Wild oats by the side of the road.
Category: Twitter
The Inevitable Same-ification of the Internet
The Creepiness–Convenience Tradeoff
“As people consider whether to use the new “creepy” technologies, they do a type of cost-benefit analysis weighing the loss of privacy against the benefits they will receive in return.” – @NNgroup
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/creepiness/
This touches on something I’ve been thinking about lately: fear without hope doesn’t motivate people to constructive action so much as lead them to inaction. You need hope to let fear do its job as a motivator, or it just locks you down.
This touches on something I’ve been thinking about lately: fear without hope doesn’t motivate people to constructive action so much as lead them to inaction. You need hope to let fear do its job as a motivator, or it just locks you down.
https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-crucial-things-to-remember-about-our-wretched-hellscape/
I saw a billboard lamenting that Los Angeles has the worst air in the US, but spends the most on clean air. Yeah…because it used to be a LOT worse. Compared to LA smog in the 80s – or worse, the 50s & 60s, today’s air is amazingly clean. (At least on days without wildfires.)
I saw a billboard lamenting that Los Angeles has the worst air in the US, but spends the most on clean air.
Yeah…because it used to be a LOT worse. Compared to LA smog in the 80s – or worse, the 50s & 60s, today’s air is amazingly clean.
(At least on days without wildfires.)
Stonewalled at the South Coast Botanic Garden.
The Adventures of the Flickr Panda
#Flickr is partly back after a day of planned downtime to move out of Yahoo’s datacenter.
For the downtime, they encouraged people to print out the #panda from the maintenance page and take photos of it off having adventures.
I went a bit overboard and put together 12 pictures of the panda exploring plants, hiding behind a crosswalk button, slipping near a caution sign, etc. I plan on posting this shot once uploads are working. The rest are on my blog at hyperborea.org/journal/2019/05/flickr-panda
There’s nothing wrong with walking away from entertainment that you no longer find entertaining.
There’s nothing wrong with walking away from entertainment that you no longer find entertaining.
AI for image recognition often picks up on features in the noise…
AI for image recognition often picks up on features in the noise of the training data, making it vulnerable to attacks – like a sticker that prevents self-driving cars from recognizing a stop sign. What if we tell the AI which features to look at?
An interesting read on Game of Thrones’ final season and a more fundamental shift in …
An interesting read on Game of Thrones’ final season and a more fundamental shift in storytelling from the sociological to the psychological: instead of examining how people respond to the world they’re stuck in, it’s falling back on hero/villain tropes.
Spite may be good as fuel, but it’s not very helpful for navigation and terrible at steering.
Spite may be good as fuel, but it’s not very helpful for navigation and terrible at steering.
Nightmare scenario: A fatal allergic reaction to an ingredient in such an off-the-wall place that you wouldn’t have even thought to look for it there. In this case, milk protein in toothpaste. #foodallergy
Nightmare scenario: A fatal allergic reaction to an ingredient in such an off-the-wall place that you wouldn’t have even thought to look for it there. In this case, milk protein in toothpaste.
Remember when the GOP used to complain about “activist judges” instead of blatantly trying to stack the courts with them? Oh, right, it’s only only “legislating from the bench” if you disagree with the ruling.
Remember when the GOP used to complain about “activist judges” instead of blatantly trying to stack the courts with them?
Oh, right, it’s only only “legislating from the bench” if you disagree with the ruling.
Link: IEEE Survey Finds That Female Technologists Face Unequal Treatment and Sexist Workplaces.
This ought to be a basic guideline: If you want to legislate something, make sure you understand it first.
This ought to be a basic guideline: If you want to legislate something, make sure you understand it first..
Your regular reminder: if anyone tells you the current administration’s stance on immigrants is only about “illegal” immigration, they’re lying or misinformed. Visa Rejections for Tech Workers Spike Under Trump
Your regular reminder: if anyone tells you the current administration’s stance on immigrants is only about “illegal” immigration, they’re lying or misinformed.
“Customs officers do not like it when you try to bring a duffel bag full of 40 vacuum-sealed, frozen piranhas into Los Angeles.”
“Customs officers do not like it when you try to bring a duffel bag full of 40 vacuum-sealed, frozen piranhas into Los Angeles.”
https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-virgilio-martinez-central-piranhas-lax-peru-20190508-story.html
“Why people are socializing more about crime even as it becomes rarer.” Because the more coverage you see, the more common you think it is. (Look up ‘availability heuristic’) The rise of fear-based social media: Nextdoor, Citizen, and Amazon’s Neighbors
“Why people are socializing more about crime even as it becomes rarer.”
Because the more coverage you see, the more common you think it is. (Look up ‘availability heuristic’)
The rise of fear-based social media: Nextdoor, Citizen, and Amazon’s Neighbors
Link: A former corn-syrup lobbyist is drafting new federal dietary rules (seriously)
Link: A former corn-syrup lobbyist is drafting new federal dietary rules (seriously)
Biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome
Researchers have found a biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome, which can be used for a diagnostic blood test – and potentially to pre-screen drugs for treatment research.