BC TECH
Saved by @zmbnski

The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.

 This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/
A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/
https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/
https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/
https://t.co/Tj1zVkoIFG 6/
https://t.co/uUXCFjXxHg 7/
And this one would be hilarious if not recommended so massively to people who are the most vulnerable to conspiracies
https://t.co/EKed0B1XhD
8/
@nasa's @mlthaller nicely shows in 3 minutes why the earth is round and wonders: Why do so many people believe in flat earth? But the conspiracy is promoted by YouTube 100,000,000s of times, so I'm actually surprised that *so few* people fall for it 9/

https://t.co/yZpqdiJgsR
NBA star @KyrieIrving fell for it and explained that he was convinced both by Instagram and YouTube recommendations 10/

https://t.co/cqYz3SbDO8
So basically we have the two best AIs of the world, on Instagram and YouTube, competing to convince people that the earth is flat. Because it yields large amounts of watch time, and watch time yields ads. This is a #raceToTheBottom 11/
Flat Earth is not a "small bug". It reveals that there is a structural problem in Google's and Facebook's AIs: they exploit weaknesses of the most vulnerable people, to make them believe the darnedest things 12/
Another real-life harm of this conspiracy promoted by AI: in Nigeria, Boko Haram used the flat earth theory to motivate the killings of more than 600 geography teachers 😰 13/

https://t.co/M2mVtZRut9
https://t.co/myxPsrhlKa
More info on the link between Boko Haram and flat earth in this detailed @latimes article 14/
Full @latimes article here:
https://t.co/M2mVtZRut9
15/
How do we know if harmful videos get promoted by the AI? To monitor that, I created https://t.co/0RjD2PtTvV, a site that scans YouTube recommendations daily. If harmful videos get recommended by the AI from many channels, they will appear at the top of the list there. 16/
For now, it is available in English for YouTube yet, but with the help of universities and @HumaneTech_, it will soon cover more languages and platforms 17/
The real danger of AI is not that it becomes "self-conscious". It's that we trust it too much and slowly become imbeciles

Flat-earthers are the canaries in the coalmine /18
I've seen some people state that: "canaries are only a small fraction of our users!"

I think they're missing the point. 19/
"Ban all the canaries from the coal mine!" also misses the point.

With AI in charge of our information, we're facing a brand new, existential problem that concerns all of us. We need to develop tools to understand it better. 20/
One more key to understand this: this @KELLYWEILL's article shows that some people spent *days* on YouTube after being converted to flat earth

From the algorithm's point of view, flat earth is a gold mine.

Full article: https://t.co/LPjCKpbwXj

21/
Also fascinating in this article is that Logan Paul was a speaker at a Flat-Earth conference, where he said "I’m coming out of the Flat Earth closet". He has 18,610,154 followers on YouTube, mostly pre-teens and teens

https://t.co/LPjCKpbwXj 22/

More from Tech

Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio García Martíne...
@antoniogm
Observing the public conversation around FB, and the private ones happening among techies and ex-FBers, I think the mutual misunderstanding is worse than when I set out two years (and 500 pages) ago to (in a small way) bridge that gulf.

We're basically fucked.

The tech world has gotten so huge, self-reinforcing, and insulated from reality they can no longer even vaguely look at themselves (and their actions) as others do. They just live on a different planet than most people.

Conversely, the average tech consumer doesn't understand the technology that has slowly taken over their lives, and their designated emissaries to figure it out--politicians, pundits, regulators, journalists--understand it barely better than they do, and have their own agendas.

To say more than generalities for a moment, here's what I think is likely the core problem.

Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.

Most people work inside a legacy industry that's evolved that way over time (usually for good reasons), and they think about the future via some analogy with their present (which is a function of a long-ago past). The interruption that tech will introduce is often hard to grasp.
TECH
Ferruccio Balestreri \U0001f308
Ferruccio Balestreri 🌈...
@0xferruccio
🕵️‍♂️ How Google's PageRank algorithm works

The PageRank algorithm gives each page a rating of its
importance, which is a recursively defined measure of importance, based on if important pages link to it.
It's recursive because the importance of a page refers back to the importance of other pages that link to it

Here's how it works in practice:
1⃣ We start with some pages and crawl them for links


2⃣ Each page has 1/N points (where N as the total number of pages)


3⃣ Add points to each page for the amount of links to it, divided by the number
of links emanating from the sources of these links
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Jonas L
Jonas L
@jonasLyk
Wanna disable Defender when enabled Isolated Core and Tamper protection?

Its a bit more trouble- but doable, without ruining Isolated Core/Secureboot etc.

Defenders process will run as a unkillable protected service- so new tricks needed.

Here we go:

Ok- tamper protection is easy, just make .bat - run as adm:
:again
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WdFilter\Instances\WdFilter Instance" /v altitude /t REG_SZ /d -1 /f
goto again

Then unload minifilter with process hacker:


The registry key will be changed while the minifilter do not protect it, when tamper protection makes the driver load again it cannot attach to volumes nor protect registry keys.

Removing it will make it recreate, but invalid altitude do the trick

Notice now the service is: Protected light(antimalware)
Now we cant do anything to the service/process- not even see its open handles.


Lets start by elevating to SYSTEM- just launch a command prompt, then close process hacker- and run it again from the command prompt.
Now process hacker runs as SYSTEM
INTERNET , TECH
Ameya
Ameya
@Finstor85
After getting good feedback on yesterday's thread on #routemobile I think it is logical to do a bit in-depth technical study. Place #twilio at center, keep #routemobile & #tanla at the periphery & see who is each placed.


This thread is inspired by one of the articles I read on the-ken about #postman API & how they are transforming & expediting software product delivery & consumption, leading to enhanced developer productivity.

