Which “Brutalism” is BIMBYISM referencing? I don’t use Facebook so maybe someone here can answer this. Is it:
- The architectural style?
- The social housing traditions that birthed the architectural style?
- The contemporary literalist misappropriation of the term to reference dystopian urban infrastructure which punishes the needy? (like spikes under bridges)
I’m hoping it’s the first and will be pleasantly surprised if it’s the second. But not getting my hopes up.
That’s refreshing. Unfortunately, I have. At least in the past few decades, brutalism has been conflated with being unkind, authoritarian, or Stalinist. But maybe this wave has passed and I’m out of the loop. I also didn’t think brutalist architecture was appreciated in circles like this, so I clearly am out of the loop to some extent.
Were there any projects outside of the VFX Platform (vfxplatform.com) you could point out?
As mentioned in this article, it seems that the VFX studios, even the small ones, are very siloed and protective. Of the studios with Github accounts, the software they release is usually stuff they don’t use any longer.
The reason for this organization is that many of the key components of the VFX platform are open source, but not open governance. They live inside Dreamworks, Disney, etc. but without any sort of public collaboration model. You can't contribute to the Alembic file format unless you work at Imageworks, you can't contribute to EXR unless you're at ILM, and you can't contribute to OpenVDB unless you're at Dreamworks.
In particular look at OpenVDB (volume database). It is a wide and shallow volume format designed for performance around certain use cases. It also includes good lib support for the common simulation functions.
A lot of the other open source offerings from the animation/vfx studios are about common formats and pipelines and may be of less interest outside of the industry.
I think you’re right. I should have specified formats and pipeline components. There are business reasons to not open source these things, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
OpenVDB was a crucial step. It’s hard to live without it these days.
My experience agrees with this. I am a different, significantly less comfortable person to be around when strangers are asking me so many questions about myself. I think it’s just about the worst way to get to know me.
When I get hired this way, I always feel a little bit of guilt because I know they actually hired somebody else.
What can be done? I’m not sure, but I can say one thing: my level of discomfort is multiplied by the number of strangers in the room. Does this ever get considered with interviews?
I am far more comfortable coding in front of 1 or 2 people who each give me a little bit of background about their coding experience; just so I know. If they are experienced engineers, it’s probably not going to change what I say aloud, but it just makes me more comfortable. I guess more overlap of technologies in our background does help. It’s nice to not feel pressure of worrying if my solutions reflect general programming conventions enough to be language agnostic. I have never really used Java, for example.
Looking at your application process, I cannot help but notice how poorly Einstein himself would have performed in such an arena.
But, maybe I’m missing something.
You mention an aim to support high-achieving outcasts, but the application process appears to be, as another comment mentioned, a popularity contest. What is the thinking behind that?
My reaction to this, as someone who doesn’t use many of these on a regular basis (probably guilty of overusing __new__ though) is actually that I can imagine these causing some real problems. The operator ones seem particularly tempting and dangerous at the same time.
Operator overloading, in any language that supports it, has always been controversial, so Python doesn't really add anything new there.
The thing is, it's also incredibly useful at times. Language features that are "useful when you have the use case for it, confusing when you don't" tend to provoke that reaction.
Which is a good thing, because it makes the whole arrangement a lot more consistent that languages in which this sort of thing is just magic associated with a specific primitive type (sometimes it's even inconsistent - e.g. in C#, + for ints and strings is magic, but + for decimal is an overloaded operator). In Python, all that magic is confined to the magic methods. Learn them once, and they work the same everywhere.
Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong. It’s cool as hell! I’m totally gonna use it for a GUI menu-building script interface I’m making right now :).
I have just never done it before, and I think this is the first time I have seen the concept, so the first thing that popped in my mind we’re all the things that can go wrong. But, also all the things that can go right.
A related article I got a lot out of was ‘Understanding Python Metaclasses’, an in-depth breakdown of Python class instantiation. Here’s the link to that:
You can get a good idea of this with virtual desktop software running on Vive. After trying it myself, I was reminded that I actually love retina displays and feel like an even higher resolution would be nice. Also FOV is major. Until I can get massive FOV and retina+ resolution, I will always choose a regular desktop display.
Well put. Everything you said and a little bit of elaboration on art...
One of the best parts of photography is the speed at which you can have a conversation with your own visual system, refining it in the process.
Understanding art can be thought of as getting bored and finding something new, which is no longer boring, and repeat. Eventually you find yourself bored by almost everything, but with an intense passion for succinct relatable expression. This is often mistaken for pretension, and many do skip the process altogether; most unfortunately, even people calling themselves artists do so.
My point is all these composition rules are great; it’s invaluable stuff. But, you will get bored of them, and that is the beautiful part.
I wouldn't say "get bored of them", so much as sublimate them so you no longer think consciously about them. And you learn that it's not "following the rules of composition will make great photos", so much as "most great photos follow the rules of composition".
Composition is also about tension/resolution, much like music. You can increase tension, but that doesn't mean you're actually breaking rules.
