The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-deliberate-awfulness-of-social-media <comment><USER2> " you know that you could leave at any time and you know that you will not."

I have no problem.

The press needs to take more responsibility for this as they are the primary enablers of Twitter.

Tweets are presented all the time in articles as expression of legitimate opinion, and often used as the basis for some kind of rally bad straw-man argument the author wants to make.

I think Twitter will wane but it won't go away as those who make their business making noise, either celebs or those who report on them, will just keep going with it.

It may become purely PR providence though - I can see regular people giving up the notion of actively tweeting entirely.

<comment><USER3> The only people I know with twitter accounts are journalists. One friend in particular has a hard time understanding how you can function without twitter.

I tried using it, like most people, but when you work a job that doesn't involve trolling the internet for news, it's really hard to use twitter in any meaningful manner.

You'll post something and a few days later you'll have time to post a reply. Or you'll follow a few interest points and miss everything they post because you don't visit every hour and it'll drown in the feed if you don't.

I honestly think all the regular people on twitter are either unemployed or spending so much work time on social media that they ought to be fired.

I like social media by the way, but I don't think it has a lot of value when it's done primarily with strangers. I mean, my friends use Facebook groups and events to organize stuff and it's really, really good at that. We use discord/WhatsApp chats to keep in touch on day to day chitchat - which would be better in person but we live in different cities/have children etc. So that sort of social media is great.

But talking with strangers? I mean, I'm home in bed with the flu right now, and we're having this conversation, except I can't be sure you'll ever read what I post or if you'll find it interesting or reply, and even if we do get to have a talk, we'll likely never have another one. So it doesn't hold a lot of real value aside from wasting time, and that's kind of what twitter is all of the time.

<comment><USER4> Don't use twitter for _general_ news. Mute the news sources if you have to. If it's big enough it will bleed over into your feed anyway. Often I can work out what the news is by reverse-engineering the jokes about it.

It's much more interesting for highly specific news. I've got some accounts I follow for local news, some for gamedev news, people doing interesting tech, art, jokes, and a few "commentators" who are excellent enough to be worth reading on their own. It _can_ be great for kibitzing on live TV events too.

Mind you, these days I post very little original stuff too. The internet is just too much of a live-fire zone.

<comment><USER3> HN is my only form of digital news, so I'm a little old school. In fact the only news I read regularly is a national paper that only comes out once a week, that way all the journalists have had time to digest the weeks events and I get a compiled list of what was actually important.

I tried following HN styled things on twitter but it just never worked out for me.

<comment><USER5> What's the name of that weekly paper, if you don't mind sharing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The most alarming part of the article for me was the reference to climate change and its impending consequences. I

I may say I've been living under quite a rock for I hadn't thought of it as mentioned here in this paragraph:

" The book's most fascinating and disturbing chapter is about how the Internet, the primary vector of information about climate change, is increasingly a vector of the problem itself. The world's data centers already have roughly the same carbon footprint as the global aviation industry, even as people continue to speak of "the cloud" as though it were a barely corporeal entity. As temperatures rise, our information technologies will function less efficiently—increased heat and humidity will hamper the flow of wireless transmissions and satellite communications—and a vicious cycle will commence. (Bridle makes a similar point about cryptocurrency, that supposedly revolutionary and transformative technology: if its rate of growth continues, by next year Bitcoin alone will account for the same level of carbon output as the entire United States.) Even more depressing is the contention that climate change could actually wind up making us stupider: he cites research showing that human cognitive ability decreases significantly with higher atmospheric concentration of carbon. "Carbon dioxide clouds the mind: it directly degrades our ability to think clearly, and we are walling it into our places of education and pumping it into the atmosphere," he writes. "The crisis of global warming is a crisis of the mind, a crisis of thought, a crisis in our ability to think another way to be. Soon, we shall not be able to think at all.""

I am genuinely in an odd state of distress at this point. While I continue to function normally in society and keep living as though it is something so far away in the future, a special place in a deep corner of my mind still seems to nudge every once in a while when I am alone and drive me to borderline insanity.

<comment><USER7> This actually paralyses me a bit.

Nice vacation? All I think is footprint I'm making and how I'm destroying that very beautiful nature I wanted to visit.

Start enterprise? I'll just add another CO2 to provide people with service they don't really need to survive.

Like this new gadget? I can't buy it, I don't need it and again, just another item in vicious cycle or consumption.

But what can I do. I want my enjoyment of those stuff back. I want to be motivated to create and experience, yet I can't as I see the other side of that. I want to enjoy good stuff, but I can't.

<comment><USER8> I know what you mean, and you didn't even mention the thing that makes it extra stressful: The fact that other people keep doing all that stuff anyway. So you either disadvantage yourself against them while having no real effect as an individual, or you do the same as them while always feeling bad about it.

Although some of those things don't necessarily make life better anyway. Sometimes I'm happier having a break at home vs. trying to plan a vacation, and new gadgets often just mean more work in your life to maintain them. Not to mention the extra work you have to do to afford it all, that you could instead have as free time.

But in the end, I think individual change on a large scale requires government legislation, and government legislation requires worldwide agreement, because no-one wants to be disadvantaged against everyone else. Tragedy of the commons. But we do what we can.

<comment><USER7> Yes, I can either be social or ecological. As my family lives in different parts of country, it dictates car travel (public transport is really bad). Even just volunteering usually requires me to travel by car somewhere.

I try to live simply, it always gave me great pleasure, or at least less stress to own little. But I moved away from this a bit recently as I have family and also I feel like I should be less dependent on surrounding (ie. have good tools, have some backup items etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The problem is the business model based on the manipulation of individual > behavior.

I don't think this is the right target to blame. The much deeper reason is people ARE stupid, while think they are clever and correct. You, me, all the others included. And at the same time, the education once applied to us, failed. Simply put, it's not a technology problem, it's a sociology problem.

Around the year 2002, when I was connected to the Internet for the first time, I thought it was a magic place where you can discuss with people on a topic until the truth emerges and learned, then everybody come to a conclusion and live happily ever after.

That thought was the very first few which been destroyed. Because I instead found people are more likely to turn discussion into a "clan war" and mob each other instead. And that was long before Twitter or even Google is a thing.

Here is a book that many people may already read, _The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind_ : [https://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Study-Popular- Mind/dp/143410055...](https://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Study-Popular- Mind/dp/1434100553)

<comment><USER10> I connected quite a bit earlier, mostly Usenet and BBS', and when EFnet came along a lot of that. People like to talk about Eternal September and other depredations of communities, but the truth is that while things functioned more smoothly earlier on, it was always a bunch of people and people more or less act like warring groups of primates. If someone had come back from the future and only told us about the extent of the internet in this time, I think that a lot of people could have extrapolates the shit-show of today from what we'd experienced back then.

The only semi-surprise was the move to mobile devices opening the internet up to people who are almost too stupid to live. Not just tribal, not just willing to fight for their version of reality, but dumb as rocks. There used to at least be a filter (which steadily widened) of needing to know how to use a computer and get online. That is just gone now, and we're in the true agora.

It is not fun, and all of which is to say it is as you say, a sociology problem. BJT it exists in this form because of powerful and ubiquitous technology. It's also true that the underlying sociological problem has been ruthlessly capitalized on by people who realized we warring primates could be readily exploited for attention and therefore, revenue. It was always going to be messy, but instead of people trying to fight against then current, some of the richest, most powerful and brightest people are actively trying to sweep people away for money.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi _some of the richest, most powerful and brightest people are actively trying to sweep people away for money._

This is a big part of the problem IMO. General loss of moral values. I'm not religious at all, and criticize religions all the time, but one has to admit that when Christianity was the driving force in the western world, there were at least some values that were kind of universally accepted. Yes, there was lots of hypocrisy, and people acted against said values routinely, but at the very least most would feel bad about it or fear for their public image, and try to not be needlessly extreme at breaking them.

Now, Christianity has been replaced by ruthless capitalism, and people don't even have to pretend that they care about anything else than making piles of money. And if a company is criticized for using manipulative or exploitative techniques to make more money, regular people will even jump to defend it. I see it everyday on the Internet (e.g. forums for free games with monetizing techniques that border on inducing gambling addiction). They have accepted making money as the supreme value.

These capitalist morals that place money in the center of everything must die and be replaced by something else, or we are headed for dystopia.

<comment><USER11> Christianity before the reformation was pretty wild with things like the purhase of indugences being common[1].

Point being that Christianity is not some bastion of past hope and glory but is a mutable set of morals that have radically changed in their 2000+ years of exsistance.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Late_Medieval_Usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Late_Medieval_Usage)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Enragement is engagement."

Social media is full of hot air and a lot of people producing nothing. Who cares. Most of the tweets on twitter are written by a tiny minority of people who like to hate or judge rather than act.

Quit social media and leave that crowd to waste their time whilst you build something that actually improves the world.

