jamestc

The title isn't negative, though. Just radical.

Interesting, but not very useful to somebody who's an avid deleter of old e-mails. Kind of paints an odd picture.

Also, anyone else get a stuck logout&delete button after getting the data? Ended up having to revoke access via Gmail Accounts.

Oh, I absolutely guarantee it. Your FB search history, other people's FB search history (of your real name and of your fake name), which pages you view in correlation with what e-mail contacts you might have, the schools the people you talk to went to, etc.

Luckily there's no online record of relationship history or it'd be an open and close case.

Is it unlikely that 3rd party would buy data from Facebook or some entity that obtained the inaccurate data from Facebook?

Probably. Using a fake/altered name is incredibly common on Facebook, especially among younger people. I think any 3rd party assigned with that task would realize that and avoid it.

You aren't alone. People are organizing protests and preparing letterheads, as they should be, but it all feels just as ineffective as the last time. The ugly truth, as many people know, is that these complaints/protests are built-in to the infrastructure, they're expected and they disrupt absolutely nothing.

We need a new conduit for effecting change.

Threads like these might as well be generated by an algorithm.

NSA news Why is everybody so surprised!? comment

Like clockwork. Let me ask you, though. Do you really think that people only "suddenly" care (with the implication of ignorance or a contradiction on their part) or is it possible that there are nuanced differences between all of the things you casually reference as common knowledge and the current NSA news? I mean, there is speculation and there is confirmation. There are hunches and there are reputable sources. There is pointing somebody to the Room 641A Wikipedia page and there is telling somebody, "hey, look, this guy who was a part of the NSA is not only confirming this, but has sacrificed his career to give us even more information about it."

The public unconscious may have assumed that this was going on, clusters of people may have known, but you're underestimating how people compartmentalize this kind of knowledge. So when we have an event that brings a lot of this knowledge together and to the forefront and gives us something we can point to and talk about (even if it's only a story or a face at this point), I don't think we should pass up the opportunity to develop a louder voice about all of this rather than being cynical AGAIN just because we can't resist putting down public outcry.

Mathematics education is a bit odd now for sure. I think if there was an effort to teach kids the logical and even creative side of math early on, they'd have an easier time building intuition for certain computational aspects later on. As it stands, most people are unaware that math is no longer predicated in reality, which seems nonsensical. You generally teach grammar before (or along with) composition.

He doesn't suggest that human nature is more than physics, he is saying that consciousness isn't computable. If neural subsystems are a hierarchically arranged and internally generated chaotic dynamic activity, there is the problem of long-term predictions and causal inference.

>It may seem paradoxical that a deterministic phenomenon is inherently unpredictable, but in systems that exhibit chaotic behavior, small uncertainties are amplified over time by the nonlinear interaction of a few elements. The upshot is that behavior that is predictable in the short run becomes intrinsically unpredictable in the long term. As a result, physiologists cannot make strict causal inferences from the level of individual neurons to that of neural mass actions, nor from the level of receptor activity to internal dynamics. The causal connection between past and future is cut.

http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/freemanwww/manuscripts/IC13/90.ht...

I've never seen much ad hominem or meanness in the comments here. In fact, I think this place is awfully civil. People here have no problem calling one another out on something that is incorrect or dubious, and I like that. I'd rather a spade is called a spade than a bunch of people skirting around the issue in the name of politeness.

>He says that data can be gathered showing how many people see a particular painting or share it online, and thus reach conclusions on how successful an artist is.

Wouldn't this just lead to art becoming a new form of spam when people try to game this system? Not to mention that not all art is painting or can be easily shared.

While I agree with the general point of your post, I think that before resorting to the stock "old man yells at cloud" joke it's worth acknowledging that as a society we've been throwing ourselves at more and more technology fairly mindlessly, letting it take up vast amounts of our time, letting our children use it and develop their minds around it, and restructuring our lives/thinking around it.

So I think we ought to welcome channels of criticism/contemplation rather than just continuing the cycle mindlessly. I get that he hasn't used the product, but at the same time I get where he's coming from. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we necessarily should. It's a worthwhile thought whether or not you agree with his particular criticisms.

Nothing about how anybody other than yourself perceives your work?

That's weird. I didn't think humans were susceptible to "natural courting poses". Is there any scientific literature on this that isn't based purely on speculation?

I thought you might be basing it on the fact that he couldn't even finish his blog post.

Less memory. Less research. It only has one job to do, etc. No extra bullshit.

I know I'm being ridiculous. I'm just bummed that I can't read some of these really awesome books with the same leisure that I can a Kindle book or a physical book. First world problems, etc. I have to get over being phenomenologically appalled at the idea of reading a book in the same space I read message boards. There's a weird mental block there.

