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You've resurrected a memory in me... KOSMO.com - Back in ~1999 there was a site called KOSMO.com, and, in San Francisco it was basically "doordash" and sough

You've resurrected a memory in me... KOSMO.com - Back in ~1999 there was a site called KOSMO.com, and, in San Francisco it was basically "doordash" and sought to employ a ton of urban bicycle delivery folks. I bought my first on-line delivery from KOSMO and it was delivered to me by bike messenger within an hour. That thing was the movie DVD "RAN" by Kirosawa.... so shorlty after this, I was on a flight back east and was talking with a guy sitting next to me, and we were talking about KOSMO, and I said to him "You know what would be great, would be a heat-map of restaraunts that are within my radi of travel modes (like whats within a five minute walk and is indian food" I described this whole model I wanted from these new ways to deliver, order, pay.... Turned out the guy sitting next to me was one of the founders of KOSMO.com..... -- They went under pretty quick and never developed tech for "whats near me now", so that sucks. and to this day, with maps.FAANG everything and online order/delivery service Unicorns, I still dont have the perfect "map of shit thats near me as a heat map, based on what I am looking for and my mode of either transport/delivery" Maps are really good, but they are still simply "maps" I'd like a 'sentiment' layer on top of maps. --- An example would be: Show me the neighborhood [indian/mexican/whatever] restaurant, but show me traffic to and from, based on the radius of its customer-base So basically you can see how many people are flocking to a place.

citizenpaul 4y ago
> basically you can see how many people are flocking to a place. This has been tried many times and is basically illegal now so you will never have it. It always gets litigated for racism and shuts down. The best you will ever get is busy/not busy. Its also the same reason google will never direct you away from a very unsafe area in an unfamiliar place. Its the same reason no real estate site provides a crime stat overview.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  Litigated for racism? I genuinely do not understand how this could be possible. These services aren’t showing the race of the people attending, are they?
  - citizenpaul 4y ago
    The reality is there is a great deal of overlap of races and socioeconomic status. High crime areas for instance tend to be not white. I've been involved in a business that was sued for discrimination simply because the target market was low income. Which happened to mean the majority of customers were not white even though we didn't track any customer demographics. They won the suit based simply on that fact. Literally zero proof of any bias occurring. They couldn't even come up with how the business were exploiting them and what the benefit was to the company. Simply that there were a disproportionate amount of customers that are not white is good enough. The DA(district attorney) kept asking for our racial data and would never accept that we didn't have any. I had to sign so many things saying that I was indeed providing all the data we had and that in fact we did not keep racial data on customers.
  - samstave 4y ago
    Socioeconomic geolocation bias of algos.
- jonnybgood 4y ago
  You have sources for this? And I’m not seeing the connection of how many are in restaurant to unsafe areas and real estate crime stat overviews.
  - citizenpaul 4y ago
    Eventually you will start locating places that have racial bias. For instance a heavily ethnic restaurant. That means its customers will be by default mostly a minority. You are now tracking and exploiting minorities/protected class. See my other comment on this comment thread for a personal anecdote.
  - samstave 4y ago
    You awoke a question: What sort of dark patterns are we (the public) _NOT_ seeing in algo behaviours, and further - how can Dark_Patterns be mapped. ELI5 is there anyone working in this problem space thats open to speak without NDA issues/state-actor repercussions.... Whats the nomenclature in this space to address the data? And where is the data?
- samstave 4y ago
  There's "Technically correct" and there is "You're still technically correct but your answer still sucks for the reasoning... and not because I disagree with you, it just sucks that some things suck because that's the way they be" Any guess as to which version youre in?
- samstave 4y ago
  >>This has been tried many times and is basically illegal now so Except for when its fucking CCTV surveillance bullshit. - This is the thing with me and surveillance. --- >>NOTE: *I've built shit that both surveilled AND KILLS PEOPLE. Not Happy about it.* -- I am tired of not having recourse AGAINST the surveillance planet. One way streets (of authoritarianism) Are unsustainable and the people I detest the most in the tech world are the bitches that build shit without qualms. For example PALANTIR. FUCK THAT COMPANY *AND* their primary investors. The idea of Palantir (The hint is in the name) is fine.. but the implementation of how evil an "engineer" can be without knowing it is pretty scary. My Grandfather helped build the fuel for Manhattan project. Brilliant Man. fucking horrendous output. (HANFORD) (nuke designer for GE) My other Grandfather was a weapons loader for the Enola Gay. Do you know how much familial guilt we carry?
spookthesunset 4y ago
Those Kozmo messenger bags sell for like $400 if you can manage to find one! It was awesome to order a single 20oz bottle of coke from them. Sadly they stared a minimum order soon after. It’s koZmo with a Z btw. Unless we are thinking of different dot.com busts…
- samstave 4y ago
  We are thinking of the Zame one. I just couldnt recall the spelling... Thank you for that - and gosh now I want one of those bags.

