Has anybody started "TheRealInstapundit" as a twitter account yet?
Aw, but it was just a tiny little incitement to violence. Totally innocuous!
Absolutely agree with Shkreli. So many articles now (especially on the Guardian, which I have almost given up on) boil down to "Rage as silly person says silly thing on Twitter" and that really isn't news.
And, no, of course journalists don't matter, at least not directly. The only thing that matters - absolutely the only thing - is power. ("We sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have - that is, Power.") Journalists don't have power. At best they can influence the decisions of people with power.
So the answer to how many divisions the Pope has is "only one company"?
My high school teacher told my class that we should subscribe to monthly magazines because those articles captured broader trends and newspapers magnified brief moments way beyond their importance.
This era of trumpeting the interpreted results of a poll of 2,000 people as it had some great importance is maddening.
'"Run them down" perhaps didn't capture this fully, but it's Twitter, where character limits stand in the way of nuance.' Hahahaha! Oh my God. I had forgotten the comedy gold that is InstaHack.
Journalists have real power in exactly one situation -- when they are about to widely disseminate true but heretofore unknown information that's important. Knowledge is power as someone once said on a t-shirt. At that point they get treated like genuinely powerful people and there's considerable kowtowing to (the successful establishment ones) to make sure that one gets treated well by a journalist when one is in that situation.
None of that has anything to do with Twitter, which seems to be basically an Unfogged comments section that for some reason attracts actually successful people and journalists, creating an illusion of something being at stake and important discourse when really it's all either one-sided press releases or people wasting time at work.
6: That's what I was thinking. If he said, "Run them over," he'd have a better argument. "Run them down" is not really open to a self-defense interpretation.
Journalists have real power in exactly one situation -- when they are about to widely disseminate true but heretofore unknown information that's important.
Because journalism has never shifted public opinion in important ways based on false information?
Well, in a Shannon sense there's no such thing as false information. The information content in a signal is measured by the decrease in unpredictability of the recipient's behaviour.
And 8.1 is wrong as we can see by looking around. Information like "Hey, Donald Trump has repeatedly broken the law by stealing from a charity to pay his fines and buy himself big paintings of himself" is true and not widely known (until it was reported) and important (a presidential candidate is a criminal). But it has zero Shannon information content. It's made no difference at all.
Twitter, which seems to be basically an Unfogged comments section
You wound us, sir.
We go way, way over 140 characters. Frequently.
Call us frivolous, reactive, content free? Point taken. But 'terse' is fighting words.
15 seconded. Ouch, Tigre! Very ouch.
For one thing, I'll have you know we routinely exceed 114 characters. And for another thing...
... I'm sure there's another thing.
(Or yeah 140 characters, whatevs. I don't use Twitter.)
I meant power in the sense of "perceived societal power." Reporting any given true (or false) story might change the world, or not.
I am disappointed that the first comment wasn't "Indeed."
... I'm sure there's another thing.
You can't embed images or videos in Unfogged comments.
I'm disappointed it wasn't Ann Althouse saying Instapundit was exactly right.
22: Yes! Exactly! Therefore we are very serious. *whew*
Kind of confirming to find out he really does think of his car as a weapon against teh blahs. But so boring to think we still have to care about Glenn "Boring McBoringpants" Reynolds.
... I'm sure there's another thing.
Well, Twitter has Twitterstorms. I don't think we have the energy to engage in mob activity now that we're all getting on a bit.
The media pretty obviously has about as much power as ever, it's just that there's no money in it, so it leaves more room for committed maniacs. Where we once had CBS News, we now have Breitbart. Social media is highly dependent on input from outside itself, and the news media is an important source for it.
I mean, we just saw the media engineer a 5 point swing in the polls for President of the United States. That's power.
26: Also true. We are sober and seasoned and, and stuff.
Back before when I learned not to seek out things that annoy me, Al/thouse gave me my first experience of looking at a blog and being so squicked out by the peculiar batshit craziness of the proprietorial voice that I felt immediately compelled never to look at it again. Something about Hillary Clinton and onion rings.
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Possibly of interest: The Vox article on the Clinton Foundation is really good (particularly since, personally, my knowledge about the Foundation was fairly spotty). It gives a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of Clintonian glad-handing and an assessment of the fact that the foundation has had successes and failures, but that the successes are much larger in scale -- both in global impact and in terms of Foundation resources.
