Swiss here. I typically carry cash for small purchases - why mess with anything else to buy your lunch? Cash is simpler. Second choice is a debit card from my bank (directly from the bank, not branded MasterCard or Visa), because this is free to me, and the transaction fee to the merchant is very small.
Apparently loved in the US, but not used quite so much here are credit cards. Credit cards are, factually, expensive. Those great point systems, cash-back, or whatever? Ultimately, you pay for those through higher prices, because the merchants have to pay whopping fees on the transactions. Why do that to yourself? Why do that to a merchant whom you actually like? I only use credit cards in cases where the fraud protection is important, mainly online purchases with vendors I've never dealt with before, or else with vendors silly enough to insist on payment by credit card.
Speaking of online purchases: most vendors here are happy to send you an invoice along with your purchase, rather than insisting on up-front payment. Just add it to the pile of other invoices you pay at the end of the month (via online banking). Cheaper for them (no credit card fees), simpler to order since you don't have to mess with a payment portal, and psychologically it's really nice gesture of trust. Of course, this only works in a society where most people really are that trustworthy, and will pay the invoice for goods they received.
Your "pub" analogy is absolutely right. And this is what people - especially those calling for censorship - need to think about. No one is hovering around the tables at your local pub, telling people what they're allowed to say, and what they cannot say. If they did, they'd likely wind up in the hospital. If the people hovering bring the power of the government to bear (a cop at every table), all that will happen is people will take their conversations elsewhere.
Freedom of speech should be a near to an absolute right as we can make it. Anything else means that someone, somewhere is deciding what thoughts can be expressed - and that is a tremendous power to give to any human being, or any organization composed of human beings. It is a power that will be abused.
No matter what you do: someone, somewhere will believe something stupid. Sometimes people in echo chambers will talk themselves into something stupid - this is nothing new - think of the Salem Witch Trials. People are like that, life is like that, and the fact remains: censorship is far too high a price to pay, and won't solve the problem anyway.
"This is remedial instruction of the most fundamental kind, and a damning indictment of the previous three to five years of schooling"
This. The thing is: effective schooling requires (a) commitment from the families and (b) discipline within the school. If you have families who don't care that their kids aren't learning, who don't care that their kids disrupt school for everyone else, you're screwed. If you have a school that tolerates disruptive behavior, that moves kids to the next grade despite failing grades, you're screwed.
The progress in a school like this comes entirely from the fact that you've solved the two problems above. The disruptive kids from don't-care families are mostly elsewhere. The question will truly be: can they sustain this progress against the cultural pressures the kids are under? And they are under pressure, from a self-destructive black subculture that says studying and learning is "acting white".
This school will help some individual kids, but that cultural problem is the real problem, and someday it is going to have to be addressed.
This is fine, but really - with mail order now being so common - everyone really needs a locking mailbox that accepts packages. These exist, assuming the delivery people are smart enough to use them. Granted, you can't fit a huge package in them, but most will fit.
Assange did good work with Wikileaks, years ago. Then he grew an inflated ego, and (um, literally) screwed around. Rather than face any charges (which, iirc, were never formally filed), he fled.
Ultimately, he imprisoned himself for 8 long years.
I have no idea whether the US would have tried to extradite him from Sweden. Maybe they would have, if Sweden had actually charged him with a crime. But in the meantime, the Swedish case has ended. And the UK can't charge him with much more than skipping a court appearance, which is pretty trivial. He should have long since left the embassy.
And now this. Ecuador has finally had enough, and tells him to leave. Rather than acting like an adult, and walking out with some dignity, he has to be carried out like a child throwing a tantrum. Pathetic.
"in order to obscure, subvert, or impair a user's ability to decide"
Laws should be objective. Judging something like this is, however, entirely subjective. Anyway, if they were serious about this, they would have to put all the advertisers and marketeers up against the wall. This sounds a lot more like the kind of law that can be applied arbitrarily, against companies that you don't like. Leading to campaign contributions by potential targets, in self-defense. In a word: cronyism.
The whole selection process for Congresscritters seems to pre-select certain kinds of people. Some put on a good act, but are actually dumber than a bag of hammers (see Maxine Waters or AOC). Others are just fundamentally corrupt, and enjoying the power and wealth that come with the job (too many examples to count).
