that restrict the owner, other than not buying any computing device at all and thereby not having my business needs met? I tried buying a subnotebook PC that respects my freedom as best I could, only for others to outvote me, leading to the discontinuation of the entry-level subnotebook PC segment [slashdot.org].
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Keep using your older devices that still respect your freedoms. Collect spares and learn to repair if you haven't already. You'll save money and become more self-sufficient as a bonus.
Those old devices full of bugs? Security holes? That don't inter-operate with the newer devices that other people use and therefore don't do the job they were designed for? Why trust those devices anyway, have you vetted them?
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Collect spares and learn to repair if you haven't already.
Those old devices full of bugs? Security holes?
Repairing includes replacing defective operating systems that respect users' freedom with fixed operating systems that respect users' freedom. For example, upgrade from old Debian to latest stable Debian (currently Debian 9 "jessie").
But it also appears to include replacing cells in a lithium battery pack, if a previous comment from an anonymous user [slashdot.org] is to be believed.
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Is hardware repair, including replacing surface-mounted capacitors and remanufacturing lithium ion battery packs, something that every individual user is expected to learn?
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Which forum should I join if I want to learn more about how to repair an entry-level subnotebook computer?
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Can we just ban web/print/radio advertising already?
If your product isn't good enough to sell by word-of-mouth alone then it is probably crap.
Advertisers have ZERO respect for your time or money so why do we put up with this shit??
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Every time you allow your computer to load and run a tracking javascript from some web site... that's what you vote for.
Oh don't be ridiculous. I would guess that ninety-nine percent of the people surfing the web have no idea that google ad services, analytics, or that facebook ad services are running on a non-google or facebook website. They have no idea how to prevent this or to even check if this is the case. And now all of the sudden their ignorance is their obvious support of such surveillance? Give me a break buddy. Most of these people don't even understand the implications of such things, so they probably wouldn
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Agreed, users who don't work in tech generally lack awareness, understanding, and appreciation for the consequences of ubiquitous surveillance.
Think of it this way. Instead of a lengthy and weasely "privacy policy" suppose every web site popped up a modal dialog saying "Alert! everything you enter or click on this web site will be permanently recorded and can be shared with anyone, now or 50 years in the future: NSA, CIA, FBI, ATF, DEA, Russian intelligence services, your employer, your ex-spouse, your heal
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Every time you allow your computer to load and run a tracking javascript from some web site... that's what you vote for.
Every time you load a "web bug"... that's what you vote for.
Most people don't even know those things exist, let along that they are being loaded or how to stop them loading. I don't think that could be taken as a vote in favour of creepy advertising.
Same with people not having full control over their devices. They just don't understand or see it as a good thing.
Educational efforts have failed. The only option left is to block by default. Mozilla has the right idea but needs to go further; remove privacy invading APIs and block web bugs, third party cookies and scrip
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Repeat after me: "The market cannot fix everything"
Sometimes you need legislation. Sometimes you need regulation. I know that stings for some people on this site, but the alternative is that you have to educate and persuade a big section of people to care about relatively technical and complex things that are way outside their normal world, and that's never going to happen, they have other shit to do. Hell, I'm a developer and I don't really know what you mean by "web bug".
The same way we expect airlines to
huh? (Score:1)
Back Razor (Score:3)
Re:Back Razor (Score:4, Insightful)
I always find it strange when people talk about ads as if I'm supposed to know about them. Happens a lot with TV ads, I guess because people are less willing to admit they have seen online ads because they understand they are targeted at them rather than broadcast to everyone.
You should block ads online. Not blocking ads is like not running an unpatched XP system with anti-virus back in the early 2000s. Even if you don't get some nasty infection, you are being farmed like an animal. Have some self respect, block ads and don't eat food out of a KFC bucket.
One company deciding what runs is just as creepy (Score:4, Insightful)
So, Tim, as long as Apple puts its buyers under tutelage, you are just as creepy as the stuff you criticize.
Re:One company deciding what runs is just as creep (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I'd say it's also wrong, but it's not as creepy.
There's two creepiness factor differences here. (1) Apple's walled-garden is not clandestine. You buy an iPhone you're buying into that garden. Internet tracking happens without your even implied consent. (2) Apple's hegemony has a clear limitation: Apple's mobile devices. That makes it trivial to escape: you just use a different vendor's phone. Internet monitoring is pervasive; you can't escape it no matter where you try to go with your browser.
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No, I'd say it's also wrong, but it's not as creepy.
