Oh they could do that. If they wanted to. But why would they provide quality, when profitability is what they're really after.
And why would they care that you're complaining? What are you going to do? Jump ship to TimeWarner Cable? HA! That's a laugh. (They were already bought out by Charter two years ago).
I'm more used to corporations doing a more subtle bait and switch game where they grow their popularity with quality products and then try and cut costs as subtly as possible. Outsourcing to China, using cheaper meat, getting rid of what their warranty covers.
Having a CEO just come out and say "We're going to send this channel straight into the shitter" right to our face is just a weird amount of honesty. I mean, they coach it in positive terms as PR people are ought to do. But even they acknowledge it's going to be painful.
HBO targeting PHONE audiences. So.... Westworld, but cut down to 6 second VINE clips. Season 10 of Game of Thrones will be flash animation with 3 characters remaining after the killing of the rest. And it won't be the expensive ones.
Well no, I wouldn't be fine with that. Hence the part where I'm welcoming the new overlords with supplications. So hopefully the genocide doesn't include me as I'd no longer be part of that country.
Oh man, I know it's been a while, but did you not grasp what the news reporter was doing on that episode of Simpsons? He presumed an alien race coming to conquer Earth and he SWITCHED SIDES. He was rooting for the ants and was generally throwing the rest of Earth under the bus. "Race traitor" would be the term. "Conquered sycophant" maybe.
Since it's a recent historical event, this doesn't really need to be a mystery.
1,245–1,836 total died from hurricane Katrina. With about half of that in New Orleans, where most of the death occurred due to flooding from the broken levees. Of course, the city was told to evacuate. (Or "bug out" if you prefer that term). And most people did. Those that did not were the recluses who didn't hear the news, the old and infirm who couldn't easily leave, and those without cars. Anyone with a bug-out bag... really only needed a set of wheels to leave for high ground for a day. Maybe a tent and such or some cash for a hotel.
Many of those who died were in nursing homes and hospitals. You're not going to have a bug-out bag next to your dialysis machine. If granny has trouble getting down the hall, she's going to have trouble bugging out. If you're an able-bodied adult planning to spend $50+ on being prepared, you would have been fine. Unless you somehow thought "I'm prepared for this" and didn't evacuate.
But it's always some kind of strange fear they have of the future, there's very few examples of successful bug outs. I mean where they went when shit happens, survived whatever calamity happened and like good call. It's more peace of mind than an actual solution...
Absolutely. A modern day adult security blanket.
But... There's really nothing all that wrong with that. The... ok, honestly, it's straight-up delusion to call non-preppers "future victims", that's just laughable. Yeah, ok, some people take it way too far. But in general it's not a harmful thing. And there are plenty of people who don't go overboard.
It's no different then selling stock and buying gold certs. Or a dashcam on the car. Or life insurance. All of these are MOSTLY tools for peace of mind. Something to sooth anxiety and get people to stop worrying about the future. Adult security blankets to help middle-class Too much anxiety and... you're crazy. On the flip side, you're ALSO crazy if you give zero shits about the future. Where do you draw the line in the sand though for disapproval? (And where's the line for involuntary committal?) Being prepared is... a good thing.
This sort of thing has been possible since forever with the right know how. And just like Netflix brought Internet video to the masses, someone out there is going to get rich by making stuff people can plug in at home and have.... whatever services they want running.
But it'll have to deal with server maintenance. It has to deal with networking. It has to be plug and play. And the "value add" of privacy isn't going to be what makes it mainstream.
Does the fact that there has been a for-profit campaign at misrepresenting the truth surrounding this topic make you question the path you took to come to the exact outcome they were aiming for?
Not for a second.
Then you're a true believer that won't question the dogma you've been fed. Good luck with that. It's great you're appealing to science. It's a good path. But part of science is re-examining your preconceived notions.
I started out by pointing out the difference between global warming and climate change. Then I dug into the text you regurgitated from the IPCC report. I found what you were bitching about, and pointed out the text that followed in the very same report. Then I questioned where you actually got the values you were complaining about.
That's a lovely dump of some paper.
Now cough it up the actual values. SCIENCE. You've stated:
Uncertainty of the energy imbalance in climate models is GREATER than the energy imbalance caused by that CO2 increase, and by quite a lot.
1) What is the uncertainty of the energy imbalance in climate models? (The uncertainty for the factor for cloud feedback was +-0.7 W m–2 C–1)
2) What is the energy imbalance caused by CO2 increases?
This is the main thrust of your argument, yet you've HAVEN'T ACTUALLY STATED WHAT THEY ARE. Other than.... "A lot".
Yes, let's get back to TOTALLY DODGING THE QUESTION:.
Does the fact that there has been a for-profit campaign at misrepresenting the truth surrounding this topic make you question the path you took to come to the exact outcome they were aiming for?
Answer it, you bastard.
If you agree that there is not uncertainty when it comes to measured global warming them I'm good. We have TWO DECADES of observable fact since the IPA put forth this plan. They didn't like where the science was headed so they tried to cast doubt on the whole affair and get the public to distrust SCIENCE. This is some straight-up anti-intellectualism. But if you really squint, they were just betting that, hey, maybe the scientists are wrong. There's a chance. Maybe it'll be ok. And here we are, two decades later, and THE OIL GIANTS WERE WRONG.
But hey, I like science. I'm asking you to do some introspection and provide insight into how much you've been duped. Least I can do is answer your questions. Alright, lemme dig in.
Do you acknowledge that our climate models are only as good as their predictions of the global energy imbalance?
No. That's more like global warming models. The aggregate. The global warming models are only as good as their predictions of global energy imbalance, those two things are practically synonymous. Climate models would be the resulting shifts in.... mostly the water cycle, but also wind patterns, and where storms develop. Ocean currents as well I guess. Global warming and the resulting changes to climate are very much tied to the hip of one another and I don't think you'll argue that global warming leads to climate change. The less certain we are about how hot it's going to get the less we can predict climate changes. I think this actually leans in your favor, but it's good to be precise.
