TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by "ugly" people and the poor - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-discrimination/ <comment><USER2> Geez, I thought this might be an overblown piece about algorithms unwittingly optimizing for the wrong things, but the headline is pretty accurate. Discussing how moderators choose content to recommend to people in the "For You" section (not a user — I assume this is something highlighted to users):

> Under this policy, TikTok moderators were explicitly told to suppress > uploads from users with flaws both congenital and inevitable. "Abnormal body > shape," "ugly facial looks," dwarfism, and "obvious beer belly," "too many > wrinkles," "eye disorders," and many other "low quality" traits are all > enough to keep uploads out of the algorithmic fire hose.

A TikTok spokesperson seems to confirm they are real guidelines, but won't confirm how they were used.

> TikTok spokesperson Josh Gartner told The Intercept that "most of" the > livestream guidelines reviewed by The Intercept "are either no longer in > use, or in some cases appear to never have been in place," but would not > provide specifics.

<comment><USER3> Instagram does the same thing; my 'Explore' tab is full of beautiful people even though I don't follow them. From a business standpoint it makes sense to promote the best looking content since it'll lure in more young users. The young kids probably think something like "Hey look at all those beautiful people. I want to be like them and they use Tik Tok so I'm going to use Tik Tok too."

<comment><USER4> No, having worked on explore sourcing and ranking I can tell you with certainty Instagram does not do the same thing.

<comment><USER5> Implementation is different, but passes all the same test cases.

<comment><USER6> Maybe it works that way, because users prefer to follow pretty people.

<comment><USER7> the question is having an algorithm do that (suppresing ugly and therefore unpopular users/photo) is different than having a moderator do it?

<comment><USER8> yes because it's a choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TikTok has a long history of doing shady things:

* TikTok's local moderation guidelines ban pro-LGBT content - Chinese-owned social media app bans such content even in countries where homosexuality has never been illegal [1]

* Revealed: how TikTok censors videos that do not please Beijing - Leak spells out how social media app advances China's foreign policy aims [2]

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/26/tiktoks-l...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/26/tiktoks- local-moderation-guidelines-ban-pro-lgbt-content)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed- how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing)

<comment><USER10> Actually, I wondered why this article was news. I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that tiktok was doing that kinda stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Russians call this "face control"; the practice of maintaining a club full of only good looking people by the bouncers.

It's unpleasant, but a handy reminder that TikTok and other social networks don't work for you, but make you into a product.

<comment><USER12> To play devil's advocate, presumably they work for some people, people that want to go to a club in which they attendees are selected by looks.

Sounds just like a lifestyle magazine, or a catwalk, or a million other situations that have been normalised in which people are chosen for how they look (just about every prospectus appears to choose people to present their idea of the right type of diversity, for example).

It's not great, but TikTok just seems to be doing the same as most other organisations?

<comment><USER13> Just because it is normalized in some other parts of society doesn't mean this isn't a new front to fight this kind of discrimination on. Especially since this platform is gaining a lot of popularity with younger generations, an order of magnitude more than the nightclub scene's impacted users [https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok- statistics](https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics)

<comment><USER14> The biological platform of humans discriminates. There seems to be a greater amount of pleasing chemical reactions happening when people see good looking people, so they seek them out themselves. I don't know how or if one can fight that, it's seems to be one of the fundamental mechanisms of mating.

<comment><USER13> There is a difference between recognizing biology, and apps weaponizing it to drive engagement. This is like saying that nicotine releases dopamine so no one can fight cigarettes.

Even disregarding social ideals about listening to people who don't look like underwear models, the potential for harm is very real - look up Body dysmorphic disorder for the kinds of very real mental health problems this can create in younger generations.

I think given the potential risks, we should have conversations about what this problem is and possible policy solutions. Giving children skewed perceptions of the world, or encoding these kinds of biases about who is worth paying attention to is dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How is this different from nightclubs having a high bar to entry?

I am not saying this is an ethical thing to do, I am saying these apps are no different from nightclubs and they gotta do what they gotta do to survive. And no matter what you may say, humans prefer non ugly people over ugly people. I am sorry but this is simply how humans work. If you disagree, then you are a hypocrite.

So should high end nightclubs be publicly shamed for doing what they do (when what their "users" want is exactly non-ugly people) and driven out of business?

<comment><USER16> Because TikTok isn't a nightclub, it's a place for people to put their own content out on the Internet. Not just people, but primarily people living in a pathologically authoritarian state that doesn't allow them to access other places on the Internet that they could put their content on.

But even ignoring the authoritarian state angle, surely you'd think it'd be weird and counterproductive for user content from YouTube or Instagram or imgur to have similar policies? Those sites are also not nightclubs or modeling agencies or a Hooters franchise either.

FWIW it's totally shitty for nightclubs to be discriminatory in that way. I get why they do it, but it doesn't make it any less shitty of them, and it sure as hell doesn't let them off the hook for their shittiness in this regard.

Tangentially, this is one of infinitely many reasons that nearly all of humanity hates nightclubs, including the people that feel socially obligated to go to them, and including people still young enough to convince themselves that they must be having fun there because it sure looks like everyone else is, not realizing that everyone else is thinking the exact same thing.

<comment> tedk-42 The entitlement is too real here.

Their platform, their choice for what goes on. You want something better? Go build in yourself. I have no problem with platforms self moderating. At the end of the day consumers speak with their actions.

How many TV shows feature dwarfs or people with who are abnormal? Don't blame a platform for the inherit flaws in most of us. It really only serves as a black mirror to the truth.

<comment><USER17> > Their platform, their choice for what goes on.

Can you say the same about Facebook?

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure what their current policy is, but they also had community standards [1] which they defined and enacted.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/story/heres-what-facebook-wont-let- you...](https://www.wired.com/story/heres-what-facebook-wont-let-you-post/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _A TikTok spokesperson said the goal was to prevent bullying on the platform, tying the document to a report from December that showed that the company was suppressing vulnerable users' videos in a misguided effort to prevent them from becoming the centre of attention that could turn sour._

Now that is some fine spin! Reminds of the Oscar Wilde sketch.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uycsfu4574w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uycsfu4574w)

<comment><USER20> I used TikTok for a while and saw plenty videos of actual bullying. The comments were never too happy about it, but there was clearly no effort to moderate it.

TikTok doesn't care about bullying.

<comment><USER21> It seems their goal is to make the issue go away altogether by pre-censoring people so they don't have to police bullying after.

Here it's humans taking that shortcut, in the future I'd totally imagine AIs resolving to eliminate the source of the problems when dealing with societal issues. And we sure won't be happy about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is what happens when you mix utilitarian morality with a desire to stop online bullying. You just stop letting the most likely targets of bullying be seen. This is much cheaper and easier than trying to get rid of everyone who has ever been mean online, because that's everyone.

<comment><USER23> The documents reveal that it's about curating appealing content to get user retention, and that the talk of stopping bullying is just talk.

<comment><USER24> > _The documents reveal that it 's about curating appealing content to get > user retention_

Seems kind of similar to what supermarket magazines do. Obviously a social media app is not a supermarket magazine, but the premise of cynically using pretty people to drive up engagement is nothing new.

<comment><USER25> Magazines are not communication platforms their 'users' expect to use in anything remotely the same way.

