that's interesting thought. i wouldn't be surprised if (big if) twitter opens up again and young developers embrace it for the first time (and old devs come back).
i remember a game very similar to this (that i used to participate in and do very poorly) back around mid 90s that people used to play online. except you'd use things like archie and gopher. i don't remember the details but someone(s) would come up with questions and you'd have to find the answers online using these tools (before google).
anyone remember this game? my recollection is hazy but i think the questions were sent out periodically and teams would rush to get them all answered first.
I remember something similar that was based on a website that would post questions that would lead you, after searching, to some particular site. Once you found the right page, there would be a logo for the game (something round with question marks?) that would take back to the original site and give you points for finding it. They kept a running tally that was used for a leader board and I think possibly some sort of prizes? I vaguely recall some sort of name like "Riddler" or something, but I have never been able to track down anything about it outside my own memory...
I wonder if they considered having the pistol pointed upward or diagonally. It does seem menacing when it's pointed straight to the left (or right). Not so much if it were pointing in a different direction.
agree. all these "fixes" are to change what twitter is. twitter is a short-form, _immediate_ publishing platform. it's great for what's happening _now_. i don't want to read long-form pieces that took 2 days of editing.
i think moments and periscope are good steps. not perfect, but they emphasize _now_.
There's a big spectrum in-between an essay that took two days to write and a tweet. Hacker News is a good example of messages that are long enough to say something useful and short enough to not require any commitment by the reader.
I dislike the way the article uses the word "violence". Nothing that happens on Twitter is violent. The definition of violence right from a Google search for "define:violence" is
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something
Nonetheless, the author articulates the reasons I do not use Twitter myself. The amount of drama that site creates seems, to a non-user, to be far in excess of the amount of insight it generates. I have never heard of a really great conversation or unique, insightful idea emerging on Twitter. I have heard, a lot, about idiotic fights that escalate into real world problems. I agree that the 140 character limit is the cause of such problems.
I can understand that he wants to make a distinction between aggressive word usage, and non-aggressive. But calling it "violence" is hyperbolic, and dangerous to free speech.
Threats of and exhortations to violence are universally considered unprotected by free speech. So people who dislike other peoples speech have an incentive to call it "violence".
"Mental anguish" and "harassment" (which is also a a crime, and not protected) are a much better terms for things that are not a threat of actual physical violence. However, trying to dismiss all of this as simply hyperbole is... well... dismissive. See http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-hara...
This is a woman who gets vile harassment and actual death threats for doing academic critiques of video games.
Let's be honest here. These tweets aren't a discourse. It's a mob.
A death threat is a threat of violence in the tradtional sense. It might not be violence, but it sure as hell is wrong, illegal, and not protected free speech.
i can't get my head around a car and a human driver sharing the driving duties at the same time. if you can't trust the car to do everything correctly, then what am i supposed to do as a driver?
sit there tensely with my right foot and hands hovering over the brake pedal and steering wheel?
By not having to devote attention to keeping your car within a foot of the lane's center, you have more attention to devote to the bigger picture of what's going on.
For example, have you ever tried to change lanes, done a quick shoulder check to see if the spot is clear, and then looked back ahead only to find that the car in front of started braking heavily and you're approaching it rapidly? With Autopilot this is not a concern, because you can let the car monitor the car in front, while you look to the side.
The first couple of hours with Autopilot, drivers typically are sitting there tensely ready to take over. But with experience, you learn how the system works, where it behaves well and where it fails, and you learn to relax, pay attention to the big picture, and let your strengths and the car's strengths complement each other.
How is this different than the automatic transmission? Antilock brakes? Traction control? Lane departure/encroachment warnings? Adaptive cruise control?
Or even older tech like "drive by wire" (your foot isn't directly connected to the throttle bodies) or manually adjusting the choke in carbureted vehicles?
These are innovations that have happened in my lifetime. I'm sure there are even older "car and driver sharing duties" examples others can come up with.
It's very different. But some of those things, like adaptive cruise control, get close. But even with adaptive cruise control, if you completely stop paying attention, you will be reminded very quickly that you are doing it wrong.
With this, you could go for hours without having to do a single thing, and then suddenly you are expected to jump in and take control with barely a second's notice. That is just bad human factors.
Again, I don't see how that is supposed to work. How long are people going to pay attention to "the big picture" when they still are only very rarely required to do something? If they don't have to do some action to actually keep the car on the road or to avoid getting honked at every 30 seconds or so, their minds will drift off.
This is just regular human nature. Sure you can do it for a while, but after a while you stop doing it.
I am quite sure that Tesla et al will discover soon enough you can't rely on people to step in like that. They just need to get their cars to work better than humans, all the time. (or as Elon Musk said, they should be at least an order of magnitude safer)
It lessens the cognitive load in easy driving situations, such as sitting in a queue on the highway. A hand on the wheel, your foot wherever you want, eyes on the road is enough. Just knowing that the car will take care of the small things is a massive offload.
Also, you learn what your car is good at and bad at, and plan accordingly. I know my car is bad at handling drivers changing into my lane too close to me, so I take over in those situations.
