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The accidental genius of Yo

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Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#81

Post by stevenhuang »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #78
stevenhuang wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a side channel. The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit.

> The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit. I'm not sure how you're calculating this, but it is obviously wrong. The information conveyed by the contents of a message is the log of the number of possible messages. Here, there is one possible message. The log of one is zero. There's a big difference between one bit of information and zero. You can interpret a "yo" message as conveying one bit of information, a…

Again, what you're talking about is the side channel. Shannon entropy in particular. Of course you can encode information up to the time granularity, but if you're talking about that then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit.

If you want to get into the topic of Shannon entropy, then that's another conversation.

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#82

Post by throwaway2048 »

anonytrary wrote: post #77
sixstringtheory wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“now!” would be just a timestamp. Any additional message content adds context, so your assertion is wrong.

That was his point, right? A yo-train is just an array of increasing timestamps tied to the sender and the recipient: { to: 12, from: 15, messages: [ 1604885969953, 1604885969964, 1604885969973, ... ] } The message is "factored out" and contains no information since it's the same every time.

>increasing timestamps

Bold assumption :)

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#83

Post by ryantgtg »

pmiller2 wrote: post #69
Swizec wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the saying that millenials are killing the doorbell industry by texting “here”

Tell that to my neighbors, whose guests love to sit out in the parking lot of my apartment building and honk to get their attention. :/

My neighbors used to do that, prompting me to make this comic: https://www.tinymixtapes.com/tmt-comics/buttloads-apps

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#84

Post by nobodyandproud »

jobigoud wrote: post #55

Why does it say "accidental" genius? Did the creator not create the app on purpose to be a "ping" for humans?

Showmanship and lure.

In the same spirit as the titles like “unreasonably effective”, and a few others gems.

It turns me off from the content immediately, but ‘m likely the exception.

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#85

Post by aeternum »

stevenhuang wrote: post #74
thaumasiotes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're arguing past each other. The amount of information transmitted is 1 bit. I don't understand the argument here. In order to get up to one bit of information, you need to take account of the fact that "yo" is only sent at particular times. If you ignore that fact, sending "yo" provides exactly zero bits of information, because it is the only possible message. All of the information content comes from the exist…

It's called a side channel. The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit.

If you claim that time is a side channel then the information _sent_ is really 0 bits. You cannot change the message.

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#86

Post by sixstringtheory »

anonytrary wrote: post #77
sixstringtheory wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“now!” would be just a timestamp. Any additional message content adds context, so your assertion is wrong.

That was his point, right? A yo-train is just an array of increasing timestamps tied to the sender and the recipient: { to: 12, from: 15, messages: [ 1604885969953, 1604885969964, 1604885969973, ... ] } The message is "factored out" and contains no information since it's the same every time.

You’re talking about the implementation but ignoring that Yo is an extension of people’s communication in a dynamic environment. For instance, I bet more Yos were sent during the election.

Most Yo users are not performing code reviews when sending and receiving Yos.

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#87

Post by maguay »

tlarkworthy wrote: post #37

The article repeatedly makes the mistaken assertion that sending a 'Yo' constitutes 1 bit of information transmitted. This is mistaken as the information also holds temporal information, which is actually what is very useful. It's not a Yo at some random point, it's a Yo now. It's really encoding "now!". Still not very much information but a ton more than 1 bit, its a timestamps worth in fact... /pedant

Author here—this is the best part of HN.

I perhaps took the idea too far. Any iOS push notification can be up to 4kb, and Yo’s API shows that each Yo includes a created time, sender name, avatar, User ID, message status, and more. That’s for traditional Yo’s; newer ones can include a location or link or RSS feed item for a news update, which goes far beyond the core concept.

So on a technical level absolutely, a Yo is far more than bit. Conceptually though a single ping—a single bit—could contain the same information, like a single dot telegram, with you or your local device recording the time received. If you only Yo’d with one other person, the time and the sender and the message they intended to convey would all be data points you would assemble in your head with the ping to get the full information.

Anyhow. That’s perhaps taking the idea too far :)

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#88

Post by thaumasiotes »

stevenhuang wrote: post #81
thaumasiotes wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit. I'm not sure how you're calculating this, but it is obviously wrong. The information conveyed by the contents of a message is the log of the number of possible messages. Here, there is one possible message. The log of one is zero. There's a big difference between one bit of information and zero. You can interpret a "yo" message as conveying one bit of information, a…

Again, what you're talking about is the side channel. Shannon entropy in particular. Of course you can encode information up to the time granularity, but if you're talking about that then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit. If you want to get into the topic of Shannon entropy, then that's another conversat…

> then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit.

You're the one who's confused. Show me how you get more than zero bits out of the content in transmission.

If you actually try to work this out, you will notice immediately that it can't be done.

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#89

Post by stevenhuang »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #88
stevenhuang wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what you're talking about is the side channel. Shannon entropy in particular. Of course you can encode information up to the time granularity, but if you're talking about that then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit. If you want to get into the topic of Shannon entropy, then that's another conversat…

> then you're not talking about the content in transmission anymore--which we are--hence why you and others are confused why we're saying it's still 1 bit. You're the one who's confused. Show me how you get more than zero bits out of the content in transmission. If you actually try to work this out, you will notice immediately that it can't be done.

You're indeed right.

Log base 2 of 1 is 0.

I thought you were continuing OPs line of thought and arguing the message contained even more bits of information.

Re: The accidental genius of Yo

#90

Post by stevenhuang »

aeternum wrote: post #85
stevenhuang wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a side channel. The amount of information _sent_ really is 1 bit.

If you claim that time is a side channel then the information _sent_ is really 0 bits. You cannot change the message.

0 bits is right!

My main point was about the side channel so I just took their word on that.

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