A better comparison might be bottle-service bars where looks or money buys your way in. Which I personally don't mind - if that's your thing, I guess, go for it. Not every place has to be somewhere I want to go, and they're pretty up-front that you need to meet whatever standards or pay crazy money.

Tik Tok, from observed behavior, is weaselly about it.

Combine with the fact that it is obviously part of the Silk Road strategy and likely an intelligence tool, and I'm going to continue to treat is as the radioactive garbage it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Most forms of media do this to varying degrees. Most actors, for example, are attractive people. Few unattractive actors are successful, unless perhaps they only play roles which play off of their unattractiveness (like antagonists/villains). TV news anchors are also usually picked for their attractiveness.

</comment><comment><USER27> Although this ruffles sensibilities, isn't it kind of expected from an entertainment platform?

Any traditional teen magazine from 20 years ago (seventeen, tigerbeat) wouldn't be scolded for heavily policing what photos go in the pages. Not only that, they heavily post processed everything.

There's superficial and arbitrary gatekeepers for what is called news, what is played on the radio, basically everything. Even some of the talent shows have strict, rather low, age cutoffs. 29 is too old for American Idol (it used to be 25).

Even more apparently egalitarian entertainment, such as contestants on the Price is Right aren't "truly random" and get shortlisted into energetic people who come in larger crowds in order to make better television. Most people think that's probably also fine. Some guy just standing and shrugging after being revealed a "brand new car" wouldn't really be right.

So for a digital social entertainment platform to do the same kind of pruning, it's kind of expected. Content is filtered to create better entertainment for the target demographic, one that I'm not in.

Maybe you think it's not the right filter system but now we're doing a target marketing debate and not one of ethics.

<comment><USER28> We're moving past allowing this kind of manipulation and distortion of reality.

<comment><USER27> It's more a question of "proper" filtering, not "no" filtering.

For instance, if a PhD program only accepted white male applicants, we'd find that unacceptable. If instead, they only accepted people with proper credentials, scores, and recommendations, we'd find that fine. It's not no filter, just the right one.

Similarly, if we were making a movie about Jim Crow segregation and needed actors to play white racist men then our same unacceptable filter all of a sudden looks reasonable.

So it's not about removing filters, it's about making them justifiable and relevant. That's why we say "there's _no reason_ that a qualified X can't be a Y", that part, the reason part, is important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Like most Hollywood productions, TikTok wants to show the healthy and the beautiful over the sickly and the ugly. This is purely driven by customer demand. The good news is that 1) TikTok a private enterprise and it can set its own rules and 2) it's in China so it won't be vulnerable to public shaming and social pressure to bend its business decisions to please fringe groups.

</comment><comment><USER30> I only heard about TikTok probably a couple of month ago,as I 'checked out' from social media platforms long time ago. Now what they are doing is is awful, however, that's already the case across the board. The world celebrates handsome men chasing a ball, women that have more silicone and botox in them than an average lab. We somehow give more attention to someone,who's ass size falls within 9th percentile, than the scientist,who discovers cure for some nasty disease. We reward people with tons of cash for coming up with some nonse, science free absurd, while we are ready to throw stones at anyone who says that oil fried fries are bad for us. The same crap happens on youtube or instagram,where pretty faces push yet another cream from big name corp.

<comment><USER31> In offices, managers are taller and more handsome than the average. What we reward as a society in the west is beauty, not merit and hard work, unfortunately. Study after study shows the same trend in a huge variety of ways, from believing in social mobility to thinking job performance is about job performance despite the often opposite. But I also think this level of anti-intellectualism is temporary.

<comment><USER32> There is correlation. Someone who cannot take care of themselves is probably not suitable to lead others. In work, "beauty" regards more what you can alter on yourself than what you were given at birth.

<comment><USER33> There is some correlation, but it's not perfect.

I've thought a lot about this and I think beauty is both shorthand for "that looks like someone healthy and very functional" and also is something that can be faked, so it's not a reliable indicator.

For this reason, I think it will always be both valued and controversial. To whatever degree it genuinely signals something of underlying value, like health and competence, it's useful shorthand. To whatever degree it is a signal that is hackable, it's shorthand with a poor signal-to-noise ratio.

I don't think we will ever completely solve it. We will always be caught between those two facts.

<comment><USER34> Let me help: it's not actually a useful signal. Solved!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I can see how moderators would be instructed to surface content that is more "appealing" to the audience and beautiful people are no doubt going to be more appealing.

It's like the contestants on reality TV shows tend to not be ugly as well.

For some reason it _feels_ slimy but I am not sure why. Perhaps it is being confronted with the notion that the world isn't fair.

<comment><USER36> These schemes only work if the participants continue to think the world is indeed fair.

No wonder they're not interested in seeing people air this dirty laundry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> _Gartner would not explain why a document purportedly aimed at "preventing bullying" would make zero mention of bullying, nor why it offers an explicit justification of attracting users, not protecting them._

PR people really are the worst. It's OK to be rude to them at parties.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm not really surprised how this is considered a huge deal once again, but, in fact, this is what the users generally want. TikTok is a quite specific platform, it's not there to share opinions and whatnot. It's to film and binge-watch hundreds of short stupid gimmicky music videos depicting what the general audience of the platform finds appealing (which turns out to be uncannily specific thing: I'm afraid by now it must be millions of hours of the same music, moves and facial expressions by 14-year old girls with awfully similar clothes and hairstyle).

Videos TikTok moderators are suppressing here get to be watched and liked too, but not in some unassuming liberal manner SJWs are hoping to promote: you can find _hundreds_ of so called "TikTok cringe compilations" on youtube. It's not what TikTok's "normal" audience wants to see in their feeds. So TikTok is doing them a service supressing this stuff. And it absolutely doesn't matter if they do it "algorithmically" or with manual labor. Essentially this is the same process, they differ only by cost and efficacy.

<comment><USER39> _this is what the users generally want_

It is not the case that people entirely autonomously 'want' things. Humans have culture, which amongst other things, inculcates desires. Further, it manifestly doesn't follow that anyone is right to provide anything that people happen to have been acculturated into wanting. That brand of absurd corporate nihilism would have been literally unthinkable to any human prior to (roughly) the European Enlightenment, and is what has led our planet to the brink of oblivion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why is this a surprise? Glamor magazines and Hollywood movies have been doing this for all time.

This is the natural consequence of any platform that wants to be popular and get a ton of media attention.

Is it mortally wrong? of course it is, exactly the same as glamor magazines and Hollywood are.

</comment><comment><USER41> Here's my 2 cents -

A. [0] Familiarity breeds attractiveness.

This isn't a new concept. You can find many advocate groups who want "diversity" in workplaces and higher positions to stop systematic or perceived racism due to non familiarity. How is that different from above? Do you have a choice to be ugly or not? Do you have a choice on whether your body is deformed or disabled? Do you have a choice on being poor?

To little extent, maybe but most can't be helped beyond a certain level.

B. Scale

Night club doing it doesn't affect society as much as a platform with 1.5+ billion users. Of those who are going to vote new policies and may get to a high position of authority later,

do you really want your judge who uses tiktok to sentence you for longer?

You can already find people living in echo chambers online and as more of it is moved online, will you be okay if your child is excluded from something more than a billion people use because she is a bit shorter than normal?

