Hacker News: clicks

I suppose he's gotten slightly better at talking. He seems nervous, but isn't a complete wreck (see interviews from 2 years ago, he has improved a lot since then). As I understand it the markets responded well to Zuck's talk with Arrington and now with Bennet -- fb stock shot up after each of the interviews. But that doesn't excuse the fact he is a cartoonishly twisted guy and entrepreneurs and consumers alike should be leery of his every move. Does he seriously expect people to buy his latest spiel about immigration? This is the guy who created a political movement that went so far as to fund ads for oil drilling in arctic national wildlife refuge and putting down Keystone XL pipelines, so, sorry, I'm not buying that he's in this cause because he met someone who couldn't attend college because they were illegal immigrants. Having talked at length with people who knew him in his Harvard days, he's ruthless, relentless, and rapacious -- he has determined he's going to approach the immigration issue in the public arena with stories about illegal immigrants not getting accepted into colleges, and this seems to be the way he's going at it. Pity. He's the face of a serious issue that warrants genuine people looking at it with sincerity and good faith, instead we're stuck with Zuck.

This is the guy who literally called the users of his site "dumb fucks", and was literally willing -- no, eager to hand over private details of his site's users to his friends. I ran forums that garnered about 12k users per month when I was 16, I took the responsibility of safeguarding my users' private information very seriously.

The only thing that's changed about Zuck is he's learned to not say these things out loud, play a nice PR game, and meet people and convince them that he's a nice fella who wants best for everybody and "connect the world!" through Facebook (no matter if you want to be connected to it or not).

New comment by clicks in "WikiLeaks Leaks 'Fifth Estate' Screenplay"

clicks — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:13:08 +0000

And my assertion wasn't that DOD has made it altogether impossible to create movies that shed America in a bad light, they've just made it really, really difficult.

When your competing movie has all kinds of bells and whistles, shots of real helicopters and aircraft carriers and all -- and you can't afford to have that because you don't have access to the stuff that the competing movie got for free, this puts you at a disadvantaged position at the box office. Movie production is pretty damn expensive: these days it's not at all surprising to see film production budgets exceed hundreds of millions of dollar (the last Pirate of the Caribbean cost $300 million to make). When movie studios are under the kind of financial pressure that they usually are -- leaving aside advertisement costs, this can actually be a make or break point for them. So, the government is incentivizing the production of a certain kind of movies... and we see the effects of that play out.

A recent Pew research piece revealed that 7% of Americans use Reddit, and the significant majority of that 7% is millennials. If you go to Reddit you probably know they overwhelmingly support Wikileaks (and/or Assange), so the argument that there's no demand for content that challenges America is very weak (whether it be related to the Wikileaks scandal or not). If a high production value movie unabashedly cast Assange as a hero without faults, the movie would be accepted fine by a sizable amount of people, it would make a lot of money: a lot of people see Assange as a mystical hero, they'd shell out money to see that movie.

New comment by clicks in "WikiLeaks Leaks 'Fifth Estate' Screenplay"

clicks — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 21:12:26 +0000

I was made aware of how much propaganda there is in Western movies by a comment here on HN:

"The major exception here is the Department of Defense, which has an ‘open’ but barely publicized relationship with Tinsel Town, whereby, in exchange for advice, men and invaluable equipment, such as aircraft carriers and helicopters, the Pentagon routinely demands flattering script alterations."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/lights-camera-covert-action-the...

http://original.antiwar.com/sean-a-mcelwee/2013/04/28/propag...

Do you recall any big American movie in the last decade (or even more) that painted America's military in a non-positive light? I don't. I do remember Zero Dark Thirty (if you watch carefully you'll see how they basically say that torture works great in getting prisoners to hand over information), I do remember The Hurt Locker, and a whole list of other movies, Iron Man and Captain America being the latest examples (Iron Man originally used to be about fighting communism, now it is about fighting terrorism).

Hollywood output is a very valuable export to the world in this way of framing America's image in the world, and I'm betting America is becoming even more aware of this and will put even more resources to this effort in coming time.

To me, truly the most amazing thing about this is that pretty much no-one knows about this! Tell someone that there's a lot of American propaganda in Western movies and they'll take you for a conspiracy nut.

