sparkzilla

Yes, it's great how our world-leading scenery has been enhanced by massive wind farms. I look forward seeing them on every hilltop. Save the planet!

The author of the piece says Rand "rationalizes greed," which is false, as there are many forms of greed, not just financial. My understanding is that she says that society is most moral when people are able to trade without coercion, and therefore the wealth generated from free trade cannot be classified as "greed".

Absolute drivel. No wonder people have no trust in news, if this is the kind of poll they come up with.

Because they blew it with MySpace, and the CEO is always whining on about how Facebook and Google are upsetting him.

>Either they give up their content for free or Google drops them, and they hurt even worse.

They haven't give up their content to Google/Facebook; they give up their distribution. Links to news sites on Google and Facebook are a form of distribution that link back to the original article. As for antitrust, that's somewhat difficult to argue when a new entrant (Facebook) is currently taking a massive amount of distribution and ad revenue away from Google. Who's to say that another new entrant, funded by the legacy news industry, couldn't do the same?

The legacy news media should have, and still should, focus on making or buying new distribution channels. Instead of whining to the government, they should compete in the market.

Thinking that 'content is king' is how newspapers got into this situation. If you have large distribution (Facebook), even if it is pictures of cats, you can make money and then buy "quality" content, which is a niche. If you lose control of distribution (Legacy news) you can't make money and you can't make any content, no matter how good it is.

>The problem is that Google and Facebook are more than willing to steal that content

Really? While Facebook was letting people copy video content from Facebook with no penalty (freebooting), this was never an issue for the news companies. As for the Spanish situation, the news companies gave in because they realised that without Google they had even less distribution than before.

Real title: Failing news outlets seek government protection for past failures and outdated business models.

The legacy news media has completely failed to understand two things 1) that distribution is king, not content and 2) that their potential customers have so many more options now than just news. They gave away their distribution to Google and Facebook and still think that better content is the driver of their businesses. I am sick of hearing the CEO of News Corp whining about Google and Facebook. They could easily have invested in creating their own alternative distribution networks, but they completely blew the opportunity they had, with MySpace and they could have bought Instagram, What's App, SnapChat (if you don't think these are news networks then you've not been paying attention). So now they go whining to the government? Shame on them.

Tweeting with Confidence, authored by a certain D. Trump. http://imgur.com/a/exBrf

The easiest way to learn Japanese, at least spoken Japanese, is to find a Japanese boyfriend or girlfriend. And to live away from other gaijin.

Hi, what data does this output?

Somewhat ironically, tests are being conducted to use MDMA/Ecstasy as a possible cure for tinnitus.

[1] http://mixmag.net/read/scientists-have-completed-trials-atte...

Where do you get the feed for all the articles in the first place?

Dear oh dear. Using Wikipedia to support Climate Change denial denial? Ignorance is bliss I guess. This is a good overview I picked from a random search of the many issues with Mann's work re the Hockey stick, and his lack of professional integrity [1], which is even hinted at in the well-scrubbed Wikipedia page. Anyway there's a ton of easy-to-find extremely well-sourced information debunking the stick.

By the way, Mann was forced to stop calling himself a 'Nobel Prize recipient', after it was found out that he wasn't directly awarded the prize; it was awarded to the IPCC.[2]

[1] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/29/reflections-on-mark-s...

[2] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/331738/michael-manns-fa...

Would that be the 'Nobel prize winner' Dr Mann, who massaged the so-called hockey stick data leading to all this climate change/global warming hysteria in the first place? Hardly a credible source of anything IMHO.

>FTA: Potentially promising problem areas we haven’t yet rated

The Copenhagen Consensus is an attempt by economists to rate the cost/benefit of various schemes to improve life for humans globally. It was was prompted by the apparent waste of governments committing to billions, if not trillions of dollars towards climate change mitigation efforts, which may or may not provide results. All while people, especially children, are dying from problems that have lower-cost solutions. The question posed is: If you had $75bn for worthwhile causes, where should you start?

1. Bundled micronutrient interventions to fight hunger and improve education

2. Expanding the Subsidy for Malaria Combination Treatment 3. Expanded Childhood Immunization Coverage

4. Deworming of Schoolchildren, to improve educational and health outcomes

5. Expanding Tuberculosis Treatment

6. R&D to Increase Yield Enhancements, to decrease hunger, fight biodiversity destruction, and lessen the effects of climate change

7. Investing in Effective Early Warning Systems to protect populations against natural disaster

8. Strengthening Surgical Capacity

9. Hepatitis B Immunization

10. Using Low‐Cost Drugs in the case of Acute Heart Attacks in poorer nations (these are already available in developed countries)

Note: No AI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus

Google's search results pages try to do all things for everyone: give some links, some news, some data (knowledge graph) and answer some questions. There is room for new entrants to improve on each of these other areas and make that the dominant search method for that channel. For example, making voice answers for Alexa. You may be interested in my essay about Google's search result problems: http://newslines.org/blog/googles-black-hole/

It is cash. IIRC, there was a fuss a couple of years ago when it was found out that the WMF was losing money on that invested cash.