How many of you have LinkedIn, twitter or social media crap that you despise but have to use due to others using them? What will happen then?

C. Awareness

Do you think users are aware that they are being censored constantly compared to real life where you can't avoid meeting different people? If you go to a bar, you will see different people in your way - few "ugly" and others pretty.

<sarcasm>

I propose we stop ugly people from having kids so everyone remains pretty and similarly symmetrical. Who wouldn't wanna live in a world with everyone pretty and same? It's not like we will seek more exoticism after that happens. The problem will remain solved forever.

</sarcasm>

0] [http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~efi614/documents/InPre...](http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~efi614/documents/InPress- a_ReisManiaciCaprarielloEastwickFinkel_JPSP.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER42> Unfortunately, those written document are nothing more than ugly but accurate reflection of the market. TikTok does this the same reason Hollywood does. The only difference no one in Hollywood wrote it down, but it is almost as a taken.

</comment><comment><USER43> Instagram does this too, just algorithmically based on likes and engagement.

You can't prioritize posts in an algorithmic feed without deprioritizing others.

Reverse chronological is the only non-editorializing choice, and it's not an option on most major platforms.

I encourage people not to donate content to these censorship platforms and to disintermediate their connections with their audience.

</comment><comment><USER44> Whatever 'ugly' means in this century, ugly appearance is much preferable to ugly action.

Another demonstration that centralization is anathema to community. It concentrates power in a few hands, and it creates single-points-of-failure. The internet is not yet routing around that kind of damage.

</comment><comment> rickety-gherkin I think the club analogy here is spot-on. From what I've seen of TikTok, if you're classically attractive then you're famous on there, and it drives the wants and trends of TikTok. A userbase that is infatuated with crushes. It's no different than any teen magazine from the 90s. I have an ignore-worthy conspiracy about this app, stop reading here if are you have a distaste for this.

I think it's used as a staging environment to test mass human interactions with computer generated videos of people in a setting where there isn't pre- loaded skepticism and where the sample sets are extremely good. Mass amounts of people doing the same dance is a pretty good data set, and the information in this article makes me believe this even more. They are effectively "cleaning" the data so the sample set is attractive people in clean and presentable homes or areas with good lighting, all confined to the "For your page" stream. Might not be true, but it's a fun thought.

</comment><comment><USER45> In other word, the sky is blue, most people would prefer to see attractive people, its not rocket science. It would be stupid for tik tok to do otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER46> If you think is is unfair, wait until they find out about Tinder and Literally The Whole Modelling and Acting Industries.

</comment><comment><USER47> Would we be upset if they told the moderators "try to promote things that will be shared/upvoted a lot", and tied their earnings to how good they did at picking winners? Even if the effect was precisely the same?

Basically, what seems to have happened is someone worded it crassly, but they were just telling them to think like marketing people, and use common sense. Also, the word "suppression" implies censorship and heavy handedness, while "promote" seems harmless. But they can really be describing the same process.

</comment><comment><USER48> News flash: social media is garbage. What do you expect from these companies? It's just a private entity that makes its own rules about its own landfill of humanity. All of a sudden because anyone can make a post TikTok is obligated to preserve their rights? Not the case.

Not that this is a good thing. It's childish to be surprised and indignant about these companies' policies and behavior like they're your buddy or something.

</comment><comment><USER49> So... "Sex sells." Is this new?

I feel like we want the world to be a better place in 2020, and then we are reminded the humans are basically still humans.

<comment><USER50> It's like you expect the cook at the restaurant to thoroughly wash their hands, they don't legally have to do it thoroughly, but ultimately if you knew they didn't you probably wouldn't eat there to begin with.

Users deserve to know how hard they are being fucked. Informed consent, even for the naive users, basically.

<comment><USER24> > _they don 't legally have to do it thoroughly,_

I don't think that's an apt analogy because I don't think that's true. I've perused the health inspector reports for local restaurants a few times and I've seen businesses written up for substandard sanitation practices. It may not be the most enforceable law ever, but nevertheless I'm pretty sure the law does require them to wash their hands thoroughly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> makes sense to me. Isnt this how society works at large? Cute hostess at the front of a restaurant to great you. Top sales earners are usually in decent shape and charismatic. Society segregates itself away from the poor. Sounds like tech imitating real life to me. (to be clear not saying its right, but giving my opinion on what I perceive in society and how this aligns to it)

</comment><comment><USER52> It's just verbiage right? Replace moderator with 'casting director', and replace website with 'movie' or 'tv'. The goal is the same.

</comment><comment><USER53> Well that's no fun isn't it. You warp reality to make the whole social network a complete misrepresentation of only looking at the happiest of everyone's side. There is at least someone keeping a straight face and on TikTok but still feeling ugly or depressed there anyway. It is the same nature that users of Facebook have and it isn't very healthy and promotes one-sided stories.

The interesting observation and funny side to this policy is that there could be a story to be told here where the suppressed "ugly" and "poor" people become the heroes and the TikTok elite and its glamorous fans have become the super-villains.

</comment><comment><USER54> So, its like TV or films? ... or advertising, magazines.. most media come to think of it.

<comment><USER55> This is more like trickle down authoritarianism promoting Potemkin villages in all spheres of life. Old decorations just won't do there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is a wonderful example of why no speech should be allowed to be censored.

Freedom of speech isn't a slogan. Freedom of speech means allowing others to say things you don't agree with or like, because it allows your own voice to be heard.

Once censorship is allowed, in any form, it will always devolve into us and them. Us and them is determined by who is running things. They're the us. Everyone else is them.

Us justifies their decisions and actions, but it's still the same ol' story. Power corrupts and those Us' in power, will use their influence in any way that they choose.

Censorship equals tyranny.

</comment><comment><USER57> Ugly fat poor. 3 strong words repeated over and over in the comments. I hope people realize that there is a pretty large demographic that may identify with this.

As for TikTok, it's a Chinese app and things we consider discriminating may be a bit normalized there. I constantly get surprised how much the CPC gets away with, but asking my Chinese friends, they've made peace with it "it's for the greater good".

So like Facebook's unofficial motto "growth at any cost", this doesn't surprise me coming from TikTok. I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook did/does this too.

</comment><comment><USER58> I am unable to see what is wrong with all of this. I wont be using tiktok if it had ugly people doing stuff I am not interested int.

As someone has pointed out on this threat elsewhere, Tiktok is a night club. You gotta dress up, put up fake eye lashes, high heels and show some cleavage to get more attention. THAT IS their business model.

This outrage is nothing but silicon valley hippie attitude which I think the chinese simply don't give a shit about.

</comment><comment><USER59> I have to admit, my reaction is...so what?

Social media is a playground for beautiful, glamorous people, because those are the personalities most people want to see. It's true for YouTube and Instagram. If you're a relative newcomer to the market like TikTok and your promoted content is filled with ugly people, users will notice that and assume your service is second rate.

</comment><comment><USER60> Rules of censorship:

Censorship is OK when it helps making money.

Failing that, censorship is OK if we dislike the content being censored or the people posting it.

TikTok doing this is Universal Chinese that is understood all over the world. No need for translation.

</comment><comment><USER61> Not a TikTok user.

I mean, to me, this is how things just work, ethical or not. What would we expect from "featured" things? Typically people in television (shows and commercials) or otherwise "featured" fall into more attractive territory.

