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unexpected

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I think this is a great idea! Sadly, I don't think the goal of the admissions staff is to let in a diverse class. It slowly has become a race-to-the-bottom of "which applicant will enable me to tell the coolest story at the cocktail reception" (note this announcement's focus on highlighting individual members of the incoming class).

I would like to offer a more nuanced spin - there's a large quantity of great, original content out there, but the era of the sitcom is over. We're in peak prestige tv - every new show requires you to have watched the whole season and requires a big time commitment and emotional investment (game of thrones being the quintessential example of this).

...yet the last few years have been quite hard! All of us are navigating a COVID environment where working remotely, educating kids, and entertaining ourselves have all blended together. There's a bifurcation of eyeballs - I simply don't have the time or emotional bandwidth to watch "prestige tv", but it's very easy for me to put on friends, or the office, or seinfeld, and carry on with my day!

Why do you automatically assume that kids are miserable in the suburbs? My kids rather like running around in our backyard, use our pool everyday in the summer, and having tons of friends on the block.

At the same time, I can't imagine that they would enjoy living in 2 bedroom apartment, having no yard to play in, etc.

This disdain for suburbs is quite tacky and out of touch. It's okay to think differently. I'm glad you enjoy living in the city! Luckily, this country is big and there's enough space for all of us!

I have a scansnap and it's pretty much changed my life. The OCR is pretty good, and easy enough to do that my wife or kids can do it. Anything scanned automatically gets OCR'ed and placed in a family dropbox folder.

Everything is OCR'ed so I can search for it if I need something, and since everything is one folder, the next time I'm on a plane or at an airport or whatever, I just turn on a movie and spend time categorizing the files in the folder.

I feel like programmers have become "soft". I bet the old guard is okay with something like this - a lot of C, C++, assembly skills - this is what it meant to mess around with computers!

Now, you can just be modifying CSS and call yourself a programmer. You get one of these devices, and you're sorely disappointed!

sorry, but in Texas, big box retailers do not use armed staff. Target, Wal Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Best Buy - I have never, ever seen a worker with a gun.

As a life-long Texan, this sounds ridiculous to me. A Wal Mart employee is more intimidating, simply because they're Texan?

This is not the 1850's.

If we want to compare market caps, Peloton has a 35 billion market cap to zwift's 1 billion. Also, to counter your anecdata, I live in Texas and no zero people that use zwift, but many that use a peloton.

question - do you use this on video zoom calls? I can see the benefits on a non-video zoom call. But having a microphone on your face during a video zoom meeting makes me feel like a radio DJ trying to have a call.

Peloton is a great solution to 90% of the market. 90% of the market just wants simple exercise classes with energetic instructors.

An actual indoor peloton simulation, with drafting is definitely superior on Zwift. 90% of people don't want this - the target market is very small and doesn't make sense. This is fine! Leaves room for smaller players.

Does something like Starlink prevent direct conflict, though?

Imagine a world where anyone can get unfettered internet access. Instead of the great Firewall of China, citizens can just access a starlink satellite. How does that help with spreading democractic ideals? How does protesting and information dissemination look different? What if citizens in Iran, Middle East, Myanmar, etc. could all do the same thing?

I hope Starlink is thinking about these Big questions.

I think it's actually quite simple - unlike instagram, it's showing you videos. Videos can range from 1 to 60 seconds. Videos you like, you'll watch longer (and maybe some bonus for watching to the end). Videos you don't like, you end up skipping really quickly (and since skipping becomes second nature, perhaps you can measure the length and speed of the swipe).

Therefore, just sprinkle across various videos at first (perhaps most popular videos on the site). Show more of the videos that are watched longer, show less of videos that are watched for a shorter duration. Sprinkle in other analytics you collect (iphone user? says something about wealth and status - what videos do they like? android user? skews younger, poorer, what videos do they like? location data: show protest videos of big cities around you), and you end up with the "beautiful" soup that is Tik Tok.

it will be interesting, for sure. In your example though, I personally feel like this is a case of "ignorance is bliss" - I have many ways of finding interesting content - I treat Tik Tok as a guilty pleasure, much like my relationship with ice cream. In a world overwhelmed with choice, and just sort of mental exhaustion from politics, world events, current affairs, and overall negativity, I'm very happy to just sit and consume ice cream for 15-20 minutes a day!

Tik Tok is INSANELY good at figuring out what you want to watch. At first it shows you a random selection of videos, but it pays very good attention to what you're lingering at, and starts showing you more and more of those types of videos.

My wife and I downloaded Tik Tok at the same time, were shown the same videos in the beginning. Now, I basically see only Call of Duty: Warzone clips along with a few prank videos. My wife (far more political than I) sees a lot of videos of the protests, BLM activists, and other stuff.

Tik Tok does not try to force you to watch videos that you're not going to watch. It's crazy good (and scary).

our "revolution" would just involve voting in Bernie Sanders at the ballot box. In Saudi, it would literally be an Arab Spring type event. It's no coincidence that the Arab Spring corresponded with low energy prices.

Another interesting tidbit: when Saudi allowed women to drive, oil was in another mini-"bust" cycle. A half-measure to stave off larger social change.

Sure, but at least on reddit, if you don't like a moderation style, you can set up a competing sub-reddit r/fitness to r/advancedfitness, or r/weightlifting to r/powerbuilding to r/bodybuidling to r/naturalbodybuilding - the opportunities are endless.

No such alternative exists on NextDoor. Don't like the content or moderators? Your only choice is stop participating. I have no idea why NextDoor thinks that is good for their business model. Over time the site will just be populated with Karens.

NextDoor is the way it is because they don't do any content moderation at NextDoor HQ - they depend on local "Leads" to do the work. Unfortunately, this model doesn't work. The same person that wants run your HOA and drive you crazy is the same person that becomes a Lead.

Once one Lead gets in, only they themselves can promote another person to Lead. In my neighborhood, we had one thoughtful Lead, and one insane Lead. The thoughtful lead carefully deliberated about adding more Leads, while the insane Lead picked her cronies - and then eventually "overthrew" the thoughtful Lead.

NextDoor has terrible content moderation and no penalties for infringing users. It's absolutely vile, amplifying the most minority of opinions with no consequences.