Interesting. One quirk of browsing sites with JS disabled is that the cookie banners rarely show up. Often, they are implemented as scripts loaded from a site like "cookielaw.org". I've long suspected that these sites…
Same. I tried to switch to iOS about a year ago, but I ended up returning the device after spending over $50 on highly-rated ad/script blockers for Safari, and finding that none of them really worked. Back on Android,…
It's not feasible to do a real "Lord of the Flies" experiment on purpose; not even the notoriously sociopathic world of reality TV producers could get away with that. If you have adults watching and ready to spring in…
Might be worth mentioning the name of the conspiracy: the Phoebus Cartel. It sounds cartoonishly evil, but "cartel" is just an economic term for a market where a small number of participants collude to control supply…
Those are the same questions that people ask on SO, although the respondents aren't exclusively men with beards. OP bemoaned how people on StackOverflow would tell you not to do what you're asking about. Reference…
When I was young, we didn't have StackOverflow or Google. We had to hike through snow to access the internet at all, uphill both ways! In those days, we would usually read the manual when we needed to dig past a…
We need to be very careful with brain implants designed to relieve pain, lest we repeat the mistakes which brought us the opioid crisis. I've seen videos at BCI conferences of deep brain stimulation implants which…
Whenever I hear people describe a complex chain of events only to conclude that there was a single root cause, I'm reminded of the old proverb: >For want of a nail the shoe was lost. >For want of a shoe the horse was…
People might scoff at the petty vandalism, but how many of you over the age of 35 had a scrupulously clean adolescence? For the under-30 crowd, everything in their post-puberty lives has been carefully recorded in a…
Impossible to manufacture? Or financially impossible to build a factory for the purpose and larger infrastructure to accommodate transportation? I'm curious if there is something about acrylics which makes it impossible…
The publishers usually can't publish their games' source code, because of various library and middleware dependencies which are not free or open-source. Same issue with cheap IoT gizmos. Even if the retailers wanted to…
Developers will package browsers in their code as a way to spy on users with fewer restrictions, not because Safari is unusable. That being said, I returned my first and last iPhone after realizing that Firefox on iOS…
Fair enough. I would still rather have a diverse ecosystem of power-tripping moderators than a few unavoidable ones, though. There would probably be more calm tidal pools like the one that dang cultivates here.
The small town was just an example. You could just as easily make a small social network for a band, or a hobby, or anything you could imagine having its own subreddit/discord/etc.
Same reason that people run community gardens, or set up trusts to maintain local trails. Because they care. Maybe some things, like human relationships and communication, are better off without a profit motive.
If requiring moderation made it impossible to operate UGC sites at a large scale, wouldn't we expect to see more competitors and choices, albeit at a smaller scale? For example, a small group of friends could easily run…
They were barely keeping their heads above water, but the interest payments on their new loans was like tying cinder blocks to their feet. It amazes me that the world's richest man was able to buy this company with a…
What about a car? You probably shouldn't finance a vehicle you can afford with current interest rates, and you may not want to give your debit card to a secondhand dealer for processing. While I do have fond memories of…
I had to look up this story, and it's about as ridiculous as it sounds. This source places the event in 1835, but I believe it's the same incident: http://southernghoststories.com/the-witch-of-fentress-county >When…
One of the first lessons that a junior developer learns is: >My job is not to write code. My job is to solve business problems efficiently, using computers as a medium. Sounds like data scientists have the same problem.…
Not surprising, airplane wifi has always been ridiculously insecure. Back in the day, when it was first rolling out, you could (theoretically ofc) join the plane's network and scan for MAC addresses, then clone someone…
I think he was trying to express the importance of resilience. Things that happen, stay happened. So the best outcome for yourself following misfortune is to move ahead as best you can. Personally, I don't think that…
Call it what you want. If you spend all your time whinging about misfortune, you'll never grow. As Marcus Aurelius wrote sometime around 170CE: >It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has…
That sort of nihilistic attitude is anesthetizing, though. If we shrug and mutter that everything is evil to some degree, we'll stop trying to address large problems on a societal scale. In the words of John Oliver's…
Not necessarily a new idea, but it's a good one. One of my schoolteachers edited a historical figure's Wikipedia page the day before a major essay about them was due. The need to check your sources is an important…
