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East-Link commented on Ask HN: Anyone else in constant anxiety and how do you cope?    · Posted by u/disturbed
craigr1972 · 6 years ago
I swim in cold water, every day if possible and ideally before work in the morning. This has been a game changer in terms of reducing anxiety, being much better able to cope with difficulties and frankly, making me into a much happier and healthier version of myself. So much so that if I don't get in the cold water for a day or two then I just feel like .. bleurgh. If you've read "Flowers for Algernon" and recall towards the end where (spoiler alert) the main character has come off the drug that makes him much more intelligent and crucially - he can't remember what it was that had happened to him, just that he had a sense of loss from no longer having some <very very good> - that's what this is like. Can't recommend enough. I also use running for the same purpose, but cold water swimming in just a couple of minutes provides a tremendous dose of <good things.> Also it seems to stop me catching colds.
East-Link · 6 years ago
There's nowhere I could easily swim, would showering in cold water help?
East-Link commented on Book Review: The Body Keeps the Score   slatestarcodex.com/2019/1... · Posted by u/rayalez
patrec · 6 years ago
> Like so many things, PTSD feels self-evident once you know about it.

Only from the myopic perspective of people only used to a life of luxury and ease.

Throughout most of history several of the people most close to you would have made an early and often quite unpleasant exit before you reached adulthood -- most of your siblings and children would probably not make it into adulthood and women had a double digit chance of dying from child birth[1]. And that held true even if you were an affluent member of a relatively stable and successful society.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1139114/pdf/med...

So a priori it seems extremely unlikely to me that severely unpleasant experiences have psychologically crippling effects on a majority of people. Because that would seem to be extremely maladaptive for almost all of the last few millenia.

East-Link · 6 years ago
It's adaptive, not maladaptive
East-Link commented on The BS-Industrial Complex of Phony A.I.   gen.medium.com/the-bs-ind... · Posted by u/scottlocklin
East-Link · 7 years ago
Rudimentry machine learning algorithms are indeed AI, by common usage.

Try typing into Google Images something like "ai machine learning deep learning venn diagram" and you'll see that by common usage, machine learning is a strict subset of AI.

East-Link commented on Facebook sues analytics firm Rankwave over data misuse   techcrunch.com/2019/05/10... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
1337biz · 7 years ago
Based on your experience what was CA good at except the marketing part. In how far were they able to deliver results for their clients or did they limit their results to strategic recommendations?
East-Link · 7 years ago
> what was CA good at

I am not really sure we were good at anything. The company had no direction coming from upper management, so we weren't really able to become experts at anything. The salespeople used the psychographic nonsense to sell to clients, which everyone internal knew was nonsense, so we were sometimes forced to use nonsense to solve problems. We were also forced to tackle impossible challenges because of salespeople's promises. There was very high turnover.

The technical teams were nice and had a lot of smart people. Most were fresh out of uni; first job.

> except the marketing part

I don't think we were particularly good at marketing, unless you mean marketing ourselves as evil geniuses. In which case we were too good for our own good.

East-Link commented on Facebook sues analytics firm Rankwave over data misuse   techcrunch.com/2019/05/10... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
inflatableDodo · 7 years ago
I am somewhat suspicious of a report funded by the people being investigated. - https://www.malinschambers.com/2018/05/julian-malins-q-c-and...
East-Link · 7 years ago
Well, I think you should be willing to give a little weight to the fact that this is a QC. But still, fair I suppose.
East-Link commented on Facebook sues analytics firm Rankwave over data misuse   techcrunch.com/2019/05/10... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
inflatableDodo · 7 years ago
>You've been reading too much Guardian.

No, just the early statements from Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU.

Was rather odd that Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU both claimed to be working together until it started to look bad - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analyt...

East-Link · 7 years ago
Another reply from me. You can also review this report from Julian Malins QC.

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/static.assets.commercial....

East-Link commented on Facebook sues analytics firm Rankwave over data misuse   techcrunch.com/2019/05/10... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
inflatableDodo · 7 years ago
>You've been reading too much Guardian.

No, just the early statements from Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU.

Was rather odd that Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU both claimed to be working together until it started to look bad - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analyt...

East-Link · 7 years ago
Yes, they were going to work together. Nix was a salesperson and wanted to sound like business was going well, and I suppose leave.eu wanted to sound like they were getting things done. I refer you again to the ICO report.
East-Link commented on Facebook sues analytics firm Rankwave over data misuse   techcrunch.com/2019/05/10... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
inflatableDodo · 7 years ago
>Cambridge Analytica's impact on 2016 is significantly overstated.

What about the other 100 elections in the other 30 countries that were claimed to be won by SCL Elections, CA's parent company?

edit - and what do you think of CA's effect on Brexit? Am in the UK, so have been thinking about CA in light of that, more than any involvement they had with Trump.

East-Link · 7 years ago
Cambridge Analytica didn't work on Brexit, though. You've been reading too much Guardian.

https://order-order.com/2018/11/06/information-commissioner-...

(My source could be criticised as biased, but click through to to the actual report by the Information Commissioner's Office if you are suspicious.)

East-Link commented on New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps   reuters.com/article/faceb... · Posted by u/tareqak
CamperBob2 · 7 years ago
It was just an ad tech company with a few political clients and some snake oil regarding psychographics.

Your snake oil evidently outperformed the best modern medicine. So, congratulations for that, I guess.

East-Link · 7 years ago
Our psychographics were

- ineffective (no change in effectiveness if you randomise which "personality" sees which ad)

- never based on Facebook data during my time of employment there -- early 2016 onwards

- not used in the USA presidential election of 2016

East-Link commented on New York governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps   reuters.com/article/faceb... · Posted by u/tareqak
politician · 7 years ago
nit,

> Facebook is facing a slew of lawsuits and regulatory inquiries over privacy issues, including a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation into disclosures that Facebook inappropriately shared information belonging to 87 million users with the defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica is not defunct, but rather changed its name to Emerdata. It's too bad Reuters didn't get that part correct.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/02/cambridge_analytica...

East-Link · 7 years ago
>Cambridge Analytica is not defunct, but rather changed its name to Emerdata. It's too bad Reuters didn't get that part correct.

That's not true, I used to work there. Everyone was laid off in July or so.

I haven't heard of anyone joining Emerdata, and I do see those guys now and again. I know where all the technical people work. Emerdata was created before the media shitstorm to absorb all the pointless corporate entities that had been created within the SCL group over the years and were now mostly idle.

A few of the people from Cambridge Analytica (or rather SCL elections) started a new political consultancy under the name Auspex International. So focus your conspiracies there if you must, noting:

- They're pretty open about it being an operating business and having employees from CA

- Very few of the higher-ups from SCL are involved, just one guy from the board I think. (He's a 20-something guy and wasn't even on the board til 2018. Bad timing!)

- They haven't taken on any technical staff from CA; although they did try to early on, no one had any trouble finding a job that would be less of a headache.

Please notice that you have engaged in lazy misinformation-spreading and you're participating a conspiracy theory. It's attractive to think that you're hot on the tail of a shadowy illuminati-esque group, but that's not the case. It was just an ad tech company with a few political clients and some snake oil regarding psychographics.

u/East-Link

KarmaCake day36February 22, 2019View Original