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d_j_b

Re:Counting Ghosts: A case for abandoning web analytics on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @11:43AM (#37571578)
I agree with the central point, that web analytics lacks rigor. But I don't think it's wholly true that the problem is that our own motivations cause our analysis to lack objectivity. I think the other reason the author gives is the really key one: analytics data tantalises us with the idea that it may be coherent, complete and realistic; in fact it is wildly diffuse and represents only a tiny slice of the lived experience of users.

I wrote a post on a similar topic this week. https://mechanicalsurvival.com/blog/failing-to-visualise-web...

Re:The Tyranny of Ideas on Monday May 13, 2019 @05:19PM (#19904083)
There was so much to enjoy in Embassytown: the Hosts, the Metaphors, the Festival of Lies, biorigging, Immer, the super-cerebral ending. Anyone come across anything equally juicy recently?
I've been doing this too, with mine! A recent discovery is that if you keep all the Y pieces pointing in the same compass direction you seem to end up with a track which is always 100% traversable in either forward or reverse.
Re:Ursula Le Guin has died on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @05:54PM (#16218669)
That is a short story called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"
Re:Like Tweeting, but You Can't Use the Letter E on Thursday April 13, 2017 @07:06PM (#14111540)
Silly Vice: it's "Perec", not "Pereca".
The Browser! https://thebrowser.com. I frequently see its recommendations percolating through to the front page of HN. 5 hand-picked articles a day drawn from every corner of the internet, covering philosophy, literature, technology and other things, linked, pithily summarised and available as email newsletter, RSS feed, or full-text Instapaper/Pocket auto-push.

Paid service ($34/year), but a month's free trial is available: https://thebrowser.com/try-the-browser

Disclaimer: I am associated with The Browser, but my affection for it transcends my professional interest :)

Re:An American Doctor Experiences the NHS Again on Sunday August 21, 2016 @06:37PM (#12333042)
> In many private industries, even highly regulated ones like finance, the people who first successfully transitioned the industries to computer based systems are now dying of old age. The NHS hasn't even started.

They started a year ago: http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2015/08/will-nhsuk-be-next-...

Re:Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @07:07AM (#12171847)
Fair point. I'd accept the trade-off if it meant I could use quote-unquote Linux instead of macOS.
Re:Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @06:37AM (#12171746)
Because the power management never quite works as it should
Re:Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @05:44AM (#12171565)
When Windows Subsystem for Linux can run nginx, rails etc reliably, will seriously consider leaving behind MacBook Pro for something like this
Re:EU Referendum Results on Thursday June 23, 2016 @08:34PM (#11965380)
Some right-wingers in the UK (e.g. the ones advocating withdrawing from the EU) would like to see it abolished (and the BBC diminished)
"For me, declaring code is not code," Page said.

This sentence sounds pretty odd to me. What does Larry Page mean?

Re:New Common Lisp website on Saturday May 14, 2016 @05:57PM (#11698236)
"its whole syntax is the literal representation of one of it's core datatypes, the linked list"

"Your average Lisp process is code running on a Lisp VM, and the VM allows you to modify the running code"

Thank you. As a non-Lisper, this is probably the clearest explanation of Lisp's qualities I've ever read.

Re:1995 Programming on the Sega Saturn on Saturday April 16, 2016 @06:46PM (#11512642)
Mick is the author's name. I think it's a joke?
Re:Google Contributor on Thursday March 05, 2015 @08:50PM (#9155124)
Google's model rests on the assumption that all the ads on the site will be Google ads, and as such this scheme comes with a fairly heavy incentive for content providers to carry Google ads only.

Declaration of interest: we're trying to do something in the same space with content-that-should-be-or-is-paywalled with Financial Times articles on The Browser (http://thebrowser.com)

ah, thanks! will try to remember that. seems to go some way to answering the original article's point, too.
iOS gets this really wrong. More than once I've accidentally swiped it to 'off' in an effort to hit the snooze button, then slumbered on for an hour. And then there's the fact that to disable the alarm during a snooze period, you have to go into the clock app and manually switch it off, which is a pain. And don't get me started on the pointless complexity of the 'Which days would you like this alarm on' feature - the price of failing to pay attention to that arcane option is that nobody will ever arrange to meet you on a Saturday morning ever again...
Re:Facebook's git repo is 54GB on Friday April 25, 2014 @04:35PM (#7648903)
that is a fascinating article, thank you. i like the idea of 'push karma'.
Re:Machine Learning in JavaScript on Thursday January 30, 2014 @10:45AM (#7151218)
This is great stuff - thank you very much.

>all those wonderful Python libs

As a non-mathematician I have no understanding of how wonderful they really are, which is why this sort of thing is so valuable.

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