HN user
Alright, so many downvotes and not a single reasonable critique.
It's expected in a "brigadable" topic - anything to do with climate change, veganism, china, gender, etc. My original comment was downvoted within a second of being posted. So it couldn't have been a human reading and downvoting.
That's because it's true from time to time. Journalists, diplomats, NGOs, academics, etc are the top spy vectors.
Do you really think russia is killing "journalists" because they are journalists or because they are spies or worse? Do you think the Saudi's killed kashoggi because he was just a "journalist" or because he was something else? Every major news/media organization in the world ( west, east, south , north ) are tied to the state. Whether you talk about the NYTimes or BBC or Xinhua or RT or Al Jazeera or [fill in the blank], they are all state organizations.
Of course this doesn't mean all journalists are spies. Most are just mindless grunts working for a paycheck like everyone else. But the journalists who are sent to iran, china, russia, etc are more likely than not tied to the state in one way or another.
"More than 340 tech workers at Amazon used the hashtag #AMZNSpeakOut in public statements that condemn the company for not taking sufficient action on the climate crisis."
340 whole workers?
Total number of amazon employees : 750,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)
So 749,660 employees did not protest? Shouldn't that be the real news?
As awful as the theft of wealth was, the bigger crime was the prevention of industrialization. India was directly stopped by britain from industrializing because britain didn't want a competitor and rather wanted to use india for resources to power its industrialization. China directly somewhat, but mostly indirectly was prevented from industrialization by western powers ( and eventually japan ) who destabilized china and seized its major ports, industries, resources, etc.
If india and china were able to free itself and industrialize when japan did, india and china would easily have the two largest economies in the world today. It's disheartening thinking about all the wealth, knowledge, goods, discoveries etc the world missed out because of shortsighted greed and brutality.
Bullshit
It wasn't bullshit. Generally, the merchants and voyagers who reached china were in awe. It was why europeans wanted to get to china in the first place and not the other way around. Even decades after the opium wars, europeans were still in awe even while burning and pillaging.
"... I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Summer_Palace
Now that the roles are reversed, it's the chinese that are in awe of us. It's why they send so many students, merchants, etc to the US. For a few hundreds years, it was europeans who were as eager to go to china as chinese are now eager to get to the West.
Chinese Propaganda with their "5000 years old culture".
Yeah, the continuous 5000 years is really a stretch. If they have 5000 years, then might as well say europe has 5000 years or more.
If you can really talk about a "continuous civilization" for 5000, 3500 or even 2000 years is doubtful.
Even 1000 is doubtful as the mongols conquered china for a while there.
I am skeptical about the "Chinese Century"
We are 2 decades in and nowhere close to a "Chinese Century". This century will most likely become a multipolar century.
So the argument today that psychiatry lacks any scientific basis and rigor for its practices is still very valid and legitimate.
It's been said that psychiatry is the new religion and psychiatrists the new priests for a reason. Any good actor with enough information can pretend he has a mental illness and fool psychiatrists. Not only that, you can have psychiatrists come up with different diagnoses for the same individual - even to the point of contradicting each other. And there is no scientific way to show one psychiatrist is correct or not.
Just like religion was the best we could do with level of knowledge we had in the past. Psychiatry is sadly the best we can do with the current level of knowledge. It's pretty much voodoo, but it's better than the voodoo that came before it. If neuroscience ( an actual science ) lives up to its potential, then we'll finally be able to toss psychology into the same waste bin we put astrology in and perhaps psychiatry can have a scientific foundation.
The real effect is that Turkey will get more and more behind the rest of the world because its citizens do not have access to information
Considering the censorship that goes on in Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, etc, I'm not so sure about your claim.
Regimes that block access to the truth
Lets not kid ourselves and pretend wikipedia is the "truth". Jimmy Wales has come out as being partisan and agenda-driven like much of tech. Wales/Wikipedia represents "truth" no more than Google or Facebook does. Not only that we know that there are unsavory actors ( including government, ngos and especially PR groups ) who are manipulating wikipedia articles.
