I think he means that even if you believe that power is zero sum (debatable) the system in which that power extends is not. E.g. technological advancement can shift power away from violent storms, earthquakes, viruses, etc and into humanities hands. Thus I think it's pretty clear that 'power among humanity' would not be zero sum
I'm a bit on the younger side (23) but I've used online dating almost exclusively for finding partners over the past 2 years. Being a bit of a numbers freak, I downloaded a copy of all my data from Tinder and made a Sankey diagram with it and it ended up being pretty cool to look at: https://imgur.com/a/ueNmDlZ
The article compares caffeine vs. no-caffeine but I'd be interested to see how caffeine compares to other additives. For all we know H2O could do the same thing
FTA:
> UCLA professor Yang Yang’s lab chock-full of coffee drinkers spent several years searching for a stability-enhancing additive to turn famously unstable perovskite PV cells into a useful product. Then, on a lark, Yang's graduate student Rui Wang suggested they try adding caffeine to the mix.
They tested different compounds for years before finding one that works - I don' think it would add much to the article to list every one of them.
Except this is how the internet works now. If this shouldn't be allowed then we should be banning it for all companies (including Google, just about every ad-serving website, and even the NYT themselves), not just the current scapegoat of the year, FB.
Even if it were less efficient currently, I think energy production will quickly snap over to renewables quickly once it becomes economically advantageous. Cars and trucks will have to be gradually phased out over a 10-20+ year period so getting a head start on this would probably pay out in the long term
That's odd, the article I read did contain specific instances of parents retracting the steps of their spendthrifty offspring which confirmed there was no indication of actual money being spent, e.g.:
“I saw all these $19 charges from Facebook,” she said. “It added up to nearly $1,000.”
She asked her son why he would do that. But he was flabbergasted by the charges too. So Bohannon asked her son to play the game so she could watch what he was doing wrong.
As he played, he occasionally clicked on a corner of the screen that gave him more abilities, such as magical items, or new ninja attacks for his character. It didn’t ask if he wanted to pay for it, or let him know that his mom’s credit card was being charged.
“There was no indication he was spending money,” Bohannon said. “So, 20 minutes later, I rechecked my credit card statement online. And sure enough, there was another $19.99 charge from Facebook.”
Holy cow, that's frightening. Mobile games with in-app payments are clear about "These cost gems {or some other bought-with-real-money mcguffin)", but refilling those gems nearly always makes it clear that you're going to have to pay.
Nope. Definitely use it a bit less because I've realized that there aren't that really any benefits of using it for anything other than messaging/events. Despite the shitstorm against them from NYT/HN I really couldn't care less about what they do with the data I willingly share on their platform
Have we really gotten to the point where "some dude quit Facebook" is considered news? The fact that the NYT has degenerated to this is disappointing. While there are certainly fair criticisms of Facebook, this trigger friendly news coverage of the company is becoming outrageous and is detracting from any previous viable points.
Well, when some dude is a veteran tech journalist whose access to information and networks may depend on him having a facebook account, I'd say it's interesting enough to be newsworthy (although maybe not new york times newsworthy), in my opinion.
I may be misunderstanding your claim that it's "detracting from any previous viable points". What points are you referring to that this detracts from?
I don't think it detracts from previous viable points like OP, but I do think the headline might at first trigger an eye-roll on a lot of readers. It sounds like an irrelevant piece of trivia that the NYT wants to blow up in an attempt to just keep throwing mud at Facebook.
If one reads the article there's a few interesting points-- it includes some statements by Mossberg and info on his book which will probably include some thoughts on Facebook.
I try to at least skim stories before commenting on them which is the only reason I opened this one. The title reads like cheap celebrity journalism. Something more fleshed-out, like an interview going in depth about his thoughts on Facebook and tech's impact as a whole, leading to his book, would've been more "NYT worthy" IMO. And a better title.
Do you know if the NYTimes wrote an article when mossberg opened his facebook account? If mossberg opening a facebook account isn't news, neither is his closing of his account.
Also, mossberg is a journalist. I was under the impression that journalists being the news themselves is bad journalism. Isn't that why most journalists go out of their way to not to be part of a story?
If rupert murdoch, in his war with facebook, pressured mossberg to close his account, that would be news. Otherwise, this is just the nytimes and a journalist creating news, not reporting on news.
Having worked in tech my whole life and been a frequent visitor of the site, I have never heard of him.
