DashRattlesnake (u/DashRattlesnake)

DashRattlesnake commented on How WeChat Came to Rule China theverge.com/2018/2/1/167... · Posted by u/msh

Not really true IMO, because you can even use initialisms to type entire phrases and sentences in pinyin and omit most of the characters.

Let's say you wanted to write 我很喜欢吃汉堡 (I really like eating hamburgers), you can get away with just typing 'w h x h ch han bao' and predictive text gets you the entire sentence.

Chinese text is well optimized towards readability and information density, at the expense of taking a lot of work to manually write, but that calculus completely changes if your writing system is smart enough.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

But that assumes a lot fluency with pinyin and the prediction system. A lot of people are missing one or both.

DashRattlesnake commented on Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/dismal2

amasad · 8 years ago

Instead of Facebook flailing about trying to come up with the best news feed algorithm to please everyone they should just give the consumer a choice. Imagine an "algorithm store" that lets developers build and publish ranking algorithms that users can buy and use.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

That's won't happen. The mistake you're making is assuming that Facebook wants to "please everyone." It doesn't. It only cares about pleasing itself, and it does that through manipulating the algorithm to attempt to get its users to do what it wants.

Giving up control of the algorithm means giving up control of its user-products, and it's not going to do that.

DashRattlesnake commented on Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/dismal2

askafriend · 8 years ago

Counterpoint: I'd rather see Ads about things I'm interested in than things I'm not interested in. So by that metric, Facebook is far better than generic Ads I see on TV.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

> I'd rather see Ads about things I'm interested in than things I'm not interested in.

You're not going to see more ads about the things you're interested in, you're going to see ads that have a higher potential to manipulate you into commercially profitable behavior. There's a big but subtle difference between those things. You are definitely not going to see ads for your interests that bring you more joy but aren't easily monetizeable.

The coarseness of TV targeting meant people had more opportunity to assert their own priorities against the less effective manipulation.

DashRattlesnake commented on Facebook User Growth, Time Spent Fall on News Feed Changes bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/dismal2

danudey · 8 years ago

There was an article that I can't find for the life of me about how someone suffering with depression had killed himself, and it was only a long time afterwards that any friends friends knew because Facebook hadn't been showing his posts.

IIRC they looked through his feed and there had been basically cries for help, but no one had seem them because Facebook was prioritizing engagement and not personal content.

How many other people are trying to reach out on Facebook, thinking that no one cares, when the reality is that no one even sees?

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

> someone suffering with depression had killed himself, and it was only a long time afterwards that any friends friends knew because Facebook hadn't been showing his posts.

> IIRC they looked through his feed and there had been basically cries for help, but no one had seem them because Facebook was prioritizing engagement and not personal content.

Don't worry! Facebook is working on an AI to detect such posts and refer the suicidal users to help! No need to bring his friends down with his negativity and decrease their engagement! /s

I wish I was joking: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/28/16709224/facebook-suicid.... Social networks like Facebook have contributed to a big rise in depression, but instead of course correcting, we get buzzword tech band-aids.

DashRattlesnake commented on · Posted by u/geofft

TheAdamAndChe · 8 years ago

> Meanwhile, inside Google, the diversity advocates say some employees have “weaponized human resources” by goading them into inflammatory statements, which are then captured and reported to HR for violating Google’s mores around civility or for offending white men.

> Engineer Colin McMillen says the tactics have unnerved diversity advocates and chilled internal discussion. “Now it’s like basically anything you say about yourself may end up getting leaked to score political points in a lawsuit,” he says. “I have to be very careful about choosing my words because of the low-grade threat of doxing. But let’s face it, I’m not visibly queer or trans or non-white and a lot of these people are keying off their own white supremacy.”

I don't understand this mentality at all. Rules requiring civility don't only apply towards white men, and I have never heard of anyone within Google being a white supremacist. Do many of these people think that anyone not pro-affirmative action is a sign of their white supremacist thoughts or something?

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

>> which are then captured and reported to HR for violating Google’s mores around civility or for offending white men.