There's two creepiness factor differences here. (1) Apple's walled-garden is not clandestine. You buy an iPhone you're buying into that garden. Internet tracking happens without your even implied consent. (2) Apple's hegemony has a clear limitation: Apple's mobile devices. That makes it trivial to escape: you just use a different vendor's phone. Internet monitoring is pervasive; you can't escape it no matter where you try to go with your browser.
Well said!
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While Tim Cook is certainly right that being tracked for advertisement purposes is creepy and should not happen, it is just as creepy if there is one company that decides what software my hardware is allowed to run, even taking a third of revenue made with it, if it is commercial.
So, Tim, as long as Apple puts its buyers under tutelage, you are just as creepy as the stuff you criticize.
So, just HOW much would meet with your Highness' approval, for handling payments, bandwidth, advertising, updates and having a one-stop storefront that anyone who wants an App knows EXACTLY where to go to find it?
Oh, and don't forget, Apple ALSO hosts, advertises, updates etc. all those FREE Apps. I guess they're being greedy taking 30% of ZERO there, too, right?
And if Apple was being so greedy, don't you think the other "App Stores" like Google Play and Amazon would charge far less, just to be able to brag
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it is just as creepy if there is one company that decides what software my hardware is allowed to run
OSX comes with full developer tools, you can compile anything you want to.
I've said that for YEARS.
And it's STILL true!
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Actually, you're forced to develop the apps for your iPhone on OSX. The main thing at this point keeping the Mac alive is that it's the ONLY way to develop apps for iOS. On the day when Xcode becomes available for Linux and FreeBSD the Mac will be deprecated and obsolete.
I keep looking, but Xcode still isn't available in pkgsrc for NetBSD.
You're an idiot.
And you'll see next year just how much of an idiot.
From the CEO of the company that brought you... (Score:2)
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iAds was a business failure. Apple shut it down. So it's all bad.
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...iAds.
What about it?
Apple made it go away almost 2 years ago.
Do try to keep up!
Cook taking stabs at everybody (Score:2)
So, Tim, how do they "follow" you? (Score:2, Insightful)
With cookies. And they're stupid cookies. If you research a product online and buy it, the cookies follow you around for months afterwards. Sorry, too late. Why is that creepy? It's not as if they are AI. .
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If he's using an apple mobile device, they can folow him using the unique advertising identifier that apple devices apparently helpfully send to advertisers. He can "reset it" periodically via a 3-deep system menu option, but there isn't a menu option to opt out.
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What is the default ? An overwhelming majority of users are not going to change anything in the Settings app in Privacy -> Advertising.
While it is wrong to say there isn't a menu option to "opt out" of sending a unique advertising ID, Tim Cook's Apple is allowing a lot of creepiness.
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With cookies. And they're stupid cookies. If you research a product online and buy it, the cookies follow you around for months afterwards. Sorry, too late. Why is that creepy? It's not as if they are AI. .
It's creepy to him when he's reading a business related article and is still seeing all his gay porn ads.
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It's creepy that advertisers ask me to accept cookies so they can track me around the web. If someone walked up to you in the street and asked you to carry a GPS tracker so they could better target their advertising at you, would you do it?
Third party cookies should be blocked by default in all browsers. There are no non-abusive use cases that can't be replaced by first party cookies.
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With cookies. And they're stupid cookies. If you research a product online and buy it, the cookies follow you around for months afterwards. Sorry, too late. Why is that creepy? It's not as if they are AI. .
Yet.
Giving Chinese gov keys to iCloud is creepy (Score:2, Insightful)
Pot? Kettle? Anyone?
Call it what it is. (Score:1)
Stalking.
Great. Now where's my full-sized tower? (Score:2)
Just asking.
Apple's practices (Score:1)
Nice marketing. I think companies that throttle old hardware to encourage replacement, and glue together hardware to make them unrepairable are creepy, too.
Even if I didnâ(TM)t block ads, I would updat (Score:1)
All these big companies brag about their ad targeting and blah blah blah artificial intelligence blah blah.... and in reality, all they do is try to advertise to me repeatedly the thing I JUST ALREADY FUCKING BOUGHT. So... yeah, good going there. I just bought a new big screen flat panel televsision... so the smart thing to do is to start throwing constant ads about big screen televisions to me..... you know â" the thing inJUST bought and wonâ(TM)t be in the market again for a decade or two...
Everyone does not need to learn to code (Score:1)
Everyone does not need to learn to farm, be a police officer, be a politician, beautician, actor, painter, composer, or any other particular skill.
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Everyone does not need to learn to farm, be a police officer, be a politician, beautician, actor, painter, composer, or any other particular skill.
