It's interesting that Wikipedia lists studies and a degree in molecular biology, started first at Bethany College prior to his draft in the Air Force and finished in Boulder from University of Colorado, whereas the Vita section of his HTML-ified thesis lists simply "biology" at Bethany College and lists anthropology when he returned to school in Boulder. It shows a BS in only math.
Not to say that the journalists and editors involved with putting out clickbait like this don't deserve to be harangued (they do), but:
> An algorithm is just a method saved in a computer
No it isn't "just" that. It's quite a bit more specific than that.
For a sequence of steps to be an algorithm, it has to:
1. provably terminate, with—
2. the correct answer
(Every time, that is.)
Recommender systems and other programs created to help with things that have no correct answer belong to a class of procedures that are the exact opposite of what the word "algorithm" is supposed to communicate.
Anyone who has gotten paid to write something that involved the word "algorithm" in the last 10 years should give serious consideration to jumping off a bridge.
Those aren't algorithms, either. "Monte Carlo algorithm" is just the product of sloppy language use from people involved with the field instead of outsiders.
Mozilla Corporation spends about 60 million a year or more on marketing—which could fully fund the R&D of an entire goddamn browser—and yet the net result is approximately what you'd get if the annual marketing budget were $0.
Don't discount the opportunity that "advertising" presents to smuggle in a bunch of expenses that are either zero or negative on ROI.
A bigger surprise (failure) is that the EPUB folks have continued to evolve their bespoke format instead of ditching it for something that legacy browsers already know how to handle. An "EPUB" should just be a Mac-style bundle (i.e. a directory) with an XHTML file in it written to conform to a specific metadata profile.
EPUB isn't all that different from what you're describing. It's bundled as a ZIP archive with a couple of XML metadata files - and the content is split into one HTML file per chapter or section to make it easier to handle - but the idea is the same.
There’s also an epub-namespaced set of attributes which extend XHTML with ebook specific semantics. But those typically aren’t necessary for the visual representation of books.
Hey, ChatGPT, tell me what's wrong with this person's comment.
> [T]he third comment violates the Cooperative Principle, specifically Grice’s Maxims of Relation and Manner, and ends up implying ignorance where there is none. Let’s break it down a bit more with that framework in mind:
> VIOLATION OF GRICE’S MAXIMS
> The second ["EPUB folks have continued to evolve their bespoke format instead of ditching it for something that legacy browsers already know how to handle"] commenter criticizes EPUB for continuing to evolve a packaging format that is not browser-native. They're not confused about what EPUB is—they're lamenting that it isn’t something simpler, like a plain web bundle a browser could just open.
> The third commenter responds by explaining what EPUB is, as if that somehow rebuts the original critique.
> Factually true.
> Entirely irrelevant in context.
> This failure to meet the relevance standard creates an implicature: the previous commenter must not have understood the format they were critiquing.
> THE IMPLICATURE TRAPS THE THIRD COMMENTER
> By stating something the second commenter obviously already knows, the third commenter unintentionally shifts the conversational footing in a way that belittles rather than builds. That’s why the tone feels off: not because of overt rudeness, but because the presupposition of ignorance is baked into the structure of the reply.
> FINAL THOUGHT
> The third comment reads like an attempted “correction,” but since the original comment didn’t contain a factual error, only a value judgment or proposal, this “correction” becomes a non sequitur—one that subtly undermines the prior speaker’s credibility while failing to address their actual point. That’s what makes it rhetorically broken, even if factually fine.
This is interesting, what kind of prompt or preprompting do you use to get it to notice things like Grice's Maxims violations? Mine is only set up to notice some informal fallacy violations
There are around a dozen collections on the (not prominently featured) collections page[1] like Le Monde's 100 Best Books of the Century and Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, etc.
> Obviously paraphrasing someone else's words into ones you like better is a fine and acceptable thing to do.
Wrong. Not only is it tasteless and dishonest (not "fine"), it is against the rules of this site. But regardless of whether it's allowed elsewhere, you still shouldn't do it. (See "tasteless and dishonest".)
