fortythirteen

GA is a cog in a much more nefarious machine, no matter how "benign" it might be on its own.

Analytics, maps, recaptcha, and fonts, not to mention all the data siphoned from Android, are pieces of a mass surveillance apparatus, used openly for advertising, but potentially shared with governments around the world.

If you read this article you'll also get to learn how journalism dies - through opinion pieces promoted as objective reporting.

> Many social media companies now appear to agree with Brady and are making efforts to address some of the concerns that research like his raises. Twitter, for example, recently announced an open call for proposals on how to improve “conversational health” on its platform. And last October, Reddit rolled out a more robust policy for actively monitoring its discussion boards.

Those initiatives weren't designed to lessen the "exploitation of moral emotions", they were designed to give preference towards the extreme moral emotions of a particular world view.

Right, and I'm making it clear that opinions born of ignorance should be avoided.

> I have not even tried to join Army because I saw them as people doing pointless shit to quote you.

So you have even less experience and are just pulling your strong opinions out of your ass. Got it.

Sounds like a metaphor for wasting your life doing pointless shit.

> That is living life like as slave. You sit when they say sit you shit when they say you can shit.

Sounds like someone who flunked out of basic. That drill sergeant stuff ends after about 2 months in.

> High-quality publishers were losing out to sketchy clickbait factories. Users were spending tons of time on social media, but they weren’t necessarily happier or better informed. Platforms built to empower the masses were rewarding extremists and attention seekers instead.

In order to believe that technology will solve the problem, you have to also believe that technology is the problem. It's not, though. We are the problem.

We were already extremists and attention seekers. Social media just amplified that. Any platform, no matter how set up, will be gamed to take advantage of human nature.

It's actually a perfect example of correlation to causation. The title could easily have been "fathers perpetually kept in cramped quarters produce dumb babies".

> on mice

And the article automatically relates it to humans, when absolutely no study has been done. Correlation to causation.

Correlation implied as causation.

Here is another correlation into causation article linking cardiovascular fitness to IQ[0]

Another way to look at it can be from the per-capita relation of economic class to fitness[1]. It is entirely possible that, because people higher up the economic ladder are more likely to be fit, and because they are more likely to receive better prenatal care, generally have better nutrition, and give their children more educational opportunities, that the actual cause may be economic status.

[0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/quilted-science/2009...

[1] https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/06/10/the-correla...

Ubuntu MATE 4 life.

It's like running peak 200x Ubuntu frontend with all the up to date backend.

> In addition to these perceptions about people in tech, tech actually is less social for women than for men. It’s harder for women to make friends and fit in, both in university classes and at tech companies. Because it’s unnatural or might be taken the wrong way, young men are less likely to approach women and invite them to join a study group or happy hour, poker night, or whatever else they do with their male peers/coworkers. They don’t just sit next to women without a desk neighbor, ask them unsolicited questions, or offer to help. They’re less likely to joke with them, complement them, or even chat with them casually. The exclusion is unintentional, not malicious, but made worse by the fact that women are more socially aware than men at this age.

I wonder how much of that has to do with how young, male engineers are hammered with the social mores of creepy, harassing nerds pushed as one of the reasons for less women in tech. Maybe they're trying to take the safe route and just not interact.

"Let us tell you what's newsworthy and what isn't."

"Let us direct your searches through filtered autocomplete and 'curate' your search results."

"Let us filter out any 'controversial' content, so you won't have to question y(our) worldview."

"Let us make phone calls for you, so you don't have to maintain social skills by interacting with other humans."

"Let us finish your thoughts for you, because, by this point, you don't have any of your own."

To be fair, if the only thing they're geniuses as is making a money pit look attractive to investors.

It all makes sense when you realize that they're lying and their "automated system" is a bunch of low level contractors.

> The child is not property. The child is a human, and has human rights. Those rights are protected. The child has his own independent legal representation to look after its best interests.

How humane of your government to decide that a toddler must starve to death.

Who in their right mind think's a toddler's best interest is to die?

> But also Alfie had his own legal representation.

What?! How does an infant/toddler receive legal representation arguing for the plug to be pulled, outside of the wishes of his parents?! That is the very definition of authoritarianism.

