Valley Drag

Valley Drag

By Stipes RadioBusinessTechnology
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Valley Drag episodes

  • Valley Drag Episode 6: The Privatization of Public Services

    Tim and Cristian drag the privatization of public services by Silicon Valley. We also make fun of Elon Musk lots. Plus a look at algorithm powered healthcare and Venture Funded Prison startups.

    Content Warning: Politics, Healthcare, Prisons,  Extreme Bullshit

    Show Notes:

    00:03:49 – Hyperloop

    00:25:00 – Ride Sharing Replacing the Bus System
    00:41:55 – Bike Sharing
    00:51:13 – Algorithmic Healthcare
    01:03:55 – Promise.

    • The Hyperloop Pipe Dream
      • Local transportation councils dropping millions into impact studies proposal fundings for hyperloop companies springing up, none of which actually have scale prototypes
      • Growing popularity in midwest, capitalizing on the concept of something high tech but tangible that “the working man” can contribute to
      • Elon Musk on Twitter
        • “Boring Co urban loop system would have 1000’s of small stations the size of a single parking space that take you very close to your destination & blend seamlessly into the fabric of a city, rather than a small number of big stations like a subway”
        • Altamonte Springs in Florida has already piloted a program to replace the Lynx bus system in their city with Ubers
          • Uber and Altamonte Springs launch pilot program to improve transportation access
          • Lynx being the bus system that runs in Orlando and other various sister cities
          • But buses are like, al
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          • Valley Drag Episode 5: Cryptocurrencies

            This week on Valley Drag, we take a look at Cryptocurrencies.

            Show Notes:

            • Terms:
              • Cryptocurrency – just money whose transactions are secured by encryption.
              • Blockchain – A distributed ledger of transactions. This is what allows bitcoin and other altcoins to be decentralized (they’re not tied to a government or a bank or any one person distributing the currency). In blockchains, every node in a network has access to the entire global ledger, and anytime a transaction anywhere happens, the global ledger must be updated and the change propagated to all nodes. Given that blockchains are peer-to-peer, modifying the history is extremely difficult, because you would need a majority of the network to agree on the change. Because blockchains are distributed and track every single transaction globally, they’re constantly growing in size.
              • Mining – Individuals help maintain the blockchain by “solving” blocks (finding a specific value required to validate a block of transactions) . This is a way of distributing the calculations needed to verify transactions. A miner who successfully generates the solution for a block is awarded with newly generated bitcoin. 
              • Fiat currency –
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              • Valley Drag Episode 4: Content Policy

                This week on Valley Drag we talk about Twitter’s new content policy and Russian ads on social media in the last election cycle.

                Show Notes:

                Content Warning: We might be using some specific terms during this episode that are offensive; we’re trying to discuss the specifics of Twitter’s content policy choices. For some people, these terms are powerful and they’ve reclaimed them and don’t want to see them policed. For others, they’re offensive. 

                Content Policy Stuff

                • Twitter is revising policies about content in response to some really long-standing issues
                  • “We’re providing more specific detail around the types of content we consider to be “graphic violence” or “adult content.” We’re also updating our media policy Help Center page so it includes examples that help set expectations around the types of content covered by this policy. Please note that the media policy will be updated again on November 22, to account for hateful imagery.”
                  • (is “adult content” really higher priority than “hateful imagery”?)
                  • The first wave of this is that Twitter is blocking
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                  • Valley Drag Episode 3: Bigoted Machine Learning

                    This week on Valley Drag we talk about machine learning and how peoples own biases can be used to create machine learning algorithms that are bigoted, racist, and sexist.

