mileszim

I see where I wasn't clear in addressing your point--I am not trying to equate ad tracking with securities fraud or workplace ethics disasters, I am comparing their role in shaping our current behaviors and perspectives.

In general, we didn't foresee the consequences of derivative markets for mortgage backed securities until it was too late, even though some raised concerns. Now we're very well aware, enacting regulations to hopefully prevent it in the future, as well as provide clear channels for recovery and compensation for damages if it does.

In general, we didn't foresee the consequence of unregulated treatment for employees until it was too late, even though some raised concerns. Now we're very well aware, enacting regulations to hopefully prevent it in the future, as well as provide clear channels for recovery and compensation for damages if it does.

Comparing that to the tracking market today, we have effectively zero regulation and zero ability for recovery and compensation. We know the tracking market is so pervasive that meaningful living/working today requires submitting yourself to this. We also have articles like this one demonstrating clear concerns.

The only thing missing is an understanding of the consequences. We can't ever know the scope of the consequences until they've happened. We can however make predictions (both good and bad). It may be just fine, it may not.

Should we take steps now to mitigate the possible bad outcomes? Or should we gamble and let the consequences happen to us?

The same argument goes for most civic debate.

I don't know what a healthy social and regulatory relationship with the tech looks like. I don't believe anyone does yet. I do know that discussing it like we are now improves our understanding of its complexities, and that's always good.

Hope this makes sense.

Concerning the remark about congress--they're fully capable of addressing both. No reason for an either/or.

Removing regulations on financial institutions also improves economic efficiency. It also results in stuff like say, the 2008 housing collapse, or the failure of entire countries (see: Greece).

Arguing against privacy protection by claiming its for the benefit of our economy is just rehashing the "free market vs regulated market" argument. Sure, economic efficiency improves. Our wellbeing? Not always.

Is ad tracking pervasiveness the same as locking factory workers inside a burning building? Probably not. But we learned well from that mistake almost a century ago. We'll learn from this one too.

I find it somewhat amusing this is even something we discuss--that there are "right" and "wrong" ad blockers is such a twisted re-framing of our right to personal privacy as default.

(I'm not indemnifying you at all, just find the concept itself fascinating).

For anyone still holding onto the belief they can break free of being tracked and sold and still remain functional in modern life, I offer you a challenge: For one month, do everything in your power to avoid being tracked. Take it as far as you can.

A year ago I attempted this by seeing what exactly I would need to do just to simply build my own cell phone, just to call, which did not allow any kind of tracking. Every layer you step through, from components to software to the telecom infrastructure itself has some finger in the pie. For the first time that stoner-ism "it's the SYSTEM, man" began to take a concrete form, like discovering some invisible forces just under the surface, governing our behavior. That's when I pulled the plug for my own sanity.

How it is we not only accepted this, but allow an entire market to exist buying and selling our personal lives (of which of course we ourselves do not profit directly from), still astounds me.

Keeping your life private is no longer the default mode. It's now more like going to the gym: it requires continuous drive and effort. Most don't have the time or the resources to even think about personal privacy, let alone take some kind of meaningful action.

Great read! Thanks for investigating this kind of thing, it's beyond useful.

This is great, I think I'm going to explain it using your method from now on.

Edit: I love that there's a segment of people in the QM community approaching these "very serious" thought experiments like Schrodinger's Cat (as the classic example), instead using absurdism to produce equivalent but blatantly ridiculous results. Like the Surrealist reactionary art movement but with the often insane results QM produces. Sometimes I think string theorists need a group kind of like this too.

Good point, I liked the work he's criticizing so I think I'm currently primed to take the post too seriously

The remark on the Aharonov post-selection is weird coming from Aaronson's usual hard adherence to known physics - postselection is relevant in the quantum world only. For Aaronson to twist it into an argument of cosmology seems markedly out of character.

Will second this, Red Mars (and the good parts of the second two in the trilogy) do a fantastic job of working through scenarios of both the sociopolitical and technical challenges we may face as the era of Mars exploration begins.

The general premise of the series is: If you were sent over to Mars with a group of others, who is there to stop you all from creating your own vision for the place instead, if armed with the tools to make it happen? If you have the capability to make your own world as you want it, would you obey the orders of those all the way on earth, or would you make the world in your own image? And what do you do if you choose to craft your mars in one way but others in the group disagree and have the same motivation and are armed with the same tools for their vision instead?

Each character in the series represents and carries out the different possibilities to these questions, and you see the consequences play out over hundreds of years.

