Absolutely. But that doesn't mean "The Man" at Google is programming the ad algorithm to keep high paying jobs from women. It just means the algorithm is programmed to maximize ad clicks. Women are much less likely to click on those ads, so it provides to women the ads they are more likely to click.
It's the same reason I (as a male) don't get many ads for tampons.
Yep, I read that. Still came to the same conclusion.
Prior data classified people with "M" gender as having six times greater chance of clicking the "$200k+ job" ad than people with the "F" gender, so the system pushes that ad six times more often to people who have the "M" gender.
Sorry if it doesn't fit some narrative you feel compelled to believe in.
And people want to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour in places that don't have California's cost of living. Same thing will happen there, costs will rise sharply and mostly on goods and services provided to the lower and middle class.
But those same folks don't see past that poor burger-flipper's immediate paycheck to understand the real consequences of moving market prices on low- and middle-class goods.
Perhaps women are 6 times less likely to click an ad for $200k+ executive jobs. If the algorithm prioritizes ads based on past behavior of other persons, given all identifiable traits of each person, then this is very well to be expected.
And would go to show that stereotyping is not always evil, but sometimes it comes from innocently putting together past information to be more efficient today.
The confusion may have come in because that's the exact opposite of what the original article is about
Of course it is. If I was just saying the same thing the article said, and that everyone else is saying, I might as well have not said anything.
Well, Firefox allows a fair amount of UI customization. Some websites do, as well.
Agreed, as a user this is my preferred approach as well.
One difficulty here is that the more a user can customize the interface, the more effort it is to build new features in a discoverable way.
Another problem is how much effort it takes to actually build the capability to customize it. My old team spent quite some time designing and building a customizable interface for just one small, tiny piece of an enterprise application. Then our customer wanted things to be so different that even that interface had to be completely scrapped. Talk about time wasted, but in my opinion, it wasn't worth it even if it went to production... practically nobody would actually customize it in the real world, just that one manager guy who doesn't even actually use the software. (That's just an anecdote, YMMV obviously.)
I also like the idea of a "basic", "lite", or "classic" interface, where the most common functions are easily available and don't change around much, along with an "advanced" (but less stable) interface that gives easier access to all the bells and whistles.
This is definitely an approach to consider. Of course then you get users who loved the advanced interface, but never want it to change. So then you have "classic", "advanced", and "v1 advanced". Next thing you know, you add "v2 advanced" and so on.
Nevertheless, these are options definitely worth considering.
Further, encryption protects information that is useful online. Online theft is much faster, easier to perform in bulk, and harder to trace (due to... *gasp*... encryption and other privacy mechanisms).
And generally it has higher reward with less risk. You likely won't get shot for decrypting someone's online banking communication... breaking into a home, different story.
you better have a very good reason so that the improvements of new interface make the change worthwhile
Agreed. My concern was all these threads here (including the AC who responded to mine) that act as if there is never a good reason to change UI, ever. Sometimes it's necessary even after you consider that "change is bad".
Sometimes the boss says "Competitor Corp. has released a slick new UI that puts the most used functions front-and-center. You must change our UI to be more competitive. If you don't, feel free to take your things and I'll find someone who will."
And frankly, both situations are legitimate. Paying too much attention to the minority of users who can't adapt to change might kill your business in the long run. (And for the moment, consider only software changes that are not life-threatening.)
I still don't buy the whole Mac OS X thing. I installed every new OS X version on my previous Macbook (circa 2006). This worked fine, until Apple started requiring a particular piece of new hardware that my Macbook didn't have. The new version of OS X didn't run on any device without that hardware.
iOS, yes, that's a different story. But even there I'd say that Apple is better than most. My Android phone stopped receiving updates about 4 or 5 months after purchase. Finally a year and a half later I got a update that skipped 2 versions, and that was it (but I consider myself lucky, because many people I know never got a single additional update after a few months).
And Windows has an even better track record than OS X. Windows 10 supports hardware over a decade old, and its minimum requirements mirror those of Windows 7.
