The "fundamental" issues are supply [...], and manufacturing [...]
Part of the debate/angst over the claim that "Tesla is trading on its fundamentals" might be the use of an investing term of art "fundamentals" in the context of "trading" (i.e., investing) but with a non-standard definition of what the word "fundamentals" refers to. This article https://www.investopedia.com/university/stockpicking/stockpicking1.asp outlines the basics of fundamental analysis in the context of investing.
TLDR; I think that for investors, the term "fundamentals" usually refers to factors in what is known as "fundamental analysis," in which the important factors for analyzing a company involve[s] "... evaluating a security using quantitative and qualitative factors to answer questions such as:
Are the company's revenues growing?
Is the company actually making a profit?
Can the company beat its competitors in the future?
Can the company repay its debts?
And ultimately: Will the company's stock be a good investment?" [from the Investopedia article]
People who question Tesla's "fundamentals" might well be questioning whether the company is actually making a profit and can beat its competitors in the future, not looking just at some factors that contribute to that overall analysis such as sourcing necessary parts and performing manufacturing.
I don't have any skin in the game; I don't invest in individual stocks nor do I play short-selling games. I'm very interested in electric vehicles in general, and Tesla in particular (as a company that is almost totally dependent on the success/long-term viability of electric vehicles). I've watched the debates over Tesla investing from the sidelines only.
My wife and I have had some interesting stand-offs like this. Legitimate caller stupidly asks for us to verify who WE are by providing our personal information to them. We refuse to provide the information, because they haven't verified who THEY are. Hilarity ensues.
Isn't Canada the place that put a media tax on CDR/RW disks and such -- because their poor music industry was so hard-done-by?
The current attempt at upping revenue sounds even more obnoxious. The claim doesn't seem to be that the tax is needed because of pirating, the claim seems to be that the tax is needed because the legally-negotiated compensation they receive through a streaming service isn't enough (as compared to other public performances, apparently). Is it really the case that having failed to negotiate what they think is a high enough amount of compensation through normal legal channels, they are seeking a government mandate to be paid more from anybody who uses over a certain amount of Internet download data, regardless of whether it was even for a streaming media service? (Because they can't imagine any other use of that much data unless it is streaming media that they feel they aren't being well enough compensated for?) Cheeky!
One of the principals in the company, Dr. Rodney Brooks, did pioneering work in robotics at MIT quite a while ago (the subsumption architecture). That approach today has morphed into behavior-based robotics. The Baxter robot was designed to operate safely in close proximity to humans, another pioneering aspect. Most industrial robots operate in "cells" where human presence is prohibited for safety reasons. Putting "real" robots in close proximity to humans still has significant risks ("real" isn't necessarily the right term, but it is the best I can do while typing on a mobile's keypad).
You can sue someone for something they could do but havenÃ(TM)t?
A number of years ago I bought property and was preparing to build a house on that property. The property had covenants that constrained the design and materials of house constructed under the covenants, and named a single individual as having the right to approve/disapprove of plans with respect to compliance with the covenants. I had a house designed that complied with the constraints. The individual who putatively controlled approvals for construction refused my design, adding additional (more expensive) constraints with respect to materials that were not present in the covenants.
I consulted a lawyer to understand my options:
I could go ahead and build my house as designed. If the individual who refused my design sued me in the middle of my construction, it would cause me a large expense due to the disrupted construction process and the litigation, as well as the possibility of having to pay for the more expensive material approach if I lost the litigation (as well as extra costs to retrofit the different materials). If he didn't sue me, I would have my house as designed, and would not have any additional expenses. This option had both the most optimistic and the most pessimistic costs associated with it.
I could sue for a declaratory judgement to determine in advance whether I had the right to build my house as designed or had to comply with the constraints added outside of the covenants. This would give me certainty in my building process and avoid the added expense of an interrupted building project, but would guarantee me the expense of litigation, and possibly the expense of the more expensive materials approach. It would be in effect suing the approver for something that they could do but hadn't done (yet) to determine the outcome in advance. This option guaranteed a higher cost than the most optimistic outcome, with some of the cost having no material value in the house (the cost of the litigation).
I could re-design to incorporate the more expensive materials and build the house without any litigation. This option guaranteed a higher cost than the most optimistic outcome, but with all of that cost being associated with a higher value outcome due to more expensive materials used in the house. However, it had the potential psychological effect of making me feel like I was kowtowing to an a-hole.
