metrokoi (u/metrokoi)

metrokoi commented on Activists find camera inside box on power pole near union organizer’s home fox13memphis.com/news/loc... · Posted by u/badRNG

koverstreet · 5 years ago

Unions are democratic organizations that exist to advocate on behalf of their members. Of course they should be involved in politics.

metrokoi · 5 years ago

Unions often don't represent the beliefs of their members, they usually represent the beliefs and goals of the highest ranking members (and sometimes the people that pay them off, unions are not exempt from corruption). Sometimes the goals of the leaders line up with the goals of the majority, sometimes not. When I was in a union, many items were decided without a vote and no effort was put in to informing new members on how to be represented within the union.

I should also add I don't think unions should not be involved in politics; I think they are used as crutch for democratic representation. The real solution is removing corporate lobbying.

metrokoi commented on China Uighurs: A model's video gives a rare glimpse inside internment bbc.com/news/world-asia-c... · Posted by u/baylearn

mattigames · 5 years ago

"Just not at work" always sounds strange to me, a lot of people know all their friends and acquaintance exclusively from work, so when people is recommended to avoid talking about those issues with coworkers many times the result is for all practical purposes they are being told to avoid talking about the issue at all. I'm not sure what the solution is but "just not at work" doesn't seem to be it.

metrokoi · 5 years ago

Work is for talking about work, not anything else. A few cordial off-topic comments here and there are fine, but if I have time to discuss politics at work that's time that I could have spent doing my job, and likely and subsequently more of my free time will be taken finishing up projects.

Talking politics == my free time, and I don't want to exchange my leisure hours for talking politics with my co-workers. The entire rest of your life can be talking about politics with your friends, your life shouldn't just be work.

It seems the real problem is too much of people's lives is work and so they think they have no time to talk politics.

metrokoi commented on China Uighurs: A model's video gives a rare glimpse inside internment bbc.com/news/world-asia-c... · Posted by u/baylearn

phreack · 5 years ago

There is a comparable situation with Americans, many people are unaware of the Tulsa massacre, and the reaction I've seen from people first hearing about it is mostly anger at it not being taught.

Personally I'd be thankful to know of censored history, particularly if it is occurring and being censored right now, in a democracy.

metrokoi · 5 years ago

I've never met a single person who was not taught about that in school a decade or two ago, from a very conservative area. That is just my experience of course, but I do find it perplexing. Was this many decades ago that it was not taught, or in a specific area?

metrokoi commented on Why is America stuck with bad headlights? caranddriver.com/features... · Posted by u/jbredeche

serf · 5 years ago

I assume they're aftermarket when they're on an early 90s economy cars, they're two different colors, and the refractor is scattering the light up past street signs -- not when they're just bright.

brightness isn't the issue, precision is.

metrokoi · 5 years ago

In my experience at least, the cars I always have issues with are new ones with stock headlights, not modded cars. There are far less modded cars of course, but they always seem to be aimed lower to the road because they are lower cars in general.

metrokoi commented on Why Can't We All Just Get Along? Uncertain Biological Basis of Morality (2013) theatlantic.com/magazine/... · Posted by u/Hooke

metrokoi · 5 years ago

This is the problem with hypotheticals, they are never an accurate representation of human psychology just like a ball ignoring air resistance. The two problems are not the same, the human brain KNOWS that pushing a large man onto tracks is not guaranteed to save the people on the trolley, even if a researcher tells them it will. The subconscious recognition of that uncertainty will affect the result. Flipping a switch is a guaranteed outcome, one which cannot be swayed by subconscious thought.

In addition, one could also throw themselves on to the track in the second problem, and if you decide to push the large man on to the track you will also have to weigh the guilt of knowing you may have been able to stop it by sacrificing yourself.

This is just one example, but it shows how such research is flawed. The human brain isn't designed to think in terms of guaranteed outcomes, and a researcher cannot assume that two decision are equal just because they say they are.

metrokoi commented on TikTok's new CEO says company will reveal how its algorithms work axios.com/tiktoks-new-ceo... · Posted by u/Firebrand

afrojack123 · 5 years ago

Hacker News is for technical people. They know this is bullshit. Its not their algo that means anything. Its the data collection and sending it to China/Singapore that is the problem.

metrokoi · 5 years ago

There may be concerns that TikTok's algorithms manipulate content to push certain trends and control public opinion so hypothetically there could be value in releasing the algorithms. They could also just as easily lie and leave out important sections. At this point there is no point except for empty posturing because no one will trust anything they release.

metrokoi commented on One hour of slow breathing changed my life theguardian.com/lifeandst... · Posted by u/viburnum

abendy · 5 years ago

> people with anxieties or other fear-based conditions typically will breathe way too much. So what happens when you breathe that much is you're constantly putting yourself into a state of stress. So you're stimulating that sympathetic side of the nervous system

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/27/8629631...

