Thumbs up for the hacking part!
Regarding your karma - 1001 and 4 fans seems suspicious, but is a normal consequence by getting the gorilla too quickly, because then you don't interact enough with fellow DJs / listeners and build your "network". I got it in 4 days without cheating.. but I spent way too much time in coding soundtrack (just repeating what everyone else was playing) and felt that way after:
< 1000 : I NEED bouncer gorilla !!
> 1000 : the gorilla is ridiculous.. I take the geeky red ape!
The article is kind of misleading.
After reading the original FAZ article (I am german and a site owner) I learned that because Weichert is the head of the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection of the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, he only has the competence to threat site owners within "Schleswig-Holstein" (Population: 2,8mio).
With only a few exceptions, privacy and data protection is handled on the state (or Länder) level in Germany. (One exception to this is the federal government and its data protection.)
He would have to convince his fifteen colleagues to make this a Germany-wide thing. Handling this on the federal level is not even possible in Germany, the federal data protection appointee has nothing to say about such matters.
But the TMG as well as the BDSG are federal laws and after reading his paper I would agree with his view of them.
It would only take someone to go to their local data protection supervisor (Datenschutzbeauftragten) and complain about being tracked by the facebook like button on a site hosted in germany, the data protection supervisor would have to issue a fine (if he agrees with that interpretation of the law) and it would go to court, since the owner of the website would naturally dispute it.
Those data protection appointees (and the people who are working for them) are the enforcement arm of the data protection laws.
The laws are not (only) enforced by the police but by specialized offices – just like tax law (with the tax office and tax investigators) or food law (with food inspectors).
This is like the police (which is organized in a similar way) in Bavaria deciding to enforce a federal law in a certain way. Whatever the police in Bavaria decides to do doesn’t have to have any consequences for the police in other states. (Suffice it to say, the police in other states isn’t going to be very happy when they hear about the Bavarian police interpreting a law in an odd way.)
It’s the courts that have to decide in the end what is correct and incorrect enforcement.
Additionaly they actually turn your home into a more hotel-like experience - so guests are provided with towels etc. At least for higher priced accomodations a good choice.
I think it's quiet interesting how quickly things change and how you see companies differently and google reinvented their image in such a short period of time.
If you asked me a year ago if I would say which was the cooler, younger, more innovative and most promising company - Google or Facebook - I would have said 4:0 Facebook for sure.
Now, I would say:
Cooler? I have a passion for design - so Google+ is by far winner here. In addition, you can say what you want, but with the invitation restriction they got what they wanted - buzzed.
Younger? When you compare the new design from Google to the Facebook design and consider the implementation of cutting edge web technology (advanced html5 etc.) - for sure it's google!
More innovative? Of course Facebook has a point for focusing the development of a framework in which other companies can build on - but on the other hand, that's by definition not much innovation by themselves - so google+!
Most promising? Only time can tell..
I don't know exactly why I see Google in a whole new light now.
Maybe it's because of their stunning design and UX (sorry for repeating, but it's gorgeous), maybe it's because of their underdog position with Google+ or maybe it's because Facebook with it's dry and subtle and boring design and it's cooperations with "uncool" players like microsoft is not taking risks anymore. They cannot risk their large userbase and got to stay mainstream. That could be the chance for Google+ to conquer, at least, the younger crowd.
A human behaviour I observed, that could be hacked:
You know how you tend to do all the things that you don't want to do (like dishwashing, cleaning your apt, laundry etc.) if you have to learn for an really really boring but difficult exam at university. At the point you have to do something that appears more worse you tend to say things like: "okay, I have to study, but I have to XY first - because it's important", but you would not do them if you didn't have to study..
Hack would be to use this system an always have some really pain-in-the-butt thing on your to-do list, then you're really glad to check off all the others first.
“Google and Facebook would have you believe that you’re a mirror, but in fact, we’re more like diamonds.”
Give them the choice if they want to create a new ID for your service or not.