For those who care... I opted to comply with the additional material constraints without any attempt at a declaratory judgement; I reasoned that the guaranteed cost of litigation plus the possibility of having the additional materials expense anyway was less desirable than simply building with the more expensive material and avoiding litigation, and definitely more desirable than the "build first" and see if he sues approach (the individual in question was a lawyer, and it seemed likely that he would proceed with a suit over materials even if he couldn't win it). The more expensive material made my home worth more (although not necessarily worth as much as the added expense of that material). I viewed the approver as an a-hole, but judged that I could go on living my life without psychological scarring (which I did).
I have two kids, one (male) a junior in high school, the other (female) a freshman in college. I and my wife both have STEM degrees and STEM careers. We also both organize and run extra-curricular STEM education programs (FIRST Robotics) for grades K-12. So... the subject of gender and STEM comes up a lot for us, as do grades versus ability.
Both of my kids suck at getting grades. Mostly due to missed assignments (aka homework). My daughter passed the AP Chemistry exam, but failed her AP Chemistry class (not just did poorly - failed). My son, who was building a Minecraft world "calculator" by making switching circuits from Minecraft materials when he was in middle school, is currently taking AP Computer Science with Java programming, and despite already knowing a fair amount of practical Java from his robotics programming, is pulling a "C" in the class.
Are my kids outliers? How many others are in the same boat - they don't get the grades, but they learn a lot, and can do a lot? Can grades be counted on as a measure of "ability"?
As for gender and STEM, at least as represented by participation in our community's FIRST robotics programs, we (my wife and I) see that in elementary school there is already somewhat of a predominance of males over females participating on teams, despite equal marketing and availability. By middle school, the males vastly outnumber the females; we are lucky if we get one or two interested females out of twenty or so interested students. In high school, the same pattern continues. We can bring in a more females than otherwise when we make a significantly greater effort to engage with females in recruiting, but the female attrition rate is higher than the male attrition rate. This is not to say that we haven't had some talented and engaged females in the programs - we have - but the predominance is towards males.
The key is to become an asset not an expense. Salespeople generate sales so they pay their own salaries. The only way to do this in STEM is to work for a firm where they bill you out per hour. Even this is somewhat self defeating though because the other side still sees you as an expense so they want to keep your hourly rate low.
I spent many years working for a government contractor in a variety of roles (both internal infrastructure and external billable resource). You may get slightly more pay as a billable resource, especially when the rate at which the company can bill you out is directly tied to what you are paid (true on some government contracts, not necessarily true on commercial contracts). However, the ones who are really making $$ are the people who "win" contracts; they are seen as bringing home the bacon. Oddly enough, the ones who actually do the work that results in a successful outcome of a contract aren't seen as bringing home the bacon. They can even be blamed for a failed outcome that should be more correctly attributed to bad estimates on the part of the folks who "won" the work.
accessing the computer without permission would be digital trespassing and would be illegal
Sure, and "digital trespassing" is wrong (in my opinion). But its not "digital breaking and entering" (what I would consider hacking to be) (again, in my opinion).
The trick, as always, is to enable that functionality without simultaneously enabling the vehicles to be hacked by bad actors.
I don't think I want "update over the Internet" functionality for my car regardless of whether it is protected from Internet hackers. I think it is possible that the evolution of rapid and easy update of software over the Internet has lowered the initial quality of software and software fixes. When software updates are expensive, more time/effort can be justified on the front-end of the software change, making sure that the change has the desired effects and only the desired effects. When software updates are less expensive, it is easy to foresee a trend towards less up-front testing because "it can always be fixed later with another update." I would hope that the safety-critical world of vehicle software would not fall prey to the economics of the situation, but...
Are not all mistakes "made" by robots actually human mistakes? Any sense of agency placed onto robots as entities is misplaced. Robots are tools, and they can fail to be instructed properly, or they can be used in circumstances where their efficacy is questionable, but they cannot "make mistakes."
Any automated process, if automated incorrectly, will multiple the defective results the same as automated processes multiple effective results. Production line processes must have some form of quality control that checks to make sure that production is proceeded as expected. When a line is being started up, or changes have been made to the processes used on the line, the quality control checks should be frequent until the line is seen to be in control. Once the initial period has passed, statistical techniques to ensure that the line stays in control should be used. Without any more specific information about what went wrong in this case, it seems like either a new line went into production, or changes were made to an existing line, but the quality control checks on the output were not made soon enough to catch the production process mistake.