Fair. I want to add that when I talk about “getting bored” of them, I personally do this in a childish and unrefined way on a regular basis. So I don’t want to sound like I necessarily mean progressing beyond them. A childish rebel instinct can result in boredom all the same. Paired with curiosity, it’s granted me with an accumulation of experiences in exploraing the visual world. The rules are wonderful but breaking them is what gives me resilience as an artist. It’s why I can fall from great heights, lose access to a medium, and overcome jealousy. I can always recall my own fluidly evolving set of rules. Don’t get me wrong; praise is really important, but the confidence in child’s play has over time fostered a relationship with my eyes that I only know to call love; certainly the closest thing to freedom I’ve ever known. I wish I were exaggerating because I sound like an absolute dork.
At the end of the day, I am actually a rigid rule follower in my output. Most of the rule-breaking takes place in my imagination. I find myself giggling to myself on film sets regularly, for example. Or at bus stops for that matter. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning.
Taking interesting photographs is much harder than taking well composed photographs. For that you need to refine your visual pallette and explore for good and interesting subjects, and find interesting ways to capture them. There are countless well composed shots of the Eiffel Tower, some are probably even accidental. So it does become hard to give much weight to composition, unless it is bad.
I always heard that as well. Cinematographers love this phrase, but I totally agree. That saying leaves the concept less than dependent on personal experience. I still don’t understand why, but the purest of expressions seem to come as side effects of the engagement process; not as rewards for accomplishments. So, one must engage and be honest as they can with the act itself, which isn’t to say one must suffer, but just aim to be in touch with their own experience with the medium. I will admit I personally suffer, but it’s not helpful.
I bailed at the advent of forced non-chronological timelines. I would have been less insulted if Facebook hired someone to spit in my face.
Easily the scummiest design decision I have ever whitnessed.
Actively manipulating the structural representation of time in a communication platform is begging for chaos. Yes, of course I know the time stamps are still presented. That is not my point. Communication is sensitive; very sensitive. Adding barriers in reverse like that signals to me these companies do not have a clue. The issues with this sort of thing will not be measurable or even observable.
Our lives and society are impacted in mass proportions by events we as individuals will never perceive, or have the capacity to. And this is precisely what thinking is for; we theorize, organize, and make sense of things. This is the basis for all of our potential, and that potential is all we have.
But this is not rocket science. It’s a sorted list. that everyone uses. And now it’s unsorted. for And what?
Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it? Why must deviating from this one specific ranking approach lead to "chaos"?
Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement, prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned?
> Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement, prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned?
I was listening to the Next Billion Seconds podcast the other day. They made the point that in social media 'engagement' is a polite euphemism for 'addictiveness'.
I've rephrased your post to show why I find it unsettling:
> Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority find the algorithmic model to be more addictive. Should we let a tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned?
How can you distinguish "addictiveness" from people just liking the product? The default assumption should be that people are in control of their own actions.
One hint to help differentiate addiction and enjoyment is to ask about enjoyment. Research shows that addicts tend to enjoy the focus of their addiction a bit less than regular folk.
For example, if I’m honest with myself, I don’t enjoy checking my email. But I still compulsively check it dozens of times a day. I think it’s fair to say that I’m an addict.
Do you enjoy checking Facebook? Ask your friends. I know what mine said.
No, if you want evidence then just look at the numbers of obese people in the population. People don't make rational decisions, this isn't some moral failing, it's just the way we are.
It by definition is a bad thing. I suspect you’re using the term as slang. Like, you enjoy working out, you do it regularly, and you don’t feel right when you’ve gone too long without a bit of exercise.
That’s not addiction, that’s a healthy habit. If you were truly addicted to working out, you’d be late for work because you wanted that last mile. Or miss your kids birthday party to hang out at the CrossFit gym. It would consume your time and attention to the detriment of other needs and the needs of others.
That’s the spirit the parent comment is using the term in. As something that demands more of your attention than it deserves.
"As demonstrated by engagement" - isn't really true. It's more "As demonstrated by count of time spent in the app". I believe that is true. But it's also a worse experience. Those two really seem to contradict each other, however, it's really quite nuanced.
I'd like to see mostly what my friends are up to. Instead of that, on Facebook at least, I mostly see viral videos from whatever groups I happen to be in. It is true that a lot of the time, those suck me into watching them. Technically that counts as "time spend in the app", but I also see that I'm wasting a lot of my time on crappy pointless videos and because of that I've actually not opened the app at all from time to time. In general, my attitude towards it has also changed - it used to be "ooh, exciting, let's see what's happened", now it's more like "meh, maybe this time there is something interesting, let's check, although probably not". Jaded is probably the correct description.
I realized a while ago that "engagement" is very much the wrong metric to optimize. The reason people optimize for "time spent" or "number of interactions" is because it is easy to measure.
I think ultimately what you need to optimize for is much harder to measure. I think for most senarios it is "value a user can recieve for a given amount of time". When measuring this, time spent in the application is acutally detrimental unless you are increasing the value a user is getting from the application by a substantial amount.
If your theory were true --- that apparent engagement increases really just represent navigational inefficiency --- you'd see drops in other metrics, like user retention and visits. But you don't. What you see is that people use the thing more. It's hard not to interpret that as better.