                    CW: Racism, Sexism

                    Show Notes:

                    • First up, what’s the difference between algorithms and machine learning?
                    • Sources of bias
                      • Data itself – people are biased, so data generated by people may reflect bias
                        • Google Photos Mess Up
                        • Methodology – researchers are people, so they have bias too
                        • Society as a whole
                        • How machines can execute our biases:
                          • Google’s Sentiment Analysis thinks being gay is negative
                            • Sentiment Analysis takes words or sentences and tries to say if they express something positive or negative. This can be useful for auto-moderating comments and detecting spam
                            • for some reason, the system believed saying “
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                            • Valley Drag Episode 2: The One About Media And Stuff

                              This week on Valley Drag, we try to drag centralized media services and federated media services. But honestly we just end up dragging ourselves.

                              Show Notes:

                              Why centralized social media sites can be good:

                              • Information Source
                              • Concretely, during Ferguson, twitter played a big part in letting people see what was happening.
                              • #BLM
                              • #ILookLikeAnEngineer
                              • Essentially gives folks who may not be apart of a certain demographic a view into another part of the worlds culture.
                              • Allows people share experiences, break up traditional media’s hold on publishing.
                              • Unbundling of media content.

                                • Reasons as to why they can be bad:

                                • Bitter Brown Femmes episode where they have a bit talking about organizing online using facebook and twitter
                                  • Essentially that it’s horrible but because of how American education and such is, these centralized services are the only way a bunch of folks find out about their own ethnic and cultural history
                                  • Censorship of “controversial content” like videos by LGBT creators (but hatespeech is continually supported by both twitter and youtube).
                                    • Essentially whatever raises stock prices is what will be ultimately protected and prioritized.
                                    • Facebook, twitter, et al turning over information to law enforcement (using facebook to organize BLM, protest, resistance events is not safe).

                                      • Content Creation:

                                      • Getting paid for content creation is hard.
                                      • No good open source kit in a box easily deployable solutions for it.
                                      • Ethical ad markets
                                        • An ethical ad market would allow for people to still make money off of advertising while also respecting users privacy.

                                          • Open Source and Decentralized Alternatives:

                                          • Monetization:
                                          • liberapay
                                          • flattr
                                          • Build it yourself with stripe or other payment processing services.
                                            • Registering a business is almost a monster of a task
                                            • Social Media
                                            • Mastodon
                                            • Disapora
                                            • Media & files
                                            • Mediagoblin
                                            • Owncloud
                                            • Sandstorm, here is a Pentagonal episode where we talk about this in depth.

                                              • Social Media:

                                              • Cristian on Twitter
                                              • Tim on Mastodon
                                              • Tim on Twitter
                                              • Stipes Radio on Twitter

                                                • Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Overcast | Pocketcasts | RSS

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                                              • Valley Drag Episode 1:

                                                This week on Valley Drag, we talk about weed startups and how them trying to displace traditional ways of purchasing drugs can further harm communities already impacted by a drug problem.

                                                Show Notes:
                                                • Eaze
                                                • Meadow
                                                • Aggregation Theory
                                                • ACLU Facts on Marijuana

                                                  • Social Media:

                                                  • Cristian on Twitter
                                                  • Tim on Mastodon
                                                  • Tim on Twitter
                                                  • Stipes Radio on Twitter

                                                    • Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Overcast | Pocketcasts | RSS

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                                                  • Valley Drag Episode 0: Bodega

                                                    This week on Valley Drag, we talk about bodega. Bodega is a new startup aimed at disrupting the bodega market. We basically just drag this idea into the ground.

                                                    Show Notes:
                                                    • Fast Company’s profile of the company
                                                    • Founder defending the name
                                                    • Patreon of the week: Crow Moore
                                                    • Cristian’s thread on this

                                                      • Social Media:

                                                      • Cristian on Twitter
                                                      • Tim on Mastodon
                                                      • Tim on Twitter
                                                      • Stipes Radio on Twitter

                                                        • Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Overcast | Pocketcasts | RSS

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                                                      About Valley Drag

                                                      From the publisher's feed

                                                      Every week it seems the latest company to come out of the Valley is just reinventing a public service and privatizing it in a way that creates higher disparity. Each week Cristian and Tim will talk…