If Apple is counting the phone calls and e-mails that I send/receive on MY device, none of which involve them (Apple) as a party to the conversation/transaction, and slurping that data up on THEIR servers, that is disturbing and creepy to me.
So-called "credit bureaus" collect information from commercial entities (that I don't own) that reflect those entities experience with me, and pool that information so that those commercial entities together have a collective idea of how I might do business with them in the future. The data that is being shared is shared by one of the parties to the transaction. I don't like some of the details of how the system is operated, but conceptually it is a lot less creepy than my device being used to track my behavior and feed it up to someone who is NOT party to any of the transactions.
My possessions should not be feeding data to other people unless I want them to. This revelation seems to add Apple phones (which I have one of) to the list of things that I find creepy, like:
Smart TVs that monitor my viewing in any way and feed it back to the company that made the TV
Electric meters that monitor my consumption with a granularity small enough to permit the electric company to make reasonably good guesses as to my minute-by-minute use of electrical devices in my home
Vehicles with telematics that report my vehicle usage to the automobile manufacturer
Smart devices like the Nest smoke detector that monitor "presence" information in my home, room by room, and report it to the manufacturer
Smart phones that collect my location data and feed it to the phone manufacturer/operating system supplier
A party to a transaction that is tracking data was at least in involved in the transaction, which makes it less creepy in my book. I'm sure Hulu keeps track of what TV shows/movies I stream from their service, I know the phone company keeps track of the phone calls I make (and probably the ones I receive) through their system, and lord knows that any cloud-based service that I use is up to their neck in data from me related to that service. But an entity whose only relationship to me is that they manufactured a technology artifact that I'm using has no business in my use of that artifact once they have sold it to me unless I choose to share those details with them.
I don't want my silverware reporting what I eat to Oneida, I don't want my glassware reporting what I drink to Corning, I don't want my bed reporting the details of my sleep habits/sex life to Serta, I don't want my underwear reporting my bowel movements to Hanes, I don't want light bulbs reporting their on/off status to Phillips, I don't want my vacuum cleaners reporting what they clean off my carpet to Dyson, I don't want my alarm clock reporting when I wake up to Sony, I don't want my stereo reporting what music I listen to to Yamaha, I don't want my pens reporting what I write to Bic, I don't want my cameras reporting what I like to take pictures of to Nikon, and I don't want my sex toys reporting anything to anyone.
Privacy is not a dead concept, and it is not unimportant. We (as a society) have to come to grips with the fact that previously impossible intrusions into our lives and our private affairs have been made possible through the technology that we have developed. Now that the natural limits on these intrusions have been shattered, we either give up on the very concept of privacy, or else we establish artificial limits. If we fail to establish artificial limits, then the list of what I don't want that I enumerated above could very well come about as a dystopian future.
Our means of establishing limits on intrusions into our private lives are at a minimum governmental (legislation, regulation) and societal (market pressures). As individuals, we are hindered by our lack of organization and shared goals, which allows better organized commercial entities to follow their own commercial self-interest. At what point do we develop enough of a shared desire among us to bring to bear the weapons of politics to achieve our goals?
How is it right for an unelected minority to decide who everybody else must live with?
These laws were not put in place by an unelected minority. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 was a bill that passed Congress and was signed into law by the then-President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson. The Civil Rights Act made it illegal within the United States to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. According to Wikipedia, it It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations. Additional laws including (but not limited to) the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 followed... check out https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/index.cfm to see all of the laws enforced by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Duly elected representatives of the people of the United States have determined that these kinds of discrimination will not be tolerated.
There does seem to be a race to the bottom. Microsoft has Windows 10 - ugh. Apple is making feature choices that appeal to some but seem to increase the overall cost of their product and lock out more affordable choices. Unfortunately, the third option (Linux) isn't appealing enough to enough people, and although I use it when it suits me, it isn't the desktop I want to use all the time.
I believe the idea of a SIM card (Subscriber identification Module) was to enable consumers to easily switch from one mobile handset to another without involving the carrier. Buy a new handset, move your SIM to the new handset, and start using it. All handsets supported the exact same SIM interface, so SIMs worked with all handsets for any vendor. Simple, easy, and you didn't have to deal with the whole "if you want to use a phone on my network you have to buy a phone from me" deal that carriers were pushing. If you weren't around when mobile phones were first introduced, then you didn't live through the hell of the enormous vendor lock in that existed then. The carrier was king, and you kissed his bloody ass if you wanted to have a mobile phone.
