If the slashvertisements stop then I suspect Slashdot will stop. Lookit, this story has been up for over 12 hours, references., Facebook, Social, Video, and New Tech, and has only 28 comments! This site is, I am afraid, becoming a Ghost Town. It's become a sandbox for the AC Trolls to play, and where Hugh Pickens can pad out his resume. I suspect that if Zuckerberg gives Slashdot his grocery list and a hundred bucks, they's print that too.
The AC is right, you know... This whole "bot" thing needs to be retired, along with "sheeple." Make a counter argument, or just say nothing. Better yet, say something clever or funny. "Bot" is no longer either of those.
People shop there for inexpensive stuff. Some of that stuff is made in China, so substitute "cheap" for "inexpensive," but the premise is the same. I shop there when "cheap/inexpensive" is what is driving the purchase. When "quality" is driving the purchase, I shop elsewhere. I have a choice, and I make it. Some people are poor, do not have a choice, and shop at Walmart all the time. Thank God for Walmart.
Let robots and automation take over whatever jobs they can, and free Man to do the jobs only he can do. Yeah, it will suck to be a Walmart stock clerk over the next ten years, just like it sucked to be a buggy whip manufacturer for the first ten years of the 20th century.
Focus less upon wringing your hands that robots and automation have finally arrived, albeit ten or so years later than expected. Focus your efforts on what we need to do to educate and re-educate people with the skills needed to adapt to the new workplaces. Or do you believe a man is entitled to a job that a robot can do better and less expensively.
I have read everything Gibson has written since Neuromancer, because I always find at least one amazing, put-the-book-down-shake-head-and-re-read clever idea that is wonderfully prescient in the way that Clarke made science fiction prescient in the Golden Age. (Like in Idoru, written years before anyone ever heard of Vocaloid, in which a Japanese singing idol is kidnapped, only for the detective to discover she is really software, a Virtual idol, and being "held captive" on an abandoned corporate website...) Great notions! But that's all it is. The man never learned how to write a plot, or (gods forbid!) any action. All well and good for the NY Times hardcover-buying crowd perhaps, but I don't predict much traction with the four-color mob...
One of the huge problems with society is that so few people take the opportunity to seek out points of view different from their own. The Right and Left both flock to their respective online echo chambers for the version of the news most palatable to them. Now Kurzweil -- and by extension, Google -- will be pushing people into even more compartmentalized "safe spaces." If I'm a bone-headed Nazi or a weepy SJW, then my Virtual Assistant will be a bone-headed Nazi or a weepy SJW, too, and speak to me in the soothing language of my specific sociopathology. Swell.
What an angry and miserable l'il Internet Tough Guy you are! Lighten up, Francis, you'll give yourself a heart attack. And learn how to debate a point without swearing every third word, it makes you less credible.
Unless your business is baking wedding cakes, selling sugary drinks, running a cigar lounge, or administering benefits for a national hobby and crafts chain. Then the Left is very much interested in minding your business for you.
For Facebook, in the case we have been discussing, it's simple: Stop using the word "trending." The Black Lives Matter stories were *not* trending, as it turns out, but the FB editors thought they should be, so included them. Words mean something. "Trending" means something. When you omit the biggest news stories of the weekend (that CPAC thing), and you prop up stories that few people online are discussing, and call it "trending," you are lying. As far as I'm concerned, if FB just prefaces its news as Twitter does its "Moments," i.e., with no implication that the stories are impartially driven by an algorithm measuring Internet "buzz," I'm fine with it. They can be as left- or right- leaning as they want to be, it's their servers and their business. Just don't put urine in a carton with an Orange Tree on the front, sell it in the juice aisle, and expect me not to get pissed when I discover its... piss.
I agree with everything you just wrote. The only point now is that you are being a little disingenuous when you write that if "it's a big enough problem, that creates an opportunity for a different social network to gain traction." The average Mom&Pop who lives their life on FB doesn't go there for the world news, they go there for pictures of cats and first Communions. An opposing or more balanced news outlet shouldn't have to build an entire social network to reach people in that space. Facebook should at least make it clear that the news stories are curated, and not imply that they are organically trending. If a cola contains cocaine or poison, the bottler is obligated to mention that on the label because the populace has a right to know what they are putting in our bodies. Our *minds* should be given the same consideration.