<comment><USER13> > whilst you build something that actually improves the world

Or, failing that, chat on Hacker News ;-P

Seriously though, I'm thankful that the quality of this forum is so high. When I see YouTube comment threads, I sometimes forget that Internet forums _can_ be worthwhile, if they're done right and attract the right folks.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I learn so much from HN.

I wouldn't count HN as "social media" per se, anymore than Stack Overflow or a topical discussion forum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> in the 90s, I read about how religious extremists in certain countries were targeting moderates. This seemed very odd at the time, because the moderate position just seemed the normal sensible person position.

Over time though, moderate preachers were singled out, and in some cases killed, because they didn't take a stand. This created a chilling effect.

Coupled with incendiary and emotional images ("look at these pictures, look at what they've done to our children! You are either with us or with them."), and no push back or ability to prevent such polarization, extremism grew stronger.

This is the gist of what I remember, it's been years and many other crises since then.

However I am struck, as to how social media is creating those same dynamics - but now for everything from gender, race, religion, politics, nationality, to brand loyalty and maybe even gaming.

The best solution I saw for dealing with social media was dropping off it altogether.

<comment><USER15> Forcing you to "drop off" social media seems like the exact chilling effect you describe (assuming you are a moderate), rather than being a stance.

It's happening!

<comment><USER16> How would you act instead? In the eyes of a someone with a sufficiently incompatible position you are a loonie who gets ignired after the dirst dissenting statement with a simple mouse click, never to be seen or heard from again on that platform. This is just so much easier than in the real world.

<comment><USER14> theres about 3 options.

1) Exit social media and save yourself. This is the best option

2) With unending patience, choose an individual and just interact with them at a human level till both sides achieve understanding ( no matter how distasteful or difficult the process ). This does not scale

3) Begin to invest in PR, think tanks, media firms, groups and so on to craft a message to sway large groups of people at one go. This scales and what most people are resorting to, and what is creating the problem in the first place.

<comment><USER17> > this does not scale

If everyone did it, it would "scale" pretty well.

<comment><USER14> This is the true of all problems with humanity.

>think before sharing

>recycle

>wear seat belts

>be considerate

>stretch

>drink water regularly

>brush regularly

None of this scales, and none of it _will ever_ scale, because humanity is designed to not follow that.

Human beings are an aggregate of all sorts of behavior, ranging from complimentary to those in active pursuit of mutual annihilation.

Any system/solution which expects uniformity in _behavior_ or choice, is dead on arrival.

Unfortunately that leaves solutions that target biology and neural processing/heuristics.

Our businesses and science is actively about hacking brains and influencing choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Social media does away with the good ole natural moderation that happens if someone belches out a self centered monologue in a public space and immediately receives glares and scoffs from strangers within earshot.

<comment><USER19> Ever been to a large meeting when there's a hot political issue? People can be nasty in person too, unless there is very good moderation, and sometimes even then.

<comment><USER3> Mostly stupid/unsuccessful people. The elite is very good at disagreeing with each other on a polite manner.

I work in the public sector, as a manager who is on a board that designs suggestions for our national digitization strategies. I know how to play the game now, but the most eye opening thing to me when I was starting out was how people disagree at those levels of society.

If you want to say that you think something is a bad idea, you sugarcoat it to hell and back, focusing first on complimenting your counterpart on where you think they are successful. Then you politely present your view and the facts that support it.

In public it's different, here you'll sometimes get heated for the audience, but you'll still be beat friends once the cameras stop rolling.

The reason behind this is that the world evolves around compromise.

These days you're seeing more and more people who don't understand how necessary compromise is, but hopefully we'll kick them out before we destroy our democracy.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately, this is also how elite enables those who abuse power as long as those mistreated are not part of elite. This how and why bullies and abusers keep and gain powerful positions. This is how sexual assault becomes sex scandal and this is why Jerry Sandusky could abuse so many boys.

This is how outright self-serving lies become part of consensus.

This works the way you described because those people have little personal stake at policies they pursue while people loosing/gaining housing, getting probation or prison time, being able/unable to pay for layer/healthcare or otherwise touched by those policies don't participate.

<comment><USER3> I think it's the last bit. That people don't participate.

I can't remeber how many hearings we've done on changes that got nothing but crackpot replies because no regular folks want to spend time participating in the society they live in anymore.

Only in one area do people actually take action, schools. If we close down a school, for various reasons but typically efficiency (money), parents will open a new private school in its place. I'm Danish so the laws are a little complicated, but basically a private school gets as much funding as a public school and that means we save no money by closing a public school that gets replaced by a private one.

So our school system is extremely democratic, because you can't make changes without the parents. Now, our school system isn't the only system that works like this, most of them do really. But almost every other system is run mainly by professional bureaucrats who make the plans, because they are never opposed by anyone, because nobody participate.

I mean, crackpots participation has probably gone up over the years, but real involvement from real people with realist plans are almost nonexistent. I consider crackpots people too by the way, but you can't power a city with special unicorn rays or by having a voulanteer threadmill. Which are the only two responses we got to a recent hearing on which power plant to build.

Want actual influence or real change? Then get involved.

<comment><USER21> A few thoughts:

The elites are in the best position to come up with time and energy to participate in things. They are also the most likely to have the knowledge needed to participate effectively.

I participated in some online forums while openly homeless. Classism is a thing and it's quite hard to combat that. When the non-elites try to participate in such processes and don't know how and won't be given the same respect they are expected to give to their "betters" etc, it can easily wind up being a waste of time for them.

Similar to the idea of "never attribute to malice that which is best explained by stupidity," a lot of people simply don't have solutions. Period. Regardless of their social class, background, etc. If no one knows a better answer, more people participating doesn't necessarily improve the outcome.

I'm off the street. I'm tired of being poor. I'm working on improving my life. While homeless, I kind of had the luxury of being outside the system and relatively free to piss on it at will and criticize it liberally.

I'm currently wrestling with the question of whether or not my supposed high morals can actually survive intact if I get connected and get money and power and influence.

I don't know the answer to that. I have been badly used and mistreated by needy people while my life was in the toilet because I was apparently the only hope they had of getting their needs met. I'm quite angry about that.

Maybe the answer is my supposed high morals really just make me a chump and that's it. Maybe choosing to not be a chump and choosing to line my own damn pockets at long last means me and my bleeding heart tendencies have to part company.

Which is some attempt at saying "Maybe participating in The System is what makes you a bad person." Possibly not a very effective means of voicing what I'm trying to get at.

<comment><USER3> Classism is certainly a thing, and that's unfortunate, but it's also really hard to deal with people who see in black-and-whites without appearing condescending, because almost everything is extremely complicated.

<comment><USER3> Am I though? You seem to outline a very black-and-white choice ahead of you, to be good/evil.

<comment><USER21> For someone stating that _everything is very complicated,_ that's an incredibly reductionist take on my rather long comment.

<comment><USER3> Well, you also saw society as something you're either in/out of. You view us as elitarian/non-elitarian. If someone aren't respected or have a hard time getting heard, it's a complete waste for them. You either have high morals or not. You think you know the motivation behind the people who mistreated you, and define them as evil. You think that everyone participating in the system are evil.

I mean, I'm sure you didn't mean these things exactly like I interpret them now, and I am taking what you said extremely literal.

I'm sure you had a miserable time, but how do you suggest we change that for other people, when your own solution seem to be chosing whether or not to be a good person. I mean, do you really think being a terrible person gives you advantages in life?

Maybe in some areas it does, and maybe for some periods of time, but it usually catches up to you.

<comment><USER21> I never used the word _evil._ You have used it three times now.

You are being incredibly dismissive and going out of your way to turn my comment into something black and white when it isn't. You aren't taking what I said extremely literally. You are wildly twisting what I said.

This is not good faith engagement and I don't see any point in trying to clarify anything. I will note you are focused overly much on the things I said about me, which is a common outcome and problematic form of engagement that actively makes it harder for anyone who is not part of the "in crowd" to participate. You seem to have completely glossed over and ignored anything I said about, for example, most people simply not knowing better answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _The problem is the business model based on the manipulation of individual behavior. Social-media platforms know what you're seeing, and they know how you acted in the immediate aftermath of seeing it, and they can decide what you will see next in order to further determine how you act—a feedback loop that gets progressively tighter until it becomes a binding force on an individual's free will._

And that's why algorithmic order has won over chronological order in feeds.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's turning out that social media is like nuclear fission: it's not that it's _inherently_ bad, and a smarter species than us probably could use it safely with no problems. But our stupid ape brains with their tribalist tendencies and short reward circuits weren't ready for it.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the article hits the nail right on its head, nobody really knows anything anymore. Not the person running it, or the person sitting at the top has gotten any clue about the very systems that they have created.