I think some of the concern over a "virtual SIM" is that it looks like a trend away from the simple consumer-controlled SIM towards something that will at a minimum be more complicated (just what is needed to move a "virtual SIM" from one device to another?) and at worst will create a new kind of lock in (oh, you want to move your virtual SIM? Here let us show you what your options are for buying a new device from us that you can move your virtual SIM into).
Vendors typically hate standards, because the goal of standards is to give consumers more flexibility. Standards tend to commoditize products which lowers costs to consumers, but also lowers profits to vendors. If carriers could go back to the glory days of selling you handsets that worked only on their networks with phone numbers that they "owned", they would in a heartbeat. Not so crazy to think that Apple might not be working a similar angle.
To each their own. I use my wired headphones all the time with my iPhone. Used to have a Bluetooth earpiece; switched to headphones because I prefer them. Better sound quality and no batteries to maintain. I have enough stuff to keep charged up; I need less not more. Oh... I also use the cigarette lighter in my car - to keep my freakin' phone charged up and to run my dedicated nav device (which works in places a phone-based nav doesn't). Used to use it to keep my Bluetooth earpiece charged up, but I switched to wired headphones that don't need battery maintenance. I want to simplify my life, not complicate it.
The iPad Mini survived being called the Mini Pad, and the folks who buy the XS are probably proud of their ability to do so. Think birds with huge displays of plumage to attract mates.
Try creating a "local" account on a Windows 10 PC (Windows 10 Pro). First, the O/S automatically tries to have you create a "Microsoft" account. Next, after you have figured out where the option to create a local account is hiding and click the button to create a local account, the O/S presents a second "create account" dialog box to create a "Microsoft" account, with a blue glowing "Yes" button (default action) and a grey "No" button. To create the local account, you have to select the non-default "No" even though you just specified that you wanted to create a local account. How on earth a vendor thinks that this kind of manipulative behavior against the users of their product is ok is beyond me.
So, I do nothing, and I get all the cash I need?
If I work a little, I get less money?
If I work full time, I get no money, and instead have to give money to other, non-working, people?
You forgot an option: I tell the government I do nothing, and I get all the cash I can from them, and I work as much as I like "under the table" and I get to keep all of that, too. The less honest I am, the more money I make!
See what that cognitive dissonance does to a population over time, especially because the people doing this aren't screwing over a friend, their just screwing over the government!
The main thing to debate in that model is where you set that "basic income" point.
How do you accommodate the fact that the cost of living is radically different in different parts of the country (in the US, anyway)? Seems like that will be a big debate as well.
Slashdot Mirror
The "fundamental" issues are supply [...], and manufacturing [...]
Part of the debate/angst over the claim that "Tesla is trading on its fundamentals" might be the use of an investing term of art "fundamentals" in the context of "trading" (i.e., investing) but with a non-standard definition of what the word "fundamentals" refers to. This article https://www.investopedia.com/university/stockpicking/stockpicking1.asp outlines the basics of fundamental analysis in the context of investing.
TLDR; I think that for investors, the term "fundamentals" usually refers to factors in what is known as "fundamental analysis," in which the important factors for analyzing a company involve[s] "... evaluating a security using quantitative and qualitative factors to answer questions such as: Are the company's revenues growing? Is the company actually making a profit? Can the company beat its competitors in the future? Can the company repay its debts? And ultimately: Will the company's stock be a good investment?" [from the Investopedia article]
People who question Tesla's "fundamentals" might well be questioning whether the company is actually making a profit and can beat its competitors in the future, not looking just at some factors that contribute to that overall analysis such as sourcing necessary parts and performing manufacturing.
I don't have any skin in the game; I don't invest in individual stocks nor do I play short-selling games. I'm very interested in electric vehicles in general, and Tesla in particular (as a company that is almost totally dependent on the success/long-term viability of electric vehicles). I've watched the debates over Tesla investing from the sidelines only.
My wife and I have had some interesting stand-offs like this. Legitimate caller stupidly asks for us to verify who WE are by providing our personal information to them. We refuse to provide the information, because they haven't verified who THEY are. Hilarity ensues.
Isn't Canada the place that put a media tax on CDR/RW disks and such -- because their poor music industry was so hard-done-by?