You've shifted from complaining about the size of the error margins in Top of Atmosphere heat exchange to the IPCC's comments about modelling cloud effects....oh, I see where you lifted that from. The IPCC report, page 750, box 9.1. Yeah, it mentions "For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. " My argument against that would be to READ THE REST OF THE FUCKING INFOBOX. The IPCC itself states about the models: "There is very high confidence that models reproduce the general features of the global-scale annual mean surface temperature increase over the historical period, including the more rapid warming in the second half of the 20th century" IE, they CAN INDEED "hindcast", as you claimed they cannot. On model tuning: "What emerges is that the models that plausibly reproduce the past, universally display significant warming under increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, consistent with our physical understanding."
as the uncertainties like clouds have a greater influence on the energy imbalance than the increased CO2 concentrations we're experiencing.
You're talking about the differences between models, which comes from how they model clouds, which the IPCC acknowledges is where most the differences come from.
You've yet to actually state how much uncertainty is derived from cloud effects, or how much influence from increased CO2. You've given nothing to compare. So let's look. (And we ARE both looking at the same document). That chart on 818 has cloud feedback at 0.3 +-0.7 W m–2 C–1, the most uncertain, the one you're harping about. I don't know, and you've not stated, how much influence increased CO2 concentrations has on global warming. Am I reading this right? Is the effective forcing 3.7 +-0.8 for CO2?... Anyway, you're claiming it's low. Lower than the 0.7 uncertainty we have when it comes to the feedback factor from clouds. If you want to try your hand and questioning science, you
How much technological advancement is needed in your mind to represent a nation, or a civilization? They clearly had a well formed system of art, societal structure, justice and political structure.
As much or more than mine. At least, to be on equal footing. If you lag behind my civilization, then your civilization is... lesser. But even a hive of of ants is still a "nation". Just one I don't mind crushing nonchalantly. If aliens come down and casually vaporize the moon or hand us magical eternal megawatt batteries, then hey, I for one welcome our new vaporizing overlords....And none of those examples are technology. Arts, social structure, justice, and politics.... aren't tech. Signs of civilization, sure. And each can be advanced or a backwards laughable clusterfuck (oh god our healthcare is so bad) but they're like different prongs of civilization. The Klingons have photon torpedoes and have to be respected, but their system of justice is a bat'leth to the head. The Great Sioux Nation was a serious piece of politicking by a 7 different tribes, but I wouldn't say much about any of their social structures. Also, don't call them Sioux.
I'm totally with you on the next two points though.
I don't think the economy is good. Unemployment is higher than the official numbers, it ignores underemployment, and a rosy stock market does not mean things are going well for the average worker. Next year when the middle class can't get their mortgage interest deduction I expect to see a lot more belt tightening.
The stock market being up and interest rates being down makes bankers loose with their loans. Oh, wait, you're talking about the tax code change to deductions. Well it's not gone, but there's a limit on it now. If you were paying MORE than $10,000 on your mortgage (presumably, a new loan, so it's practically all interest) then you've just bought a.... https://www.iaacu.org/loans/lo........ $2.2 million dollar house, and the middle class frowns on your shenanigians. Hell, I'm upper-middle in Denver, and I don't have a million dollar home. Normally here is where I'd cry and wail about strawmen and misrepresentation, but it's fucking TAXES. They're fucking complicated these days. No sweat. And there's something else about $1 million dollar debt limit for something or other. Maybe this is a big deal for middle class in SanFran, but they're not average workers.
But yeah, I get that average workers don't own stock, but it's still a good thing for them that they're up. If a company's stock goes up, it's good times for the company and there won't be layoffs. If the company's stock goes down, the average worker gets the shaft, just like in 2008.
I also get that the official unemployment numbers are a bit of woowoo handwaving. But it's the same consistent metric. If it goes up or down, that's an indication of things getting better or worse. It doesn't count people who have simply given up, but if things are relatively better than in the past as the official numbers show, it will be easier for them to go get jobs. I already pointed out the gig economy shrinking, you just going to ignore that?
For next year you should be WAY more worried that rest of the world collectively stops shipping goods to or from America. Or if the top 5 ISPs deside to try and put a strangle-hold on the Internet. Or if we're in another costly and pointless war.
Yeah, I know. Martyros below has a great explaination for what they were actually researching. Science journalism just sucks. (And somehow that got onto slashdot...)
But uh.... lemme correct you on a couple points:
Quake, by virtue of being a twitch game (and multi-player) is non-deterministic.
Well, I mean Quake IS a non-determinisitic game. But that's because (some of) the weapons are in-accurate and the bullets randomly veer off. If you limit it to just using rail guns, it's pretty determinisitic.
Being a twitch game doesn't make it non-deterministic. It just means there's a real-time constraint on the time between turns. And turns are very short. Like milliseconds. Whatever a "frame" is in Quake. This isn't exciting in the world of AI, it's just a hardware problem. AI researchers could just slow down the speed of the game and run it on a potato PC. Even if the concept of "turn" is done away with, a game can still be deterministic.
Being multi-player certainly doesn't make it non-deterministic. Chess is multi-player.
The fact that the entire map isn't known, and players can hide around corners, means that there isn't "perfect information". Like in poker, you don't know what's in the player's hand like you don't know where the other QuakeBot is at all times. That's similar to determinacy, but not the same thing.
That makes it a much harder problem for AI to solve,
Eh, it makes it different. Chess is determinisitc, is hard to play, and is not solved. Chutes and ladders is non-deterministic, and is pretty easy to play. It is "solved" in the sense that there is a known optimal play strategy. (Just keep taking turns). Backgammon has perfect information, but is non-deterministic (And I don't think it's solved). Poker isn't solved as it's all about that interaction when two agents try and predict each other's moves. It's tied to the hip with psychology and that's a mess.
The imperfect information is what makes it harder for AI. The search-space for predicting another intelligence explodes real quick. But AI can deal with baysian distributions like a boss.
Last year, after smashing both go and chess with their self-play-from-zero strategy, they tried the same thing with Starcraft. And they lost spectacularly -- even after millions of games, their self-trained DeepMind agents were unable to beat even the most simplistic "scripted" StarCraft AI -- the ones designed for n00b humans to beat up on. They discovered that while the self-play agents were able to eventually figure out activities like "harvest minerals", they were unable to put those together into higher-level activities like building an army and winning a game.
One of the key refinements they introduce in this paper is to allow the agents to evolve their own internal "rewards", which were sub-steps towards winning. These goals included things like killing an opponent, capturing a flag, recapturing their own flag, avoiding being killed, and so on. The programmers architected in that such rewards were *possible*, but let the learning algorithm define what those rewards actually were and how much the reward was for each one.
Magnificent. You should write journalism. Why isn't this modded higher.