Mark Zuckerberg said in his first public statement when the news of Facebook privacy issues broke out that it was absolutely impossible and ridiculous for anyone to think Facebook could ever had any stake at all in the election. Less than a year later, his tone has changed significantly as he had more time to learn of what's really going on inside the platform that he created and has been running it as the CEO himself, with thousands of employees working under him.

I think this tells the tale of our AI future. As the system reaches a level so complex that it's very likely no single individual, not even the creator of the AI network himself, will understand how everything really works. How can we prevent an engine, that has gotten too big for its own good, to collapse when we are incapable of even servicing it?

The truth is NOBODY knows anything anymore because we are all drowning in the sea of information. There is too much of it and it's like a bag of wires all tangled up. The more we learn the more we realize that we know nothing. Our path to enlightenment is completely blocked by the same knowledge that we have accumulated. It's like the modern Alzheimer disease in which the accumulated beta-amyloid protein has blocked all of our neural pathways. The question is, is there even a way to unlearn what we have learned?

</comment><comment><USER14> > Sample bummer-based sentence: "Your identity is packified by bummer." Sample > marginalia, scrawled by this reviewer with sufficient desperate emphasis to > literally tear the page: "Please stop saying bummer!"

That was a fun line to read in a serious article.

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs- trending-42322746](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42322746) (2017)

>A former Facebook executive has criticised the social network for ripping society apart during a question and answer session.

</comment><comment><USER26> Social media is kind of awful but the regular news services are too, in their own way, always focusing on what's gone wrong. I try to counter it a bit by following people like Pinker who look at the reality that most things are getting better. Though I still follow the latest bad stuff going down.

</comment><comment><USER27> _"...Like Lanier's book, though in a very different register, it risks presenting the Internet as both the manifestation and cause of all of our deepest problems..."_

A friend of mine sent me a link recently with some stuff that Taleb's currently working on.

The internet, the collection of data storage and transmission instantaneously anywhere on the planet, is not a problem. The problem is that humans are hard- wired for small social groups, not mobs. What we need is some new sense of morality and common wisdom around what's an appropriate piece of technology to make and use and what isn't.

It's very, very reminiscent of how hard drugs was first introduced to transport and commercialization. At first it was open season, with lots of pain and loss of life as a result. Then there was a ton of over-reaction. Hopefully the pendulum is swinging back the other way, towards liberalization and education.

As a libertarian, it's tempting to rant at government for making so many drugs criminal 100-120 years ago, but it _might_ have been the best of a bunch of bad choices at the time. Likewise, busting up Big Tech could end up being a bad idea in the long-term and the best thing we can do right now to return some sanity to public discourse. I'll leave that to others to decide. But something needs to be done. Something drastic, I'm afraid.

<comment><USER28> Unfortunately, it looks like we're wired for mobs, too. Participants in mobs act very differently and self-report afterwards that the subjective experience is an altered state. It sounds like echos of an evolutionary history that had a fair bit of mobbing.

<comment><USER27> I completely agree.

It's interesting to look at the history of warfare and how it relates to population density. In general, as farming got more and more advanced, large- scale warfare really took off.

The difference was that people were limited _geographically_. So tribal chiefs (and later dictator/kings/lords) were able to geographically isolate and deal with unrest.

This has fallen apart several times. The French Revolution comes to mind. The Chinese "People's Courts". In each case you had tens of thousands or more in a self-reinforcing feedback loop driving one another emotionally. These things do not end well.

So if it's a choice between strong, totalitarian governments, the emotional mob-rule we're currently developing, and some controls on tech? Count me as a vote for some controls on tech. From here it looks like all three are happening simultaneously anyway. Better to choose your poison than get all three.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Am amused that the repeat posting of "extremely normal website" on twitter has, from here at least, made twitter the current top google result for "extremely normal website".

[https://www.google.com/search?q=extremely+normal+website](https://www.google.com/search?q=extremely+normal+website)

</comment><comment><USER24> I added Twitter to my firewall blocked list so now anytime I click on a Twitter link it just doesn't work at all. Won't waste my time in the cesspool if I can't even go there.

</comment><comment><USER30> What bothers me more than anything in that article is superficially smart people pouring all of their concentration onto stupidity of obviously stupid people.

With my university educated 25 - 35-year-old social circle, I can easily generate boring conversation about Trump, climate change denialism, right wing activism, situation in Palestine or how facebook is cancer to regular people.

15 years ago my 15-year-old social circle would discuss climate change, US election system, nature of capitalism, future of internet and how to approach war in philosophic sense. Notice the difference? Those discussions were not too intelligent, but at least the subject matter was actually challenging.

This piece seems symptomatic of the disease. The writer appears potentially capable brain user. But fails on several occasions to actually use that brain. And it seems like the culprit is again over concentration on the stupidity of the stupid people. Feels like wasted effort and the left leaning boogie mans he does offer as culprit don't seem to be at all believable.

Where are the people looking to engage the smartest person they know of? (HN is quite solid, but also very coding specific.) Has there ever been a time when that was an actual thing? How could I do that?

<comment><USER31> Stupidness and smartness are two subjective concepts.

In some parts of the world, all individuals have an opinion, a right to express their opinions, and a right to disagree with others' opinions.

What we see on online social networks is a mirror of the inequalities in rights and wealth amongst people.

<comment><USER30> I'm clearly somehow not communicating my stuff well enough. I'm not into dividing people into categories by IQ. I'm frustrated how people use their limited resource of attention.</comment></comment></comment>


Virtues & Vices of Election Prediction Markets (Nate Silver on suspicious bets) - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/oct-23-the-virtues-and-vices-of-election-prediction-markets/

<comment><USER2> This was a bit of nonsense from Silver.

"A truly sophisticated trader, for instance, could make bets in the actual stock market, buying up certain stocks in industries that might be expected to perform well under a Romney presidency (for instance, those of oil or coal companies) while shorting those that would probably benefit from Mr. Obama's remaining in office (for example, certain health care stocks or green- technology companies). "

Come on. Gambling $18k for an instant 100% return in a couple of weeks should be disavowed in favor of these vague stocks that are guaranteed to react to a Romney win? And how long will it take for them to move?

<comment><AUTHOR> joonix: you're quoting out of context, and you're a brand new user... that's interesting.

As Silver explained right above the sentence you quote, a sophisticated trader could have easily arbitraged the spread by buying Betfair's Romney contract at $0.37 per dollar, while simultaneously shorting Intrade's Romney contract at $0.45 per dollar -- a sure thing!

Silver then added that $18K "...is a large bet in everyday terms, but not by the standards of a professional gambler or investor who felt he had a sure thing." A truly sophisticated investor seeking to make millions instead of merely thousands, he explained, would look to larger, more liquid markets -- like the stock market.

Please don't quote out of context again.</comment></comment>


How well do you know website performance? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-well-do-you-know-website-performance/ <comment><USER2> Buried in the text is this site speed checker[0] which is a good adition to the Google PageSpeed Insights[1].

      [0] https://www.cloudflare.com/lp/can-your-website-be-faster/
      [1] https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/</comment>


Startup Quote: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/4767481734

<comment><AUTHOR> Less is more. Ask yourself: is your product more like 140 characters in Twitter or the MS Office ribbon bar.

\- Bijan Sabet (@bijan)

<http://startupquote.com/post/4767481734></comment>


The Limits of the Digital Revolution: Washing Machines Won't Go to the Moon - <AUTHOR> http://www.socialeurope.eu/2015/10/the-limits-of-the-digital-revolution-why-our-washing-machines-wont-go-to-the-moon/ <comment><USER2> Why do people always get the notion that "high end" work would be difficult for machines, even though we're seeing lots of breakthroughs in that field ?

<comment><USER3> It's not the difficulty that is the problem, but a fear that it can't reliably deal with changing environment/edge cases/anomalies. It's a lot safer and comfortable to have "man-machine symbiosis" for many tasks where machines are used as tools by humans. Machines do most of the work but supervised by humans where humans do high level abstract decisions but most of the work is still done by the machine. Best example I can come up now is probably flying planes, they are mostly flied by the computer but I bet you feel safer when pilots are there even though they do almost no work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was hoping this would be a piece on why current washing machine designs would be less effective in low gravity. Disappointing.

<comment><USER5> I was hoping that it would be a reference to Stanisław Lem's "The Washing Machine Tragedy" from the part V of "Further reminiscences of Ijon Tichy"( "Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego. V (Tragedia pralnicza)", 1962) where washing machines gradually got all imaginable home automation features and also became telepresense robots, sex dolls and members of organised crime.