You're confused. The premise of this whole discussion is about "news curators" deleting perfectly valid "right wing" news stories, and artificially inflating stories about "left wing" topics such as Black Lives Matter, in order to control and spin a narrative in "trending news" feeds that were assumed to be neutral and algorithm-driven. You're the one bringing the notion of "hate speech" into the discussion -- unless you believe the curators regarded wire stories about Mitt Romney and CPAC to be hate speech. (Which, given that the curators are said to be 20-somethings hailing from northeastern Ivy League schools, I guess is not too far of a stretch...)
No, you get this straight, my Precious Little Snowflake: one cannot give offense, one can only take it. So un-bunch your panties and recognize that much of that "hate speech" your holding your hands over your ears to avoid hearing may just be another, considered, point of view.
>>You're just old and confused by people not wanting to give a podium to nakedly racist sexist assholes.
Ageism. Not quite as trendy as "racism" and "sexism," as it's inherently a disease of the fashionably young. But you're an ageist.
>>we don't need to give them a space to talk
Yeah, son, actually you kinda do. And that space is called "everywhere in the U.S." You're just young, and confusing the rights you think you *should* have with the rights outlined in the Constitution that you actually, legally, *do* have.
Indian Point is in my backyard. I live about ten minutes north of Buchanan. I have no problem with Indian Point.
What I and my neighbors DO have a problem with are the Ponytails and other chuckleheads who are bused up here regularly from NYC to protest and make noise and pretend to the media that they are "outraged locals." I've taken the time to speak to a few of them, and invariably they have no understanding regarding the plant's operation or nuclear energy v. fossil fuel issues in general outside of a few easily refuted talking points their handlers supply to them. It is all theater.
And if only the urban tech centers -- NYC, San Francisco, and Chicago -- were spared, it would be a month, maybe a month and a half before the civil unrest between the haves and the have-nots in these places boiled over into such violent anarchy people would be wishing they had been taken in the nuke strikes.
Amazon's "recommendations" are based upon purchases you have already made, so it will suggest more Chicano-Lesbian-Telepath books to you if it you have purchased some in the past -- and presumably steer you away from any of the Roger Ramjets. To suggest that an AI can and should properly select what is "best" or "classic" across the entire genre, regardless of someone's stated personal preferences, is a whole different matter.
Let the machines pick what's "classic" and tell us what to read in all literary genres. Hell, let the bots pick the "best" TV shows, films, and chili recipes too, while we are at it.
On a more serious and less paranoid note, SF does encompass way too many sub-genres for any one such list of "best" to have any meaning for a critical mass of readers. One need only look at the Chicano-Lesbian-Telepaths versus Space Admiral Roger Ramjet struggles among the all-too-human Hugo choosers to see that it will -- and should! -- take more than deep data mining to determine what is "best."
You're kidding, right? Amazon is waist-deep in competitors. If they are too expensive for you, or you don't like their services, there is any number of places you can shop (online or off) for what Amazon sells.
You guys who scream for the government nanny every little time retail doesn't go your way are starting to scare me...
>>When someone invests their labor and time in something, they deserve to have a say,
Actually, what they deserve to have, is a fair paycheck. If they opt out of a fair paycheck in lieu of a smaller paycheck and more say/control at first and possibly equity further down the line, that works as well. But they don't "deserve" anything other than a fair paycheck. That's how modern society compensates you for "labor and time." In olden times, the compensation would be slivers of silver, or perhaps some geese...
You may argue that if a company that establishes internal policies to solicit input from its workers will ultimately profit more than a company that does not, and I will agree with you. But unless that worker has negotiated anything more than a fair paycheck, a fair paycheck is all that she deserves.
Slashdot Mirror
If the slashvertisements stop then I suspect Slashdot will stop. Lookit, this story has been up for over 12 hours, references., Facebook, Social, Video, and New Tech, and has only 28 comments! This site is, I am afraid, becoming a Ghost Town. It's become a sandbox for the AC Trolls to play, and where Hugh Pickens can pad out his resume. I suspect that if Zuckerberg gives Slashdot his grocery list and a hundred bucks, they's print that too.