We can't just say "don't add the new functionality" if our customers demand it.
I wasn't advocating for screwing with the UI just to screw with it, or justifying some guy's salary. Go back and read... my entire post was based on adding new functionality as required by the user.
but no way on earth that this should ever happen to an existing user other than at his explicit request. EVER!!!!!!!!!
What if most of your users want the new feature, but a few don't? That's the conundrum. Like I said, you have options. You can maintain each and every new version separately, releasing bug fixes and security updates for each one so that the user never needs to see a new UI. You can upset users who want quick and easy access to new functionality by placing the new function deep in a menu so the layout doesn't have to change. Again, those options exist but perhaps are not the best business decision.
It's not about whether adding new functionality is OK. It's about how to do the hard thing, giving some users the new feature they want while maintaining familiarity for users who value that aspect more than the new functionality.
It's a hard problem. On the one hand, changing stuff around sucks for real people trying to do real things without screwing real things up. On the other hand, new functionality has to be introduced into the UI in some manner.
We can't just say "don't change where this is", because there may not be enough room to accommodate a new function without adjusting the location of other items. I couldn't add a new chair to my living room without rearranging some of the existing furniture.
We can't just say "don't add the new functionality" if our customers demand it.
One option is for the user to only upgrade if he is willing to sacrifice a bit of learning to accommodate the new feature. The user would still want bug fixes, so now you have more versions to maintain.
An option is to hide all new features away behind a menu (e.g. hamburger) or some other catch-all location. But then users may not find the new feature and your competitors could gain an edge.
Heck, competitors can gain an edge just by bringing something cooler and more modern to the table.
It's a tough problem, and I'm sure the answer feels more like hitting a sweet spot than a mathematical proof.
But the "subscription" part really plays no role in that. You are talking about cross-platform applications coupled with cloud services. The revenue model is a separate consideration.
lately Apple's software policies seem tailor-made to artificially limit the lifetime of its already relatively expensive product range, up to and including the high-end business laptops and such
Really? I have a Macbook Pro that is over 2 years old, but last I checked it was still receiving updates.
Most Apple products I've owned, even phones, received updates for well beyond the 2 year mark.
If Microsoft then ships one box-bricking Windows update to all those Windows Home users, who will have no option to defer or skip any update under the current proposals, there is going to be carnage.
I would be pissed too. Though I don't see what that has to do with the topic at hand ("supported lifetime of the device")... that would be a concern even if Microsoft announced future support of all devices to the end of time.
And I'm not saying that Microsoft is some benevolent entity, and totally agree with the idea that they are self-serving. But part of that self-service is to make as much money as they can, which only happens if they have customers, which only happens if customers are generally happier with Microsoft's offerings than the competition.
"Competition" being the key word, which now Microsoft has. It's not quite like their monopoly years. They actually need us to like them.
If he was arguing Windows was switching to a subscription model, he wouldn't be arguing Windows will die as a result of Microsoft moving to one, would he?
I think that was exactly what he was arguing. Windows moving to a subscription model = bad and people hate it, therefore Windows would decline as a result.
Sure, and we can only speculate at this point. Most believe it is intended to convey that Windows will not support hardware that is 20 years old, even though (if they stick to their guns) Windows 10 will continue to be upgraded at and well beyond that point. It's probably determined by the OEM, or according to specific hardware.
I doubt anyone actually believes Microsoft considers the "supported lifetime of your device" to be only a year or two for a desktop computer. Perhaps for a phone.
Considering the entire post was about Windows, and Office was never mentioned, I don't know how you interpret the phrase "as Microsoft moves to the subscription model" as dealing with Office.
Slashdot Mirror
That's to be expected if the point is to maximize ad clicks.
The purpose of Google's advertisement system is not to better mankind in some way, it's to make money.
Absolutely. But that doesn't mean "The Man" at Google is programming the ad algorithm to keep high paying jobs from women. It just means the algorithm is programmed to maximize ad clicks. Women are much less likely to click on those ads, so it provides to women the ads they are more likely to click.