citizenpaul 4y ago

> basically you can see how many people are flocking to a place. This has been tried many times and is basically illegal now so you will never have it. It always gets litigated for racism and shuts down. The best you will ever get is busy/not busy. Its also the same reason google will never direct you away from a very unsafe area in an unfamiliar place. Its the same reason no real estate site provides a crime stat overview.

thepasswordis 4y ago
Litigated for racism? I genuinely do not understand how this could be possible. These services aren’t showing the race of the people attending, are they?
- citizenpaul 4y ago
  The reality is there is a great deal of overlap of races and socioeconomic status. High crime areas for instance tend to be not white. I've been involved in a business that was sued for discrimination simply because the target market was low income. Which happened to mean the majority of customers were not white even though we didn't track any customer demographics. They won the suit based simply on that fact. Literally zero proof of any bias occurring. They couldn't even come up with how the business were exploiting them and what the benefit was to the company. Simply that there were a disproportionate amount of customers that are not white is good enough. The DA(district attorney) kept asking for our racial data and would never accept that we didn't have any. I had to sign so many things saying that I was indeed providing all the data we had and that in fact we did not keep racial data on customers.
- samstave 4y ago
  Socioeconomic geolocation bias of algos.
jonnybgood 4y ago
You have sources for this? And I’m not seeing the connection of how many are in restaurant to unsafe areas and real estate crime stat overviews.
- citizenpaul 4y ago
  Eventually you will start locating places that have racial bias. For instance a heavily ethnic restaurant. That means its customers will be by default mostly a minority. You are now tracking and exploiting minorities/protected class. See my other comment on this comment thread for a personal anecdote.
- samstave 4y ago
  You awoke a question: What sort of dark patterns are we (the public) _NOT_ seeing in algo behaviours, and further - how can Dark_Patterns be mapped. ELI5 is there anyone working in this problem space thats open to speak without NDA issues/state-actor repercussions.... Whats the nomenclature in this space to address the data? And where is the data?
samstave 4y ago
There's "Technically correct" and there is "You're still technically correct but your answer still sucks for the reasoning... and not because I disagree with you, it just sucks that some things suck because that's the way they be" Any guess as to which version youre in?
samstave 4y ago
>>This has been tried many times and is basically illegal now so Except for when its fucking CCTV surveillance bullshit. - This is the thing with me and surveillance. --- >>NOTE: *I've built shit that both surveilled AND KILLS PEOPLE. Not Happy about it.* -- I am tired of not having recourse AGAINST the surveillance planet. One way streets (of authoritarianism) Are unsustainable and the people I detest the most in the tech world are the bitches that build shit without qualms. For example PALANTIR. FUCK THAT COMPANY *AND* their primary investors. The idea of Palantir (The hint is in the name) is fine.. but the implementation of how evil an "engineer" can be without knowing it is pretty scary. My Grandfather helped build the fuel for Manhattan project. Brilliant Man. fucking horrendous output. (HANFORD) (nuke designer for GE) My other Grandfather was a weapons loader for the Enola Gay. Do you know how much familial guilt we carry?

spookthesunset 4y ago

Those Kozmo messenger bags sell for like $400 if you can manage to find one! It was awesome to order a single 20oz bottle of coke from them. Sadly they stared a minimum order soon after. It’s koZmo with a Z btw. Unless we are thinking of different dot.com busts…

samstave 4y ago
We are thinking of the Zame one. I just couldnt recall the spelling... Thank you for that - and gosh now I want one of those bags.