This is probably the best comment in the whole thread. In fact, you can't get "rich" unless you're a founder in a startup. (And no, this isn't sour grapes! I've made money in Silicon Valley, and continue to work at age 53 in a new startup.)
But that Buffalo sentence is something on which people also stumble. A machine can be contrived to pass such a test case, while remaining a lousy parser compared to people.
The real problem is that the parser comes so swiftly to wrong conclusion and cheerfully presents it as a valid result.
It would look a lot better if it simply reported "error: cannot parse that". (Better yet, with reasons: "I cannot parse that because I get stuck on this specific ambiguity and it's just too much for me.").
Also, what about the possibility of multiple results? Language is ambiguous. If something has two parses, it's wrong to assert just one.
This thing has made no consideration whatsoever that even a single instance of "buffalo" in the sentence might conceivably be a verb, which flies in the face of almost any noun in English being verbable.
But it won't ever have trouble, because it's not trying to understand the sentence. It will tell you the most probable parsing of that sentence based on its model, whether or not it makes sense to a human.
People who manage parse the sentence also aren't trying understand it, except as far as "Buffalo" is a proper noun denoting a city, which can be used to form then phrases "Buffalo buffalo" == buffalo of/from/belonging to/related to Buffalo, and trying various combinations of interpreting "buffalo" as a noun (in various roles as subject, direct object and so on) or verb, and determining elided words such as "which" or "that" complementizers heading off phrases and embedded clauses.
It's almost purely syntactic reasoning. Searching these spaces of possibilities is something which, you would think, a "natural language parser" ought to be doing to earn its name.
Nobody actually knows what it means "to buffalo" something; it is not necessary to know. People solve the parse in spite of knowing that there is nothing to understand in the sentence.
"buffalo" can mean something like "bother" as an English verb (at least in American informal use), so the whole sentence as parsed in English does have a concrete mental image associated with it, in case that makes any difference.
If anything - it revelaed very clearly the force of power and corruption that governments have -- just like OWS in the US.
Man, OWS was a truly eye-opening event that really showed the power of the Oligarchy (The Fed) in the US.
So, while not much change actually happened from wither the Arab Spring or the OWS movements -- at least we know now where the common man stands. That information will really gel over time in the minds of all men and I think changes the world-view of most people in such a way that people now know what institutions are against humanity.
It wasn't the fat hate as such, it was more that the users from that particular sub-reddit took it upon themselves to harass and mock other reddit users outside of that sub-reddit.
That's correct. And as the reddit execs et. al. have stated, it's not that such communities, whether based around fundamentally hateful memes or not, can exist on reddit. In fact, many morally/ethically reprehensible communities have been explicitly allowed to continue existing. However, when they start moving outside of their communities and harass other communities through vote brigading or doxxing or PMing hateful messages, then it breaches a line (or smudged line) that allows reddit admins to take action.
I'd believe that if the behavior of the administrators were consistent with that explanation.
Example, the ban you're talking about, communities which had the same idea, with different staff, that had existed before that one had, were also caught up in the ban. In other words, they were banned despite not breaking any stated rules.
Another example: A racist subreddit, not getting banned because of harassment, not for breaking rules, but because they were a frequent target of admin attention.
Another another example: Colluding with the governments of other non-US countries to censor content at those governments' request.
It's their website, they can run it as they please, but I wish Ohanian and Huffman would stop playing lip service to "free speech" and "open discussion" (something that up until recently, they did loudly and often) if that's not the goal they intend to live by. Actions speak a lot louder than words.
Exactly. People are saying that /r/fatpeoplehate "violated copyright" but every meme does that. (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09...). And reddit never said they were getting legal takedown notices for material published there.
Most of the posts I saw were responses to fat-acceptance bloggers and their postings on their blogs. Obviously these blogs were created to foster discussion and that was happening. When the discussion wasn't positive, they got upset.
Obviously, it's a private website and they can do what they want with it. But it never was a place for "free speech." If you didn't go along with Reddit groupthink (which is an odd mix of socialism "college should be free" "Koch Brothers are Evil" and libertarianism "Go Uber!" "Open Access to the Internet") you would be quickly down voted away.
I'm not so sure that /r/fatpeoplehate did anything worse than any other "funny pictures" subreddit. (For example, ones about "rednecks" or "ravers") I think just a lot of obese people got offended, and for some reason Ellen Pao felt for them.
