I'm working on a presentation now to explain how GPS works to second graders. If they understand it, I'll take some photos and do a write-up.

The problem to be solved here is not the liability owed by the reporter of the truth, but rather the way in which our reptilian brains fail to balance that truth against an undoubtedly bigger picture.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37106228

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Seriously, though: several of the Trump campaign's architects (Paul Manafort, Roger Stone) got their start in the Nixon administration.

The only way to find out is to scroll infinitely as the domain name suggests. Beware, your scrolling may have been finite.

The police want to catch the bad guys too, but after 8 hrs has passed, it becomes virtually impossible to succeed.

It's a purely regulatory solution, though, not technical as the top level comment suggested :)

Take the camping example. If I sell camping equipment, I can try to reach out to blogs directly, but I will have to place hundreds of campaigns for $100 each, track and monitor them all separately, and count on each of the blogs to deliver them accurately in good positions with no fraud. Or I can just buy one massive campaign with Facebook that runs across Facebook and Instagram and targets people who are interested in camping and maybe even expressed purchase intent. That's the better option every time. The transactions costs of dealing with individual websites are prohibitive.

Google (and the other tracking companies) just distribute that same option across the open web. If you get rid of it, Facebook wins absolutely.

I like the idea, as one commenter expressed, that the open web would be better without advertising. But I think the reality of an infinitely powerful Facebook is that the open web would be a wasteland and afterthought.

Without Google AdX and the mess of disturbing cross-site tracking, I can't see why advertisers wouldn't just spend 100% of their digital budgets in walled gardens. It would just be so much more effective.

The Hemingway app is good for work emails and marketing copy, or if you happen to like that style. It is hardly the universal arbiter of "poor or confusing writing".

But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality.

There's still a lot to be said for established brands. Brands can afford widespread advertising because they have thriving businesses that generate lots of cash. Brands can get stocked in major retailers because you need decent products to make it through Walmart's buying process.

These are signals that are harder to fake, and they're kind of the best we've got right now.