Depending on who you believe, the average sea level is rising somewhere around 2mm per year. Around 1mm per year is attributable to thermal expansion of the oceans. The rest must be melt water from glaciers and snow on land.
So, check my math: The surface area of the oceans is 3.4 * 10^8 square kilometers, or 3.4 * 10^14 square meters. Each millimeter of sea level rise then corresponds to 3.4 * 10^11 cubic meters, which happens to be 340 billion tons of water. Pretty close to their 390 billion tons.
So their figure makes sense. I suppose it's useful as confirmation, but it's hardly anything new or unexpected. But the big numbers impress clueless journalists...
They're not "fooling you", they are being realistic. There's nothing sensible about a schedule that says "we'll get you to New York at 17:00, if everything goes perfectly". Because things don't go perfectly. Some kid barfed on the seat, or the fuel truck broke down, or a wheelchair passenger took longer to offload, or whatever. And when things go wrong - which they will - people counting on a punctual arrival will be pissed. How much better to say "we'll get you to New York by 17:30", and then pleasantly surprise the passengers if you arrive early!
People tend to read too much into the concept of a name. As far as we know, animals don't have a sense of identity, in the same way that people do. A person may be able to step outside themselves and think: "that's me, and my name is XYZ". Animals can't, and don't.
So: what is a name to an animal? I submit that it is a very simple, functional sound: the sound made by a human who wants to get the animal's attention. And the animal gives its attention, because interesting things tend to follow.
If your girlfriends cats all come running to every name-sound, that is easily explained: you and your girlfriend are not consistent in rewarding them if-and-only-if the correct cat reacts to the name. If any cat gets treats/pets/whatever, whenever any cat is called, then they all effectively share all of the names. How are they supposed to differentiate, if you don't?
How dare they have a variety of viewpoints represented on an ethics board? Of course the SJWs got their panties in a twist, I mean, their viewpoints are the only ones that count. Everything else must be suppressed.
What is genuinely sad is that Google gave in on this. Since the SJWs got their way this time, they know their strategy works, and they'll whine all the louder next time.
This is research? Seriously? I was convinced this came from some crappy write-only journal, but...it comes from a Nature publication? That's just pathetic.
Ask any cat owner: of course cats recognize their names. Mine looks at you, to see what you want. If you say "come", then - guess what - she comes (well, most of the time, she is a cat after all). She also understands commands for simple tricks: sit, lie down, jump, etc.. And she's not any special breed, just an accident between two house cats.
Cats aren't as good with human languages as dogs, and they're a lot less interested in cooperating, but a small vocabulary is absolutely possible. Learning their own name? Well, duh. What a stupid research topic.
FWIW: Training cats to do tricks isn't hard, it just takes patience and perseverance. Start with hand signals, they come easier for the cat than words. But both are absolutely possible.
Gee, I never realized that AGW was the opposite of machine learning (ML). Everything bad that happens is blamed on AGW, whether or not it makes any sense. Meanwhile, anything good can be made better with ML.
Burned your hamburger on the grill? Darn that AGW! Enjoyed a good beer with your burnt hamburger? Imagine how much better that beer would taste with a little ML.
"if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it"
In about 99% of the cases, I do have to agree with him. Anonymity is abused. Someone who wants to spew hate, drop f-bombs, disrupt discussions with ad hominem attacks - they almost always hide behind anonymity. If they acted like that IRL, someone would punch them. Make them put their real name* to their posts, they might moderate their speech, and add in some politeness and discussion.
The practical problem is: how do you allow speech by true whistleblowers, or by other people in a position where they genuinely cannot speak with their own voice? How can a platform allow them to use true anonymity, without allowing it for the ACs? I don't think it's really possible. Moderation systems like/. or Soylent are the best compromise I've seen: start ACs with less visibility, and let mods raise them or bury them. It's not ideal, but it's better than almost any other system I've seen.
*Yes, I practice what I preach: my pseudonym leads pretty directly to my real identity, and that is not an accident. It's just difficult enough to dissuade most trolls...
Formal verification has huge potential, and can (theoretically, at least), be applied to any software that doesn't have side effects (which mainly means: everything is an input or output parameter - no GUIs, no external input/output, etc..). It's really cool to have something significant that has been formally verified.