[https://books.google.ru/books?id=1DNVzphAHD0C&pg=PA89&dq=the...](https://books.google.ru/books?id=1DNVzphAHD0C&pg=PA89&dq=the+washing+machine+tragedy)</comment></comment>


The truth about tarot - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/tarot-cards-a-tool-of-cold-tricksters-or-wise-therapists <comment><USER2> great article! i've always considered tarot to be both a parlor trick and an introspection tool. the cards are so rich in symbols that your mind will find some way to connect the dots to make them applicable to your life. in this way the cards can bring to the fore certain things about yourself that maybe you wouldn't have consciously thought about otherwise.

if you're interested, the best book on the subject that i've read is "the way of tarot" by jodorowsky (yes that jodorowsky).

<comment><USER3> This sounds very similar to a basic technique I find useful for making difficult decisions: the coin flip.

If I can't seem to decide between A or B, I flip a coin. If, in doing so, the answer is A, one of three things happens: I find I like the answer, and it turns out it was my preference all along. I find I prefer B after all, and just didn't realize it. Or, I really don't care in which case the coin flip was as good an answer as any I could've come to.

The coin didn't tell me anything. But by forcing a decision it revealed something I didn't consciously understand.

<comment><USER4> Yes, precisely that - I use I-Ching instead.

I plan to write a bit more about this, but I haven't got around it yet. In the meantime, everyone interested in using I-Ching (or any other kind of "oracle device") to re-evaluate your options can read this: [https://aeon.co/essays/forget-prophecy-the-i-ching-is-an- unc...](https://aeon.co/essays/forget-prophecy-the-i-ching-is-an-uncertainty- machine)

<comment> 52-6F-62 Funny, while I stray from mysticism of any kind after growing up in a Christian church (most of my youth, anyway), I enjoy the I-Ching for that very reason and have for a few years. It's taken me down the road from a life where I was far more miserable than I realized, and to one that more aligns with my hopes.

I have to say it also, just the practice of re-evaluation of my own opinions and feelings, has helped me to be more honest with myself and the people I care about regarding my feelings -- shirking the old "stiff upper lip" until I'm miserable again. It's freeing, even if the practicals don't change on the timeline you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My girlfriend used to be read them. I thought it was silly. One day I said to her: "Maybe the cards don't _tell_ the future. Maybe they _make_ the future." She stopped reading them after that.

<comment><USER6> I think that's the wrong perspective. They don't tell or make the future. They have very little to do with the future. They take advantage of psychological archetypes to encourage examination of the present in a new context, which might lead to thinking about the future differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A fun speculative fiction book involving Tarot cards is _Last Call_ by Tim Powers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Call_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Call_\(novel\))

</comment><comment><USER8> Surprised to not see my personal metaphors for the suits and trumps: the four alchemical elements and the steps in the Hero's Journey, respectively. Probably goes to show how open to interpretation it is, and how it can be used to channel meaning when you can ascribe whatever meaning fits.

<comment><USER9> The idea behind ascribing meaning to the tarot is one of reinforcing symbols.

Think of the Tarot as a programming language for the mind. The more one uses it, the more the rich symbols become grounded to one's individual psyche.

In the Western esoteric tradition (Hermetism), the human mind is viewed as a collection of disparate, autonomous, intelligences. What one considers to be his "Ego", his personality, can be modeled as an emergent illusion that arises out of the interplay of these underlying intelligences that are buried in the unconscious mind. What the alchemists called the King and Queen, the Eagle and the Lion, Mercury and Sulfur, what Carl Jung described as Anima, Animus and Shadow, what the Jewish Kabbalists describe as Sephirot, are all essentially these different aspects of the unconscious mind.

Using the Tarot in this fashion is an essential technique for bridging the gap between the conscious and the unconscious, as through repeated symbol reinforcement the unconscious obtains a way to "talk" to the conscious mind. Initially, through abstract "impressions" and "daydreams" and, if the process continues, through further crystallization and rigidity -- one may start seeing visions or hearing voices in his mind -- till the dissolution of the conscious ego and full-blown mystical experiences. One of the axioms of Alchemy -- Solve et Coagula -- refers to the practice of taking the human mind apart and reintegrating it. In the Hermetic tradition this is called Initiation. Carl Jung calls it Individuation.

The Tarot has been used in this fashion for hundreds of years, but this practical knowledge kept occult whilst different explanations ("divination") allowed to propagate in the popular sphere.

<comment><USER10> While Jungian archetypes describe compelling characters in terms of mythology, I don't believe they represent fundamental dimensions of the unconscious mind. Our neural wiring is unique enough that I don't think it can be reduced that way. If you look at brain activation in response to stimuli, it's remarkably inconsistent between individuals.

I do like the idea that Tarot cards let people more easily assume alternate positions with conviction. If this is accompanied by a mystical experience all the better - as long as it doesn't lead to doing something stupid.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Yet the brain still relies on hierarchies of models (or archetypes) to make any sense of the world at all. I mean, surely there is little variation in what people consider a nose or the sensation from touching a bumpy surface and how they would describe it. (I'm speculating here, of course.)

Thee difference you're referring to in activation in response to stimuli, as I understand it, is a result of the way and timeline that the models were learned, but it doesn't change the fact that the cortex relies on hierarchies of models to form a representation that we understand to be reality.

That is, if I understand you correctly and am not too outdated here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like thinking of the cards as a language system like any other: there are semantic units (the cards) and syntactic units (the layouts).</comment>


Amazon in talks with HP to buy Palm - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/29/amazon-buy-palm/

<comment><USER2> As a long-suffering webOS fan (Pre- through to Pre3 & Touchpad), all I have to say to this news is, yay! WebOS is a fantastic system that does not deserve to linger and die due to HP's lack of leadership and vision.

Jeff Bezzos, on the other hand, is a true visionary in my opinion and I would be happy to see my webOS HP Profile become an Amazon profile sometime soon.

My only doubt though: will they make phones?

<comment><USER3> I don't think they will make phones or even continue webOS. I have a feeling that this is a talent acquisition and they will use it to improve the Kindle Fire.

<comment><USER4> They will undoubtedly make phones. Why give away a market to competitors that is worth billions? Amazon wants to keep users in their ecosystem. To do that you need a phone as well, which they're essentially already doing in their AppStore.

Within three years Amazon will come out with their own phone. It will be the same game plan that they used with the Fire and gear it towards the low end. Eventually they will go towards the high end.

<comment><USER5> The Fire makes sense, it's a media portal that plugs directly in to Amazon's forte; books, and more recently, apps and streaming video. It's not a tablet though, and Bezos readily, and correctly, admits that. What exactly would they gain by making a phone? Sure they would stand to sell more apps, but I think Amazon is most interesting in selling books and being a player in the streaming media game. The cell phone, with its small screen, isn't well-suited for those. Not to mention that their apps are Android apps, something I wouldn't think Palm would make a great resource for. If they are buying Palm for hardware and cell phone experience, I'd think there would be a cheaper way to get those somewhere else.

Phones don't make sense in Amazon's model at all to me. Of course, I could be wrong, but unless it's driving sales of Amazon products, like the Kindle does, there's no incentive.

<comment><USER6> How is the Kindle Fire not a tablet?

<comment><USER5> It kind of is as a secondary function, but it was built as a media consumption/purchasing device, a kind of hand-held portal into the world of Amazon; even their browser relies heavily on their EC2 platform. Compared to the Android tablets on the market, it lacks a lot in the way of expandability and even storage. Even the underlying Android OS was forked to bring it further away from a tablet and more to an Amazon portal. That it runs Android Apps is just a pleasant side effect.

To quote Bezos himself, "We think of Kindle Fire as an end-to-end service"

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/29/bezos-in-the-modern-era- of-...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/29/bezos-in-the-modern-era-of-consumer- electronics-devices-if-you-are-just-building-a-device-you-are-unlikely-to- succeed/)

<comment><USER7> Aren't all tablets media consumption and purchasing devices though?

<comment><USER5> Sure, but none of the Android tablets are really purpose built for that. Samsung, Motorola, Asus and all the others seem to aim to be a kind of more- portable laptop, giving you memory card slots, cameras and to some extent even office type applications. These are the kinds of things that people market as a "tablet" and media consumption is something of an afterthought. The Kindle Fire is the other way around; media consumption is forefront, everything else, including apps to an extent, are an afterthought. This is more along Apple's vision with their iPad, and it's working out pretty well for them too.

At the end of the day, maybe I'm just arguing semantics, but the fact remains that this isn't a "tablet" in the same light as other Android "tablets." It's a bit of a subtle difference, and I think it's that difference that is crucial and will spell massive success for the Fire. Their ability to sell it at what I assume is a sizable loss isn't hurting their chances either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What would Amazon do with WebOS when they have already invested so much in Android? Switching would require them to abandon the app store they built. The Silk browser seems at odds with how WebOS works. All their Android UI customizations would have to be rewritten.

<comment><USER2> Look at it this way: their are about 1 million Touchpad users already out their due to the HP firesale. That's a nice market to buy, considering these people will want to upgrade to something in 12-18 months time, while keeping their profiles and all of the webOS software they bought (the app market in webOS land is thriving by the way since the massive influx of new users). I think whatever software work they would have to do to make this happen would be worth it to them.