> you can over breathe when people at a gym or when people are jogging you see them really going to get the maximum amount of oxygen in that's not what is happening to your body so you are offloading the co2 by offloading too much co2 you're causing constriction in your circulation

https://youtu.be/zWQxNoqKE6E?t=786

metrokoi · 5 years ago

This concept that people breath too much when exercising never really made sense to me. I generally do believe it because I have experienced it myself, but why would the body default to a less effective form of breathing? Shouldn't we feel that breathing more steadily through our nose is more natural than trying to take big gulps of air when running?

metrokoi commented on Historical programming-language groups disappearing from Google lwn.net/Articles/827233/... · Posted by u/beachwood23

colonwqbang · 5 years ago

Why do you feel that it was the job of "corporations" to preserve and archive of every page forever?

In my country, all physical books and magazines which are published must be submitted to the government in X copies. The government then keeps an archive.

With webpages, the problem of obtaining X copies never existed. Why couldn't the government have archived webpages like it always did with books?

metrokoi · 5 years ago

I believe you are misrepresenting the situation. No one expects corporations to archive and preserve all data, especially not data that they are not associated with.

However, if they create a monopoly on that data they have an obligation to preserve it, especially in the case of a corporation outright aquiring data instead of simply "out competing" for data. And as everyone mentions, of course they are in no way legally obligated to do so, but they are by any reasonable standard ethically obligated.

I do think that the government could and should archive data, but there is currently no system in place for doing so and likely will not be for a long time, if ever. Corporations would simply have to maintain the data that they already have.

metrokoi commented on Noprocrast (2010) web.archive.org/web/20100... · Posted by u/ChankeyPathak

jgilias · 5 years ago

Fwiw, I've found that the inversion approach of fighting procrastination works considerably better for me. So, instead of trying to not do something I try to do something instead. In more detail this means focusing on achieving a certain amount of deep work hours per day. First this means that I have to condition myself to want to do deep work in the first place. Rereading the first few pages of the book from time to time helps with this part.

Also, if the last thing I think about before falling asleep is about what it is that I wanted to do next, then the next day starting to do meaningful work is a lot easier, as I actually feel like I want to try this thing I thought about. Keeping a work logbook is another good method in being able to start up easier, as you can just pick the easiest item in the list and do that. Once the ball starts rolling and you get deeper in the zone, then procrastination is rarely much of a problem.

metrokoi · 5 years ago

For me, setting myself up to be productive and have focus is more impactful than anything I try to do in the moment of trying to be productive. Running or biking a few miles, eating food that makes me feel healthy, not drinking alcohol, and getting good, quality sleep.

Being physically healthy is exponentially more effective than any anti-procrastination tools or techniques I have very tried.

metrokoi commented on OpenAI's GPT-3 may be the biggest thing since Bitcoin maraoz.com/2020/07/18/ope... · Posted by u/maraoz

abernard1 · 5 years ago

When I read comments like this--and yes I read the article and understand it was generated by an algorithm--I can't help but think the next AI winter is around the corner.

This does not impress me in the slightest.

Taking billions and billions of input corpora and making some of them _sound like_ something a human would say is not impressive. Even if it's at a high school vocabulary level. It may have underlying correlative structure, but there's nothing interesting about the generated artifacts of these algorithms. If we're looking for a cost-effective way to replace content marketing spam... great! We've succeeded! If not, there's nothing interesting or intelligent in these models.

I'll be impressed the day I can see a program that can 1) only rely on its own limited experiential inputs and not billions of artifacts (from already mature persons), and 2) come up with the funny insights of a 3-year-old.

Little children can say things that sound nonsensical but are intelligent. This sounds intelligent but is nonsensical.

metrokoi · 5 years ago

The article says more about the state of tech blogging than it does GPT-3. I kept thinking "great, another one of these, when are they actually going to show me any results?"

We've been conditioned to accept articles where there's a lot of words and paragraphs and paragraphs of buildup, but nothing actually being said.