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I Hate the News (2006)

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Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#181

Post by Nimitz14 »

asgard1024 wrote: post #117

Here are two ideas for non-traditional news, that would reduce the information overload, and make news more interesting and healthy: - Actionable news. Only news to which you can (or have to), as a citizen, take some action. Examples: Changes in law, cultural events that will take place in the future, openings of new institutions, planned political demonstrations or petitions. - Old news. Only give news about somethi…

In my opinion The Economist does a pretty good job of waiting for more concrete information before publishing any story. They never do 'breaking-news'.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#182

Post by olalonde »

skrebbel wrote: post #130
asgard1024 wrote: post #117

Here are two ideas for non-traditional news, that would reduce the information overload, and make news more interesting and healthy: - Actionable news. Only news to which you can (or have to), as a citizen, take some action. Examples: Changes in law, cultural events that will take place in the future, openings of new institutions, planned political demonstrations or petitions. - Old news. Only give news about somethi…

Wow the "old news" idea blows me away. I really, really want that.

I use http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/top/?sort=top&t=month for that. Most news are ~20 days old. I check it about once or twice a month.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#184

Post by adescham »

Doesn't being more informed about the world and the stories happening around us lead to a richer more interesting life? For instance, I randomly met someone working in racial justice down south and, because I had recently heard about all the issues around how to commemorate lynchings, we had a really interesting conversation about his work and I gained a lot of insight into that story. Does no one else value the human component of news and opinions? I find it a fun part of being a human on this earth

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#185

Post by spacab »

emodendroket wrote: post #56

The link to Twitter at the end seems a bit ironic since Twitter offers all the things he's criticizing, except without the promise of any substance.

I agree with this. But at least with Twitter, you're the one actively filtering and curating your news feed, as opposed to exclusively reading The New York Times every morning and having the content curated for you.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#186

Post by jeffdavis »

People's appetite for news is so universal and intense that I have to wonder if it's serving some important purpose that the author is missing.

I, too, have moved away from most kinds of news. I only read tech news, and I could make an argument that tech news is more actionable. But even that, I spend less time on fewer sites. I used to look forward to a chance to catch up on HN, now I read it mostly during moments when I'm waiting for something else.

So, what am I (and the author) missing? Or what is society missing because we don't participate in the news cycle?

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#187

Post by tom-lord »

sarciszewski wrote: post #66
tom-lord wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company considers one of its systems "more secure" because they enforce a policy that all passwords must contain 8+ non-space characters. The implementation? "Must be 8+ characters; must not contain spaces." I've expressed my view on this (and similar password-related policies) many times, but apparently it's all simply a box ticking exercise for pen testers...

There are much better ways to enforce this validation. Shoot me an email if you'd like any assistance. Also, https://github.com/dropbox/zxcvbn is amazing.

That looks really cool - I haven't seen it before, thanks!

The "offending system" I mentioned, however, is our old PHP application that I don't really work on. (I mainly develop much more modern Rails stuff!)

Like I said, the primary concern of the company is simply to keep pen testers happy - and their criteria for a "secure" website is, in my opinion, often misleading or even downright wrong. But if I ever get the chance to genuinely improve the system, I'll definitely look into using this.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#188

Post by bkurtz13 »

chez17 wrote: post #38
bkurtz13 wrote: post #21

He uses voting as an example. Which begs the question: why vote? If you're living within a corrupt, self-serving political system (we are), then naturally the only people who run for office will be products of that system. If a candidate who genuinely wants to change the status quo somehow manages to slip in, they will be prevented from achieving anything meaningful once inside. No matter what, none of these people h…

Well the majority of people aren't voting and our system is clearly going to shit on a major level. The point is that it's your civic duty to vote, people fought and died for your right to vote, and it's the best non-violent way for you to impact your world. It boggles my mind when people advocate for others not to vote. You know that's what the power structure wants right? An apathetic population. How on earth can p…

In Brazil, voting is mandatory. Yet, somehow, massively corrupt individuals get elected time and time again. Take a look at the massive scandal the current president is involved in (who has been cleared of any wrongdoing, go figure). The previous president who was from the same party was paying the congress a monthly stipend to pass his mandates. Somehow, with everybody in the population voting left and right with all their muster, another corrupt leader from the same party was voted in.

It's almost as if the total number of people voting in Brazil has nothing to do with the quality of the individuals running for office within their system...

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#189

Post by jheriko »

bsdpython wrote: post #32
jheriko wrote: post #15

News does serve at least one basic function, even if many other things can do the same: It gives you something to talk about and ask opinions on.

This is true of sports as well. I can't talk to the average person (and family members) about asynchronous job queues but I can talk about how much the Knicks suck.

true. although they tack it on the end of the newspaper, or at the end of the news announcements as if its not very important, its still news. :)

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#190

Post by jklein11 »

austenallred wrote: post #112
sparkzilla wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that someone who is making a news site would say that most of the news is "bullshit and a worthless time suck". Are you really saying that just 0.1% of the news on your site has value? Perhaps you should take Swartz's advice and stop fighting to improve something that has so little value to you.

> I find it interesting that someone who is making a news site would say that most of the news is "bullshit and a worthless time suck." Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. 99.9% of news is garbage, .01% of news is valuable. I want to make it easy for people to get that .01%. > Perhaps you should take Swartz advice and stop fighting to improve something that has so little value to you. I think news is badly broken, a…

But what about the other .09%?
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