Good on Guy for bringing this up at last, but others have been questioning Wikipedia's fundraising for some time now [1][2][3] Note: I wrote the last one. In the same way that many charities exist to line the pockets of their staff, while not giving to their cause, Wikipedia has become a bloated fundraising bureaucracy that happens to have an online encyclopedia. The emphasis on fundraising leads to corrupt actions, for example the fundraising banners that say the site is in imminent danger of collapse despite it having over $100 million in the bank.

[1] https://www.dailydot.com/business/wikipedia-fundraiser-banne... [2] https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/12/16/1631223/wikipedia-e... [3] http://newslines.org/blog/stop-giving-wikipedia-money/

Then you will probably be interested in my article: Google and Wikipedia: Best Friends Forever.

http://newslines.org/blog/google-and-wikipedia-best-friends-...

But the contributors would. Why would they put their effort into a free resource, for others to profit off of it. Oh wait...

Yeah, that'll be really useful.

I have been posting business-related content (curated news about famous entrepreneurs) to LinkedIn for over a year now. At first, I thought it would be a good opportunity because no-one else was curating news in that way. But once the pages got to about 3000 users LinkedIn deleted them all without proper explanation. They deleted my Donald Trump page first (leading me to think they were anti-Trump), and then when I complained they deleted the other six pages I was curating [1]. After a month of discussions, I was able to get the pages back, but the signups had dropped by half. But I persisted, only to have the UI change and for signups to be down 70% from before. Instead of 10,000 followers for Elon Musk news, I should probably have 30,000 if they hadn't meddled with it. Meanwhile, crappy clickbait is shared all around the site. I don't know why I bother to be honest. The site is useless for content creators.

[1]https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-deleted-my-donald-tr...

Since LinkedIn changed the UI, signups to my Showcase pages that are newsfeeds about famous entrepreneurs [1] have dropped by over 70%, making the work involved in curation almost worthless. If they are trying to make a social network that allows people to share business-related content they are failing badly.

[1]https://www.linkedin.com/company/elon-musk-newslines

Confirming my point above that the users lock in to the lack of innovation.

>Craiglist presentation hasn't changed either. I don't think this point is relevant if the UI is good enough or have been this way for so long that people are used to it. Changing it would be weird.

There are many problems with Wikipedia's presentation of information [1], but the point is that, even if Wikipedia's UI was the best there was, new media inevitably come along that change the way customers want to access their information. For example, you may think it's 'weird' to change Wikipedia's text-heavy UI, but kids brought up on Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram might want a more visual interface for their encyclopedia.

>You want to innovate an online encyclopedia? How exactly do you do that? And without sacrificing integrity?

Beyond UI, Wikipedia has many problems in its data structure, policies, and integrity, by which I mean the veracity of its information, and its endemic bias. Rather than discuss them here, please read my blog post: Wikipedia's 13 deadly Sins. [1]

>What is this time to event thing that you speak of?

The rapid collapse of an incumbent site due to its monopoly position and consequent lack of innovation i.e. the point of the original post.

Your response appears to confirm that the lack of imagination that goes hand-in-hand with monopoly products is not just confined to their creators. Their customers want the monopoly, until they don't. Wikipedia, Craigslist, Google and Facebook are not unassailable. Everything dies.

[1] http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/

Number of editors is in decline. Presentation hasn't changed in 15 years. Policies are moribund. No innovation. No leadership. It's just a matter of time.

Your company fails when you stop innovating and start copying, and enters a death spiral when smart employees (and investors) leave, because they know that no amount of fancy demos and vaporware will make up for the declining quality of the core product. Eventually the neglected core becomes weaker and weaker to the point where it fails spectacularly. We are saw this with MySpace, are seeing it with Wikipedia, Google Search, and if Facebook continues on the same path, it won't be long before they suffer the same fate.

This is a perfect example of unwarranted alarmism. It links coral bleaching to global warming without any proof, while making ridiculous economic claims. Locals [1] and local scientists [2] disagree with the claim that the reef is irreparably damaged. Here's the quote:

We’ve also seen reports that 35 per cent, or even 50 per cent, of the entire reef is now gone. However, based on our ­combined results so far, the overall mortality rate is 22 per cent — and about 85 per cent of that die-off has occurred in the far north ­between the tip of Cape York and just north of Lizard Island, 250km north of Cairns. Seventy-five per cent of the reef will come out in a few months time as recovered.

I also urge anyone who is sick of this kind of science scaremongering to follow junkscience.com [3]

[1] http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/reef-tourism-o...

[2] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/great-barrier-re...

[3] http://junkscience.com

If they don't need it, they should return it to their shareholders.