zowesiouff's recent activity

  1. Comment on 69-year-old Dutch man seeks to change his legal age to forty-nine in ~life

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    They don't if everyone updates how age is computed adding some kind of "life time offset".

    They don't if everyone updates how age is computed adding some kind of "life time offset".

  2. Comment on 69-year-old Dutch man seeks to change his legal age to forty-nine in ~life

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    This raises an interesting question though: Should Scott Kelly be able to change its age? I think the difference with his twin is around 5ms ( on top of the 6mins at birth between the 2 ). If...

    This raises an interesting question though: Should Scott Kelly be able to change its age? I think the difference with his twin is around 5ms ( on top of the 6mins at birth between the 2 ). If space travel becomes a commodity, should we be able to somehow register those trips?

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Shenzhen Tech Girl Naomi Wu: My experience with Sarah Jeong, Jason Koebler, and Vice Magazine in ~tech

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    As fucked up as it is, it's because it's an agreement and not a contract ... our western "social norm" is that we shouldn't trust that kind of written BS, that's where the clash is. Except it's...

    I don't buy it. It seems plain from the evidence Ms. Wu provided that VICE agreed that certain sensitive topics would be off-limits, and they reneged on this agreement.

    As fucked up as it is, it's because it's an agreement and not a contract ... our western "social norm" is that we shouldn't trust that kind of written BS, that's where the clash is.

    Seems fair to me.

    Except it's not in the society you live in ;)

    Naomi Wu fucked up by trusting VICE. It's obvious she knows that, but her pride didn't permit her to take their treatment without some kind of response, no matter how ineffectual. I don't blame her, because in her position I would have done the same.

    Just to be clear: I don't "blame" her, I'm just indifferent to it all. She played her cards and lost, that's it. It's becoming a fuss because she has a strong following in the English world, not necessarily because it's revolution material imho.

  4. Comment on Shenzhen Tech Girl Naomi Wu: My experience with Sarah Jeong, Jason Koebler, and Vice Magazine in ~tech

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    Because this entire mess is due to a bi-directional clash between two societies and their own social norms? She blames VICE for putting her at risk in her own country, and her response is to put...

    Why must one tolerate compromise when dealing with the rules of a foreign and apparently inimical society?

    Because this entire mess is due to a bi-directional clash between two societies and their own social norms? She blames VICE for putting her at risk in her own country, and her response is to put at risk he-who-wronged-her?

    Sure, she addresses the point of not finding a cleaner way to fight, but that's never a good reason to fight back dirty. There is also a more rational argument ( though I'll concede, it is quite weak ;) ): her relations with VICE are widely asymmetrical, what did she expect would happen by displaying his address publicly? That they would accept it and do nothing, even though they are clearly in a position of power over her?

    in which one doesn't even live?

    One could argue she "lives" in it with her YouTube channel and her english-following, sure she is Chinese, she lives there, and doesn't fly to the US, but she relies/relied on that ecosystem / society for a living.

  5. Comment on Shenzhen Tech Girl Naomi Wu: My experience with Sarah Jeong, Jason Koebler, and Vice Magazine in ~tech

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    Because all societies are a pile of compromises?

    Why should any individual conform to laws, customs, or social norms that do not protect them, but instead make their lives harder?

    Because all societies are a pile of compromises?

    1 vote

  6. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~books

    zowesiouff
    Link
    I've started reading Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality which has completely hooked me in, even though it's sitting at a whooping 661K words and I've 0 chance of...

    I've started reading Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality which has completely hooked me in, even though it's sitting at a whooping 661K words and I've 0 chance of finishing it in a reasonable timeframe.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on Tech’s ‘dirty secret’: The app developers sifting through your Gmail in ~tech

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    By educating folks and not falling into either end of the privacy spectrum. It will always be a balancing act, and the only way to change those kind of equilibrium is by educating people. On one...

    I'm always torn on this issue. I'm tech literate so I know what's going on, but there are many people who aren't. But how do you legislate against this or ensure certain precautions are taken?

    By educating folks and not falling into either end of the privacy spectrum. It will always be a balancing act, and the only way to change those kind of equilibrium is by educating people. On one hand, you don't want Google, FB etc ... to become stronger walled gardens, it'll allow them to continue expanding their predatory tactics. On the other hand, you don't want Google, FB etc ... to simplify the data access process ( most giants are now rolling out manual reviews of apps using higher-tier perms for instance, and it's both a great thing and a terrible one )

    It's also why: "everyone should own its data" is pointless if it's not dwarfed by an even stronger movement for stronger privacy education: folks need to understand and care about what's being defended or else fighting for it is worth nothing.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on Thoughts on putting the comment box at the beginning of Tildes threads? in ~tildes

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    Well you can still define an "idea" as the result of a specific set of environmental conditions on the human mind ;)

    this point the concept of an idea itself becomes moot.

    Well you can still define an "idea" as the result of a specific set of environmental conditions on the human mind ;)

  9. Comment on Thoughts on putting the comment box at the beginning of Tildes threads? in ~tildes

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    true, but how would you define "independently"? Can an idea really be "yours"? Or is it the product of your environment / specific stimulis such that even without being exposed to the idea, you...

    true, but how would you define "independently"? Can an idea really be "yours"? Or is it the product of your environment / specific stimulis such that even without being exposed to the idea, you followed the original poster's footsteps?

  10. Comment on Thoughts on putting the comment box at the beginning of Tildes threads? in ~tildes

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    If "your idea" is already out there, is it really "your" idea?

    If "your idea" is already out there, is it really "your" idea?