I feel like a god damned idiot, but what the fuck is a guy to do if he wants to read PDF files on an e-reader? They look like dogshit on Kindles. Thing is, I have a ton of them. Most of them somewhat obscure/can't be found in other formats.

I might be talking nonsense here, but I swear there is a niche market for some kind of affordable (<$100) tablet specifically designed for PDFs.

This is exactly what gets me through my chemistry classes.

It's pretty ridiculous, but I think it puts the person back into the comfortable mindset of control. Rather than learning a big, scary thing that is beyond you, you are merely manipulating the world with your powers to accomplish tasks. For whatever reason, that paradigm is more intuitive for certain people.

I submit that like most socially active voices, her method of appealing to emotion will win no converts and will probably receive the praise of people who agreed with her before she made the post.

I sympathize with her in regards to harassment, but I don't think there's anything wrong with a headless female (or male) body made out of "creeper cards" (a poorly thought out endeavor since, after all, not one of us is righteous enough to hand out the cards in the first place).

My advice: nobody likes "we need to talk" conversation. Or, at least nobody on the opposition does. The art of persuasion is still an art, no matter how obviously correct you think your side of the argument is. Collect more facts, provide more details that relate to harassment, edit better, don't preach. The data and the details will be enough.

Luckily the thing that all websites are missing when they ask you to fill in a name field is the ability to verify whether or not it is actually your name.

I think your willingness to accept this as the truth is more telling of your own disposition than any of ours. Of course we have the choice.

I don't participate in Facebook, but I've yet to see any indication that I've "opted out of society offline". I have plenty of friends and regularly get invited to events (via, you know, my phone). If anything, I think opting out of social networking has only increased my value since my day-to-day activities haven't saturated the market.

And the people I go out to dinner with don't take photographs of their food or talk about what they "liked" on Facebook. Do you work for Facebook or something? Your life sounds like a commercial for it.

I do enjoy a good run, but I feel like walking gets a bad rap. Running will help you feel great, walking will help you think straight. That's what I say, anyway.

Will Self did an Authors@Google session where he talks about what I found to be a in incredibly liberating and enlightening idea. He recommends breaking the matrix of your daily to-and-from work/school/whatever commute by literally walking all over the parts of town you'd normally drive right past on your way to work. Under the bridges, over hills, through the parks, etc. You end up developing a much broader visual reference of the places you mindlessly go through on a daily basis, but more importantly, I think, you develop a deeper sense of place.

Anybody with an hour to kill should check out the talk he gives, as he can do it justice better than I can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVEgOiB7Bo8

Soundcloud > Myspace. Bandcamp > Myspace.

Myspace could have salvaged themselves as a music community, but they somehow screwed it up. I'm guessing nepotism is involved in some way, with some of the worst user interface decisions I've ever seen come from a company on its way out. Pop-up music players? Going directly to "Myspace radio" after streaming a song you selected? Horrible, backwards-thinking decisions.

Music profiles benefit from being simple and looking simple. People just want the names of the songs and a play button and they're happy. This is why the indie community has generally shifted over to Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

The best thing Myspace has done in the past five years is allow people to delete their old profiles without gaining access to the profile itself (via the declaration of ownership).

>I want to read what you have to say

That's interesting because after reading and participating in a number of blogs and message boards over the years, I am really tired of what people have to say. Only because so much of it, at least within the realm of opinion and debate, is so predictable.

A lot of it is rubbish. But I'm willing to accept that such predictability and rubbish is to be expected in argumentative contexts and that perhaps writing more could lead to improved rhetoric and less repetition. Being more widely read couldn't hurt, either.

I agree. It's a pretty shallow idea. Is it a terrible thing to be "fascinated" by something that is supposedly terrible? Fascination doesn't actually necessitate a polarized reaction. And, really, exclusionary tactics/gatekeeping with opinions? These seem like awfully short-sighted solutions to a deeper problem.

And, what's more, trolls aren't hard to mobilize if provoked. Start implementing this and I wouldn't doubt seeing a small movement devoted to going the extra mile to offend people with "humane" sensibilities.

It's interesting that this sort of thing is seen as a guy slagging records rather than a man just giving his (educated and experienced) opinion, like many others who are dedicated to their craft tend to do.

We can't be that bogged down with fake sincerity/showmanship that this is seen as novel or particularly harsh, can we? I don't know. There's nothing pompous about this. He sounds like me when I listen to a thing or read a thing or watch a thing, though I'll feel a little guilt about thinking those things at times since I haven't exactly reached Miles Davis status.