I'm not saying it's navigational inefficiency - it's giving me useless stuff that's really hard to stay away from. I don't want a platform that gives me a free shot of opium every now and then just to get me to stay there.
I'm quite the person to say that it is useless to me.
I also am quite free to have the opinion that a lot of content is simply a waste of time. I also propose the question of how much actual enjoyment it produces and the quality of said enjoyment. You are free to think otherwise :)
Yeah, having to refresh my instagram feed 2-3 times just to make sure I didn’t miss anything from my friends certainly has me engaged. But it’s the exact kind of “math-friendly refrigerator magnet junkfood” engagement GP was talking about.
> Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it?
This is a very deep question you’re asking, and I don’t know the answer. But, this boat only goes in one direction so let’s make the best of it.
But seriously, sure other sorting methods are useful. I would like to have many options, but I can’t think of a better default for this use case. Can you?
> ...as demonstrated by their engagement, prefer the algorithmic model.
You just don’t understand my point. Maybe read it again. I dunno. But ...
As demonstrated by their engagement, people prefer doing whatever their boss tells them to do.
As demonstrated by their engagement, people don’t actually like sex very much at all.
I'd offer you one blindingly obvious explanation for why it's putrid: because it is a machine deciding which of my human relationships I should pay the most attention to.
Machines can't do that, silly. They can only promote hate speech with 100 comments and lolcat pictures with 100 likes. The only option is for them to take a back seat and present an ordering that is semantically meaningful to the human computer operating the tool -- the only one qualified to perform any kind of filtering and sorting.
"Relevance ranking" in social networks is a result of engineers having zero clue what applications they're working on, but that's just typical IT people divorced from reality for you. As you said, they find it acceptable because it's written in Angular v7 and uses ML and A/B testing revealed a 3.2% increase in clicks. The idea of the software industry helping real relationships is in general hilariously contradictory (but of course there are exceptions!)
> > ...as demonstrated by their engagement, prefer the algorithmic model.
>
> […]
>
> As demonstrated by their engagement, people prefer doing whatever their boss tells them to do.
Engagement means people are engaging more with non-chronological feeds than with chronological ones. This isn't just about blindly accepting what you are given, it's also about caring more for pertinence than order.
If you give no other option than algorithmic ranking that is not designed to maximize my utility but your revenue, that is as close to evil as you can get in my books.
(Edit: as close to evil in the context of social media content sorting. There obviously are more evil things than that...)
The biggest issue for me, when FB moved away from chronological ordering, was that if I clicked on a post in my feed, I could no longer go back to the feed and continue browsing where I left off, because the ordering appeared to change when the page was refreshed. I pretty much stopped using the service around that time, and though I didn't actually think about it, I think this change was a big factor in that.
The same for me - it got to the point of infuriation that if I navigated away by clicking on a link to a Chrome tab, if I came back to engage with the post organically, it was hidden from the feed.
I can't speak for GP, but most people who don't like the switch from non-chronological timelines because their replacements are usually opaque algorithms that are optimized for maximum shareholder profit. That's a downgrade.
On the other hand, non-chronological timelines are celebrated in communities like Scuttlebutt, but it's because we have control and you can choose the UX that works best for you without sacrificing connectivity.
It's not demonstrated by engagement. The engagement exists simply because there's no alternative: FB made new attempts to enter the social media impossible. You will not get funding and you will not be able to monetize with advertising: monetization of user generated content with ads is impossible in 2018 unless you are at least the size of Reddit.
> Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it?
Because one is essentially a feed of data, and the other is obviously/openly being manipulated based on things that I did not choose. The fact remains that removing that option is problematic. They switched the default - fine, makes sense. To remove the basic time ordered feed just shows they aren't interested in allowing users real choice.
I largely mothballed my facebook use years ago - so I'm not a user they should optimise for. But probably have bailed at that anyway.
Exactly this. I like Instagram but I wish they would optimize for how I want to use it, now how they want me to use it. I want to get on, see stuff from my friends and get off. I want to spend the least amount of time possible on the site and that's something that social media sites seem to think would be bad for them.
One of the reasons that I like Twitter... It has a short section with "important" (by some metric) tweets since the last time that you viewed your feed, followed by tweets in chronological order. Facebook surely has the ability to do something similar but it would negatively impact how much time people spend on the site.
Personally I'm not a fan of this feature, but thankfully it doesn't do it to lists, so most of the more interesting people I follow I put into various lists by topic instead. That and I'm not a fan of the main timeline injecting likes from the people I follow, but that's twitter for you...
Twitter forces me to do a monthly dance of "I don't like this" clicking on stuff like that or the "XXX liked this tweet" crap to remove them, instead of providing a simple on/off setting and sticking to it.
- The architectural style?
- The social housing traditions that birthed the architectural style?
- The contemporary literalist misappropriation of the term to reference dystopian urban infrastructure which punishes the needy? (like spikes under bridges)
I’m hoping it’s the first and will be pleasantly surprised if it’s the second. But not getting my hopes up.