Also remember they would be free of Google and Android, and all of the legal battles happening in that space right now. webOS is so far removed from any of the other platforms out there that there is no danger of being sued by someone for copying them.

<comment><USER8> Amazon has probably 10 times that many Kindle users or more already, and if HP sells Palm at a 90% discount that's still $120 per TouchPad user who may or may not ever upgrade to an Amazon Kindle. That would be a stupid way to acquire users.

Also, if you think WebOS is somehow immune to the plague of lawsuits in this industry you're crazy. Nobody is safe from lawsuits. It's just a cost of doing business these days; you pay your success tax and you move on.

<comment><USER2> > Amazon has probably 10 times that many Kindle users or more already

Kindle users may very well prove to be a different demographic than tablet users. If they sell 10 million Fires then they will probably be out-selling iPads in that space, can't see that happening. A lot of Kindle users will stick to Kindle because they just want to read books on an e-ink screen.

> Also, if you think WebOS is somehow immune to the plague of lawsuits in this > industry you're crazy. Nobody is safe from lawsuits.

Do you have any idea how many mobile patents Palm has?

<comment><USER8> Now patents might be a good reason to buy Palm, but that's completely separate from the fate of WebOS. Amazon could take the patents and throw WebOS away.

<comment><USER9> I could see Amazon using the card metaphor as a custom multitasking Android launcher with full power of a pending patent application behind it while ditching the remainder of the OS. It's the one distinction webOS has had in UX and one that's generally garnered the most positive attention.

I could not, however, see Amazon hedging on Android by holding webOS in state. That would be a rather insane move given the audience the Kindle Fire will attract from Day One.

<comment><USER2> What about Dalvik and the on-going Oracle case? webOS has no Java, there is another distinction for you. It's the full stack in webOS that is unique, not just the UI.

<comment><USER9> That's partially true; webOS 3.0 has no Java as far as I'm aware, deferring to node.js for its services instead. webOS prior to that (e.g., Mojo era) contains an absolute trove of Java all over the damned place. I remember dissecting the media system looking for private APIs in parallel with developing a webOS application and many points led right back to Java-based services that assisted in doing a lot of perfunctory tasks.

In fact, I distinctly remember asking the Palm webOS developers when I discovered in their Java-based media services a particular call that instantly parsed SHOUTcast/Icecast-style playlists of many various formats with ease whether it'd become a public API call. It never did.

If HP races to finally reconcile the two sides as a promised a half-year ago a la Android's ICS, then there might be no obstacles to the Java argument. Until then, however...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We saw the launch of the Kindle Fire and have seen Amazon's hand with the custom build of Android that looks/feels nothing like Android... anyone have any guesses why they would want WebOS?

Amazon already has the Android store, all the Android integration done for the Fire and the Java/Android expertise in house... where does WebOS fit in?

<comment><USER11> a) HP's probably offering it for pennies. Too good of a deal for any tablet/mobile player.

b) Amazon Silk is a game changer that probably has Google fuming. Buying Palm is probably a hedge bet in case Google clamps down. The end-user platform(devise, OS, browser) war between Google, Apple, and MS is to control the user data. Amazon wants to make sure it has an unrestricted piece of that data.

<comment><USER12> I don't know if Silk has Google "fuming"..

Opera Mini has been doing the remote-rendering thing for years and years now. It is _the most_ widely used mobile browser, with 113+ million users and 2+ billion _daily_ pageviews.

<comment><USER13>
      > [Opera] is the most widely used mobile browser

Use appears to be mostly from Asia. In Europe, iPhone leads by a wide margin, followed by Android; in North America, Android leads, followed by iPhone [2]. Opera makes at best a fourth place showing on these continents.

To your point about "fuming", I think you're right. There's no evidence that Google's analytics or search (advertising) products will be negatively impacted by silk.

1: [http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-eu- monthly-201009-...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-eu- monthly-201009-201108) 2: [http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-na- monthly-201009-...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-na- monthly-201009-201108)

<comment><USER14> I can narrow down Asia to Post Soviet asian countries such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan etc. Internet is normally overpriced in these countries and opera mini has nice compression features and dedicated "turn off images" button, which is very handy. And not everyone here can afford high end iOS/android devices, so for Symbian, Opera mini is the best choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I first misread that as "Amazon in talks to buy HP" and what's funny is that it didn't shock me. On the other hand if they only got Palm that would be great for IP.

</comment><comment><USER16> The only way I can see this making sense is if Amazon could buy the supply chain relationships that HP must have built for their tablets. Probably HP have options/exclusivity deals on display and chip production for the coming years.

<comment><USER17> Off-topic, but is there a reason you say 'HP have' instead of 'HP has'? I was talking to a few British guys at work about this and they thought it sounded odd as well.

<comment><USER18> If we're referring to HP as a single company it should be has ( - it has ...)

If we're referring to HP as a collective of things (i.e. individuals, such as the board) then it should be have ( - they have ....)

IMO I'd say it could be either really, though I would probably favour the singular.

<comment><USER19> This is one of those US/UK differences. In the US, we usually refer to companies or groups (like sports teams) as singular. In the UK, companies have been historically referred to as plural. Since the parent uses the British spelling 'favour', but feels the singular form is correct, I wonder if that's changing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> To me the detail that doesn't ring true is that HP would sell Palm at a substantial loss. Last I heard, people thought HP could at least recoup the purchase price (or more) based on the "value" of Palm's patents alone. I suppose HP could be selling Palm with only patent licenses (instead of the patents themselves), but that seems like a strange thing to do on both sides.

If HP were being clever, I could see them leaking their discussions with Amazon right now (when Amazon is on everyone's mind) as a way to motivate the "real" buyer (presumably Google or Apple). But I don't give HP credit for being that clever.

</comment><comment><USER21> The patents alone would be worth it to Amazon... who likely have no really interesting mobile hardware or software patents of their own.

Interesting note about Ruby's being on the Amazon board too, didn't notice that earlier.

</comment><comment><USER22> Even if this is true and it does happen, I would think Palm as a brand is dead. Even if the Fire 2 ends up having webOS, Amazon would never market it that way. Just as how Android is behind the scenes on the current Fire, they would do the same with webOS.

</comment><comment><USER23> With Fire, Amazon essentially has an independent OS. The only reason to by Palm would be that Google will not protect you as an Android maker and you need your own patent portfolio to defend yourself.

<comment><USER24> Didn't Amazon work with Google to create the Fire?

<comment><USER25> No, they didn't. The biggest sign you can see out in the open is that the Fire is running a fork of 2.3 Gingerbread instead of 3.0 Honeycomb or the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich.

<comment><USER24> Oh yes, from looking at them essentially forking it, it looks like they didn't work together.

But my question was whether or not they _did_ work together, one of the tech sites wrote that they did. I will try and find the reference.

<comment><USER26> I seem to remember that as well but I have no reference for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This sounds like a large talent acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER28> Could this have anything to do with the licensing fees that are becoming a reality with the Android ecosystem? It might be an incentive to bring things in house in the future (both hardware and software).

</comment><comment><USER29> I would like that to happen. I was never a fan of Palm products, but WebOS seems like a nice alternative OS for mobiles and tablets.

I'm sure Amazon would know how to handle it better than HP.

</comment><comment><USER30> Please do, then sell Be off to someone that will do something with it. Please?

<comment><USER31> Be went with PalmSource back when Palm was split into PalmOne and PalmSource. PalmOne then re-became Palm and was acquired by HP, but PalmSource was picked up by ACCESS.

<comment><USER30> Wow, I had no idea how that all went down. Thanks for the info.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I hope that whomever HP sells Palm off to will bring back the brand.

<comment><USER33> > I hope that whomever HP sells Palm off to will bring back the brand.

I think the Palm brand is "too far gone" in the public mindset to be worth bringing back. The Amazon brand is a far stronger, far more popular brand and its important that they don't dilute that right as they launch the Fire.

Acquiring Palm, to me, would be so they can acquire patents, some developers and designers, and some tech. WebOS, nice as it is, has missed the train. Amazon would be insane to backflip now (even I wish they'd used WebOS to begin with).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Probably for talent and patents acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's the patents.