Not just Apple. Microsoft had quite a rally itself over the past decade. So did tesla, netflix, facebook, AMD, Amazon, nvidia, etc. The tech sector did very well during the loose monetary period since the financial crisis.
It's insane looking at Apple and Microsoft. They are valued at about 1.39T and 1.25T respectively. The trillion mark by itself is amazing, but if you just look at the fraction alone, Apple's fraction is nearly 2X Disney and Microsoft's fraction is 2.5X Tesla. And microsoft pays you a dividend every quarter.
Rising tides lift all boats, but some more than others.
You have to pay to watch movies at the movie theater. The movies you rent from the library are free. And if your library is part of a network of libraries, then you probably could find any movie you want to watch.
Mix that with youtube, netflix, prime, etc, and you really have little incentive and time to go to the theater.
The problem is that on Twitter they’ve become more like activists rather than journalists/reporters.
They've always been activists. Twitter just makes it visible to the public while in the past, their biases were shielded behind the fake PR-driven reputation of an institution.
The first newspapers in america were created to lie and spread political ideology. And that has been the case ever since.
"As for what is not true you will always find abundance in the newspapers." – Thomas Jefferson
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." – Thomas Jefferson
I wish everyone was taught about the history of the news industry. Also, I wish every media company was forced to notify/warn their audience on who founded the company and why. Like how cigarette and tobacco companies have to put warning labels to notify their customers of the dangers of the product they are selling.
FTA:
"As evidenced in prior research, as little as 40 milligrams of acetaminophen can be acutely toxic to any reptile, not just snakes."
Really wish they went with 8 seconds instead of 6 for the videos. I mean 1 byte = 8 bits after all.
Actually, a byte could and did have a variety of bits as they were generally hardware dependent. Generally, a byte is the smallest number of bits that a hardware can process. The most popular bytes early on were 4 bits and especially 6-bit bytes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#6_bit
Octets ( 8 bit bytes ) became widely adopted after IBM went with octets in the 1960s and the industry basically followed and octets became so ubiquitous that byte and octet became synonyms. It's similar to how google became a synonym for internet search ( "you can just google it" ) or how coke became a synonym for soda in parts of the world.
So while it is widely accepted that a byte is 8 bits, but technically, it isn't true. Octets are 8 bits and most/all bytes in the world are octets. But it doesn't necessarily have to be so. Octets always have to be 8-bits, but a byte doesn't.
It's weird that we don't know what teeth were like before fluoride was invented.
We have teeth from fossils that are a few thousand years old all the way to over a million years old.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129562...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/oldest-human-f...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/01/oldest-human...
You say that as though people aren't susceptible to influence form malicious actors spouting propaganda.
If that's the case, we'd have to shut down every news and media organization.
Every news paper, book publisher, TV channel or other media outlet, ever, has exerted editorial discretion over the content they choose to make available.
That's the point. Is amazon a platform or a publisher. I think we've allowed major tech companies to be ambiguous for far too long. As a society, we should force the major tech companies to decide once and for all. If they want to be publishers fine, then they should be responsible for all the content. If they want to be a platform, then they shouldn't be allowed to censor and only take down illegal content.
These tech companies shouldn't be allowed to eat the cake and have it too.
Can you give me an example of "media and establishment are repeatedly caught misleading the public"?
Look up every war we've been involved in. The media/establishment lied. Try Nayirah testimony if you want to get started. If you want more recent, look up the anti-venezuelan NYTimes piece by Joanna Hausmann, a minor youtuber. Why was she given a platform on the NYTimes? Oh because her father is an ousted former venezuelan central banker behind the coup attempts in venezuela. Did NYTimes mention this? Of course not. But then again, what more do we expect from the NYTimes which supported the first coup of Chavez. Why is an "objective" newspaper behind a coup attempt in a foreign country? Because the NYTimes was founded by bankers to support bankers interests.
