It is a long long time ago when Google could be considered innocent (acting ethically). Actually, they're acting the opposite way for ages by ignoring copyright, privacy and by manipulating.
Generally I agree, however. The ethic mostly seems to be gone. And it has to be taken care of by enforcing copyright and privacy protection laws. I had my wake-up moment when Facebook started copying whole Wikipedia articles instead of linking.
It's remarkable that someone today tries to insult Google by claiming they aren't creating content. EVERYONE knows this. People use Google because they are great at organization information, not making it.
There's a difference between Google Search and Google News.
It is already an achievement to write the headlines of the news and to rank the importance of a piece of news. I consider this and all the editorial also as content.
With Google Search, Google does the ranking etc. and provides a substantial own service on demand to a specific search. People always go to the original site if it fits their search request. All good here. But with Google News they just copy the headlines and parts of the articles. They present it, kind of republish it in opposite to creating a search service.
Personally, I'm a bit pissed by the Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. because of their sneaky busines concepts. So my post is hostile (which it shouldn't be, but happens ...), but not insulting towards Google.
I think in this case it's a blurred line. In the case of Youtube even more. True, they don't want to create their own content, but when they republish it and making money by doing so, we're in the middle of the copyright discussion. The question to answer in each of Googles (or others) businesses is, when is Google presenting it's own work (search results, etc.) or the work of others.
Google is generally useful to the sites they link to. Most sites want a high rank on Google, because that brings them more visitors and more advertiser revenue, and Google offers them that service at no cost.
If they don't want Google to link to them, they can control that through robots.txt.
You may remember a recent German law that allowed German news sites to charge money for this, and Google removed links to news sites that didn't want to be listed for free. Pretty soon, all sites allowed Google to link to them again, because the loss of traffic hurt them.
Basically this amounts to the question: should search engines and aggregators be allowed to exist at all? Should we go back to the pre search engine days when you could only find new sites when someone discussed it on usenet, or through web rings (a network of sites about a similar subject where each links to the next one)?
See, this is what I don't really get. Sure, they can make money by selling ads on the content they're indexing (which is the primary reason their ranking system has to stay egalitarian, or roughly so with a few exceptions), but publishers are by no means obligated to purchase display ads from Google, or to host using Google's platforms (Youtube, Blogger, etc). Imho, it's only a blurred line iff a publisher chooses to make it so.
So, what are you insinuating exactly? That Google should stay away from providing any sort of news completely unless they are willing to build a team of journalists? What's wrong with aggregation?
That's exactly how it has to be done. Google can't be allowed to copy the content or parts of it without permission of the creator. We shouldn't forget that they're making huge amounts of money by selling others work here. On the other hand Google claims to create "real value for these publications by driving people to their websites", which is often true in the short run. So the publisher can consider allowing copying parts of their articles. And Google could even consider charging them for this service.
Your statement "Google can't be allowed to copy the content or parts of it without permission of the creator" doesn't take into account that "Publishers can choose whether or not they want their articles to appear in Google News" (from the post).
I think I took this into account, but I admit I didn't see something else, which you pointed me to:
>> This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not.
In Spain it's not possible for publishers to allow Google to post without payment.
It seems to me if a news article can be summed up in the one-sentence excerpt shown on Google News, I could just get that from Twitter and it has very little value...
Hi, I'm the author of the post. I've been using JDownloader on Linux for years and never noticed a problem with Adware. Can you please elaborate? I'd really like to know more.
It seems to occur only using the web-installer, which is the one you're offically prompted at by the creators of JDownloader.
Well, I removed JDownloader and manually fixed the start page and search engines of firefox to remove the sweet-page stuff, but somehow my firefox is still screwed.
Questionable decision by the maker of JDownloader. I can't imagine that the money he gets for this is worth the damaged reputation.
Edit: I just ran an adware scanner. Besides the Sweet Page stuff, WindowsManagerProtect and Hold Page was installed. Several Registry Entries and Firefox setting were infected. Unbelievable ...
Since you didn't give alternatives, allow me: the program you should use is called quvi. It comes with a large number of scripts for extracting videos from sites and you can easily write more or patch existing ones, since they're all written in lua.
Also, a while ago I was working on making JDownloader less terrible (it should work like wget, UNIX philosophy and all). It's very labor-intensive though, but I may continue if enough people are interested (or help out): https://github.com/espes/jdget
The goal of meditation is not to get a better brain. As the goal of yoga is not to get a sexy body. These articles and even more the countless yoga ads with young beautiful ladies are really counterproductive from the viewpoint of yoga. They might be helpful from another perspective.
I can't summarize the real goal of yoga properly (meditation is one of the important exercise beside contemplation; the asanas are for preparation only), but it's more to be able to let go of the selfish desires like becoming smarter, getting a sexier body, getting more money, fame, admiring ("Oh, you look so good lately" ... "Yes, you know, I'm doing yoga."). The goal is more to be able to coordinate (not suppress) the desires to avoid doing harm and at the end creating harm for yourself. Meditation gives us insight to where the desires are coming from. Are they essential? Do I need to fullfil them? Or do I need to eat another snickers just because the last one has made my blood sugar go like a rollercoaster?