The counter from Sax Russell in Red Mars to this exact debate, straight from the book:

"The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind. Without the human presence it is just a collection of atoms, no different than any other random speck of matter in the universe. It’s we who understand it, and we who give it meaning. […] The lack of life here, and the lack of any finding in fifty years of the SETI program, indicates that life is rare, and intelligent life even rarer. And yet the whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life. We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can. […] If there are lakes, or forests, or glaciers, how does that diminish Mars’s beauty? I don’t think it does. I think it only enhances it. It adds life, the most beautiful system of all." - Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars

Cool! Do you have any plans to track historical changes of geospacial areas? What reference frame are you using for labeling areas? (places America considers countries vs what China considers, for example)

Nice work! A few months ago I did the same and built a small tool to reverse-geocode the coordinates to see a) if all of its doable and b) how accurate it was (https://github.com/mileszim/yaktrak)

I'm impressed with how far you were able to go; for a such a simple app, Yik Yak has many questionable areas in its implementation

Check out http://www.grandpad.net/

Some awesome friends of mine at Chapman University have been building exactly that: a tablet for seniors.

Recipes based on the content of your pantry/fridge. The ideal solution would provide a db based on sensors/user input to know what ingredients and amount of those ingredients you have. Additionally, you can hook it into some calorie counter or diet tracking/fitness apps and it will make decisions based off of that.

Then you simply specify: "I want to make dinner, what can I cook?" The app links you to the recipe and any videos for making that recipe right to your device.

This is silly hit-piece journalism. Of course the internet has changed... I'm surprised he expected conformity to his ideology as it opened up to everyone and everyone else's ideologies. There is no "right" or "wrong" way the internet can exist, its an evolving communication paradigm.

Expecting everyone to go along with his philosophies of using the web without any enforcement of that is like a high-schooler's attitude towards communism. Social paradigms evolve and adapt as needed. The internet, and its users, are going to be just fine.

This is cool! I like the simplicity of the design, both the finished resume and the tool for creating it.

Any plans to support listing/describing past projects?

Meditation, undertaken through rigorous discipline, shows evidence for something. What that is, is still up for debate.

If you're referring instead to feedback techniques to curb anxiety responses, that is used in legitimate therapy.

Neither of those represent the content of this article. Furthermore, it suggests that anxiety can be simply reasoned away in 30 seconds. That is insulting to anyone who has ever had anxiety.

Wow! I had no idea that 2 ambiguously-phrased suggestions would completely stop the biological processes causing my overactive amygdala!

This is it everyone, the field of therapy is dead. Let's destroy all the benzodiazepines prescribed for anxiety, and simply give out a piece of paper with this article on it to everyone who ever seeks help for panic attacks!

Is it ok to witch-hunt a perfectly adequate CEO because you disagree with his personal life? Oh wait...

So the author takes a group of 19-20 year olds and tasks them with a project which: a) asks them to converse in forced manner with someone they do not know, and then b) explicitly record themselves doing so. I don't know very many people, of any age, that could pull off a natural conversation in these conditions.

Then, instead of recognizing the flawed experiment, he decides to blame the results on "newfangled technology" and the like.

This whole article just wreaks of a "kids these days" post with no substance.

Whoops, you're totally right! I misread the comment I responded to. Melanin is only useful when radiation is emitted. It can't coerce decay to happen more quickly.

Melanin has about a 30% absorption rate of ionizing radiation in the gamma spectrum, and remains stable (not oxidized in the traditional rate) while producing a current. The fungus is able to produce an acidic fuel source from the current that it feeds off of. The fungus is definitely breaking down radiation, incredibly, but it's mechanism is very poorly understood.

The problem is that the active molecule itself has a complex structure, and it is very hard to get a high-resolution image of even one of its structures (melanin can be folded in lots of ways). There's some potential for better imaging with fairly recent discoveries in partial-wavelength resolution microscopy using weak-measurement, but it's still a new technology. Melanin's mechanism for absorbing ionizing radiation, if understood, will definitely open up major applications for a perfected, synthesized solution.

This is a very cool fungus, I'm glad this was posted! The trickery of its survival comes from its use of melanin, specifically pheomelanin. Basically what happens is when ionizing radiation strikes pheomelanin, an incident electron is generated because of something known as the Compton effect (think photoelectric effect but at really high energy). Somehow, pheomelanin is able to strip down the energy of the electron until it is no longer capable of acting as a free radical and destroying surrounding matter. Unfortunately, that mechanism is still unknown, hopefully with the development of higher resolution microscopes we can get a more thorough understanding of the molecular structure.

I'm sorry to hear you had this struggle to identify with what you like, but you seem like you've worked it out to some degree. It sounds like you just didn't enjoy CS and got stuck in the field. That's fine, but it's not indicative of the field as a whole. If you hate something fundamentally, you find everything about it wrong in your mind.

With that being said, a lot of your remarks about bad parts of the industry are subjective at best, and just seem like an artifact of the situation you were in. I love CS, and do it as a hobby, and have not had anywhere near the same kind of experience you have had. I had a contemplative period like this as well, but figured out that we do the things we're interested in and enjoy whether we realize it or not. If you do something as a hobby, chances are you like doing that thing.

In any case, good luck on your quest to do something you enjoy better!

as they should be!