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westernmostcoy

282 karma · joined September 17, 2013

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westernmostcoy··on Feds Target AI Critics as "Foreign Agents"
So? My first amendment rights say I'm allowed to criticize it too.
westernmostcoy··on Political bias in AI: Where the AI models stand
It's interesting you skipped a few examples in the parent comment's point, but to pick one: the apparent quorum of that "big tent" you speak of has resulted in an outcome where the sitting health secretary of the US is openly a believer in the miasma theory of disease.

You can point all these distinctions inside the tent as much as you want, but the reality of this is that conservatism in the United States is everything the parent comment said and more.

westernmostcoy··on Total Iran Economic Damage Estimate
It should be noted that this is from the Foundation For The Defense of Democracy, which is a pro-Israeli and anti-Iran lobbying group: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Defense_of_Demo...

They are not neutral actors and this webpage (which is dated to April 23rd) is not neutral either.

westernmostcoy··on Peter Thiel: 2,436 emails with Epstein from 2014 to 2019
I see Peter Thiel conversing repeatedly with someone who was convicted in Florida in 2008 for procuring a 17-year-old for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.

You’re writing a lot here to obfuscate that. If Mr. Thiel didn’t know, that is at minimum a reason to question his judgment.

westernmostcoy··on Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States
That's not within his power to do.
westernmostcoy··on Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline
https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senato...
westernmostcoy··on State Governments Can’t Resist the Siren Song of Censorship
Your link is paywalled, but while looking for a way to read it I found the author has been criticized for this specific article you’re linking: https://fair.org/home/millennials-moved-right-nyt-cherry-pic...

Also: even if Millenials were becoming more conservative (which would be very strange for a lot of economic reasons alone), the definition of “minority” held by the media may not really apply if nearly half of the generation identifies as non-white. (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/archives/2015-pr/cb15-113.ht...)

westernmostcoy··on Half of Americans anticipate a U.S. civil war soon
Respectfully, this totally ignores that the funding for most things in this country comes right out of the cities. To use your terminology, "left leaning" places are ~70% of GDP.

Also, just because some guys in rural areas collect guns compulsively doesn't mean they are remotely capable of becoming an organized militia.

westernmostcoy··on Fierce Nerds
This feels like an unreasonable expectation for the people who would be reporting to him.

If someone in your future/present management chain wrote a "I think people like slibhb are bad at this job" missive somewhere, would you then feel the need to wait for examples of bias?

westernmostcoy··on Introducing Transfer Appliance: Sneakernet for the cloud era
Article title is actually "Introducing Transfer Appliance: Sneakernet for the cloud era", can someone change how it's presented here? This was not a good improvised title.
westernmostcoy··on The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules
> If they launch Verizon Music, then they'll have to build a service as good as Spotify (if not better) in order compete with Spotify.

This is the problem though. What happens when they build Verizon Music and then charge people to use (or otherwise harm access to) Spotify?

westernmostcoy··on Summary of the Amazon S3 Service Disruption
Take a moment to look at the construction of this report.

There is no easily readable timeline. It is not discoverable from anywhere outside of social media or directly searching for it. As far as I know, customers were not emailed about this - I certainly wasn't.

You're an important business, AWS. Burying outage retrospectives and live service health data is what I expect from a much smaller shop, not the leader in cloud computing. We should all demand better.

westernmostcoy··on Apple Responds to Dash Controversy
Without some direct information from Apple, it's perfectly valid to wonder if they were manipulated in some way. There aren't any facts available to us that point in one direction or the other.
westernmostcoy··on YC Tech Stacks
2. Of the YC companies that use hosting providers, 55% use AWS, 13% use Cloudflare and 6% use Rackspace.

Cloudflare is a CDN exclusively, right? Why are they counted among the hosting providers and not with CDNs in the next line?

westernmostcoy··on CurrentC Ends Beta Tests, Will Deactivate Accounts
It's really smooth on my 5X, FWIW. I unlock the phone with my fingerprint, hold it over the thing, it vibrates and then I'm done. I'm using it daily.
westernmostcoy··on Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives
Can you link to where they admit to anything more than the possibility of wrongdoing?

What they're saying appears to be "we involved humans, we acknowledge humans can be biased, we will remove some human involvement going forward" which is very different than "we hid stories from sources we don't like."