That said, formal verification still only takes you so far. There is no way for them to have proven immunity to side channels, or immunity to processor vulnerabilities, or even immunity to brute-force attacks. So this is an important battle, but it doesn't automatically win the war.
"some of these people are actually quite intelligent, they just aren't very good at collecting correct information about the world"
This. Without naming names, there is a blogger I used to read. A very intelligent guy, but...over the last couple of years, he has somehow fallen into the world of conspiracy theorists. Out of curiosity, I looked in on his blog a couple of days ago: he is now busily denying that the Apollo moon landings ever happened. It's really bizarre, watching the convolutions an intelligent mind invents, in order to justify crazy ideas.
Really, if you go far enough, nothing is provable, everything could be faked. Maybe we're all just brains in jars. But that's no way to live...
Currently, we subsidize the least successful, including their child-bearing. Meanwhile, the most successful members of society often choose to not have children, because of all the other pressures on their time. We're doing it wrong...
Well, you're partly right. I've driven a fair bit in southern Germany (since I live in Switzerland), and sensible drivers are mostly safe. Mostly.
But you still have various dangers caused by the speed. A typical Autobahn only has two lanes on a side, at least in the area I'm familiar with. So take a slow truck in the right lane, going maybe 80kph. Then take a guy in his Mercedes tooling along in the left lane, at maybe 220 kph. Joe average comes up on the truck, changes to the left lane to pass.
Joe average is concentrating on the truck, and may not even see the Mercedes overtaking at a speed delta of 140kph - with the slightest curve in the road, the Mercedes won't even be visible when Joe changes lanes. Meanwhile, Mr. Mercedes often is an entitled asshole who will ride right up into Joe's backseat, to express his displeasure at having to brake. It's a dangerous situation in clear daylight. In twilight or with a bit of rain, well, crashes at those speeds are generally not survivable.
Geez, this isn't even old news, it's ancient news. I suppose each new generation of web developers needs to understand that search engines include links (and link texts) in their ratings, but I remember teaching this stuff to my students 20 years ago. Why is this any sort of "feature story" on a tech site like Wired? Maybe they just hired a new intern, who re-discovered the wheel?
Remember when companies jumped all over the html bandwagon for email? Outlook was especially awful at rendering, iirc, but generally the corporate design got in the way of the actual purpose, which was transmitting information.
Thankfully, people realized this, and probably 90% of the email I see now is just text. Maybe with a logo or something,but that's all.
Amp for email? That's just the html idiocy all over again, only now cached on Google's server for their data collection. No, thanks, please get lost.
So, we have a tragedy in New Zealand. And the politicians are jumping all over it, with attempts to increase governmental power. It would be sad, if it weren't so damned stupid.
Guns are useful tools. Outlawing tools is not a solution. The internet is the greatest information-sharing tool ever invented. Censoring it is not a solution. A perfectly safe world is not a world anyone would want to live in: freedom would not exist, we would all be locked into individual rubber rooms. How else could mommy-government keep us safe?
You know, I would actually be fine with strengthening some aspects of copyright protection - if there were softening in other respects. Media producers want paid for snippets? Fine, absolutely fine. But their copyright expires in 12 months, after which the material enters the public domain.
What is actually likely to happen: Media companies will be shocked, shocked when companies like Google simply stop linking to them. Their business will collapse, until they see the solution: issuing a general public license allowing anyone to link to their content with no fees whatsoever. At which time, Google&Co. will start linking to them again. We've been here before, more or less. And we'll be here again in a few years, when the next generation of clueless MBAs decides to try to monetize links.
The liability of platforms for copyright infringement by their users? I'm not seeing a great solution to that one. Stupid politicians, this is why we can't have nice things...
All of it. Seriously, what business do governments have, keeping secrets from the citizens who create them? With very few exceptions, no secrets should be allowed. They are our employees.
Obviously, there is a problem with most governments...
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Swiss here. I typically carry cash for small purchases - why mess with anything else to buy your lunch? Cash is simpler. Second choice is a debit card from my bank (directly from the bank, not branded MasterCard or Visa), because this is free to me, and the transaction fee to the merchant is very small.
