Google, Apple, and Microsoft claim their control of all apps is about quality control and customer protection. I say it's about lock-in and free money (from the 30% take of all user purchases of app store software).
Go ahead, make third-party app stores certify through an objective process. Let users rate app stores, like Amazon lets shopper rate third-party sellers.
There's nothing like competition to spur innovation.
Making false statements is against the law in the United States, it is not protected speech. Freedom of speech (originally freedom of the press) is meant to protect the freedom to express opinions, especially unpopular ones, or opinions contrary to government doctrine. The Constitution has never attempted to protect lying.
So maybe running 8 miles a week had as much to do with your health as eating breakfast!
I rarely eat breakfast, but I otherwise eat a reasonably healthy diet and get good exercise. I'm not overweight, my blood pressure is 120/70, my heart rate is 50, and otherwise enjoy good health.
So for every individual example, there's a counter-example.
The Nobel foundation has a specific process designed to give awards in the way Mr. Nobel wanted them to be given. His methods won't please everybody. So if you want to reward something different, by all means establish your own prizes!
NPR had an interesting take on this recently. It seems that seamen have received less and less training over the last few years, an effort to save money. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
The Linux desktop has accomplished 80% of what is needed to become a real competitor to Windows. It has some nice UIs and plenty of tools, if you're a tinkerer, anyway. But for the masses of people who barely know how to create a shortcut on their desktop, that last 20% is a huge effort.
Windows is far from perfect. But features like...plug in a new printer or scanner and it just knows what to do--that's really important, and takes a huge amount of effort to make it happen. It's so much effort that only the money brought to a problem by commercial interests can possibly come up with the money or time to pay for it.
The Linux world thinks that it's enough to get things to work, with "just a little configuration." That works fine for Linux enthusiasts. But until Grandma can do it herself, Linux won't be on everybody's desktop.
And...how is it any more secure than any other phone?
The fundamentals of security don't depend on a phone being a "blockchain phone," whatever that means. In any case, blockchain isn't about higher security, it relies standard encryption algorithms.
Maybe "blockchain" is just a label to sell a product?
Yeah, so this is a place for nerds, right? Well, there is a point where it goes too far.
I like Star Trek--all of them except the reboot. I watched Discovery this Sunday, and was disappointed. It focused so much on the nerdy details that it lost a lot of story telling value. For example, none of the other series had ALL of the Klingon dialog in actual Klingon, with subtitles. It just doesn't need to be that canonically correct.
The automation of jobs in society is analogous to the abstraction in programming.
Over the decades, our programming languages and frameworks have become more and more powerful. They have automated basic jobs like the mechanics of input fields, displaying video, encryption, and all kinds of other tasks that we programmers used to have to write from scratch. Yet somehow, we programmers still stay busy! Now, we're able to do things we could never imagine before, like write a function that computes the most efficient route between two locations using Google (or other) map API.
I don't see programming jobs disappearing any time soon, and for that matter, I don't see the need for workers in general disappearing any time soon.
Looking at history, the new jobs have been better.
A hundred years ago, most people worked in hard labor jobs (farm jobs, factory jobs, meat packing, etc.) from sunup to sundown, seven days a week. Today, we typically work five days a week, 8-10 hours a day. I'd call that improvement.
Sure, some jobs might be worse, such as retail and fast food workers who don't have a predictable schedule. But those jobs account for only 18% of the US work force, far less than the percentage of farm and factory workers 100 years ago.
The correlation of horses to humans isn't quite on target. A better correlation would be humans who took care of horses with humans who take care of automobiles. Many of the jobs taking care of horses were indeed replaced by jobs taking care of automobiles.
We DO know that history tends to repeat itself, and there is no evidence that this time is different!
No, it doesn't matter that we've never had AI before. Every past historic cycle, something new came into the picture that we had never had before: tools, bronze, iron, factories, mechanization, computerization, and now AI.
When you have a single dominant market player, or only a few dominant market players, a merger is NEVER good for consumers. Mergers are always designed to benefit one or both of the merging companies, to make them stronger so they don't have to be as nice to customers. Mergers are never done for the benefit of customers, despite the insistence of the companies trying to sell it that way.
Do you believe the numbers? Only £39,000 a year average for programmers with college degrees? That's about 54K US. It only took me 4 years out of college, in the 80s, to make 54K, and it only went up from there. These days, you can make 54K immediately upon graduating.
Despite the hype, AVERAGE US college tuition is still only about $9,000 per year. I suspect that the real ROI is greater than purported by the article.