Is it shallow? Absolutely.

Is there anything to be done about it? I mean, maybe, but is there some monetary harm coming to TikTok users?

</comment><comment><USER62> Hahaha that's like 99% of the people on there. Great marketing tik tok. Tick tock your time is coming

</comment><comment><USER63> How is this any different than having an algorithm do it for you? If human moderators use these rules, it probably means the content it lets through is correlated with high engagement. What's the material difference to an algorithm that just favors high engagement as well?

</comment><comment><USER64> Everything is becoming more curated and centralised, it wouldn't take a stretch to make a dystopian outlook where eugenics and social credit is implemented through a global tech platform.

If you're not gifted with good lucks you are punished in the system.

</comment><comment><USER65> Have people in here actually downloaded TikTok and browsed through it? It's actually pretty amazing how beautiful their creators are. It's gonna be a legitimate unique value proposition for them as a social network

</comment><comment><USER66> How is this different from Hollywood filtering actors and actresses for good looks?

</comment><comment><USER67> I remember the first day a local Philz cafe opened, it was immediately filled with very attractive people. Months later, its population looked mostly interchangeable with that of the Starbucks across the road.

</comment><comment><USER68> Reminds me of the S10E7 of Curb your Enthusiasm, "The Ugly Section"

</comment><comment><USER69> TikTok (and many other social network) is a business company, it can do whatever it favor as long as it's legal. Instead of complaining it, it's more constructive to come up alternatives :)

</comment><comment><USER70> Why pretend this is novel? All visual media select for prettier people, and every single company that wants to operate from (or in) China will do the rest of the slimy pro-state censorship.

</comment><comment><USER71> Too many comments down there. Beijing troll factory noticed the post?

</comment><comment><USER72> "TRUE JUSTICE If you really want diversity & protection of minorities suffering workplace prejudice, stop chromo-categorizing -- that fake unempirical business.

Hire unattractive people. They are the one suffering the most, & deprived of attention." [0]

[0] [https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1231359316147478528](https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1231359316147478528)

</comment><comment><USER73> There's that really really old social media platform called television that does something pretty similar.

</comment><comment><USER74> Why is this a problem when done by social media companies and not a problem for the rest of the media?

</comment><comment><USER75> God bless the Intercept for continuously pumping out investigative journalism pieces.

</comment><comment><USER76> > These same documents show moderators were also told to censor political > speech in TikTok livestreams, punishing those who harmed "national honor" or > broadcast streams about "state organs such as police" with bans from the > platform.

This is the story. Why would anyone use a CPC social media platform?

<comment><USER77> Presumably because a lot of attractive young people do

That's explicitly the point.

Yes its evil and manipulative - but everyone should understand CPC is not above such tactics. And neither are pop magazines, holywood.. other people

Its an ugly world out there

<comment><USER76> More because of the money they dumped into advertising.

I wouldn't equate pop magazines to the people who run concentration camps and silence anyone who talks ill of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> If you don't like it don't use TikTok. It's as simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER79> Well, I guess those videos turn people off and they stay on the app less, and TikTok wants to make money.

TikTok works with AI, but the same would happen on Facebook, where people click on "Like" manually.

Cry me a river.

<comment><USER80> This is not about low quality content getting automatically filtered out by an algorithm because people don't like it. This is about TikTok using human moderators to prevent users from ever seeing content made by people they don't like.

<comment><USER81> So, like reddit?

<comment><USER82> Moderators of the subreddits in reddit are normal reddit users (normally) compared to the moderators in TikTok who I presume are selected by the company and on payroll (or contractors maybe, I seem to recall Facebook uses contractors for this)

<comment><USER24> Paying their labor seems to be a respect in which TikTok is better than reddit, not worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Netflix and NBC TV do this in the shows they distribute too.

<comment><USER84> Not necessarily.

I'm re-watching Breaking Bad. A great show about some ugly f*ckers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Comments here are ~50% whataboutisms.

</comment><comment><USER86> Well that's like saying Reddit suppressed pro Trump community

</comment><comment><USER87> Url changed from [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/17/tiktok- tr...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/17/tiktok-tried-to- filter-out-videos-from-ugly-poor-or-disabled-users), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER71> People should probably hate their lives using Chinese social network. Chinese are well-known for racism even against other Asian people, not to say all your information is being stored on servers of a communist totalitarian state.</comment>


Show HN: A simple slack bot for tracking long running processes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/spohngellert-o/SlackProcessTrackerBot <comment><AUTHOR> I made this slack bot to track processes that take a while (I'm in the ML space), and get a notification when they finish. I thought this might be useful to others, and would love feedback on it.</comment>


Indian two-year-old sets national archery record - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-32046302

<comment><USER2> > Dolly was conceived through surrogacy after the death of her brother, > international archer and coach Cherukuri Lenin, in a road accident in 2010 > reports said.

> Her father, Cherukuri Satyanarayana, said she had been trained since birth > to be a champion.

> "You can't put too much pressure on children, they can be trained for a > maximum of two or three hours a day," he said. "But Dolly comes from a > family of archers so she's capable of a lot."

eeks. :(

<comment><USER3> Especially the third quote is almost unbelievable.

<comment><USER2> It sounds like how I'd raise a pokemon...

<comment><USER4> Just wait until she reaches her next evolution!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > My daughter achieved the feat we have been dreaming

Well you should be the ones to do it then.

</comment><comment><USER6> What a sad story.

<comment><USER7> Oh come on. It's not THAT bad.

I don't even remember what I was doing at 2 (in fact most studies indicate this is impossible). This girl has the potential to live a pretty awesome life, and no one will F_k with her as well. She could even end up as this guy's prodigy:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g)

<comment><USER6> It is that bad. Kids should not be used like this. It should be 100% obvious that this is the adults driving it, not the child. She's just being used to act out their dreams.

<comment><USER8> Not even dreams. It's PR. Daddy runs an "archery academy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> don't know why, but this reminded me of brave-new-world :(

</comment><comment><USER10> she looks like 4 year old child.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is this another India-vs-Pakistan dick size contest?

"A kid from our country got his MCSE at five years old!"

"Oh yeah? Well, a kid from _our_ country got his MCSE, Cisco certification, and developed his first iPhone app at four and a half years old!"

Etc.

<comment><USER12> I do not think this is the case. The competition is intense in India and most often than not Indians compete with each other than Pakistanis. Relatively speaking the dick sizing between India and Pakistan is North-NorthWestren India vs Punjab (Paksitan) since they do share a border. For South India, Andhra Pradesh in this case, Pakistan is an abstract and most of the time, other Cricket matches do not care about Pakistan or its existence. So this is resounding NO. You can congratulate the Kid or you can diss the parenting but to oversimplify things that fit your simplistic mental models is unworthy of HN forum.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are best resources to learn critical thinking? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I would recommend starting here: [https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/your-deceptive- mind-...](https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/your-deceptive-mind-a- scientific-guide-to-critical-thinking-skills.html)

Steve Novella is a great teacher!

</comment><comment><USER3> Thinking from A to Z: [https://heyletsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/thinking...](https://heyletsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/thinking- from-a-to-z.pdf)</comment>


Tech Billionaires Plotting Doomsday Escape to Bunkers in New Zealand - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-rich-new-zealand-doomsday-preppers <comment><USER2> Love the art!</comment>


Coming soon: Flying car for $279k - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-03/a-flying-car-for-just-279-000

<comment><USER2> Yeah, sure.