Learning to code, even if just an elementary level actually teaches you how to think, unlike the arbitrary skills you tried to unsuccessfully connect it with above.
Thinking not only improves your life, it also improves everyone else's by not impacting the rest of us with your stupid decision making.
Re:Everyone does not need to learn to code (Score:5, Interesting)
I've coded in over a dozen languages from vax macro and 6502 assembly languages to cobol and fortran to ada and java.
Everyone does not need to learn to code any more than everyone needs to learn calculus or everyone needs to learn music.
I've had a computer science degree longer than some (many?) people posting on slashdot have been alive.
It's a dumb concept.
Coding doesn't teach you how to think and be a decent human being.
Philosophy and logic courses teach you how to think and be a decent human being.
And actually, learning to read music and play a musical instrument does more for you as a human being (and your ability to think) than learning to code.
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Everyone *should* learn to play music in some form or another. Unfortunately, it's one of the first things to be dropped in underfunded "teach to the test" public education, and too many families cannot afford to do it on their own.
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Coding doesn't teach you how to think and be a decent human being.
I mean, experience from this site suggests to me that it gives a moral superiority and unearned certainty that actively harms the ability to be a decent human being.
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Exactly. All the "everyone can code " shit is more apple propaganda to sell the tech ignorant more overprice apple crap.
Of course... Everything is one big Apple Conspiracy...
Riiiiiight.
And he is absolutely right. (Score:2)
They creep me out and I will take my business elsewhere.
They try to sell things Iâ(TM)ve already boug (Score:1)
The most annoying thing is that the adverts pop up after Iâ(TM)ve searched for and bought the product I want.
Not only do these ads fail to impart any new info to me, they actually put me off the brands being advertised.
Iâ(TM)ve contacted a couple of the vendors I buy fromto explain how the ads put me off buying again, but have never managed to find someone who understood.
Cook forgets Apple live in a free world (Score:2)
Took a private Dr. consultation. There were two humans present. Three hours later " Flonase" ads start streaming in on my cell phone Safari browser. We talked specifically about Flonase Rx. I'm not a conspiracist.
Last week watching Sports Channel an advertisement ran. Minutes later a news article flows into my feed. You guessed right if you reckon this coincidence was too close for comfort. It beyond uncomfortable. An injected ' news article' didn't pass as news nor coincidental.
There's a problem with c
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Took a private Dr. consultation. There were two humans present. Three hours later " Flonase" ads start streaming in on my cell phone Safari browser. We talked specifically about Flonase Rx. I'm not a conspiracist.
Last week watching Sports Channel an advertisement ran. Minutes later a news article flows into my feed. You guessed right if you reckon this coincidence was too close for comfort. It beyond uncomfortable. An injected ' news article' didn't pass as news nor coincidental.
There's a problem with cellular technology. Its not enough to put it away in a pocket. Its probably not enough to turn your wireless off. Cellular handsets listen when I think they should not even be capable of it. Its Apple's problem, every phone manufacturer and it's every developer whose software that runs on those phones.
So fake news be it whatever no matter I live in a free world. I have options. I don't have patience when it comes to a Right to privacy.
You may not label yourself a conspiracist; but you do realize that all of our brains spend an incredible amount of processing-power searching for patterns. And if that Flonase ad showed BEFORE you wen to the Dr., it wouldn't have even "registered"; but since it was AFTER...
Slashdot advert trackers .. (Score:2)
https://snap.licdn.com/ [licdn.com]
https://analytics.slashdotmedi... [slashdotmedia.com]
https://ssl.google-analytics.c... [google-analytics.com]
https://ml314.com/ [ml314.com]
https://consent.trustarc.com/ [trustarc.com]
https://a.fsdn.com/ [fsdn.com]
https://ads.pro-market.net/ [pro-market.net]
https://cdn.taboola.com/ [taboola.com]
https://rpxnow.com/ [rpxnow.com]
https://tag.crsspxl.com/ [crsspxl.com]
https://www.stack-sonar.com/ [stack-sonar.com]
https://a.fsdn.com/ [fsdn.com]
https://cdn-social.janrain.com... [janrain.com]
https://d3tglif [cloudfront.net]
And facebook says... (Score:2)
And Facebook says it's creepy to remove features from hardware and then gouge customers on adapters. Whoop dee fuckin' doo.
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Please people, use our safe iAds which are totally not Apple following you around the internet
Apple discontinued iAds in June, 2016.
Do try to keep up, Cowardly Hater Putz.