Category: Uncategorized

Guidelines for this blog by Nick Nicholas on Necrologue

• The user named must have reached a reasonable level of notability: at least 100 followers. No exceptions, though I have been tempted.

Been on Quora for close to two years. Have had two benburrs (h/t Gigi J Wolf), both resulting from quoting someone else (and both of which I reject as intractable tone policing):

• My first BNBR warning by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency (January 2017)
• Shoot the messenger by Nick Nicholas on The Insurgency (April 2017)

I’m pretty conflict averse, I’d like to think, which may explain it. I also don’t seem to have been as much of a target as, say, Habib. (Yet…)

Two ways of solving this: via Greek and via Latin.

Greek first. I don’t care if the Aeneid is in Latin.

• Iliad: Nominative Iliás, Genitive Iliádos, so the stem is Iliad-. (The nominative in proto-Greek would be *Iliad-s.) Hence, Iliad-ic.
• Odyssey: Nominative Odússeia, Genitive Odusseías, so the stem is Odussei-. First declension, –ikos didn’t attach to those, Latin does its own thing, mumble mumble stuff I don’t actually know, which leads to Odysse(i)-an.
• In Greek, the Aeneid is Aineiás, by analogy with Iliás. So if Aeneid were an originally Greek word, its adjective would be Aene(i)ad-ic.
• In Latin, for whatever reason, the Aeneid is Nominative Aenei-s, Genitive Aenei-dis (treating the word as Latin) or Aenei-dos (treating the word as Greek. So the stem is Aeneid-, not Aenead– in Latin (therefore Aeneid in English), and if we treat Aeneid as a Latin word, the adjective is Aeneid-ic.

Google: 239 hits for Aeneidic, 146 for Aeneadic, both of which look to be used by reputable sources.

The artificial language Lojban was not expressly designed to be used by machines; it (or rather its antecedent Loglan) was designed as a test of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, its overt basis in predicate logic being sufficiently alien that its inventor thought it would serve the purpose.

Lojban is something of a kitchen sink language in its design, but its design has several aspects which are appealing to at least some AI enthusiasts:

• It has spoken syntactic brackets, and it can be parsed syntactically by an LALR parser (defined in Yacc); so its syntax as formally specified is unambiguous.
• It is also morphologically unambiguous, at the cost of some restrictive phonotactics. (I’m seeing that loanword phonotactics are less restrictive than they were in my day.) So a stream of phonemes can be broken up into morphemes only one way.
• It was a well-elaborated list of 1300-odd basic predicates, with their arguments fully specified. It has prepositions supporting a full case grammar, and (unofficially) conventions for deriving compound predicate arguments from their components. (I was involved in the latter.) This does not quite make its semantics as unambiguous as they’d like, but it certainly puts it on a very formal footing.

Syntactic and morphological ambiguity are not the big challenge of natural language processing; stats tends to take care of that. Semantics is always sloppier, but I’m not sure that the new generation stats-mongerers are that fussed about formal semantics either. But yes, Lojban has been attractive to several AI people for that reason. Ben Goertzel, who is on here, has been vocal about this; see e.g. Aspects of Artificial General Intelligence.

The canonical counterpoint duets are surely Bach’s Two Part Inventions:

It doesn’t get better. God bless Gerubach on YouTube.

“So that others may live.”

Which is why medical professionals do what they do.

• User
• Kate Liotta

Recall Scott Welch: When do you think Quora is going to end?: Scott Welch’s speculation that Google Traffic is what will keep Quora in money forever—and the existing userbase is an expendable loss-leader.

I was intrigued to read this speculation, from the time Cheever was ousted, that Cheever was pro cultivating the existing userbase, and D’Angelo was pro encouraging Google Traffic. Maybe the poster really was on to something….

One suspects there’s a lot less going on than what everyone would like to think…. (comment on: The Sudden, Mysterious Exit Of A Quora Cofounder Has Silicon Valley Baffled)

One suspects there’s a lot less going on than what everyone would like to think. (Thanks, ChuckMcM, for the nice post about money and stock.)

Mr Cheever is “something of a product design genius, and lots of people give him credit for Facebook’s best features;” even the now-removed-from-Quora post says “to him the user came first and growth features would sacrifice that.” That puts him in complete opposition to the guy (Mr D’Angelo, who to his credit is putting his money where his mouth is) who is paying the bills.

The problem is that almost every Q&A type site has the same issue as Quora: only a small percentage of its membership is actively engaged. The number cited by the article is eight per cent, and in my experience, that’s about par for the course. Since revenues (and therefore stock performance) are directly tied to use, there are two ways to increase revenues, with implications regarding the user experience for both:

1. Increase traffic, AKA “make the pie bigger”. This means doing the kinds of things Mr D’Angelo probably championed — the SEO Solution, playing nice with Google, low barriers to entry (i.e. Free). This is the tactic taken by most startups, since they’re generally looking at Mountain View and saying “Gee, if we could just get our hands wet in THAT revenue stream, we’d be rich.”

2. Keep your existing userbase more engaged, AKA “get your customers to eat more pie”. This means doing the kinds of things Mr Cheever championed — making the experience better, providing more services to them, concentrating on getting lifelong customers rather than more customers for less time. Most startups aren’t in it for the long haul; they’re in it for the big payday.