> Dietrich says, "a pilot of one of our vehicles—once issued a use permit—can > just drive up, swipe through the gate, taxi, and take off. You don't even > have to talk to anyone."

That's bull. You're gonna have to talk to _someone_. Whether you're at the smallest airport in the country or not, you're going to need to get on UNICOM and state your intentions otherwise you're either going to kill yourself or get a bunch of pilots pissed at you. And if you're at an airport of any size you have to talk to ground control so you don't get in a crash on the ground and then get clearance to take off so you don't get in a crash in the air.

<comment><USER3> If you live in the middle of nowhere you actually could get away from it. I fly out of a small airport only an hour from Boston and 15 minutes from Worcester. Not all of the planes/gliders even have radios. Also without a ground frequency people are walking and driving onto the taxiways as these please. If you're not flying instrument its up to the pilot to be watching for who knows what from all directions!! Makes it interesting I suppose...

What I'm curious is how they'll deal with the possibility of a damage to the craft. If someone opens up a car door into your wing how do you determine if there's any significant damage to the loading surfaces (especially if there's composites involved)...how about a tap from the car behind at the stop sign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a car that transforms into a plane. This is a vastly different consumer experience, we are still no where near a flying car in the sci fi sense (a la 5th element).

<comment><USER5> Actually it's just a plane that you can drive on roads. A _driving plane_ rather than _flying car_ , if you will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Between this and Google Glasses, today is a good day for living in the Future.</comment>


Saudi Arabia detains 201 princes, businessmen in $100B corruption probe - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-10/saudi-anti-corruption-probe-finds-$100-billion-embezzled/9136608 <comment><USER2> This is the most backward and regressive country in the world.

The fact that Europe, US, western media and other busy bodies can sanctimoniously preach human rights and execute wars and destroy entire countries for decades non stop while supporting a regime like SA is a true reflection of how global news and propaganda works. And exposes the silliness of a 'value' based world that exists simply to provide cover for geo-political objectives to cause devastation and death on the ground. These are crimes against humanity.

And mindbogglingly this support has continued even while the Saudis finance the spread of a hateful wahhabist ideology and we spend billions to build surveillance states at home to protect against it.

Yet it is Libya, Iraq and now Syria and Iran - all generations ahead on human rights compared to the Saudis - that are targeted while the Saudi's continue uninterrupted with western support. This 'purge' is happening with US and european support so you don't see the usual hysteria about 'rule of law' and 'human rights'. This is a truly messed up world.

<comment><USER3> Well said! We (those in the US) should really think about who we are, as I think it's harder to be self reflective about our own doings, but we can see how bad Saudi Arabia is. Saudi Arabia is considered an ally. Saudi Arabia is a leading state sponsor of terrorism and has been exporting an extreme ideology which is the terrorism that is wreaking havoc. How can we consider ourselves the "good guys", if Saudi Arabia (a country that is so obviously doing horrible things) is considered an ally and a country which we (the US) have been arming them with weapons?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The purge began overnight Saturday, initially catching 11 princes and 38 > officials, military officers and business leaders. They are being held at > five-star hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.

Really getting the royal treatment even during probe. Btw, is this in any way related to the pending Aramco IPO?

<comment><USER5> Detained in a 5* hotel probably feels like prison would be for most of us. In the end, prison is about not having any freedom and that will be the case for them as well. A nice bed doesn't help much if you have no say about your life.

> Btw, is this in any way related to the pending Aramco IPO?

More likely the handover to the new crown prince (MBS). The IPO could be cancelled anyway but both are driven by MBS to modernise Saudi Arabia and make it ready for a future without oil.

<comment><USER6> This is an aspect of the proposed narrative I don't understand.

How on Earth is turning the country into an absolute dictatorship, with the rule of law utterly disregarded, supposed to help Saudi Arabia move forward? The last things I would want to do financially would be to put money into a state where the local dictator has a proven willingness to seize assets on a whim.

<comment><USER7> In theory it would be that they believe they can kill two birds with one stone.

1) Take out competing power lines in the family. As a kicker they get to seize upwards of $300 billion that can go into the remake-Saudi-Arabia-fund for Mohammad Bin Salman (likely several times what they'd get initially from the Aramco IPO).

2) Neutralize concerns over that by covering it in a guise of cleaning up the kingdom. Most likely the kingdom has always operated by these means and they're simply throwing a switch and choosing to selectively prosecute.

Their plan bets on the second part being an acceptable cover story. They're betting some percentage of people will buy the premise outright. They're betting some percentage of people will find the cover story good enough to provide their own personal cover to continue working with the Saudis ('just give me some kind of rationale I can take to my people'). It would all rest on the notion that given enough time and stability afterward, that the vast majority of people that do business with Saudi Arabia now, will let this slide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When it is all said and done the Saudi Crown is going to have significant stakes in many critical American and Western companies including huge media companies.

This makes me very uncomfortable.

<comment><USER9> Are they any worse than your US overlords?

<comment><USER10> Well, their views on gender equality and religious freedom on average tend to be very different from the vast majority of those in the West. So yes, they might well be worse.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mohammed bin Salman is allegedly a lot more moderate than the past leaders.

<comment><USER8> The policy on gender and religious freedom is only the tip of the iceberg.

Freedom as a concept seems to be under direct attack in their Kingdom considering the Crown Prince is rounding up political enemies en masse with complete impunity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I do not think it's accurate to call this a "corruption probe." Surely that's how Saudi Arabia's leaders and their allies would like it described. To me, it's a biased headline.

Keep in mind that the opposing side is being murdered, or detained, without due process.

<comment><USER12> The KSA is an absolute monarchy that beheads people and severs limbs for thievery. Murdering or detaining the other side without due process is how these states work, it's how you consolidate power when there are hundreds of pretenders to the throne.

<comment><USER13> Sure, but where is the outcry from Western media and round the clock coverage of this outrage? If anything remotely close to this was happening in any of "official" adversaries like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, etc., media would be calling for US troops on the ground. It this was in Russia or China, there would be multiple levels of sanctions imposed as we speak.

But, hey, this is Saudi Arabia, so let's just treat it with bemused detachment like an extended Game of Thrones season.

<comment><USER14> Kind of hard to get outraged about. These people _are_ corrupt. So is the crown prince. The Game of Thrones reference is apt, none of these people are morally superior to the others.

On the list of Saudi outrages, this ranks pretty far down the list.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, sure, compared to routinely beheading people for witchcraft, this might even seem civilized.

My point was that when it's murderous tyrannical allies like Saudis, the mainstream response is just like yours, "eh, what am I supposed to do about it, that's how it goes".

When it's adversaries like Saddam Hussein, it's "wtf, let's bomb the shit out of them".

<comment><USER11> (Don't forget that Saddam was supported by the US before he wasn't supported by the US)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Prime Minister of Lebanon also turned up in Riyadh and resigned via television on the same day in unclear circumstances (conflicting reports whether he is free to leave or not), which is a particularly weird tie-in: [http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/10/middleeast/lebanon- hariri-...](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/10/middleeast/lebanon-hariri-saudi- iran/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised Alwaleed bin Talal arrest hasn't affected tech stocks yet.