Apparently loved in the US, but not used quite so much here are credit cards. Credit cards are, factually, expensive. Those great point systems, cash-back, or whatever? Ultimately, you pay for those through higher prices, because the merchants have to pay whopping fees on the transactions. Why do that to yourself? Why do that to a merchant whom you actually like? I only use credit cards in cases where the fraud protection is important, mainly online purchases with vendors I've never dealt with before, or else with vendors silly enough to insist on payment by credit card.
Speaking of online purchases: most vendors here are happy to send you an invoice along with your purchase, rather than insisting on up-front payment. Just add it to the pile of other invoices you pay at the end of the month (via online banking). Cheaper for them (no credit card fees), simpler to order since you don't have to mess with a payment portal, and psychologically it's really nice gesture of trust. Of course, this only works in a society where most people really are that trustworthy, and will pay the invoice for goods they received.
Your "pub" analogy is absolutely right. And this is what people - especially those calling for censorship - need to think about. No one is hovering around the tables at your local pub, telling people what they're allowed to say, and what they cannot say. If they did, they'd likely wind up in the hospital. If the people hovering bring the power of the government to bear (a cop at every table), all that will happen is people will take their conversations elsewhere.
Freedom of speech should be a near to an absolute right as we can make it. Anything else means that someone, somewhere is deciding what thoughts can be expressed - and that is a tremendous power to give to any human being, or any organization composed of human beings. It is a power that will be abused.
No matter what you do: someone, somewhere will believe something stupid. Sometimes people in echo chambers will talk themselves into something stupid - this is nothing new - think of the Salem Witch Trials. People are like that, life is like that, and the fact remains: censorship is far too high a price to pay, and won't solve the problem anyway.
"This is remedial instruction of the most fundamental kind, and a damning indictment of the previous three to five years of schooling"
This. The thing is: effective schooling requires (a) commitment from the families and (b) discipline within the school. If you have families who don't care that their kids aren't learning, who don't care that their kids disrupt school for everyone else, you're screwed. If you have a school that tolerates disruptive behavior, that moves kids to the next grade despite failing grades, you're screwed.
The progress in a school like this comes entirely from the fact that you've solved the two problems above. The disruptive kids from don't-care families are mostly elsewhere. The question will truly be: can they sustain this progress against the cultural pressures the kids are under? And they are under pressure, from a self-destructive black subculture that says studying and learning is "acting white".
This school will help some individual kids, but that cultural problem is the real problem, and someday it is going to have to be addressed.
...about all of these efforts. Given the speed of modern computers, is this reasly needed? Or is it make-work, for publicity?
This is fine, but really - with mail order now being so common - everyone really needs a locking mailbox that accepts packages. These exist, assuming the delivery people are smart enough to use them. Granted, you can't fit a huge package in them, but most will fit.
Assange did good work with Wikileaks, years ago. Then he grew an inflated ego, and (um, literally) screwed around. Rather than face any charges (which, iirc, were never formally filed), he fled.
Ultimately, he imprisoned himself for 8 long years.
I have no idea whether the US would have tried to extradite him from Sweden. Maybe they would have, if Sweden had actually charged him with a crime. But in the meantime, the Swedish case has ended. And the UK can't charge him with much more than skipping a court appearance, which is pretty trivial. He should have long since left the embassy.
And now this. Ecuador has finally had enough, and tells him to leave. Rather than acting like an adult, and walking out with some dignity, he has to be carried out like a child throwing a tantrum. Pathetic.
"in order to obscure, subvert, or impair a user's ability to decide"
Laws should be objective. Judging something like this is, however, entirely subjective. Anyway, if they were serious about this, they would have to put all the advertisers and marketeers up against the wall. This sounds a lot more like the kind of law that can be applied arbitrarily, against companies that you don't like. Leading to campaign contributions by potential targets, in self-defense. In a word: cronyism.
The whole selection process for Congresscritters seems to pre-select certain kinds of people. Some put on a good act, but are actually dumber than a bag of hammers (see Maxine Waters or AOC). Others are just fundamentally corrupt, and enjoying the power and wealth that come with the job (too many examples to count).
Depending on who you believe, the average sea level is rising somewhere around 2mm per year. Around 1mm per year is attributable to thermal expansion of the oceans. The rest must be melt water from glaciers and snow on land.
