English: The Language Which Leaves Some Gaps
November 2, 2018
The English language is complex. Modern English is brewed with words from around the globe, invented to fill a need, or new slang becomes popular. While English speakers believe that their tongue is the epitome of language, it does not cover all the feelings, sensations, needs, and objects other languages have. In short, English cannot say everything. Scoll takes a look at “The Idea Of ‘Untranslatable’ Words Says More About English Speakers Than Other Cultures.”
After punching a few holes in language myths and non-existent English words, the article presents the idea that “language reveals something about our psyche.” Having words for concepts does make them easier to name, just because there is not a precise phrase for something does not mean it cannot be conceived. Lack of a word or a misunderstanding of it can result in racism or worse: the total erasure of a concept from a culture. The article uses George Orwell’s 1984 and the story’s erasure of certain words such as freedom from its lexicon. Are English-only speakers missing out on something?
“But even an apparently benign conclusion about how some Australian languages encode space with compass directions (“north”) rather than ego-relative position (“my left-hand side”) suggests English speakers often miss out on knowledge about language and cognition because they are busy measuring things against an arbitrary English-centric benchmark. Different language conventions are usually not exotic or unusual; it’s just that English speakers come from a position of very great privilege because their language is the default. People who speak other languages are seen as different, as outsiders.”
True and false. Yes, those who speak only English see others as outsiders, but if you visit a foreign country where they speak a foreign tongue the same can be said for English speakers. The way to resolve this is to read more books and get out of the US for culture shock.
Whitney Grace, November 2, 2018
Factualities for October 31, 2018
October 31, 2018
Believe ‘em or not. More satisfying, symmetric numbers from assorted data mavens:
- 50 percent. The volume of government censor requests for censoring YouTube content.
Source: Inquisitr - 800. Number of spam accounts Facebook purged. Source: SFGate
- Zero. The number of times Google mentioned its Android operating system during its Made by Google 2018 keynote. Source: 9to5Google
- 40,000. Number of facial recognition cameras monitoring 11 million uighurs in China. Source: Business Insider
- 30 million. Number of DuckDuckGo searches delivered on one day in October 2018. By comparison, Google delivered only 3.5 billion daily searches. Source: Slashgear
- 111 million active profiles on Google Plus in 2015. (This number will soon be zero because consumer Google Plus has been killed off by lax security and possibly interesting management methods.) For a point of reference, Facebook has two billion active profiles or 18 times the traction of Google Plus. Source: CNet
Stephen E Arnold, October 31, 2018
Wikipedia Gets A Female Update
October 29, 2018
Wikipedia is one of the best parts of the Internet. It is an official unofficial resource and includes information that print encyclopedias do not include. What is even better about Wikipedia is that it covers pop and entertainment culture and it used to be very hard to find authoritative information about it. Very difficult. Another fantastic Wikipedia accomplishment is that it documents important historical unknowns aka people who made a contribution to history, but there is little information about them. BoingBoing shares how, “A Machine Learning System Trained On Scholarly Journals Could Correct Wikipedia’s Under-Representation Problem” and is adding female scientific unknowns to the online encyclopedia.
Quicksilver is a machine learning AI that used 30000 Wikipedia articles to create a model article to identify what makes a scientist worthy enough to be included in the online knowledge tome. Quicksilver then mined Semantic Scholar to identify 200,000 scholars and is composing Wikipedia entries for them if they are missing. In an even cooler move:
“In addition to correcting omissions in Wikipedia, Quicksilver (which is named for the Neil Stephenson novel) is particularly useful in improving the representation of women in the project. On 18% of Wikipedia’s biographic entries are about women and the vast majority of Wikipedians are men. In addition to creating new Wikipedia entries, Quicksilver can suggest new material for existing entries.”
Even if Wikipedia is low on female scientists and scholars, it is still a better resource to learn about them than so-called authoritative resources. Perhaps a fresh look at Wikipedia is needed?
Whitney Grace, October 29, 2018
Online Ad Fraud! Who Knew?
October 24, 2018
I read “Apps Installed On Millions Of Android Phones Tracked User Behavior To Execute A Multimillion-Dollar Ad Fraud Scheme.” Goodness, first my faith in Facebook’s data about video ad performance was eroded a tiny bit. Now there are allegations about Android app ad fraud. The write up uses the word “cabal.”
