How Does YouTube Choose the Next Videos After the One You Wanted?

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Anyone who uses YouTube more than a couple of times, and plays the video s/he selects, can’t help but notice that YouTube–all by itself—chooses a bunch of other YouTube videos and queues them up to play one after the other. YouTube says that The autoplay feature on YouTube makes it easier to decide what to watch next. After you watch a YouTube video, we’ll automatically play another related video based on your viewing history. If so, their memory of the viewing history must be pretty short or awfully inaccurate … or perhaps it was reacting against the highly-materialistic nature of my chosen video, or trying to tune my aura, or something. Because when I played Cuda Janet (Birthday Song for my wife who was and is the proud owner of a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda), the next three videos were very touchy-feely: Light Transmission by Mirabai (Please view this video in silence and open your heart to receive), Mantra to remove Negative energy, and and Mantra to increase Good luck and positive energy. While it was nice for YouTube to try improving my mood, it wasn’t very useful. And apparently this autoplay feature, and changes to its implementation, have been extremely unwelcome to lots of other folks.

Can Thoughtful U.S.-Wide Economic Planning Enable Orderly Growth?

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Skyrocketing house prices and apartment rents, long and slow commutes, overcrowded schools, etc. not only dramatically diminish peoples’ quality of life but can choke off economic growth in places like Silicon Valley. (And Silicon Valley is not unique; e.g., Boston has a similar problem.) What can be done about it? We need to think bigger, in terms of geography. Every sizable city or cluster of nearby cities has some form of LOCAL regional economic development authority. But those authorities are sub-optimizing. We believe that what is needed is a nationwide advisory council AND a change in thinking by large companies. Germany is a good example of what is possible. We can understand to some extent the economies of scale of microchip manufacturers for examples, but it especially baffles us that technology giants like Facebook, Google, Oracle, eBay, and LinkedIn, which are principally software companies, insist on building mega-campuses in Silicon Valley. Seems to us that—using their own technology and realizing that software can be written anyplace—they could do large portions in regional centers. Even Apple, who farms out much of their manufacturing to Chinese companies like Foxconn, very likely would benefit if their employees spent more time working and less time commuting to their new giant building (which will almost certainly exacerbate the already horrendous traffic jams in that area).

There are lots of other attractive cities in western states with a critical mass of local services and attractions that would welcome an influx of well-paid, well-educated employees: for example, Austin, TX; Denver, CO; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR, Los Angeles, CA; San Diego, CA; Sacramento, CA; and Phoenix, AZ. Similarly for eastern states.

GoPro’s Stock May Be Correctly Priced

GoPro's CEO Nick Woodman holds a GoPro camera in his mouth as he celebrates his company's IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, Thursday, June 26, 2014. GoPro, the maker of wearable sports cameras, loved by mountain climbers, divers, surfers and other extreme sports fans, said late Wednesday it sold 17.8 million shares at $24 each in its initial public offering of stock. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

GoPro’s CEO Nick Woodman holds a GoPro camera in his mouth as he celebrates his company’s IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, Thursday, June 26, 2014. GoPro, the maker of wearable sports cameras, loved by mountain climbers, divers, surfers and other extreme sports fans, said late Wednesday it sold 17.8 million shares at $24 each in its initial public offering of stock. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)


We hate to tell you we told you so, but … we told you so (see our post of July 3, 2014). Investors were initially stampeded by the sex appeal and attitude of the surfer dudes who were taking exciting videos of their surfing exploits, but now their motto may have changed from “eat camera” to “eat crow”. Or, to segue to another mixed metaphor, this one-trick pony may have done its one trick already, and all the early adopters have already adopted. We wonder how many earlier buyers are actually continuing to use the GoPro, and how many newer buyers are putting up with the flawed documentation, steep learning curve, and difficulties of using the product to take videos and still pictures they are proud to post or to show their friends.

And what about competition? The GoPro Hero4 Silver costs $400. The Garmin Virb line has models for $200-400. But the $100 Polaroid Cube may be fine for the rest of us. Or the $76 SJCAM SJ4000. Or the $64 entry-level Yi model from Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi (not as many features as the GoPro Hero4 Silver but some interesting ones such as selfie stick support).

Gallup Poll Says Americans Prefer Small Business; Then Why So Many Mergers?

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Although Americans’ confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below historical levels for most institutions, two institutions are notable for rating higher than their historial levels, the military at 72% and small business at 67% (as measured by the sum of respondents who said “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence), according to the June 2-7, 2014 Gallup Poll. Big business is a woeful 14th on the list and is rated at a meager 14%.

We at Technology Bloopers find the recent spate of acquisitions and mergers within both the technology sector (e.g., Western Digital and SanDisk, and Lam and KLA-Tencor) and other sectors (e.g., Walgreens and Rite Aid, and AB Imbev and SAB Miller) distressing, if only because “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”. And its first cousin agglomeration is not much better.

Do beer drinkers really want a world of boring lagers or one of tasty craft beers? Or do diners really want their meals increasingly dominated by garish and uninteresting gigantic chain restaurants (big business) serving below-average variety, taste, and healthiness of food or a world of eating with lots of tasteful (in both décor and food) provided by smaller, independent businesses with the owners on site? We didn’t think so.

