grandalf

10 ms·

31.
by grandalf 9y ago
Why the vitriol. The comment was meant to allegorically offer a conceptual approach to fighting the dystopian onslaught of oppressive technology. By oppressive technology I am referring to the kind of tech that obviously oppressive governme
32.
by grandalf 9y ago
This is true, but unless one feels that he/she should not need to pay taxes, it's reasonable for the IRS to demand records from a firm operating in the US that would allow for very quick and efficient tax enforcement. They alread
33.
by grandalf 9y ago
No, my comment is not meant to entail that at all. My intention was to give an example of two different stories which in typical journalistic environments would be reported on because they reinforce a particular narrative about what should
34.
by grandalf 9y ago
Hah, those were simply examples about American news because America has some of the lowest quality journalism in the world.
35.
by grandalf 9y ago
This is a very insightful comment. I think one relevant factor is the demand for factual information vs entertainment content. I struggle with what the appropriate mindset should be for someone undertaking journalism. Is a pre-existing bel
36.
by grandalf 9y ago
HN mods: Principled obfuscation and relevance reduction as a service.
37.
by grandalf 9y ago
As a tax reform idea this is extremely promising. I hope that one or more silicon valley billionaires run for national office on this kind of platform. Sam is smart to point out that one of the main friction points is how this kind of thing
38.
by grandalf 9y ago
Going to try this! Thanks for the tip.
39.
by grandalf 9y ago
Not sure how sophisticated the permutations are, but it seems that logos are a great way to test out various deep learning methods of image/symbol generation. As impressive as the AI music that sounds like Chopin is, I would love to se
40.
by grandalf 9y ago
Aside from the pleasing newspeak nomenclature, I have yet to hear any arguments that convince me that the FCC should be regulating QoS. Antitrust action, on the other hand, would be a totally appropriate way to crack down on ISPs that abuse
41.
by grandalf 9y ago
Great point. I've found that most codebases have some abstractions that work very well and others that work less well, and simply having awareness of this can help make the code far more readable. For instance, one might say: "Th
42.
by grandalf 9y ago
I'm curious what features you found/find most helpful.
43.
by grandalf 9y ago
When you start with the premise that a price is too high (or too low) the resulting reasoning is bound to be sloppy and fraught with bias. This article is no exception. It is embarrassing to read this article, because it is full of small,
44.
by grandalf 9y ago
I've been warned that HN mods do not like it when I comment to a lot of different replies all at once, so I'm going to attempt to respond to your various comments in one place. I think your general approach is reasonable and thoug
45.
by grandalf 9y ago
> when it became known that it was Russian intelligence who procured those emails So the server in question was apparently un-patched for months. Chances are dozens of third world intelligence agencies had the emails. Is it really plausi
46.
by grandalf 9y ago
Sad but probably true. We are the product, so of course Google wants to sell to the powerful interests who are up in arms about Russia.
47.
by grandalf 9y ago
My take on it is that once a few non-techie people realized that Donald Trump's provocative statements were actually a strategy for controlling the news cycle via social media outrage, the focus turned to social media companies in the
48.
by grandalf 9y ago
So you are critiquing the mechanism of getting social media likes for content? Don't all newspapers do that these days? I think the way to criticize the articles is by pointing out untrue content or bad journalism. So far nobody has
49.
by grandalf 9y ago
So basically what you are saying is no conclusive evidence, or no evidence that can be considered conclusive since any state actor could forge it. Further, any state actor (such as Russia) could easily avoid leaving such a trail if it wante
50.
by grandalf 9y ago
Propaganda bots and troll armies? None have been linked to the Russian government. Surely someone wishing to spend time making bots and hiring trolls would promote certain articles, but if the American papers did an acceptable job writing
51.
by grandalf 9y ago
This has to do with Russia's official PR aimed at its own people. RT can't contradict that any more than NPR can call for the imprisonment of high level officials due to Gitmo.
52.
by grandalf 9y ago
I meant RT articles.
53.
by grandalf 9y ago
What do you mean by "a campaign to manipulate its visibility"? Do you mean the link being launched on social media?
54.
by grandalf 9y ago
What information was misleading or false? There were lots of emails leaked. The FBI investigation was concerned with the legality of using the private server, but none of the potential campaign finance or ethics violations revealed by the
55.
by grandalf 9y ago
The men I listed are examples of powerful Americans who are abusers of power. Franken is among them. The US media pretends that senators, presidents, etc., deserve some sort of bizarre deference. They do not, and we'd all be better of
56.
by grandalf 9y ago
No, it just covers issues that are unflattering to powerful US officials and to the US in general. The regular US press has somehow been conditioned to write lots of stories that are critical of other governments, other countries' inf
57.
by grandalf 9y ago
please cite five articles that illustrate your point.
58.
by grandalf 9y ago
Aside from the accusations made by US intelligence agencies there has not been any data presented that links the Russian government with the stuff you mention. Surely there has been lots of mischief on both sides, but it's absurd to t
59.
by grandalf 9y ago
> What is interesting is the other media (traditional TV and print news) and now the tech companies have also dropped the pretense. It is a relief that it's happened during the era when we can be sure that it was due to human judgme
60.
by grandalf 9y ago
> By abandoning algorithmic rankings, and directly targeting "enemy" news sources, Google is moving away from its engineering roots, and is starting to become a weapon for the US government's foreign policy objectives. Thi

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