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Well, in a Shannon sense there's no such thing as false information.
I wonder if that's the only, or even the best, sense of "information", or if it might rather be a specialized sense useful in some situations but not others, and also why you bothered making this useless comment.
why you bothered making this useless comment.
It's directly relevant to the comment immediately before it, you clot.
It's precisely as relevant as if I had said "Well, technically there's no such thing as 'false information'; there's only falsehoods presented as information, which is as such always true. But of course such a presentation of falsehoods can affect the behavior of those who believe them."
It's not relevant at all.
What I said was clearer and contained fewer glaring grammatical errors* but boils down to the same thing. The point is that, contra 8 (which 12 was quoting) journalists' "power" does not depend on whether what they say or not is true, but on whether what they say can alter the hearer's behaviour. This is exactly the right context in which to introduce the concept of Shannon information.
*"there's only falsehoods", really, tut tut
According to an online calculator I found, the Shannon entropy of comment 12 is 4.08 bits.
I'm going to ignore this Shannon stuff because it sounds like math. Only a fool ever does math except for money.
35: which is about typical for any passage of written English.
I miss the self-correcting blogosphere.
This is exactly the right context in which to introduce the concept of Shannon information.
The concept of Shannon information is not necessary to remind people of the fact that a people can believe or act on falsehoods. That Tigre and Moby both used the word "information" does not mean that information theory is relevant.
I'm certainly not known for carefully selecting my words when there isn't a pun involved.
Anyway, what you said and what I said can't boil down to the same thing because what I said implies that if the NY Times ran an article full of false Trump puffery, it would not contain any information (in the puffery bits, anyway), but what you said implies that it would be very informativehave a lot of information, since an article like that would presumably alter the behavior of a lot of people.
(I'm now wondering whether we can use this to test out questions like "which is more informative, a slap in the face or a punch to the gut?".)
The face has more nerve sensation, so a slap to the face could certainly carry more bits.
And 8.1 is wrong as we can see by looking around. Information like "Hey, Donald Trump has repeatedly broken the law by stealing from a charity to pay his fines and buy himself big paintings of himself" is true and not widely known (until it was reported) and important (a presidential candidate is a criminal). But it has zero Shannon information content. It's made no difference at all.
If Shannon information is the relevant kind (as 12 would suggest, because otherwise it's just equivocation w/r/t Moby's question), then 8.1 is not actually tested by the publication of this fact about Trump, since such a publication does not constitute the publication of information.
Information wants to be free of association with all values that attribute something to information beyond saying it's the content of a message, including statements about what information wants.
This is such useful nostalgia: reminding me of the old Instapundit days and why I can't read this blog, all in one.
Technically, reading this blog isn't required to comment on it.
Somewhat OT but has everyone watched the Clinton Between the Ferns? SO FUNNY. must watch if you haven't.
Has Instapundit posted on it yet taking it seriously?
Or I should say has Instapundit linked to someone taking it seriously.
The post at the OP has been updated, if that's what you mean. Reason editors support him in email.
Even if you take it as a given that what he actually meant was "Don't stop the car if you feel threatened" or whatever, I still don't see how Twitter did anything wrong by reading what he actually wrote and shutting him down briefly (he's already been restored) to check things out.
Maybe Instapundit will link to us and then we'll hit the big time!
12: Shannon information doesn't depend on what the recipient does with it, or even if the recipient reads it. It's a measure of the probability that the particular message was sent throught a channel vs. the possible messages that could have been sent.
Fucking nerds. Next thing you'll be talking about the average Kolmogorov complexity of New York Times articles.
Yesterday somebody linked to something by Andrew Sullivan. Today, we have Instapundit. I'm afraid for tomorrow.
You got me to click on Instapundit at the very moment I was reading the NYer piece about Rick Astley. Damn, dude, you've still got it.
Hi everyone, my ears were burning.
True story: I've now twice seen a guy who looks just like Michael Kinsley while I was walking around campus.
Fake Kinsley is a weakass celebrity sighting. I just drove by a Chewbacca im a convertible but I'm not making a big deal out of it.