Of course not, that's the part where the AI learned the interface. That's neat. And it's been done. That would take me at least a week to set up. Did you know there are tutorials online?
I was talking about a more traditional bot with perfect aim and instant reactions. It's really just.... wander(); if(LoS(player)){BOOM(HEADSHOT);}
If it's Capture the Flag, patrol between the two flags. And since it's QuakeIII, add in waypoints to go pick up LightningGuns, RailGuns, and health. My point being that a bot that dominates players in quake3 isn't the goal. It isn't fun. And it's not that impressive.
navigate this without constantly banging into walls
Whoa whoa whoa buddy, that sort of feature creep will cost you extra.
I would say yes, it is clearly out of touch with reality.
. . . ho boy.
ok. I need you to scroll up and look at the original anonymous coward who posted those bullet points from the oil association. (Was that you? Did you just give up wearing the mask? Whatever, doesn't matter). Here, I'll just post it:
the plan lists as "Victory will be achieved when":
-Average citizens "understand(recognize) uncertainties in climate science, recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the "conventional wisdom". -Media "understands"(recognizes) uncertainties in climate science -Media coverage reflects balance on climate science and recognition of the validity of viewpoints that challenge the current "conventional wisdom" -Industry senior leadership understands uncertainties in climate science, making them stronger ambassadors to those who shape climate policy -Those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear to be out of touch with reality
Now.... if you agree (which you have) that the IPA is engaging in a propoganda campaign and spreading FUD, then doesn't that kind of highlight the part of their plan where they perform character assasination on anyone supporting the Kyoto agreement? The part where they have plans to paint them as "out of touch with reality"?
I know that regardless of what PR campaign they're running, and what kind of propoganda and lies have been injected into the debate, none of that changes the actual scientific facts. Only how they're represented by people. The truth is out there no matter the layer of shit it's been covered with. But it can be damn hard to see when there are untrustworthy actors being paid to decieve.
Does the fact that there has been a for-profit campaign at misrepresenting the truth surrounding this topic make you question the path you took to come to the exact outcome they were aiming for?
This kind of crap really is just a sales blow job for AI which is a pretty solid indication that AI is currently shite and they need to make up more shite to cover it up.
Naw, there's legit applications. Google search is AI. It does a great job of finding you cat pictures and shit.
This is just a science/technology article made by some journalist who doesn't understand the subject matter and is easily impressed by something they think is hard.
But that's a skill-based game, as opposed to strategy or anything needing intelligence. "Skill" as in reaction time to seeing an opponent and successfully moving clicking the mouse of their head. Give me a couple minutes and I can script up a bot that dominates players. That's not hard. And it's not even fun.
To have a real comparison, you'd have to let humans play with cheat-codes. Aim-bots and enemy highlighters. Maybe set it to ultra-slow, or add in bullet-time or something. But at that point, you're no longer playing Quake.
The part where it learned the interface, the objectives, and some strategies on it's own are fun and interesting. The sort of thing I'd expect from an undergrad in comSci. But it's been done and it's not any more impressive than having it learn how to beat MarioBros.
Chess and Go are games that require thought. Quake require twitch.
Trump is dismantling the EPA and FCC. Taking away all their money, power, and authority to do anything. I think that sucks. But there is a legitimate political viewpoint that we don't need the government to limit pollution or to regulate communications. I think that viewpoint is bullshit. But they've been squaking about this long enough and loud enough that it's a political issue and... hey, they got a candidate in the white-house. Let them try. At WORST, we will have 4 years of disruption in systems that take FAR more than 4 years to steer. We will be able to point at all the god-damned bullshit that happened under his system and... make political statements. Point out how full of shit the opposition is. That they had their chance, we tried it their way, and it didn't work.
And... these two aspects aside, there are a lot of racist asshats who want to throw all the immigrants in a box. They think he's doing great.
And give credit where credit is due. He's made progress with N. Korea. There's a CHANCE he won't bungle it. I think the guy's just a bully and he managed to bully Kim into action. A nuclear game of chicken. The sort of game where you only really have to worry if the other guy is completely crazy. Which oh look, we've got that guy. If reunification happens, it's going to be WEIRD. There will be statues of Trump as a man of peace.
the economy is rosy
Um... It is. The current state is good. The stock market is up, unemploymenet is down, bonds are down but that's a bigger problem than Trump. There was a definate and clear "trump bump" at the end of 2016. Stocks surged. Stocks are more rocky in 2018, but they're not down. But unemployment is down so low that it's a problem for companies. The gig economy is shrinking because people can go get real jobs (hurrzah).
The prognosis is more like "We're shitting bricks over the prospect of a trade war with.... EVERYONE". Literally self-imposed sanctions. It's ridiculous. A republican pushing for tarrifs. What kind of bizarro world is this? (It's one where the poor working-class republican voting masses got a leader elected as opposed to rich republican businessmen. Tariffs help local production despite being massivly harmful to the economy.) And so stocks are skittish, but that hammer hasn't dropped yet.
and he is keeping all his campaign promises to them
Pft, WHICH campaign promises? The guy bullshitted off the cuff and spoke out both sides of his head. And half of that was so ridiculous no one believed they were real. And then he did a few of those, to our collective facepalm.
But here you go. From politifact, who is sadly not nearly as unbiased as they used to be. If his haters only think he's broken 7%, while half are in the works or kept... Trump supporters might have point. Even Obama took most of his two terms fighting for health care reform, and had some shitty compromises in the process.
Also, who are the poor bastards that have to go through his campaign trail transcripts and try and pin down what his actual statements were?
I'm not sure the US can survive another 4 years of him.
Do not think the USA is so weak and fragile that Trump is an existential threat. No matter how bad a job he does with his policies, we will survive. This is like terrorism. No matter what a group of people do out in a desert on the other side of the globe, it will not end the USA. 3000 corpses and some lost real-estate, with no disrespect to the dead, wasn't the end of us. The only thing we had to fear is fear itself (and we holy shit we flubbed that one and allowed ourselves to be terrified). Trump would have to initiate global thermonuclear war to actually bring down the USA. He's got that button, and he's pointed at it a couple times, but the odds of him actually pushing it are slim. Even then, the world's nuclear arsenal isn't what it used to be. I think most governments would go, but it wouldn't be an extinction event.
the observed historical warming has been measured with high precision and certainty.