The online advertising business, in my opinion, has been a bastion of integrity. Sure, there were baseless assertions about robot clickers which depleted a competitor’s online ad checkbook. There were squishy numbers about the number of human eyeballs versus crawler clicks. And there were ads for interesting products and services which online ad vendors suggested were real, true blue commercial messages.
Yes, integrity. Online advertising. Bound at the hip.
But there is this write up in Buzzfeed which states:
But an investigation by BuzzFeed News reveals that these seemingly separate apps and companies are today part of a massive, sophisticated digital advertising fraud scheme involving more than 125 Android apps and websites connected to a network of front and shell companies in Cyprus, Malta, British Virgin Islands, Croatia, Bulgaria, and elsewhere. More than a dozen of the affected apps are targeted at kids or teens, and a person involved in the scheme estimates it has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from brands whose ads were shown to bots instead of actual humans.
I know that it takes smart filters to verify apps in crime free locations like Cyprus, Malta, and Bulgaria. And the British Virgin Islands? Unthinkable.
But the article presents some data which suggest that a modest amount of money is in play; to wit:
App metrics firm AppsFlyer estimated that between $700 million and $800 million was stolen from mobile apps alone in the first quarter of this year, a 30% increase over the previous year. Pixalate’s latest analysis of in-app fraud found that 23% of all ad impressions in mobile apps are in some way fraudulent. Overall, Juniper Research estimates $19 billion will be stolen this year by digital ad fraudsters, but others believe the actual figure could be three times that.
Google, of course, was quick to take action. Google cares.
I am disappointed that this infinitesimal aberrations in an integrity filled business have been reported as “true” fact.
More data are needed, please. I know that Facebook and Google can explain this misguided assertion.
My goodness, manipulation of online advertising. Shocking. Shocking.
Stephen E Arnold, October 24, 2018
More Pressure on For Fee Legal Publishers
October 24, 2018
One of the things we take for granted in the United States is information access. The US Constitution and other laws make it mandatory that certain information is shared with the public for transparency. Other reasons are laws like the Freedom of Information Act that declassifies confidential information when it is no longer a security risk. The Electronic Frontier Foundation shares how the US Court of the Appeals of the Federal Circuit shares its documentation, “Federal Circuit Makes Briefs Immediately Available To The Public.”
The Federal Circuit Court will now make its briefs available to the public. Before briefs were only available after a period of days when they were reviewed by the Clerk’s Office. However, the Clerk’s Office wants to be clear that all received briefs will be marked as “tendered,” until the office has accepted them for filing, then they will be publicly available. The instant access is a victory:
“While this is perhaps a small change, we appreciate that the Federal Circuit is making briefs available upon filing. We had encountered delays of 7 days or more (this meant that the parties’ briefs were sometimes not available until after supporting amicus briefs were due). Ultimately, the public’s right of access to courts includes a right to timely access. The Federal Circuit is the federal court of appeal that hears appeals in patent cases from all across the country, and many of its cases are of interest to the public at large.”
The Federal Circuit’s former access to briefs conflicted with other actions it holds on transparency. The good news is that the Federal Circuit will only seal information if there is good reason and if parties want to have more than fifteen consecutive words sealed they need to file a separate motion. Hopefully more federal district courts will not seal as many records, because the Federal Circuit is not doing so.
Whitney Grace, October 24, 2018
Factualities for October 24, 2018
October 24, 2018
Believe ‘em or not, especially the nice, round, chubby numbers:
- 33 percent of US adults hit with identity theft. Source: DarkReading
- 45 out of 50 companies illegally void warranties for electronics. Source: Reddit.com
- 000000. Kanye West’s iPhone pass code. Graham Cluley
- $50,000 per hour. Cost of Flying the F 35 fighter aircraft for one hour.