New comment by clicks in "Ask HN: How to become smarter?"

clicks — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 20:56:06 +0000

Read good books -- the classics will do (I'd say this list is pretty good, until the 75 number: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/449.Must_Read_Classics). This is a reasonably good list of nonfiction books: http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/non-fiction. If you have trouble reading through it all try looking into audiobooks (or better yet, listen to the audiobooks while reading it). If you can't afford audiobooks, get them from your local library.

Consume good media -- FoxNews is bad, MSNBC is bad. PBS Newshour is good, BBC is generally pretty good.

Don't spend your time on inconsequential things (this can be difficult to do -- e.g., news media is all about pandering and sensationalizing things, you'll see everyone partake in it and you'll find it difficult to stay out of it). I think a good way to keep yourself from getting sucked into that trap -- of keeping up with latest Miley Cyrus scandal or whatever, is to just stay away from the crowd that spends too much time on it. So no more Reddit frontpage (at least the default one), instead go to nytimes.com (or HN! :-) my favorite commenters are rayiner, tptacek, potatolicious, and some others -- reading their thoughts will probably do you good).

Keep on taking those coursera courses, do projects in areas that interest you. Along the way you'll start picking up more specific interests and feel compelled to explore specific directions. Hopefully then you can even become a community leader in some area... and then you can start showing the light to other guys newcomers in that area.

Have fun while you're doing all of this!

Your Deadbeat Facebook Friends Could Cost You a Loan

clicks — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 21:46:45 +0000

Article URL: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/lenders-vet-borrowers-social-media-facebook

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6424716

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by clicks in "Facebook is doomed"

clicks — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 21:01:40 +0000

Those two sentences make perfect sense. People go to Facebook to socialize, to Google to search. This naturally leads to the conclusion of Facebook going with very constricted models of monetization like having intrusive ads, selling your private information, showing sponsored posts. Google is in a more natural position to advertise, it doesn't have as much to gain by showing you annoying ads as Facebook. In addition to all of this, Google does not seem afraid to venture out into completely new areas. I'm not saying Google is an innocent saint that'll never do any wrong, but it's pretty clear Google's future is markedly brighter than Facebook's. It'll be interesting to see how Google+ shapes in the coming years. One interesting possibility is Google+ having no ads at all (it currently does not have any) for all of its life, because Google can afford to do that and everyone will like that.

New comment by clicks in "China's Empty Cities"

clicks — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 07:00:03 +0000

The casual dismissal of their sincerity is annoying ("don't know if they're telling the truth, or just saying government-friendly things because the governmental people are here right now!"). At least do the due research if such claims are going to be made by trying to get interviews from these folks without governmental people's presence, or just don't doubt their sincerity. But please don't just sprinkle in the there's-no-freedom-in-China FUD willy-nilly that we've all heard enough of already. This is like how when the hacker faction of PLA is talked about there's an ominous music in the background and serious faces of reporters looking at you to set the tone of the piece as if China is this mysterious and strange entity that is going to bring us down, all the while America's Olymic Games programs hardly even ever get a mention.

Anyway, I think we might be looking too hard for large problems where there might not be any. Don't forget that we have a similarly ridiculous situation in America: for every homeless person there are 26 houses that are vacant. Considering that China's population is a 1.35 billion (about a billion more than America's), at least in one respect it would seem like a prudent choice to build high-rises in place of crudely-made one or two-storey building houses in anticipation of future housing issues.

New comment by clicks in "Lollipuff's Y Combinator Experience"

clicks — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 18:06:37 +0000

(Just to be clear, I wasn't knocking on you guys for writing this article -- I enjoyed reading/watching your writing and submission video, thanks!)

New comment by clicks in "Lollipuff's Y Combinator Experience"

clicks — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 17:58:23 +0000

I wonder how the YC guys feel about the abundance of "how to get accepted to YC" articles. Just as you can prepare for the SAT you can now prepare for the YC tests -- there are a lot of examples of accepted applications, videos, thoughts from founders, etc. just like this very submission. The point is, there is probably less differentiation in the new pool of applicants in terms of their submission applications which makes YC's job more difficult. My theory is that now they're going to place more importantance on filters like past work experience (I've noticed a considerable amount of acceptees having ex-Googlers in their teams) and academic pedigree (I've noticed a high amount of acceptees having big-name school people in their teams).