Regardless, this is still fair criticism. This would be like seeing in the scrolling banner of "Breaking News" on CNN "<Insert Well Known Person in their field> quits job at <Insert large company>"
Belongs in maybe the entertainment or business section, maybe, section, but wouldn't classify it as "tech news"
----
Having thought about it a little more, I can see a valid case when said person in question, considered monumental enough, leaves a platform, business or field and is reported as news. I guess it's more of a reflection of how little HN'ers (including myself) think of Facebook in the grand scheme of things. It's just a website. What's next, we report that he or she has left Flickr or Reddit? That's kind of what I think GP and myself were getting at. Now if this person was the founder of Facebook, or instrumental in the success of the platform, and then decides to leave, I think absolutely it would be tech news.
I don't care who his friends are.
I don't find people interesting because of the company they keep or track their career because they interviewed someone.
Galafinakis isn't worth fawning over because he mock-interviewed Obama. Baskets wasn't interesting either.
Any guy quitting facebook (who can sign up again for free in a heartbeat, it's zero risk) is an event, granted. Might as well talk about the time someone quit selling on eBay or had a video removed by Youtube or went to Ohio. It doesn't mean anything until you sensationalize it. This indicates that it is not news, but raw sensationalism.
I am not saying that to belittle the man in any sort of way, or diminish his accomplishments, I am just simply saying it shouldn't be surprising that people haven't heard of some other people, despite how famous others think he or she might be. Pretty sure there is an XKCD for this. I have my categories of people where I would react the same way ("What do you mean you have never heard of Carl Sassenrath!?" as an example).
;) He is the father of multitasking! Definitely an important figure in computing history -- he created the Amiga Computer operating system kernel and also was a pivotal figure in HP's early successes as well. I think he works at Roku now.
Also a reminder how crazy young the field of computer science is -- important figures are still as young as 62! Kind of cool in a way. I hope to get to meet him in person.
That's a fair point. In my world, Walt's name is as recognizable as Bjarne Stroustrup - one is for techies, the other is for the rest of the population.
EDIT: Right after posting this, I realized my world was ambiguous - "my world" is simply the people I interact with and the information that flows between us - not making a qualitative judgement.
I have not heard of any of the dudes on any of the comments in this thread. Neither Carl Sassenrath nor Walt Mossberg nor Bjarne Stroustrup. Now I am concerned.
Having worked in tech my whole life and been a frequent visitor of the site, I have never heard of him.
I suppose one could spend an entire tech career having never heard the name Doanald Knuth, but I wouldn’t wear that as a badge of honor.
Mossberg is hardly on the level of Knuth, but it does cause me to wonder if the cave you must live in is damp enough to cause problems with computing gear.
Don't see why it's necessary to condescend people this way, the fact is some people just don't care about people enough to remember their names. Have you heard of Ian Gibbons?
Um. Yes? What has this guy done in the past 5 years? All the linked commenters saying how great his work is posted 10 year old videos of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Maybe the better question is, is Walt Mossberg still relevant to the technology scene?
To be fair, hacker news is a special kind of technology website. A place where many know a lot more about technology than walt mossberg. He wrote for the masses ( actually the business people - WSJ ), not for "hackers". For most us, he is just some dude. For the masses, he is the technology guy. But ultimately, he was a journalist, not a technology guru.
Facebook has massive reach, feels essential to most people, has gone through a difficult news cycle, issues bad news on a weekly basis, may have undermined democratic stability in some countries, and is a significant component of most corporate marketing PPC strategies.
When influential tech personalities, especially ones who are as corporate and CEO friendly as Mossberg, say the are leaving because of a values mis-match, it might be the tipping point for a broader exodus.
Mossberg had a long career or tech reviews and CEO friends, but I've personally never thought of him as a "thought leader". Moreover, he's unfamiliar to a lot of people.
IMO statements by Chomsky would be more news-worthy. Or by people who might have bigger stakes in staying in the platform-- say if the NYT themselves announced they were gonna be leaving the platform. Mossberg is retired.
I guess the relevance of this piece depends on each person's admiration for Mossberg.
Writing it off as "some dude quits Facebook" is pretty narrow minded.
For better or worse he has a big audience, and the fact he's publicly quitting Facebook has more real world influence than a bunch of HN geeks doing so.
I don’t think this will have any real world impact. There has been an all out media assault on Facebook for some time now with no real usage impact. Mossberg‘s audience in particular seems like the least likely group of people to quit FB. Grandparents are going to stay on FB as long as they can keep seeing pictures of their grandchildren, etc...
I don’t think anyone uses Facebook because it is “cool” (and thus susceptible to media tarnishing). They use it because their social network is on it and they value that.
The NYT is only good for headlines and even then it's mediocre, every time they have some interesting headline and I open the article and it always starts with some stupid personal anecdote. It's almost as if their journalists are paid by the word.