The big question to me is what the kingdom will do with all the assets they confiscated.

EDIT: I think they'll start liquidating large assets for their [http://vision2030.gov.sa/en](http://vision2030.gov.sa/en) plan.

<comment><USER7> Let's put it into perspective. Paul Allen is holding $9.5 billion in Microsoft. Paul is worth around $6 billion more than Alwaleed.

That position couldn't shake Microsoft very much at all, much less the wider tech world. Alwaleed's position in Apple and Twitter are, basically, meaningless to affecting tech stocks. Apple is a $900 billion company, nearing the worth of Aramco at this point. Alwaleed's entire worth is $17 billion, barely a drop in the ocean versus tech stocks. Not to mention nobody seriously believes those positions are going to be haphazardly liquidated. If Saudi Arabia manages to seize Kingdom Holdings, they'll most likely make gradual maneuvers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some of my conspiracy forums are saying supposedly this is part of a corruption sweep agreement that will include America (rumors of sealed indictments), designed to get "deep state" people to start singing.

Not saying its true, but just thought it might add context.

Never forget who created the house of saud in the first place.

<comment><USER18> I'm seeing the same thing, in relatively mainstream conservative fora.

The most convincing part of this seems to be that Alwaleed bin Talil has longstanding ties with the US political system, particularly on the left. His past work with the Podestas has many eyebrows raised.

There are also dozens of sealed federal indictments pending, which I'm told is quite unusual. The assumption seems to be that they are related to Mueller's investigation although I've seen no compelling evidence that this is the case, aside from timing and wishful thinking.

<comment><USER19> > There are also dozens of sealed federal indictments pending, which I'm told > is quite unusual. The assumption seems to be that they are related to > Mueller's investigation although I've seen no compelling evidence that this > is the case, aside from timing and wishful thinking.

Neither the total number, nor timing, is particularly unusual; then speculation about Mueller is mostly based on the number in D.C. between the Manafort and Papadopoulos indictments being somewhat higher than would be expected by random chance, but even that is fairly weak. There is basically zero evidence of _anything_ unusual with sealed indictments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is Saudia Arabia changing its PR strategy? So much good news coming from this kingdom at the moment ...

<comment><USER21> Saudi Arabia is changing, full stop. Mohammad bin Salman is pushing through a sweeping reform agenda, with the explicitly stated aim of returning Saudi Arabia to a moderate Islamic state. We've already seen substantial change. The powers of the religious police have been greatly curtailed, women are allowed to drive, the state-owned petroleum company is being partly privatised and there are major plans for economic modernisation.

Whether this reform agenda actually comes to pass is yet to be seen, but I think we should applaud both the rhetoric and the efforts made so far.

<comment><USER8> The reform agenda only reaches as far as the door to the throne room. Assuming perfect execution of western reforms we'll still be left with an enormously wealthy, powerful, and ruthless autocratic regime actively trying to spread their power far beyond their borders.

Unless they become a constitutional monarchy with severely limited powers I am going to hold my applause.

<comment><USER22> Gradual change is better than no change at all.

For a country like Saudi, if you want to make a large scale sudden changes which turns everything upside-down (even if those were good intentions), you will end up with something like Afganistan or Iraq.

The pace of change (however slow for our standard), is quite unthinkable for the locals. I think it will take a couple of decades, at least, to see if anything good came out of this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Timeance.js ES6 library compatibility - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/loverajoel/timeance.js/blob/es6/src/timeance.js

<comment><AUTHOR> any idea for add about the syntax? all code are supported for the last version of Chrome Canary</comment>


Maxwell's Equations first published 150 years ago - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/life-and-physics/2015/nov/22/maxwells-equations-150-years-of-light <comment><USER2> Also credit to this guy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside)

... Who took the original 20 equations and simplified them to the 4 we normally see.

<comment><USER3> _That same year he patented, in England, the coaxial cable._

That's a fairly major footnote, on an interesting career. He seems to be one of those people who quietly had a significant impact on the future.

<comment><USER4> Heaviside was somewhat written out of history because he was considered a crank during his lifetime. His reputation is basically rehabilitated these days, but it's only physicists/mathematicians/engineers who have heard of him.

<comment><USER5> His name was all over the physics textbooks, probably even more frequently than Maxwell, so he is not entirely forgotten.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some HN readers might be interested to know that Maxwell's equations can be written in a single expression (with one auxiliary condition).

The first step is to define the _Faraday tensor_ _F_ , which can be written as a 4x4 antisymmetric matrix. Such a matrix has 16 elements, but the diagonal is all zeroes (by antisymmetry: _x_ = - _x_ => _x_ = 0), and the 6 off-diagonal elements on one side of the diagonal are simply the negatives of their mirrored values. This leaves 16 - 4 - 6 = 6 independent elements—exactly enough to contain the 6 elements of the electric and magnetic field vectors (3 each for _E_ and _B_ ), which in fact are exactly the elements of the Faraday tensor.

In terms of _F_ , the Maxwell equations for the divergence of _B_ and the curl of _E_ can be combined in the single equation

        dF = 0

where _d_ is the _exterior derivative_. As with ordinary potential theory, where a vector field with zero curl can be written as the gradient of a scalar function, a tensor whose exterior derivative is zero can be derived from another tensor, called in this case the 4-potential _A_ (which contains both the ordinary electric potential and the magnetic vector potential):

        F = dA      (1)

(This is the auxiliary condition alluded to above.) The second expression for _F_ , corresponding to the divergence of _E_ and the curl of _B_ , combines the exterior derivative and the _Hodge star operator_ ⭑ [1]:

        d⭑F = J     (2)

where _J_ is the 4-current density (which contains both the charge density and the 3-dimensional current density) [2]. Substituting (1) for _F_ in (2) then yields Maxwell's equations in a single expression:

        d⭑dA = J    Maxwell's equation(s)

This equation is perhaps a more compact and elegant choice for those T-shirts: "God said: d⭑dA = J—and there was light!"

[1]: The ⭑ character may not display in some browsers. In this case, you can use an asterisk instead.

[2]: Eq. (2) is written in "God's units", equivalent to SI with μ₀ = ε₀ = 1 => _c_ = 1.

</comment><comment><USER7> ...and in two days it is the 100th anniversary of Einstein's publication of The Field Equations of Gravitation. (The original paper on General Relativity).

[1] [http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol6-trans/129](http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol6-trans/129)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_general_relativity#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_general_relativity#The_development_of_the_Einstein_field_equations)

[3] [http://www-history.mcs.st- and.ac.uk/HistTopics/General_relat...](http://www-history.mcs.st- and.ac.uk/HistTopics/General_relativity.html#60)

</comment><comment><USER8> Of course, like every article published by a newspaper or magazine, its only purpose is to carry links to _other_ articles published by this newspaper, and omit any reference to the original source.

So here's the original publication: [http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/155.toc](http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/155.toc)

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, For the year ⅯⅮⅭⅭⅭⅬⅩⅤ, Vol. 155

[http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/155/local/fro...](http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/155/local/front- matter.pdf) (Title page and Contents) [http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/155/459.full....](http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/155/459.full.pdf) (Article)

</comment><comment><USER9> Maxwell's equations as most of us know it are the Heaviside-Gibbs reforumulation. Good article though.