Because most working web developers actually have no idea how to write JS; they follow what is presented (perpetuated) as industry standard practice, but in a React-and-NPM world, "industry standard practice" means bad practices.
> I would guess 99% of people use their browser [for email]
Your comments reveal a major blind spot. 99% of people (or whatever) are using dedicated email clients instead of webmail. They do everything on their phone.
> Maintaining a personal website is about owning your digital presence, embracing creative freedom, and expressing your individuality!
Hard disagree here.
The value of this aspect of the IndieWeb movement is way too overstated. MySpace-like customization gets the entire obligation for empathy that's inherent in the user–creator relationship inverted. It should not matter whether you like blinking white stars on backgrounds that come straight from a Dan Flashes T-shirt and high-pitched chiptunes playing on a loop. If you really like those things so much, you should modify your user agent to show them to you when you're on the websites that other people have published instead of leaning on your control over the rules for what should show up in other people's browsers as your outlet for creative expression.
Look at books. Look at how little variation there is in presentation, despite the wide-ranging variation in content and themes. That's because, essentially, we figured out how to do books. We got them right. Tufte is good at deviating from the standard and taking care that the deviations contribute in a worthwhile way to the actual content. Most people are not. Look at the Reader Mode in various browsers. These things exist only because of the propensity for people—and not just amateurs; paid professionals, even—to utterly fail at providing what people really need and desire, which is a simple, unassuming and distraction-free substrate for the main message. (Much of the same is true of RSS readers that are exalted within the very same circles of "indie" consumers and creators.)
Look at those browsers' Reader Mode again. Try them all out, and find one whose defaults you find the most pleasing, and then go publish your indie site using that as a template. Forget about trying to wow people with CSS and animated confetti.
The real value of operating an indie site is that it gives you as the operator the latitude to say "no" to participating in the silos and walled gardens of contemporary social networks and instead contributing positively to the standards-based Web that interoperates best with the software (like RSS readers) that puts the user's best interest at the fore, which is all way, way more important (and totally opposite to) gimmicks and gewgaws like sparkles that follow your mouse cursor around.
> Look at books. Look at how little variation there is in presentation
I look at a lot of books. I don't think you've summarized them well here. I suggest you look at more yourself. You're missing a lot of beautiful art.
That said, you're right that minimizing decoration and distraction is itself a treasured kind of expression enabled by independent publishing, set against a world where some six Lead Designers get to say precisely how everybody must read and see things this year.
So I very much agree with your sentiment, but you happen to be doing a great injustice to books on your way to saying it. :)
> I look at a lot of books. I don't think you've summarized them well here. I suggest you look at more yourself. You're missing a lot of beautiful art.
This comment is pretty obnoxious. (I've stepped into a library, thanks.)
For all the books that you're thinking of that don't fit the mold, when you put that set up against the set of those that do, it's not even close.
I'm not talking about hypotheticals (i.e. the potential for stuff that could be made that deviates from the norm) or creative works that really exist but only at the margins (i.e. in small numbers by comparison). I'm talking about what people actually produce and consume in large numbers and the average experience for each context/form.
There is undeniably a lot more homogeneity in books than blogs to a large degree. It's something like over a hundred or a thousand to 1.
I agree with the value of not wanting to participate.
But your reasoning for denying individualism is myopic. Do you only count the ones that have words printed in 16 point type using a standard layout as books? There are all kinds of layouts available in book form. There are graphic novels. There are photography books. There are pop-up books. Books with braille. Books that have augmented reality elements in them. There are poetry books where words are deconstructed on the page, maybe with pages cut up deliberately. There's notes and opinions scribbled on the pages. Or you might get lucky and find some old leaves pressed in between there. Every possible individualistic concoction you can do with a bunch of paper and some form of printing exists, and if it doesn't yet, it will eventually.
There are plenty of people that like the Lisa Frank looking websites. You don't need to be one of them, but you don't need to be a boring person, either.
<https://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/inf/pdfs/kay.htm>
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