So, check my math: The surface area of the oceans is 3.4 * 10^8 square kilometers, or 3.4 * 10^14 square meters. Each millimeter of sea level rise then corresponds to 3.4 * 10^11 cubic meters, which happens to be 340 billion tons of water. Pretty close to their 390 billion tons.
So their figure makes sense. I suppose it's useful as confirmation, but it's hardly anything new or unexpected. But the big numbers impress clueless journalists...
They're not "fooling you", they are being realistic. There's nothing sensible about a schedule that says "we'll get you to New York at 17:00, if everything goes perfectly". Because things don't go perfectly. Some kid barfed on the seat, or the fuel truck broke down, or a wheelchair passenger took longer to offload, or whatever. And when things go wrong - which they will - people counting on a punctual arrival will be pissed. How much better to say "we'll get you to New York by 17:30", and then pleasantly surprise the passengers if you arrive early!
People tend to read too much into the concept of a name. As far as we know, animals don't have a sense of identity, in the same way that people do. A person may be able to step outside themselves and think: "that's me, and my name is XYZ". Animals can't, and don't.
So: what is a name to an animal? I submit that it is a very simple, functional sound: the sound made by a human who wants to get the animal's attention. And the animal gives its attention, because interesting things tend to follow.
If your girlfriends cats all come running to every name-sound, that is easily explained: you and your girlfriend are not consistent in rewarding them if-and-only-if the correct cat reacts to the name. If any cat gets treats/pets/whatever, whenever any cat is called, then they all effectively share all of the names. How are they supposed to differentiate, if you don't?
How dare they have a variety of viewpoints represented on an ethics board? Of course the SJWs got their panties in a twist, I mean, their viewpoints are the only ones that count. Everything else must be suppressed.
What is genuinely sad is that Google gave in on this. Since the SJWs got their way this time, they know their strategy works, and they'll whine all the louder next time.
This is research? Seriously? I was convinced this came from some crappy write-only journal, but...it comes from a Nature publication? That's just pathetic.
Ask any cat owner: of course cats recognize their names. Mine looks at you, to see what you want. If you say "come", then - guess what - she comes (well, most of the time, she is a cat after all). She also understands commands for simple tricks: sit, lie down, jump, etc.. And she's not any special breed, just an accident between two house cats.
Cats aren't as good with human languages as dogs, and they're a lot less interested in cooperating, but a small vocabulary is absolutely possible. Learning their own name? Well, duh. What a stupid research topic.
FWIW: Training cats to do tricks isn't hard, it just takes patience and perseverance. Start with hand signals, they come easier for the cat than words. But both are absolutely possible.
Gee, I never realized that AGW was the opposite of machine learning (ML). Everything bad that happens is blamed on AGW, whether or not it makes any sense. Meanwhile, anything good can be made better with ML.
Burned your hamburger on the grill? Darn that AGW! Enjoyed a good beer with your burnt hamburger? Imagine how much better that beer would taste with a little ML.
Stupid hype is stupid, news at 11:00.
"if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it"
In about 99% of the cases, I do have to agree with him. Anonymity is abused. Someone who wants to spew hate, drop f-bombs, disrupt discussions with ad hominem attacks - they almost always hide behind anonymity. If they acted like that IRL, someone would punch them. Make them put their real name* to their posts, they might moderate their speech, and add in some politeness and discussion.
The practical problem is: how do you allow speech by true whistleblowers, or by other people in a position where they genuinely cannot speak with their own voice? How can a platform allow them to use true anonymity, without allowing it for the ACs? I don't think it's really possible. Moderation systems like /. or Soylent are the best compromise I've seen: start ACs with less visibility, and let mods raise them or bury them. It's not ideal, but it's better than almost any other system I've seen.
*Yes, I practice what I preach: my pseudonym leads pretty directly to my real identity, and that is not an accident. It's just difficult enough to dissuade most trolls...
Formal verification has huge potential, and can (theoretically, at least), be applied to any software that doesn't have side effects (which mainly means: everything is an input or output parameter - no GUIs, no external input/output, etc..). It's really cool to have something significant that has been formally verified.
That said, formal verification still only takes you so far. There is no way for them to have proven immunity to side channels, or immunity to processor vulnerabilities, or even immunity to brute-force attacks. So this is an important battle, but it doesn't automatically win the war.
