If everybody else in the world was vegan, would you still be insisting that it's 'normal' to eat animal products?
Err, no, because it wouldn't be - by definition.
In fact I'm not sure what your point is.
If everybody went around with their face painted blue and said "I've traveled from 1983 to say this" before every sentence, that would be normal. But it wouldn’t make it a good idea.
Perhaps your saying that 'normal' isn't the same thing as 'natural', but since societies where the unnatural (painting your face blue) is normal are the exceptions, it's a good approximation to it.
This isn't a good argument for veganism, because most societies throughout most of history have eaten meat. So meat eating is normal and therefore likely natural.
Another possibility is that you don't know the meaning of the word 'normal' and think it actually means 'natural'. In the west that level of ignorance is... normal.
There is a little confusion here. Dynamic DNS means the domain record is constantly updated to point to the correct IP address. Its completely independent of domain registration. godaddy does not offer a dyndns service. Most dyndns services do not offer domains.
DynDNS is useful if you want to be able to always contact a box on a domain, but it's got a dynamic IP address - i.e. typically for running a server on a home box.
I use it to ssh into home when I'm away, I just do ssh mydyndomain.org and don't need to worry about IP addresses.
I have had domains with godaddy in the past, but I've always used dyn.com as well.
It is possible to use a script to update your A record through your registrar's web interface, but this will break every time they update the site.
P.S. I recommend not using godaddy.
federated social networks will go the same way e-mail has gone: yes, there's tons of minor e-mail servers, but a few large companies control a very large fraction of e-mail traffic (espeically for personal use) because running a server is hard.
For a federated system based on an open protocol, it should be possible to have a desktop client which installs in a few clicks.
You can install a mail server yourself, of course, but the main barrier to this is needing a domain name pointing to it.
For a desktop 'node' of a P2P system, either it is always on, or you have a name resolution system built into the protocol, or you have to have a domain name and a static IP (or use a dyndns service). All of these have downsides.
A workaround is to use the email system as a transport layer. Email servers then effectively act as proxies.
Another problem with a p2p service is that p2p networks require more processor and network usage than centralized services, so they make poor applications for mobile devices.
Well, with the federated model you would just visit a website. If the protocol allowed it, you could use a desktop app on your PC and a website on your mobile with the same account.
Or better* http://squte.com/ which also forwards posts to Usenet - so there is a permanent archive that isn't locked in to any one site and a potential community of the millions of Usenetters.
* for sufficiently small values of better
Yes, I understand it is a simplification.
As soon as you have a separate 'trust' factor, you have to start rating the moderation i.e. have meta-moderation.
This is more complex, which can put off users getting involved. So since the simpler algorithm works for me, I'll stick to it for now.
The problem with using neural nets is you may get 'overfitting' to the initial moderators prejudices, leading to an amplified filter bubble
This is fascinating. I run a website that applies a user reputation system to Usenet - a medium notorius for flame-wars (it's where the words 'troll' and 'flame' come from, after all) - so I'm aware of some of the theory, but it seems games have gone further than forums.
The algorithm I use is much simpler, the 'trust' metric is identical to the user Karma, presuming that users who act sensibly will also moderate sensibly. It works very well and filters out >95% of flames and trolls.
To those who ask how to stop reporting being abused, it's actually simple:
* weight reports by the number of reports. If a user only reports one other person per thousand the reports carry more weight than if they report every other user.
* as you said, have a 'trust' factor that weights the reports. In the case of my site, this is just their Karma score - if they get reported a lot as an arse, they are more likely to be an arse in the way they themselves report.
* Make reporting really easy. The more data you have from legit users, the more your algorithm can work on.
The issue is that there is a claim of moral superiority in TFA. It says that
Putin [has] tight control over Russian society
, but the US gov't also tightly controls US society - so there is nothing to be smug about.
Hypocrisy is an inconsistency between two things - the response when someone else does something, and when we do the same thing - the only way you can tell hypocrisy is to compare these two things. So if you only ever look at one thing at a time - and declare any comparison is 'off-topic' - then you will never notice any double standard.