The current attempt at upping revenue sounds even more obnoxious. The claim doesn't seem to be that the tax is needed because of pirating, the claim seems to be that the tax is needed because the legally-negotiated compensation they receive through a streaming service isn't enough (as compared to other public performances, apparently). Is it really the case that having failed to negotiate what they think is a high enough amount of compensation through normal legal channels, they are seeking a government mandate to be paid more from anybody who uses over a certain amount of Internet download data, regardless of whether it was even for a streaming media service? (Because they can't imagine any other use of that much data unless it is streaming media that they feel they aren't being well enough compensated for?) Cheeky!
One of the principals in the company, Dr. Rodney Brooks, did pioneering work in robotics at MIT quite a while ago (the subsumption architecture). That approach today has morphed into behavior-based robotics. The Baxter robot was designed to operate safely in close proximity to humans, another pioneering aspect. Most industrial robots operate in "cells" where human presence is prohibited for safety reasons. Putting "real" robots in close proximity to humans still has significant risks ("real" isn't necessarily the right term, but it is the best I can do while typing on a mobile's keypad).
You can sue someone for something they could do but havenÃ(TM)t?
A number of years ago I bought property and was preparing to build a house on that property. The property had covenants that constrained the design and materials of house constructed under the covenants, and named a single individual as having the right to approve/disapprove of plans with respect to compliance with the covenants. I had a house designed that complied with the constraints. The individual who putatively controlled approvals for construction refused my design, adding additional (more expensive) constraints with respect to materials that were not present in the covenants.
I consulted a lawyer to understand my options:
For those who care... I opted to comply with the additional material constraints without any attempt at a declaratory judgement; I reasoned that the guaranteed cost of litigation plus the possibility of having the additional materials expense anyway was less desirable than simply building with the more expensive material and avoiding litigation, and definitely more desirable than the "build first" and see if he sues approach (the individual in question was a lawyer, and it seemed likely that he would proceed with a suit over materials even if he couldn't win it). The more expensive material made my home worth more (although not necessarily worth as much as the added expense of that material). I viewed the approver as an a-hole, but judged that I could go on living my life without psychological scarring (which I did).
Grades are ... highly elastic things.
I have two kids, one (male) a junior in high school, the other (female) a freshman in college. I and my wife both have STEM degrees and STEM careers. We also both organize and run extra-curricular STEM education programs (FIRST Robotics) for grades K-12. So... the subject of gender and STEM comes up a lot for us, as do grades versus ability.
Both of my kids suck at getting grades. Mostly due to missed assignments (aka homework). My daughter passed the AP Chemistry exam, but failed her AP Chemistry class (not just did poorly - failed). My son, who was building a Minecraft world "calculator" by making switching circuits from Minecraft materials when he was in middle school, is currently taking AP Computer Science with Java programming, and despite already knowing a fair amount of practical Java from his robotics programming, is pulling a "C" in the class.
Are my kids outliers? How many others are in the same boat - they don't get the grades, but they learn a lot, and can do a lot? Can grades be counted on as a measure of "ability"?
As for gender and STEM, at least as represented by participation in our community's FIRST robotics programs, we (my wife and I) see that in elementary school there is already somewhat of a predominance of males over females participating on teams, despite equal marketing and availability. By middle school, the males vastly outnumber the females; we are lucky if we get one or two interested females out of twenty or so interested students. In high school, the same pattern continues. We can bring in a more females than otherwise when we make a significantly greater effort to engage with females in recruiting, but the female attrition rate is higher than the male attrition rate. This is not to say that we haven't had some talented and engaged females in the programs - we have - but the predominance is towards males.
The key is to become an asset not an expense. Salespeople generate sales so they pay their own salaries. The only way to do this in STEM is to work for a firm where they bill you out per hour. Even this is somewhat self defeating though because the other side still sees you as an expense so they want to keep your hourly rate low.
I spent many years working for a government contractor in a variety of roles (both internal infrastructure and external billable resource). You may get slightly more pay as a billable resource, especially when the rate at which the company can bill you out is directly tied to what you are paid (true on some government contracts, not necessarily true on commercial contracts). However, the ones who are really making $$ are the people who "win" contracts; they are seen as bringing home the bacon. Oddly enough, the ones who actually do the work that results in a successful outcome of a contract aren't seen as bringing home the bacon. They can even be blamed for a failed outcome that should be more correctly attributed to bad estimates on the part of the folks who "won" the work.