> He wouldn't have got anything like this in the US.

Absolute nonsense spread by someone who has no knowledge of the American system. A child like Alfie is given free medical care from one of many charity hospitals with some of the best doctors in the world, and other charities house the family, for no cost, during treatment. You know, like the Vatican offered, and the parents accepted, but apparently you're government decided it was time for Alfie to die.

You misinterpret or spin the data from your link. Look again and you'll see that, as far as compulsory spending goes the US and UK spend roughly the same percentage of GDP on "healthcare". What is "healthcare" as defined in this PR piece from the UK government? Where do factors like average wait time to see a specialist or have surgery weigh in?

I could take those same numbers and say, "The United States does a better job of assisting it's poorer citizens into the highest quality healthcare in the world, all while allowing all its people the complete freedom to control their own health outcomes."

For the record, I'm not a health libertarian, but I'd sure as hell take it over health authoritarianism, and the UK government proved that's what they have last week.

I think you misunderstand the statement. I wasn't referencing the comparison of the tax costs of different public healthcare systems. But while we're on that subject, I'm willing to bet that your VA comparison isn't per capita, or placed against GDP, rendering it useless.

What I was referencing was the per capita or per household total cost of healthcare. The comparisons that say western countries with universal healthcare have "lower costs" generally omit the increased tax burden.

If I make $100k a year, for example, and pay ~30% in taxes, but also pay ~$15k a year for total family medical expenses, including premiums, I'm still making out better than if I pay ~60% in taxes, but get "free" healthcare.

> Lower average cost of medical care

All derived from figures that don't account for how much more you pay in taxes for that "free or cheap" healthcare.

You'll get no concessions from a political ideology that refuses to disassociate from, or even recognize the existence of, extremist elements on it's side of the spectrum.

> Generally Economist is unashamedly political.

I have no problem with unashamedly political. I do have a problem with willful disingenuousness to promote ideological dogma.

This article conflates public "essential health" services with universal, state-run healthcare. It also uses nondescript graphs, in image form and with no link to source data, to make sweeping, "correlation equals causation" points about universal health care and life expectancy.

This is an article trying to make an ideological case rather than to discern truth.

Trying to perform a "media consumption strike" without dropping your smartphone is like trying to quit coke while keeping a eight ball in your pocket.

Let's say the average developer works 45 hours a week at a company and makes $15/hr more than a FT senior dev (with salary calculated at 40 hours). That's $2500 more a year, which sounds bad when you factor in all the FT benefits.

But, the FT senior developer spends a quarter of his/her time in meetings, is expected to be a "team player" in regards to internal politics, and can't do any side projects without running it by the business.

Both sides working 45 figure is kind of a fairy tale too. Having been on both sides, usually either FT or contractors are working all the extra hours. If it's open-ended contracts, then the FT are working many extra, unpaid hours and the contractors get a work/life balance (worth multiple $10k, IMHO). If it's short term contract, the contractors work 50+ hours a week, within the project window, make out like bandits, and go on to the next gig.

It's all preference. Neither side is objectively better.

> Much more transparency about what the phone is doing: how it’s charging, what it’s downloading, etc.

Except all the things Google is syphoning in the background without telling you.

You also have to factor in the amount of responsibility for pay. A contractor with decent negotiation skils may net out slightly less than a FT senior dev at a company, but they often have less responsibility than even the FT junior and mid-level devs. Not to mention that they never get dragged into internal company politics or loyalty games.

Factor in overtime, or the lack thereof, and you can make more or have far more work/life balance than FTs. That weekend app release? There's an extra $500-$1k that the FTs aren't getting. Company doesn't allow contractors to work over 40 hours for budgeting purposes? Leave at 5 everyday without anyone complaining.

I'm sure no fan of dismissive, know-it-all programmers, but to play devil's advocate, who's injecting their feelings into a site with the explicit purpose of solely answering programming questions?

Its intended purpose has little to do with monitoring.

This starts Orwellian and end Huxleyan, in that a generation or two in, the majority of people's perception will be altered. They have no access to dissenting thought and their critical thinking skills are as dull as a doorknob.

This is about thought control.