It’s All about the Algorithm 0
El Reg reports on Facebook’s promise to clean up its bots. It reports in passing on an earlier case of fakery and what it tells us about Facebook and “social” media.
It’s five years since the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones set up a fake business on Facebook and gained thousands of “likes” and clicks, many of which were, er, from fake accounts too. Facebook didn’t seem to care. It was all “engagement”, which justified its advertising model.
(snip)
Also recall that when Facebook introduced its controversial “Trending Topics” in 2014, it used teams of lowly paid human “curators”. Last spring it fired almost all of them, choosing to rely instead on algorithms. That decision, allied to Facebook’s incentives which rewarded clicks, meant that Trending Topics became a cesspool of spurious material.
It Wasn’t “Gone with the Wind.” It Was Never There. 2
Will Bunch deconstructs John Kelly’s misguided and historically–what’s a stronger word than “false”? Oh, yeah, complete and utter bullshit–claim that the Civil War resulted from a “failure to compromise.”
Indeed, it resulted from a refusal–the South’s refusal–to compromise.
Here’s a bit from Bunch’s article (follow the link for the rest).
The Civil War was not the result of “a lack of an ability to compromise,” but because 11 American states were determined to fight — to the death, if necessary — to defend a way of life in which an oligarchy of plantation owners became wealthy by enslaving human beings, based upon the color of the skin.
Kelly’s statement reflects what I have pointed out before–that the North may have won the war, but the South won the peace, weaponizing racism and propagating propaganda about a “land of gracious living” peopled by “Southern gentlemen and Southern belles” that never existed except in Gone with the Wind and other pieces of preposterous puffery, while papering over the violence and brutality that created for those “Southern mansions.”
That propaganda has penetrated the nation’s soul and perverted white Americans’ view of themselves, of their virtues and faults, and of their fellow citizens and residents.
Seeing the effects is easy.
You just have to open your eyes.
“A Choice, Not an Echo” 0
Dick Polman observes that the Republican Party faces a choice. A snippet:
They must choose, in the words of ex-Republican foreign policy adviser Max Boot, “whether they are loyal to the rule of law or the rule of Trump.”
I must confess that I am not confident that today’s Republican Party is capable of making the correct choice.
“It’s Mine! All Mine!” 0
If you want to study political economy, Donald Trump, Jr., may not be the optimal teacher.
Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0
Trumplers in training:
Gloucester County Christian School officials are investigating the incident and trying to identify the culprit, said Pastor John Mark Turner, the campus administrator. The school’s board could impose a suspension or expulsion, he said.
Stray Thought 0
Rex Stout was a damned fine writer.
I have enjoyed his Nero Wolfe mysteries from the first time that I read Some Buried Casar in the back seat of my parents’ car on the way to visit my grandmother.
Now that I am rereading them from the perspective of having made my living with my pen for a lifetime, I realize that the man was not “just a mystery writer” (Mickey Spillane was “just a mystery writer”), he was a wordsmith. Like Kerry Greenwood, he made words dance.
“Drug Dealers in Lab Coats” 0
Warning: Language.
The Rule of Lawless 0
Dick Polman explores why Trump’s dupes, symps, and fellow-travelers couldn’t care less about indictments or law-breaking.
Suffer the Children 0
Mike wonders why Republicans and their vocally self-proclained “Christian” supporters are willing to condemn children to sickness and death through their failure to renew CHIP. (Warning: Language.)
Facebook Frolics 0
To paraphrase the classic Warner Brothers cartoon, “They are gremlins, from the Kremlin.”
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source. Use computers to do what you want, not what someone else wants you to do. Learn how to use GNU/Linux and its plethora of free and open source software to get stuff done with computers.
It’s not hard; it’s just different.
When: Monthly TWUUG meeting at 7:30 p. m. on the first Thursday of the month (November 2, 2017). Pre-meeting dinner at Chicago Uno, JANAF shopping center, 6:00 p. m. (map)
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room (map). (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