I've seen their page before the sub was banned. Half the posts fell into one of two categories:
- Creepshots of people taken and published without the subject's permission in order to harass them.
- Pictures taken from people's friends-only Facebook albums stolen and published on Reddit for harassment purposes in violation of the privacy settings chosen by the original uploader.
Both are harassment, and the latter is a gratuitous copyright violation. The former probably also falls afoul of laws against using people's likenesses without permission.
Oh, and once imgur began removing their images for TOS violations, they began acting like a pack of wild monkeys flinging their feces: they began targeting individual imgur staff members for harassment, and multiple people began inciting DDoS attacks against imgur.
Reddit admins have been cracking down on witch hunts for quite some time, and DDoS attacks are highly illegal.
They dug their own graves and deserved to be banned.
They also reposted images from other subreddits, causing hordes of FPH regulars to find the original post and spam the poster with PMs telling them how much FPH hated them and how awful they were. Some of the posts even pointed people at the right subreddit, with the knowledge and complicity of the FPH moderators. We know this because at least one person who was on the receiving end of this complained to the mods, and they responded by posting another post drawing more attention to the original one and posting her photo in the subreddit sidebar. She later posted on r/suicidewatch saying she was thinking of killing herself, and FPH regulars piled into that with some nasty comments too. It got to the point that some subreddits started discouraging people - especially women - from posting selfies solely because they kept getting posted on FPH.
Yep, and I believe this is what caused /r/BadFattyNoDonut to get banned after it was allowed to exist for about a month after FPH was banned. They loved to play innocent and say "oh, we're not FPH, we don't harass people", and it only took a month for them to get caught in that lie.
I call BS on DDOS-ing imgur. There was no organization going around to DDOS them or anyone at the time of imgur purging fatpeoplehate content from their front page galleries. Additionally, FPH was still using imgur even until their subreddit was banned as slimgr was still very early in development. 14/25 Top page links were to imgur at the time of the ban.
Also the reddit user "harassment" wasn't in one direction. Plenty of FPH members got hate PM's and 0-reason bans to other subreddits for their participation at fatpeoplehate, regardless of what content they have posted or commented.
@amyjess
>they began acting like a pack of wild monkeys flinging their feces: they began targeting individual [...] members for harassment, and multiple people began inciting DDoS attacks
If you were to start banning subreddits based on this behavior you'd be banning pretty much every single meta sub on the site, SRD, SRS - they'd all have to go under such a policy.
These discussions remind me of the debate over caller ID in California. California was one of the last states to have Caller ID.
On the opposing side were battered women's advocacy groups arguing that Caller ID would make it impossible for a woman to hide her location from her tormentor.
the most vehement opposition has come from advocates for battered women and other victims whose safety might depend on being able to call help lines or domestic-violence shelters anonymously. One Caller I.D. option lists numbers for calls that have been made as well as for calls received; thus an abusive husband, for example, could tell if his wife had called for help. And if such a victim has left home, Caller I.D. might help the abuser track her down if she or her children called. 'A Step Backward'
And among the groups that wanted it were, you guessed it, battered women's advocacy groups who argued that Caller ID would put an end to harassing phone calls!
Both sides gave tearful testimony to the California PUC.
I pay for a NY Times digital subscription. Even though I don't always agree with their editorial slant, it's better quality news in on place than you can get for "free" around the web.
People hate paying so much these days that they'll deal with poor quality information. We used to all pay for newspapers--why should they be "free" now just because there's no paper?
I generally agree. My only hesitation is that I wish they would simplify the pricing structure -- everything's pitched around promotional rates and discounts that only apply for X weeks, so it's difficult to know at a glance exactly what a sub will end up costing you over, say, a year.
I'm sure they have their reasons for doing it that way, but to me these kind of pricing structures are a huge turn-off. Just tell me what it costs and let me pay it, you know? If you want to capitalize on the moment when I'm reading an NYT story and think "you know, this is so good I really should be paying for it," putting math problems between me and the payment form is the wrong way to do it.
I've found nytimes.com content to be great and exhibiting great technical, artistic, and journalistic merit[1]. As a result, I visit it daily and and it's the first time in my life I have a paid recurring news subscription.