Boom! DONE. I agree. Again. And that means the IPA oil giants are conducting a propaganda campaign. FUD, pure and simple. Those asshats. That was really my only argument. This is established, known, not-uncertain fact.
you CAN NOT state that the science on future warming trends is so certain that we know adopting such catastrophic economic consequences now is better than adapting to future warming...
We can state for certain that (as of 2018) global warming will continue. It is also a fact that there has been major economic disruption due to climate change. The current debate is how bad it is going to be and what to do about it. I have stated this multiple times. I think we're both on the same page about the current state of the science, although you seem to be confused about what a statistical model is. I don't think that really matters though, we both agree on the main point.
hmmm, I haven't really pushed the Kyoto treaty... but if I did, would you say that I'm"out of touch with reality"?
but the lack of competition within the telecom industry is solely due to the extensive regulation that effectively makes it impossible for new entrants to participate in the market.
So Google can't make any money with their fiber business. That's because even after they sort through all the legal bullshit about who is allowed to touch what telephone poles (which is a completely and legitimate aspect of your argument), the telecoms simply drop the price in the area and subsidize those operations with heavier fees elsewhere. Classic under-cutting. Hey! Competition drops prices! WOOOO! Good times for the customer. In the few handful of places where Google as tried to come to town. Because they can't make money. Because once you own a (near) monopoly, it's easy to shut out even Mr. money-bag Google.
Now, the fundemental aspect of running multiple utilities to all the houses in a city IS INDEED a natural monopoly. Not an impossible one to overcome. Way better than... sewar or water, and better than rules of right of way on a river. If you want to really blame government though, it's the local municipalities that build the telephone infrastructure. They paid for it, they want to charge the telecoms to access it right? Makes sense. Seems fair. BUT the telecoms was exclusive rights to the poles. And they'll pay for it. THAT is fucking bullshit. On the flip-side, having different utility teams repeatedly snipping competitors cables would suck. I'm not sure how to fix that if it became a problem. Hell, why not mandate body cameras for the linemen. But oh noes! ebil gov'mint interference!
You right-wingers need to stop assuming that government is to blame for everything. What next, did it curdle your milk? Did it make your kid autistic?
this was data that Facebook happily gave the Obama campaign as well as just about any company that asked....No one cared when Obama used the same trick to steal the election from Romney.
The difference being what they used the data for. If you use the yellow pages to call people and tell them to vote for you guy, eh, fine. Annoying but not a crime. If you use the yellow pages to systematically murder people in a district to try and sway the vote, that's wrong.
Trump and Russia used and Internet propaganda campaign of lies to sway voters. This is, subtly, different from a campaign PR campaign. Namely:
- Is it clear who purchased the advertisement?
- Is it clear that it IS an advertisement?
- Does the advertisement lie to the viewer, and to what extent?
Show me the propaganda from the Obama campaign, and I'll show you a pile of garbage out of Russia that's 10 times worse.
Consider this: A political outsider running on a populist platform managed to get elected over the established candidate that everyone thought was going to win. That's amazing. An upset. A sign that we actually live in a democracy. Because even if everyone can vote, but there's only the illusion of choice and the party leaders are going to pick whom they want to run, then it's not really a democracy. And for all the elections I've been around for, the victor was pretty much determined by who paid more for it. That's not a democracy, that's a plutocracy at best or a government full of corrupt official semi-employed by corporate interests at worst. But Trump only raised about half the money Hilary did. And he still won.
I was feeling really cynical about the whole process but this one actually opened my eyes to the fact that the voters really DO have control over the outcome. Shocking I know. And HO BOY was that a shock. Seriously, I saw the numbers midway through and had to have a drink.
Now... it's ALSO a bad day for democracy. It showcased how effective propaganda can be, in case anyone had forgotten that. It also showcased how ugly elections can get. It wasn't NEARLY as bad as, say, the elections down in Mexico right now. The pile of corpses simply doesn't stack up. But it was relatively ugly for the crazy primary, tone of violence, vitriol, and hacking someone's email isn't the sort of thing we want to become commonplace. And just the sheer volume of bold-faced lies. It wasn't a good election. Better than some of our own from the past, but pretty bad by recent standards.
Buu ugliness aside, completely ignoring the... security holes of democracy and how easily swayed the voting masses are. This was a bad day for democracy. Because the guy that got elected is almost* universally reviled. The opposition really hates him. More so than the other side hated a black guy, surprisingly. The media hates him. His own party's leadership isn't a huge fan, but they're willing to use him. Some even came out against him. The best thing about our nation is it's ability to change. To balance out things and fix what's wrong. After this sort of populist movement got someone SO BAD into the white house, we're not going to see ANY hope of another populist movement again for a long time.
"but what is important is making sure it doesn't happen again."
Yep. Exactly. That'll mean more "super-candidates", more party control over who gets onto primary ballots, and the general populace will be more leery of political outsiders. It's kind of a damn shame, because if the DNC didn't have such a strong hold over the party then maybe Bernie might have had a real shot. Trump vs Bernie would have been an interesting election.
But hey, other than the EPA and FCC being castrated, maybe things won't be so bad. He's legitimately made good strides with N.Korea. Let's hope, right?
*almost, but not all. There is a very significant number of people that legitimately like his leadership style. A bully, in charge, bold, "masculine", authoritative. I'm pretty sure Mussolini wrote about this. "He'll make the trains run on time". One downside of democracy is that a lot of people are assholes.
Right. If 90% of their customers just watch the top 10 shows, that's only 10 shows they need to push to their CDN. They don't even need to pay the IP holders money. On the flip side, if everyone watches a random sampling of shows, their CDN has to move a ton of data. If a third-party show gets popular, that means they'll negotiate for more from Netflix next season.
Controlling what people watch simply makes them money.
That you simply cannot unsubscribe from! The GALL!
Ease up with the sarcasm, I've already canceled. And yeah, all their shows are bundled into one service. Just like cable. Users can't pick and choose where their money goes, it's all or nothing. Now they can't even comment on what's good.
IMBD also shot down user reviews. It's a weird sort of power play from the establishment.
Slashdot Mirror
Mini-programs, which are no bigger than 10 megabytes
*Angrily boots up Tandy 1000*
*Me, an embedded engineer*: Tng n zhège xio péngkè!
Oh they could do that. If they wanted to. But why would they provide quality, when profitability is what they're really after.
And why would they care that you're complaining? What are you going to do? Jump ship to TimeWarner Cable? HA! That's a laugh. (They were already bought out by Charter two years ago).