The idea that you can just throw tech at education problems is so common its got a name: 'digital utopianism'.
It's failure was seen with the OLPC project: in Uruguay all school children have an XO laptop but only about a fifth of teachers use it in the classroom daily, similar statistics apply to Alabama.
Even the OLPC now admits you need to combine technology with teacher training and community buy-in
So basically a successful company forced a new UI on their audience, ignoring a mountain of negative feedback, without really understanding the community?
Check out this video where someone demonstrates putting both brakes and throttle to the floor at the same time, and yes, it does stop.
It stops even faster with 'brake assist', which automatically cuts the throttle when the brakes are on.
Creating a new site wouldn't solve the basic problem.
The issue is common with sites built with user content.
Typically the TOS of the site say it can do whatever it wants with the content, and the site owners have an incentive to add as much advertising & costs as possible.
Users can vote with their feet and leave, but there is an element of 'lock-in' because of the user's profile, rep and history on the site.
The longer the site goes on and the more content there is, the bigger the lock-in and so the more the owners can squeeze the user-base.
This makes it inevitable that the site will add more and more burdens on users over time, till a new site comes along that is - at first - friendlier to users. It happened to experts-exchange (replaced with stackoverflow), to Geocities, and now it's happening to Slashdot.
Adding a new site with a new owner would just defer the problem, because the same forces would apply no matter how altruistic the initial owner.
What's needed is an open platform that isn't owned by one site. this is what I've proposed with the Communion network.
This allows many sites to share a discussion, if a user doesn't like what one site does, they can go to another one and continue posting in the same thread with the same ID, the same reputation etc.
In order to join the network, a site has to accept the licence that stops them putting content behind a paywall or otherwise locking it in.
Communion has a user-moderation system similar to slashdot's (although different).
Slashdot Mirror
s/your/you're/. Duh. And I don't even have the excuse of Vitamin D deficiency.
If everybody else in the world was vegan, would you still be insisting that it's 'normal' to eat animal products?
Err, no, because it wouldn't be - by definition. ... normal.
In fact I'm not sure what your point is.
If everybody went around with their face painted blue and said "I've traveled from 1983 to say this" before every sentence, that would be normal. But it wouldn’t make it a good idea.
Perhaps your saying that 'normal' isn't the same thing as 'natural', but since societies where the unnatural (painting your face blue) is normal are the exceptions, it's a good approximation to it.
This isn't a good argument for veganism, because most societies throughout most of history have eaten meat. So meat eating is normal and therefore likely natural.
Another possibility is that you don't know the meaning of the word 'normal' and think it actually means 'natural'. In the west that level of ignorance is
There is a little confusion here. Dynamic DNS means the domain record is constantly updated to point to the correct IP address. Its completely independent of domain registration. godaddy does not offer a dyndns service. Most dyndns services do not offer domains.
DynDNS is useful if you want to be able to always contact a box on a domain, but it's got a dynamic IP address - i.e. typically for running a server on a home box. I use it to ssh into home when I'm away, I just do ssh mydyndomain.org and don't need to worry about IP addresses.
I have had domains with godaddy in the past, but I've always used dyn.com as well.
It is possible to use a script to update your A record through your registrar's web interface, but this will break every time they update the site.
P.S. I recommend not using godaddy.
federated social networks will go the same way e-mail has gone: yes, there's tons of minor e-mail servers, but a few large companies control a very large fraction of e-mail traffic (espeically for personal use) because running a server is hard.
For a federated system based on an open protocol, it should be possible to have a desktop client which installs in a few clicks. You can install a mail server yourself, of course, but the main barrier to this is needing a domain name pointing to it. For a desktop 'node' of a P2P system, either it is always on, or you have a name resolution system built into the protocol, or you have to have a domain name and a static IP (or use a dyndns service). All of these have downsides. A workaround is to use the email system as a transport layer. Email servers then effectively act as proxies.
Another problem with a p2p service is that p2p networks require more processor and network usage than centralized services, so they make poor applications for mobile devices.
Well, with the federated model you would just visit a website. If the protocol allowed it, you could use a desktop app on your PC and a website on your mobile with the same account.
