mediascreen (u/mediascreen)

mediascreen commented on GitHub – system-design-primer: Learn how to design large-scale systems github.com/donnemartin/sy... · Posted by u/msolujic

rollulus · 2 years ago

This thing has 233k stars. I dare to say, without evidence, that the vast majority of devs does not know what e.g. the CAP theorem is——and they’ll never need it. The vast majority of “systems” are small-scale. Who’s this massive audience?

mediascreen · 2 years ago

I would guess that it's probably aspirational to some degree. People hope to work with larger systems.

Personally I think it looks interesting and I work at a small web agency. We usually only work with a few parts of these kinds of systems, but occasionally we have clients like a large sports ticket vendor, where a few more of these patterns are helpful.

mediascreen commented on CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking theverge.com/2023/8/9/238... · Posted by u/mikece

bagacrap · 2 years ago

I'll just assume you neglected to read TFA, because if you had, you would have discovered that it links to an official Google source that states CNET shouldn't be doing this.[1]

[1] https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1689018769782476800

mediascreen · 2 years ago

I few tweets down they qualify this, saying that it might improve some things like indexing of the rest of the site:

https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1689068723657904129

My understanding is that if you have a very large site, removing pages can sometimes help because:

- There is an indexing "budget" for your site. Removing pages might make reindexing of the rest of the pages faster.

- Removing pages that are cannibalising on each other might help the main page for the keywords to rank higher.

- Google is not very fond of "thin wide" content. Removing low quality pages can be helpful, especially if you don't have a lot of links to your site.

- Trimming the content of a website could make it easier for people and Google to understand what the site is about and help them find what they are looking for.

mediascreen commented on Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’ techcrunch.com/2023/07/24... · Posted by u/pallas_athena

ly3xqhl8g9 · 2 years ago

It's in the first paragraph of the linked article [1]. They were called "loans" in the government-speak of the post-2008 crash, but if you look at the semantics, they were just risk-free bailouts.

[1] "the U.S. Secretary of Energy will be giving details about the first loans to come out of the government’s $25 billion program to help auto manufacturers. Ford got a $5.9 billion loan, but Tesla Motors, Silicon Valley’s electric car manufacturer, is receiving $465 million from the program"

mediascreen · 2 years ago

Bailout or not, the loan was however repaid nine years ahead of time in 2013.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/100759230

mediascreen commented on Young people are flocking to astrology washingtonpost.com/lifest... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

mediascreen · 2 years ago

Ok, I just suffered through the 13 minutes of nonsens from this "expert".

One problem is that he doesn't understand what he is arguing against. Dawkins doesn't argue that, because people tend to have similar beliefs as those around them, he has disproved those beliefs. He just uses it to illustrate the close minded way some people take the supremacy of their particular religion for granted. The question "What if you are wrong?" comes with a lot of assumptions.

It's also laughable for an expert (for a number of reasons) to claim that C.S. Lewis has disproved atheism.

mediascreen · 2 years ago

And the counter argument that Dawkins himself he is an atheist because he was born in the UK in the 20th century just proves Dawkins point. I think Dawkins himself would agree that the likelihood of him being atheist would have been far lower if he would have been born in Pakistan or in 17th century England.

mediascreen commented on Young people are flocking to astrology washingtonpost.com/lifest... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

za3faran · 2 years ago

As a Muslim, I've seen Dawkins make very basic and laughably incorrect claims about Islam. It clearly shows he has extremely shallow knowledge about what he claims to criticize. Niel DeGrasse Tyson is also guilty of the same.

Here's a short clip of Dr. Sami Ameri, a published author and expert, discussing but one of Dawkin's fallacies in his book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNpvZN76zU

mediascreen · 2 years ago

Ok, I just suffered through the 13 minutes of nonsens from this "expert".

One problem is that he doesn't understand what he is arguing against. Dawkins doesn't argue that, because people tend to have similar beliefs as those around them, he has disproved those beliefs. He just uses it to illustrate the close minded way some people take the supremacy of their particular religion for granted. The question "What if you are wrong?" comes with a lot of assumptions.

