Chris Smith

Grizzled software engineer who laughs way too hard at my own jokes. I have opinions about programming languages and things, in case you are interested. he/him

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

Just going to say it now so nobody thinks it was an impulsive decision:

If that one asshat gets unbanned and welcomed back to Twitter, I'm going to take my observations about tech industry ennui elsewhere.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@scott_mcmaster So I agree with what you are saying. I guess I’m just getting at that we agree moderation is important/required. And if Twitter’s policies were strictly anti-Nazi great! I’m just saying that if they weren’t, then I’d expect people to (hopefully) flee the platform.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

So I’m out to dinner with my family, and the table next to me features a deranged man shouting about how he will violently kill all the Jews or whatever… am I the jerk for wanting the restaurant to do something in this case? Or should I always be the one to leave?

[Edward Snowden @Snowden]

This is going to cause controversy, but platform censorship had clearly gone too far. Content moderation should be an individual decision, not a corporate prison.

Let people make their own choices—and not just on Twitter.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@scott_mcmaster Correct me if I am wrong, but the market seems to do an OK job. Like CloudFlare (eventually) dropping customers, or Reddit (eventually) doing bans. Even Twitter banning that one guy :) I naively believe that a Twitter that allows hate speech to flourish will quickly go bankrupt.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@scott_mcmaster In other words, I acknowledge that policing all speech is a losing argument/position. But a business catering to its own self-interest is going to be clear and consistent. Moreover, as a consumer, I can at least avoid spending money to benefit businesses I disagree with. Right?

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@scott_mcmaster I hate to sound like “let markets decide!”-guy, but why not let the facists take over then? (Like they have?) e.g. see Fox News. I certainly don’t like that it has become a cesspool of misinformation… but at the same time, the, uh, “community” there is happy with its standards.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@paycheck97 I agree that moderating people based on their ideas isn’t great. But enforcing, say, bans on hate speech and repeatedly spending intentional misinformation isn’t too controversial, right?

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@paycheck97 Totes agree!

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@paycheck97 Could this be abused? Yes, absolutely! But I don’t think the answer is to say that business shouldn’t moderate content shared on their platforms… especially since not doing so will definitely harm those businesses. (E.g. people not wanting to patronize that place.)

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@paycheck97 As a quasi-patron of a business (Twitter) , it’s in their interest to maintain a certain community. Even if that excludes some folks, e.g. nazis. Moreover moderation isn’t really political IMHO, as hate speech strait up isn’t acceptable. Regardless of the topic.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

Sure, wackos should be able to talk about the deep state or lizard people or what not. But I’m just saying that having a conversation within a community is way different than disrupting/harming said community. And IMHO the ability to police any community seems important.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

I understand the outsized power “the corporation” has in this case. But it seems like they also have the right (responsibility?) to create the sort of environment they want. e.g. maybe the owners of that IHOP don’t want it to turn into a favorite haunt for area fascists?

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@DrMarkCLewis Naw, didn’t you hear? We’re all just going to start posting random stream if consciousness type stuff to LinkedIn.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

Just going to say it now so nobody thinks it was an impulsive decision:

If that one asshat gets unbanned and welcomed back to Twitter, I'm going to take my observations about tech industry ennui elsewhere.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

I know, right!?! It’s like the silverest of silver linings! But I again stand true to my plans on leaving out if they unban that one guy.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@SeaRyanC 🤔 ... yeah. Logic checks out. I was wrong, this design is clearly correct.

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

TIL about Python's os.path.join:

"If a component is an absolute path, all previous components are thrown away and joining continues from the absolute path component."

In other words:
>>> os.path.join("/tmp/downloads", "/project/file.txt")
"/project/file.txt"

😐

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@SeaRyanC I can accept that it may be intuitive to other folks, but to me joining two things means sometimes you ignore the first seems... odd.

Re: "cd" behavior, I'd be more onboard with that explanation if the function were named path.addEachArgumentSeparatelyReturningTheTerminalResult

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@KirillOsenkov Does that not seem bonkers to you? Like "combine(x, y)" sometimes only results in y?

[Chris Smith @aChrisSmith]

@SeaRyanC