The AC is right, you know... This whole "bot" thing needs to be retired, along with "sheeple." Make a counter argument, or just say nothing. Better yet, say something clever or funny. "Bot" is no longer either of those.
Thank you for that.
People shop there for inexpensive stuff. Some of that stuff is made in China, so substitute "cheap" for "inexpensive," but the premise is the same. I shop there when "cheap/inexpensive" is what is driving the purchase. When "quality" is driving the purchase, I shop elsewhere. I have a choice, and I make it. Some people are poor, do not have a choice, and shop at Walmart all the time. Thank God for Walmart.
Let robots and automation take over whatever jobs they can, and free Man to do the jobs only he can do. Yeah, it will suck to be a Walmart stock clerk over the next ten years, just like it sucked to be a buggy whip manufacturer for the first ten years of the 20th century.
Focus less upon wringing your hands that robots and automation have finally arrived, albeit ten or so years later than expected. Focus your efforts on what we need to do to educate and re-educate people with the skills needed to adapt to the new workplaces. Or do you believe a man is entitled to a job that a robot can do better and less expensively.
>>"WallyWorld"
Grow up!
They even spelled Gibson's name correctly! (He must pay extra...)
I have read everything Gibson has written since Neuromancer, because I always find at least one amazing, put-the-book-down-shake-head-and-re-read clever idea that is wonderfully prescient in the way that Clarke made science fiction prescient in the Golden Age. (Like in Idoru, written years before anyone ever heard of Vocaloid, in which a Japanese singing idol is kidnapped, only for the detective to discover she is really software, a Virtual idol, and being "held captive" on an abandoned corporate website...) Great notions! But that's all it is. The man never learned how to write a plot, or (gods forbid!) any action. All well and good for the NY Times hardcover-buying crowd perhaps, but I don't predict much traction with the four-color mob...
One of the huge problems with society is that so few people take the opportunity to seek out points of view different from their own. The Right and Left both flock to their respective online echo chambers for the version of the news most palatable to them. Now Kurzweil -- and by extension, Google -- will be pushing people into even more compartmentalized "safe spaces." If I'm a bone-headed Nazi or a weepy SJW, then my Virtual Assistant will be a bone-headed Nazi or a weepy SJW, too, and speak to me in the soothing language of my specific sociopathology. Swell.
What an angry and miserable l'il Internet Tough Guy you are! Lighten up, Francis, you'll give yourself a heart attack. And learn how to debate a point without swearing every third word, it makes you less credible.
Unless your business is baking wedding cakes, selling sugary drinks, running a cigar lounge, or administering benefits for a national hobby and crafts chain. Then the Left is very much interested in minding your business for you.
The only ads I see are the ones made to appear as stories. And these are the most grating and tedious of any I see anywhere on the internet...
For Facebook, in the case we have been discussing, it's simple: Stop using the word "trending." The Black Lives Matter stories were *not* trending, as it turns out, but the FB editors thought they should be, so included them. Words mean something. "Trending" means something. When you omit the biggest news stories of the weekend (that CPAC thing), and you prop up stories that few people online are discussing, and call it "trending," you are lying. As far as I'm concerned, if FB just prefaces its news as Twitter does its "Moments," i.e., with no implication that the stories are impartially driven by an algorithm measuring Internet "buzz," I'm fine with it. They can be as left- or right- leaning as they want to be, it's their servers and their business. Just don't put urine in a carton with an Orange Tree on the front, sell it in the juice aisle, and expect me not to get pissed when I discover its... piss.
I agree with everything you just wrote. The only point now is that you are being a little disingenuous when you write that if "it's a big enough problem, that creates an opportunity for a different social network to gain traction." The average Mom&Pop who lives their life on FB doesn't go there for the world news, they go there for pictures of cats and first Communions. An opposing or more balanced news outlet shouldn't have to build an entire social network to reach people in that space. Facebook should at least make it clear that the news stories are curated, and not imply that they are organically trending. If a cola contains cocaine or poison, the bottler is obligated to mention that on the label because the populace has a right to know what they are putting in our bodies. Our *minds* should be given the same consideration.