"some of these people are actually quite intelligent, they just aren't very good at collecting correct information about the world"
This. Without naming names, there is a blogger I used to read. A very intelligent guy, but...over the last couple of years, he has somehow fallen into the world of conspiracy theorists. Out of curiosity, I looked in on his blog a couple of days ago: he is now busily denying that the Apollo moon landings ever happened. It's really bizarre, watching the convolutions an intelligent mind invents, in order to justify crazy ideas.
Really, if you go far enough, nothing is provable, everything could be faked. Maybe we're all just brains in jars. But that's no way to live...
Currently, we subsidize the least successful, including their child-bearing. Meanwhile, the most successful members of society often choose to not have children, because of all the other pressures on their time. We're doing it wrong...
Remember when the UK supported the US fantasy of WMD in Iraq?
The US says "jump". The UK government asks "how high?"
Well, you're partly right. I've driven a fair bit in southern Germany (since I live in Switzerland), and sensible drivers are mostly safe. Mostly.
But you still have various dangers caused by the speed. A typical Autobahn only has two lanes on a side, at least in the area I'm familiar with. So take a slow truck in the right lane, going maybe 80kph. Then take a guy in his Mercedes tooling along in the left lane, at maybe 220 kph. Joe average comes up on the truck, changes to the left lane to pass.
Joe average is concentrating on the truck, and may not even see the Mercedes overtaking at a speed delta of 140kph - with the slightest curve in the road, the Mercedes won't even be visible when Joe changes lanes. Meanwhile, Mr. Mercedes often is an entitled asshole who will ride right up into Joe's backseat, to express his displeasure at having to brake. It's a dangerous situation in clear daylight. In twilight or with a bit of rain, well, crashes at those speeds are generally not survivable.
That means two things, neither of which is going to happen:
- Increased risk, including a likelihood of deaths.
- Reducing Congressional oversight, so they can't micromanage NASA's budget and force NASA to hand out pork to the "right" Congressional districts.
Realistically, it would probably also require a third thing: firing the NASA bureaucracy that has grown up in service of Pournelle's Iron Law.
So, no. Not going to happen. NASA as it exists today is not capable of doing this job.
Geez, this isn't even old news, it's ancient news. I suppose each new generation of web developers needs to understand that search engines include links (and link texts) in their ratings, but I remember teaching this stuff to my students 20 years ago. Why is this any sort of "feature story" on a tech site like Wired? Maybe they just hired a new intern, who re-discovered the wheel?
Remember when companies jumped all over the html bandwagon for email? Outlook was especially awful at rendering, iirc, but generally the corporate design got in the way of the actual purpose, which was transmitting information.
Thankfully, people realized this, and probably 90% of the email I see now is just text. Maybe with a logo or something,but that's all.
Amp for email? That's just the html idiocy all over again, only now cached on Google's server for their data collection. No, thanks, please get lost.
So, we have a tragedy in New Zealand. And the politicians are jumping all over it, with attempts to increase governmental power. It would be sad, if it weren't so damned stupid.
Guns are useful tools. Outlawing tools is not a solution. The internet is the greatest information-sharing tool ever invented. Censoring it is not a solution. A perfectly safe world is not a world anyone would want to live in: freedom would not exist, we would all be locked into individual rubber rooms. How else could mommy-government keep us safe?
You know, I would actually be fine with strengthening some aspects of copyright protection - if there were softening in other respects. Media producers want paid for snippets? Fine, absolutely fine. But their copyright expires in 12 months, after which the material enters the public domain.
What is actually likely to happen: Media companies will be shocked, shocked when companies like Google simply stop linking to them. Their business will collapse, until they see the solution: issuing a general public license allowing anyone to link to their content with no fees whatsoever. At which time, Google&Co. will start linking to them again. We've been here before, more or less. And we'll be here again in a few years, when the next generation of clueless MBAs decides to try to monetize links.
The liability of platforms for copyright infringement by their users? I'm not seeing a great solution to that one. Stupid politicians, this is why we can't have nice things...
All of it. Seriously, what business do governments have, keeping secrets from the citizens who create them? With very few exceptions, no secrets should be allowed. They are our employees.
Obviously, there is a problem with most governments...