12xo

Nikon FM2. The best beginner SLR ever made. Add a 85mm 1.4 or a 110mm and a 35mm 1.4 lens and you're on your way.

Understood, its your prerogative and your choice. I feel that inference is not derogatory nor offensive, and I would rather be banned that be required to coddle those who are incapable of receiving or digesting criticism or engaging in difficult dialog.

I come here for the intelligent and interesting discussions. Often times these are the types of discussions that are difficult for people as they contain ideas that challenge one's sense of self and place are the most uncomfortable. But without those challenges, people will never grow. Trees are strongest where the forces of nature are not buffered. People are as well.

Take care

No one ever stopped people from making the films, they only disallowed the distribution and showings via their operations. The Gov, banning a film (porn)was censorship by the Gov and thus was struck down by the Warren court. But you know that right?

They obviously can choose what content they choose to host and display. That is their right as long as it is not discriminatory or in violation of US law. While that is the literal definition of censorship, the issue is not about a free market is it? Nope. Is about the Right whining that their hate is not allowed to be amplified, hence they call it censorship. They, not me, are the ones stating that this is a free speech issue. I state it is not. Explicitly not.

Its a really simple concept. I am surprised you dont understand.

You mean bias like Rush Limbaugh or FoxNews bias? Where other ideas are not only never presented, they are openly mocked?

And that happens mind you, on the PUBLICLY OWNED airwaves and spectrum....

You do realize that the literal meaning and the legal meaning are two separate things, right?

Censorship in a privately owned entity is 100% legal. As is bias...

Censorship is when the government, not private enterprises, stifle speech. When it a private entity, it’s called free market.

This is a difficult concept for whiners to accept.

The worst part is that there is no market what-so-ever for FB or Google ads. The prices are not set by competition, or the market, they are set by the seller. They decide that something's baseline price is $10 per X, not the market. The market has no choice but adjust their ROI based not on actual market conditions, but on the whim of the seller.

And to top it off, almost all digital ads are money losers for the buyer. Its the few that work that get backed into their ROI calculations. Which are essentially a tax added to the purchase price of anything marketed and sold via these channels.

The business is a fraud.

And yet, they keep spending money... This is a problem. The fact that they offer no service, no communication, so resolutions and yet buyers are still dumping 100's of thousands a month because, they dont have any other options...

Can you name any other business that could function like this? Health care is the only ones that come to mind...

Forest v Trees 2020...

If you think the retraction of voting rights is due to the actions of men some 300 years ago, I dont really have much to say... You might as well go back a few thousand years. However, if you're interested in the actual cause and effects of real, tangible actions and real legislation by living souls. People whose goals were to repress votes to change outcomes, I suggest you study the last 30 years of American media and how the Right morphed the rules to their benefit.

One has to understand the root of the cause if you wish to treat the illness. It is no secret that the removal of the Fairness Doctrine paired with the deregulation of media and the removal of Congress's oversight and license requirements helped fuel the right wing media rise over the last 15years. Pair that with the rise of internet based style ad measurement and audience feedback, and you create a media tailor made for propaganda where you reward sensationalism.

Attention is the currency of media.

You dont actually believe that the Right is able to thwart decades of decency and abidance to a common good based on solely on will do you?

They do it by lying and thus enraging people into believing that the other guy is coming for them...that the other guy is evil. That is how you control a so-called democracy, you divide and distract and create a sideshow while you do the dirty work, sometimes in the open (like this) or mostly in the back, like the judiciary packing.

I just ask that you dig deeper and look for the root cause, not he symptoms. Only when we realize the cause can we make the appropriate changes and restore health.

I am not. My point is that the reason we are here, that this repression even exists, is due to the media marketplace. Without it, this kind of blatant repression isn’t possible. It is here because of decades of propaganda and distraction by the right that has allowed then to take advantage of I’ll informed people who have become enemies of their neighbors and democracy itself.

In other words: The lines are a result of the Right using media to create distractions and issues that allow them to get away with these types of repressive acts. Without their propaganda machines working in sync, enraging their audiences with false fears, (non-existent voter fraud for example), they cannot do get away with these things. Its classic distraction, just played out over a decade, instead of a few minutes.

The lines are one example of this because they have leveraged their media to make people HATE the other side enough to literally cut of their noses to spite their faces.

Its relevant - albeit a little out of the purview, because without the rise of sensationalist based media creating the distractions, none of this is possible.

The lies, the distractions, the propaganda, the amplification of issues that simply-do-not exist, allows the power brokers the opportunity to do these types of things without the oversight and regulation that the Constitution and history used to have in place to contain such acts.

Its no different than a magical or illusionist using distraction and human behaviors against the audience so that they can paint a picture of what ever they choose. Or the infinite number of psych tricks used to fool people into giving up their money....

If the media was still beholden to facts and held actual integrity, and were not instead chasing a false metric that benefited them, the power brokers could not get away with these types of acts.

It goes deeper but the checks and balances of our Republic are no longer in place because we whored out our Congress and allowed the Foxes to buy their way to the front of the henhouse...

A little out of left field but here is my opinion on why we are here.