Go look up the lies the media peddled on the syria war and the chemical attacks. Notice how they went quiet about that?
Look up the libya war. Look at the lies peddled about venezuela.
My impression is the whole "media is lying" is a narrative furthered by Fox
That's because you watch too much CNN/MSNBC or read too much NYTimes/WashingtonPost. You have that impression because you've been brainwashed ( just like the poor fox news viewers you pity ). You aren't any better than what you disdain.
The "media is lying" is as old as the country.
"As for what is not true you will always find abundance in the newspapers." – Thomas Jefferson
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." – Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was a free speech proponent who hated the lying press.
We even have a famed period in history named for the lying press and journalists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
These predate fox news by more than a hundred years. You can generally trust the media to tell the truth about innocuous or unimportant events. The media, especially the highly regarded ones, lie about important events.
So if you are getting important news from dyspotian 1984 sounding "authoritative sources", know that you are being lied to.
These past 4 months, people have been resigning faster than we can refill their spots.
I'd be asking for a significant raise. Looks like you walked into a short term supply and demand issue in your favor, not to mention a bunch of freed up cash for the company. Strike while the iron is hot.
Also this bloke was a "Kapoor". So he probably had very little political clout/connections and was simply targeted for convenience and used as a sacrificial lamb to placate the masses. The Sackler's are cash multibillionaires ( not stock billionaires ) and they have strong politicals connections in the NY area, etc.
This case reminds me in some way of the Abacus trial. The only financial institution to be tried for the financial crisis was a small local bank founded by a "Sung".
https://www.marketplace.org/2017/05/22/abacus-only-bank-char...
You could watch a documentary about the case.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/abacus/
The Kapoor case, like the Sung case, is really a show trial.
While there may be a few bad actors
The question is are these bad actors acting in support of Yang or to undermine Yang? If you were against Yang, imagine how easy it would be to set up bots to "support Yang" and then have fellow operatives/journalists who are against Yang write about Yang "bots". It's just as easy for Yang's detractors to set up bots as it is for his supporters.
There seems to be a concerted effort by certain operatives/journalists/etc to undermine certain political candidates by tainting them with "russian asset" or "bot" labels.
Without a doubt, there have been bot activity starting with obama/ron paul/etc in 2008 and everyone since in political life. If the author ( who also submitted her own article here ) wanted to find bots, there are far better candidates to focus on. Why the focus on Yang?
As with bots, journalists, media and everything, we have to understand the context and agenda.
Since the author also has an account here, I would love to know what her political leanings are and who she is supporting. Has she work for any political candidate before?
There are videos of real pyroclastic flow as well. The unzen eruption being a particularly famous one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvjwt9nnwXY
It's even terrifying watching the toxic cloud spread on youtube. I wonder how terrifying it must have been to see it live.
"A brand new day and
A brand new HN post on
Procrastination"
I'm starting to see a pattern here.
If you like 1984 and doublethink, then you'll enjoy this. Department of War was rebranded as Department of Defense three months after 1984 was published. Life imitating art? And ever since, the Department of Defense has engaged in offensive wars all over the world nonstop. Though I suppose the best defense is a good offense...
Math and physics are solidly on the STEM side when people argue the merits of STEM vs liberal arts.
That's my point. I disagree with the assertion that STEM is separate from liberal arts education. Historically it hasn't been true. And it's not true today.
So instead of arguing semantics, understand what people mean.
Not arguing semantics. I understand what people mean and I am disagreeing with them and I provided sources and historical proof.
When they say "Don't study STEM, study liberal arts"
Who says don't study STEM, study liberal arts?
but instead "Don't study anything which requires more math than Algebra 1".
You've built up an exaggeration of the side you are arguing against. That's not an honest portrayal of the issue at hand.
You can study both science/engineering/etc and history/philosphy/politics/etc. It's called getting a well rounded liberal arts education. The backbone of science, technology, engineering and math along with philosophy, history, politics, etc. My suggestion was increase the amount of "STEM" within the liberal arts education system we already have - particularly the technology and engineering. It's not an either-or issue that people like to portray it as.
