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The Shit Show

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Re: The Shit Show

#191

Post by graycat »

sph wrote: post #176
graycat wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, my point is the propensity of undefined terminology in writing about computing and in particular at Hacker News. It's a very valid point. You don't attack the point but ME. Not good.

This is a computing forum, ain't nobody got the time to explain what API means. You should not go on medical forums asking in any post what SVT tachycardia means either. It's just rude, and trollish, since you have been here for 10 years and you're wasting everybody's time with fake questions.

I didn't ask was "API" meant. Instead, I asked what was the specific API they were referring to. There are thousands of APIs and the authors assumed what API they had in mind was clear. Clear enough???

For your

> It's just rude, and trollish, since you have been here for 10 years and you're wasting everybody's time with fake questions.

Wrong. All wrong. 100% wrong. I did no such thing. What I did is 100% fully appropriate, reasonable, justified, and constructive.

Just read again, setting your hostility aside, what I actually WROTE.

E.g., I wrote

"API"

to question the meaning of the quote I gave

"the API".

Okay, as is fully clear from what else I wrote, I was asking WHAT !@#$%^&() API? Not your misreading -- I was NOT asking what an API is but what API the author had in mind. You blew it. You get an F for simple reading comprehension.

More generally, sorry to break the news, but computing and Hacker News have a strong desire to be as obscure as possible. It appears that most of what competence* the audience has is simple explanations of obscure jargon about trivial concepts and then omit the explanations and leave the jargon.

My view is that poor technical writing, including undefined obscure jargon is by far the worst bottleneck to progress in computing and, thus, in the economy and civilization.

In a few words, JUNK THE OBSCURE JARGON. Clear enough? This is a controversial suggestion?

Usually when I see obscure jargon, I don't bother to guess or look up what it means and, instead, conclude that the content is from such a bad writer that I should not attempt to read the content.

Writers, take note: A large fraction of the content on computing and at Hacker News I just won't attempt to read.

I know quite well what advanced material is in computing and math.

I'll put it to you this way: I know enough about academic computer science research to understand that a large fraction of accomplished, expert, famous, tenured, chaired professors of computer science at some of the best research research universities don't waste their time, effort, or energy on undefined, generally trivial content presented as obscure jargon either.

Undefined terminology -- bad stuff. Don't do that. Understand now?

I know; I know; these ideas are a bit too subtle for the diligent Hacker News audience well informed on obscure aspects of Twitter. Uh, I have next to nothing to do with Twitter. Apparently some of the Hacker News audience expects to become better informed about computing by paying attention to trivia about Twitter -- not good.

Re: The Shit Show

#192

Post by Wowfunhappy »

tptacek wrote: post #114
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Mastodon's UX? It's basically Twitter from ten years ago. The whole federated thing is a bit confusing but you can just use the default mastodon.social instance and not think about it.

You cannot in fact just use mastodon.social, because they haven't been accepting signups since the great Enmuskening.

Awww, I know they were accepting new accounts a few weeks ago because I made an account! But it looks like they closed again. That's a shame!

If anyone reading this just wants a simple Twitter replacement, I recommend masto.ai, another large and general-purpose instance which is accepting signups. But, yes, this is very much The Problem.

Re: The Shit Show

#193

Post by riffic »

pbronez wrote: post #164
riffic wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fediverse has already happened. It's about to celebrate its 15th year in a handful of months. https://fediverse.party/en/post/fediverse-14-years-in-2022/

Hmm counting from Identi.ca? Fair enough. What’s the term you prefer for this stage of its growth then? The jump to 7 figures of MAU in the wake of Twitter’s collapse seems like an important change to me. The idea might be 15 years old, but the dominant implementation (Mastodon) started ~2016, the modern protocol (ActivityPub) arrived in 2018, and the last four years seem to have been mostly a small community working…

I suppose my larger point is we're not in any particular hurry to grow: it'll get there when it gets there.

Re: The Shit Show

#194

Post by Wowfunhappy »

tptacek wrote: post #140
latchkey wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I got to that point of signup and playing with Mastodon and stopped. What, am I supposed to go hunting for some random server that'll allow me to join? Nah. I'll take my chances with getting kicked off or banned from Twitter, thanks. If I'm sent away from Twitter, I'll just stop consuming that content entirely. Probably a waste of time anyway.

