the-printer

Thank you. With respect to the various individuals working to build their own directories, marginalia search is the missing element that allows me to sift through the register of blogs that are being collected.

This whole thing that's been happening the past few days feels like HN at its finest.

With regards to mobile browsers, this can be mitigated with charitable practices similar to paywall avoidance, where a considerate user could reply with the direct link to the PDF. This is not necessarily easy on sci-hub (you have to do some poking around with your browser's dev tools), but can be useful if the DOI is queried in Anna's Archive.

This specific paper isn't available on AA, but to whom it may intrigue I think this works:

https://sci-hub.ru/downloads/2019-02-19/0c/10.1016@B978-0-12...

The influx of AI-generated content on the Web is a given but I highly doubt it will have an adverse effect on any outlets that try to operate with a modicum of integrity and respect to their audiences with regard to the production of genuine, insightful material (authored by actual humans). I don't get the impression that G/O Media's assets have that in mind.

I am okay with the demise of the sort of outlets that they own from a quality perspective and the type of people I imagine frequent their assets in lieu of other outlets on average probably do not care. Most of what we read online that are "current events" or "news" are glorified press releases anyway, so what difference does it make how the information is generated? Feature stories and in-depth criticism is another matter, but I don't think that the sort of people in search for more substantial content are dependent on Gizmodo or Deadspin to get their fix today (I hope not, at least).

In short, I think decisions like this will be a good catalyst for adept, interested writers and publishers alike to forge better opportunities. The future of media has its promise in the dreadful decisions that corporations are making under the influence of late-stage capitalism. Isn't it a joy?

The absurdity of this event is surface-level when you take into consideration the farmer’s past negligent communication style. What lies beneath is quite contrary to absurdity.

It’s easy to get excited and want to cry foul over this…but even my own limited understanding of contract and trade law (which is not of Western import) makes me pause due to the tremendous nuances involved in this case.

This is compounded further when we consider the technological aspects (discussing legally binding matters via text in lieu of more sophisticated/trustworthy means).

In reality, if the farmer put just a little bit more effort in communicating on a business level (beyond “yups” and “emojis”) or if the buyer demanded more from the buyer (“I need to know what you mean”), this could have all been avoided. This is especially so if both parties had a better understanding of the law or greater empathy for one another in a business sense.

> Stop trying to make social networks succeed, stop dreaming of a universal network. Instead, invest in your own communities. Help them make long-term, custom and sustainable solutions. Try to achieve small and local successes instead of pursuing an imaginary universal one. It will make you happier.

I appreciate the realist point of view in this paragraph and the two that precede it.

I’d like to go a step further and propose that we should deemphasize the explicit desire to develop communities online for what feels like the sake of having an online community. Online communities should be derivatives of offline identities, roles, interests etc, more often than not. But as more people seem to find “themselves” in a digital landscape that isn’t inherently social as much as it is social under certain contexts, the lines are being blurred, or disregarded entirely.

I used to be indifferent to federated networks, but I now understand the appeal of them when it comes down to being able to engage with predefined communities.

There is a lot to be said about the number one issue that newcomers confront being “which instance do I join?”.

I like https://hackerstations.com/.

That last part stands out to me, him being a researcher, that is. I wonder if there is any detriment to the idea of researchers or other “knowledge workers” who use social media at the risk of exposing new developments or ideas to people who may be uninformed or unqualified in regard to whatever the individual is exposing publicly. Could/does this affect what they share or how they/others perceive their work that is shared?

I think it conveys a sense of dedication to his work that is at odds with the ever-looming desire to pontificate than it does aloofness toward others.

I’m not familiar with him or his work beyond the cursory glance at his Wikipedia page that I made after recognizing the homepage from marginalia.nu binges, but I associated the statement with a certain level of exhaustion, or disinclination rather, from the desire to publicly comment on whatever bleeding edge or attention-grabbing topic a man of his profession and experience may encounter. I have no clue what this guy does with certainty, it sounds sort of Alan Kay-like? But based off this post it sounds like there’s a lot of ground he intends to cover with whatever he’s got going on that requires a lot of thought. Thought that he is reluctant to share at a toot’s notice.

There is something of a paradox that I feel exist, at least in the US, with regards to the defense sector. I don’t agree with its ethics or morals as they exists in the country, but I’m curious how others reconcile their privileges in comparison to other regions with the fact that said privileges can be attributed to the US’s tremendous military scale domestically and globally.

One could even argue that defense even precedes food and water at this stage also.

> I’d appreciate if you don’t ask for my opinions about things.

I feel this.

Nice looking web page also.

If anyone blogs about design, UX, media theory, data/information science, privacy and/or geopolitics, please respond here.

Feed Compass is sort of like that

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/feed-compass/id1458648487?mt=1...

This looks nice.

> The internet was conceived as a democratic haven, a realm where every individual had the potential to influence and shape their digital experience.

I have a hard time reconciling this perspective with history. Were any of these ideals present among the people/organizations responsible for the internet and the Web at the time that they were being developed? Or is sentiment like yours something that people adopted later on?

This is not a good look for what is the de facto go-to (from my perspective) reference guide for web development. I’m not too crazy about MDN, but I expected better from them.