</comment><comment><USER36> great news</comment>


What's new in Ecto 2.0 ebook - <AUTHOR> http://pages.plataformatec.com.br/ebook-whats-new-in-ecto-2-0 <comment><USER2> This «Best parts of "What's New in Ecto 2.0"» [http://cloudless.studio/articles/44-best-parts-of-what-s- new...](http://cloudless.studio/articles/44-best-parts-of-what-s-new-in- ecto-2-0) does a pretty good job at summarizing it.</comment>


Ask HN: Worst examples of ambiguity ? - <AUTHOR>

A recurring theme in industrial accidents and related issues is the ambiguity of 'English'. English not being a programming language it is very easy to make sentences that can mean different things dependent on the mindset of the reader.
Here is an example:
"When going around after an aborted landing: take off power"
During the landing of an airliner the captain decided to abort and go around, the key phrase, straight from the manual caused the co-pilot to reduce power on all four engines causing the airplane to stall and drop out of the sky.
English is full of opportunities for such mishaps, lots of jokes are based around them.
So, my question to you is do you have any examples of mishaps caused by ambiguity in English ? <comment><USER2> Nothing comes to mind on written words, however, last year our HR phoned our sub-continent recruiting agent to arrange 50 tilers for a construction project in the Gulf. Three months later they all arrived, but none of them could lay a single tile. He sent _taylors_.:)

On Air traffic Control see ([http://www.scribd.com/doc/19647051/Miscommunications-in- Air-...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/19647051/Miscommunications-in-Air-Traffic- Control))

I quote a classic!

 _Turkish Airlines said yesterday it had sacked two pilots who had a cockpit punch-up over control-tower instructions on a flight between Bangkok and Istanbul. "Are you deaf? He's is telling something and you are doing something completely different", one reportedly told the other. A junior pilot completed the flight._ (Reuters, 7th May 1997)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Ambiguity, either you have it or you don't."</comment>


A sweary, ranty YouTuber who's become an isolation cooking sensation - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/apr/29/nats-what-i-reckon-the-sweary-ranty-youtuber-whos-become-an-isolation-cooking-sensation <comment><USER3> Australian here. I just watched the curry and bolognese videos. Although I'm vegan and hate recipes with meat, I laughed out loud, a lot. Loved it. Can't wait to play them for my household. Just yesterday I was planning to make a home cooking series featuring the housemates, dammit! Too late..

As for whether he's a typical Aussie.. I have met people who talk pretty much like this. Probably none who are good cooks though.

I had a German friend here who had a very fat book of Australian colloquialisms he was learning, but I hadn't heard 95% of them. Full of stuff like "dry as a dead dingo's donger". You hear them much more in country Australia I think.

About 10 years ago our Prime Minister was widely mocked for saying "fair shake of the sauce bottle", when everyone knows it's a _fair suck_ – a failed attempt to talk like an average Australian.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=rudd+fair+shake+sauce](https://www.google.com/search?q=rudd+fair+shake+sauce)

<comment><USER4> Your post reminded me of a story I have, I was the CTO for a company that exited to a Spanish owned company. When that happened we had a lot of Spaniards that would come over and work for a while.

Anyways somehow there became this competition among them to learn and use the most obscure American English colloquialisms and use them in meetings. One of them the CTO for Spain became a very good friend of mine and we decided to start teaching him some words so he could win in these competitions.

With that said I am from a rural town in the US southeast (Florida to be specific). Needless to say he learned a lot of obscure US country colloquialisms. I can still remember the look of wordsmithed defeat by the other executives when he declared, in a meeting, that they where carpetbagging hornswogglers for deciding something without him. I have to say I nearly fell out of my chair with laughter in seeing how impressed with himself he was. The meeting quickly devolved into defining what was a carpetbagger and what was being hornswoggled, as well as requests for other words in which my friend declared that they need to get their own US mentor and not steal his. I was all good fun.

I also learned some Spaniard ones. My favorite which I could not spell out here to save my life, was one that amounts to the equivalent of monkey business.

<comment><USER5> Speaking of Floridian, long ago, I worked with a developer from a rural area in that state. My favorites were, "Shittin' in high cotton!" when a program finally ran correctly and when the network connection finally came up, "We're swappin' spit now!" .

<comment><USER4> Heard and used it many times, an equivalent to high cotton would be "Eating high on the hog". Which comes from the higher cuts being the better cuts of pork.

My absolute favorite was the one my grandfather used to tell me, he would say "Boy if your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough and you are, by far, the toughest kid I know" I love the back-handedness of the insult.

The other one that I think is funny is due to Tombstone most people think it is: "Im your huckleberry" when in fact the correct term is "I'll be your huckle bearer" which is the equivalent of a pall bearer, in the south we call the casket handles huckles. The term basically means keep it up and you are going to get the fight you are looking for.

<comment><USER6> It's "huckleberry". The phrase is documented back to the 19th century and taken straight from the 1920s Tombstone historical novel.

<comment><USER4> I am not disputing the fact that, the movie, the script or novels state huckleberry, nor am I disputing that historically someone not from the south quoted Doc Holiday as saying it, what I am saying is that the term is still used today, as it was back then and in the South where Doc was from the term is "I'll be your huckle bearer". It was almost assuredly a misquote from a person not from the deep south. My great grandfather used to use the term and was a child during the late wild west era. This was why I said it was funny that Tombstone popularized it, because outside of the south people think it is huckleberry due to the fact that, that is what he said in the movie.

<comment><USER6> > the term is still used today

Not _the_ term, _a_ term. They're different idioms with completely different meanings, both well-attested historically. "Huckleberry" is not a corruption of "huckle bearer" here or anywhere else.

Doc Holliday isn't quoted as having ever said the phrase, by the way. It's taken from historical fiction, in a context where "I'm your huckleberry" \-- "I'm game", "I'm up for it", "I'm your guy" \-- makes far more sense.

 _" They say you're the gamest man in the Earp crowd, Doc," Ringo said. "I don't need but three feet to do my fighting. Here's my handkerchief. Take hold." Holliday took a quick step toward him. "I'm your huckleberry, Ringo," replied the cheerful doctor. "That's just my game."_

[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tombstone/4PnFRfNtyhYC?...](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tombstone/4PnFRfNtyhYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA138&printsec=frontcover&bsq=huckleberry)

<comment><USER4> Yes I understand that, but Burns was also one of the first to use huckleberry, before that it only showed up in one other historical writing (in which is is clear what Huckleberry is interpreted as) that does not predate his Tombstone work by much (about 30 years IIRC). I also know that there is no direct quote of someone saying Doc Holiday said this, but Burns interviewed Earp as well as a lot of the residents of Cochise County. I was simply stating that I don't dispute that someone in those interviews may have quoted Holiday as saying it as huckleberry, The point is it is too coincidental that a man from an area where an expression was and still is, used liberally is "fictionally" quotes as using a term that is almost identical to one that he would almost assuredly be familiar with and used. If it was quoted and Holiday did use it, it would have been huckle bearer. I am not disputing your point that the movie, the book both say huckleberry and I acknowledge that there may even have been someone from the era that quoted him as saying it as huckleberry.

<comment><USER6> > before that it only showed up in one other historical writing (in which is > is clear what Huckleberry is interpreted as) that does not predate his > Tombstone work by much (about 30 years IIRC)

This simply isn't true. It was a common phrase and is widely attested in texts from Holliday's lifetime.

You originally said:

> due to Tombstone most people think it is: "Im your huckleberry" when in fact > the correct term is "I'll be your huckle bearer"

I'm not arguing that "huckle bearer" wasn't also a common phrase. It's just not the "correct term" here. There's no basis for the idea that "huckleberry" was either a misquote or a corruption of "huckle bearer". Both the immediate textual context of the novel and the broader historical evidence for the phrase clearly establish otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For something less ranty I recommend Kenji López-Alt's channel. He puts a gopro on his head and shows everything that goes into making a dish. The videos have so many useful things and he knows what he's talking about.

He's done some of those POV-style videos before, but started to really lean into it about a month ago. I think his channel has grown by ~150K subs in the last month.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/kenjialt](https://www.youtube.com/user/kenjialt)

<comment><USER8> I just got wrapped up watching him make guacamole for the last 12 minutes. Wonderful stuff: I love watching talented people perform their craft. I learn so much more that way than I do from just about any other means. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KjWFcIi4_8&list=PLXonhhg5tU...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KjWFcIi4_8&list=PLXonhhg5tUSKTPt4s5ZOBSnPOchewStj7&index=10&t=0s)

<comment><USER9> Totally.

I think there's something different about just being able to watch a master perform their craft vs a "masterclass". I pick up all these little details and routines that might be second nature to them and so they might not even think about bringing up in a "class" mindset or setting.

<comment><USER10> One of the clearest examples for me of this: when he's making hollandaise, he uses the water in the double boiler to also poach his eggs. It had never even occurred to me to do this, but it makes perfect sense, and I feel dumb for never thinking of it before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A bit tame compared to our "les tutos". It's hilarious I recommend watching :) [https://youtu.be/belUlgnhu9M](https://youtu.be/belUlgnhu9M)

<comment><USER12> Oh my god. The fuck did I just watch?