“Fair Use” of Copyrighted Material Gets (a Little) Justice

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Did Stephanie Lenz make a bag of money from her video that Universal would otherwise have made? It seems that actually Universal and Prince got a lot of free advertising out of it starting in 2007, no? A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has just struck a blow against the hubris of music publishers such as Universal who send out takedown notices at the drop of a hat. If every YouTube (or Vimeo et al) video that borrowed a little, or even a lot, triggered so much legal argy-bargy, there wouldn’t be enough lawyers and judges on the planet to deal with it all. Similarly for the print world, and look at all the examples of “the pot calling the kettle black”:
-Google violated copyrights wholesale by scanning millions of books; but didn’t that provide a service to humanity by making intellectual content available for out-of-print volumes?
-Facebook was essentially a college Freshman Register; could it have been sued by thousands of universities collectively?
-Amazon’s Kindle refuses to let owners copy even one word. So all students writing term papers are back to the archaic 3×5 cards in the digital age. How stupid can they be, especially in the days of the Turnitin plagiarism checker technology?

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Dopey Drone Pilots Delaying Firefighting on California Freeway Is Likely to Set Back Drone Industry Growth

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What were they thinking??!! There is lots of intelligence behind the design of drones, lots of intelligence in the information that can be collected via their cameras, and lots of intelligent actions that can be taken using this information. But apparently NO intelligence on the part of the voyeurs piloting the five drones that resulted in a 20-minute delay of firefighting on July 17. The FAA and other authorities who have been accused of dragging their feet in approving the use of drones now have strong arguments for their conservative views.

Technology Bloopers is headed by a lifelong advocate for applying technology to enable us to do things never before possible, to make our lives easier and more comfortable, etc. But we also are advocates for using common sense and considering all possible aspects of applying that technology, be it Elon Musk’s electric cars or space activities, Uber, or other recent marvels. Practical considerations such as human safety or impacts on ecosystems or society are likely to delay the progress of these marvels. So we should be careful to make reasonable forecasts as to when they are likely to achieve widespread adoption.

ICANN.sucks

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Billions of Internet users are familiar with the suffixes of website names like .com, .net, and .org, which were among the first of the gLTD’s (Generic Top-Level Domains). With the growth in numbers of website names has come a growth in suffixes, both to allow for the growth and to provide hints as to the nature of the websites (e.g., .edu, .gov, and .mil). Makes sense, right. But what were they (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) thinking when they added “.sucks” to the list of gLTD’s? Had they never heard of Murphy’s Law (“If anything can go wrong, it will.”)? Within microseconds countless Internet denizens around the world, at least those with US$2,500 to spare, were contacting Vox Populi to get ready to heap abuse on their favorite villains. Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed and ICANN has backed away from their ill-advised largesse.

“Anti-Social Networks”?

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The U.S. Supreme Court has just overturned the conviction of a man who posted on Facebook (in rap music form!) a set of threats to his estranged wife, law enforcement agencies, and local elementary schools, as described in The Wall Street Journal. This legal system reversal was justified on the basis that the earlier jury had not considered the man’s state of mind when he made these posts. Huh? Is this a journalistic or a legal error? Common sense would strongly suggest that his state of mind was murderous. Whether he would actually follow through and commit the heinous acts is the question, and it appeared that the earlier jury thought he would … though his couching his threats in rap music might suggest some softer attitude (unless it was gangsta rap). (And likely the longer he had been abused by the divorce courts, politically-motivated judges, and the like, the more likely he would have expressed himself in strong terms.)

This event seems to be one of an increasingly frequent series that takes the notion of freedom of speech to an extreme. And it underlines the ease with which anyone, sane or crazy, serious or just kidding, etc. can express their views to giant audiences via social networks such as Facebook. Facebook seems to have escaped unscathed this time, but if enough such events continue to occur, they may not escape over the longer term. And while the issues are not identical, hasn’t Google been forced to “forget” large quantities of search results in Europe? Pressure for reforms can only get more intense.

Black Friday: Brainwashed Beatification

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Black Friday is becoming a more important day than Thanksgiving. The name has two origins. First came the traffic chaos of the first day of the Christmas shopping season. Then came the recognition of another tradition–retailers’ switch from operating at a loss (“in the red”) to operating at a profit (“in the black”). While it is important for retailers to make a profit (otherwise there would be no retailers), and to be happy about that profit, it seems strange to see them advertising it. And even more strange to see consumers viewing it as a good thing … unless there is substantial price elasticity of demand, so that retailers truly will sell enough more at the lower prices so they can garner greater profits. Unfortunately, the commercialism of shopping is trumping an important American tradition, as people argue that they can buy more, or better, gifts thanks to the “special” prices than they could otherwise have done. Maybe they should re-think their list of giftees and quantity or price of their gifts.

But there seems to be a huge social aspect to “Black Friday”. Or at least there was when it was limited to Friday itself. Like a new product from Apple, when people camp out overnight to be sure to be among the first to have the latest iPhone or other gadget.

Can’t the FCC Count (the Viable Wireless Companies) Correctly? But Now They Have a Second Chance

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What are we at Technology Bloopers missing here? The Federal Communications Commission nixed the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint early in 2014, saying it was non-competitive. Huh? They apparently can’t count. That would have created three meaningful competitors rather than two meaningful ones and two also-rans. Even less charitable than us was The Washington Post. However, now T-Mobile’s prospective buyer Iliad SA has bowed out, giving the hapless FCC an opportunity to do some behind-the-scenes politicking to get Sprint to refresh their bid … if it isn’t too late.