<comment><USER10> And the one we should know is the Geometric Algebra formulation, where it ends up as Maxwell's Equation, singular.

Gibbs/Heaviside vectors are cumbersome and confusing, and the faster we can dump them as a society the better.

<comment><USER11> Can you link to an explanation/derivation of the geometric formulation?

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_descriptions_of_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_descriptions_of_the_electromagnetic_field#Geometric_algebra_formulations)

Or open any of these and search for "Maxwell": [http://www.av8n.com/physics/maxwell- ga.htm](http://www.av8n.com/physics/maxwell-ga.htm) [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.3619.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.3619.pdf) [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielx7/5/6879517/06876131.pdf](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielx7/5/6879517/06876131.pdf) [http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/pdf/SpacetimePhysics.pdf](http://geocalc.clas.asu.edu/pdf/SpacetimePhysics.pdf) [http://faculty.luther.edu/~macdonal/GA&GC.pdf](http://faculty.luther.edu/~macdonal/GA&GC.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Yep. I'm real glad Hestenes has been championing VA/VC so hard. That first text is a perfect supplementary reading that any undergraduate should read. Who was the author?

I skipped the a few and went straight to the last PDF (the Survey) and coming from a stronger foundational math background, I felt right at home. (I'd imagine those who went down the physics route would be thrown off by the notation though, so I understand the author's preface). He mentions physics and CS applications, but I really think this has structural engineering applications as well -- e.g. R^4 seems like a perfect domain to explore bidirectional tensile and shear strength of materials (especially composite materials/aggregates), then perform some FEA with all of the simple operations within that come inherent to operating within the bounds of the 4-vector form. I mean that's a real trivial example (and I obviously don't know enough about structural engineering to make a good analogy) but it seems like one of those cases where you move the problem set lifted into another domain, perform your manipulation then finally lower back into your original (co-)domain. (Frequently done in algebraic topology, most famously by Perelman on Poincare)

<comment> semi-extrinsic I think there is a very good reason why structural engineers never see this type of thing, and it's because most structural engineers don't like math. They like clicking buttons in their CAD/FEA/BIM/<insert-latest-TLA> computer system.

The people who write those systems on the other hand enjoy this math very much, and tend to use Galerkin as a verb and will casually point out just how wonderful the Lax-Milgram theorem is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's my favorite article on the equations.

[http://www.setileague.org/articles/ham/maxwell.pdf](http://www.setileague.org/articles/ham/maxwell.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> Where are all the gradient and curl operators in the picture of the original manuscript on the page? Or was that notation developed later?

<comment><USER15> Long after Maxwell was dead. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside)

Supposedly they're only known as "Maxwell Equations" now because Einstein began his 1905 paper naming them such. Prior to that they were known by other names. Before even my time though.

Frank Yang's talk (and the associated paper, but that's only available behind a paywall) might be of interest to those looking for more background: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG343kojbnU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG343kojbnU)</comment></comment>


How I stopped forgetting things  - <AUTHOR> http://albanlv.tumblr.com/post/40100468054/how-i-stopped-forgetting-things

<comment><USER2> Nice post, especially for my mails management ! I hope discover other tools, for example in calendar things, on comments and an other Alf's post.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. I would add a few ones for managing social media: mention, hootsuite, socialbro...</comment>


Jack Ma defends the 'blessing' of a 12-hour working day - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47934513 <comment><USER2> Today it's 996 and there will probably be bonuses and rewards when it initially is introduced for those working more. However give it a few years, those rewards go away, 996 is the norm. Then give it a few more years and they are asking for 997, or 8-10 7 days a week.

Normalizing this behavior is the short term goal, the longer term goal is returning to indentured servitude.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess family life doesn't matter to Jack Ma. It matters to me. I'm not going to miss my kids growing up to the benefit of your company.

</comment><comment><USER4> It works when you are the founder or super passionate, if you want to. It doesn't work as an expectation for every employee.

<comment><USER5> It's called cognitive dissonance.

And basically it's a prerequisite someone who wants to be both a billionaire and a member of the local Communist Party.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty easy to justify long working hours when the payoff is $40 billion.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, it's a blessing for him, he's the guy on top. Related news: Thugs see jackboots as a 'blessing'.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's the craziest thing I've read today.

I've worked 12 hour shifts. By the time you eat, shower and commute you have no free time at all. It's horrible.

<comment><USER9> Same. I worked them as 3-3-4-4 (3 on, 3 off, 4 on, 4 off) and even still, it was taxing. You get extra-long weekends all the time, which are basically mandatory, because you spend that entire first day recovering from the previous 12-hour shifts.

Though it also switched between days and nights, so you'd end up spending your last day adjusting yourself to the upcoming "time switch", which further worsened it. The company had all kinds of research indicating that it was great for morale and productivity and such, and they had a strong union that didn't seem to hate it, but I always had a hard time adapting.

I can't imagine doing it for 6 days straight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thought he was talking about a 12-hour working week. Thought it was a bit extreme. We do live in a tech bubble.

</comment><comment><USER11> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19663317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19663317).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, missed this discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Jack Ma is saying "9-9-6" which means working from 9am-9pm, 6 days per week.

He says if you love what you do then you enjoy the hours.

<comment><USER13> Come be my indentured servant and work 24/7\. What I'm saying is that if you love what you do then you enjoy the hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Work less, do more. That should be the optimization loop.

</comment><comment><USER15> this guy is going to have a workers revolt on his hands

</comment><comment><USER16> How long is _his_ commute home?</comment>


Steve Blank releases updated book - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2012/02/09/two-giant-steps-forward-for-entrepreneurs

<comment><USER2> I don't get what he's got against eBooks. Half the comments are asking him about Kindle versions.

Looks like it could be a very interesting book though, if it's written top to bottom, and not just a bunch of his blog stuff lashed together with duct tape and twine.

I recently read The Lean Startup, against my better instincts, and was duly disappointed. A few key ideas and lots of what felt like hand waving to me. I think Eric is the real deal, but somehow managed to produce a book aimed at the management of large companies, rather than people running actual startups. Steve's book, on the other hand, promises "lots of details" and "metrics that matter". Hopefully, actual things that can be measured, rather than "innovation accounting"...

<comment><USER3> I wondered about that too for "Four Steps to the Epiphany" until I saw this post on Quora: [http://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-book-Four-Steps-to- Epiphany-...](http://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-book-Four-Steps-to-Epiphany-not- in-the-Kindle-or-iBooks-stores)

Essentially he wants people to be able to use it as a workbook, and not as a quick read (if that's even possible).

<comment><USER4> His opinion is certainly not unreasonable, and I'm impressed that he's willing to give up a significant amount of revenue to release the book the way he wants to see it.

That said, I'm fairly frustrated that there is no electronic version. I like to take book notes too, but I like to take them on my Kindle, and I have no plans to buy more paper books. I feel like both the author and I are missing out because of his uncompromising position. (Assuming his position is what the Quora post claims..)

<comment><USER2> > I'm impressed that he's willing to give up a significant amount of revenue > to release the book the way he wants to see it.

I don't think that revenue would be as significant to him as it would be to the average person.

