Recent submissions

Comment · 4 years ago
>How often they are followed is a grey area.

It's interesting to note the character of when and when not those guidelines are applied.

Comment · 4 years ago
It wasn't intended to be snarky, nor unsubstantive, though I suppose that without the necessary context or self-awareness it could come off as either. I'll admit that I may be in my emotions somewhat.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29679505

The culture I would like you to try for is one in which people don't feel comfortable questioning (or, rather, vociferously protesting through abuse of the flag feature) the validity of posts celebrating the lives of black luminaries. In general, the level of soft racism on HN is disheartening and certainly warps how I tend to respond. I join you in wishing that I didn't feel the need to mirror a lack of extended dignity with indignation.

Comment · 4 years ago
I do think it's hilarious that the one time Google doesn't drop a relevant search term in the middle of a query is for something like "black haired man." The way it treats terms, you might expect it to drop the "haired" and return pictures of black men, but no, it's almost exclusively white dudes with black hair (never mind that black and brown people also have black hair).
Comment · 4 years ago
I would say that journalism is just as bad, if not worse, because instead of making passing comments, they will present a whole-a*s story without indicating where in Africa the events occurred.
Comment · 4 years ago
That's an oversimplification. Pre-existing notions about warrior conduct certainly played a role, but "samurai" were a class (bordering on caste); attitudes descending from bushido were a top-down mandate, enforced by the officer class, not something widespread in common civilian life (save for knowledge of how one is supposed to act towards high-ranking personnel).

If you think that the domestic propaganda machine wasn't running at mach speed in order to shape public perceptions to what would be most beneficial to the Imperial Army and Navy, I don't know what to say. They definitely were, and they definitely pushed, from multiple angles, the idea that surrendering would result in a worse spiritual, material, physical, and psychological outcome than the alternatives (take your pick of whichever motivates you most effectively).

Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
You both are dangerously close to accusing him of being inarticulate.

I would ask you to rethink your agreement, for your own sake.

Comment · 4 years ago
Ironically, I specifically remember the introduction of voice search coinciding with a marked drop in search quality. This had also happened earlier with their "instant results" experiment.
Comment · 4 years ago
I think that the model is, somehow, irreparably broken. Remember that, when it started returning photos of black people in searches for "gorilla", they just stopped using it for "gorilla" searches.

My suspicion is that its been poisoned by some combination of an improperly-considered tagging process and malfeasance.

Comment · 4 years ago
Even straightforward situations are frustrated by what is a broken process. There was an article for a black WWII pilot - the only black pilot from the war to be designated an ace - whose article was under constant attack by a particular user. The pilot's fifth kill originally been split between himself and another pilot, but a later investigation had awarded him full credit. In any case, the AF had honored him as an ace at some point before he died, and it was covered prominently in his obituary. Well, this user - a researcher who also worked to "debunk" myths about the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen - was adamant that the pilot did not have enough kills to be designated an ace. He cited work that had gone back to the original war-time records (before the reinvestigation). The author of this research? Him.

The article is so small, though, and on a topic unsympathetic to the largely white and male editor base, that flagrant original research doesn't register.

Comment · 4 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26383977

Declaring mental illness in the face of exposed bigotry is a classic tactic, meant to discredit legitimate and reasoned grievance.

Comment · 4 years ago
I remember reading this in high school. It's actually from 2005. More recently, a journalist suggested a moratorium on the use of the word "Africa" in reporting; the country, and region of the country, should be used instead.

It's disappointing that neither piece has been taken seriously.

Comment · 4 years ago
They were instructed to avoid capture by any means because they had been indoctrinated by propaganda that indicated horrific treatment by Allied POW personnel. While this was obviously false, it's interesting to note that Japanese knowledge of America's history with slavery, segregation, and Indian removal would have made this assumption not unreasonable, and further, may have influenced Japanese treatment of American POWs. After all, a major consideration in Japan's decision to go to war in the first place was the leadership's understanding that their lack of status as a white power would hamper their colonial ambitions. They were only a few decades removed from being excluded from the Berlin Conference, for example.

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