Out here our celebrity fields lie fallow and we must take comfort in what we can. Occasionally during the warmer months I see our local Gene Simmons impersonator, who drives around on a motorcycle wearing a KISS-branded leather jacket.
So PGH is basically nothing but hills Unfogged commenters and fake second-tier celebrities
All the cool kids talk about Renyi entropy these days anyway. Shannon entropy is so old school.
I ran into the dad from That '70s Show on the subway once. I didn't have time to throw him a line from Robocop.
I hope to Christ ajay is wrong about the guarndia. It seems to me to have a lower number of twitter non-stories than anywhere but the FT. The ideal number is of course zero.
the trouble is that twitter is actually useful for journalists as a way of drawing attention to real stories. Providing you read it as carefully selected lists, it will supply news of niche interests (the ongoing Catholic schism, computer security, swedish politics) quickly and reliably in a low-friction way. So one spends time there.
Meanwhile, twitter unfiltered is a measure of what bored people are wasting their time with at work *right now* -- which is of course the audience that advertisers are pursuing. So the department of clickbait (and all papers now have them) will follow it as flies follow the flow of dysentery
66: do you have a link to a feed about the ongoing Catholic schism?
NW is referring to the Reformation. He takes the long view of history.
There's an ongoing Catholic schism?
Indeed.
Let's not think of only recent history.
I mean the conservative revolt against pipe Francis, especially over sex. But I'm on a train. The next conclave will be s hell of a thing
I don't really see the problem though. Or at least not any new problem. This is much smaller than the post-Vatican II drift of the ultra conservatives like Lefebvre and Mel Gibson's dad.
74 made me laugh and I don't even speak French.
Though if the Pope backs Jolie and Ross Douthat back Pitt, maybe it will get worse.
Possibly these divisions seems less pronounced in America, where "conservative Christian" means "someone who expects the world to end before next Tuesday" or "will complain with true feeling when Starbucks prints a coffee cup that says 'Happy Holidays'"?
When I went to graduate school, I kept wishing Jewish people "Merry Christmas" because of the Leprechaun Effect.
Wait, is this Pitt the elder or Pitt the younger?
81. Pitt Rivers. Jolie was their prime exhibit.
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I think I've had way too many beers before getting on this flight back to Arrakis. Amsterdam is quite lovely.
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On Topic: Having two real jobs means Instapundit gives a very sincere "I'm sorry you weren't smart enough to understand me."
Also, the USA Today still exists.
85.2: So long as there are hotels in America, USA Today will exist.
Zevon is dead and the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel is now apartments, but still sort-of standing.
I know Zevon is dead, but if he died before paying his bill the HHH would presumably have stood forever.
Huh, I had never actually looked up the HHH to see the extent of its eaves.
I don't know about a formal schism, but there is a very great deal of sabre rattling about Amoris Laetitia which -- if the next pope (74!!) keeps up the present line -- might well lead to something. Look at the open slapdowns between Cardinal Sarah and the Pope at the moment.
Yeah, call me when there is an anti-Pope set up in Avignon.
You can just declare yourself antipope if you want. And move to Avignon. That part's not too hard.
I thought you had to have the support of the King of France to be antipope. Which is hard because there are three groups of pretenders: House of Bourbon, House of Orléans, House of Bonaparte.
The current heir of Napoleon is at Harvard in business school. I'd start there.
I'm assuming he's learning how market his new cologne, Whiff of Grapeshot.
Well, the legal succession is clear enough - the President of the Republic. You just have to hope Le Pen wins and falls out with official Catholicism
I'm guessing this whole "democracy" thing is a fad.
ONLY DAN BROWN REMEMBERS US.
99: I remember you! You had cool names.
74 is awesome, and made me laugh out loud.
I pay no attention to anyone who styles himself (or herself) a Catholic, but also an American-style conservative. I expect nothing good from that quarter, and also nothing very coherent.
(And I'm pro-Frankie, if there is indeed an actual schism. Pope Francis would totally back Angelina Jolie over Brad Pitt, but would probably decline to get involved in the child care arrangements, in the event of a custody dispute).
97. The substitution of the President of the Republic for the King is already a fait accompli in the case of the joint Price of Andorra (there's still a Bishop of La Seu d'Urgell), so legally it's open and shut. The other approach would be to elect a president who was super serious about laicite and refused to get involved.