However, nytimes.com has a very regrettable pricing structure, as you say. They seem to aim to be Comcast-like. The pricing is:
* Heavily promotional (special price 50%+ off sticker price)
* Difficult to cancel (you are asked to call them, although they will ultimately run it through email)
* Opaque in billing (no way to actually look at the terms of your current subscription/promotion; full payment history hidden away to obscure how much you're paying them)
They do this no doubt because it works in the short term and bumps up numbers. But as a consumer I can't help but feel they are losing goodwill and face in this new age and hope they come around to more contemporary online billing practices.
Recently I unsubscribed from the digital-only crossword and had to call in to get it done despite signing up entirely online. Their pricing structure isn't the only antiquated thing in the process.
This drove me batty as well. When I eventually caved and re-subscribed, I did it through iTunes -- it's the same price (they eat the 30%) and a one-click cancellation.
I agree. There's so much high quality content that it's almost like getting several first rate magazines (the weekly magazine, the NYT Book Review, the voluminous food section, etc.) along with a world-class newspaper.
Is there any evidence that you get better quality content from a NY Times subscription than you get for free on the web? I personally don't view the NY Times as a credible source.
Every nyt article goes through layers of editing, fact checking and copy editing by people with years, often decades of experience. Nyt is one of the few places that can afford to do this. Furthermore, if the nyt does get something wrong, unlike most blogs, etc; there is a framework in place for submitting and publishing corrections. NYT even pays someone (Margaret Sullivan, the public editor) to advocate for readers. She writes about her work here[0].
Per evidence. Here's evidence: half the 'content' you read on the web was first reported by the nyt.
Recent examples: Hilary clinton emails, VW scandal, Nail salon exploitation, etc, etc...
I used to have a very high trust in NYTimes articles but my 'trust level' dropped steeply (at least when it comes to foreign news) when I started reading their articles about Nigeria (I happen to be very familiar with the country). Lots of their stories about Nigeria were heavily skewed to 'portray a certain view', a few were outrightly false. The tipping point was when I read the Editorial about the presidential election that was postponed and it was factually incorrect. My thought was this - I know about these inconsistencies and false reporting because I'm familiar with the country. What is the guarantee that something similar is not happening with their reports on other countries. Nowadays, I stick with Aljazeera and BBC for foreign news
> Is there any evidence that you get better quality content from a NY Times subscription than you get for free on the web?
An interesting question:
1) It's not something that can be measured. It's similar to asking, 'is there any evidence that FDR was a better President than Calvin Coolidge?'
2) Is there evidence of that others are better?
3) Based on my experience, I believe the NY Times output has been more accurate than almost any other source (maybe the Financial Times or something I'm not thinking of). That's not true for every story, but over the population of stories. Because I can't evaluate the accuracy of each story, I need to find a source I trust.
4) The NY Times breaks many important stories that are not in other publications, at least not until the Times breaks them.
6) The NYT's reputation is excellent, relative to other news sources; many people trust it. Also, both the left and right say the Times is biased against them, which I think is a good sign.
All that said, certainly the Times isn't perfect and has much room to improve.
BBC News (bbc.co.uk/news) isn't really free to UK users but website vistors outside the UK don't pay (but they do get ads instead). Of course, the BBC's news coverage of the US is nowhere near as extensive as NYT. They don't cover the US arts/sports/food/tech scene etc. (It would be interesting to see the breakdown of subscribers to the NYT. Are they mainly US readers? Or are there international subscribers too?)
If you don't like the BBC, there's Al-Jazeera. I suspect many Americans distrust them, but I'm impressed by the scale of their international news coverage.
I'm guessing that most people check multiple news sources (even if you trust some sources less than others). Does anyone really rely on a single news provider nowadays?
Yes. Sunday mornings on my local AM oldies station is a Beatles program, featuring songs, old interviews and factoids. Probably lots of stations around the country carry it or similar.
Do the thought experiment. Will there ever be a Sunday Vanilla Ice program forty years after Vanilla Ice was current? I really doubt it.
(To you non-computer programmers, that means "Not a Number")
The response I got was:
"Do you think you belong to the young or old? You are the NaN person alive on the planet. This means that you are older than % of the world's population and older than 80% of all people in Israel."
He was a fellow at Atari too, without helping them very much. Alan's a great guy, a great speaker, and he made fundamental contributions to OO with Smalltalk. But probably his single biggest contribution was that he funded the creation the Alto out of his group's budget. (So as a VC rather than a scientist or manager.)