It's the same reason I (as a male) don't get many ads for tampons.
Yep, I read that. Still came to the same conclusion.
Prior data classified people with "M" gender as having six times greater chance of clicking the "$200k+ job" ad than people with the "F" gender, so the system pushes that ad six times more often to people who have the "M" gender.
Sorry if it doesn't fit some narrative you feel compelled to believe in.
And people want to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour in places that don't have California's cost of living. Same thing will happen there, costs will rise sharply and mostly on goods and services provided to the lower and middle class.
But those same folks don't see past that poor burger-flipper's immediate paycheck to understand the real consequences of moving market prices on low- and middle-class goods.
Perhaps women are 6 times less likely to click an ad for $200k+ executive jobs. If the algorithm prioritizes ads based on past behavior of other persons, given all identifiable traits of each person, then this is very well to be expected.
And would go to show that stereotyping is not always evil, but sometimes it comes from innocently putting together past information to be more efficient today.
The confusion may have come in because that's the exact opposite of what the original article is about
Of course it is. If I was just saying the same thing the article said, and that everyone else is saying, I might as well have not said anything.
Well, Firefox allows a fair amount of UI customization. Some websites do, as well.
Agreed, as a user this is my preferred approach as well.
One difficulty here is that the more a user can customize the interface, the more effort it is to build new features in a discoverable way.
Another problem is how much effort it takes to actually build the capability to customize it. My old team spent quite some time designing and building a customizable interface for just one small, tiny piece of an enterprise application. Then our customer wanted things to be so different that even that interface had to be completely scrapped. Talk about time wasted, but in my opinion, it wasn't worth it even if it went to production... practically nobody would actually customize it in the real world, just that one manager guy who doesn't even actually use the software. (That's just an anecdote, YMMV obviously.)
I also like the idea of a "basic", "lite", or "classic" interface, where the most common functions are easily available and don't change around much, along with an "advanced" (but less stable) interface that gives easier access to all the bells and whistles.
This is definitely an approach to consider. Of course then you get users who loved the advanced interface, but never want it to change. So then you have "classic", "advanced", and "v1 advanced". Next thing you know, you add "v2 advanced" and so on.
Nevertheless, these are options definitely worth considering.
Further, encryption protects information that is useful online. Online theft is much faster, easier to perform in bulk, and harder to trace (due to... *gasp*... encryption and other privacy mechanisms).
And generally it has higher reward with less risk. You likely won't get shot for decrypting someone's online banking communication... breaking into a home, different story.
you better have a very good reason so that the improvements of new interface make the change worthwhile
Agreed. My concern was all these threads here (including the AC who responded to mine) that act as if there is never a good reason to change UI, ever. Sometimes it's necessary even after you consider that "change is bad".
Sometimes the boss says "Competitor Corp. has released a slick new UI that puts the most used functions front-and-center. You must change our UI to be more competitive. If you don't, feel free to take your things and I'll find someone who will."
And frankly, both situations are legitimate. Paying too much attention to the minority of users who can't adapt to change might kill your business in the long run. (And for the moment, consider only software changes that are not life-threatening.)
So, how do we deal in those situations?
I still don't buy the whole Mac OS X thing. I installed every new OS X version on my previous Macbook (circa 2006). This worked fine, until Apple started requiring a particular piece of new hardware that my Macbook didn't have. The new version of OS X didn't run on any device without that hardware.
iOS, yes, that's a different story. But even there I'd say that Apple is better than most. My Android phone stopped receiving updates about 4 or 5 months after purchase. Finally a year and a half later I got a update that skipped 2 versions, and that was it (but I consider myself lucky, because many people I know never got a single additional update after a few months).
And Windows has an even better track record than OS X. Windows 10 supports hardware over a decade old, and its minimum requirements mirror those of Windows 7.
Most of your rant was already addressed:
We can't just say "don't add the new functionality" if our customers demand it.
I wasn't advocating for screwing with the UI just to screw with it, or justifying some guy's salary. Go back and read... my entire post was based on adding new functionality as required by the user.
but no way on earth that this should ever happen to an existing user other than at his explicit request. EVER!!!!!!!!!