I'm more used to corporations doing a more subtle bait and switch game where they grow their popularity with quality products and then try and cut costs as subtly as possible. Outsourcing to China, using cheaper meat, getting rid of what their warranty covers.
Having a CEO just come out and say "We're going to send this channel straight into the shitter" right to our face is just a weird amount of honesty. I mean, they coach it in positive terms as PR people are ought to do. But even they acknowledge it's going to be painful.
HBO targeting PHONE audiences. So.... Westworld, but cut down to 6 second VINE clips. Season 10 of Game of Thrones will be flash animation with 3 characters remaining after the killing of the rest. And it won't be the expensive ones.
Well no, I wouldn't be fine with that. Hence the part where I'm welcoming the new overlords with supplications. So hopefully the genocide doesn't include me as I'd no longer be part of that country.
Oh man, I know it's been a while, but did you not grasp what the news reporter was doing on that episode of Simpsons? He presumed an alien race coming to conquer Earth and he SWITCHED SIDES. He was rooting for the ants and was generally throwing the rest of Earth under the bus. "Race traitor" would be the term. "Conquered sycophant" maybe.
Since it's a recent historical event, this doesn't really need to be a mystery.
1,245–1,836 total died from hurricane Katrina. With about half of that in New Orleans, where most of the death occurred due to flooding from the broken levees. Of course, the city was told to evacuate. (Or "bug out" if you prefer that term). And most people did. Those that did not were the recluses who didn't hear the news, the old and infirm who couldn't easily leave, and those without cars. Anyone with a bug-out bag... really only needed a set of wheels to leave for high ground for a day. Maybe a tent and such or some cash for a hotel.
Many of those who died were in nursing homes and hospitals. You're not going to have a bug-out bag next to your dialysis machine. If granny has trouble getting down the hall, she's going to have trouble bugging out. If you're an able-bodied adult planning to spend $50+ on being prepared, you would have been fine. Unless you somehow thought "I'm prepared for this" and didn't evacuate.
But it's always some kind of strange fear they have of the future, there's very few examples of successful bug outs. I mean where they went when shit happens, survived whatever calamity happened and like good call. It's more peace of mind than an actual solution...
Absolutely. A modern day adult security blanket.
But... There's really nothing all that wrong with that. The... ok, honestly, it's straight-up delusion to call non-preppers "future victims", that's just laughable. Yeah, ok, some people take it way too far. But in general it's not a harmful thing. And there are plenty of people who don't go overboard.
It's no different then selling stock and buying gold certs. Or a dashcam on the car. Or life insurance. All of these are MOSTLY tools for peace of mind. Something to sooth anxiety and get people to stop worrying about the future. Adult security blankets to help middle-class Too much anxiety and... you're crazy. On the flip side, you're ALSO crazy if you give zero shits about the future. Where do you draw the line in the sand though for disapproval? (And where's the line for involuntary committal?) Being prepared is... a good thing.
Bring forth the age of "SELF HOSTED".
This sort of thing has been possible since forever with the right know how. And just like Netflix brought Internet video to the masses, someone out there is going to get rich by making stuff people can plug in at home and have.... whatever services they want running.
But it'll have to deal with server maintenance. It has to deal with networking. It has to be plug and play. And the "value add" of privacy isn't going to be what makes it mainstream.
Does the fact that there has been a for-profit campaign at misrepresenting the truth surrounding this topic make you question the path you took to come to the exact outcome they were aiming for?
Not for a second.
Then you're a true believer that won't question the dogma you've been fed. Good luck with that. It's great you're appealing to science. It's a good path. But part of science is re-examining your preconceived notions.
I started out by pointing out the difference between global warming and climate change. Then I dug into the text you regurgitated from the IPCC report. I found what you were bitching about, and pointed out the text that followed in the very same report. Then I questioned where you actually got the values you were complaining about.
That's a lovely dump of some paper.
Now cough it up the actual values. SCIENCE. You've stated:
Uncertainty of the energy imbalance in climate models is GREATER than the energy imbalance caused by that CO2 increase, and by quite a lot.
1) What is the uncertainty of the energy imbalance in climate models? (The uncertainty for the factor for cloud feedback was +-0.7 W m–2 C–1)
2) What is the energy imbalance caused by CO2 increases?
This is the main thrust of your argument, yet you've HAVEN'T ACTUALLY STATED WHAT THEY ARE. Other than.... "A lot".
Yes, let's get back to TOTALLY DODGING THE QUESTION:.
Does the fact that there has been a for-profit campaign at misrepresenting the truth surrounding this topic make you question the path you took to come to the exact outcome they were aiming for?
Answer it, you bastard.
If you agree that there is not uncertainty when it comes to measured global warming them I'm good. We have TWO DECADES of observable fact since the IPA put forth this plan. They didn't like where the science was headed so they tried to cast doubt on the whole affair and get the public to distrust SCIENCE. This is some straight-up anti-intellectualism. But if you really squint, they were just betting that, hey, maybe the scientists are wrong. There's a chance. Maybe it'll be ok. And here we are, two decades later, and THE OIL GIANTS WERE WRONG.
But hey, I like science. I'm asking you to do some introspection and provide insight into how much you've been duped. Least I can do is answer your questions. Alright, lemme dig in.
Do you acknowledge that our climate models are only as good as their predictions of the global energy imbalance?
No. That's more like global warming models. The aggregate. The global warming models are only as good as their predictions of global energy imbalance, those two things are practically synonymous. Climate models would be the resulting shifts in.... mostly the water cycle, but also wind patterns, and where storms develop. Ocean currents as well I guess. Global warming and the resulting changes to climate are very much tied to the hip of one another and I don't think you'll argue that global warming leads to climate change. The less certain we are about how hot it's going to get the less we can predict climate changes. I think this actually leans in your favor, but it's good to be precise.
You've shifted from complaining about the size of the error margins in Top of Atmosphere heat exchange to the IPCC's comments about modelling cloud effects. ...oh, I see where you lifted that from. The IPCC report, page 750, box 9.1. Yeah, it mentions "For instance, maintaining the global mean top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy balance in a simulation of pre-industrial climate is essential to prevent the climate system from drifting to an unrealistic state. " My argument against that would be to READ THE REST OF THE FUCKING INFOBOX. The IPCC itself states about the models: "There is very high confidence that models reproduce the general features of the global-scale annual mean surface temperature increase over the historical period, including the more rapid warming in the second half of the 20th century" IE, they CAN INDEED "hindcast", as you claimed they cannot. On model tuning: "What emerges is that the models that plausibly reproduce the past, universally display significant warming under increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, consistent with our physical understanding."
as the uncertainties like clouds have a greater influence on the energy imbalance than the increased CO2 concentrations we're experiencing.