This notion of affiliating with specific servers with specific cultures is I think one of the first things that's going to go out the window as Mastodon/ActivityPub succeeds. It's not that hard to provision single-user instances, and the fabled moderation overhead issues are, as I understand from talking to operators, mostly a thing that follows from having lots of people in an instance following lots of other instan…

I greatly appreciate federation being available even if I never have to use it. If a future social network comes along with some kind of new innovation,and it supports ActivityPub, I'll be able to use the new network while still communicating with my old contacts.

Re: The Shit Show

#196

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

warinukraine wrote: post #99
Ensorceled wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're defending the antics of a childish billionaire and blaming the damage on the people he hurt. That's on you.

I'm defending the right to own property, which is something really fundamental to the way we organize our society. ... and when you say "the people that were hurt"... If you leave your wallet on the street, it might be stolen and you might be hurt. I'm not blaming the victim; someone stealing your wallet is wrong even though you left it on the street. It's not your fault, I'm not blaming you, I blame the thief for th…

You seem to be suffering from Reductive Personality Disorder.

Just because Musk has the power to do things like this doesn't absolve him from the absolute shittiness of his behaviour. He doesn't get a free ride because he's the owner, quite the opposite. People who wield power should act responsibly with it. Musk hasn't heard of the concept because he's so self absorbed and insecure he has no room for any sort of basic human empathy.

Obnoxious people

Re: The Shit Show

#197

Post by system2 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #181
blueelephanttea wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a metaphor about dealing with loss. How knowing something is coming allows people to cope more effectively. If your interpretation of that metaphor is that he is saying Elon's move is worse than or similar to his mother dying I find that much more distasteful than anything he said.

I understood the metaphor, but I still think it's distasteful to evoke your recently dead mother in a hateful post full of slurs and titled "The Shit Show". But apparently that's just me.

Absolutely that's not just you. This post is childish and absolutely distasteful.

Re: The Shit Show

#198

Post by chelical »

ArmandGrillet wrote: post #71

Well-written and touching post. To switch off this API used by so many long-time users on the same day "For You" appears as the default option on Twitter triggers me. The "For You" timeline is only for Elon: it will drive engagement, extremism, and all the things social networks have been accused of driving for years now in order to make more $. Some folks here have been comparing the crypto/Web3 and ActivityPub craz…

Dealbreaker for Mastodon (that I've seen multiple people mention) is that instance admins can view personal DMs. Yes, employees from major social media companies can view your private messages, but it's more likely there's an audit trail in those cases while Mastodon instances have minimal oversight.

Re: The Shit Show

#199

Post by system2 »

lapcat wrote: post #171
iLoveOncall wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah my bad, if it's an app instead of a website, I understand how it is appropriate to use the passing of your mom as a metaphor in a blog post named "The Shit Show".

This feels like concern trolling. Did your mom just die a few weeks ago? The author experienced two personally traumatic events in a short period of time. Maybe your sense of "tastefulness" isn't relevant here.

One is business, the other one is family life. His business decisions were not right and he is learning it the hard way. Why would anyone involve their mother's death in an Elon Musk post?

Re: The Shit Show

#200

Post by ivalm »

leokennis wrote: post #91
warinukraine wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I imagine you believe the money you keep with the company known as your bank is yours as well right? Just because it’s a company doesn’t mean they get to behave like assholes and then put the blame on their users for being gullible or ignorant.

How does this example supposed to work? When you deposit money you get an asset (an IOU from the bank), while the bank gets money + liability (they are short the IOU).

Your property after the deposit is the IOU, not the money (you gave the money away in exchange for the IOU!).

There is contract + law that governs how the IOU can be redeemed for money (up to a limit the federal government guarantees some kinds of IOUs via FDIC/etc).

Once the bank has your money (for which they gave you the IOU), they in fact can use the money at their own discretion (it is their money!) subject to some legal limitations. Those limitations are not about how banks use other people’s money (because normal banks aren’t custodial), they are limitations based on risk and collaterization of IOUs (the bank’s liabilities).

These limitations are not expression of your property rights, they are in fact limitations on bank’s property rights (their freedom to deploy capital) since historically banks were not very responsible and blew up (in which case they failed to cover their liabilities, so IOUs were redeemed for less than their face value).

Edit: as an aside, this

money => money + IOU + IOU short

Is exactly how most of “money” in circulation is produced. People take the IOU and spend it like money, banks take the money and lend it collaterized by houses/factories/etc. So you get people spending more than total cash in circulation (because they spend IOUs), while banks accumulate large IOU short position (again, collaterized through stuff like houses, factories, etc).

Nothing bad about this, this is in fact working as intended.

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