Isn't this like the 3rd or 4th post about procrastination on the frontpage the past few days? People seem to love to procrastinate by reading about procrastination.
Haiku time.
"Procrastinate by
Reading articles about
Procrastination"
11 years ago was 2009.
Now that's depressing.
It's an artifact of the culture of western aristocrats.
There are elements of truth in what you said. But liberal education is also the bedrock of western education and knowledge which includes STEM fields. Every stem field was created and advanced by those who came from "liberal arts education".
Also, liberal arts education has always included math and science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education
Liberal arts education created the western world order. It's why the west is on top. It would be counterproductive to discard it. Perhaps we should just increase the share of STEM within the overall liberal arts education system?
I believe that New York attracts these people, from all over the country.
Not just from the country and not just to NY. From all over the world to wherever there is wealth. There was a famous case of the "Fake Rockefeller" where a german guy duped many into thinking he was a rockefeller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Gerhartsreiter
And if you enjoy lying narcissists, you'll love the documentary "The Imposter". I don't want to spoil it so I won't go into details here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imposter_(2012_film)
It's unbelievable the bald-faced lies that people can come up with. It's also unbelievable the lies people are willing to believe.
It must be nice to live in such a hypocritically privileged bubble of mozilla and their ilk. Most young people are just looking to find a job that will pay them enough to pay their student loans, rent, bills and hopefully save some money for downpayment for a home.
Does Mozilla consider "ethical issues" before they take money from tech companies and investors? I doubt it considering they sell themselves to google for money. Are they saying all young people should quit mozilla?
I try to support mozilla and use firefox because I want a diverse browser market. If mozilla worked on making their browser as good as chrome rather than spending time with nonsense like this, maybe we wouldn't have had this happen in the last decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...
I wish we had a centralized archive for all of these predictions gone wrong.
Germany was export-oriented before the Euro, during the transition and with the Euro. Germany was export-oriented before reunification, during reunification and after reunification.
Germany was export-oriented even before WW2. It's funny whenever you read about "How germany or japan became industrial powers after ww2". With many crediting the US or whatever aligns with their agenda. The truth is that both germany and japan were industrial powers before ww2 and they just reverted back to what they were after ww2.
For example Germany is not a centralized economy (like the UK or France, which are grouped around London and Paris).
Germany is most definitely a centralized economy. Just because it doesn't have the dominant city center like London and Paris doesn't mean it isn't centralized. The reason why germany is a manufacturing power is because german federal government and the state decided to make germany export-oriented manufacturing power. While in the UK, they decided to become finance oriented and service oriented and shifted their manufacturing overseas. Which is smarter in the long run, only time will tell.
Your comparison feels like talking about soldiers with PTSD and then saying "all humans have jobs and deadlines and they depend on these for their livelihood! All humans have stress, how are soldiers different?"
Wouldn't the animals in nature be more like soldiers with PTSD and livestock be more like humans?
I have no desire to look for images of how disgusting the living conditions and lives of these animals are in an attempt to prove this, but you are welcome to.
Are they any better than the animals in nature being eaten while alive?
There is no doubt in my mind it is far worse than their state in the wild.
Then you don't know what it is like in the wild. Ever wonder why you don't live out in the wild but rather live in human factory farms instead?
The vast majority of livestock don't live like the few cherrypicked photos/videos pushed by "activists/propagandists". Just like the vast majority of animals in the wild don't live wonderful lives.
The fact that you can even do stuff like this in Rust is amazing.
Stuff like this? You mean closures? That's what you find amazing? What is considered ordinary in other programming languages is considered amazing in Rust. Amazing.
It’s simultaneously: relatively clean code, very efficient and type-safe. I like it.
You like it? Do you work for mozilla? If there is a tech evangelist of the year award, I will vote for you. I've never seen someone take absolutely nothing and try to spin it into something positive.
Edit: Instadownvotes by the evangelists. I like it!