This concept was alluded to in a comment on HN a few weeks ago. I'm interested in seeing how this plays out. I'm inclined to suspect that Prigozhin is vying for affection in the typical manner of a mercenary chief. While his frustrations may be legitimate, I doubt that a coup was ever a possibility.

Ah, but the parent comment does so much to fuel the narrative of conflict that makes places like the Fediverse so appealing to some.

Not sure why this is getting downvoted because this is the best way to browse HN in my opinion.

> Here they complain of a lack of trust and 'disunity' but say nothing about why they are worthy of trust. Indeed they scapegoat information for it, what should be a basis of trust. It comes across as the same ole corrupt "shut up and be good pawns again" attitude.

Good assessment.

I think that you’re on to something. There is a certain angst that it seems like he possessed, not so much as hubris.

If I may adjust my metaphorical armchair and say that I’m patiently waiting for the feature piece on his life to be published in the next few months to a year or so, that will uncover something to the tune of anxiety, self-doubt, estranged familial ties or an addiction to an obscure pharmaceutical commonly used on narcoleptic koala bears.

> As we have written in Noema [1], new mediating institutions, such as citizens’ assemblies, that encourage and enable civil discourse and consensus formation at the same virtual scale as social networks, are more necessary than ever because the forces of fragmentation have never been greater. Mending the breach of distrust between the public and institutions of self-government in the digital age can only happen by absorbing the wired activation of civil society into governance through integrating connectivity with common platforms for deliberation.

>

> Just as republics have historically sustained themselves by creating countervailing institutions to check power when too much of it is concentrated in one place, so too such checks are needed in the digital age when power is so distributed that the public sphere itself is disempowered.

I'm unsure of Nathan Gardels and the Berggruen Institute's ideological orientation. But I found this article and passages such as the one above, interesting.

[1]: https://www.noemamag.com/participation-at-scale-can-repair-t...

This is a popular rebuttal and I don’t think that it’s a good one.

The detrimental effects of the media forms you’ve listed are better considered in ways other than through events that themselves are (ironically) pop culture tropes today (moral panic over music, the “war of the worlds” panic myth).

It’s hard to even compare technology as pervasive as AI, smartphones and social media to TV and music (which are pervasive in their own right by definition, but not so much by comparison). The former is capable of subsuming and manipulating the forms of the latter and its effects are far more direct than the latter’s in respect to the present age.

From a layman's perspective, to me it looks like society has reached, or is reaching, peak literacy.

By this I'm referring to the scale and velocity of words and other symbols, and their effects on mankind. The internet has enhanced the sense of individuality that a literate culture emboldens while simultaneously simulating the group effect of an oral culture.

I can totally understand how psuedo-intellectualism or neo-Sophistry can arise under these conditions. Character criticism as pathology is another interesting point that you've brought up.

I think that you are on the right track and that this is a lucid observation.

I don't agree with the author's motives, but some of his observations are valid. In general, this piece is articulate and "goes somewhere". Albeit, it does suffer from being a hop, skip and a jump away from becoming navel-gazey in a way that most Substack articles are.

I'm under the impression that you may be in denial of the direction that it points favorably toward (the appeal and potential of the "Tech Right" in the US).

> The more I read things written by right leaning people, the more I realize that they stopped caring about facts and correctness (a term they've made derogatory to the extent that it's difficult to use it literally) and instead think that emotion and name calling are all the response any discourse require.

This argument is often tossed in the opposite direction.

> The author tries to rationalize eugenics ("strong genetic basis" for things that have been proven precisely the opposite), and repeatedly attempts to put words and intent in others' mouths.

The irony of this statement is that whether the full sentence, "Traits like intelligence and work ethic, in fact all traits, indeed have a strong genetic basis," is advocating for eugenics can be interpreted as an attempt to "put words and intent" into someone else's mouth.

I think what he's trying to say is that footers and infinite scroll do not mix well. I agree.

I don't disagree with either you or the author in principle. But I find that the prevailing narrative surrounding dealing with information online covers tooling and not so much "narrative" itself.

It's too easy to just turn someone else's firehose of information into your own firehose of information. When your collecting information with a specific task in mind (eg. work, hobbies) this may not always be the case and the need swings in the direction you and the author are speaking up for. I'm speaking more in respect to current events and news media, or circumstances that aren't immediately defined ("I need to learn this for work.", "I need to find headlights for my Volvo.")

The issue of reading and organizing content is not primarily about what kind of software you should use to store things. The main problem is figuring out how to make sense of it all when seeking out the material and while reading it.

Decent insight:

- https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-answer-is-not...

- https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/narrative-collaps...

Productivity-wise, Stage Manager is a step in the right direction in my opinion. I don't think that the macOS desktop environment needs a snapping/tiling window manager. Conceptually however, the best third-party window manager is spoonfish. But Rectangle suffices for certain tasks.

https://github.com/jcs/spoonfish

I hate to respond to your questions with more questions but the novelty of your's compels me to do so. Please do not take offense.

How do you reconcile the differences between the private nature of communications like text/emails vis-à-vis comments on a public forum?

> If they don't respect your consent, why should anyone respect theirs?

I'm interpreting "they" as Reddit (or any large media corp.), would I be wrong to interpret "anyone" in this context as a state actor?

Elaborate, please.