    4 votes

  11. Comment on Thoughts on putting the comment box at the beginning of Tildes threads? in ~tildes

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    don't worry, it'll keep coming up even with a search feature, we need a way of notifying users of potential duplicate content more than we need free-form search imho.

    don't worry, it'll keep coming up even with a search feature, we need a way of notifying users of potential duplicate content more than we need free-form search imho.

    16 votes

  12. Comment on ~tildes versus lobste.rs in ~tildes

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    I'm seconding that: low volume and signal-to-noise ratio ( for me ) is considerably higher than HN's default RSS feed.

    I'm seconding that: low volume and signal-to-noise ratio ( for me ) is considerably higher than HN's default RSS feed.

  13. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - quality concerns in ~tildes.official

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    if filtering outside of subscribed/unsubscribed from a ~ happens, I'd be curious to see the % of users actually actively use it. It seems like a very power-user kind of thing to have. I'm not sure...

    if filtering outside of subscribed/unsubscribed from a ~ happens, I'd be curious to see the % of users actually actively use it. It seems like a very power-user kind of thing to have. I'm not sure I have a better idea to tackle this issue though.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on Any concerts? in ~music

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    missing Carpenter Brut, sorry for you :(

    missing Carpenter Brut, sorry for you :(

    1 vote

  15. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - our first ban in ~tildes.official

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    And you could even go full circle: "Are you sure you want to ban this user? Your tone in that ban reason is quite agressive." ;)

    And you could even go full circle: "Are you sure you want to ban this user? Your tone in that ban reason is quite agressive." ;)

    2 votes

  16. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    and let's not talk about Sunrise or Wunderlist ... even the "new" Microsoft with Nadella at the head is a destructor of acquisitions.

    and let's not talk about Sunrise or Wunderlist ... even the "new" Microsoft with Nadella at the head is a destructor of acquisitions.

  17. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - should we allow groups to have customized appearances? in ~tildes.official

    zowesiouff
    Link
    I can't remember where, but I think @Amarok talked about potentially having custom thread posting forms, so theme / layout customisation should be available too? but it should ideally have a few...

    I can't remember where, but I think @Amarok talked about potentially having custom thread posting forms, so theme / layout customisation should be available too? but it should ideally have a few properties:

    • respect the user's theme, which removes most color-scheme changes
    • not bloat the site with 3rd-party fonts, images ...
    • mobile friendly

    All in all, I'm not sure ~ and its community has the bandwidth to tackle this kind of high-quality customisation properly at this stage, so it's probably worth revisiting this later imho. If there is an effort for "customisation", I think ~ needs to go further than just CSS: forms, tweaked sorting mechanics ...

    8 votes

  18. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - is "activity" sort still holding up as the default? in ~tildes.official

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    The idea is to bump it if it's worth (re)visiting, so ideally it should be bumped: if there is lots of new ideas to read: if you haven't visited it yet, there is always lots to read so it'll stay...

    The idea is to bump it if it's worth (re)visiting, so ideally it should be bumped:

    • if there is lots of new ideas to read:
      • if you haven't visited it yet, there is always lots to read so it'll stay high for a long time while other folks are interacting in the thread
      • if you have visited it, it needs to be bumped based on some kind of metric of "worthiness" of new comments, I haven't modelled this but you want something that's enough to make it possible to go to the top, but not dependent on the absolute size of the thread ( otherwise it's similar to introducing some kind of "thread size" decay which is probably equivalent to a "time decay" which is what the activity sort tries to fix in the first place :D ) [0]
    • if the new content is deemed interesting enough by the community: a comment highly voted should be worth more than a comment that was "noise"-tagged
    • if there is no other new content, it's better to have a thread that has some new activity than any other "stale" thread, no matter the time the order they were posted in ( this should answer your question: it should be bumped proportionally, not in one gigantic step )

    [0] Pushing this idea even further: if there are lots of comments "clustered" together in the same thread, it probably means a new idea, debate or perspective is being discussed: there is probably more value in revisiting it than if it's the same number of new comments but all spread throughout the thread, each "responding" to the various sub-threads.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - is "activity" sort still holding up as the default? in ~tildes.official

    zowesiouff
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    I think activity sort is great, I just would love to test out something: instead of bumping the thread each time there is activity, could it be bumped relative to the amount of new activity? This...

    I think activity sort is great, I just would love to test out something: instead of bumping the thread each time there is activity, could it be bumped relative to the amount of new activity? This personnalises heavily the sort, which might give newer threads a higher chance against survey-like threads, but it's also most likely a cache-killer from a tech pov :D. In some threads where there are hundreds of comments, and one or two new comments, it's likely that it got bumped for a simple "conversation" reply, not because a new idea / branch was explored. It's much more interesting to revisit a thread when there is more interesting content to go through imho.

    ( I might actually userscript that, by "hiding" threads that got bumped but that wouldn't match some level of "new activity", but it wouldn't have the same impact on "newer threads" unless everyone was running the script .. the power of the "default" :D )

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - is "activity" sort still holding up as the default? in ~tildes.official

    zowesiouff
    Link Parent
    I agree, I don't think any sort can resolve the repost issue, because there will always be more content than what's shown by the sort, it's more a matter of ~ having more content than what's...

    I agree, I don't think any sort can resolve the repost issue, because there will always be more content than what's shown by the sort, it's more a matter of ~ having more content than what's possible to show in a few pages of screen real estate than the sorting in itself.

    Having some kind of basic search would be great, but what would be even better would be using that search automatically to notify users before they post about those already existing threads: not blocking the submission, just adding an extra step in the posting process: "Are you really sure you want to repost this?". This would be quite similar to the idea of having some kind of inflammatory-comment detection already discussed around here, but at the post/topic/thread level, not at the comment level, and with a different kind of source ( repost detection instead of inflammatory comment detection ).

    1 vote