You're talking about the differences between models, which comes from how they model clouds, which the IPCC acknowledges is where most the differences come from.
You've yet to actually state how much uncertainty is derived from cloud effects, or how much influence from increased CO2. You've given nothing to compare. So let's look. (And we ARE both looking at the same document). That chart on 818 has cloud feedback at 0.3 +-0.7 W m–2 C–1, the most uncertain, the one you're harping about. I don't know, and you've not stated, how much influence increased CO2 concentrations has on global warming. Am I reading this right? Is the effective forcing 3.7 +-0.8 for CO2?... Anyway, you're claiming it's low. Lower than the 0.7 uncertainty we have when it comes to the feedback factor from clouds. If you want to try your hand and questioning science, you
How much technological advancement is needed in your mind to represent a nation, or a civilization? They clearly had a well formed system of art, societal structure, justice and political structure.
As much or more than mine. At least, to be on equal footing. If you lag behind my civilization, then your civilization is... lesser. But even a hive of of ants is still a "nation". Just one I don't mind crushing nonchalantly. If aliens come down and casually vaporize the moon or hand us magical eternal megawatt batteries, then hey, I for one welcome our new vaporizing overlords. ...And none of those examples are technology. Arts, social structure, justice, and politics.... aren't tech. Signs of civilization, sure. And each can be advanced or a backwards laughable clusterfuck (oh god our healthcare is so bad) but they're like different prongs of civilization. The Klingons have photon torpedoes and have to be respected, but their system of justice is a bat'leth to the head. The Great Sioux Nation was a serious piece of politicking by a 7 different tribes, but I wouldn't say much about any of their social structures. Also, don't call them Sioux.
I'm totally with you on the next two points though.
I don't think the economy is good. Unemployment is higher than the official numbers, it ignores underemployment, and a rosy stock market does not mean things are going well for the average worker. Next year when the middle class can't get their mortgage interest deduction I expect to see a lot more belt tightening.
The stock market being up and interest rates being down makes bankers loose with their loans. Oh, wait, you're talking about the tax code change to deductions. Well it's not gone, but there's a limit on it now. If you were paying MORE than $10,000 on your mortgage (presumably, a new loan, so it's practically all interest) then you've just bought a.... https://www.iaacu.org/loans/lo... ..... $2.2 million dollar house, and the middle class frowns on your shenanigians. Hell, I'm upper-middle in Denver, and I don't have a million dollar home. Normally here is where I'd cry and wail about strawmen and misrepresentation, but it's fucking TAXES. They're fucking complicated these days. No sweat. And there's something else about $1 million dollar debt limit for something or other. Maybe this is a big deal for middle class in SanFran, but they're not average workers.
But yeah, I get that average workers don't own stock, but it's still a good thing for them that they're up. If a company's stock goes up, it's good times for the company and there won't be layoffs. If the company's stock goes down, the average worker gets the shaft, just like in 2008.
I also get that the official unemployment numbers are a bit of woowoo handwaving. But it's the same consistent metric. If it goes up or down, that's an indication of things getting better or worse. It doesn't count people who have simply given up, but if things are relatively better than in the past as the official numbers show, it will be easier for them to go get jobs. I already pointed out the gig economy shrinking, you just going to ignore that?
For next year you should be WAY more worried that rest of the world collectively stops shipping goods to or from America. Or if the top 5 ISPs deside to try and put a strangle-hold on the Internet. Or if we're in another costly and pointless war.
But as of right now... the economy IS doing well.
Yeah, I know. Martyros below has a great explaination for what they were actually researching. Science journalism just sucks. (And somehow that got onto slashdot...)
But uh.... lemme correct you on a couple points:
Quake, by virtue of being a twitch game (and multi-player) is non-deterministic.
Well, I mean Quake IS a non-determinisitic game. But that's because (some of) the weapons are in-accurate and the bullets randomly veer off. If you limit it to just using rail guns, it's pretty determinisitic.
Being a twitch game doesn't make it non-deterministic. It just means there's a real-time constraint on the time between turns. And turns are very short. Like milliseconds. Whatever a "frame" is in Quake. This isn't exciting in the world of AI, it's just a hardware problem. AI researchers could just slow down the speed of the game and run it on a potato PC. Even if the concept of "turn" is done away with, a game can still be deterministic.
Being multi-player certainly doesn't make it non-deterministic. Chess is multi-player.
The fact that the entire map isn't known, and players can hide around corners, means that there isn't "perfect information". Like in poker, you don't know what's in the player's hand like you don't know where the other QuakeBot is at all times. That's similar to determinacy, but not the same thing.
That makes it a much harder problem for AI to solve,
Eh, it makes it different. Chess is determinisitc, is hard to play, and is not solved. Chutes and ladders is non-deterministic, and is pretty easy to play. It is "solved" in the sense that there is a known optimal play strategy. (Just keep taking turns). Backgammon has perfect information, but is non-deterministic (And I don't think it's solved). Poker isn't solved as it's all about that interaction when two agents try and predict each other's moves. It's tied to the hip with psychology and that's a mess.
The imperfect information is what makes it harder for AI. The search-space for predicting another intelligence explodes real quick. But AI can deal with baysian distributions like a boss.
Last year, after smashing both go and chess with their self-play-from-zero strategy, they tried the same thing with Starcraft. And they lost spectacularly -- even after millions of games, their self-trained DeepMind agents were unable to beat even the most simplistic "scripted" StarCraft AI -- the ones designed for n00b humans to beat up on. They discovered that while the self-play agents were able to eventually figure out activities like "harvest minerals", they were unable to put those together into higher-level activities like building an army and winning a game.
One of the key refinements they introduce in this paper is to allow the agents to evolve their own internal "rewards", which were sub-steps towards winning. These goals included things like killing an opponent, capturing a flag, recapturing their own flag, avoiding being killed, and so on. The programmers architected in that such rewards were *possible*, but let the learning algorithm define what those rewards actually were and how much the reward was for each one.
Magnificent. You should write journalism. Why isn't this modded higher.