So it seems more of a control thing, which I find unfortunate. Maybe the paper version is 'better', but presumably, if the book is good, an eBook version would be better than no version, and for some people, that is the choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And the Lean Launchpad class is not cancelled and is coming in 60 days based on a new material.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great news. It seems like everyone who ever mentions Four Steps to Epiphany says the same thing: Amazing content, you should take the time to read it, but I haven't actually been able to get through it yet.

<comment><USER7> Actually, skip it. It's not that good. There were some solid ideas in it back when he wrote it, but it was/is very raw, and has been fleshed out and refined by Blank and others in the years since. That, and the writing/editing is really bad - not up to the quality of what you find on his blog, which I like a lot.

<comment><USER8> I completely disagree with the above comment, but why is it being downvoted? Down voting people because they have a differing opinion just makes HN an echo chamber. Downvote trolls and irrelevant comments, not stuff that promotes reflection and discussion.

That being said, damoncali, I never thought the blog was that great compared to the book

<comment><USER7> Different strokes, I suppose. To be clear, I think there is lots of good info in the book - I just think it is better presented and expanded upon elsewhere, including his own blog, the many lean startup themed sites/books, and other places. In my view, the book reads like a big-company consulting manual, and does not get to the point very quickly or well. An important work, but not a must-read any more.

Will I buy his new book? Probably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too bad that the Kindle version will come later this year. I'd buy this one instantly.

EDIT: Before you buy, check this link out: [http://www.bookdepository.com/Startup-Owners-Manual-Steve- Bl...](http://www.bookdepository.com/Startup-Owners-Manual-Steve- Blank/9780984999309) \- it's 25% off + it offers free shipping (worldwide!).

<comment><USER10> I will never trust bookdepository. Last year I bought a digital book which was DRM protected. For some reason DRM failed to work so I contacted them within 2 hours of purchase but they just refused to understand my situation. After that incident I stay away from DRM too.

<comment><USER11> Do you trust amazon? Because they're owned by them now...

<comment><USER10> I have experience with Amazon customer service and they are excellent. Bookdepository was exactly opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Any idea when the book will actually ship? I know it goes to press Feb 14th, but when can we actually expect it in our mailbox?

<comment><USER12> I think it releases on March 1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sweeeeeeeet</comment>


After 400 years, mathematicians find a new class of solid shapes - <AUTHOR> http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/after-400-years-mathematicians-find-a-new-class-of-solid-shapes/article5699073.ece <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7251805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7251805)</comment>


How to Make Async Requests in PHP - <AUTHOR> https://segment.io/blog/how-to-make-async-requests-in-php/

<comment><USER2> Sorry if I am misunderstanding, but why not use Gearman (<http://gearman.org/>). We wrote a nice blog post on how we use Gearman for tracking API requests to Mixpanel [http://blog.nodesocket.com/how-we-tracking- api-requests-with...](http://blog.nodesocket.com/how-we-tracking-api-requests- with-mixpanel-an)).

Or, use React (<http://reactphp.org/>) a PHP async library.

<comment><AUTHOR> First off, great article! If you can get away with it, using Gearman is definitely a more robust solution. We'll try and see if we can write adapters for dedicated job queues like it in the future.

We're mainly trying to make the setup process really simple - no need to start up extra job servers or worker computers. Ideally they can add in our small bits of code and then start tracking analytics data without much configuration.

<comment><USER2> Thanks. Gearman works out lovely for background tasks like emails, tracking, anything you want to fire and forget. Makes sense though that you can't have the dependency of Gearman for your public library.

Are you guys in San Francisco?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, we are! (calvin|friends)@segment.io if you want to get in touch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Forking seems like a very expensive solution to the problem. Especially in php where exec() doesn't actually do what exec in unix does in general (contrary to plain exec which you'd use after a fork, PHP's exec still runs a shell).

If you use their API even just one time per request, be aware that they will fork, execute a shell, fork again and then execute curl. Imagine where this is going when you use multiple API calls per request.

As this is "just" about analytics, why not use a UDP packet or two? Sure - they might not get delivered, but is that really so bad for analytics? Sending out a UDP package is very fast and there will be no waiting going on at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. You're right that if you end up dealing with many requests per second, it will end up being resource intensive. In that case, the file or even a dedicated queue are better options.

We actually queue calls to our API and send only a single request to our servers. Even if you make multiple API calls over the course of a request, there will still be one fork per request.

I'd actually wanted to include UDP, PHP Extensions, and persistent sockets as part of the article, they just ended being a little out of scope. We might try and support them in the future, UDP is definitely an interesting idea for analytics applications.

We may also end up writing a custom in-memory queue which uses a persistent socket. For a vanilla PHP install, these seemed like the best available options.

<comment><USER4> UDP is kinda the only game in town with in-app analytics (if you don't want to drop ZeroMQ all over the place); Metricfire's PHP (and other) client libraries have been on this for a while now - <http://docs.metricfire.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Happy to see you got PHP running, I imagine the next step is a Wordpress Plugin to handle it automatically.

I suspect that you'll frequently need to fallback to the socket approach. I imagine a lot of shared hosts block the capability to run exec (Godaddy, Hostgator, other common php hosts), and I believe that's where a lot of PHP lives.

<comment><USER6> True that, it's actually already built: <https://segment.io/plugins/wordpress>

We decided to inject Javascript calls and use analytics.js's client-side tracking, because it's a bit more friendly for WordPress people we think, and it keeps their personal blogs and smaller projects on the free plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> curl_multi???!!!</comment>


The BBC Microcomputer and me, 30 years down the line - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15969065 <comment><USER2> Funny the article doesn't mention the greatest influence:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers>

All the chips in todays smartphones have origins in the company which made BBC Micro. Those guys should have been interviewed.</comment>


MAAS Development Summary – July 3rd – 14th - <AUTHOR> https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/07/11/andres-rodriguez-maas-development-summary-week-july-3rd-14th/ <comment><USER2> The thing I like the most about MAAS is the smallest commit in history:

[http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~maas- committers/maas/trunk/revi...](http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~maas- committers/maas/trunk/revision/3825)

It flips a single bit.</comment>


Transparent lithium-ion batteries make sci-fi gadgets a reality - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/90964-transparent-lithium-ion-batteries-make-sci-fi-gadgets-a-reality

<comment><USER2> At only 20wH/l for this battery, and with the grid and metal parts still visible, this "transparent" battery does nothing great.

The energy density is laughable.

<comment><USER3> Early technology takes some polishing before it fully realizes its potential.

Rest assured we already have (almost) transparent conductor technology available. Used in LCD screens for electrodes around the liquid crystal and barely discernible; they work well enough for that use. Add 2 and 2, and with a bit of luck you may get 22 :-)

<comment><USER2> I'll take my visible 2D batteries for 24wH any day. :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The list of futuristic gadgets this technology enables is extremely underwhelming.

Example: "Transparent e-readers so you can watch the ground as you walk and read"

</comment><comment><USER5> What sci-fi are they might be referring to? I don't remember seeing transparent batteries on Star Trek...

</comment><comment><USER6> >> ... make sci-fi gadgets a reality ...

Sci-Fi gadgets ARE already a reality.</comment>


What Makes an App Awesome?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/national/2013/03/08/what-makes-an-app-awesome-a-case-study-with-mokriya-craigslist/

<comment><USER2> Easy to customize once, then use with one-cliq Easy to use (event while driving) Content useful in everyday life</comment>