The NYTimes obit of Arthur Sulzberger pointed out the difference. His family has always wanted to be in the business of disseminating the news; their competitors are in the business of selling advertising. Mr Cheever wanted to take care of users; Mr D’Angelo wants to see a return on his investment. If there was ever a startup in the position to do the former, it’s Quora; I know my colleagues would dearly love to have enough money to where they wouldn’t have to worry for a while how to keep the lights on.

But as William F. Buckley noted a long time ago, “Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive,” and that’s when someone like Mr Cheever moves on to his next venture.

jIDel’eghmeH jIbomchugh, chay’ vIta’?
ghopwIj roSHa’moH qaD, ’ej jatwIj qa’.
.i mi te pemci mi .ei ta’i ma
.i go’i lesedu’u mi mo da
Kiel poemi pri mi mem? Ĉu praa
la stilo estu? Aŭ ĉu forbalaa?
De memet si canendum, fulmina
extinguant niteantque carmina.
Περὶ ἐμοῦ εἰ γέγραφ’ ἀγαθά,
ψευδῶς· ψευδῶς γ’ εἰ πλεῖστα χαλεπά.
A poem on myself? It won’t scan far.
Best leave it be. Best leave things as they are.
Ποίημα λέει για τα μας; Αλλού αυτά.
Ιδού η Κβόρα· ιδού το πήδημα.

[Klingon] If I were to sing in order to describe myself, how shall I accomplish it?
The challenge paralyses my hand, and it replaces my tongue.
[Lojban] I will be the author of a poem about me, the obligation is; in what method?
I will do so about the concept that, for x, I shall be in what relation to x?
[Esperanto] How shall I poem about my own self? Should the style
be primordial? Or should it be sweeping things away?
[Latin] If it is time for songs to be sung about me myself, let songs
extinguish and ignite thunderbolts.
[Ancient Greek] If I have written about myself good things,
it’s false; and all the more false if most things are harsh.
[English] A poem on myself? It won’t scan far.
Best leave it be. Best leave things as they are.
[Modern Greek] A poem about us, he says? Pull the other one.
Here’s Quora; here’s the leap.*

*The Boasting Traveler – Fables of Aesop:

A Traveler, on returning, boasted of the many and heroic deeds he had performed. Among those he boasted that when in Rhodes he had leaped further than anyone else found possible and that he could call upon many in Rhodes who could stand as a witness. “There is no need of witnesses,” said a bystander, “simply pretend this is Rhodes and leap for us.”

[In Archaising Modern Greek: “Here’s Rhodes, and here’s the leap.”]

Last answered 2011, eh?

Quora, as Kelly Erickson said, is far from “just” a site where shills ask Dorothy Dixers of themselves. But even in 2017, such a practice continues.

From my Upwork feed for the past 8 days:

Quora Poster Needed

Hourly – Entry Level ($)

Est. Time: Less than 1 month, 10-30 hrs/week – Posted 1 day ago

Hi, I own three fairly sizeable ecommerce companies and we’re looking for people to post on Quora with questions and answers that lead back to our products. Thank you. Josh

Looking for a Quora Expert to help me find questions to answer

Hourly – Intermediate ($$)

– Est. Time: 3 to 6 months, Less than 10 hrs/week – Posted 2 days ago

Hi, I am looking for someone who is well versed with Quora and can help me find suitable questions to answer that are related to my business. I simply do no have the time to do the research and may need you to help me answer a few questions when I am running low on time. I’ll be asking you to present your finding in a google spreadsheet that can be updated as and when I see fit. You must be able to speak with me. I do not want to hear that you do not have a microphone or your laptop is not working. I find it very hard when I can not speak with you.

Write Quora Answers – Based on Content from my Website

Fixed-Price – Intermediate ($$) – Est. Budget: $25

– Posted 3 days ago

I have a content website about home improvement topics. I need a person that is a native English speaker (born in USA/Canada/England/Austraila etc.). To write quality Answers for Quora question. I will post the answers myself from my profile. You will need to search for questions that have at least 3,000 views, and then come up with a good answer. I will pay $5 for each answer.

Sports Fans Needed to Answer Questions on Quora

Fixed-Price – Entry Level ($) – Est. Budget: $10

– Posted 10 days ago

I’m looking for someone to search for technical questions about sports on Quora and to post answers related to the questions by referring to what a company’s online solutions can offer. A Quora account and sample of answers shall be provided. Answers should contain links and images. Pay Rate: 20 answers for $10. NOTE: You must be familiar with sports as in how to play/train or coach a sport, not the spectator part of it (news, teams, views, etc). We’re looking for those that know the following sports. The more sports you know, the better. Badminton Baseball Basketball Bowling Cricket Cycling eSports Football (American) Golf Health & Fitness Hockey Lacrosse Martial Arts Mixed Martial Arts Rugby Running Skateboarding Soccer (Football) Swimming Table Tennis Tennis Track & Field Volleyball Yoga

There’s also this, which isn’t shilling, but is clearly a mockery of Quora’s Real Name policy, if answers are going to be ghostwritten…

Malaysia/Asia Tech startup writer

Hourly – Expert ($$$)

– Est. Time: More than 6 months, 10-30 hrs/week – Posted 8 days ago

Looking for a tech startup blogger to write analytical tech startup blogs and answer questions for me on quora. Here are some of my answers so far… [Quora profile redacted] I am also looking for insightful blog posts on [Quora user’s external blog redacted]