Patrick Rhone » Blog Archive » Almost Always Bull
Doing some clean up on the old blog and am coming across some oldies but goodies.
Here’s one that’s relevant today.
Category: thought
“Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.”
Devo’s open letter on “Drowning in a Devolved World” / Boing Boing
Not only are we DEVO, we have always been DEVO.
Spank the pinks who try to drive you nuts.
I encourage and build WordPress sites for my clients so they can easily update content with an interface that is not too different from a word processor. They get it.
I just don’t get WordPress 5.0/Gutenburg.
And, if I don’t get it, how will they?
“They have a real library. You know how at the public library they have two floors of books? It’s like that.”
— Beatrix, age 10, judges the schools we are considering for Middle School next year by the quality of the library.
Radiohead – The Numbers: Jonny, Thom & a CR78 – YouTube
The music you need to ease into the end of the week.
The Last Chess Shop in New York City – YouTube
This short documentary is lovely. My stepfather was a USCF rated chess master. My two brothers are actuallly named after Russian chess masters. A portion of my growing up was done at chess tournaments. This spoke to me.
52 things I learned in 2018 – Fluxx Studio Notes – Medium.
I always enjoy this list of strange, interesting, and random trivia. So good, I’m linking to something published on Medium.
Algorithms Don’t See
United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously quipped “I know it when I see it” in describing his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio. The problem with this threshold, of course, is that everyone’s opinion of what is obscene and what is not is different.
For instance, to some, the work of Helmut Newton may be art. To others, it may be smut. But, thankfully, we all have the free will to decide such things for ourselves.
Of course, there are some things I think almost everyone can agree is not OK. Child pornography perhaps being the best example.
And, therein lies the problem with Tumblr’s direction in attempting to ban all porn from their platform. Instead of doing the very hard and very human work of figuring out how to best prevent those things we can almost all agree we know are not OK, they are taking the easy, broad, far reaching, and non-human approach of allowing an algorithm to decide.
Algorithms don’t see. Furthermore, they lack context and nuance. We’ve yet to reach an accurate AI based threshold test for “I know it when I see it.” Because of this, Tumblr’s plan to unleash such a tool to ban porn is not going so well and will likely be the company’s downfall.
Since making reading time seems to be the theme of the day, a reminder that you don’t have to wait for an plane trip to get some in. “Book” a two hour “flight” on your calendar and “travel” into a good book anytime. Also, Airplane Mode is just as useful on the ground as above it.