Of course not, that's the part where the AI learned the interface. That's neat. And it's been done. That would take me at least a week to set up. Did you know there are tutorials online?
I was talking about a more traditional bot with perfect aim and instant reactions. It's really just.... wander(); if(LoS(player)){BOOM(HEADSHOT);}
If it's Capture the Flag, patrol between the two flags. And since it's QuakeIII, add in waypoints to go pick up LightningGuns, RailGuns, and health. My point being that a bot that dominates players in quake3 isn't the goal. It isn't fun. And it's not that impressive.
navigate this without constantly banging into walls
Whoa whoa whoa buddy, that sort of feature creep will cost you extra.
I would say yes, it is clearly out of touch with reality.
. . . ho boy.
ok. I need you to scroll up and look at the original anonymous coward who posted those bullet points from the oil association. (Was that you? Did you just give up wearing the mask? Whatever, doesn't matter). Here, I'll just post it:
the plan lists as "Victory will be achieved when":
-Average citizens "understand(recognize) uncertainties in climate science, recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the "conventional wisdom".
-Media "understands"(recognizes) uncertainties in climate science
-Media coverage reflects balance on climate science and recognition of the validity of viewpoints that challenge the current "conventional wisdom"
-Industry senior leadership understands uncertainties in climate science, making them stronger ambassadors to those who shape climate policy
-Those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear to be out of touch with reality
Now.... if you agree (which you have) that the IPA is engaging in a propoganda campaign and spreading FUD, then doesn't that kind of highlight the part of their plan where they perform character assasination on anyone supporting the Kyoto agreement? The part where they have plans to paint them as "out of touch with reality"?
I know that regardless of what PR campaign they're running, and what kind of propoganda and lies have been injected into the debate, none of that changes the actual scientific facts. Only how they're represented by people. The truth is out there no matter the layer of shit it's been covered with. But it can be damn hard to see when there are untrustworthy actors being paid to decieve.
Does the fact that there has been a for-profit campaign at misrepresenting the truth surrounding this topic make you question the path you took to come to the exact outcome they were aiming for?
This kind of crap really is just a sales blow job for AI which is a pretty solid indication that AI is currently shite and they need to make up more shite to cover it up.
Naw, there's legit applications. Google search is AI. It does a great job of finding you cat pictures and shit.
This is just a science/technology article made by some journalist who doesn't understand the subject matter and is easily impressed by something they think is hard.
You can stop "hmmm"ing and watch the sales video. It's been around for about 5 years on the civilian market.
Ship point defense systems do a much more impressive job and shoot down incoming shots.
But that's a skill-based game, as opposed to strategy or anything needing intelligence. "Skill" as in reaction time to seeing an opponent and successfully moving clicking the mouse of their head. Give me a couple minutes and I can script up a bot that dominates players. That's not hard. And it's not even fun.
To have a real comparison, you'd have to let humans play with cheat-codes. Aim-bots and enemy highlighters. Maybe set it to ultra-slow, or add in bullet-time or something. But at that point, you're no longer playing Quake.
The part where it learned the interface, the objectives, and some strategies on it's own are fun and interesting. The sort of thing I'd expect from an undergrad in comSci. But it's been done and it's not any more impressive than having it learn how to beat MarioBros.
Chess and Go are games that require thought. Quake require twitch.
Well hold up there.
Trump is doing an OK job
Trump is dismantling the EPA and FCC. Taking away all their money, power, and authority to do anything. I think that sucks. But there is a legitimate political viewpoint that we don't need the government to limit pollution or to regulate communications. I think that viewpoint is bullshit. But they've been squaking about this long enough and loud enough that it's a political issue and... hey, they got a candidate in the white-house. Let them try. At WORST, we will have 4 years of disruption in systems that take FAR more than 4 years to steer. We will be able to point at all the god-damned bullshit that happened under his system and... make political statements. Point out how full of shit the opposition is. That they had their chance, we tried it their way, and it didn't work.
And... these two aspects aside, there are a lot of racist asshats who want to throw all the immigrants in a box. They think he's doing great.
And give credit where credit is due. He's made progress with N. Korea. There's a CHANCE he won't bungle it. I think the guy's just a bully and he managed to bully Kim into action. A nuclear game of chicken. The sort of game where you only really have to worry if the other guy is completely crazy. Which oh look, we've got that guy. If reunification happens, it's going to be WEIRD. There will be statues of Trump as a man of peace.
the economy is rosy
Um... It is. The current state is good. The stock market is up, unemploymenet is down, bonds are down but that's a bigger problem than Trump. There was a definate and clear "trump bump" at the end of 2016. Stocks surged. Stocks are more rocky in 2018, but they're not down. But unemployment is down so low that it's a problem for companies. The gig economy is shrinking because people can go get real jobs (hurrzah).
The prognosis is more like "We're shitting bricks over the prospect of a trade war with.... EVERYONE". Literally self-imposed sanctions. It's ridiculous. A republican pushing for tarrifs. What kind of bizarro world is this? (It's one where the poor working-class republican voting masses got a leader elected as opposed to rich republican businessmen. Tariffs help local production despite being massivly harmful to the economy.) And so stocks are skittish, but that hammer hasn't dropped yet.
and he is keeping all his campaign promises to them
Pft, WHICH campaign promises? The guy bullshitted off the cuff and spoke out both sides of his head. And half of that was so ridiculous no one believed they were real. And then he did a few of those, to our collective facepalm.
But here you go. From politifact, who is sadly not nearly as unbiased as they used to be. If his haters only think he's broken 7%, while half are in the works or kept... Trump supporters might have point. Even Obama took most of his two terms fighting for health care reform, and had some shitty compromises in the process.
Also, who are the poor bastards that have to go through his campaign trail transcripts and try and pin down what his actual statements were?
I'm not sure the US can survive another 4 years of him.
Do not think the USA is so weak and fragile that Trump is an existential threat. No matter how bad a job he does with his policies, we will survive. This is like terrorism. No matter what a group of people do out in a desert on the other side of the globe, it will not end the USA. 3000 corpses and some lost real-estate, with no disrespect to the dead, wasn't the end of us. The only thing we had to fear is fear itself (and we holy shit we flubbed that one and allowed ourselves to be terrified). Trump would have to initiate global thermonuclear war to actually bring down the USA. He's got that button, and he's pointed at it a couple times, but the odds of him actually pushing it are slim. Even then, the world's nuclear arsenal isn't what it used to be. I think most governments would go, but it wouldn't be an extinction event.
the observed historical warming has been measured with high precision and certainty.
