computers-R-stupid
weighing in on united
United Airlines chucking a passenger is one of those "internet things everyone has an opinion on."
Two interesting responses. Socialist blogger Carl Beijer asks "Shouldn't capitalists be okay with the United incident?"
Techno-libertarian John Robb considers "How Algorithms and Authoritarianism Created a Corporate Nightmare at United."
The news reports I read weren't clear at all on what happened, particularly that "algorithmic decisionmaking" was at the bottom of this.
Robb explains how it worked:
United employees board a full flight from Chicago to Louisville. A United flight crew headed to Louisville arrives at the gate at the last moment. A corporate scheduling algorithm decides that the deadheading flight crew has priority over passenger fares and that it needs to remove four passengers to make room for them (the flight wasn't overbooked).
United asks for volunteers. A corporate financial algorithm authorizes gate employees to offer passengers up to $800 to take a later flight (offering a bigger incentive wasn't an option). No passenger takes them up on that offer.
United now shifts to removing passengers from the flight non-voluntarily. To determine who gets removed from the aircraft, United runs a customer value algorithm. This algorithm calculates the value of each passenger based on frequent flyer status, the price of the ticket, connecting flights, etc. The customers with the lowest value to United are flagged for removal from the flight (it wasn't a random selection).
livejournal update
Science fiction author Charles Stross has a private Livejournal site he uses for testing fiction -- or did:
I started out on Livejournal because, back in the day, it inherited a bunch of folks from SFFNet when SFFNet curled up and sort-of died; SFFNet in turn inherited the users of the Delphi SF forum from bulletin board days. It's all about the people, as usual, and Livejournal for many years was a social network hub for SF/F fans and authors. But Livejournal gradually lost out to Facebook in the anglophone world, just like MySpace. Unlike MySpace, LJ survived by becoming the social network of choice in Russia: a few years ago LJ was sold to a Russian company, and has gradually become a 90% Russophone social site with a weird bag of western SF fans still lurking in the moldering wreckage of what was once a thriving social networking system. There were periodic upsets because any major Russian political event would seemingly draw distributed denial of service attacks; a lot of people left, either decamping to Facebook, or to smaller specialized social hubs—the founders of Livejournal released their software under an open source license, and some folks are successfully running small-scale LJ servers with their own distinct communities.
I probably stuck with LJ for too long, because back in the day I paid for a perpetual premium account—unlimited access and no ads: the urge to get one's money's worth out of something you've paid for is hard to resist. But the rot has finally gone too far. This Tuesday Livejournal pushed out a revision to their terms of service that emphasize the service runs under Russian law, and specifically requires compliance with Russian law on minors -- which makes any discussion of "sexual deviancy" (aka LGBT issues) illegal or at least a violation of the ToS.
So I'm currently migrating my entire Livejournal presence to Dreamwidth, a service set up by some of LJ's original founders that focuses on providing a Livejournal-like set of services for creative types (and, significantly, is not subject to Russian law because it's not based in Russia).
Curious what effect this "Russian law" will have on Thomas Disch's LJ (still extant since he died but in memorial status). Possibly Stross is being alarmist and just looking for a reason to bail -- I haven't done any research to confirm his legal interpretation.
we need your card, because we... just... do
11:45 am
Rebel sits down at the bar in the neighborhood yuppie restaurant and orders brunch.
He's the only customer sitting at the bar; about six people are seated at various small tables, and otherwise the joint is empty.
Rebel: I'd like the Asian Marinated Skirt Steak Salad, please, and sweet potato fries, and coffee.
Waitperson: Cream or sugar?
Rebel: Black is fine.
Waitperson: OK, I'll just need your card so I can start a tab.
Rebel: I'm paying cash.
Waitperson: Well, I still need your card.
Rebel: What for?
Waitperson: So we can get you in the system and keep track of everyone.
Rebel: There's no one in here!
Waitperson: It usually gets crowded around 1:00. Card?
Rebel (obviously lying): I don't have one.
Waitperson pouts and begins keying something into the register.