<comment><USER13> I don't know either, but it's lodged itself in my brain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He's absolutely right about the Bolognese though! [https://youtu.be/Sw_Ze9zIafM](https://youtu.be/Sw_Ze9zIafM)

This would actually "pass" on the Italia Squisita channel where Italian chefs mercilessly lampoon Youtube chef's screwing up Italian classic recipes ([https://youtu.be/jQkc_1pQd3g](https://youtu.be/jQkc_1pQd3g))

<comment><USER15> His recipes may be correct, but this is unwatchable. The constant cuts every three words for the ADD generation is beyond irritating.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, it's an acquired taste. Some of the earlier successful YouTubers popularized the style, it's funny if you're used to it and iirc allows for an easier time filming/editing (if you make lots of mistakes I guess).

Many, if not most, K-Pop videos are in a similar style, some are so aggressive they may very well cause epilepsy. Definitely give me a headache anytime I try to watch them hah

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So I'm not too familiar with Australian humor or comedians, but this is still pretty funny to me (am American).

Humor aside, this is actually a pretty decent PSA. When this all started I do remember how the frozen food aisle looked: it was completely emptied out and I remember thinking that cooking these kinds of things on your own is, like this guy says, a) cheaper and b) better for your health.

</comment><comment><USER18> From reading the comments I can see it's not exactly obvious what to look for if you're interested to explore beyond what's embedded in the article, so here's a bit of a guide...

\- How To Make Quarantine Sauce: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OEDjDKV038](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OEDjDKV038)

That's the one that kicked the whole thing off, back in Mid March when panic buying cleared the shelves of frozen & packet food.

The others are:

Quarantine Spirit Risotto: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSI4ZHVSatw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSI4ZHVSatw)

\- Sin Bin Soup: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIwhdOx9BL0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIwhdOx9BL0)

\- End of Days Bolognese: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw_Ze9zIafM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw_Ze9zIafM)

\- The Crowd Goes Mild Curry: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uBDNhe6Gkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uBDNhe6Gkk)

\- Wham Bam Thank You Lamb: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UWVym41dew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UWVym41dew)

And if you're curious about the kinds of videos he was making before this foray into cooking:

\- The Overpriced Boat Show Review: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXO3epj1lY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXO3epj1lY4)

\- Summernats What I Reckon (at a car festival in which a major component is hotted up old cars doing burnouts): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9EOundEuw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9EOundEuw8)

</comment><comment><USER19> Not to claim to be an expert in indian cooking (anglicized or otherwise), but I make a lot of curry from scratch, and I gotta say that featured video had a pretty excellent recipe. Entertaining but you can also tell he's an experienced cook.

<comment><USER20> The recipe is indeed not bad, but one thing that trips people up with Indian cooking is that store brought garam masala is pretty terrible. Using garam masala from the supermarket isn't any different from using a jar of curry paste from the supermarket. Aside from the issue of quality, it goes stale, and when that happens the more subtle flavors fade first. Leaving you with something that is essentially cardamom powder, which can easily overpower a dish. For anybody that wants to get into Indian cooking, I'd suggest they always make their own masala mix at home, because it's not difficult and the differences are pretty significant.

<comment><USER21> If the pre-mixed powder goes stale, is that also a problem for the other spices you'd use to make it 'fresh'? Just wondering because I don't see how that fixes the problem, unless there's some interaction between the ingredients.

I guess one benefit is you can put more of a particular spice in if it lost its zing.

I'm speaking from someone who uses ground spices in jars/bags, I typically don't use fresh (apart from nutmeg).

<comment><USER20> I make it once every week or two, so they don't have much time to go stale. The stuff on the shelf at the supermarket seems to have a much longer time in between being roasted and ground, and eventually finding its way into a shopping trolly. The bigger problem with ground spice mixtures though, is that they go stale at different rates. If the ground cumin seeds you have lose a little of their punch, it's fine because you can just put more in. With spice mixtures, you can start out with something that's well balanced, but the lighter flavors will start to fade, leaving behind the more potent ones (like clove or cardamom, in the case of garam masala). So when you go to use it, you taste the curry and it doesn't have enough spice in it, so you add a little more and all of a sudden it has the over-powering biter after taste of too much cardamom, without much else.

The other benefit is that it's obviously just going to taste better, or at least more the way you prefer it, if you make it yourself. Maybe I'm a weirdo though, because I don't buy any pre-ground spices aside from chili (which keeps really well), and turmeric (which - in powder form - is used more for color than flavor).

<comment><USER21> Thanks for clarifying. There are a few that are great to get pre-ground like onion/garlic powder and paprika, which are a little harder to replicate at home and have a different flavour profile than their fresh counterparts. I do need to try and branch out more with whole spices in the future though.

I really like curries, but it's one of the dishes I haven't made much effort to do properly at home yet (my recent Japanese curry doesn't count because they use English-style curry powder).

<comment><USER20> Personally I think the SEA curries are a bit more forgiving than the Indian ones. Indian curries use a lot of dried ingredients, where as in SEA they tend to use pastes made from fresh spices (in Indonesia and Malaysia this is called bumbu) as the basis for a lot of their cooking. Which gives you a little more room for error when it comes to quantities for most things. You just grind everything together with your onions (or usually shallots), fry it off a bit, and get on with the rest of the recipe. If you add a little too much fresh galangal, it's not much of a problem, but it's a lot easier to throw the balance of a dish off with dried powders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Back in the sixties my Mom's favorite cooking show was the galloping gourmet. Guy was always boozing on the show and told one joke after another. It was so different than any other cooking show it became a big hit.

Graham Kerr was a Brit who started his show in New Zealand then got an offer to move it to Canada where it was syndicated to the US. In 1971 at the height of his popularity he and his wife were in a bad car accident and retired.

Today looking back it's outrageous fashion and bad taste jokes.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czrj4yJm6z0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czrj4yJm6z0)

</comment><comment><USER23> Am Australian. I realise he's parodying an archetype, but question whether it needs (more) parodying.

The sweary thing is one way to distinguish from the competition I suppose, but all my favourite comedians manage to amuse without regular obscenity, in part because they reserve it for when emphasis is needed. (I'm not prudish about swearing - I swear like a trooper at home - but I do seek more thoughtful / less cheap material from my comedians.)

I also note that he's adopted - though not as savagely as many - <USER2> favourite youtube technique of removing the full stops from the end of every sentence, leaving the whole monologue sounding like one long breathless sentence replete with visually jarring cuts. It's a horrendous editing technique. Evidently enough people can put up with it for it to remain popular, but I just quit any videos done in that style.

<comment><USER24> He's leaning into the archetype, sure, but it's not a parody. People that know him are reporting that he's mostly "just like that", only now he's making videos.

>leaving the whole monologue sounding like one long breathless sentence Unfortunately, the trend (piloted by South Park and cemented by Family Guy) of humorous media these days is to have as many jokes packed in as densely as possible and rely on the fast-fire rate to compensate for the weaker jokes. That's just what's popular these days.

<comment><USER25> Can confirm. I've met him, briefly - he's not quite as 'full on' in person as when performing to a camera but it's not an act.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is by far the most Australian thing I've seen in years (expat :)). This is legit 'Straya.

As an aside, Capsicum (peppers / bell peppers), I struggled for years overseas with the terminology until I finally broke the habit. Same with using Eggplant and Zucchini in the UK (Aubergine / Courgette).

</comment><comment><USER27> His like/dislike ratio on each video is absolutely incredible. The latest video has over 5000 likes and just 4 dislikes! I skeptically watched his linked video in the article and it's really funny

</comment><comment><USER28> This reminds be a bit of AWE and "crime pays but botany doesn't"

There's a big area of tone and presentation between Julia Childs, Bob Villa/Roy Underhill and Gordon Ramsay.

Somewhere between Gordon and Roy would be interesting. Roy made mistakes, including nicking the shit out of himself regularly, but never got frustrated and told too many dad jokes even for me. Gordon is a little too frustrated with bullshit even for me, and I should carry an epi-pen for my bullshit allergy.

</comment><comment><USER29> Totally unrelated with the Aussie thing but totally related with metal music and cuisine: Black Metal Vegan Chef [https://youtu.be/CeZlih4DDNg](https://youtu.be/CeZlih4DDNg) pretty old now but I still find it funny

</comment><comment><USER30> Indian here and I loved it. Death to jar sauce! I have been clamoring for no- nonsense cooking tips for ages...too many chefs take themselves too seriously. The video is a little jarring I must admit, but he looks like he is having fun!

</comment><comment><USER31> For an American take of exactly the same kind of video, I recommend You Suck At Cooking:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsB57FtaxXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsB57FtaxXQ)

<comment><USER32> I love YSAC, but he's not really ranty. Plus I think he's Canadian.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just remember: F __* JAR SAUCE!

