I like how in the article the author includes the instructions for Cal AI:
- Include a reference object (like a coin or your hand) for scale
And then the screenshots show just a pictures of bowls of food with no reference objects at all.
Honestly curious if that would have improved the author's experience.
Dumb question, would this be captured in NK's GDP figures? I imagine that the whole point of this sort of activity is so that they can skirt sanctions so there may well be a tonne of this activity going on that just never shows up in GDP estimates because.... well it's designed not to.
Yeah I wonder if it has any interaction with the NK economy at all. Presumably it translates into weapons imports or black market luxury goods imports?
The article says this:
Snowden’s comments echoed those of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who said that it’s “extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other.”
But he's NOT echoing Zuckerberg's comments - either in spirit or intent. He's pointing out a bigger problem inherent in relying on Facebook as a single source for news.
Lets hope those public companies will learn a lesson about enourmous public backlash, the wrath of consumer watchdogs etc sooner rather than later then?
Besides I thought (IANAL) this "maximize shareholder value" meaning short-term-economic-gain meme was massively misinterpreted and needs to die soon?
The entire iTunes catalog available for streaming would be a killer feature. Where did you see hear that the entire catalog would be available to stream?
> First, it’s iTunes. iTunes on-demand and in the cloud, where you can search for and stream any song available in the library. (It’s a huge, huge library.)
Misleading comparison. Armenia's GDP is the estimated economic worth produced annually by Armenia. Pinterest's valuation relates to the economic value produced by Pinterest for all future years, not annually.
I get the feeling no matter what comparison I make, you'd call it misleading, because that's really splitting at hairs. The thrust of the comment and the point of referencing Armenia's GDP was the scale of the figures. I've now edited it out since apparently nobody can address my point without slapping around the GDP comparison, as if it's important I get every word of my comment exactly right regardless of the point.
Imagine what the $11 billion one would spend to purchase Pinterest could do in other areas, such as the developing world, our inner cities, public infrastructure. That's the point. Is that up front enough and leading you in the right direction, or am I still being misleading?
Put another way, why do we value an online marketing tool at $11 billion and people efforting some real change like feeding starving children have to struggle for a meager five figure grant? And why are people here so hell-bent on feeding into it and silencing people like me who just have questions about it? Am I the only one that has ethical questions about spending my engineering career contributing to a market that values image distribution to push products and fuel consumerism at about the same order of magnitude as SpaceX?
You can look at me with a straight face and say that Pinterest deserves to be valued at $11 billion for what, its user count? Its potential to open up new revenue streams for advertisers? Same with Snapchat, same with Instagram. I feel like our priorities are broken, and that's all I'm saying, and as much as all of my comments are flirting with being grayed out, it feels pretty hopeless and depressing to be the only one, apparently.
I'm comfortable pointing out misleading comparisons in any statement, whether I agree with the underlying argument or not. When you feel like you are in the minority, it is especially important to choose your comparisons and arguments carefully so that people don't dismiss you before understanding you. When discussing with detail oriented people, it's important to get the details right.
Welcome to the free market. Either deliver what people want or fail. If influencing human behaviour is more important to you, then you may be in the wrong profession.
I see it's now time to condescendingly explain economics to me to counter a morality lamentation, including the suggestion that I should shut up and get out of not just the industry, but my profession, as if somehow I fucked up thinking computers can effect change outside of marketing.
Right, how dare I invest my life into writing software and hoping the possibilities include anything outside of selling Pepsi and Versace. My bad. What do you suggest as my new profession, bottled_poe?
Trust me when I say I'm on your side here. But, let's not forget that computers do little more than add numbers and transmit data. It is the application of this technology that adds economic value to society. And those applications are driven by human desire. Societal change is more effectively influenced through social representation, and there are many avenues to achieve that, but I don't believe creating software in an office space is the most effective one.
I wish things could be different, but without financial freedom, we are destined to build what other people deem valuable. One of the best things we can do is work with people whose values align with our own.
Economic judgement should not be confused with morality.
I suspect many here agree that Pinterest doesn't contribute greatly to the betterment of humanity. That does not mean it isn't economically valuable.
I actually think there's an argument that trying to quantify moral value in economic terms in itself morally questionable. There's room for other measurement systems outside monetary value.
I'm not trying to split hairs, it's a difference of 10x magnitude at least. It's a pet peeve of mine when people compare annual amounts to present values. I'm actually sympathetic to your argument about what society values, but if you want people to listen to what you are saying, you might want to be a bit more careful making comparisons like that.
Honestly curious if that would have improved the author's experience.