> Rules requiring civility don't only apply towards white men

Welcome to the cutting edge of contemporary social justice culture, significant portions of which seem to want to invert and reorganize racial/gender power structures to put themselves at the top, rather than working to actually wash them away.

DashRattlesnake commented on · Posted by u/geofft

jatsign · 8 years ago

It's very hard, probably impossible, to come up with a specific list. The list will either be incomplete (the trolls are cunning) or overly broad and spark anti-authoritarian feelings.

If you've ever been an online forum mod, or similar, you'll know that the larger the "board" gets, the more out of whack it gets. When a company, or forum, is small, and most people know each other, at least a bit, they tend to stay civil. Past some point, that goes out the window.

Not talking about politics is a good idea, but it's very hard to specify what is "politics" and what is not.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

> It's very hard, probably impossible, to come up with a specific list. The list will either be incomplete (the trolls are cunning) or overly broad and spark anti-authoritarian feelings.

They should put up a big banner of the question the employees should be asking themselves about their work activities: "Is this good for the company?"

And I'm not being totally unserious.

DashRattlesnake commented on Documents reveal that Whole Foods is leaving some shelves empty on purpose businessinsider.com/whole... · Posted by u/cepth

ghshephard · 8 years ago

" If I cannot get all the items on my list at a single store, then I will immediately stop going to that store."

You've got it completely backwards - this new policy is designed for you - the goal is to ensure they always keep product in stock, and the "holes" are a forcing function. Previously WF would just put something else in place, thereby reducing the pressure to restock. Now, the goal is to quickly as possible, ensure they have everything available.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

> the goal is to ensure they always keep product in stock, and the "holes" are a forcing function

This empty shelves thing is enough of a thing that it seems like it's not really working.

And empty shelves sends such a terrible message to everybody who encounters them that I question the wisdom of who picked that as a "forcing function." Whenever I see that in a store, it just reeks of failure and decay.

DashRattlesnake commented on Documents reveal that Whole Foods is leaving some shelves empty on purpose businessinsider.com/whole... · Posted by u/cepth

saas_co_de · 8 years ago

I have never seen an empty shelf in any major brand store. The idea is insane. Especially for a store targeting an upmarket clientele with high prices.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

I have recently, in Sears.

Retail protip: don't be like Sears.

DashRattlesnake commented on Documents reveal that Whole Foods is leaving some shelves empty on purpose businessinsider.com/whole... · Posted by u/cepth

userbinator · 8 years ago

Personally, I'd prefer to see empty places where a product is sold out, than have to spend extra time coming to that conclusion by examining everything else nearby.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

I'd prefer they just put up a sign saying "sorry, we're out of bananas" and putting something else there in the interim. The employees are right: empty shelves look sloppy. Too many and the place even looks like it's going out of business.

DashRattlesnake commented on What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson? chronicle.com/article/wha... · Posted by u/Chaebixi

beat · 8 years ago

Let me give you a libertarian answer... it's up to individuals to decide what their own identity is. When an individual identifies as one thing, and society refuses to accept that identity and imposes labels they find offensive, then they are being oppressed. And that's a much more substantial form of oppression than "Please don't say that" is.

I'm utterly shocked (not really) how many people proudly wave a flag of liberty, but are quite content for society to denounce and punish harmless individual expression, if they aren't comfortable with that expression.

DashRattlesnake · 8 years ago

> it's up to individuals to decide what their own identity is. When an individual identifies as one thing...

That's actually not true and not workable. A very obvious example is a criminal who identifies as a good, upstanding person.

IMHO there are actually two kinds of identity (at least). They are separate things, but related and often confused.

1. Self-identity: the identity that someone applies to themselves based on their own thoughts and aspirations. This is very closely related to one's inner life. This is the identity that you're referring to above.

2. Applied-identity (for lack of a better term): the identity that each person applies to someone else based on their own thoughts, beliefs, and experiences with that person. Someone's reputation is an example.

If you try to force everyone's applied-identity of you to conform with your self-identity, that's also a form of oppression. What and how they think of you is their own business.