We all know that #Twilio offers host of APIs that can be readily used for faster integration by anyone who wants to have communication capabilities. Before we move ahead, let's get a few things cleared out.

Can anyone build the programming capability to process payments or communication capabilities? Yes, but will they, the answer is NO. Companies prefer to consume APIs offered by likes of #Stripe #twilio #Shopify #razorpay etc.

This offers two benefits - faster time to market, of course that means no need to re-invent the wheel + not worrying of compliance around payment process or communication regulations. This makes entire ecosystem extremely agile
TECH
Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo
Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo
@GbengaWemimo
An apostle was addressing his own members
If not for technology, you wouldn't be privy to his discussion with his members
He was sharing with them within the context of their understanding of his message, nature, and personality how he thrived in the middle of a season of casting

down
He mentioned what he achieved and even though it might sound like a boast, he was not boasting to you
He was boasting to his church members and as such, you cannot call it a boast
A father does not need to boast to his children and a shepherd surely does not need to boast to

his sheep
Newspapers needed a scandal and felt the message of the apostle was the right fit in their quest to get eyeballs
You read it and you began to insult the apostle
You, the son of a dog from Abatan refuse dump decided to drag an apostle on Twitter
Do you understand what it

means to be an apostle?
The angels working with an apostle are innumerable, they do not only work at his command, but they also work at his behest!
They are entrusted with the duty of ensuring that the Lordship of his office is respected by both spiritual and mundane entities

In the days of Jesus, many of the Pharisees and religious leaders treated his words and actions the same way many of the gutter bred stone casters with 100 Naira data and stolen or London used phone treated the words of the apostle
Jesus warned them at the time that they were
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Anu Satheesh \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Anu Satheesh 🇮🇳...
@AnuSatheesh5
Bhoga Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple
#Devarayanadurga
#Karnatakatemples 🚩

Bhoga Yoga Narasimha Swamy Temple, Devarayanadurga is located near Tumkur of Karnataka. There are two temples are here for Narasimha Swamy, one is at the base of the hill which is Bhoga Narasimhar and 👇


the other on the top of  hill which is Yoga Narasimhar.

Bhoga Narasimha swamy Temple Prathista is said to be done by Maharshi Durvasa who did tapasya here. While doing tapasya Muni wished to bath in river Ganga and decided to travel to Ganga river bank,


At that time Ganga Devi appeared here and said she will remain here in the temple pond.

Yoga Narasimha swamy Prathista is believed to be done by Bhrama Deva who did tapasya here for many years.


Narasimhar appeared with Lakshmi Devi here to give darshan to Bhrama Deva here.

उग्रं वीरं महाविष्णुं ज्वलन्तं सर्वतोमुखम्।
नृसिंहं भीषणं भद्रं मृत्युमृत्युं नमाम्यहम् ॥

Om Shri Narasimha Murthaye Namah
🙏🕉🙏
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Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
ANCIENT BHARAT WAS CALLED VISHWAGURU, AND IT REALLY DESERVED IT.

India had a well developed education system centuries before the westerners arrived and called us uncivilized. Education was always given a great importance in Indian civilisation since times immemorial.


Ancient India had the Gurukulas and Ashramas as the epicentres of the knowledge and enlightenment. Bigger Gurukulas served as the centres of higher education called universities. Besides these universities, temples also emerged as the major learning centres.

Studying the Holy Scriptures, character building, personality development, responsibilities towards self,family and society,discipline and preservation of the ancient culture and heritage were the key embodiments of education.

This kind of education system made ancient India, a centre of knowledge all over the world. Many foreign students came to India for education and India was called the 'Vishwaguru'.
Takshshila and Nalanda were the two prominent universities of ancient India.


But were these only Universities of ancient India?The answer is 'No'.Let's learn about these gems of our education system that flourished across ancient India & be proud.

NALANDA UNIVERSITY
This was the oldest university of ancient India.Situated in Nalanda distt. of Bihar...
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EverythingOppresses
EverythingOppresses
@SoOppressed
The first area to focus on is diversity. This has become a dogma in the tech world, and despite the fact that tech is one of the most meritocratic industries in the world, there are constant efforts to promote diversity at the expense of fairness, merit and competency. Examples:

USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the

ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.

Apple's head of diversity (a black woman) got in trouble for promoting a vision of diversity that is at odds with contemporary progressive dogma. (She left the company shortly after this

Also in the name of diversity, there is unabashed discrimination against men (especially white men) in tech, in both hiring policies and in other arenas. One such example is this, a developer workshop that specifically excluded men: https://t.co/N0SkH4hR35
TECH
Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
1/Politics thread time.

To me, the most important aspect of the 2018 midterms wasn't even about partisan control, but about democracy and voting rights. That's the real battle.

2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.

3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.

That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends

4/Yet more good news: Michigan made it easier to vote. Again, by plebiscite, showing broad support for voting rights as an

5/OK, now the bad news.

We seem to have accepted electoral dysfunction in Florida as a permanent thing. The 2000 election has never really
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Hector Navarro
Hector Navarro
@Hectorisfunny
I'm going to attempt to chronologically list all of the Marvel characters Stan Lee had a hand in creating. Working with his genius collaborators, Stan and his team produced an insane amount of iconic characters in a roughy ten year period. (Thread)


With his younger brother, writer Larry Lieber, and Jack "the King" Kirby:

Groot

Tales to Astonish #13 (November, 1960)


With writer Lieber, and artist Kirby:

Fin Fang Foom

Strange Tales #89 (October, 1961)


With the King, Stan gives birth to the Marvel Universe:

The Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four #1 (November, 1961)


With Jack Kirby:

Mister Fantastic

Fantastic Four #1 (November, 1961)
CULTURE