What if most of your users want the new feature, but a few don't? That's the conundrum. Like I said, you have options. You can maintain each and every new version separately, releasing bug fixes and security updates for each one so that the user never needs to see a new UI. You can upset users who want quick and easy access to new functionality by placing the new function deep in a menu so the layout doesn't have to change. Again, those options exist but perhaps are not the best business decision.
It's not about whether adding new functionality is OK. It's about how to do the hard thing, giving some users the new feature they want while maintaining familiarity for users who value that aspect more than the new functionality.
It's a hard problem. On the one hand, changing stuff around sucks for real people trying to do real things without screwing real things up. On the other hand, new functionality has to be introduced into the UI in some manner.
We can't just say "don't change where this is", because there may not be enough room to accommodate a new function without adjusting the location of other items. I couldn't add a new chair to my living room without rearranging some of the existing furniture.
We can't just say "don't add the new functionality" if our customers demand it.
One option is for the user to only upgrade if he is willing to sacrifice a bit of learning to accommodate the new feature. The user would still want bug fixes, so now you have more versions to maintain.
An option is to hide all new features away behind a menu (e.g. hamburger) or some other catch-all location. But then users may not find the new feature and your competitors could gain an edge.
Heck, competitors can gain an edge just by bringing something cooler and more modern to the table.
It's a tough problem, and I'm sure the answer feels more like hitting a sweet spot than a mathematical proof.
Your mom.
But the "subscription" part really plays no role in that. You are talking about cross-platform applications coupled with cloud services. The revenue model is a separate consideration.
lately Apple's software policies seem tailor-made to artificially limit the lifetime of its already relatively expensive product range, up to and including the high-end business laptops and such
Really? I have a Macbook Pro that is over 2 years old, but last I checked it was still receiving updates.
Most Apple products I've owned, even phones, received updates for well beyond the 2 year mark.
If Microsoft then ships one box-bricking Windows update to all those Windows Home users, who will have no option to defer or skip any update under the current proposals, there is going to be carnage.
I would be pissed too. Though I don't see what that has to do with the topic at hand ("supported lifetime of the device")... that would be a concern even if Microsoft announced future support of all devices to the end of time.
Of course not. Pluto is a dwarf dog.
And I'm not saying that Microsoft is some benevolent entity, and totally agree with the idea that they are self-serving. But part of that self-service is to make as much money as they can, which only happens if they have customers, which only happens if customers are generally happier with Microsoft's offerings than the competition.
"Competition" being the key word, which now Microsoft has. It's not quite like their monopoly years. They actually need us to like them.
I hold the "yarg, XBone must be always connected to intertubes" to be as credible as "upgrades will always be free"
The major difference, of course, is that the first one was canceled due to consumer demand. Why would consumers demand the second to be canceled?
If he was arguing Windows was switching to a subscription model, he wouldn't be arguing Windows will die as a result of Microsoft moving to one, would he?
I think that was exactly what he was arguing. Windows moving to a subscription model = bad and people hate it, therefore Windows would decline as a result.
Sure, and we can only speculate at this point. Most believe it is intended to convey that Windows will not support hardware that is 20 years old, even though (if they stick to their guns) Windows 10 will continue to be upgraded at and well beyond that point. It's probably determined by the OEM, or according to specific hardware.
I doubt anyone actually believes Microsoft considers the "supported lifetime of your device" to be only a year or two for a desktop computer. Perhaps for a phone.
Considering the entire post was about Windows, and Office was never mentioned, I don't know how you interpret the phrase "as Microsoft moves to the subscription model" as dealing with Office.
That's an old article and many of the cons have already been debunked.
And that will be true until Windows 7 reaches EOL in 2020.
So in other words people will just be expected to buy their security patches and upgrades in the future after a year or so of patches.
No, you just made that up.
WIndows isn't moving to the subscription model. That has been debunked over and over again.
This was announced a few months ago at BUILD.
http://www.windowscentral.com/...