None of this is possible without the perverted media market that view based advertising has created. The entire political landscape has grown to this mess because of "Click Bait" style ad metrics.

Every single news outlet, media outlet and otherwise has been corrupted and perverted to seek instant gratification and has lowered their editorial bar so low that they'll say, show, do anything that gets more attention. Because attention brings them more ad $.

Without the money flowing from ads via these false metrics, none of these media outlets could exist let alone thrive. And they, are the reason America is so divided. Sensationalism is what is driving the discourse, not intelligence or reason. The power brokers know this and the leverage it very, very well.

We have created a US where information is the ball, and our lives and the policy that governs us, is the sport.

People should know that regardless of how they consume TV, , their viewing habits are logged, tracked and ultimately sold. Cable, satellite, IPTV, web, mobile etc. Its all being gathered and parsed by dozens, if not hundreds of entities. The only exception is over the air...

So getting upset at Samsung and plugging in a Chromecast or AppleTV or ROKU or whatever, is silly. They're all tracking you everywhere.

But there isnt a lot of demand from a lot sources. So the ads are not nearly as tailored as digital. But they can be. And eventually they'll be as creepy as the banners you are served after browsing thingamajigs. For now, you'll likely just get served Direct Response scatter and the same branded ad over and over...

This is very interesting. So basically, we'll all use fake personas managed by AI. And nothing online will be real...

Social media is fast food. Cheap, easy, filling, tasty and very, very, very unhealthy. Eating it once in a while is fine, but eat it every day and you'll get sick.

Without FoxNews and Limbaugh, this isnt possible. So why do they want Americans to die? Why do they want them fighting each other?

That's the real issue and one that I am sad to say far too many HN posters are working on and against daily...

Advertising and content engagement. These two things and their unfettered pursuits have destroyed America. When the only thing that matters is the pursuit of money, based on false metrics and false promises, we die. And yes, we're watching America die.

People find a lot of comfort with the validation of their own ideas from others. And since that comfort translates into community, they seek out others of similar feather.

I am afraid that this behavior paired with the "personalized" algorithms are a big part of the problem. Instead of pushing people to facts and figures, new ideas and uncomfortable positions, the systems are instead designed to do the opposite. Hide those things in order to hold attention.

Remember: Attention is the currency of media.

Pair the online phenomenon with the false equivalencies created by right-wing media. That "their ignorance is the same as your knowledge", and you create our current political and social environment ripe for exploit. We now have a whole lot of people who think they're right because they find others who also think they are right.

The personal data industry is truly disgusting but the really funny thing is that most of the data is actually worthless. Its collected only because it can be. Not because its valuable or worthwhile. These companies are basically hoarders. Hoarders that rummage through your trash and spy on you from afar. They are awful, the business is awful and is a viable case of "just because you can, should you?"

In this case its hard not to... These two entities, not the thousands of other Chinese and foreign entities that do business in our country, are being targeted by what is effectively an authoritarian action. There is no national security issue here, at least none that has been disclosed nor processed by our national security teams or Congressional members. Instead, it - like most of Trump's actions, are done for personal gain and spite. And as a result is the most overreaching act by any POTUS in modern history.

By far the most egregious overreach of Federal authority in recent memory. Noting about this is reasonable. Its 100% the act of a desperate and weak minded despot who knows nothing about technology but acts out of ignorance and pettiness. A truly illegal and Anti-American act.

This. We created an unrealistic climate where politics is personal and not to be discussed.

Its anything but personal and it should be discussed at length whenever possible where ever possible.

The worst thing we as a society can do, is continue this idea that one should not discuss one's ideals. That's why we have so many ignorant people who find comfort in silos. They have never developed the skills necessary to think past their beliefs.

BTW: that's what a liberal education is all about. Challenging your ideals and pushing your intellectual limits. And that's a great thing for people and for humanity. Insularity breeds crazy. Always.

Seriously? Where did you go to school?

Start with the US revolution... and then find your way up through the 20th century. There are thousands of instances.

Wait, I was under the impression that the spun material used to make the masks was the challenge, not the actual manufacturing of the masks. Which is actually rather simple.

I call this simplifying madness, Fisher Pricing.

Yeah but those are not my comments, and it's not today.

It is not competition that will kill Facebook, its the change in people's behavior. Very different from the competitive view you take.

The death of Facebook will be from both in how people interact with each other and tech. Whether its a fundamental shift in comm(mobile phones) or a leap in tech like serverless / peer to peer that removes the need for a central service. Eventually, Facebook will not exist anywhere near its current form.

Remember, FB not a service like Google that serves the user. You dont need them to do anything but connect to other people. If you dont need to use FB, you wont. For now, its easier and working very well at scale. But that's temporary. Maybe 10 years. Maybe longer... One day it too will be a memory, owned and operated by a PE firm that specializes in brands.

Facebook is AOL circa 1997. When it seemed that they'd be a dominate player forever... Fast forward a few years and were are almost non-existent. A few more and they were gone all together.

Never forget that the internet is awash in dead companies and sites that were extremely popular and powerful, until they werent.

Facebook is a giant, but its dominance in the USA and the EU is likely short lived.