It's also laughable for an expert (for a number of reasons) to claim that C.S. Lewis has disproved atheism.

mediascreen commented on Sweden Sans identity.sweden.se/en/des... · Posted by u/2143

Kon5ole · 2 years ago

I am fascinated by typography and page design and enjoy reading about it, but I have to admit I don't understand how this level of pedantry is able to survive.

The amount of documentation and attention to detail spent on typefaces and when to use them is often off the charts compared to the time spent on stuff like keeping the website running, documenting the API or even the basic functionality of the app.

It's like if someone grows oak trees for a century and slices veneer from it with a handcrafted blade and soaks it in coconut oil for a year before slapping it on a IKEA pulp honeycomb. :)

mediascreen · 2 years ago

Well, this is is not guidelines for an app or a website. This is guidelines for how the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation, the Ministry of Culture, the Swedish Institute, Business Sweden and Visit Sweden and the different agencies they use, should use typography when representing Sweden abroad.

I don't think the type section is unusually large, but I worked at a company for two years that exclusively made design manuals, and the well made ones tend to look like this.

mediascreen commented on Who employs your doctor? Increasingly, a private equity firm nytimes.com/2023/07/10/up... · Posted by u/yarapavan

lapcat · 2 years ago

One of their policy goals is deregulation in the United States. Thus, they have a vested interest in showing that the United States has too many regulations.

And they don't even define what their categories mean. I'm willing to bet that "labor freedom" to them means "right-to-work" and no minimum wage, for example. In any case, without proper measurable definitions, they can easily manipulate their index to say whatever they want.

mediascreen · 2 years ago

I think that pages 403-415 provides pretty good definitions[0]

But that's not my point. My point is only that there are aspects of a typical free market economy (by American right wing definitions) that are better represented in countries other than the US.

[0] https://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2023/book/2023_IndexOfEco...

mediascreen commented on Who employs your doctor? Increasingly, a private equity firm nytimes.com/2023/07/10/up... · Posted by u/yarapavan

lapcat · 2 years ago

That's a political propaganda piece by a notorious right-wing think tank.

"The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage's policy study Mandate for Leadership." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

mediascreen · 2 years ago

I know they are a right-wing think tank, that is why I referenced them when it comes to rank "market economy" factors that people who believe in and want to have "free markets" care about.

In what way is it a political propaganda piece? From what I can tell it's a pretty transparent ranking of countries by factors that the organisation cares about.

While the Scandinavian countries have high taxes and regulated labour markets, they have deregulated markets, strong property protections and are very simple to do business in.

mediascreen commented on Who employs your doctor? Increasingly, a private equity firm nytimes.com/2023/07/10/up... · Posted by u/yarapavan

lapcat · 2 years ago

> To me it seems like PE has simply discovered a loophole in the system.

The fundamental loophole is that "the free market" is practically a religion in the United States (the so-called Invisible Hand taking the role of a god doling out rewards and punishments), and a significant portion of the population is vehemently opposed to any regulation of capital. You can even see this attitude in some of the comments here, where commenters are claiming that the problem is too much regulation rather than too little.

Moreover, political campaigns are financed by private "donations" (i.e., legal bribes), so the lawmakers themselves are practically indebted to wealthy interests who don't want to be regulated.

mediascreen · 2 years ago

People often see the United States as the ultimate free market, but compared to other countries it can be seen as pretty heavily regulated.

According to the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom ranking, it ranks 25th, well below "socialist" states like Denmark (in 9th place) and Sweden (in 10th place).

https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

mediascreen commented on Big Tech can transfer Europeans’ data to US in win for Facebook and Google arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/isaacfrond

mediascreen · 2 years ago

Yes! Maybe we can start caring about stuff that actually matters now instead of obsessing over IP-addresses maybe touching US soil when loading a font from a CDN.