No, the Internet is still in its childhood. Maybe the teen years would be a better comparison. It's still a place where people do crazy stuff, and are stupid enough to think they'll get away with it. I don't think the Internet has reached any kind of adult level of maturity.
With that said, like any teenager, it's sorting itself out. Teens have to crash their car a time or two before they realize that it's a dangerous tool. The Googles and Facebooks of the world are starting to realize that they too are dangerous tools.
We've been hearing for decades that flying cars--and AI--are just a few years away. Right.
For flying cars, there's still one big problem that's not even close to a solution: Battery technology is nowhere near close to being able to store enough energy to make flying cars practical. A Tesla car battery weighs in at 1,200 lbs, and it can only power a car--on the ground--around 200 miles. It takes a lot more energy to keep a one ton drone aloft.
And then there's the problem of safety. Air traffic is routed specifically for safety, to minimize the possibility of crashes into buildings or people. With flying cars, the whole point would be to fly among people and buildings. This cannot have a good ending.
Yeah, I've gotten quite a few calls and emails from companies and recruiters using those "AI"-based systems. They say something like, "We have a couple of job openings that seem like a good fit for you. Please call us back ASAP!" Yeah right! If they really had a "couple of openings" that were a "good fit," they would tell me something about the openings that makes them a good fit.
Clinical depression is an illness, and like other illnesses, it can cause a lot of physical problems. Could it be that the illness itself is causing the organ malfunctions, rather than the antidepressants?
Depression also leads to many bad habits, such as substance abuse and other addictions. Could it be that these bad habits are the real cause of the organ failures?
Antidepressants do have some nasty side effects. We've known that for decades. But this study doesn't prove it. And even if it's right, the risk of death and poor quality of life due to depression is far worse than anything caused by these side effects.
Slashdot Mirror
Google, Apple, and Microsoft claim their control of all apps is about quality control and customer protection. I say it's about lock-in and free money (from the 30% take of all user purchases of app store software).
Go ahead, make third-party app stores certify through an objective process. Let users rate app stores, like Amazon lets shopper rate third-party sellers.
There's nothing like competition to spur innovation.
The article doesn't say that some of the dark matter has been accounted for by this gas, but rather, some missing "regular" matter.
The supposed amount of dark matter in the universe doesn't change a bit based on this discovery.
Making false statements is against the law in the United States, it is not protected speech. Freedom of speech (originally freedom of the press) is meant to protect the freedom to express opinions, especially unpopular ones, or opinions contrary to government doctrine. The Constitution has never attempted to protect lying.
So maybe running 8 miles a week had as much to do with your health as eating breakfast!
I rarely eat breakfast, but I otherwise eat a reasonably healthy diet and get good exercise. I'm not overweight, my blood pressure is 120/70, my heart rate is 50, and otherwise enjoy good health.
So for every individual example, there's a counter-example.
The Nobel foundation has a specific process designed to give awards in the way Mr. Nobel wanted them to be given. His methods won't please everybody. So if you want to reward something different, by all means establish your own prizes!
So...100 years = 1200 months. So yes, definitely just months away!
We've been hearing about how robots are coming after our jobs. Now they are even getting into politics!
I'm just glad they are supporting net neutrality!
NPR had an interesting take on this recently. It seems that seamen have received less and less training over the last few years, an effort to save money. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
The Linux desktop has accomplished 80% of what is needed to become a real competitor to Windows. It has some nice UIs and plenty of tools, if you're a tinkerer, anyway. But for the masses of people who barely know how to create a shortcut on their desktop, that last 20% is a huge effort.
Windows is far from perfect. But features like...plug in a new printer or scanner and it just knows what to do--that's really important, and takes a huge amount of effort to make it happen. It's so much effort that only the money brought to a problem by commercial interests can possibly come up with the money or time to pay for it.
The Linux world thinks that it's enough to get things to work, with "just a little configuration." That works fine for Linux enthusiasts. But until Grandma can do it herself, Linux won't be on everybody's desktop.
And...how is it any more secure than any other phone?
The fundamentals of security don't depend on a phone being a "blockchain phone," whatever that means. In any case, blockchain isn't about higher security, it relies standard encryption algorithms.
Maybe "blockchain" is just a label to sell a product?
They should have used a blockchain-based server.
Yeah, so this is a place for nerds, right? Well, there is a point where it goes too far.
I like Star Trek--all of them except the reboot. I watched Discovery this Sunday, and was disappointed. It focused so much on the nerdy details that it lost a lot of story telling value. For example, none of the other series had ALL of the Klingon dialog in actual Klingon, with subtitles. It just doesn't need to be that canonically correct.