Perhaps there is already someone doing this?
Yes, there are a number: diaspora, Friendica, and an emerging system based around RSS, this type of thing is usually called the federated social web. This is my own overview.
meta data and messaging data is spread around different peers as encrypted chunks
This is my proposal for exactly that
Or better* http://squte.com/ which also forwards posts to Usenet - so there is a permanent archive that isn't locked in to any one site and a potential community of the millions of Usenetters.
* for sufficiently small values of better
Yes, I understand it is a simplification.
As soon as you have a separate 'trust' factor, you have to start rating the moderation i.e. have meta-moderation.
This is more complex, which can put off users getting involved. So since the simpler algorithm works for me, I'll stick to it for now.
The problem with using neural nets is you may get 'overfitting' to the initial moderators prejudices, leading to an amplified filter bubble
This is fascinating. I run a website that applies a user reputation system to Usenet - a medium notorius for flame-wars (it's where the words 'troll' and 'flame' come from, after all) - so I'm aware of some of the theory, but it seems games have gone further than forums.
The algorithm I use is much simpler, the 'trust' metric is identical to the user Karma, presuming that users who act sensibly will also moderate sensibly. It works very well and filters out >95% of flames and trolls.
To those who ask how to stop reporting being abused, it's actually simple:
* weight reports by the number of reports. If a user only reports one other person per thousand the reports carry more weight than if they report every other user.
* as you said, have a 'trust' factor that weights the reports. In the case of my site, this is just their Karma score - if they get reported a lot as an arse, they are more likely to be an arse in the way they themselves report.
* Make reporting really easy. The more data you have from legit users, the more your algorithm can work on.
If SoylentNews wasn't so shit I'd be tempted to move over there.
I think the other sites have better stories on average, but there are better comments on /.
, but the US gov't also tightly controls US society - so there is nothing to be smug about. Hypocrisy is an inconsistency between two things - the response when someone else does something, and when we do the same thing - the only way you can tell hypocrisy is to compare these two things. So if you only ever look at one thing at a time - and declare any comparison is 'off-topic' - then you will never notice any double standard.
There are a number of options, as well as http://soylentnews.org/ there is http://pipedot.org./ There are a lot of ex-slashdotter on the comp.misc newsgroup. http://squte.com/ (my own site) provides a slashdot-like interface to newsgroups.
The idea that you can just throw tech at education problems is so common its got a name: 'digital utopianism'.
It's failure was seen with the OLPC project: in Uruguay all school children have an XO laptop but only about a fifth of teachers use it in the classroom daily, similar statistics apply to Alabama. Even the OLPC now admits you need to combine technology with teacher training and community buy-in
Locate32 is much faster than Agent Ransack
So basically a successful company forced a new UI on their audience, ignoring a mountain of negative feedback, without really understanding the community?
Check out this video where someone demonstrates putting both brakes and throttle to the floor at the same time, and yes, it does stop. It stops even faster with 'brake assist', which automatically cuts the throttle when the brakes are on.
Creating a new site wouldn't solve the basic problem. The issue is common with sites built with user content. Typically the TOS of the site say it can do whatever it wants with the content, and the site owners have an incentive to add as much advertising & costs as possible. Users can vote with their feet and leave, but there is an element of 'lock-in' because of the user's profile, rep and history on the site. The longer the site goes on and the more content there is, the bigger the lock-in and so the more the owners can squeeze the user-base. This makes it inevitable that the site will add more and more burdens on users over time, till a new site comes along that is - at first - friendlier to users. It happened to experts-exchange (replaced with stackoverflow), to Geocities, and now it's happening to Slashdot. Adding a new site with a new owner would just defer the problem, because the same forces would apply no matter how altruistic the initial owner. What's needed is an open platform that isn't owned by one site. this is what I've proposed with the Communion network. This allows many sites to share a discussion, if a user doesn't like what one site does, they can go to another one and continue posting in the same thread with the same ID, the same reputation etc. In order to join the network, a site has to accept the licence that stops them putting content behind a paywall or otherwise locking it in. Communion has a user-moderation system similar to slashdot's (although different).