Boom! DONE. I agree. Again. And that means the IPA oil giants are conducting a propaganda campaign. FUD, pure and simple. Those asshats. That was really my only argument. This is established, known, not-uncertain fact.
you CAN NOT state that the science on future warming trends is so certain that we know adopting such catastrophic economic consequences now is better than adapting to future warming...
We can state for certain that (as of 2018) global warming will continue. It is also a fact that there has been major economic disruption due to climate change. The current debate is how bad it is going to be and what to do about it. I have stated this multiple times. I think we're both on the same page about the current state of the science, although you seem to be confused about what a statistical model is. I don't think that really matters though, we both agree on the main point.
hmmm, I haven't really pushed the Kyoto treaty... but if I did, would you say that I'm"out of touch with reality"?
Ah, Facebook. The ultimate authority when it comes to legally binding decisions of what is True and what is False. I'm sure this will end well.
but the lack of competition within the telecom industry is solely due to the extensive regulation that effectively makes it impossible for new entrants to participate in the market.
So Google can't make any money with their fiber business. That's because even after they sort through all the legal bullshit about who is allowed to touch what telephone poles (which is a completely and legitimate aspect of your argument), the telecoms simply drop the price in the area and subsidize those operations with heavier fees elsewhere. Classic under-cutting. Hey! Competition drops prices! WOOOO! Good times for the customer. In the few handful of places where Google as tried to come to town. Because they can't make money. Because once you own a (near) monopoly, it's easy to shut out even Mr. money-bag Google.
Now, the fundemental aspect of running multiple utilities to all the houses in a city IS INDEED a natural monopoly. Not an impossible one to overcome. Way better than... sewar or water, and better than rules of right of way on a river. If you want to really blame government though, it's the local municipalities that build the telephone infrastructure. They paid for it, they want to charge the telecoms to access it right? Makes sense. Seems fair. BUT the telecoms was exclusive rights to the poles. And they'll pay for it. THAT is fucking bullshit. On the flip-side, having different utility teams repeatedly snipping competitors cables would suck. I'm not sure how to fix that if it became a problem. Hell, why not mandate body cameras for the linemen. But oh noes! ebil gov'mint interference!
You right-wingers need to stop assuming that government is to blame for everything. What next, did it curdle your milk? Did it make your kid autistic?
this was data that Facebook happily gave the Obama campaign as well as just about any company that asked. ...No one cared when Obama used the same trick to steal the election from Romney.
The difference being what they used the data for. If you use the yellow pages to call people and tell them to vote for you guy, eh, fine. Annoying but not a crime. If you use the yellow pages to systematically murder people in a district to try and sway the vote, that's wrong.
Trump and Russia used and Internet propaganda campaign of lies to sway voters. This is, subtly, different from a campaign PR campaign. Namely:
- Is it clear who purchased the advertisement?
- Is it clear that it IS an advertisement?
- Does the advertisement lie to the viewer, and to what extent?
Show me the propaganda from the Obama campaign, and I'll show you a pile of garbage out of Russia that's 10 times worse.
It was both good and bad for democracy.
Consider this: A political outsider running on a populist platform managed to get elected over the established candidate that everyone thought was going to win. That's amazing. An upset. A sign that we actually live in a democracy. Because even if everyone can vote, but there's only the illusion of choice and the party leaders are going to pick whom they want to run, then it's not really a democracy. And for all the elections I've been around for, the victor was pretty much determined by who paid more for it. That's not a democracy, that's a plutocracy at best or a government full of corrupt official semi-employed by corporate interests at worst. But Trump only raised about half the money Hilary did. And he still won.
I was feeling really cynical about the whole process but this one actually opened my eyes to the fact that the voters really DO have control over the outcome. Shocking I know. And HO BOY was that a shock. Seriously, I saw the numbers midway through and had to have a drink.
Now... it's ALSO a bad day for democracy. It showcased how effective propaganda can be, in case anyone had forgotten that. It also showcased how ugly elections can get. It wasn't NEARLY as bad as, say, the elections down in Mexico right now. The pile of corpses simply doesn't stack up. But it was relatively ugly for the crazy primary, tone of violence, vitriol, and hacking someone's email isn't the sort of thing we want to become commonplace. And just the sheer volume of bold-faced lies. It wasn't a good election. Better than some of our own from the past, but pretty bad by recent standards.
Buu ugliness aside, completely ignoring the... security holes of democracy and how easily swayed the voting masses are. This was a bad day for democracy. Because the guy that got elected is almost* universally reviled. The opposition really hates him. More so than the other side hated a black guy, surprisingly. The media hates him. His own party's leadership isn't a huge fan, but they're willing to use him. Some even came out against him. The best thing about our nation is it's ability to change. To balance out things and fix what's wrong. After this sort of populist movement got someone SO BAD into the white house, we're not going to see ANY hope of another populist movement again for a long time.
"but what is important is making sure it doesn't happen again."
Yep. Exactly. That'll mean more "super-candidates", more party control over who gets onto primary ballots, and the general populace will be more leery of political outsiders. It's kind of a damn shame, because if the DNC didn't have such a strong hold over the party then maybe Bernie might have had a real shot. Trump vs Bernie would have been an interesting election.
But hey, other than the EPA and FCC being castrated, maybe things won't be so bad. He's legitimately made good strides with N.Korea. Let's hope, right?
*almost, but not all. There is a very significant number of people that legitimately like his leadership style. A bully, in charge, bold, "masculine", authoritative. I'm pretty sure Mussolini wrote about this. "He'll make the trains run on time". One downside of democracy is that a lot of people are assholes.
Right. If 90% of their customers just watch the top 10 shows, that's only 10 shows they need to push to their CDN. They don't even need to pay the IP holders money. On the flip side, if everyone watches a random sampling of shows, their CDN has to move a ton of data. If a third-party show gets popular, that means they'll negotiate for more from Netflix next season.
Controlling what people watch simply makes them money.
That you simply cannot unsubscribe from! The GALL!
Ease up with the sarcasm, I've already canceled. And yeah, all their shows are bundled into one service. Just like cable. Users can't pick and choose where their money goes, it's all or nothing. Now they can't even comment on what's good.
IMBD also shot down user reviews. It's a weird sort of power play from the establishment.