15+ years embedded systems specialist. Chief Innovator at Cylenk, Lecturer at FH Graubünden. Ex-GE/Alstom, medical devices, energy IoT. M.Sc. EPFL. Available for consulting/contracts or senior technical roles. Specialized in compliance-ready IoT, prototype-to-production, technical debt reduction.
Independent of section 240 or other laws, I would argue that search engine operators are content publishers as soon as we don't know how they choose the order of the results. Same for social media feeds.
Curating is a form of publishing, and following an algorithm is not curating per se, but, if that algorithm is non-transparent, and unknown to the user, it is the same end result...
I agree that systems that are virtually public utilities at this point should be operated more transparently. Google can put whole swaths of legitimate businesses out of business with minor tweaks of the algorithm. We complain about SEO but how do we know Google is optimized for search quality vs their own financial gain?
In school when we got introduced to calculator, the teacher told us that he was not here to teach it to us. Only maybe guide us, we had a few lessons of us sitting down with the manual and having to learn (mostly by ourselves, but he would also help) how to use the calculator we chose. After that, it was to each its own, he wouldn't give any explanations...
This is IMHO fair, he was anyway teaching us math, not using a calculator.
I really think that you are onto something there. Or maybe a bloat index calculating the ratio between user content and downloaded content. Like 1kB of text but with 2 MB of JavaScript/CSS etc would give you an index of 2000 whereas if you only had 23 kB of JavaScript/CSS etc, it would 23.
A big part of learning is also in the social interaction. VR, no matter how good, will just never match that. You don't only need information, you also need interactions, real life interaction...
I think VR might help to some subjects, but having an all-VR experience seems an awful thing to me...
I think it's theoretically possible that one day VR might really be as good. But I also expect to be comfortably dead before that happens.
I'll note that TV was seen as the future of education for quite a while. And that videoconferencing has been the future of interaction since the early 1980s. The first never worked out. And although the jury's still out on the latter, it's undeniable that a) it's not as good, and b) it's taken a very long time for the technology to be reasonably useful.
Historically, people seem to confuse "we don't know what X can't do" with "there's nothing X can't do". Technoutopianism can be useful, in that optimistic people will try things out and discover where the limits are. The current wave of VR is interesting, but it's perfectly possible that it will end up in the same place as 1990s VR: a historically interesting wave of hype that turned out not to deliver much value that couldn't be gotten more easily with other approaches.
Yeah it's easy to point at tech that never worked out. But it's also impressive to look at the tech that did work out and no one 50 years ago would have been able to predict where society is now.
It's just more exciting to me to envision a future where VR will work out, and I will keep working on it under that assumption.
I think that's very dangerous. A lot of the tech that worked out only did so because the people working on it put users first, not technology first.
A classic example here is Apple. They did not make the first personal computer, the first MP3 player, or the first smartphone. Those were made by people focused on the tech. Instead, Apple took mostly-existing tech and really focused on delivering value to users.
I think a user-first attitude is important even when making consumer gadgets. But a student-first focus is vital for education. There are a zillion examples of educational tools and methods inflicted upon kids not because they were better for students, but because somebody wanted to prove something.
Yes sure I agree. But if you've spent time with some VR headsets (especially Oculus Go) you know that it feels like magic. And it enables things that without this tech weren't possible before. Sure, it has a long way to go, but I believe that there's path.
I'm sure the engineers at Apple also looked at the tech and were like "holy shit, this enables us to do crazy stuff".
I do know that it feels like magic. But then, so did the 90s wave of VR. I also agree that it in theory enables new things.
But in practice, nobody has demonstrated that those new things deliver more value. Again, consider 90s VR. Or how people were sure that home computers were the coming thing starting in 1970 (and probably earlier). But they didn't really become particularly useful or common until the arrival of the web browser. [1]
The engineers at jetpack and flying car and humaniform robot companies also said "Holy shit, imagine what we can do." We could look at the plans for manned space travel of 1940-1980, none of which panned out. Heck, we could look at 3D movies and TV, which have flopped repeatedly. And even at Apple there were plenty of times that they said that and were wrong. [2]
I'm really not trying to rain on your parade here. I'm happy to admit that this could really be the time VR takes off. But I'd love it if more VR proponents could accept that "feels like magic" is a novelty effect; that the history of 3D "feels like magic" products turning into giant flops goes back at least 150 years; and that this could be just another one of those things that ends up like 3D TV or Smellovision.
You know VR can have multiple people in it, right? Because you're taking a description of a virtual classroom with just as many humans as a real classroom, and declaring there is no "social interaction", and that really confuses me.
I would say that this is not specific to aeronautics. It works also for other engineering fields. I find there is always an uncanny beauty in simple, elegant and efficient design usually. Be it software, mechanics or electronics. I am sure it goes as well in other disciplines...
I don't see what is naive. The EU has never said that you can't have ads. You can do ads without using and selling user data. For instance, you can have contextual ads (depending on what you read, not who you are) or just random ads.
GDPR is not against the ad business, it is only setting limits and obligations on how you can use personal data. It is saying that it is not normal for businesses to build huge user profiles without oversight or even consideration.
There's nothing inherently wrong with storing user data or using targeted advertising as long as it's not abused. Instead of outlawing only cases of abuse like any sensible law would do, the EU just chooses to throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's not their baby.
The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.
They would never be German companies. We (Germans) would have regulated them bancrupt long time ago :).
You are right. GDPR is a very German thing. We essentially have a two digit party (the greens) which rose because of the rejection of a general census (and nuclear energy). In Europe we are also not alone with that (see pirate party).
Oh and regards sensibility: The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.
There was a case on YouTube where a (sort of) satirical YouTuber Reactor (a fake over the top reaction channel) used a cut up footage of GradeAUnderA hating reaction channels as an ad on GradeAUnderA's own videos to direct people to Reactor channel as part of a scheme to bait GradeAUnderA (a 2-3 million subscribed channel) into attacking his small channel (1-2 thousand subs post these antics, much more later after the scheme came to light) to "expose" him for being a bully, starting fights (despite saying how he hates them and how they ruin YouTube and attacking people who are having them) and so on.
HN wonders about whether our industry truly is unwelcoming to women, meanwhile people openly joke about soliciting prostitution. “Riff culture” and “it’s just a joke” don’t make it acceptable.
Lighten up. The obviously bad idea of offering potential dates a cash reward is what makes this joke funny because in the context of running a Facebook ad campaign discounts and promotions are quite common.
Prostitution works both ways in 21st century. Given how women sex tourism is rising, I wonder wether men or women have less against prostitution these days...
I've considered that but didn't really know anything about the organization and how long they'll be around. We're gonna give Colly a try: https://github.com/gocolly/colly.
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: Embedded Linux (Yocto/Buildroot), C/C++, Python, IoT, Mechatronics, Medical Device Software (IEC 62304), Industrial Automation, Firmware
Résumé/CV: https://www.cylenk.com
15+ years embedded systems specialist. Chief Innovator at Cylenk, Lecturer at FH Graubünden. Ex-GE/Alstom, medical devices, energy IoT. M.Sc. EPFL. Available for consulting/contracts or senior technical roles. Specialized in compliance-ready IoT, prototype-to-production, technical debt reduction.