The automation of jobs in society is analogous to the abstraction in programming.
Over the decades, our programming languages and frameworks have become more and more powerful. They have automated basic jobs like the mechanics of input fields, displaying video, encryption, and all kinds of other tasks that we programmers used to have to write from scratch. Yet somehow, we programmers still stay busy! Now, we're able to do things we could never imagine before, like write a function that computes the most efficient route between two locations using Google (or other) map API.
I don't see programming jobs disappearing any time soon, and for that matter, I don't see the need for workers in general disappearing any time soon.
Looking at history, the new jobs have been better.
A hundred years ago, most people worked in hard labor jobs (farm jobs, factory jobs, meat packing, etc.) from sunup to sundown, seven days a week. Today, we typically work five days a week, 8-10 hours a day. I'd call that improvement.
Sure, some jobs might be worse, such as retail and fast food workers who don't have a predictable schedule. But those jobs account for only 18% of the US work force, far less than the percentage of farm and factory workers 100 years ago.
The correlation of horses to humans isn't quite on target. A better correlation would be humans who took care of horses with humans who take care of automobiles. Many of the jobs taking care of horses were indeed replaced by jobs taking care of automobiles.
We DO know that history tends to repeat itself, and there is no evidence that this time is different!
No, it doesn't matter that we've never had AI before. Every past historic cycle, something new came into the picture that we had never had before: tools, bronze, iron, factories, mechanization, computerization, and now AI.
When you have a single dominant market player, or only a few dominant market players, a merger is NEVER good for consumers. Mergers are always designed to benefit one or both of the merging companies, to make them stronger so they don't have to be as nice to customers. Mergers are never done for the benefit of customers, despite the insistence of the companies trying to sell it that way.
Do you believe the numbers? Only £39,000 a year average for programmers with college degrees? That's about 54K US. It only took me 4 years out of college, in the 80s, to make 54K, and it only went up from there. These days, you can make 54K immediately upon graduating.
Despite the hype, AVERAGE US college tuition is still only about $9,000 per year. I suspect that the real ROI is greater than purported by the article.
Well, I have a computer science degree, AND a math minor. I detect a math problem here.
Average salary with degree: 38,000
Average salary without degree: 35,000
Difference: 3,000
Cost of a degree (according to the article): 50,000
Divide 50,000 by 3,000, and you get 16.67.
So in 17 years, a degree DOES pay for itself, even if one accepts all the numbers as fact.
No, the Internet is still in its childhood. Maybe the teen years would be a better comparison. It's still a place where people do crazy stuff, and are stupid enough to think they'll get away with it. I don't think the Internet has reached any kind of adult level of maturity.
With that said, like any teenager, it's sorting itself out. Teens have to crash their car a time or two before they realize that it's a dangerous tool. The Googles and Facebooks of the world are starting to realize that they too are dangerous tools.
We've been hearing for decades that flying cars--and AI--are just a few years away. Right.
For flying cars, there's still one big problem that's not even close to a solution: Battery technology is nowhere near close to being able to store enough energy to make flying cars practical. A Tesla car battery weighs in at 1,200 lbs, and it can only power a car--on the ground--around 200 miles. It takes a lot more energy to keep a one ton drone aloft.
And then there's the problem of safety. Air traffic is routed specifically for safety, to minimize the possibility of crashes into buildings or people. With flying cars, the whole point would be to fly among people and buildings. This cannot have a good ending.
Yeah, I've seen those commercials too.
And if I get a resume that prominently touts MCSE, that resume gets sent to File 13 immediately. It takes more than a certificate.
Yeah, I've gotten quite a few calls and emails from companies and recruiters using those "AI"-based systems. They say something like, "We have a couple of job openings that seem like a good fit for you. Please call us back ASAP!" Yeah right! If they really had a "couple of openings" that were a "good fit," they would tell me something about the openings that makes them a good fit.
This "AI" is just the next iteration of SPAM.
The article doesn't mention a control group.
Clinical depression is an illness, and like other illnesses, it can cause a lot of physical problems. Could it be that the illness itself is causing the organ malfunctions, rather than the antidepressants?
Depression also leads to many bad habits, such as substance abuse and other addictions. Could it be that these bad habits are the real cause of the organ failures?
Antidepressants do have some nasty side effects. We've known that for decades. But this study doesn't prove it. And even if it's right, the risk of death and poor quality of life due to depression is far worse than anything caused by these side effects.
I knew it! The robots are coming for all our jobs! Pretty soon, all those fake review writer jobs will be lost forever!