New comment by clicks in "How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique"

clicks — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 02:51:29 +0000

What was behind China's economic success then? (not snark, genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts)

As far as I know Deng did advocate a more open and free policy when it came to the markets, not in very concrete terms but certainly in veiled terms like "pragmatism" and "we must do whatever works" [1]. I'm not saying Deng made China a Randian libertarian's wet-dream but it seems he did push for free markets a little bit.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/leaders_thinkers_zedong_xia...

YouTube Will Enable Offline Viewing On Its Mobile Apps

clicks — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 20:30:22 +0000

Article URL: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/18/879643/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6407903

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by clicks in "Google announces Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being"

clicks — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 19:40:52 +0000

Your snark is unnecessary and very misplaced.

This will result in a significant thought paradigm shift in all things health-related, and it's a great thing that a company with as many resources and as high of a profile as Google is looking into this. Google is a company that is making self-driving cars, providing incredibly fast internet to consumers, providing Internet to suffering areas with a new idea (the Loon), exploring definitively new ideas for hardware (Google Glass) -- and now they're looking into aging.

I'd say Google guys are sufficiently more respectable than the political chameleon who's lobbying DC today [1], and just recently directed considerable resources on ads advocating a host of anti-environmental causes [2].

[1]: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/mark-zuckerberg-dc-969...

[2]: http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/04/26/1925921/mark...

Why you should look at Google and not Facebook as a model to stay ahead

clicks — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 18:33:05 +0000

Article URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/why-you-should-look-at-google-and-not-facebook-as-a-model-to-stay-ahead/articleshow/22637929.cms

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6400972

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by clicks in "The problem isn’t piracy – it’s competition"

clicks — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:49:47 +0000

> pop media is a wholesome product

That could not be further from the truth though, pop media is trash. Would you want your children exposed to the misogynistic, sexist, racist content being pushed by record companies these days?

We have been talking about environmental sustainability for a long time... pollution is bad, rare material scarcity is bad - it is time we started caring just as much about social sustainability. Pop media 40 years ago had stars that partook in peace activism, the founder of the most famous band wrote peace anthems like 'Imagine' and 'Give Peace a Chance', the most popular stars today are all involved in pointless stupid drama- Rihanna (beaten viciously by a guy, still wants to protect him), Thickle (http://vimeo.com/64611906), Cyrus - the girl my little sister was a big fan of when she was younger is making videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8.

A lot of pop media content is anti-intellectual, a lot of it objectifies women, a lot of it perpetuates racism. It is markedly worse than it once used to be. And there is less of an expectation of a news program or a record company to place the interests of its consumers before its own than there used to be. This is a problem, because it is very much polluting the minds of our young (and old).

New comment by clicks in "The problem isn’t piracy – it’s competition"

clicks — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 03:21:24 +0000

> In our economic system, those entities should either (a) progress us towards discovering the real value of those goods to their consumers or (b) be punished by the marketplace.

Speaking for a moment only about the everyday man's necessities of life (luxuries are not included; food, shelter - and music (i.e. culture) are), it seems to me that letting reign that tentative and fickle process of price discovery is an act that can potentially cost dearly. When biodiesel fuel was once thought to be a promising source of energy a few years back, prices of food promptly shot up and this resulted in the poor having difficultly affording food.

Now, I am aware this makes for a tenuous argument if we're talking about music, but I don't think it is outright inapplicable. Consider not the one-off luxury item, consider items you expect mass public to consume in large quantities -- consider itunes, a highly scaled platform which can now just sit and take in money. Indeed itunes bears a responsibility by virtue of it being a highly scaled avenue to buy music from -- unlike a local store which can only dream of seeing such business traffic, to charge reasonable prices. I think any such platform is obliged by social responsibility to charge a reasonable price. That in a purely capitalistic economy this is not a reasonable expectation, I think is one of its great faults.

tptacek, I'm sure I am being rational here, but what value is my confirmation of this to you? :) I have elsewhere on HN made note of my socialistic views, I recognize it is not proper of me to digress into vague political tangents (they're the worst), and I apologize for having done that, I'll stop here.