You are right, mea culpa... I didn't read the article. Sigh.
accessing the computer without permission would be digital trespassing and would be illegal
Sure, and "digital trespassing" is wrong (in my opinion). But its not "digital breaking and entering" (what I would consider hacking to be) (again, in my opinion).
The trick, as always, is to enable that functionality without simultaneously enabling the vehicles to be hacked by bad actors.
I don't think I want "update over the Internet" functionality for my car regardless of whether it is protected from Internet hackers. I think it is possible that the evolution of rapid and easy update of software over the Internet has lowered the initial quality of software and software fixes. When software updates are expensive, more time/effort can be justified on the front-end of the software change, making sure that the change has the desired effects and only the desired effects. When software updates are less expensive, it is easy to foresee a trend towards less up-front testing because "it can always be fixed later with another update." I would hope that the safety-critical world of vehicle software would not fall prey to the economics of the situation, but...
Are not all mistakes "made" by robots actually human mistakes? Any sense of agency placed onto robots as entities is misplaced. Robots are tools, and they can fail to be instructed properly, or they can be used in circumstances where their efficacy is questionable, but they cannot "make mistakes."
Any automated process, if automated incorrectly, will multiple the defective results the same as automated processes multiple effective results. Production line processes must have some form of quality control that checks to make sure that production is proceeded as expected. When a line is being started up, or changes have been made to the processes used on the line, the quality control checks should be frequent until the line is seen to be in control. Once the initial period has passed, statistical techniques to ensure that the line stays in control should be used. Without any more specific information about what went wrong in this case, it seems like either a new line went into production, or changes were made to an existing line, but the quality control checks on the output were not made soon enough to catch the production process mistake.
You left out the original MP3.com: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3.com
If Apple is counting the phone calls and e-mails that I send/receive on MY device, none of which involve them (Apple) as a party to the conversation/transaction, and slurping that data up on THEIR servers, that is disturbing and creepy to me.
So-called "credit bureaus" collect information from commercial entities (that I don't own) that reflect those entities experience with me, and pool that information so that those commercial entities together have a collective idea of how I might do business with them in the future. The data that is being shared is shared by one of the parties to the transaction. I don't like some of the details of how the system is operated, but conceptually it is a lot less creepy than my device being used to track my behavior and feed it up to someone who is NOT party to any of the transactions.
My possessions should not be feeding data to other people unless I want them to. This revelation seems to add Apple phones (which I have one of) to the list of things that I find creepy, like:
A party to a transaction that is tracking data was at least in involved in the transaction, which makes it less creepy in my book. I'm sure Hulu keeps track of what TV shows/movies I stream from their service, I know the phone company keeps track of the phone calls I make (and probably the ones I receive) through their system, and lord knows that any cloud-based service that I use is up to their neck in data from me related to that service. But an entity whose only relationship to me is that they manufactured a technology artifact that I'm using has no business in my use of that artifact once they have sold it to me unless I choose to share those details with them.
I don't want my silverware reporting what I eat to Oneida, I don't want my glassware reporting what I drink to Corning, I don't want my bed reporting the details of my sleep habits/sex life to Serta, I don't want my underwear reporting my bowel movements to Hanes, I don't want light bulbs reporting their on/off status to Phillips, I don't want my vacuum cleaners reporting what they clean off my carpet to Dyson, I don't want my alarm clock reporting when I wake up to Sony, I don't want my stereo reporting what music I listen to to Yamaha, I don't want my pens reporting what I write to Bic, I don't want my cameras reporting what I like to take pictures of to Nikon, and I don't want my sex toys reporting anything to anyone.
Privacy is not a dead concept, and it is not unimportant. We (as a society) have to come to grips with the fact that previously impossible intrusions into our lives and our private affairs have been made possible through the technology that we have developed. Now that the natural limits on these intrusions have been shattered, we either give up on the very concept of privacy, or else we establish artificial limits. If we fail to establish artificial limits, then the list of what I don't want that I enumerated above could very well come about as a dystopian future.
Our means of establishing limits on intrusions into our private lives are at a minimum governmental (legislation, regulation) and societal (market pressures). As individuals, we are hindered by our lack of organization and shared goals, which allows better organized commercial entities to follow their own commercial self-interest. At what point do we develop enough of a shared desire among us to bring to bear the weapons of politics to achieve our goals?
