This is a court-authorized search warrant authorized by a aitting judge. It doesn't get any more legal than that, and it's Google or any other company's legal duty to comply.
This guy is putting customers first, which is the exact opposite of most UX design philosophies I've been on the receiving end of. The entire discipline prioritizes minimalism, copying Apple, and making random changes to the interface just so they have "accomplished" something, which is how you get randomly broken messes like Youtube.
If UX designers made a gas pump, it would be a featureless white pillar with a single button and a hose and it wouldn't work.
> For example, there are paired exercises where people troll each other as hard as they can... But it's a safe space, with trained moderators around, in case people lose it.
Just curious, but where and why are you undergoing that kind of training? I've never heard of those tactics being used outside of cult-like environments or some kind of abusive therapy. Military boot camp, maybe? It sounds extreme and unethical.
That's a serious mischaracterization, the author is clearly a fan of science fiction, but he prefers (from what I gather from the review, at least) the literary and metaphysical forms to the Campbell school. And it's a perfectly valid take. I consider myself well read in science fiction and of the writers of the 50s and 60s, I would rather read PK Dick or Jack Vance than Asimov's akward prose or Heinlein's sexual hangups. Not that Heinlein doesn't have great moments, for example one of the best time travel stories ever, but he's hardly infallible or immune to criticism.
Get 100 developers and small companies with similar stories and it should be easy to convince a jury that Google arbitrarily, without cause or review, destroyed these people's livelihoods and should be held liable and accountable.
EULA is not some magic shield against the actual court system, either.
I'm cancelling my sub because the back catalog is non-existent in my region. It is impossible to find anything older than 2000 anymore. On top of that, their UI and search functions are straight-up garbage that deliberately steer you to their own trash.
The problem is definitely more noticeable on skype and other types of conference calls, because you miss all the nonverbal cues and loudmouthed narcissists can easily take over and derail all conversations with their voice alone.
> a project is either "successful" and meets its funding goal, or "fails" because it doesn't.
This guy works at kickstarter, so his definition of success should be "when backers get what they paid for" not when kickstarter gets paid. This attitude is symptomatic of this company's callous disregard for its own customers and the proliferation of scams and frauds on its service.
"The states are prohibited from passing ex post facto laws by clause 1 of Article I, Section 10. This is one of the relatively few restrictions that the United States Constitution made to both the power of the federal and state governments before the Fourteenth Amendment." - wikipedia
What California is doing is unconstitutional and they should be slapped, hard.
Solid write-up of the issue. Videogames (among others) are a prime offender with this. Every game has to invent a whole slew of overly designed and difficult to decipher icons, but a game is often something you move on from quickly and on to the next one. Forcing users to learn a whole new language so your art directors can feel special is terrible.