You're confused. The premise of this whole discussion is about "news curators" deleting perfectly valid "right wing" news stories, and artificially inflating stories about "left wing" topics such as Black Lives Matter, in order to control and spin a narrative in "trending news" feeds that were assumed to be neutral and algorithm-driven. You're the one bringing the notion of "hate speech" into the discussion -- unless you believe the curators regarded wire stories about Mitt Romney and CPAC to be hate speech. (Which, given that the curators are said to be 20-somethings hailing from northeastern Ivy League schools, I guess is not too far of a stretch...)
No, you get this straight, my Precious Little Snowflake: one cannot give offense, one can only take it. So un-bunch your panties and recognize that much of that "hate speech" your holding your hands over your ears to avoid hearing may just be another, considered, point of view.
>>You're just old and confused by people not wanting to give a podium to nakedly racist sexist assholes.
Ageism. Not quite as trendy as "racism" and "sexism," as it's inherently a disease of the fashionably young. But you're an ageist.
>>we don't need to give them a space to talk
Yeah, son, actually you kinda do. And that space is called "everywhere in the U.S." You're just young, and confusing the rights you think you *should* have with the rights outlined in the Constitution that you actually, legally, *do* have.
Ummm, actually it's the left-wing "news curators" who are being the Fascists here...
What I and my neighbors DO have a problem with are the Ponytails and other chuckleheads who are bused up here regularly from NYC to protest and make noise and pretend to the media that they are "outraged locals." I've taken the time to speak to a few of them, and invariably they have no understanding regarding the plant's operation or nuclear energy v. fossil fuel issues in general outside of a few easily refuted talking points their handlers supply to them. It is all theater.
Slashdot is using 733t-Speak terms from a decade ago in its headlines, so why not CDs? I heard they were the Bee's Knees, at one time...
Read a book.
And if only the urban tech centers -- NYC, San Francisco, and Chicago -- were spared, it would be a month, maybe a month and a half before the civil unrest between the haves and the have-nots in these places boiled over into such violent anarchy people would be wishing they had been taken in the nuke strikes.
So much for all lattes and free wi-fi...
Religion and its attendant discipline kept civilization alive in Western Europe after the fall of Rome. I suspect it would do the same again.
The way I read the article, it seemed to imply that people still watch non-sports TV shows *LIVE* over in the UK. That can't be right... can it?
Amazon's "recommendations" are based upon purchases you have already made, so it will suggest more Chicano-Lesbian-Telepath books to you if it you have purchased some in the past -- and presumably steer you away from any of the Roger Ramjets. To suggest that an AI can and should properly select what is "best" or "classic" across the entire genre, regardless of someone's stated personal preferences, is a whole different matter.
Let the machines pick what's "classic" and tell us what to read in all literary genres. Hell, let the bots pick the "best" TV shows, films, and chili recipes too, while we are at it.
On a more serious and less paranoid note, SF does encompass way too many sub-genres for any one such list of "best" to have any meaning for a critical mass of readers. One need only look at the Chicano-Lesbian-Telepaths versus Space Admiral Roger Ramjet struggles among the all-too-human Hugo choosers to see that it will -- and should! -- take more than deep data mining to determine what is "best."
You're kidding, right? Amazon is waist-deep in competitors. If they are too expensive for you, or you don't like their services, there is any number of places you can shop (online or off) for what Amazon sells.
You guys who scream for the government nanny every little time retail doesn't go your way are starting to scare me...
>>When someone invests their labor and time in something, they deserve to have a say,
Actually, what they deserve to have, is a fair paycheck. If they opt out of a fair paycheck in lieu of a smaller paycheck and more say/control at first and possibly equity further down the line, that works as well. But they don't "deserve" anything other than a fair paycheck. That's how modern society compensates you for "labor and time." In olden times, the compensation would be slivers of silver, or perhaps some geese...
You may argue that if a company that establishes internal policies to solicit input from its workers will ultimately profit more than a company that does not, and I will agree with you. But unless that worker has negotiated anything more than a fair paycheck, a fair paycheck is all that she deserves.