On the cheap, I can buy a discontinued, new Synology 115j for $50 or so.
I'm curious - where can you buy a Synology 115j (new) for $50 or so? I didn't find one in a quick Google search... I ask because I'm looking for one.
How is it right for an unelected minority to decide who everybody else must live with?
These laws were not put in place by an unelected minority. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 was a bill that passed Congress and was signed into law by the then-President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson. The Civil Rights Act made it illegal within the United States to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. According to Wikipedia, it It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations. Additional laws including (but not limited to) the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 followed... check out https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/index.cfm to see all of the laws enforced by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Duly elected representatives of the people of the United States have determined that these kinds of discrimination will not be tolerated.
Hey - if I were going to watch pron on my computer, I certainly wouldn't want to log on using my Microsoft username.
Side note; no outrage here. Life is too short. Bemused disgust perhaps, but not outrage.
There does seem to be a race to the bottom. Microsoft has Windows 10 - ugh. Apple is making feature choices that appeal to some but seem to increase the overall cost of their product and lock out more affordable choices. Unfortunately, the third option (Linux) isn't appealing enough to enough people, and although I use it when it suits me, it isn't the desktop I want to use all the time.
I believe the idea of a SIM card (Subscriber identification Module) was to enable consumers to easily switch from one mobile handset to another without involving the carrier. Buy a new handset, move your SIM to the new handset, and start using it. All handsets supported the exact same SIM interface, so SIMs worked with all handsets for any vendor. Simple, easy, and you didn't have to deal with the whole "if you want to use a phone on my network you have to buy a phone from me" deal that carriers were pushing. If you weren't around when mobile phones were first introduced, then you didn't live through the hell of the enormous vendor lock in that existed then. The carrier was king, and you kissed his bloody ass if you wanted to have a mobile phone.
I think some of the concern over a "virtual SIM" is that it looks like a trend away from the simple consumer-controlled SIM towards something that will at a minimum be more complicated (just what is needed to move a "virtual SIM" from one device to another?) and at worst will create a new kind of lock in (oh, you want to move your virtual SIM? Here let us show you what your options are for buying a new device from us that you can move your virtual SIM into).
Vendors typically hate standards, because the goal of standards is to give consumers more flexibility. Standards tend to commoditize products which lowers costs to consumers, but also lowers profits to vendors. If carriers could go back to the glory days of selling you handsets that worked only on their networks with phone numbers that they "owned", they would in a heartbeat. Not so crazy to think that Apple might not be working a similar angle.
To each their own. I use my wired headphones all the time with my iPhone. Used to have a Bluetooth earpiece; switched to headphones because I prefer them. Better sound quality and no batteries to maintain. I have enough stuff to keep charged up; I need less not more. Oh... I also use the cigarette lighter in my car - to keep my freakin' phone charged up and to run my dedicated nav device (which works in places a phone-based nav doesn't). Used to use it to keep my Bluetooth earpiece charged up, but I switched to wired headphones that don't need battery maintenance. I want to simplify my life, not complicate it.
The iPad Mini survived being called the Mini Pad, and the folks who buy the XS are probably proud of their ability to do so. Think birds with huge displays of plumage to attract mates.
You forgot to mention the lack of a 1/8" (3.5mm) headphone jack.
Try creating a "local" account on a Windows 10 PC (Windows 10 Pro). First, the O/S automatically tries to have you create a "Microsoft" account. Next, after you have figured out where the option to create a local account is hiding and click the button to create a local account, the O/S presents a second "create account" dialog box to create a "Microsoft" account, with a blue glowing "Yes" button (default action) and a grey "No" button. To create the local account, you have to select the non-default "No" even though you just specified that you wanted to create a local account. How on earth a vendor thinks that this kind of manipulative behavior against the users of their product is ok is beyond me.
You forgot an option: I tell the government I do nothing, and I get all the cash I can from them, and I work as much as I like "under the table" and I get to keep all of that, too. The less honest I am, the more money I make!
See what that cognitive dissonance does to a population over time, especially because the people doing this aren't screwing over a friend, their just screwing over the government!
The main thing to debate in that model is where you set that "basic income" point.
How do you accommodate the fact that the cost of living is radically different in different parts of the country (in the US, anyway)? Seems like that will be a big debate as well.
A rapidly growing population had outpaced the food supply.
Were people consoling themselves with sex because they were hungry?