</comment><comment><USER34> Australian here. This is probably not going to earn me any goodwill for posting, however I feel it needs to be said. I grew up in a very working class area, so I'm familiar with 'broad' Australian accents and culture. The accent in the videos strikes me as a lame affectation. In the last few years it's become trendy for washed-up alternative Australian youth to remodel themselves after the kids who bullied them in high-school once they hit their 30s. Straight-edge and crust-punk gigs are traded in for the cricket team and "sinking VB with the boys". This put-on accent invariably comes with it. 'Struthless' is another high-profile example of the newfound lame fascination with all things 'bogan'.

<comment><USER35> For whatever reason, my brother decided to adopt a really working class accent when he was about 17 - and at the time, I thought it was ridiculous. After fifteen years, I can see that it's not really just a silly affectation. It's actually him engaging with the culture he likes, and the people he likes, being who he wants to be. I don't really see anything wrong with that.

<comment><USER34> That's a very interesting interpretation of the situation, and I'll credit it. However I can't help but feel that purposefully affecting an accent like this is inauthentic, and untrue to your real self. I can see your counter-argument that, for your brother, this act is bringing him closer to his ideal self.

<comment><USER35> I also think authenticity is a strange bird at the best of times. Humans are basically defined by their inauthenticity. In the bible, the moment humans attain knowledge is also the moment they attain the art of lying, of concealing, of feeling shame for what they are and presenting something different. It's a deep part of how we see ourselves - that we represent things, ourselves included, to persuade, to play, to organize our thoughts.

There's something funny going on with our use of the word - we call some people and cultures authentic, while others are called insincere and affected - and I don't think it's strictly related to how performative a given culture is. Somebody could be authentically Italian, and that could literally mean they perform their life at a very high tempo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Ordinary Sausage is my go-to for youtube chefs.

</comment><comment><USER37> Binging With Babish is one of my favorite channels on YT if y'all are into cooking shows. When my wife and I are on the couch together it is the goto.

<comment><USER11> I find it... meh. I don't understand why he has so many views.

<comment><USER38> I appreciate his very high production quality but I don't get the appeal either. I think it has to do with the intersection of movie fandom + food media

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't get it, he's just a typical Australian?

<comment><USER40> This is not true, please don't propagate stereotypes on a public forum even if it is an attempt to brag about Australian culture.

<comment><USER41> Depends on how you define 'Typical Australian'.

He's certainly playing up a character to a degree, but it's not too far off- base for a lot of folks I know who play up this kind of character when they're having a bit of fun anyway.

For the cooking show this guy's doing it's actually informative, gives good advice, and keeps it pretty easy to follow.

Very useful for folks who genuinely find it scary to cook anything that didn't come out of a packet or had more than four steps.

<comment><USER42> As a seasoned bogan, I reckon he's a bit over the top. I think if he cranked it down about 20% he'd sound more natural. There's a few 'fuck's in his videos that don't naturally fit into the sentence.

<comment><USER3> My favourite was the "mm! Get fucked." when the curry tasted good at the end. Don't know if people say that, but I knew what he meant.

Although it's not too far removed from (the very non-Australian) Stephen Fry saying "Fuck off!" responding to a Derren Brown card trick at about 1:50. Both are impressed by something.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI5-NDiY7IM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI5-NDiY7IM)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Louis Rossmann, AvE, or Joey Santore has a cooking show?

(Slow news day reporting WFH, I guess.)

<comment><USER41> > AvE ... has a cooking show?

Well, a series, but yes. Starts from here[0] where he makes the steel griddle for his BBQ.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNAr7adtpdY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNAr7adtpdY)

e: Forgot HN doesn't do markdown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I can't make it through these millennial-style edit every second and imma meme-lord videos. I suppose there is pearls of wisdom hidden somewhere in there (I mean front page of hacker news?).

Sadly, Joshua Weinstein has also evolved into this style.

</comment><comment><USER45> How is someone with 128k subs a 'sensation'? I mean, he might become one now that he's got the Guardian plugging him, but still...

<comment><USER18> His videos get shared like crazy on FB.

Take a look at his view counts in just the past month:

3.6M

5.8M

7.6M

6.8M

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/iqssylubr7y503k/nats-what-i- reckon...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/iqssylubr7y503k/nats-what-i-reckon-view- counts.png?dl=0)

<comment><USER46> That's interesting, he's only got about 300k-600k views for the same videos on YT.

<comment><USER18> Yep, it's the shareability that makes it work so well on FB.

YouTube views are driven more by people seeking a particular personality or topic (e.g., Joe Rogan), and algorithmic recommendations, but Nat hasn't been a big deal long enough to get so much of that kind of traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> And the slow march to Idiocracy-style content continues. Can the media cover YouTubers that don't gain attention by swearing and being obnoxious?

<comment><USER48> If you can see past that, his actual cooking is good and is motivating a lot of other people. If you can't see past that, the great thing about media, is you can choose to ignore it.

<comment><USER47> > If you can't see past that, the great thing about media, is you can choose > to ignore it.

If only the world were so simple. In a democratic system, what is highlighted by the media affects everyone. Politics, culture, daily life. Certain political figures would not _be political figures_ if the media didn't cover their vulgar and obnoxious behavior constantly.

<comment><USER18> I admire your intent, but you've picked the wrong target for this kind of critique.

Nat seems to be achieving the opposite of what you say you're concerned about.

The point of these videos is to educate people how easy and affordable it is to eat fresh, nutritious and tasty food at home.

He's attracted millions of views before any mainstream media outlets have given him any attention, and he's done it by being quirkily entertaining, as well good natured and encouraging to his viewers (exemplified by lines like "Just have a go, you're more talented than you realise").

The only thing he's swearily abusive towards is lowest-common-denominator, anti-nutritious, big-corporate-commoditized food.

Earlier videos that have attracted a lot of views involve highlighting the absurdity of conspicuous largesse (luxury boat shows) and masculine hooliganism (e.g., burnouts in cars).

These seem like the very things that would be most associated with the style of politics you're most concerned about.

Yep he has tattoos and swears, but from what I can see he's only trying to raise society's standards, not lower them.

Sometimes it takes a trojan horse to get the payload to its target.

<comment><USER47> Fair enough. I watched a few of his videos and was immediately put off by the constant unnecessary 'fucks' every few sentences. It doesn't seem like he is dramatically more popular than a whole host of other cooking channels which manage to be both insightful, entertaining and not vulgar. So, I don't see why The Guardian needs to pick this channel when plenty of others exist.

I also don't really appreciate the 'pearl-clutching' bit. Not wanting to hear swear words constantly doesn't make me some ancient conservative who wants kids off my lawn.

<comment><USER18> > So, I don't see why The Guardian needs to pick this channel when plenty of > others exist.

It's because he's reaching an audience that normally wouldn't seek content about healthy home cooking. He also has an interesting personal backstory.

I've edited my comment to take out the personal jibe, but I would encourage you to think about the impression your comments give if you don't want to be seen that way.

Content doesn't always have to be pleasing to us personally for us to be able to peel back a layer and understand its place in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> his videos are a great way to test how much cringe you can handle in a sitting

<comment><USER50> His videos are very "local" in its sense of humor; people from the area he lives in find it fairly amusing.

<comment><USER51> Agree. Am local, find it hilarious.

<comment><USER52> Local also and very sensitive to overwrought cringy videos, and I don't find his presentation offputting. He's quick enough, genuine and to the point that the little jokes (parrot milk) are easy enough to ignore if you don't like them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I don't spend time watching clips of YouTube celebrities.

Am I missing something important?

<comment><USER54> Some would argue by ignoring the likes of YouTube you are missing the modern era of entertainment. You do you, though.

<comment><USER53> I am not ignoring YouTube at all. I watch a lot of videos from which I can learn something or find entertaining.

I've just found that I don't enjoy very much videos made for the sole purpose of making money.

I think people should make money from their work, but there also should be a bit of value for the viewer also.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is sort of regurgitated. Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time was quite popular around 7-8 years ago.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Wu3Bps9ic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Wu3Bps9ic)

</comment><comment><USER56> Aussie here, the self aware piss take is a great cultural tool that we do well (tim minchin as the highest form), but it's got to be used well. Too many self aware jokes in nat's videos are played for gags and used to suck all the tension out of the video. Using that tool to punctuate boring moments just highlights how boring it is to trying and find the tap whilst looking at the camera or dump a load of ingredients into a bowl. That tool is best used when bringing the elite and pretentious (self-styled picasso chef) down to the ground floor with love and highlighting a valuable revelation.

This stuff could be really good with a bit more quality and a bit less gratuity.

</comment><comment><USER57> I think in comedy the practice of using swear words as punctuation in lieu of actual wit has some similarity to the cgi overload in modern movies substituting for an intelligent script.

I (regretfully) swear like a navvy myself at times and am up for vulgarity in comedy when its accompanied by actual - you know - _comedy_. Examples: Viz (uk magazine), Beavis and Butthead, etc.

This was just childish, unoriginal humour and added to the cliched visual presentation was presumably mostly aimed at particularly dull teenagers.</comment>