Some conservative groups (and the author of this article, seemingly) would have you think they acknowledged that they did something wrong but I only see them stating the opposite.

westernmostcoy··on Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives
I think you're referring to this part of the linked article:

> In the final stretch of the campaign, nearly half (46%) of Obama’s coverage on Fox was negative, while just 6% was positive in tone. But MSNBC produced an even harsher narrative about the Republican in the race: 71% of Romney’s coverage was negative, versus 3% positive.

I am unsure it supports an argument for being the "most biased news network" outside of a specific election.

Also, it does not appear to account for reporting on a sitting president (who is also running for reelection) and will generate non-election news as well as election news versus a candidate who is not currently generating much news outside of their election.

westernmostcoy··on Google I/O 2016 Live Keynote
Amazon does sell ads, actually. A quick search would have shown you this[0], and they show up for Kindle users, on www.amazon.com, and elsewhere. It is highly likely Echo will be involved at some point.

I think the rest of your post is conjecture, but does this change your opinion? Amazon is a diverse business that wants to sell many things, including your eyeballs (or ears in the case of Echo) to others via advertising.

[0]: https://advertising.amazon.com/

westernmostcoy··on Gboard: Search, GIFs, emojis and more from your iPhone keyboard
Apple's third party keyboard message might be surprising, sure.

It should probably not surprise you that the authors of your keyboard software are theoretically capable of seeing what you type on your keyboard though, if you think about it.

westernmostcoy··on Amazon Targets YouTube with New Online Video Posting Service
Google removed Amazon's app for violating the ToS, which clearly states that you may not sell your own app store through Google's.

This is still entirely on Amazon's bad behavior.

Also, your theory sort of excuses Amazon but does not explain why they also banned Apple TV.

westernmostcoy··on Amazon Targets YouTube with New Online Video Posting Service
I could have, although I've owned a few Roku boxes and they've all been slow, unresponsive and crash-prone. We actually upgraded from Roku to Chromecast.

Amazon would prefer I buy their Fire TV stick thing, which they would then use as a hook to sell me more Amazon stuff. Given Amazon's attitude towards Apple and Google's streaming devices, chances seem decent to me that if Roku ever increased its market share then Amazon might cut them off.

I'd rather just use another streaming video store.

westernmostcoy··on Amazon Targets YouTube with New Online Video Posting Service
Yep, this is totally on them. It's led me to stop using their video products, and we're not renewing Prime after this period expires.
westernmostcoy··on Amazon Targets YouTube with New Online Video Posting Service
Amazon has a very bad track record of integrating with other services: do you think you'll be able to watch this on a normal Android phones? or an Apple TV? or a Chromecast? will they let other places on the internet embed videos easily? how will they be substantially better on copyright/DMCA complaints?

On top of all that, I think this needs a nice clean discoverable UI for this type of thing to be successful and they've really struggled with that in the past.

I'm also sad about what keeps happening to Prime. This has a benefit that I wouldn't consider strong enough to sign up for while the rest of the business continues to sneakily weaken the shipping benefit I did sign up for.

westernmostcoy··on Amazon Targets YouTube with New Online Video Posting Service
That is not an acceptable alternative, sadly. :(
westernmostcoy··on Google rolls out “If This Then That” support for its $200 OnHub router
This line of conversation is an easy way to get points on HN, but if you actually looked for a phone number for OnHub support you'd find one quite easily. Here it is in two locations:

Bottom right: https://on.google.com/hub/support/#ready "Contact Us" on: https://support.google.com/onhub#topic=6243113

westernmostcoy··on Google rolls out “If This Then That” support for its $200 OnHub router
I feel like asking "what kind of updates" is too vague a question to reasonably answer.

Yes, updating any software adds some risk of something breaking. This is not unique to OnHub. This is still a pretty nice feature for most people.

westernmostcoy··on Jenkins 2.0 is here
Are these not distinct events? That was the "we're almost at 2.0" announcement, and this is an announcement that they've released 2.0.
westernmostcoy··on Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
Employees of other companies are not a cult, though this perception is common internally to Amazon. It discourages you from quitting, and stigmatizes people who leave.

Think about this next time you have a conversation where everyone quotes the leadership principles.

westernmostcoy··on Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
You are literally the only person I have ever heard say they make more money at Amazon than elsewhere, and this is counter to my experience working at Amazon.

You might be surprised if you were to actually have that conversation with a competitor.

westernmostcoy··on Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders
This is just how Jeff Bezos writes those letters, and those letters need to be written regardless of if the public is currently discussing of how poorly Amazon treats its employees or not.

The last part about "pioneering new programs" though, that's very likely related to the public's new awareness of how frustrating it is to work there.

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