I know this might be a radical proposal but have you considered, when encountering a bicycle blocking part of a sidewalk, moving slightly to the left. I admit its a crazy proposal but it might help you while you’re waiting for the state to implement the death penalty for scooter infractions.
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SO is getting useless. Search for anything and you have to wade through page after page of “use the search function” replies to legitimate questions. I am, you jackass. The original answer is now a broken link.
They’re playing. It’s fun to mess with one robot and not with the other. Mystery solved. Maybe it would surprise the researchers to learn that children don’t treat this as seriously as they do.
This. These researchers clearly don't have kids. This kind of behaviour is a big part of how they learn. Do something, see what happens. Keep doing it, see if anything changes. Intensify it until something else happens. To act surprised at this behaviour (gasp, so uncivil) or to frame these kids as some embodiment of evil (blocking and striking a robot!) shows they need to research Early Childhood Education as much as Robotics.
It reminds me of the 90s when we has a constant stream of articles about people talking on cell phones in restaurants. Cell phones were a crisis that could destroy the restaurant industry. If we don’t ban them nobody will go out to dinner any more because who wants to eat dinner with everyone shouting around you?
Turned out to not be a problem.
People complain about dockless bikes and scooters on sidewalks. But its not like anyone is inconvenienced by them. You’ll get used to seeing them eventually.
I noticed old articles I had bookmarked were disappearing so I’ve started using a self-hosted Bookstack to save a copy of everything interesting I read. I enter reader mode and copy eveeything on the page, and then paste it into the WYSIWYG editor. Everything is formatted nicely and it even creates a menu using the head tags of the sections. The only problem is, while images copy correctly, they’re still hosted on the original server so I have to replace them with an uploaded copy. Only takes a couple of minutes though. I could probably automate this with a script.
Still, it's certainly a welcome change, and a step in the right direction.
I wonder what the best way to combat large-scale astroturfing on a platform like twitter would be; My first thought would be a rep system akin to those of StackOverflow or HN, but I'm not sure how you would implement it such that there's not a large impact on legitimate new users - there's no system like upvotes Twitter could use to stratify.
I believe Reddit does have a problem with advertisers purchasing (or renting) accounts from established users who have enough karma/longevity to post in the various subreddits that block new users to avoid spam.
I think that is still an ongoing problem but you can use reddit sort of like a company forum where you don't have to pay reddit a dime by having a community manager and learning the platform.
For the most part, people don’t look to social media to find content that helps them form their opinions; they look to it to reinforce already held opinions. It's an echo chamber.
That means astroturfing may lead to more divisiveness, as people seek out content that makes them more sure than ever that their opinion is the one and only correct one. But it does not “influence public opinion” since nobody is jumping to the other side of an issue based on astroturfing. It just makes the world a more hostile place.
That seems unlikely. For anything new or unfamiliar, people will not have established opinions yet. Their opinions will form under the influence of their experiences, including astroturfers on social media.
Also, pushing things further to the extremes/reinforcing the belief that "Everyone I speak to agrees with me on <topic> so I should therefor stand up for it because it's right" isn't less bad than fooling someone who hasn't yet formed their opinion.
Having witnessed sexism at work I have a theory about this. I think men are more likely to fight for a raise than women.
If a man is turned down for a raise or promotion he thinks he deserves, he can argue for it and will sometimes be successful. If a woman is turned down for a raise or promotion she thinks she deserves, no matter how she handles the issue, people seem to treat it as a case of discrimination.
I’ve seen women quietly leave a company rather than fight for a raise because they didn’t want to create a controversy.
Sexual discrimination is real and hurts women. I don’t deny that. But I think making every personnel problem involving a women a case of sexual discrimination is more hurtful to women than it is helpful. It makes it impossible for a woman to assert herself without appearing to be an aggressive feminist.
I respect your opinion. Thinking out loud, why are they so assertive in representing their opinions in intimate relations then? Master negotiators in many instances really with a grab bag of tactics.
