seven4

I've not come across the concept of a webring before - but this is cool.

I feel like adding a link back to the ring (or at least next page) should be mandatory - else it feels a bit broken (I know the frameset version is there but feels less elegant). The third page ("https://finalkey.net/") in the ring when i was navigating had no explicit mention of the ring on the landing page...and that feels unfair?

Unprecedented levels of stimulus around the whole world. If that isn't the precursor for some airpockets/bubbles of mispricing to emerge.. I don't know what is.

I was reading Sapiens by Yuval Harari today and he had an explanation of easy credit that i liked. You are basically betting that enough innovation and progress happens to underpin the money you've "borrowed" from the future - when that doesn't happen...the bubble bursts. I wonder what sort of progress would smooth over the extraordinary credit injection we've seen in 2020.

From the article - "The ability to amplify the individual’s intent through digital proxies depends on aptly capturing...experience in the physical world" The Self, The self in private contexts and the self in public contexts.

While i agree WeChat does a better job of this. I have to wonder if part of this is cultural. Just look at how much backlash Facebook has seen over the last year - and widespread skepticism about its trustworthiness especially when it comes to privacy. Is WeChat always going to be more ubiquitous because its users trust it more than Facebook's users will?

Echos of the anti-trust post that went to frontpage earlier today. Seems to be building to some sort of crecendo.

Linking as i think the comments apply peripherally https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23548674

Facebook wants to be seen to address its perceived interference in politics. Particularly ahead of the upcoming election cycle. It wants to do this without hamstringing its ad-revenue. Let's look at what the measures are -

-an opt-out option for political ads: "The feature, which will start rolling out on Wednesday, allows users to turn off political, electoral and social issue adverts from candidates and other organisations that have the "Paid for" political disclaimer."

-encouraging voter enfranchisement: "Mr Zuckerberg went on to encourage people who aren't signed up as voters to register in time for the US election in November."

By implementing these Facebook could reasonably make the claim (i.e. at a congressional hearing) that it has consistently and passionately worked to deliver fairness on its platform and protected against manipulation. You can't design against every crisis...but you can design to say you took "reasonable measures" to prevent a crisis. I think that's exactly what these measures are aimed at doing. Someone pointed out in an earlier thread that it's the people who don't think to opt-out that are most in need of "protecting".

The trouble is that as a tech company - first you want to build a moat around your success and barriers to competitors usurping your hard-won position/user-base.

IF you do this very well you become a "tech giant" - then you want to continue building that moat/pulling away from your competitors BUT now you have to look like you aren't anti-competitive.

So i guess it's useful to think about: what does Apple want to do vs what does apple want to look like its doing? Wherever the internal/external impetus of an organisation are at odds - progress will be painful/prolonged. Then again if you ran Apple would you be quick about ceding the moat?

From the article -

it's impossible to draw definitive conclusions about what's causing the skew toward topless pictures.

One explanation could be simply that other users are engaging with these pictures more, prompting the algorithm to place them higher in people's feeds. If you and others "like" a photo more, it could appear higher in other people's feeds."

I honestly can't bring myself to feel even slightly surprised by this - machine learning/algos if successful should amplify user preferences. I have a strong feeling this is fueled by underlying user preferences rather than some ill-intent to push semi-nude pictures.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. What - if any costs are involved for you?

I often wonder what incentives drive people to run TOR exit nodes; the risk even if remote of getting raided is enough to stop most I'd imagine. Got me thinking on the legal implications and interestingly TOR doesn't recommend running an exit node at home -

Found this FAQ quite interesting https://2019.www.torproject.org/eff/tor-legal-faq.html.en

Particularly

~Has anyone ever been sued or prosecuted for running Tor? No, we aren't aware of anyone being sued or prosecuted in the United States just for running a Tor relay. Further, we believe that running a Tor relay — including an exit relay that allows people to anonymously send and receive traffic — is legal under U.S. law.

~Should I run an exit relay from my home? No. If law enforcement becomes interested in traffic from your exit relay, it's possible that officers will seize your computer. For that reason, it's best not to run your exit relay in your home or using your home Internet connection.

This was fun. I wonder if the code/algo behind this tends towards a certain type of painting or "average".

Reminds me of this video that shows what the youtube codec tends towards over a 1000 reuploads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR4KHfqw-oE

“For me, understanding the brain has always been a computational problem,” says Papadimitriou, who became fascinated by the brain five years ago. “Because if it isn't, I don't know where to start.”

Interesting - we do tend to approach problem sets via the lens that is readily available to us.

Slightly unrelated but I've always been fascinated by how useful it is to overlay two areas of interest and the insights that present themselves when you focus at the intersection. What's more it seems to work with disparate ideas as well as it does with adjacent ideas. I'm convinced it's a useful way to ideate/think of ideas for startups/businesses.

As someone who has worked in finance and specifically a trading floor - i can confirm that it is widely read by traders/market-makers/risk-takers in those spaces.

It's not that those people are inherently bearish or expect the world and financial markets to "go to zero"; but they understand that informed decisions and fair market pricing arises from a matrix of ideas. Zero hedge takes an extreme starting point for most of its commentary/coverage but as long as you know that slant exists it can become a useful input into thinking about the "bear scenario" or the "tail scenario". Knowing that it has reached a critical mass and that other traders read it - it becomes a harder to ignore point of information.

One unintended consequence of Covid19 related lockdown/work from home has been less commute and more hours to sleep.

This is the most regular/high quality sleep i've had in years and I'm only now seeing how badly my normal sleep habits have been effecting me. Experimenting with any non-monophasic sleep pattern sounds exhausting and I'm afraid could have serious health impacts...would love to see the science/literature evolve to a point of consensus though.

Well said - and any attempts to "mimic the hallways" feels contrived in the context of the internet/online. It is difficult to translate the multitude of social cues/contexts/interactions that real life offers. Nevertheless I'm sure we will see more and more coherent attempts.

This was fun to play around with.

Would love to see a plain-english explainer of how this works behind the screen, either on the page or an "about" link.

I think given the firestorm that would erupt from the right side of the aisle if Trump's posts were deleted - there probably is a slightly specialised handling for his account (and other high profile accounts) vs the general populous for whom standard escalation processes kick in when a post is reported/flagged.

I'm not saying this is right or wrong.

Well that chart speaks for itself - Perceptions about who contributed to the victory have clearly changed. With an almost direct attribution transfer from USSR to USA; while UK remains static. I can't help but feel this has in part to do with the rise and rise of post-war America and the relative decline of USSR/Russia.

Feeds into the old adage "the victors write history" - clear example of the fact that this speaks to the broader cultural narrative over a span of time and not just discrete points of victory.

As someone who hasn't played Animal Crossing - this is kind of surreal. Sounds like a glitch in the way game mechanics allowed users to hyper-inflate the primary currency (by manually changing the time on their system) - and saw the economy migrate to a currency which more readily fits with a model of "unforgeable costliness".

Great writeup on that by Nick Szabo http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2005/10/antiques-time-gold-...

modern "civil dialogue" seems to suffer from the notion that context is optional