Source: New York Times page A 19 October 12, 2018 - 29 million people. Number of individuals probably affected by the September Facebook breach. Source: Facebook
- 30 000. Number of US Department of Defense personnel records which may have been breached by hackers. Source: Cyberscoop
Stephen E Arnold, October 24, 2018
The World Brain Idea Is Back
October 23, 2018
Remember when the Internet was innocent and also a dangerous place? Now the Internet is a necessary tool and an even more dangerous place. World Brain wants to change that. World Brain wants to make the Internet troll free, end the dissemination of false news, users enjoy privacy, and freedom to choose their providers for the best service. I say World Brain is idealistic and naive, but maybe not. Here is their vision:
“Imagine a world where the internet supports a well-informed, less polarized society. Connected communities where individuals enjoy full data ownership, privacy and the freedom to choose the providers they get the best service from, without lock-ins.
This is what World Brain is working to achieve. If you want to be a part of this journey, or are simply interested in our approach, here’s deeper insight into our vision, values and a roadmap.
World Brain is an open-source software collective with the mission of making it 10X+ faster for people to organize, recover, share and discover the most useful and knowledge-expanding content on the web.”
Okay, please stop laughing. World Brain might have something here and their first product is Memex, a free, private browser extension that organizes and finds Web sites. That is actually a good idea. The idea behind Memex is to curate, discover, and share content as well as help researchers.
While Memex is free, World Brain does have a SAS cloud for 10 euros a year (it is a special deal). The Memex cloud offers Memex on all the devices, encrypted cloud backup, ability to search other apps and services, monetize data, WordPress-like plugins, and self hosting.
Okay, World Brain this is a very good idea. I am sold. My question is how will Memex monetize my content?
Whitney Grace, October 23, 2018
Staying Informed: The Modern Path to Enlightenment
October 22, 2018
I read “Snapchat Is a Popular Source for News among College Students.” Here’s the passage I noted:
In a survey of 5,844 college students from 11 US institutions, 89 percent said they got at least some of their news from social media over the previous week. And Facebook was the most popular outlet, with 71 percent of respondents saying they got news from the platform during that time period. Interestingly, Snapchat came in second place, with 55 percent of the students saying they had gotten news from the app during the past week. And YouTube, Instagram and Twitter followed, pulling 54 percent, 51 percent and 42 percent of respondents, respectively.
Observations:
- The 11 percent who get news from other sources need to get with the program
- The rise of pictures and captions is interesting and probably not good news for anyone pumping out text
- Retirement savings invested in print media look like risky bets.
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2018
Congressional Research Becomes Far Less Mysterious with Search
October 10, 2018
A strange thing is happening in Washington, the government is making itself more transparent and searchable. At least when it comes to congressional research. The Congressional Research Service has long been among the most secretive agencies in Washington, only releasing a report or two when it absolutely must. That has changed, according to a recent Federal News Radio story, “A Window Opens Into the Secretive Congressional Research Service.”
According to the story:
“CRS didn’t volunteer this initiative. Until now Its “board of directors” would only release reports individually, maybe, upon request from a constituent. But thanks to a provision in a 2018 appropriations bill, it now has to make them all public. Which means not every member of Congress liked the way things were. The provision was the work of Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.). He’s been trotting out legislation about CRS for the past seven years.”
You can take a look for yourself. Currently, the service only provides documents dating back to January of 2018, but more is supposed to be on the way. The only limitation is a redaction of the author’s information.
One question is, “Why aren’t government documents, not marked classified, available to the public?”
USA.gov does not provide a comprehensive index of public US government information. Interesting.
Patrick Roland, October 10, 2018
Factualities for October 10, 2018
October 10, 2018
I decided not to mention the number of anonymous sources (17) in the “real” news story about spy chips on motherboards. Bloomberg does “real” news. Sources, like those invoked by the New York Times, need not be identified. Are there sources in fiction best sellers? Anyway… believe these or not.
- 120,000 British pounds or about $150,000. The amount Heathrow Airport was find for losing a USB storage device with high value data. Source: ZDNet
- 44,000. The estimated number of Verizon employees RIFed in a downsizing move by the owner of Yahoo. Source: Bloomberg
- $368 million. The estimated loss at Google Deep Mind smart software company in the last 12 months. Source: Forbes
- $20 million. Cost to Elon Musk remain Tesla CEO after his “deal” tweets. Source: CNBC
- 4.58 factoids. The number of entities in DBpedia, the go to resource for outfits like IBM, the New York Times, etc. Source: Twobithistory
- $14. The cost of a legitimate passport on the Dark Web. Source: Cyware
Stephen E Arnold, October 10, 2018
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