Actually, I've heard many-a-monk describe meditation as training the mind, so the goal is often to 'get a better brain'. Not to mention, an improvement in the brain's mindset is necessarily linked to physical changes in the brain. Furthermore, a sexy body is often chosen to be sexy because the body is healthy and happy in the first place. These motivations are not superficial in my opinion, but rather natural to the human condition.
Exploring the physical and mental benefits of these practices gives a context for practicing meditation in the first place. It takes many years of meditation to be able to consistently let go of 'selfish' desires (emphasis on the ambiguity of selfishness). Entering a practice without a well-defined reason for doing so makes motivation hard to come by. For most folks, the deeper benefits of meditation are only understandable after much dedication.
Anyway, I believe meditation is a means to more than one end. ;)
You clearly take the spirituality focused route in your yoga and meditation and thats great for you but you can't proclaim that the only right way to do it is your way and everyone doing it for different reasons is wrong.
I think he's criticizing the cultural caricature that accompanies any activity becoming mainstream... but perhaps misdirected as the context in which one finds value isn't really important in contrast to value itself. Perhaps the elegance is in how deeply individual a practice it can be (turning the locus of one's awareness inward).
And to the OP, isn't it great that yoga can hold so much value through both a spiritual and physical lens? I think the mental and spiritual component has a lot to offer, but it's hard to claim that someone pursuing a positive activity, regardless of motivation is a bad thing.
What I've written is nothing that I've thought of be myself. I've tried to describe the goal of traditional yoga, which really contradicts a lot of the modern interpretations.
Where GOD can be anything of significance to you but to those who have experienced it's "the universe", the Void, the Unborn, the Undying and so on.
It's funny how a lot of ppl disregard this and have no clue about the "occult" (magick!) elements of the Art. When "mystical" experiences happen to them, lacking theory/practice and a proper framework to serve as a foundation, they tend to lose the world under their feet.
Meditation enables the getting of a better brain with the goal of having a better life. Yoga(modern western understanding of the asanas) enables the getting of a better body with the goal of having a better life.
What is this better life? Well, in respect to these two areas, it is a brain with the ability to focus and relax and a body which is flexible and balanced. That's my interpretations anyway.
The scenery looks a bit odd ... he is sitting on a couch and the studends on the floor, kind of looking up to (admire) the master. But he is in his talks the opposite of a self-salesman.
Anyway, this is very systematic and in itself the best approach I've seen so far. There are practices that need to be done and learned in a specific order.
In this spirit it all starts with the basic step:
Regular time and place! If we fail this, it won't happen! Followed by the other practices (inner dialog, sitting, breathing ... inspecting thoughts later on ...) in the required order.
Really, the best I've seen so far.
Also, very recommended his podcast "Developing Determination for Enlightenment", where he's talking about the paradox of letting go while being determined to aim for enlightenment.
I know we're not historicans here, but I'm German, so I am quite sensitive when it comes to the Stasi: Please be aware of the thousands of people who have been killed, tortured, inprisoned and repressed by the Stasi in the DDR. The Stasi took the freedom of a whole nation. They destroyed so many lives. You can compare the spying techniques but not the wrongdoing (not saying the NSA is free of any wrongdoing). It's another dimension, better, several dimensions.
You do know that the US has the largest prison population in the world...
It outdoes the DDR by a factor of two with regard to those they imprison, as well the DDR stopped executing anyone in 1987, as of last year the US still executes minors.
Agencies have been spying forever. From opening letters to eavesdroping phone calls. I'm not saying it's right, just that the agencies have not become worse with time.
However, I totally agree with you when you're concerned about the diminishing privacy. I think the advance of technology is the key factor for this. Agencies are as ruthless as always and use this new technologies.
Most people are totally fine to tell Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, etc. everything about their private lifes in exchange to ... distraction. Think of all the health shit ... they gonna make furtunes selling our data to the pharma and insurrance industry.
Would you prefer Obama to call for a closed internet?
You are confusing different things. Just because someone might be wrong with a lot of things doesn't mean he's not allowed to be right with something else.
As other's said: The world wide wrongdoing by the secret agencies is no invention of Obama. Not even an invention of the US. I'm German and even the BND did whatever it could to gain for it's purpose useful information. They did under governments of all kind of political orientation.
And then you're confusing things again. The downvotes most likely come from your indifferentiated opinion about net neutrality and spying activities. Not from your dislike of Obama.
> I am not American (feel free to ignore my opinion)
Generally I agree, however. The ethic mostly seems to be gone. And it has to be taken care of by enforcing copyright and privacy protection laws. I had my wake-up moment when Facebook started copying whole Wikipedia articles instead of linking.