Interesting. One quirk of browsing sites with JS disabled is that the cookie banners rarely show up. Often, they are implemented as scripts loaded from a site like "cookielaw.org". I've long suspected that these sites…
Same. I tried to switch to iOS about a year ago, but I ended up returning the device after spending over $50 on highly-rated ad/script blockers for Safari, and finding that none of them really worked. Back on Android,…
It's not feasible to do a real "Lord of the Flies" experiment on purpose; not even the notoriously sociopathic world of reality TV producers could get away with that. If you have adults watching and ready to spring in…
Might be worth mentioning the name of the conspiracy: the Phoebus Cartel. It sounds cartoonishly evil, but "cartel" is just an economic term for a market where a small number of participants collude to control supply…
Those are the same questions that people ask on SO, although the respondents aren't exclusively men with beards. OP bemoaned how people on StackOverflow would tell you not to do what you're asking about. Reference…
When I was young, we didn't have StackOverflow or Google. We had to hike through snow to access the internet at all, uphill both ways! In those days, we would usually read the manual when we needed to dig past a…
We need to be very careful with brain implants designed to relieve pain, lest we repeat the mistakes which brought us the opioid crisis. I've seen videos at BCI conferences of deep brain stimulation implants which…
Whenever I hear people describe a complex chain of events only to conclude that there was a single root cause, I'm reminded of the old proverb: >For want of a nail the shoe was lost. >For want of a shoe the horse was…
People might scoff at the petty vandalism, but how many of you over the age of 35 had a scrupulously clean adolescence? For the under-30 crowd, everything in their post-puberty lives has been carefully recorded in a…
Impossible to manufacture? Or financially impossible to build a factory for the purpose and larger infrastructure to accommodate transportation? I'm curious if there is something about acrylics which makes it impossible…
The publishers usually can't publish their games' source code, because of various library and middleware dependencies which are not free or open-source. Same issue with cheap IoT gizmos. Even if the retailers wanted to…
Developers will package browsers in their code as a way to spy on users with fewer restrictions, not because Safari is unusable. That being said, I returned my first and last iPhone after realizing that Firefox on iOS…
Fair enough. I would still rather have a diverse ecosystem of power-tripping moderators than a few unavoidable ones, though. There would probably be more calm tidal pools like the one that dang cultivates here.
The small town was just an example. You could just as easily make a small social network for a band, or a hobby, or anything you could imagine having its own subreddit/discord/etc.
Same reason that people run community gardens, or set up trusts to maintain local trails. Because they care. Maybe some things, like human relationships and communication, are better off without a profit motive.
If requiring moderation made it impossible to operate UGC sites at a large scale, wouldn't we expect to see more competitors and choices, albeit at a smaller scale? For example, a small group of friends could easily run…
They were barely keeping their heads above water, but the interest payments on their new loans was like tying cinder blocks to their feet. It amazes me that the world's richest man was able to buy this company with a…
What about a car? You probably shouldn't finance a vehicle you can afford with current interest rates, and you may not want to give your debit card to a secondhand dealer for processing. While I do have fond memories of…
I had to look up this story, and it's about as ridiculous as it sounds. This source places the event in 1835, but I believe it's the same incident: http://southernghoststories.com/the-witch-of-fentress-county >When…
One of the first lessons that a junior developer learns is: >My job is not to write code. My job is to solve business problems efficiently, using computers as a medium. Sounds like data scientists have the same problem.…
Not surprising, airplane wifi has always been ridiculously insecure. Back in the day, when it was first rolling out, you could (theoretically ofc) join the plane's network and scan for MAC addresses, then clone someone…
I think he was trying to express the importance of resilience. Things that happen, stay happened. So the best outcome for yourself following misfortune is to move ahead as best you can. Personally, I don't think that…
Call it what you want. If you spend all your time whinging about misfortune, you'll never grow. As Marcus Aurelius wrote sometime around 170CE: >It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has…
That sort of nihilistic attitude is anesthetizing, though. If we shrug and mutter that everything is evil to some degree, we'll stop trying to address large problems on a societal scale. In the words of John Oliver's…
Not necessarily a new idea, but it's a good one. One of my schoolteachers edited a historical figure's Wikipedia page the day before a major essay about them was due. The need to check your sources is an important…