I Hate the News (2006) • Hacker News Board

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#41

Post by tom-lord » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

slau wrote: post #34

austenallred wrote: post #8

I, strangely enough, agree with Most of what Aaron says. And I'm the founder of a news company. I worry about this attitude on a macro scale, but it's hard to argue with on a micro one. I spend most of my day following what's going on in the world, and it hasn't added much value to my life. But I worry about everyone not caring. Not because that would kill my company (I started it because I hate news in its current f…

It's apparently not possible to use a space in the password. Please don't limit the characters or length of a password. Thanks.

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...

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#42

Post by VLM » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

There is the obvious corporate analogy with news where most data and reports are distracting noise. If it can't have an impact or won't have an impact, stop spending the time and money to report the data as if it means something. This tends to be more a disease of large dilbertian corporations. (Insert Office Space TPS report analogy here)

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#43

Post by dublinben » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:42 PM UTC

bcraven wrote: post #28

Max_Mustermann wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you post some examples? Specifically ones that center on world news and not only the US / Europe.

The Week [1] is an excellent subscription magazine that comes every Friday to my door. It's UK-centric, but has international news as one of its many sub-sections. [1] http://www.theweek.co.uk/

There's actually a US edition as well, found at theweek.com.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#44

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#45

Post by brador » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #19

Ciantic wrote: post #6

I wish news sites had a periodical system built-in. One could choose the period, e.g. 7 days to the past, and see all important news from that time-frame. It would of course require a human to tag the news as important within a period. Subscriber only feature would suffice.

This is more difficult than it sounds. The curation part, anyway. "Important" is a pretty subjective, and flexible, term. Something that might seem innocuous now could well have far-reaching ramifications twenty years from now.

Agreed. I tried a 7 day most popular section on http://skimfeed.com and I just couldn't get the algorithm personal enough to be useful. 24 hours seems to be the sweet spot for users.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#46

Post by VLM » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

Toenex wrote: post #36

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…

Because otherwise you leave the decision to those that do. Vote. Spoil your ballot paper if you must (these get counted, at least in the UK) but take part in the process. Otherwise you are indistinguishable from those that couldn't be bothered or didn't care.

If we know they don't care what we think, then why would it matter if they knew we didn't care?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?

If 40% of the population votes, they don't worry about the 40% who are use voting as the opiate of the masses... the problem they see is the 60% who didn't fall for the scam.

The arguments in the following essay are compelling. I haven't heard much of an argument against them, historically, other than pure sophistry (that domain sucks, etc) or tradition (you should vote because your ancestors voted)

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff224.html

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#47

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

In my opinion, the best way to consume the news is weekly or even monthly. Give the journalists time to digest and process the news, figure out what's important, and time to write well thought out articles and summary.

I like the Economist for that -- there's a 2 page "world news" digest section in every issue. Some weeks that's all I read. But when I have more time there are also in depth, well written, well edited and unabashedly opinionated articles in the rest of the issue. (I really hate the fake neutrality in most journalism)

What would be really nice would be something similar for national and local news.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#48

Post by austenallred » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:48 PM UTC

slau wrote: post #34

austenallred wrote: post #8

I, strangely enough, agree with Most of what Aaron says. And I'm the founder of a news company. I worry about this attitude on a macro scale, but it's hard to argue with on a micro one. I spend most of my day following what's going on in the world, and it hasn't added much value to my life. But I worry about everyone not caring. Not because that would kill my company (I started it because I hate news in its current f…

It's apparently not possible to use a space in the password. Please don't limit the characters or length of a password. Thanks.

Interesting. We'll get that fixed.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#49

Post by lmm » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:50 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #47

In my opinion, the best way to consume the news is weekly or even monthly. Give the journalists time to digest and process the news, figure out what's important, and time to write well thought out articles and summary. I like the Economist for that -- there's a 2 page "world news" digest section in every issue. Some weeks that's all I read. But when I have more time there are also in depth, well written, well edited…

I read Prospect here in the UK for that.

Re: I Hate the News (2006)

#50

Post by federico3 » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

Toenex wrote: post #36

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…

Because otherwise you leave the decision to those that do. Vote. Spoil your ballot paper if you must (these get counted, at least in the UK) but take part in the process. Otherwise you are indistinguishable from those that couldn't be bothered or didn't care.

You are conflating voting with spoiling the paper (or voting NOTA). Interestingly, many countries took measures to prevent people from doing this (e.g. using voting machines).